Iran ; explosions across Tehran following Israeli and US strikes, 28 February 2026

[SilentHill]

"These are fateful moments in the turbulent history of the Islamic Republic of Iran - but its most powerful clerics and commanders have been preparing for it."

Lyse Doucet: This is an extraordinary moment Iran has been preparing for

The killing of the supreme leader will be a huge jolt to the Islamic Republic, which will try hard to show it has a plan in place.

www.bbc.co.uk

And live coverage from BBC here

 

[Mo Thuairim]

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi temporarily fulfills supreme leader's role

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has been appointed as the member of the leadership council tasked with temporarily fulfilling supreme leader's role, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency.

Ayatollah Arafi is a cleric and he is currently a member of the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts.

Nine dead in Israel and UAE after Iranian strikes

Iran is retaliating with strikes across the Gulf and on Israel after an Israeli strike killed Iran's ⁠supreme leader, raising fears of widespread instability in the Middle East.

www.rte.ie

 

[Friday Fan]

Agreed. Trump has no staying power or attention span, especially if it isn't getting him the kind of feedback or reward he thinks he should be getting from it. And I say that as someone with ADHD. War is never neat and the populace never going to be as adoring as he would want them to be. He'll be on to the next new shiny thing very soon.

Israel is more likely to stay focused, though. They're actually within ballistic range.

MOO

I think Israel's main goal is to knee-cap Iran. I'm sure they would like a regime change, but if it doesn't work out they are still ahead.
Iran has already named two successors. One is the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard.

 

[Elley Mae]

When the details of his elimination become clear, jaws will drop. The deception, the pinpoint intelligence, the quality of the execution, the creativity. The fact that Israel had a photo of Ali Khamenei’s body is beyond comprehension. It should spell things out for the ayatollahs who are still there, and for their situation.

Khamenei's assassination was definition of tactical genius | The Jerusalem Post

The IRGC ignored the fact that Israel changed after the October 7 massacre, and now they’re paying the price. Dictatorships don’t fall from outside; they collapse from within.

www.jpost.com

Most of the details of what happened yesterday and what will happen in the coming days will only be published in the future. Only then will we understand the level of precision in Israeli intelligence, the almost inconceivable intelligence superiority inside a country thousands of kilometers from Israel.

 

[SouthAussie]

"The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) says it is aware of “significant military activity” in the “Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz”.

In its latest advisory, it said the maritime security environment in the region remains highly volatile, with ongoing regional military activity adding to elevated threat to commercial shipping.

“Claims regarding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to circulate via open source reporting and VHF communications. No official closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been formally communicated to the maritime industry through recognised maritime safety channels,” UKMTO added"

Trump says Iran attacks to continue until ‘all objectives’ achieved

Iran declares 40 days of mourning and launches attacks after supreme leader's killing; Israel strikes Tehran.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Friday Fan]

"The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) says it is aware of “significant military activity” in the “Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz”.

In its latest advisory, it said the maritime security environment in the region remains highly volatile, with ongoing regional military activity adding to elevated threat to commercial shipping.

“Claims regarding the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to circulate via open source reporting and VHF communications. No official closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been formally communicated to the maritime industry through recognised maritime safety channels,” UKMTO added"

Trump says Iran attacks to continue until ‘all objectives’ achieved

Iran declares 40 days of mourning and launches attacks after supreme leader's killing; Israel strikes Tehran.

www.aljazeera.com

There's this map. I really don't know how this works, but someone shared it elsewhere.

The Strait doesn't appear closed to me

HORMUZ STRAIT Ship Traffic Live Map

Live Marine Traffic, Density Map and Current Position of ships in HORMUZ STRAIT

www.marinevesseltraffic.com

 

[CrimeDawg123]

"Iran built the most layered contingency plan on Earth for this exact moment. Four levels of succession for every key position. Pre-authorized military strikes. Regional commanders who don't need orders from Tehran to act.

As you read this, there is already a new Supreme Leader. We just don't know who.

This isn't Maduro. The government didn't get overthrown. The system absorbed the hit. That's what it was designed to do."

https://twitter.com/x/status/2027844448655495631

 

[SouthAussie]

There's this map. I really don't know how this works, but someone shared it elsewhere.

The Strait doesn't appear closed to me

HORMUZ STRAIT Ship Traffic Live Map

Live Marine Traffic, Density Map and Current Position of ships in HORMUZ STRAIT

www.marinevesseltraffic.com

Iran said it is closed but the UK is saying it is not officially closed. There has been some kind of recent incident though. And lots of ships aren't passing through.


UKMTO, the British ⁠maritime ⁠agency, says it has ⁠received a report of an ⁠incident two nautical miles north of Oman’s Kumzar, located in the ‌Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is the world’s most vital oil export route, which connects the biggest ⁠Gulf oil producers, ⁠such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United ⁠Arab Emirates, with ⁠the Gulf of ⁠Oman and the Arabian Sea.

*****

At least 150 tankers, including crude oil and liquefied natural gas vessels, have dropped anchor in open Gulf waters beyond the Strait of Hormuz, shipping data has showed.

Dozens more were stationary on the other side of the chokepoint. The movements came after US and Israeli strikes on Iran plunged the region into a new war.

The tankers were clustered in open waters off the coasts of major Gulf oil producers, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as well as LNG giant Qatar, according to the Reuters news agency estimates based on ship-tracking data from the MarineTraffic platform.

Trump says Iran attacks to continue until ‘all objectives’ achieved

Iran declares 40 days of mourning and launches attacks after supreme leader's killing; Israel strikes Tehran.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Elley Mae]

"Our ships will stay put for several days," one top executive at a major trading desk said.

Satellite images from tanker trackers showed vessels piling up next to big ports, such as Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, and not moving through Hormuz.

Multiple vessels in the area received VHF transmission from Iran's Revolutionary Guards that "no ship is allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz", an official with the EU naval mission Aspides told Reuters.

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz after US-Israel strikes, reports say

Oil majors and trading houses say they have suspended crude oil, fuel and liquefied natural gas shipments

www.independent.co.uk

 

[whinewiththegravy]

Not sure what this post centered on Iran has to do with the Israeli Palestinian conflict in general and the Gaza Israeli conflict in particular.

I'm not sure what this means. You are literally the person who introduced the subject of Palestine. Your quoted post is still visible in both my reply and that of dspdenver to it, even if you deleted it or it was moderated away. I can screenshot it for you in a DM if you have forgotten; no worries.

 

[Elley Mae]

https://aisvesseltracker.com/

 

[Summerliz03]

Moo …Israel and US are gonna hammer Iran non stop for days. They’re using missiles, advance drones and cheeper drone. We may see other countries enter the arena.
I do not see Israel or the US backing down. I think this was a master plan … go on knock out/damage the nuclear facilities and then knock out the regime.
Moo …

Here’s a list of the regime structure in Iran - it’s extremely layered with different levels of succession, in addition to the guard corps, which is estimated at 120,000 people. I think “knocking out the regime” is not as easy as going in and using targeted drone bombs for a few days. Iran has been planning for a war with Israel and the US for many years and they are fully prepared to stay in power. There’s also no real opposition party from what I’ve seen so who would be taking over?

Forcing regime changes really never works - just look at what we did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. None of those resulted in liberating the people of those countries and I’d say they may even be worse off now (specifically Afghanistan) All MOO.

Inside Iran - The Structure Of Power In Iran | Terror And Tehran | FRONTLINE | PBS

 

[Skigh]

People celebrate death of Ayatollah in London

A street in North London was brought to a standstill on Saturday night as scores of Iranians celebrated following news from Donald Trump that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Footage showed residents of the London borough blaring music from their cars and cheering, while some were seen handing out roses.

Local resident Jessica came out of her house to find a scene of literally thousands descending on Ballards Lane.

She told The Daily Mail: 'It's absolute mayhem, it's pandemonium. It's a scene of absolute jubilation.

'People are chanting and singing. They are handing out roses to one another and Persian biscuits. It's just joy. People are holding up pictures of the Shah, and cars are tooting in the road.

'A bus has been stuck in the middle of the road now for over an hour. There are families with young children just full of happiness, and they are dancing in the street.'

 

[Emerald1328]

I totally agree with him on this.

So how does this end?​

It's impossible, of course, to say. It may depend on what Trump's real endgame is — and that can change very quickly.

It's hard to see Trump seeing this through to regime change, as remote as that possibility is.

IMO, Trump didn’t necessarily do this for a textbook regime change. Like you said earlier, that 100% means boots on the ground and while I won’t rule that out, I don’t think they would do that before the mid-terms. I think they’re hoping that even if someone from the same regime comes into power now (which is probably the more likely scenario), that person will realize that the same thing could happen to them and so they will capitulate to negotiations and play ball with the US.

 

[Ruminations]

That was the downside. I was thinking all night about why this attack would occur at such a late hour (usually 3am ish Tehran time), and why it would occur on a Saturday of all days.

The answer is that a Saturday is their Monday, and the timing ensured that military and political targets would be in their offices.

There was literally no better time, but you always run the risk of a missile or bomb missing its target.

This was the perfect time to strike Russia and get them out of Ukraine.

The appropriate response to Iran is diplomacy, conditioned inclusion and economic control.

There is NO EXCUSE for hitting that school.

There is a power vacuum waiting to be filled by the next oppressor. Nothing was accomplished.

MOO

 

[Tuck]

How is the U.S. planning to facilitate regime change across multiple countries and continents, when their current approach translates to the creation of power vacuums (e.g. Venezuela) that foster no real potential for long-term stability and peace? While I see a lot of celebrations around the short-term outcomes, the broader implications of this need to be weighted accordingly – if countries on the brink are not sufficiently supported through their transition, it is entirely appropriate to suggest they run the risk of becoming failed states.

 

[Snoopster]

Thinking this through.....so if you can eliminate your enemy quickly that's ok. You don't have to follow any rules of war? You don't need any support of your governmental structure? Why would the conditions be different, whether quick or long?

Israel claim it was opportunistic. Military leaders were meeting in one spot. Nuclear talks apparently stalled. Ramadan. Shabbat. Element of surprise with a daytime attack.

That said, US forces have been positioning for weeks in the region while an agreement was being negotiated.

Nothing was going to happen before the State of the Union on Wednesday, nor during the Winter Olympics, but I’ve been watching military aircraft and ME live cams all week expecting it to happen.

So not imminent threat to the American military. So needed Congressional approval?

 

[Warwick1991]

Makes taking out a school full of kids seem like carelessness, or worse, if they're capable of that kind of precision.

MOO

It could have been a missile from either side that fell short of its target and caused a tragedy.

Iran has anti-aircraft missiles, as well as several other types. In 2020, the Iranians downed a Ukrainian passenger plane with many Iranian citizens aboard. This was by mistake, shortly after the aircraft took off from Tehran. Iran has been launching missiles at Israel and at Persian Gulf countries, and it's possible that one of these missiles fell on their own territory.

It is also possible that a missile launched by the US or Israel fell short of its intended target. There would be no strategic or tactical purpose to target a school, especially since the US is encouraging regime change. If the US wants to encourage regime change, a missile attack on a school would be counterproductive, to say the least.

Intercepting missiles can also cause them to fall in unexpected places.

Just my opinion and speculation

 

[GatorsNorth]

What?? Why?? When??

The IR of 1978 was a world changing event.

It emboldened fringe groups in the ME.
Prior to that, there were Palestinian groups, but they did not have the power of an entire country.

It seems like Pakistan took cues from Iran in the 80s

What I SHOULD have said but didn’t is that Pakistan fired on Iran before the US and Israel did.

I apologize if I offended anyone. I should have been more clear.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

President Donald Trump on Truth Social warned Iran against too much vengeance.

“They better not do that ... because if they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before,” Trump said on Truth Social.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/01/iran-next-moves-us-israel-military-strikes-00806203

Three U.S. service members have been killed in action as part of U.S. military operations against Iran, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Sunday.

Five others were seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury, it said.

US military says three of its troops killed in first Iran operation casualties

Three U.S. service members have been killed and another five have been seriously wounded, in the first casualties of the unfolding U.S. operations against Iran, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

www.reuters.com