United States President Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of inflammatory language against Iranian leadership on Friday, labeling them “deranged scumbags” while promising that Iran would be struck “very hard” in the coming days. The remarks were posted on social media as American and Israeli warplanes conducted successive waves of bombing raids over Tehran and other Iranian targets. Trump declared it a “great honor” to be killing Iranian leaders, framing the military campaign in deeply personal terms.
The bombardment has turned daily life in Tehran into a nightmare of constant explosions and fear. A 66-year-old retired professor described buildings shaking and rubble filling the streets, begging the international community to intervene before the city was completely destroyed. A 42-year-old shopkeeper in central Tehran said she had counted six explosions in a single hour and had taped newspapers over her windows in a desperate attempt at protection.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth held a press conference confirming that more than 15,000 enemy targets had been struck since the war began, exceeding 1,000 strikes per day. Hegseth also revealed that Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei had been wounded and likely disfigured, noting that his only public communication had been a written statement with no accompanying voice or video. Israel’s military separately reported striking over 200 targets across Iran within a single 24-hour window.
The conflict has rippled violently across the broader Middle East, with Hezbollah firing rocket salvoes into northern Israel and wounding nearly 60 people. In Lebanon, more than 600 people have been killed and over 800,000 displaced since the latest round of fighting began. Saudi Arabia intercepted nearly 50 Iranian drones in a single day, while in Oman, two people were killed when drones crashed in the industrial region of Sohar.
Trump’s late-night announcement that US forces had “obliterated” every military target on Iran’s Kharg Island underscored the extraordinary scale of the campaign. He warned that Iran’s oil infrastructure on the island could be targeted next if Tehran interfered with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which around one-fifth of global oil and gas supplies pass. With European nations opening diplomatic back-channels and global markets watching nervously, the crisis showed every sign of deepening rather than resolving.