Over Monday and Tuesday, Israeli and American military forces tried to shift their attacks from first-tier military and command Iranian targets to a much broader set of targets, which could eventually potentially tip the balance for toppling the Islamic regime itself.
Although former Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and most of his top military and intelligence officials were killed early Saturday morning, the regime has tens of thousands of hardcore Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps supporters and potentially millions of general supporters from the Basij militia and otherwise.
While Israel had managed to drop 2,500 bombs on the Islamic Republic's forces already by Monday night, a pace which, within a couple of days, could exceed all the bombs dropped on it over 12 days in June 2025, the US appeared to have attacked twice as many targets.
At the time that Israel was saying it had attacked 600 targets on Monday night, the US said it had attacked 1,200 targets.
Collectively, this would mean that the joint forces have already bombed the regime equivalent to 50% more in three days than Israel bombed it in June 2025 over 12 days.
Operation broadens to quantity of targets, over quality
As the operation has broadened to a quantity of targets and not just high-quality targets, it has become more difficult to sort through exactly what significance any single given target might have for toppling the regime, versus being part of the cumulative effort.
Still, overnight, the air force struck a massive leadership complex in Tehran.
Around 100 fighter jets dropped over 250 bombs on the complex, which sprawled over several blocks.
The IDF said that while referred to as one general complex, the buildings included the President's headquarters, the headquarters of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a compound used by the Islamic Republic's most senior forum for meetings, along with a key headquarters for training Iranian military officers.
“The leadership and security officials of the terror regime convened in the compound frequently," conducting situational assessments regarding "the Iranian nuclear program and advancing the plan to destroy the State of Israel,” the IDF continued.
There were also unconfirmed reports that Iran's Quds Force coordinator for Lebanon, Daoud Ali Zaada, had been assassinated by the IDF.
Mid-Tuesday afternoon, the IDF said that its 60 waves of attacks were now expanding from a focus on the Tehran area to more attacks in Western Iran.
This included attacks on dozens of ballistic missile launchers in order to reduce the regime's ability to continue to shower the Israeli home front with missiles.
Despite any general progress by the IDF and US forces, Tehran had already managed to attack the Israeli home front up to five times by midday Tuesday, including two to three times in the morning (one air siren may have been a false alarm) and twice in the afternoon.
There were unconfirmed reports of hits in the north, on Petah Tikvah, in Bnei Brak, and possibly elsewhere in central Israel.
Magen David Adom said it was treating three patients who had suffered moderate harm.