President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent

The US president was speaking at the White House for the first time since launching the strikes, after Keir Starmer said the UK "does not believe in regime change from the skies".

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he ordered U.S. forces to join Israel's attack ​on Iran because he believed Iran was about to strike first, contradicting the rationale offered a day earlier by his secretary of state for how the ‌war began.

The US and Israeli attack on Iran killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggered retaliatory strikes on multiple countries in the region and is reverberating around the world. Related violence expanded on Sunday to a growing number of places,

The four US Army reserve soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait on Sunday, one day after the US and Israel began the operation.

Hundreds of people have been killed, the vast majority in Iran, where information has been limited amid poor communications and air strikes.

"This is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with," the US president says, adding he's "not happy" with the UK's initial response to US-Israeli strikes.

Monifa Drayton, the former director of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party, defeated Vilma Leake, who was seeking her tenth term.