Israel attacks Iran, kills armed forces chief Bagheri

Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Iran early Friday morning local time, targeting locations it said were related to Iran’s nuclear program, sparking market fears of a wider conflict.

Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chief of the Iranian Armed Forces and the country’s most senior military official, was killed during the strikes, alongside the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, Iranian state media reported.

The Israeli airstrikes also targeted and killed two of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, according to Iranian news outlets.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, pledged to avenge the attacks.

“With this crime, the Zionist regime has brought a bitter and painful fate upon itself, and it will certainly face it,” he said in a statement.

Iranian media outlets reported multiple fatalities in the capital city, Tehran, along with airstrikes on the city of Natanz, which is home to a key nuclear facility. As of Friday morning, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site was not impacted, and “no increase in radiation levels has been observed at the Natanz site.”

Also hit were targets in the city of Khandab, where a heavy water nuclear reactor is located, and Khoramabad, the site of a ballistic missile base.

Iran has launched around 100 drones toward Israeli territory in retaliation, an Israeli military spokesperson said, which Israel is working to intercept.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the nation: “This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”

The country’s Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a state of emergency shortly after the strikes began and warned people that “a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future.”

The United States did not participate in the military operation, but U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed beforehand, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, noting that, “Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.”

Trump approved the withdrawal of some American personnel from the Middle East earlier this week, noting the region “could be a dangerous place” and stressing that the U.S. would prefer to negotiate a deal on nuclear enrichment than see a military strike.

“I’d much prefer an agreement,” with Iran, he said. “As long as I think there is an agreement. I don’t want [Israel] going in, because I think it would blow it. Might help it, actually, but it also could blow it. But we’ve…