Live updates: U.S. confirms 3 troops killed in Iran war as Trump says operation is "ahead of schedule"

Mehdi Taj, the president of Iran's soccer federation, cast doubt on the national team's ability to play World Cup matches in the U.S. later this year.

Iran is scheduled to play two World Cup games in Inglewood, California, and one in Seattle.

Taj told an Iranian sports television show he wasn't sure how it would be possible following Saturday's strikes.

"What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope," Taj told sports portal Varzesh3.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said B-2 bombers were used to attack Iranian ballistic missile facilities on Saturday night. 

"Last night, U.S. B-2 stealth bombers, armed with 2,000 lb. bombs, struck Iran's hardened ballistic missile facilities," CENTCOM wrote on X. "No nation should ever doubt America's resolve."

The post included a video of a B-2:

B-2 bombers were used in last summer's U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. At the time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that mission was the "largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history."

Intelligence gathered over months by the CIA and shared with Israeli counterparts led to the missile strike that killed Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials on Saturday, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News. 

The spy agency had been tracking Khamenei's location for several months before Saturday's joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, gaining deeper insight into his whereabouts as he moved around. The agency then learned about a Saturday morning meeting of senior Iranian officials at a compound in Tehran that Khamenei was expected to attend.

That insight, relayed to Israeli counterparts, accelerated the timeline for a strike to capitalize on the opportunity, the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, told CBS News.

Read more here.

President Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen Sunday that the U.S. operation in Iran is "moving along very well, very well — ahead of schedule."

"It's a very violent regime, one of the most violent regimes in history," Mr. Trump said in a phone call with Kernen. "We're doing our job not just for us, but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule."

The president has been overseeing the assault from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

He mentioned a potential off-ramp to end the conflict. He said it depends on many variables but  expressed optimism.

"Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way," Mr. Trump said.

CBS News' producer in Tehran reports there have been a series of loud explosions in the capital. State TV and radio have gone off the air. 

The president said in a post on Truth Social that the U.S. has sunk nine ships in the Iranian navy and "largely destroyed" the navy's headquarters in separate attacks.

"I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important," Mr. Trump said. "We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also! In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters. Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!"

President Trump told The Atlantic's Michael Scherer in a phone call Sunday morning that Iran's new leaders want to talk with him, and he plans to do so.

"They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long," Mr. Trump told Scherer. He did not say when he will be speaking with the Iranians. 

Scherer said the president, after seeing people in the streets celebrating in Iran and in the U.S., seemed confident that the Iranian people would rise up, saying, "That is going to happen. You are seeing that, and I think it's gonna happen. A lot of people are extremely happy over there and in Los Angeles and in many other places." 

Though some oil analysts are watching to see if oil prices rise when those markets open Sunday night, Mr. Trump predicted that because the operation has been successful so far, it would be less likely to cause a spike in oil prices.

"This could have been a huge price increase with respect to oil, if things went wrong," Mr. Trump said.

President Trump told Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich that 48 Iranian leaders have been killed in the operation: "Forty-eight leaders are gone in one shot. And it's moving along rapidly."

Heinrich, who said she had spoken with Mr. Trump by phone, posted on X that he told her, "If we didn't do that, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks. And then all of this would not have been possible."

Senior Trump administration officials told reporters Saturday that Tehran had about 450 kg of 60% enriched uranium and was technically one week from being able to reach 90% weapons grade uranium if they pursued it. Building a nuclear weapon, however, would take months, according to a U.S. intelligence summary produced when the U.S. and Israel carried out strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities last June.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had led his country's negotiating team in indirect talks with the Trump administration before the launch of the joint U.S. and Israeli war, said that despite the strikes, "nothing has changed" in Iran's military capability.

"This is exactly what happened last time. You remember in June when Israel attacked us. They killed some of our top commanders at the beginning of the strikes, but they were replaced very soon, and in less than 12 hours, we were able to start retaliation," Araghchi told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday.

"This time, it was even, you know, faster. In less than two hours, we started to, you know, retaliate by attacking, you know, Israeli targets and, you know, American bases in the region and we have continued to do so," he said. "So, our military is in place. They are capable enough to defend our country." 

Araghchi also said Tehran has started the procedure for an assembly of experts to elect a new supreme leader.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said he advised President Trump not to "miss this opportunity" ahead of the strikes on Iran. 

"I spent the entire day with President Trump on Friday, right before he launched these attacks. He and I discussed this at length on Friday," Cruz said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." "My counsel to him was that the Iranian regime has never been weaker, that it was teetering, and now was the time."

Cruz said the president "acted decisively, and Iran no longer being led by a theocratic, murderous dictator, that makes America much, much safer."

"President Trump's decision to launch this decisive action against Iran is the single most important decision of his presidency," Cruz said. "I think he laid out powerfully and effectively why he is taking this action. He is taking this action because the government of Iran is a profound and malign influence; they have been the leading state-sponsor of terrorism for 47 years."

Cruz said Mr. Trump called off active diplomacy amid talks between the U.S. and Iran "because the diplomacy was an abject failure."

"The Iranians approached the diplomacy with arrogance, with absolute hubris," Cruz said. "They said they would not stop enriching no matter what."

Cruz said Mr. Trump understood that the Iranian negotiations were just a "stall tactic." The Texas Republican said he told the president that "there's only one deal you should accept, and it's the deal that you offered Maduro."

"If you want to leave and flee the country, you can do so," Cruz said. "Anything else is unacceptable, and Khamenei made his choice."

Later today, administration officials are expected to brief congressional members who sit on the House Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, and possibly Senate leaders.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Gang of Eight lawmakers, who are briefed on classified matters, that the timing and scope of the joint operation were influenced by Israel's determination to proceed with strikes with or without the U.S.

This made the central question not whether military action would occur, but whether the U.S. would join Israel at the outset or wait to respond only if Iran retaliated against American forces in the region, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Washington Post was first to report these details.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, "I saw no evidence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America."

OPEC Plus, a group of eight oil-producing countries, said Sunday that it will increase oil production by 206,000 barrels a day in April in an effort to mitigate the impact on oil prices during the latest conflict in the Middle East.

The group, which includes Arab Gulf countries and Russia, has said in a statement that its members will "closely monitor and assess market conditions, and in their continuous efforts to support market stability."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his country's strikes on Iran, launched Saturday in conjunction with the U.S. military on President Trump's orders, "will increase even more in the coming days."

"We eliminated the dictator Khamenei and dozens of senior officials of the oppressive regime. Our forces are now striking the heart of Tehran with increasing strength, which will increase even more in the coming days," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

He said he had met Sunday with his defense and intelligence chiefs and given them "instructions for the continuation of the campaign" against Iran — an operation he said he had "been hoping to do for 40 years — to strike the terrorist regime squarely in the face."

"We are also bringing to this campaign the assistance of the United States, my friend, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the U.S. military," said Netanyahu. "This combination of forces allows us to do what I promised." 

Netanyahu acknowledged that Iran's retaliatory strikes were bringing "painful days" to Israel, and he mourned the loss of at least eight people killed earlier Sunday in an Iranian missile strike on the city of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem.

A person familiar with the matter told CBS News on Sunday that the CIA had been tracking Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's location for months, gaining fidelity on his whereabouts as he moved around. 

The agency also obtained advance insight into a Saturday morning meeting of senior Iranian officials that Khamenei was expected to attend. That insight, relayed with high confidence with Israeli counterparts, accelerated the timeline for a strike in order to capitalize on the opportunity, according to the source.

The New York Times first reported that CIA intelligence had led to the strike that killed Khamenei, who had ruled over Iran with complete authority on all matters since 1989.

The U.S. military's Central Command dismissed the Iranian military's claim to have struck an American aircraft carrier in the Middle East with missiles as a lie on Sunday. 

"Claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles. LIE," said CENTCOM in a social media post, not long after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have "struck" the American carrier.

"The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn't even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM's relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime," the military command said.

"Three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury," the U.S. military's Central Command said Sunday in a statement shared on social media, confirming the first American casualties of the war sparked the previous day by the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

The military's initial statement did not give details on where the casualties took place.

"Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty. Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing," CENTCOM said, without providing additional information on the nature of any of the casualties.

"The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified," CENTCOM said.

Read more here.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed on Sunday to have "struck" the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf. 

"The U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was struck by four ballistic missiles," the Guards said in a statement conveyed by Iran's state-run media. It warned that the "the land and sea will increasingly become the graveyard of the terrorist aggressors."

The Lincoln has been deployed in the Arabian Sea, south of Iran, for weeks as part of the massive U.S. military buildup ordered by President Trump.

There was no immediate confirmation that Iranian missiles had managed to evade its defense systems to strike the ship on Sunday.

Contacted by CBS News about the Iranian claims of a strike on the Lincoln, a representative at the U.S. military's Central Command, which is responsible for deployments in the Middle East, declined to comment. There was no immediate response from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet to CBS News' request for information.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led his country's negotiating team in indirect talks with the Trump administration before the U.S. and Israel launched their joint war on Iran Saturday, said if Washington's aim was to topple the Islamic Republic regime, it would prove "an impossible mission."

"If their goal is regime change, that is an impossible mission. The absence or death of the leader does not mean that," Araghchi told the Qatari TV network Al Jazeera. "State institutions remain in place, and we have constitutional procedures. You may see the election of a new supreme leader within a day or two."

Iran's ruling clerics chose the country's supreme leader from among their own ranks, he is not elected via national polling.

"We have always been open to diplomacy, unlike the United States, which attacked us for the second time during negotiations," Araghchi said. "This time the situation is different. They must explain why they did this — but only after the attacks stop. Everything depends on when the aggression ends."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that an interim leadership council established after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had begun its work.

"The interim leadership council started its work," said Pezeshkian, who is among three people tapped to lead the new council. 

"We will continue with all our strength along the path set by Imam Khomeini," he said in a recorded video statement broadcast on state TV.

Khomeini was modern Iran's first supreme leader, who founded the Islamic Republic regime in 1979 after a revolution that toppled its previous, Western-allied government led by a shah, or king.

Pezeshkian added a fresh threat that Iran's military would "forcefully crush the enemy's bases" in the region.

CBS/AFP

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem issued an alert on Sunday urging Americans in Israel to shelter in place and warning that it was "not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel."

The embassy ordered all U.S. government employees and their family members to continue sheltering in place in or near their residences until further notice. 

"Given the security situation and in compliance with Israel Home Front Command guidance, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will be closed on Monday March 2, 2026. This includes the Consular Sections in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There will be no passport (emergency or regular) or Consular Report of Birth Abroad services," the embassy said.  

It noted that the country's biggest airport, Ben Gurion, remained closed to all traffic.

The embassy remind U.S. citizens "of the continued need for caution and increased personal security awareness – including knowing the location of the nearest shelter in the event of a red alert as security incidents, such as mortar, rocket, and missile fire, and unmanned aircraft system (UAS) intrusions, often take place without any warning. The security environment is complex and can change quickly."

During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, many Americans were stranded in Israel, and the U.S. Embassy offered no support with evacuations, while citizens of a number of other countries were evacuated by their embassies.

Some of the Americans left stranded last summer resorted to paying high prices to be privately evacuated from Israel by boat or via Jordan. CBS News spoke with some Americans who voiced surprise by the lack of support from the U.S. Embassy.

Israel's official Magen David Adom emergency medical service said Sunday that the death toll from an Iranian missile strike on the city of Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, had risen to eight. 

"Additional MDA teams are providing medical treatment and evacuating to hospitals in Jerusalem and to Shamir-Assaf Harofeh 28 wounded, including: 2 in serious condition, 2 in moderate condition, and 24 in light condition," the agency said.

The United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Defense said Sunday that three people had been killed by the missile and drone attacks carried out by Iran in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli attacks launched Saturday.

"Our air defenses have so far intercepted 167 missiles and 541 Iranian drones. The Iranian attacks resulted in three deaths — a Pakistani, a Nepali, and a Bangladeshi national," the ministry said in a statement.

Since Saturday, Iran has targeted countries across the Middle East that host U.S. forces with drones and missiles.

"To the countries of the region: We are not seeking to attack you. But when the bases located in your country are used against us, and when the United States carries out operations in the region relying on these forces, then we will target those bases," Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Sunday In a social media post, adding: "These bases are not part of the land of those countries; rather, they are American soil."

At least six people were killed Sunday in an Iranian missile strike on an Israeli city west of Jerusalem, emergency responders confirmed.

Israeli emergency services had earlier confirmed a barrage of Iranian missiles hit residential buildings in Beit Shemesh, causing damage and multiple casualties.

The volunteer medical response agency United Hatzalah confirmed at least six people were killed in the attack, after "multiple impact sites" in the city, about 19 miles west of Jerusalem. 

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps announced another "large-scale" retaliatory strike earlier Sunday.

Israel's official Magen David Adom emergency medical service later confirmed that six people were killed in Beit Shemesh. It said 23 people were taken to hospitals to be treated for wounds sustained in the attack, including two in serious condition, three in moderate condition and 18 with what the agency described as light injuries.

Violent clashes between protesters and security forces in the Pakistani port city of Karachi left at least nine people killed and more than 50 others wounded on Sunday, after hundreds of demonstrators attempted to storm the U.S. Consulate, authorities said.

The violence came hours after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said that at least 25 people were also wounded in the clashes and some of them were in critical condition.

Summaiya Syed Tariq, a police surgeon at the city's main government hospital, confirmed that initially six bodies and multiple injured people were brought to the facility. However, she said the death toll rose to nine after three critically wounded people died.

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan wrote on X that it was monitoring reports of ongoing demonstrations at the U.S. Consulates General in Karachi and Lahore, as well as calls for additional protests at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate General in Peshawar. It advised U.S. citizens in Pakistan to monitor local news, stay aware of their surroundings, avoid large crowds and keep their travel registration with the U.S. government up to date.

China said Sunday it "strongly condemns" the United States and Israel's killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called again for a halt to military actions.

The killing was "a serious violation of Iran's sovereignty and security, a trampling on the aims and principles of the U.N. charter and the basic norms of international relations," Beijing's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this," it added, calling for an "immediate halting of military operations".

The condemnation came just after Chinese state media reported a phone call between Beijing's top diplomat Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

During the conversation, which state news agency Xinhua said was initiated by Lavrov, Wang said the "blatant killing of a sovereign leader and the incitement of regime change" by the United States and Israel was "unacceptable."

China is "highly concerned" that the "situation in the Middle East could be pushed into a dangerous abyss," Wang told Lavrov, according to Xinhua.

Israeli emergency services said a barrage of missiles launched by Iran on Sunday hit residential buildings in the city of Beit Shemesh, causing damage and multiple casualties.

The volunteer medical response agency Hatzalah said there were "multiple impact sites" in the city, which is about 19 miles west of Jerusalem, "with approximately 15 casualties at this stage, most described as being in light condition."

"United Hatzalah volunteers on the scene are providing medical care, including treatment to three children who sustained head injuries," the group said, adding that "further injuries are being documented, and there are indications of several individuals in serious condition in the vicinity."

Sen. Tom Cotton said Sunday that there's "not a simple answer" as to who will lead Iran going forward. 

"There's probably a lot of people jockeying inside Iran right now," Cotton said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." 

"They have a very consultative, deliberative process to replace the supreme leader," Cotton said. "There's a reason why he didn't want to have a clear succession plan in place."

But Cotton would not say if there was a plan by the U.S. or Israel for a managed transition. 

"We're going to continue to hit their military capabilities, and we're going to continue to hit the senior leadership, the ayatollahs, who have also been complicit in 47 years of heinous crimes, not only against Americans, against their own people," Cotton said. 

When asked by Brennan if an Iranian opposition leader had been identified to potentially take over the control, Cotton said, "the opposition is 90 million Iranians who have suffered under the brutal Islamic Republic revolutionary regime for the last 47 years."

"We can't necessarily dictate what course that is going to take," Cotton said. "But the help the president promised is on the scene for probably a few weeks as we make sure that Iran's military is no longer capable of threatening our own troops, our Arab friends in the region, and Israel, and also repressing its own people."

Read more and watch the full interview here.

An Omani port and an oil tanker off its coast were attacked Sunday, official media said, marking the first suspected Iranian strikes on the sultanate — which mediated the U.S.-Iran talks that failed to avert the war launched on Saturday by the U.S. and Israel. 

AFP correspondents also heard blasts in Dubai, Doha and Manama on Sunday, with explosions heard later in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh as Iran pressed its second day of retaliatory attacks in response to ongoing U.S. and Israeli strikes.

Iran's continued bombardment across the Persian Gulf has raised fears of a wider conflict and rattled a region long seen as a haven of peace and security in the turbulent Middle East.

"A security source reported that the commercial port of Duqm was targeted by two drones," the Oman News Agency said in a social media post. "One drone struck a mobile workers' accommodation, injuring one foreign worker, while debris from the other landed near fuel tanks, causing no casualties or material damage."  

Shortly after, Oman's Maritime Security Center said an oil tanker had been targeted off the coast. Its crew was evacuated and four of them were injured, the Oman News Agency reported.

Videos and photos posted online appeared to show the back of the tanker engulfed in flames and smoke and sinking.

CBS/AFP

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that while President Trump said there could be American casualties in the operation against Iran, there were no plans to put American boots on the ground.

"The president has been clear that what we should expect to see is an extended air and naval campaign that's designed not only to continue to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions, but most importantly, to destroy its vast missile arsenal," Cotton said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

Cotton said one risk of the non-ground war that the U.S. and Israel are waging is that an aircraft could be shot down, and "the president would never leave a pilot behind." 

"So, no doubt, we have combat search and rescue assets in the region that are prepared to go in and extract any type of downed pilot," Cotton said. "But barring that kind of unusual circumstance, Margaret, the president has no plan for any kind of large-scale ground force inside of Iran." 

Read more and watch the full interview here.

Britain's defense secretary said Sunday that Iran's "indiscriminate retaliatory attacks" included "two ballistic missiles fired in the direction of Cyprus," but it was not believed they were "targeted" at the Mediterranean island on which the U.K. has a major military air base.

"We had two ballistic missiles fired in the direction of Cyprus," John Healey told CBS News' partner network BBC News, noting that British warplanes based in Cyprus, as well as in the Middle East were involved in "defensive" actions across the region.

"We are pretty sure they weren't targeted at Cyprus, but nevertheless, it demonstrates how our bases, our personnel, military and civilians at the moment are at risk," Healey told the BBC.

He did not say whether the Iranian missiles were intercepted, or if they just fell short of any intended targets.

Israel's military said Sunday it was "not aware" of any U.S. or Israeli strike hitting a school in southern Iran. Iranian authorities claimed Saturday that a girl's elementary school in the city of Minab was hit amid the strikes, killing more than 100 people, including many students.

"At this point not aware of an Israeli or an American strike there ... We're operating in an extremely accurate manner," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters on Sunday.

Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for the U.S. military's Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, told CBS News on Saturday that CENTCOM was aware of the reports "concerning civilian harm from ongoing military operation" and was investigating the matter.

"The protection of civilians is of utmost importance, and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimize the risk of unintended harm," Hawkins said. "Unlike Iran, we have never — and never will — target civilians."

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for an end to the "spiral of violence" in the Middle East, after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran that prompted ongoing retaliatory strikes.

"Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions, I appeal to the parties involved to assume the moral responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable chasm," Leo, the Catholic Church's first-ever leader from the United States, told a crowd of faithful in St. Peter's Square.

CBS/AFP

The European Union's top diplomat, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, noted the uncertainty facing Iran and the entire world on Sunday, but she called it an opportunity for Iran's people to shape their own future. 

"The death of Ali Khamenei is a defining moment in Iran's history. What comes next is uncertain. But there is now an open path to a different Iran, one that its people may have greater freedom to shape," Kallas said in a social media post, adding that she was in contact on behalf of the EU "with partners, including those in the region that bear the brunt of Iran's military actions, to find practical steps for de-escalation."

Her post was accompanied by a graphic indicating that she was in contact with foreign policy chiefs from Israel and at least six Arabic nations in the Middle East, in addition to Turkey and the Group of Seven bloc of the world's biggest democracies.

The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain's capital said Sunday that personnel were being moved out of hotels in Manama after one was hit amid Iran's retaliatory missile and drone attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests across the Middle East.

"The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain is tracking confirmed reports the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Manama was struck on March 1, 2026, resulting in injuries," the embassy said in a security alert shared Sunday on social media. "We advise U.S. citizens in Bahrain that hotels might be a target for future attacks, and encourage U.S. citizens to avoid hotels in Manama."

North Korea condemned on Sunday the ongoing United States and Israeli attack on Iran as an "illegal act of aggression," claiming it had shown the "gangster-like nature" of Washington.

The military campaigns against Iran by the two states "constitute a thoroughly illegal act of aggression and the most vile form of violation of sovereignty in their nature," a spokesperson for the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency said Sunday that the country's top religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, had issued a decree, or "fatwa" calling for Muslims to wage "jihad against America and Israel" to avenge the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The main perpetrators of this crime are America and the Zionist regime, and this revenge is a religious duty for all Muslims of the world to eliminate the scourge of these criminals from the world," Tasnim quoted Shirazi as saying.

The Grand Ayatollah does not hold a leadership position in Iran's theocratic government, but he is among the most senior Shiite Muslim religious authorities in the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday slammed the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in U.S. and Israeli strikes as a "cynical violation" of morality and law.

In a letter to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, published by the Kremlin, Putin expressed "deepest condolences for the assassination" of Khamenei, saying the killing was "carried out in a cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law."

Russia and China have continued to support Iran during decades of animosity between Western powers and Tehran, helping keep the Islamic Republic afloat economically — despite Russia's own economic woes — amid a raft of economic sanctions.

CBS/AFP

Israel's military said Sunday that it had destroyed roughly half of Iran's missile stockpiles, adding that the Islamic Republic had been producing dozens of surface-to-surface missiles each month.

"During the operation, we destroyed approximately half of the Iranian regime's missile stockpiles and prevented the production of at least 1,500 additional missiles," military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a televised statement.

"The regime had recently been producing dozens of surface-to-surface missiles per month and intended to increase production to hundreds per month."

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah vowed Sunday to retaliate for the U.S. and Israeli war on its key backer, Iran.

"We will undertake our duty of confronting the aggression" of the U.S. and Israel, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a statement, according to the French news agency AFP. Qassem said Hezbollah would not leave "the field of honor and resistance."

Israel has hammered Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent years, killing multiple leaders of the group and diminishing its significant fire power.

The group has long been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and many other nations.

The Reuters news agency cited Iran's state-run student news agency ISNA as saying Sunday that a longtime senior member of the Islamic Republic's powerful Guardian Council, Alireza Arafi, had been appointed to the Leadership Council, a body tasked with fulfilling the supreme leader's role until the regime's Assembly of Experts elects a replacement for Ayatollah Khamenei. 

Arafi was to join President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeibe on the temporary Leadership Council, ISNA said.

If Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, named by the regime as one of three interim leaders of the country, was planning to distance the remnants of the theocracy from its slain supreme leader in a bid to survive the U.S.-Israeli assault, he showed no signs of that in his first public comments on Sunday.

Iran's interim government "considers blood and revenge against the perpetrators and leaders of this crime as the duty of its legitimate right," Pezeshkian said in a statement shared online by Iranian state media.

"The assassination of the highest political authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the great Shiite world," he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose funeral was being held Sunday in Tehran, "by the American-Zionist axis, is a declaration of open war with Muslims, especially Shiites in the world."

He said Iran would "fulfill this great responsibility and duty" to retaliate against Israel and the U.S. "with all its might."

CBS News producer Seyed Bathaei in Tehran said people were gathering Sunday in the Iranian capital ahead of the funeral Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The funeral was to be held at the University of Tehran.  

Khamenei ruled over Iran from 1989 as the second supreme leader of the Islamic Republic regime.

There were shouts of joy and celebrations in the streets of Tehran and other cities on Saturday when Israel and President Trump confirmed Khamenei had been killed in the U.S. and Israeli attacks. But there were also reports of protests in some parts of Iran on Sunday denouncing the war and calling for retribution. 

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate politician who was among the few very senior leaders to escape Saturday's blistering strikes alive, will lead the country along with two other officials in a transitional period following the killing of Khamenei, Iranian state television said Sunday.

Earlier, an Iranian official said a leadership council would handle the late ayatollah's duties until a successor is formally announced. 

"In accordance with the constitution, a leadership council will be established to assume the responsibilities of the Supreme Leader until a successor is elected," the secretary of Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said in a statement.

State news agency IRNA said that along with Pezeshkian, the speaker of Iran's parliament and the head of Iran's judiciary would be in charge until a new top leader is chosen.  

CBS News' Charlie D'Agata said the skies over Israel's capital Tel Aviv buzzed overnight with the sound of fighter jets and missile defenses intercepting Iranian attacks, keeping nerves high as the Middle East and the entire world wondered what the final outcome of the war sparked by the U.S. and Israel might be.

Elliot Ackerman, an American author, former member of the U.S. special forces and former CIA Special Activities Officer, said there were still significant risks, even with much of the brutal Iranian regime's leadership killed in Saturday's strikes.

"What we'll potentially have is a power vacuum," Ackerman said, as the remnants of the Iranian regime announced interim leadership. He said it was possible Iran's long-stifled civil society would rise up and topple the Islamic Republic regime that has ruled over the country since the 1979 revolution.

But it was not "outside the realm of possibility" that hardline remnants of the regime could manage to maintain control over the country, which he said would be a disaster for the region.

Rep. Rick Crawford, chair of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, told CBS News on Sunday that the U.S. and Israeli strikes would likely continue in the coming days, particularly aimed at taking out remaining missile launch capabilities in southern Iran. 

"It's gonna take a little bit of patience," Crawford said, but he said the "conditions on the ground are ripe for regime change, and we pray for the Iranian people" to seize what he said was the opportunity presented by the war to overthrow their government.

While there were shouts of joy and thousands of people in Iran celebrated the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, there were also protests in the country against the U.S.-Israeli war, with crowds gathering on Sunday in southern Iran demanding vengeance, according to Iran's state-run media.

Similar protests erupted in Tehran on Sunday and in the central city of Yazd, Iranian media said.

There were also angry demonstrations in other countries, with hundreds of protesters trying to storm the heavily fortified Green Zone in Iraq's capital Baghdad, where the U.S. embassy is located.

In Karachi, Pakistan, security forces killed eight people as hundreds of protesters tried to storm the U.S. consulate in the massive city, according to local emergency services.

And in Indian-administered Kashmir, the French news agency AFP said several thousand people demonstrated and chanted anti-Israel and anti-U.S. slogans on Sunday.

The U.S. Embassy in Oman's capital Muscat, meanwhile, warned staff and other Americans in the city to shelter in place due to unspecified "ongoing activity outside of Muscat." 

For the first time since the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign began Saturday, Israel has struck targets in "the heart of Tehran," the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.

"The Air Force, guided by Military Intelligence, has now launched a broad wave of strikes toward targets of the Iranian terror regime in the heart of Tehran," the IDF said.

"Over the past day, the Air Force conducted extensive strikes to achieve air superiority and open the path to Tehran," the IDF added.

Iran's state-run media said Sunday that the country's armed forces had targeted U.S. bases in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, and in the Persian Gulf, in response to ongoing Israeli and U.S. strikes across the country.

"A few minutes ago, pilots of the air forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran successfully bombed U.S. bases in the countries of the Persian Gulf and in the Kurdistan region of Iraq over several phases of operations," state TV cited the Iranian army as saying.

Iran has fired volleys of missiles and drones at American bases since the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes began on Saturday, as well as at Israel and other nations in the Middle East where the U.S. has bases. Civilian infrastructure in several nations was also hit.

The board of governors for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, will hold a special meeting Monday at its Vienna headquarters to discuss the situation in Iran.

The meeting is at the request of Russia regarding "military strikes of the United States and Israel against the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the agency said in a statement late Saturday.

Russia is a major ally of Iran.

Last week, Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said most of Iran's nuclear materials were "still there, in large quantities" despite the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities in June of 2025. 

President Trump said on his Truth Social platform early Sunday that, "Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before."

In response, he wrote, "THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!"

Mr. Trump had earlier said that "heavy and pinpoint bombing" of Iran would "continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary."

Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address Sunday, "You have crossed our red line and must pay the price. We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg," according to The Associated Press. 

Iran's Revolutionary Guard also said Sunday said that it would launch "the most ferocious offensive operation in the history of the Iranian armed forces" targeting U.S. military bases and Israel. 

The compound of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the heart of Tehran was heavily damaged in the U.S.-Israeli strikes, satellite photos show.

One image shows black smoke rising from the palace, which appears to have been reduced to a pile of rubble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel struck the compound early Saturday. He later said there were "growing signs" that Khamenei had been killed in the strike.

The Israeli military also said Saturday that it had killed much of Iran's leadership, including Secretary of the Iranian Security Council Ali Shamkhani and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh.

CBS/AP