Israel attacks Iran, airstrikes kill armed forces and Revolutionary Guard chiefs

Israel launched a bid of airstrikes against Iran aboriginal Friday greeting section time, targeting locations it said were related to Iran's nuclear program, sparking marketplace fears of a wider conflict.

Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, main of the Iranian Armed Forces and the country's astir elder subject official, was killed during the strikes, alongside the commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, Iranian authorities media reported.

The Israeli airstrikes besides targeted and killed 2 of Iran's starring atomic scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, according to Iranian quality outlets.

Iran's ultimate leader, Ali Khamenei, pledged to avenge the attacks.

"With this crime, the Zionist authorities has brought a bitter and achy destiny upon itself, and it volition surely look it," helium said successful a statement.

Iranian media outlets reported aggregate fatalities successful the superior city, Tehran, on with airstrikes connected the metropolis of Natanz, which is location to a cardinal atomic facility. As of Friday morning, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran's Isfahan atomic tract was not impacted, and "no summation successful radiation levels has been observed astatine the Natanz site."

Also deed were targets successful the metropolis of Khandab, where a dense h2o atomic reactor is located, and Khoramabad, the tract of a ballistic rocket base.

Iran has launched astir 100 drones toward Israeli territory successful retaliation, an Israeli subject spokesperson said, which Israel is moving to intercept.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the nation: "This cognition volition proceed for arsenic galore days arsenic it takes to region this threat."

The country's Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a authorities of exigency soon aft the strikes began and warned radical that "a rocket and drone onslaught against the State of Israel and its civilian colonisation is expected successful the contiguous future."

The United States did not enactment successful the subject operation, but U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed beforehand, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said successful a statement, noting that, "Israel advised america that they judge this enactment was indispensable for its self-defense."

Trump approved the withdrawal of immoderate American personnel from the Middle East earlier this week, noting the portion "could beryllium a unsafe place" and stressing that the U.S. would similar to negociate a woody connected atomic enrichment than spot a subject strike.

"I'd much prefer an agreement," with Iran, helium said. "As agelong arsenic I deliberation determination is an agreement. I don't privation [Israel] going in, due to the fact that I deliberation it would stroke it. Might assistance it, actually, but it besides could stroke it. But we've had precise bully discussions with Iran."

Tehran has meantime accused Washington of not being superior successful its engagement and not respecting Iran's close to enrich uranium for what it insists are peaceful purposes.

It remains to beryllium seen whether Iran and Israel volition property up with further escalation. Historically astatine odds, the 2 sides person some ramped up warfare rhetoric and hostilities since the panic onslaught carried retired by the Tehran-backed Palestinian radical Hamas successful Israel successful October 2023. The Jewish authorities has repeatedly accused Iran of proxy interventions against it done Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi factions.

Tensions past boiled implicit precocious past year, erstwhile Iran and Israel concisely launched nonstop rocket strikes connected each other's territories, but yet backed down from full-our war.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged some sides to "show maximum restraint, avoiding astatine each costs a descent into deeper conflict, a concern that the portion tin hardly afford."

Oil prices soared amid fears of a broader determination warfare and concerns implicit the proviso outlook successful the crude-rich Middle East region.

Investors besides turned to harmless havens — which are thought to connection extortion successful times of heightened volatility — arsenic the standard of the onslaught took markets by surprise. Gold deed an astir two-month precocious connected the news, and U.S. Treasury prices besides rose. U.S. banal futures fell, meanwhile, with Dow futures down 580 points.

— CNBC's Vinay Dwivedi and NBC News' Courtney Kube, Tom Winter and Ken Dilanian contributed to this report.