Name: Latest on Iran as Trump releases new statement
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I'm Errol Barnett at the CBS Broadcast center here in New York City.

Our continuing coverage here on CBS News 24.

A new chapter of history is unfolding this weekend.

The killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the hands of the US And Israeli military.

It's reverberating throughout the Middle East.

In addition to The Ayatollah, some 40 other senior members of his regime are also dead.

After announcing what the US Is calling Operation Epic Fury, President Trump says now's the time for the Iranian people to rise up and reclaim their country.

But Iran's foreign minister says the Islamic Republic regime will not be defeated.

Those words backed up today with retaliatory strikes from Iran targeting Israel and several countries in the Gulf region hosting American military bases.

This war with Iran is already proving to be deadly for the US as well.

This morning, Central Command reports three service members were killed in action with five others seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

Earlier, President Trump discussed the attack in a fresh new video posted on Truth Social.

An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American.

We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons.

Would allow them to extort the world to their evil.

We're not happening to us and we're not going to let it happen to others.

The United States has the strongest military the world has ever seen.

There's never been a military like we possess and frankly, there's nobody even close.

But we are now using that military for good.

We're undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time and place, but

for our children and their children, just as our ancestors have done for us many, many years ago.

This is the duty and the burden of a free people.

These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.

For almost 50 years, these wicked extremists have been attacking the United States while chanting the slogan death to America or Death to Israel or both.

They are the world's number one state sponsor of terror.

We are the world's greatest and most powerful nation so we can do something about what they do.

These intolerable threats will not continue any longer.

I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military police, to Lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death.

Our senior national security correspondent Charlie Dagger filed this report on escalating hostilities from Tel Aviv.

Iran began 40 days of mourning for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after state run media confirmed that he was killed at his Tehran compound.

His successor has been announced as Alireza Arafi to lead a temporary council.

But who's really in charge and where they can even meet safely is another matter.

Israel Defense Forces released this video today claiming to show multiple airstrikes blowing up Iranian government headquarters this morning.

CBS News cannot independently verify that claim.

Intelligence sources tell CBS News as many as 40 senior Iranian officials were killed in the first wave of strikes.

Iran's Islamic Republican Guard Corps vowed revenge, saying they've launched the most ferocious offensive operation in the history of the Iranian armed forces towards the occupied territories and American terrorist bases on day two of the war.

Nearby Gulf State allies have already borne the brunt of multiple drone and missile strikes, though none as hard as Israel itself.

An Iranian missile strike overnight in the heart of Tel Aviv left a woman in her 40s dead and more than 40 injured, including seven children.

Throughout the night, air raids, sirens and text messages sent residents here scrambling for their bomb shelters.

This missile managed to get through one of the most advanced missile defense systems in the world, and

U.S. military officials tell CBS News at four forces from U.S.

central Command continue to launch airstrikes and cruise missiles against Iran, targeting Iranian air defenses, launchers and missile stockpiles and Iranian regime infrastructure in coordination with Israeli Defense Forces.

Today, the US Embassy here in Israel changed its advisory to American citizens here, saying the embassy is not in a position to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel, directing that all US Government employees and their family members shelter in place in or near their residences until further notice.

CBS News has confirmed the CIA had been tracking Iran's supreme leader for months and it gained advance insight into a Saturday morning meeting of senior Iranian officials which accelerated the timeline for this strike.

CBS News intelligence and national security reporter Olivia Garzas joins me now from our D.C.

bureau to discuss this intel and how it played a role.

Olivia explained for us the timeline because we'd been reporting for weeks that the US Was preparing for this type of operation with Air Force carrier strike groups in the region.

But what information really tipped the US to strike Sunday?

Ariel was this was the culmination of a months long intelligence gathering effort that was focused on one of the hardest targets in the World.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Khamenei was known to move around frequently and unpredictably because of his value as an intelligence target.

And from that standpoint, Iran has long been described as a black box.

It's got a closed, opaque system that makes insight into its top leadership exceptionally difficult.

But in the weeks following Operation Midnight Hammer last spring, the CIA was able to build a clearer picture of how and where Khamenei was operating.

According to a person familiar with the matter that we spoke with today, the agency tracked, tracked his movements for months, gaining more and more fidelity on his location and as he moved.

And then recently, we haven't been able to learn exactly when there was a key break.

Intelligence learned that Khamenei was expected at a Saturday morning meeting along with senior officials at this compound in Tehran.

And that information was shared with Israeli counterparts.

And according to our source, it moved up the timeline for an Israeli missile strike on that compound in order to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the senior level gathering.

Any operation like this carries with it serious risks.

And today we've got the confirmation that three US Service members were killed, five others seriously injured during this operation.

Do we have any sense of where they may have been stationed?

Well, that is the latest that we're learning this morning from U.S. central Command.

The first known confirmed U.S. casualties in this operation.

Five individuals seriously injured and several others suffering what we are told were shrapnel injuries and concussions.

But there are major combat operations still underway, obviously, and officials are stressing that the situation remains fluid.

Unfortunately, these numbers can and probably will increase, as the President himself warned in his original online address.

We don't at this point have additional information right now about where the officers were stationed or their names.

The Pentagon has said that it would release that information after their families have been notified.

And as you note, Olivia, after the US Israeli strikes on Iran, there have been counter strikes from Iran.

Now, meanwhile, Iranian leaders have indicated they may choose a new supreme Leader in the next few days.

What might regime change look like and how quickly could it even happen as this is all still unfolding right now?

I think when Secretary Rubio was asked it exactly a month ago, his answer was telling, no one knows.

I think that picture is only getting a little bit clearer now, both because intelligence agencies have been explicitly tasked with mapping out possible succession scenarios and because these recent strikes have, quite frankly, removed many of the regime figures who might have stepped into power to replace the Supreme Leader.

President Trump told CBS News and other outlets that he believes that diplomacy with Iran may now be getting easier and even suggested that there were, quote, in his words, good candidates to lead Iran after the supreme leader's death.

But he hasn't identified any of them publicly.

This morning, the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Ton Cotton acknowledged that there's intense internal jockeying underway in Tehran as different figures are positioning themselves in this deliberative process to replace the ayatollah, including some who may be trying to become, as he put it, the Delsey Rodriguez of Iran, which is a reference, of course, to the transition we have been seeing there in Venezuela after the US Intervened there.

Olivia Garzas, we appreciate your reporting, joining us from Washington.

Now, in that new Truth Social video, the president also spoke about the three service members who were killed in Operation Epic Fury.

Listen, as one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives.

CBS News White House correspondent Willie James Inman is following the president.

He's in West Palm Beach, Florida, for us this morning.

What have we heard from the president today?

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Latest on Iran as Trump releases new statement

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