The Hub Under Pressure: Day One of the Campaign Against the Shiite Axis

Follow-up to “The Night the Axis Broke: The Opening Hours of the US-Israel Campaign Against Iran.”

The first full day of Operation Sha’agat HaAri confirmed what the opening hours suggested. The Islamic Republic cannot defend itself. Its proxies cannot save it. Its population will not rally to the flag.

What began as a coordinated preemptive strike on Tehran’s political and military core expanded into a sustained campaign that treats the entire Shiite axis — Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Houthis — as a single operational theater. Israeli and American forces struck proxy infrastructure in Iraq. Iranian missiles and proxy fire triggered alerts across Israel and the Gulf. The regime’s own media acknowledged catastrophic command losses. Air defenses over the capital remained nonexistent. The pattern: regime vulnerability at the center, uneven reactive fire from the periphery.

Israeli and US forces maintained operational tempo through the morning and into the afternoon. After the opening wave struck the Supreme Leader’s office compound, the Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of Defense, Atomic Energy Organization headquarters, and presidential institutions near Pasteur Square, follow-on sorties and cruise-missile strikes expanded the target set. Confirmed explosions hit Isfahan, Kermanshah, Tabriz, Qom, Karaj, Khorramabad, Bandar Kangan, Bushehr, and the Konarak area near the Pakistani border. The Jam missile city, Amind missile center near Tabriz, Seyyed al-Shohada base in Minab, IRGC Amad and Support Base, nuclear-related sites in Qom, the Parchin complex, and the strategic oil terminal at Kharg Island all took hits.

Then the campaign crossed a threshold. Israeli forces struck targets inside Iraq — the Jurf al-Sakhar base used by Kataib Hezbollah and other Popular Mobilization Forces elements. Local Iraqi sources reported two to three dead and multiple wounded. The message: proxy sanctuaries are no longer off-limits.

Iran’s retaliation materialized roughly two hours after the initial sirens. The IRGC announced “Operation True Promise 4" and launched ballistic missiles at Israeli territory and US positions across the Gulf.

Sirens activated across virtually every Israeli population center — Golan Heights, upper Galilee, Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Sharon, Shfela, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Israel’s layered defenses — Arrow, David’s Sling, Iron Dome — intercepted the majority of incoming threats. Police and Magen David Adom reported falling fragments in several locations. A confirmed impact occurred in Tirat HaCarmel. Damage was reported in the Haifa area, including attempts to hit Haifa Bay refineries. No large-scale Israeli casualties were confirmed.

Iranian missiles simultaneously struck at American assets. The IRGC claimed hits on Al Udeid in Qatar, Al Salem in Kuwait, Al Dhafra in the UAE, and the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. A missile reached a US facility in Bahrain, producing visible smoke and prompting shelter orders across the country. Explosions hit Abu Dhabi, Doha, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait, where alarms sounded nationwide. Qatar intercepted incoming fire with Patriot systems. Iranian state television declared its forces were “actively attacking American bases throughout the region.”

The volume of fire was real. The strategic effect was marginal.

Hezbollah opened fire from Lebanon toward northern Israel, triggering red alerts in the Golan, confrontation-line communities, and upper Galilee. The IDF responded immediately — artillery into southern Lebanon, continued airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stated he would not allow anyone to drag Lebanon into “adventures threatening its security and unity.” Hezbollah officials had already signaled reluctance for full intervention unless core red lines were crossed. Their fire remains calibrated and secondary.

This tracks with the pattern from the 12-day war in June 2025, when the proxy network largely stood down and left Tehran to absorb strikes alone. Hezbollah’s much-vaunted strategic deterrent — built over decades as Iran’s prized asset on Israel’s northern border — has once again failed to materialize as the decisive threat its architects intended.

Iraqi Shiite militias faced preemptive action before they could act. The strike on Jurf al-Sakhar delivered casualties and a message. Kataib Hezbollah had publicly threatened a “war of attrition” and warned Iraqi Kurdistan against serving as a launchpad. Other elements within the Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee signaled willingness to “open fronts.” Those threats now confront the reality that their own headquarters are targetable.

The Houthis announced preparations to join, vowing to resume missile and drone attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping. Israeli defense officials detected launch preparations from Yemeni territory. The southern arm of the axis declared solidarity with Tehran — as it does.

Unconfirmed reports added another layer. Telegram channels and Kurdish-language announcements described objects resembling cruise missiles flying low over Iraqi airspace toward Iran, warning of “many” inbound threats. Independent verification remains pending. The reports underscore the fluidity of the battlespace and the difficulty Iran faces maintaining any coherent defensive perimeter across a theater stretching from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Oman.

The most telling indicator of the day came from Tehran itself.

ISNA — Iran’s semi-official news agency, not opposition media — acknowledged that the intensity of strikes on sensitive sites killed or destroyed “a significant number of personnel of the Revolutionary Guards Corps,” many in “important operational and specialized posts.” State media does not make such admissions voluntarily. It makes them when the damage is so visible that denial would collapse faster than the buildings struck.

Cyber operations compounded the destruction. IRNA was hacked. Landlines across Tehran went down. Netblocks confirmed near-total internet blackout in parts of the country. State broadcasting came under attack. The regime’s ability to communicate with its own forces — let alone coordinate a national defense — was systematically degraded in the opening hours and has not recovered.

Russian and Chinese air-defense systems acquired by Iran produced no observable effect over the capital. The billions Tehran invested in imported air defense purchased exactly nothing.

Videos circulating on Telegram and Iran International showed residents in multiple cities celebrating the strikes. Women shouted “Death to Khamenei” from apartment windows. Students chanted “Long live the Shah.” Citizens filmed smoke rising from the Khamenei compound area and declared the strikes had hit “the house.” One woman smoked a hookah while cheering. Another told the regime: “They messed up your mouth. Enjoy it.”

These scenes build on nearly two months of the largest protests since 1979 — protests the regime met with mass slaughter. Estimates of protester deaths run as high as 32,000, consistent with figures cited by Iranian health officials. The combination of economic collapse, currency implosion, and accumulated rage has separated the population from the state.

Trump addressed the Iranian people directly: “The hour for your freedom is at hand… take over your government.” Netanyahu called on Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Balochs, and Ahwazis to “cast off the yoke of tyranny.” Prince Reza Pahlavi described the operation as a humanitarian intervention against “the machine of repression and killing” and urged Iranians to prepare to return to the streets. The messaging is synchronized, explicit, and aimed at the one force that can finish what airstrikes start.

Regional actors are reading the trajectory. Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry urged all its citizens to leave Iran immediately and avoid travel until the situation stabilizes. The Palestinian Authority called on its nationals to evacuate. These are not the actions of governments that expect the Islamic Republic to survive intact.

Mark Levin captured the mood in Washington: no classified information, he said, but certainty that President Trump would act decisively against what he called the “murderous Islamist-Nazi regime in Tehran.”

Israel mobilized an additional 70,000 reservists on top of 50,000 already called. Schools closed. Non-essential workplaces shuttered. Airspace closed. The IDF Chief of Staff convened assessments across all fronts. The operational statement: the campaign will continue as long as necessary. US officials described a multiday effort, with American aircraft and naval assets — including Tomahawk launches from the Sea of Oman — sustaining the campaign alongside Israeli forces.

Former Mossad official Shagiv Assulin observed before the strikes that “we need to stop thinking in terms of arenas. This is one war against the Shiite axis led by Iran.” The first day proved him right. Israel struck Iran and Iraq simultaneously. The IDF hit Hezbollah positions in Lebanon while intercepting Iranian missiles. American forces operated from multiple regional bases while those same bases came under fire. The entire axis engaged at once — not sequentially, but as the integrated threat network it has always been.

The asymmetry remains the dominant feature. Iranian missile volleys reached Israeli and Gulf targets but were largely blunted. Proxy activations — while real — failed to alter the momentum or protect the Iranian center. What was built over four decades as an “axis of resistance” proved, under sustained pressure, to be a collection of peripheral actors incapable of defending their hub.

The coming phase tests three propositions.

First, whether the axis can coordinate effectively once its hub is under direct and sustained pressure. The early evidence says no.

Second, whether the Iranian population — already in sustained revolt — seizes the window created by the destruction of regime infrastructure and explicit external calls for uprising. The street celebrations suggest the appetite exists. Whether appetite translates to action remains the open question.

Third, whether the proxies can generate enough distraction to relieve pressure on Tehran or whether they become additional targets in a widening campaign. The strikes on Jurf al-Sakhar answered that question before it was fully asked.

The Islamic Republic faces the most serious threat to its survival since 1979. Its command nodes are shattered. Its air defenses are exposed as worthless. Its proxy network is being engaged simultaneously rather than allowed to operate from safe havens. Communications are degraded. The population is not rallying — it is cheering from rooftops.

The strategic question is no longer whether the Shiite axis can be confronted as a unified threat. The confrontation is underway. The question is whether the Islamic Republic will still exist when it ends. The first day’s events suggest the answer is increasingly in doubt.

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