Intense air attacks have pounded Tehran and other Iranian cities on the seventh day of the US-Israeli war on the country, amid warnings from United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the bombardment was “about to surge dramatically”.
Israel’s military said on Friday morning it had begun a new wave of strikes on Tehran, targeting “regime infrastructure” in a “new phase” of the war, while the US said its B-2 bombers had dropped dozens of “penetrator” bombs on deeply buried ballistic missile launchers inside the country.
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Huge explosions pounded locations in the Iranian capital, including targets linked to the country’s military and political establishment, as well as residential areas and the vicinity of Tehran University, according to news reports and an Al Jazeera team on the ground.
An Iranian military academy was struck while a journalist from Iran’s state broadcaster was reporting live near the site.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said the bombardment in the capital had been more intense than previously seen.
“From the very early hours of today and into the morning, we have been witnessing a continued wave of massive strikes,” he said, adding the shockwaves of the blast could be felt in the Al Jazeera bureau.
“I can say that compared to previous days, we saw heavier bombardment overnight, at least in the capital,” he said, reporting enormous explosions and fighter jets in the skies, as thick clouds of smoke from the strikes choked the city.
He said the strikes had targeted locations including near Pasteur Street, a highly secured area where key Iranian government institutions are based and where Iran’s Supreme Leader was killed during the early hours of the conflict.
The Office of the President of Iran is also located in the street.
Strikes also reportedly hit civilian sites, including residential buildings, car parks and petrol stations, he said.
Reports of 20 people killed in Shiraz
Explosions were also reported in Iranian cities including Shiraz, Qom, Isfahan and Kermanshah, in an area home to multiple missile bases, as the Iranian Red Crescent said the death toll from attacks since Saturday had risen to at least 1,332.
Among the victims were 20 people killed and 30 injured in an attack in the Zibashahr area of Shiraz, Jalil Hasani, deputy governor of Iran’s Fars province, told Iranian state media.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that two paramedics were among the dead.
At least six people were injured by an Israeli missile attack on residential areas in Poldokhtar in Iran’s western Lorestan province, Tasnim reported.
Israel’s military said its air force hit six Iranian missile launchers overnight, destroying them before they fired at Israeli territory, and claimed to have destroyed “three advanced Iranian defence systems”.
The US military said in a post on X on Friday that Iranian targets were “being decimated by US forces, paving the way for continued delivery of overwhelming American military firepower”.
Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said that early on Friday, US B-2 stealth bombers dropped dozens of 2,000lb “penetrator” bombs on deeply buried ballistic missile launchers inside Iran.
“We’ve also struck Iran’s equivalent of Space Command, which degrades their ability to threaten Americans,” Cooper said.
Speaking alongside Cooper, Hegseth described an upcoming surge in the bombardment.
“It’s more fighter squadrons, it’s more capabilities, it’s more defensive capabilities,” Hegseth said. “And it’s more bomber pulses, more frequently.”
Iran to expand attacks
Iran’s military said on Friday it would expand its attacks in the coming days, Iranian state television reported.
The statement came a day after top Iranian officials said they were ready and waiting to confront a US ground invasion, which Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said would be a “big disaster” for Washington.
US President Donald Trump dismissed the comments, saying it would be a “waste of time” currently to consider deploying US ground troops.
“It’s a waste of time. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose,” he told US network NBC.
US ‘likely responsible’ for school attack: Report
Of the more than 1,300 people killed in the strikes on Iran so far, at least 181 are children, UNICEF said on Friday.
Among the young victims were at least 175 children killed when a girls’ primary school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit on the first day of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to the IRGC.
Amid scrutiny over the incident, Hegseth on Wednesday acknowledged the US military was investigating it.
The Reuters news agency reported, quoting two US officials, that US military investigators believed it was likely that US forces were responsible for the apparent strike, but had not yet reached a final conclusion.
UN rights chief Volker Turk on Friday urged Washington to move “very quickly” with its probe, saying his body had asked the US for “prompt, transparent and impartial investigations”.
“We need this to happen very quickly and we need to also make sure that there is accountability as well as redress for the victims,” he told reporters in Geneva.
Deliberately attacking a school would be a war crime, and if a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of US wars in the Middle East.
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