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The president of the United States, Donald Trump has claimed that over 48 Iranian leaders have been killed in ongoing U.S.-Israeli bombardments, describing the offensive as a major success.
“Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
The military strike, launched Saturday, aims to dismantle the Islamic Republic’s leadership and degrade its military capabilities.
Iran has confirmed the death of its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
In a separate interview with CNBC, Trump reiterated his confidence in the operation’s progress.
“We’re doing our job not just for us but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule,” he said. “Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way.”
The interviews were conducted before the U.S. military announced its first casualties in the conflict. United States Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that three service members were killed, five seriously wounded, and several others sustained lighter injuries.
CENTCOM also said U.S. forces had sunk an Iranian warship at a dock in the Gulf of Oman as part of ongoing operations.
US President, Donald Trump on Sunday, claimed that the country’s military forces “destroyed and sunk” no fewer than nine Iranian naval ships.
In a Facebook post, the president also revealed that Iran’s naval headquarters had also sustained major damage since strikes against the country began on Saturday.
The post reads, “I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important”.
He added that the US military is “going after the rest”, stressing that “they will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!”
The Eastern Updates reports that the development is coming barely 24 hours after Trump’s military airstrikes killed leaders in Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council decrying the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in US and Israeli strikes.
The letter decried Khamenei’s killing as a “cowardly act of terror” and a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation that strikes at the most fundamental norms of statehood and civilized conduct among nations”.
“Such conduct does not merely violate established principles of international law; it recklessly opens a dangerous Pandora’s box, eroding the bedrock of sovereign equality and the stability of the international system,” he said.
Araghchi said Iran “solemnly calls upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Security Council to discharge their Charter-mandated responsibilities for the maintenance of international peace and security and take immediate, concrete, and effective measures to ensure the full accountability of the United States and the Israeli regime for the aforementioned atrocious terrorist act”.
Donald Trump declared Saturday that joint American and Israeli military strikes against Iran had achieved their intended effect, and suggested the scale of destruction inflicted on Tehran could paradoxically open a path toward a negotiated settlement — a prospect he said now looked considerably more attainable than it had just twenty-four hours earlier.
Speaking by phone to CBS News, the president said Iran was “getting beat up badly” and framed that military pressure as leverage rather than an endpoint.
When pressed on whether a diplomatic resolution to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs remained possible, his answer was direct: “Much easier now than it was a day ago, obviously.”
The strikes, which Trump said were designed to degrade Tehran’s military capacity and eliminate what he characterised as a nuclear threat, were launched in coordination with Israel.
The president called it “a great day for this country, a great day for the world.” He also disclosed earlier Saturday that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in the operation, and publicly urged Iranians to reclaim control of their country in the aftermath.
CBS News, citing sources familiar with the operation, reported that roughly 40 Iranian officials were believed to have died in the strikes. Trump did not dispute the characterisation. Asked whether there were figures capable of leading Iran following Khamenei’s death, he said there were “some good candidates” but did not elaborate or name anyone.
Iran’s military response came swiftly. Tehran launched ballistic missiles toward Israel and carried out attacks against US-aligned targets elsewhere across the Middle East. Trump acknowledged the retaliation but said it fell short of what American planners had anticipated. “We thought it’d be double,” he said, while cautioning that the situation was still developing. US Central Command confirmed that no American personnel had been killed or wounded in the operation.
The president said he had spent much of the day in contact with US officials and foreign leaders, tracking Iran’s movements in real time.
