NYT report: Israel-US joint attack on Iran more extensive than June 2025

Israeli and US attacks on Iran, (Wikipedia)

JAKARTA - The joint attack by the United States (US) and Israel on a number of areas in Iran on Saturday (28/2) morning is estimated to have a wider range than the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year, reported The New York Times (NYT), Saturday.

"The initial focus of the attack this time is on Iran's military infrastructure," the report quoted a number of US officials as saying.

In addition to nuclear facilities, as reported by Antara from Anadolu, Iran is believed to have more than 2,000 missiles, mainly short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, deployed at launch sites across the country, US military officials said.

Citing three Israeli security officials familiar with the operation, the newspaper also reported that the main goal of the first wave of joint attacks in Iran was to target as many leaders in the country as possible.

Officials said that like the previous attack in June last year, the attack planners sought at least a partial element of surprise, believing they had to target senior Iranian officials in the initial attack before tighter security measures complicated the effort.

Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was not notified in advance of the attack, his spokesman told the newspaper.

Reed also warned in a statement on Friday before the attack began that "if war is not necessary, then it must be avoided."

He said Congress "did not receive any real briefings or intelligence" regarding the possible attack and that although Iran was a "serious" and "destabilizing" threat to the US and its allies, the administration did not present "a strategic justification for preemptive strikes."

Israel launched an attack on Iran early Saturday morning with the code name 'Lion's Roar', and declared a "special and immediate" state of emergency across the Zionist authority.

Trump then said that the United States had launched a "large-scale combat operation" in Iran.

In June last year, the United States attacked three Iranian nuclear sites ahead of the end of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.