Israel and the USA strike Iran, and Iran strikes back:
The US has suffered 200 casualties in Iranian retaliatory strikes on bases across the Middle East, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed. Backed by the US, Israel launched what was described as a preemptive operation against Iranian military and nuclear-related targets in the early hours of Saturday, claiming the strikes were aimed at neutralizing threats posed by the Islamic Republic in the region.
US President Donald Trump later confirmed that the White House had supported West Jerusalem in conducting the strikes, citing the failure of nuclear diplomacy as a direct trigger for the move.
“As a result of missile strikes on American bases, at least 200 US military personnel were killed and injured,” the Tasnim news agency reported Saturday, citing a statement by the IRGC.
It would appear that the preemptive operation failed, if the response to it was more deadly than Round One eight months ago. It also appears that the Iranian response was a measured one, since attacking the bases and not the ships is an observably less deadly response. I think the report of a hypersonic missile striking the 5-star hotel in Dubai is a warning of sorts, since it could have just as easily targeted a carrier if it actually was a hypersonic.
It does raise some obvious questions about who was staying in that hotel who would merit the attention of what would presumably be one of Iran’s most high-performance missiles.
Of course, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. The USA isn’t going to report its casualties, and Israel has already claimed to have killed Ali Khamenei and will no doubt be proclaiming that every missile aimed at it was shot down except for one that hit a car and scratched the paint a little while imposing strict military censorship.
UPDATE: The air defenses observably aren’t even keeping out the cheap drones.
UPDATE: Darkstream tonight to discuss the latest developments.