The war to fatally undermine the Iranian regime will continue for “weeks, not days,” Senator Tom Cotton told CBS News. But, as of hour 13 of offensive operations, it is not clear how much of the regime will be around in weeks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that decapitation strikes on senior Iranian officials at the outset of hostilities took out Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself. “There are growing signs that Khamenei is no longer around,” the Israeli leader claimed. “This dictator” is “gone”:
Senior officials in Israel were informed:
Khamenei has been eliminated. His body was recovered from the ruins of his palace.— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) February 28, 2026
Iran’s defense minister and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also eliminated in the first minutes of joint U.S.–Israeli operations, according to Reuters.
In addition, U.S. and Israeli operations are believed to have successfully killed several “top leaders” of the Iranian intelligence apparatus, including the head of Iranian counterintelligence and counterterrorism. The elimination of the “top echelon” of the security apparatus, according to the Washington Post, is “inducing panic” within the ranks of Iran’s security services. “Everything is falling apart there,” said one unnamed Western security official, “we’re seeing it, and feeling it.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. military reports no casualties as of this writing, and only light damage to its facilities and no interruption to its operations as a result of Iranian retaliation against a variety of targets across the Gulf region.
Update:
Senior Israeli security official tells Fox’s @TreyYingst
More than 40 senior Iranian security and regime figures were killed in the opening strikes this morning. This is one of the largest regime "decapitation operations" conducted in modern warfare history, the official added.…
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) February 28, 2026