Wars in the Middle East have accelerated after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, with Tehran carrying out retaliatory attacks against several of its neighbors, including Gulf states allied with the United States. As the conflict escalates, Israel and Hezbollah are also trading blows.
CNN is tracking U.S. and Israeli attacks across Iran, as well as Tehran’s retaliatory attacks on U.S. military bases and consulates, Israel and other targets across the region.
U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have killed numerous members of Iran’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, with further airstrikes targeting additional leaders on Tuesday.
The death toll from the conflict is rising in many countries, with Iran now exceeding 1,000.
“We’re just getting started,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday, noting that the president expected “a larger wave” of military action.
Khamenei’s death plunged the Middle East into uncertainty. Iranian officials are holding a virtual meeting to elect a new supreme leader, with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei among a small number of clerics being named as potential successors. But the timing is uncertain.
Israel warned that the new leader would be “obviously subject to exclusion.”
President Donald Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday that the “biggest surprise” was Iran’s attacks on Arab countries in the region, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A senior Iranian government official said Iran would “not negotiate” with the United States, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain said Wednesday that the United States would launch “gradually deeper” attacks on Iran.
President Trump acknowledged that U.S. military casualties could rise further as the conflict escalates. At least six U.S. military personnel were killed in Kuwait on Sunday morning local time when a makeshift operations center at the civilian port of Shuaiba was hit, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.
The conflict has damaged aviation hubs, rocked populated areas and disrupted oil shipments.
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that is a major shipping route for crude oil from oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the rest of the world. Iran, which controls the northern part of the strait, warned on Monday that ships passing through the strait would be targeted, according to an adviser to the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which calls the strait a “critical oil chokepoint,” said that before the current conflict, about one-fifth of the world’s daily production typically flowed through it.
Oil prices have skyrocketed, and gas prices have already begun to rise at a time when Americans are already struggling with affordability.
According to Flightradar24 data, flights over Iran and other Middle Eastern countries have virtually disappeared since the strikes. This figure compares air traffic a week ago to Saturday night traffic local time. A wide corridor of Middle East airspace remained closed Wednesday.
Since the airstrikes began, Iranians have been almost completely cut off from the internet. Internet shutdowns have been a mainstay tactic for the regime, with a record Internet shutdown occurring in January during anti-government protests.
—CNN’s Jake Tapper, Christian Edwards, Karina Tsui, Tim Lister, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Lauren Kent, Billy Stockwell, John Toufigi, Sophie Tanno and Adam Poolamadi contributed to this report.
