Iran says it attacked US forces at air base in Qatar

David Rising, Associated Press

Iran has launched missile attacks on US military bases in Qatar and Iraq, retaliating for the American bombing of its nuclear sites and escalating tensions in the volatile region.

People in Doha, Qatar’s capital, stopped and looked up as missiles flew and interceptors fired and struck at least one missile in the night sky.

State television

Iran announced on state television that it attacked American forces stationed at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base.

A caption on screen called it “a mighty and successful response” to “America’s aggression” as martial music played.

Iran also targeted the Ain al-Assad base housing US troops in western Iraq, an Iraqi security official told The Associated Press.

The attacks came shortly after Qatar closed its airspace as a precaution amid threats from Iran.

Just before the explosions, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X: “We neither initiated the war nor seeking it. But we will not leave invasion to the great Iran without answer.”

In the past, Iran has threatened American forces at Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the forward headquarters of the US military’s Central Command.

Gas field

Qatar, across the Persian Gulf from Iran, maintains diplomatic relations with Iran and shares a massive offshore natural gas field with Tehran.

Earlier in the day, Israel expanded its war against Iran to include targets associated with the country’s struggling theocracy, striking the gate of a Tehran prison notorious for holding political activists and hitting the headquarters of the military force that suppressed recent protests.

As plumes of thick smoke rose over Tehran, Israel was attacked with yet another barrage of Iranian missiles and drones.

The persistent fire has become a reality for civilians in both countries since Israel started the war to target Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.

On the 11th day of the conflict, Israel said it attacked “regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran”, but Israeli officials insisted they did not seek the overthrow of Iran’s government, their archenemy since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Israeli military warned Iranians that it would continue to attack military sites around Tehran over “the coming days” as its focuses has shifted to symbolic targets as well.

The military issued the warning on the social platform X, though Iranians are struggling to access the outside world as an internet shutdown has crippled the country.

The latest strikes unfolded only hours after President Donald Trump openly raised the possibility himself after just a day earlier inserting America into the war with its unprecedented stealth-bomber strike on three Iranian nuclear sites.

“If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” he asked on his Truth Social website.