Israel Hits Tehran Security Forces and Qom Succession-Linked Site as Iran Fires 40 Ballistic Missiles at US Targets

Israel has widened its strike campaign inside Iran on Wednesday, and targeted security and internal control forces in Tehran after it earlier hit a building in Qom linked by Iranian media to the clerical panel charged with selecting Iran’s next supreme leader, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched a fresh volley of ballistic missiles and Iran-backed groups signaled potential new fronts across the region.

Representational Image Via: IDF

The Israeli military said it carried out a series of strikes across Tehran aimed at the Basij and other internal security-related buildings. It described the targets as part of Iran’s security apparatus that has suppressed protests in the past. 

Iranian semiofficial outlets also reported an airstrike in the holy city of Qom that hit a building they linked to the Assembly of Experts, the body tasked under Iranian law with choosing a successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the war. Iranian reports said there was no meeting taking place at the building at the time, and suggested deliberations over succession are ongoing.

Iranian state television said the Revolutionary Guard’s latest salvo involved 40 ballistic missiles fired at targets it described as associated with the U.S. military in the region, including Irbil in Iraq, two bases in Kuwait, and two U.S. warships. 

Separately, the Pentagon had on Tuesday identified four of the six U.S. service members killed so far in the war, and said they died in a drone strike in Kuwait. U.S. officials have said American forces are operating under heightened protection measures as Iran expands retaliatory options beyond Israel.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes overnight hit towns just south of Beirut’s international airport, killing at least six and wounding others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. A strike also hit a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh, with no immediate casualties reported there. 

Beirut woke to drones overhead and a new evacuation warning in a southern suburb ahead of an additional airstrike, as displaced residents continued to seek shelter in the capital amid escalating exchanges with Hezbollah.

The conflict’s spillover widened further when an Iranian-backed Iraqi militant group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said it fired drones toward Jordan targeting what it called a vital site. Jordanian state media reported sirens across the country. 

Iraqi militants have threatened Jordan in recent days over allegations that U.S. aircraft used Jordanian facilities, a claim Jordan has not confirmed in the reports provided here.

As the war enters its fifth day, casualty figures are increasing. Officials have reported nearly 800 killed in Iran, around 50 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel. Israeli authorities have said most incoming missiles have been intercepted, though impacts have caused deaths and damage in central areas. The sustained strikes, evacuation orders and expanding targets underscore how the conflict is now unfolding simultaneously across Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait and the Gulf.

Iranian state television also announced that public mourning for Khamenei will begin Wednesday, with three nights of ceremonies at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, indicating both the scale of the leadership shock and the regime’s effort to project continuity amid succession deliberations.

The strategic picture is shifting in parallel too. Israel has said it is striking missile launchers, weapons factories and now internal security targets while Iran is responding with ballistic missiles and drones that increasingly reach U.S. facilities and Gulf-linked nodes. Air travel disruptions and shipping pressures continue to reverberate, with oil markets reacting to threats against Gulf transit routes and broader investor uncertainty.