The First 12 Hours: How “Operation Epic Fury” Decapitated Tehran and Sparked a Regional Firestorm
TEHRAN / WASHINGTON — On February 28, 2026, the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East was permanently rewritten in the span of a single morning. Following months of massive military build-ups in the Persian Gulf—unprompted by ordinary standards but triggered by the Trump administration’s response to widespread domestic crackdowns within Iran—a joint U.S. and Israeli air campaign shattered decades of strategic ambiguity.
Code-named “Operation Epic Fury,” the opening salvo featured nearly 900 simultaneous precision strikes executed over a grueling 12-hour window. Stealth bombers, ship-launched Tomahawk missiles, and low-altitude drone swarms overwhelmed Iran’s air defense grids. The primary objective of the mission was structural decapitation. Western intelligence had tracked the exact movements of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before he could retreat to heavily fortified deep-underground bunkers. The strike succeeded, killing Khamenei alongside dozens of top-tier commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
However, the precision of the operation was immediately marred by staggering collateral costs. In Minab, near the strategic port of Bandar Abbas, an allied missile targeting an adjacent IRGC naval base strayed off-course, striking a local girls’ school and killing an estimated 170 civilians. The tragedy instantly galvanized a highly fractured Iranian population, uniting reformists and hardliners alike under a banner of fierce national fury. Within hours of the strike, Iran’s military apparatus proved that while it was decapitated, it was far from paralyzed, launching hundreds of retaliatory ballistic missiles across the region.