U.S. and Israel strike Iran in ‘Operation Epic Fury’ oan

OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
8:43 AM – Saturday, February 28, 2026

The United States and Israel have launched missiles at Iran’s capital city of Tehran in a joint operation dubbed by the U.S. Department of War as “Operation Epic Fury.”

The attack took place overnight, early on Saturday morning, at about 1:30 a.m. Eastern time and 10:00 a.m. Tehran time.

President Donald Trump released an eight-minute video on Truth Social shortly after the strikes, announcing that the U.S. military had begun “major combat operations in Iran.”

“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump said, appearing in a white “USA” hat. “Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”

 

“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries,” he continued.

The Israel-U.S. strike killed at least 40 people at a girls’ school in southern Iran, according to Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran’s state-run news. At least 45 others were reportedly wounded in the attack.

In his video, Trump listed the Iranian regime’s violent and deadly offenses against the U.S. and its allies in recent history.

He included the “violent takeover” of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, when 52 American citizens and diplomats were held hostage for 444 days as militants demanded the Shah be returned from the U.S., where he was being treated for cancer. The hostages were released on the day of President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981.

He also highlighted the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel.

“The regime’s proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as US naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lands,” Trump said. “It’s been mass terror and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.”

 

He argued that the regime has “armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts” for decades, including Hamas, the group responsible for the “monstrous” October 7^th attack on Israel.

Not only does it terrorize foreign nations and allies of the U.S., but it’s also brutal in its handling of its own people, Trump explained, referring to Iran’s crackdown on protests that spread across all 31 provinces.

“Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested,” he said.

Due to the regime’s violent nature, Trump has held that it “can never have a nuclear weapon.” The recent strike is seemingly the next step after his administration “obliterated” its nuclear program in Operation Midnight Hammer last June.

“After that attack we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons and we sought repeatedly to make a deal,” said the president.