Trump tells Iranian officials to lay down arms or ‘face death’; Blasts in northern Israel, Israel says air defences to activate; US begins ‘major combat operations; Israel launches attack on Iran’s capital

Iran’s rapid retaliation to the US and Israel’s joint military operation will test the defence systems established by the US across the Middle East, while also demonstrating Iran’s military capability, CNN’s military analyst says.

“This is the defensive posture that has been established over the past few months, and actually years, in the Gulf region, that is now being basically put to the test as the Iranians respond to the initial attack,” retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton told CNN’s Becky Anderson.

Leighton said intelligence estimates give some indication as to the capacity Iran has to retaliate, but he added its speedy response is surprising, and suggests it has been preparing for an attack of this intensity.

“They (Iran) have about 2000 to 3000 missile that they are capable of launching,” Leighton said.

“The problem that they have is that they don’t have, at least according to the intelligence estimates, they don’t have the launchers that they had.”

The military expert said Iran is believed to have about a third of the launchers it had before the June attacks last year.

“So, if that is true, if those intelligence estimates are correct, one would think that the Iranian response would have been delayed a bit. But they clearly were able to mount a response very quickly, more quickly than I expected them to,” he said.

“I expected them to mount a response but not a response of this magnitude at this particular moment in time. So, they were clearly getting ready for this. They were prepared.”