Israel targets missile sites in Iran amid escalating tensions

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that its "fighter jets completed a series of strikes on military targets in western Iran".

They said that "approximately 25 fighter jets struck over 40 missile infrastructure components directed toward the State of Israel, including missile storage sites and military operatives of the Iranian Regime”.

Additionally, they said this morning they "struck five Iranian AH-1 attack helicopters that were at a military base in the Kermanshah area."

Israeli warplanes pounded Iran’s capital overnight as Iran launched a small barrage of missiles at Israel with no reports of casualties.

An Iranian official warned that any U.S. intervention in the conflict "would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”

He did not elaborate, but thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons.

The U.S. has threatened a massive response to any attack.

The latest Israeli strikes hit a facility used to make uranium centrifuges and another that made missile components, the Israeli military said.

It said it had intercepted 10 missiles overnight as Iran’s retaliatory barrages diminish.

Iran defends action

Iran's ambassador to the UK defended his country's actions before the Foreign Affairs Committee, stressing that Iran is not aiming to build a nuclear weapon.

"There is no desire, there is no intention to produce the nuclear bomb," Seyed Ali Mousavi declared at the meeting.

Mousavi also stressed that Iran will remain "in the middle of negotiation" with the U.S.

In a tense encounter with a few MPs, Mousavi rejected the label "regime" in referencing Iran's authorities.

"My government is a legal government and there is no doubt about it," he added.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program was peaceful, though it was the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, was still conducting limited inspections in the country.

U.S. intelligence agencies, as well, have said they did not believe Iran was actively pursuing the bomb.

Meanwhile, explosions were heard in Tehran early Wednesday as intense Israeli airstrikes again targeted Iran’s capital in a conflict that a human rights group said had killed at least 585 people across Iran and wounded 1,326 others.