Overview
- New reporting profiles Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the war’s chief booster, pushing a “maximum lethality” approach and invoking Christian language that gives the conflict a holy-war tone.
- In the opening hours, a U.S. bombing raid killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the president later said other senior figures also died in that strike.
- Within a day, a strike hit a school in southern Iran and killed about 175 people, which reporters describe as a likely targeting error that is still being investigated.
- Following the president’s public threat to “wipe out a whole civilization,” coverage links the rhetoric to a tentative pause in major attacks, though officials have not declared an end to operations.
- Analysts say the campaign’s brinkmanship has strained U.S. alliances and left Iran with greater leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, raising risks for global shipping and energy supplies.