Iran launched new missile and drone strikes on Sunday targeting US military bases in the region and Israel, in retaliation for a major Iranian attack, state media said. Killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iranian state television said targets included 27 US military bases in the region, as well as the Israeli military headquarters and the Tel Aviv defense industrial complex.

“A few minutes ago, pilots of the Air Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after a multi-stage operation, successfully bombed American military bases in the Persian Gulf countries and the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” the Iranian military said in a statement carried by state television.

Also read: Iraq declares three days of mourning for Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei

Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader since 1989 and a mortal enemy of the West, was killed in the opening salvo of a major attack by the United States and Israel, sparking a new wave of retaliatory missile attacks from Tehran on Sunday.

Iranian state television confirmed Khamenei’s death early Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump announced the killing of the 86-year-old cleric, who he described as “one of the most evil figures in history.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has vowed to launch the “most ferocious” operation in its history against Israeli and US military bases in the Gulf country, which had already calculated the cost of an unprecedented series of deadly Iranian attacks.

New explosions were heard in Doha, Dubai and Manama on Sunday, and the military sounded warning sirens in central Israel in response to an Iranian missile launch, an AFP reporter said.

Iranian state television said 27 US military bases in the region, as well as the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv and the defense industrial complex, were among the targets of the new wave of attacks.

President Trump threatened that any retaliation from Tehran would result in it attacking Iran with force “never seen before.”

He had previously urged security forces to halt their actions, vowing not to stop attacks until the Islamic Republic collapses.

“This is the Iranian people’s best chance to take back their homeland,” President Trump said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also told the Iranian people: “Now is the time to work together to overthrow the regime and secure our future.”

Witnesses told AFP that cheers could be heard in the streets of Tehran and black smoke billowed into the sky above the district where Khamenei usually lives after his death was first reported from Israel.

Later, thousands of mourners, mostly dressed in black, waved Iranian flags and chanted “Death to America” ​​in Tehran’s Engrab Square, an AFP reporter said.

“An unforgettable lesson”

In Iran, the Red Crescent said on Saturday that 201 people had been killed and hundreds more injured in strikes.

Iranian judiciary officials have confirmed the killings of Ali Shamkhani, Khamenei’s top adviser, and General Mohammad Pakpour, head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.

One prominent survivor, Ali Larijani, chairman of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, has vowed defiance.

“Our brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will teach international oppressors an unforgettable lesson.”

The speaker of Iran’s parliament also said the Iranian government was prepared and had “considered all scenarios.”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a video aired on state television that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu had “crossed a line that should never be crossed” and “will suffer the consequences.”

Iran initially responded to Israeli and U.S. attacks with missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, killing at least two people in Abu Dhabi and one in Tel Aviv, but launched new attacks after state media confirmed Khamenei’s death.

Questions about inheritance

Iran had already seen intense speculation about Khamenei’s successor, given his age. Upon his death, many officials expected greater strength from the Revolutionary Guards, which have deep roots in Iran’s economy.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and two other senior officials will lead the country in a transition period after Khamenei’s death, state television reported on Sunday.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the pro-Western shah who was ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution, said any successor in the system would be illegitimate.

Prime Minister Pahlavi welcomed the death of Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader after Ruhollah Khomeini, saying, “With his death, the Islamic Republic has effectively come to an end and will soon be consigned to the dustbin of history.”

Pahlavi, who has lived in exile near Washington for most of his life, bills himself as a figure in transition to a secular democracy, but he does not enjoy the support of all opposition parties.

Attacks across Iran

Iranian judicial authorities said 108 people were killed in a single airstrike on a school in the south, but AFP was unable to access the scene to confirm the death toll or the circumstances of the incident.

Meanwhile, in Israel, streets were deserted as residents fled to evacuation centers as the explosions of intercepted Iranian missiles echoed overhead.

No casualties were reported in the latest airstrike, but Israeli emergency services said an Iranian missile attack killed one woman in the Tel Aviv area, and about 20 others were injured in the previous airstrike.

Smoke billowed overnight from U.S. military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

“When I heard the noise, I screamed in fear,” said Yana Hassan, a 15-year-old student in Bahrain who was near the strike.

Two people were reported killed in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and four others injured as smoke and flames erupted from Dubai’s famous artificial island, The Palm.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards contacted ships and announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil shipments from the Gulf, but it was not clear whether the threat was being carried out.

unprecedented scale

When the Israeli-American operation first began, residents of Tehran went about their business as usual. Security forces quickly flooded the streets, shops downed their shutters and few pedestrians dared venture outside, an AFP reporter saw.

“I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally towards the target,” a company employee in Tehran told AFP before communications and internet access were cut off.

This is the first U.S. military action of this scale to explicitly overthrow a foreign government since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Israeli military commander Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the operation was “on a completely different scale” from the 12-day war with Iran in June, in which the United States briefly joined.

Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the UAE and Israel have all closed at least part of their airspace to civilian traffic, and several airlines have canceled flights to the Middle East.

President Trump’s special envoys held talks with Iran’s foreign minister in Geneva on Thursday.

President Trump said Iranian leaders had not made enough compromises on their disputed nuclear program, but made it clear after the attack that the goal was regime change, not a nuclear deal.

Oman has been mediating and on Friday reported what it called a breakthrough in which Iran agreed not to stockpile uranium.

Oman called for an immediate ceasefire on Saturday. Iran also called on the U.N. Security Council, which holds a U.S. veto, in an emergency meeting on Saturday to act to halt the attacks.