Turkey said ‌that NATO air defenses destroyed a ballistic missile headed into its airspace, a notable event as it appears to mark the first time a NATO member has been drawn into the expanding Middle East conflict. According to NATO Article 5, an armed attack on one NATO member is deemed an attack on the entire alliance, committing members to assist the attacked party. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said he had “no sense” the attack would “trigger anything like Article 5” in a press conference on Wednesday with Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“All necessary steps to defend our lands and airspace will be taken without hesitation,” Turkey’s presidential office said in a statement. “Necessary responses will be given within the framework of international law against any hostile attitudes that may be encountered.”

The development comes on the fifth day of joint U.S.-Israeli “combat operations” against Iran. Trump announced “Operation Epic Fury” over the weekend, citing urgency preventing the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism “from threatening America and our core national security interests.” 

Iran retaliated with strikes across the Middle East after the regime’s decadeslong ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed alongside senior military personnel and the destruction of large swaths of Tehran’s Navy. 

STATE DEPARTMENT DEPLOYING MILITARY AIRCRAFT TO EVACUATE US CITIZENS FROM MIDDLE EAST

The joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran continues. On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said one of its F-35 fighter jets shot down an Iranian warplane over Tehran for the first time. The fighter jets were previously only known to have shot down unmanned aerial targets, such as drones. 

In the U.S., Hegseth said that the Pentagon sank “an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters.” “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” he told reporters. Hegseth did not name the Iranian ship that was attacked, but it appears to be the IRIS Dena, which went down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka. At least 101 people are missing, one is dead, and 78 are injured, according to Reuters.