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Iran attacked Israel, escalating an already volatile conflict. Here's what to know
The United Nations Security Council holds a meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including Iran’s recent attack against Israel, at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sunday.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
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Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
The United Nations Security Council holds a meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including Iran’s recent attack against Israel, at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sunday.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
Iran launched a massive barrage of over 300 drones and missiles at Israel over the weekend — in what is believed to be Iran’s first direct attack on its regional foe from Iranian soil.
Nearly all of the weapons were intercepted by Israel and its allies, including the United States. However, a few of the Iranian ballistic missiles made it through the defenses, severely injuring a 7-year-old girl and slightly damaging a military base in southern Israel, according to Israeli officials.
Iranian officials said the attack was in response to an airstrike from earlier this month that hit Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria. Seven Iranian military officials, including two generals, were killed.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied being behind the Syria strike, though Iran and the Pentagon said Israel was responsible.
On Sunday, a senior Iranian military official said Iran’s “operation” against Israel had ended and there would be no more attacks coming, according to Iranian state media.
But tensions continue to run high in the Middle East. Now, the focus is on how Israel and other countries will respond to Iran’s escalation. An Israeli military spokesperson said on Sunday that leaders had “approved operational plans for both offensive and defensive action,” without going into further detail.
Here’s what to know:
Nearly all aerial attacks were intercepted, Israel says, in large part thanks to Israel’s advanced air defense systems
Mohamad Hassouna, 49, points to a hole in the roof of a building caused by a projectile that injured his 7-year-old daughter at their Bedouin village in the southern Negev desert on Sunday.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
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Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
Mohamad Hassouna, 49, points to a hole in the roof of a building caused by a projectile that injured his 7-year-old daughter at their Bedouin village in the southern Negev desert on Sunday.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
In the days leading up to the attack, the U.S. and Israel closely coordinated their air defense preparations. Still, a U.S. official described the Iranian barrage as being at the “high end” of what the U.S. and Israel expected.
About 99% of the aerial attacks launched by Iran and its proxies were intercepted outside Israeli airspace, according to the Israeli military. The U.S., France, Jordan and U.K. forces helped take down the Iranian weapons.
Israel’s most advanced air defense system, the Arrow 3, provided the main protection against Iran’s ballistic missiles. The Arrow 3 has been around for several years, but had never faced such an intense onslaught.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Sunday that the Arrow 3 had “proved itself against a significant number of ballistic missiles.”
Still, several people suffered from shrapnel wounds after the attack, including a 7-year old Bedouin girl who underwent surgery due to a head wound, the Times of Israel and Haaretz reported. Hagari confirmed the reports.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said the country notified the U.S. ahead of the attack through Swiss intermediaries, informing that the strike will not target American personnel or bases in the region. U.S. officials, however, said there was no notification from Iran prior to the attack on where weapons would be targeting.
Israel struck a Hezbollah target in Lebanon and urged the U.N. to condemn Tehran
People gather around a destroyed building targeted by Israeli airstrikes on the village of Nabi Sheet in the Baablbek district in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Sunday.
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On Sunday, Israel said its fighter jets struck an alleged munitions production site in southern Lebanon belonging to the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.
Israeli’s military said the strike was in response to the Iranian air assault over the weekend, adding that Hezbollah was responsible for about 40 rockets targeted at Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the border with Lebanon regularly since the surprise Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Iran has long supplied Hamas with funds and weapons but the White House has not directly linked Iran to the Oct. 7 attack.
At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, said Iran had no other choice but to “exercise its inherent right to self-defense under international law.” Iravani said his county “does not seek escalation or war in the region,” and did not want to begin a conflict with the U.S.
At the meeting, Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan called for the U.N. to “impose all possible sanctions on Iran before it’s too late.” He added: “This attack crossed every red line and Israel reserves the legal right to retaliate.”
Israel’s war cabinet also gathered to discuss how to respond to the Iranian attacks. The Israeli leadership has not yet indicated what shape its response might take.
Biden told Netanyahu the U.S. won’t participate in offensive operations against Iran
In this handout photo provided by the White House, President Biden meets with members of the national security team on Saturday in the White House Situation Room in Washington, D.C.
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In this handout photo provided by the White House, President Biden meets with members of the national security team on Saturday in the White House Situation Room in Washington, D.C.
The White House via Getty Images
President Biden is urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to proceed with caution in considering how to respond.
According to a U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. remains fully committed to defending Israel, but will not take part in offensive operations against Iran. Since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza last October, Biden has made clear he does not want the conflict to expand into a broader regional war.
“I think Israel has to think through carefully what it does next,” the official said. “Nobody wants to run up the escalation ladder here.”
In Congress, House Republicans are making changes to their legislative schedule for this week to consider a yet-to-be-revealed proposal that would further support Israel.
Republicans also aim to include language that “holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced in a statement released Saturday night.
World leaders call for restraint to avoid a wider regional conflict in the Middle East
In a statement Sunday, G7 leaders said that Iran had further destabilized the region and that they stood in solidarity with Israel. The G7 is made up of the United States, Canada, Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the European Union.
“This must be avoided. We will continue to work to stabilize the situation and avoid further escalation,” the leaders said.
On Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he condemned Iran’s attack and was “deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation.”
Governments in the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, also issued statements expressing concern and calling for restraint so as not to exacerbate tensions in the region.
NPR’s Jane Arraf, Tom Bowman, Greg Myre, Deepa Shivaram, Barbara Sprunt and Hadeel Al-Shalchi contributed reporting.
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 4 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “light,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
A light, 4.9-magnitude earthquake struck in Louisiana on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The temblor happened at 5:30 a.m. Central time about 6 miles west of Edgefield, La., data from the agency shows.
U.S.G.S. data earlier reported that the magnitude was 4.4.
As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Central time. Shake data is as of Thursday, March 5 at 8:40 a.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Thursday, March 5 at 10:46 a.m. Eastern.
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Man accused of plot to assassinate Trump testifies Iran pressured him, says Biden and Haley were other possible targets
The allegation sounded like the stuff of spy movies: A Pakistani businessman trying to hire hit men, even handing them $5,000 in cash, to kill a U.S. politician on behalf of Iran ‘s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
It was true, and potential targets of the 2024 scheme included now-President Donald Trump, then-President Joe Biden and former presidential candidate and ex-U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the man told jurors at his attempted terrorism trial in New York on Wednesday. But he insisted his actions were driven by fear for loved ones in Iran, and he figured he’d be apprehended before anything came of the scheme.
“My family was under threat, and I had to do this,” the defendant, Asif Merchant, testified through an Urdu interpreter. “I was not wanting to do this so willingly.”
Merchant said he had anticipated getting arrested before anyone was killed, intended to cooperate with the U.S. government and had hoped that would help him get a green card.
U.S. authorities were, indeed, on to him – the supposed hit men he paid were actually undercover FBI agents – and he was arrested on July 12, 2024, a day before an unrelated attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. During a search, investigators said they found a handwritten note that contained the codewords for the various aspects of the plot, CBS News previously reported.
Merchant did sit for voluntary FBI interviews, but he ultimately ended up with a trial, not a cooperation deal.
“You traveled to the United States for the purpose of hiring Mafia members to kill a politician, correct?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Gupta asked during her turn questioning Merchant Wednesday in a Brooklyn federal court.
“That’s right,” Merchant replied, his demeanor as matter-of-fact as his testimony was unusual.
The trial is unfolding amid the less than week-old Iran war, which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike that Trump summed up as “I got him before he got me.” Jurors are instructed to ignore news pertaining to the case.
The Iranian government has denied plotting to kill Trump or other U.S. officials.
Merchant, 47, had a roughly 20-year banking career in Pakistan before getting involved in an array of businesses: clothing, car sales, banana exports, insulation imports. He openly has two families, one in Pakistan and the other in Iran – where, he said, he was introduced around the end of 2022 to a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative. They initially spoke about getting involved in a hawala, an informal money transfer system, Merchant said.
Merchant testified that his periodic visits to the U.S. for his garment business piqued the interest of his Revolutionary Guard contact, who trained him on countersurveillance techniques.
The U.S. deems the Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization.” Formally called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the force has been prominent in Iran under Khamenei.
Merchant said the handler told him to seek U.S. residents interested in working for Iran. Then came another assignment: Look for a criminal to arrange protests, steal things, do some money laundering, “and maybe have somebody murdered,” Merchant recalled.
“He did not tell me exactly who it is, but he told me – he named three people: Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Nikki Haley,” he added.
In 2024, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News Merchant planned to assassinate current and former government officials across the political spectrum.
Merchant allegedly sketched out the plot on a napkin inside his New York hotel room, prosecutors said, and told the individual “that there would be ‘security all around’ the person” they were planning to kill.
“No other option”
After U.S. immigration agents pulled Merchant aside at the Houston airport in April 2024, searched his possessions and asked about his travels to Iran, he concluded that he was under surveillance. But still he researched Trump rally locations, sketched out a plot for a shooting at a political rally, lined up the supposed hit men and scrambled together $5,000 from a cousin to pay them a “token of appreciation.”
He even reported back to his Revolutionary Guard contact, sending observations – fake, Merchant said – tucked into a book that he shipped to Iran through a series of intermediaries.
Merchant said he “had no other option” than to play along because the handler had indicated that he knew who Merchant’s Iranian relatives were and where they lived.
In a court filing this week, prosecutors noted that Merchant didn’t seek out law enforcement to help with his purported predicament before he was arrested. He testified that he couldn’t turn to authorities because his handler had people watching him.
Prosecutors also said that in his FBI interviews, Merchant “neglected to mention any facts that could have supported” an argument that he acted under duress.
Merchant told jurors Wednesday that he didn’t think agents would believe his story, because their questions suggested “they think that I’m some type of super-spy.”
“And are you a super-spy?” defense lawyer Avraham Moskowitz asked.
“No,” Merchant said. “Absolutely not.”
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Man accused of plot to assassinate Trump testifies Iran pressured him, says Biden and Haley were other possible targets
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