In the roughly 40 hours since Israel and the United States began strikes on Iran on the morning of February 28, the confrontation has escalated into a region-wide kinetic exchange that Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem portray as decisive. Explosions continued to echo in Tehran through late March 1, even as Iran declared a sweeping counter‑operation and Western capitals reported damage to bases and infrastructure across the Gulf and Levant.
Tehran’s response was pitched as unprecedented. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced a series of strikes under the banner of “Real Promise 4,” saying it had launched multiple waves of missile and drone attacks over the course of the day. Iran asserted that at least 27 United States facilities and several Israeli targets were struck, and subsequently described the campaign as having reached a ninth round by late evening.
The two sides’ public tallies of damage and casualties diverge sharply. Iranian statements claimed hundreds of US casualties and the damaging of Western naval and aviation assets, including the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group; the United States dismissed the carrier claim and released figures showing three US service members killed and five seriously wounded. Israel reported strikes across central cities and infrastructure, and its health authorities recorded hundreds of wounded and multiple deaths resulting from Iranian missile and drone barrages.
The kinetic contest has not been confined to the combatants’ heartlands. Gulf states, Iraq and Kuwait reported strikes or nearby activity; the United Arab Emirates said missiles and drones had caused casualties and disrupted operations at international airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and at least one Gulf tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran declared the waterway closed to transit. Smoke was reported at Jebel Ali port in Dubai and at a US base in Iraq, underscoring how quickly the theatre widened.
Iran also moved to shore up its domestic command after the strikes. Tehran’s official media declared the death of the supreme leader and some senior commanders in the February 28 strikes, and a temporary leadership committee was formed to oversee the state while a new supreme leader is selected. The committee—led publicly by the president, the judiciary chief and a senior cleric—declared it would continue the deceased leader’s path of resistance. In public comments, US and Israeli leaders signalled both readiness to press the military campaign and openness to talks, with President Trump saying he would meet Iran’s new leadership if they sought dialogue.
Markets and logistics reacted almost immediately. Tehran’s explicit threat to hit regional oil and gas facilities and the partial disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one‑fifth of global seaborne oil passes, prompted expectations of short‑term price spikes. OPEC member states announced a modest planned output increase for April, but analysts warned that physical disruption in the Gulf could overwhelm supply adjustments.
The confrontation combines conventional strikes on airfields and command centres with asymmetric attacks on bases, ports and commercial shipping. Both militaries and proxies have been engaged across multiple states and domains—land, sea and air—raising the risk of miscalculation as national and non‑state actors act to defend territory, retaliate or signal resolve. The immediate future will hinge on whether Washington and Jerusalem seek to escalate to degrade Iran’s military capacity further, or whether diplomatic channels materialise to arrest the cycle of reprisals.