AFP/RSS

Flights across the Middle East were being cancelled Saturday as several countries slammed their airspace shut after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran.

Countries in the Middle East and around the world voiced fear of a regional conflagration after the United States and Israel carried out long-feared strikes on Iran on Saturday.

Saturday's US and Israeli strikes mark only the latest in a series of conflicts.

"The United States' military began major combat operations in Iran," Trump said in a video message posted on his social media site while he spent the weekend at his Florida golf club. "Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime."

The Fars news agency meanwhile said "seven missile impacts were reported in the Keshvardoost and Pasteur districts" of Tehran, where the residence of supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is located.

Trump had ordered the government to stop using Anthropic, calling it a threat to national security after it refused to agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models.

The aircraft, a C-130 Hercules transport plane, veered off the runway at El Alto International Airport and crashed into an avenue, destroying multiple cars and damaging trucks, local media footage showed.

Trump has ordered the biggest military build-up in decades in the Middle East, with the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, approaching the coast of Israel, as he demands Iran agree to sweeping concessions on concerns starting with its nuclear program.

Views on the Middle East divide sharply along partisan lines, with the shift over the past year the result of more independents souring on Israel.

The move came a day after a round of Oman-mediated talks between Iran and the US seen as a last-ditch bid to avert war, though initial optimism was tempered by Tehran warning Washington must drop "excessive demands" to reach a deal.