Author Archives: stuartbramhall

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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Seizing the Kharg: Washington’s path to defeat in the Persian Gulf

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Photo Credit: The Cradle

Aniss Rais

Four weeks of US-Israeli war on Iran – and the stakes have climbed far higher than Washington anticipated. US President Donald Trump threatened on Truth Social to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened within 48 hours.

The deadline passed. He blinked and, for the second time, postponed his own ultimatum, recasting it as ‘productive conversations.’ Tehran denied any talks and insisted the reversal was driven by “fear of Iran’s response.”

The US-Israeli air campaign was supposed to break Iran. It didn’t. Now the hawks are pushing for boots on the ground. But the ground war being floated does not simply risk American lives on an island 15 miles (around 24 kilometers) off Iran’s coast. It threatens the entire US military architecture in the Persian Gulf – the bases, the alliances, and the energy infrastructure that has underwritten American dominance in West Asia for decades.

In an interview with NBC News, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in response to a question about a possible ground invasion by the US, delivered four words the Pentagon had no answer for: “We are waiting for them,” which became a meme in the process. The bluff has been called. The question now is whether showing Washington’s hand collapses the entire table.

Raising the stakes with an empty hand

The ground invasion discourse is no longer hypothetical. Pentagon officials have submitted detailed preparation requests for deploying ground forces. Three Marine amphibious assault groups are converging on the Persian Gulf: the USS Tripoli carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit from Japan, the USS Boxer with the 11th MEU from California, and roughly 1,500 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

By the time all units arrive, between 6,000 and 8,000 US ground troops will be within striking distance of Iran. But the composition of these forces exposes the gap between rhetoric and reality. Military analyst Ruben Stewart noted that what is being deployed is “consistent with discrete, time-limited operations, not a sustained ground campaign.”

At the same time, Israel’s own military is showing signs of strain. Chief of staff Eyal Zamir warned on 25 March that the army is “going to collapse in on itself,” citing an eroding reserve force and a deepening manpower crisis as wars stretch from Gaza to Lebanon and now Iran.

Washington is pushing more chips to the center of the table – but the hand behind them remains weak. The scenarios now circulating form an escalation ladder where each rung risks pulling the US deeper into a fight it is structurally unprepared to sustain.

Pickaxe Mountain and the raid that takes too long 

The most politically attractive option is a covert raid on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile – believed to be around 400 kilograms enriched to roughly 60 percent, possibly stored near Isfahan or deep inside Pickaxe Mountain.

But the problem is one Sun Tzu identified centuries ago: speed is the essence of war – yet this mission demands the opposite. Extracting nuclear material requires troops to remain on-site long enough for Iranian forces to respond.

Former CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel described such operations as “feasible,” but issued a clear warning: “You’re going to have to take care of them, resupply them, medevac them. And that requires a logistical tail, and at some point that tail has to be protected as well.”

Washington still carries the scar of Operation Eagle Claw – the failed 1980 hostage rescue that collapsed in the Iranian desert and helped end Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Kharg Island: The trap disguised as a shortcut

If covert raids carry too much risk for too little certainty, the next option on the table is a limited territorial seizure – and Washington’s hawks have converged on a single target: Kharg Island.

An eight-square-mile (around 20.7 square kilometers) coral outcrop in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg processes roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports. US Senator Lindsey Graham urged Trump to “take Kharg Island,” while retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg described himself as a “big believer in boots on the ground” there.

The logic sounds surgical: seize Iran’s economic lifeline and force Tehran to the table. But it collapses under even basic scrutiny. Kharg sits just 15 miles (around 24 kilometers) off the Iranian mainland – well within range of coastal missile batteries, drones, rockets, and artillery. Any US force stationed there would face “near-constant bombardment.”

Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery put it bluntly: “If we seize Kharg Island, they’re going to turn off the spigot on the other end. It’s not like we control their oil production.”

Sun Tzu warned that there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. Modern analyses reach the same conclusion. Think tank assessments warn that Kharg is a textbook case of mission creep, pulling US forces step by step toward a wider ground war.

The war Iran has prepared for

What Washington’s hawks consistently overlook is that Iran has spent decades preparing for precisely this scenario – not to match US firepower, but to make any ground war prohibitively costly.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is divided into 31 autonomous ground divisions, each capable of operating independently if central command is disrupted.

When strikes killed the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, and Basij chief Gholamreza Soleimani, the military apparatus continued launching missiles, closing the Strait of Hormuz, and fighting. A command structure designed to survive decapitation appears to be doing exactly that.

At sea, Iran’s naval doctrine relies on asymmetric warfare. Its reported arsenal: hundreds of fast attack craft, coastal missile batteries, an estimated 5,000 naval mines, over 1,000 unmanned suicide vessels, and Ghadir-class midget submarines built for the Gulf’s shallow waters. The Persian Gulf is not an open ocean. It is a corridor shaped by geography and fortified by doctrine – designed to swallow conventional naval power.

On land, the scale alone is decisive. Iran is four times the size of Iraq, with a population exceeding 90 million. Estimates suggest that any conventional invasion would require “hundreds of thousands of troops.”

Then there is the Basij paramilitary network, reportedly capable of mobilizing up to a million reservists – and the IRGC’s decades of experience coordinating asymmetric resistance across the region.

The US currently has fewer than 8,000 moving into position. This is not a war Iran needs to win – but one it is designed to make Washington unable to sustain.

Winning Kharg, losing the Gulf

Even if Washington succeeds tactically – seizing Kharg and declaring victory – the strategic consequences are immediate.

Since the war began, Iran has already demonstrated its escalation capacity. Missiles and drones have targeted US-linked infrastructure across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Energy facilities, airports, and desalination plants have all come under fire.

A seizure of Kharg would likely trigger a far broader response. Iranian officials have explicitly warned of “continuous and relentless attacks” on regional infrastructure if Iranian territory is occupied.

Tehran has also signaled it could expand the conflict to the Bab al-Mandab Strait through allied Ansarallah-aligned forces in Yemen, threatening a second global chokepoint.

Every US position in the Gulf depends on supply lines that run through the very states already under threat. Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet. The UAE hosts Al-Dhafra. Kuwait functions as a logistical hub.

As the Stimson Center noted, Gulf states already fear Trump could declare victory and leave them fighting Iran alone.

The political ceiling in Washington

If Iran’s strategy forms the military trap, US public opinion may be the political one.

Polling shows overwhelming opposition to a ground war. A Quinnipiac survey found 74 percent of voters oppose deploying troops, while CNN recorded minimal support for escalation.

More significantly, dissent is emerging within Washington itself. Republican lawmakers have openly questioned the gap between public messaging and classified briefings. Representative Nancy Mace warned that the justifications presented to the public differ from those given behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in supplemental funding at $1 billion per day. When the lawmakers holding the purse strings call the war’s justifications “deeply troubling,” the political chips are running out – before a single body bag has arrived from Iranian soil.

Funding is already becoming a fault line, with projected costs running at extraordinary levels.

The last card

The escalation ladder has its own momentum. Every failed pressure tactic – every ineffective strike, every walked-back ultimatum – increases the pressure to climb higher.

Kharg Island is no longer theoretical. The Marines are already at sea. The 82nd Airborne is mobilizing.

Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and issued its challenge.

The question is no longer whether the US can seize Kharg, but whether it can afford to – in blood, in treasure, in the stability of its Gulf allies, and in the political credibility that evaporates the moment the first bodybag arrives home.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/seizing-the-kharg-washingtons-path-to-defeat-in-the-persian-gulf

Iran Threatens to Seize UAE and Bahrain Coastlines if U.S. Invades

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Peta

(DEFENCE SECURITY ASIA) — Iran’s warning that its armed forces could seize the coastlines of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain if the United States launches a ground invasion signals a potential shift from missile-and-drone confrontation toward territorial escalation that would directly threaten the forward operating network sustaining U.S. military power in the Gulf.

The statement, delivered on Iranian state television by national security analyst Morteza Simiari, frames coastal seizure operations as a prepared contingency rather than rhetorical escalation, implying that Tehran is positioning its force posture to open additional fronts designed to complicate American logistics and alliance cohesion.

By linking the threat explicitly to any U.S. “mistake” in the region, the warning creates a strategic condition in which Gulf host nations become immediate operational targets, transforming the regional conflict from a bilateral confrontation into a multi-theatre scenario centred on access, basing, and maritime control.

The emphasis on coastal seizure introduces the possibility that Iran intends to challenge the geographical foundation of U.S. military presence in the Gulf, where air bases, naval facilities, and supply hubs along allied shorelines form the backbone of sustained American operations.

Such signalling also suggests Tehran is preparing to shift the conflict from long-range strike exchanges toward proximity warfare near key maritime chokepoints, increasing the risk that commercial shipping lanes and energy export routes could become contested operational zones.

By highlighting the UAE and Bahrain specifically, the warning targets two states hosting critical infrastructure supporting U.S. deployments, reinforcing the message that any ground invasion of Iran would trigger immediate pressure on forward bases rather than remaining confined to Iranian territory.

The statement further implies that Iran views territorial escalation as a tool to fracture coalition cohesion by forcing Gulf partners to reconsider the security costs of allowing their territory to be used for American military operations.

In strategic terms, the threat represents an attempt to expand deterrence beyond Iran’s borders by signalling that the defence of U.S. regional posture could become more complex, more expensive, and more politically risky if the conflict transitions into a ground campaign.

Warning Signals Possible Amphibious Contingency Planning

Morteza Simiari stated during the IRIB broadcast that Iranian forces are prepared to “take action” if the United States escalates further, asserting that entering the coasts of the UAE and Bahrain is already part of operational planning and could fundamentally alter the regional landscape.

He said Iran has conducted exercises for coastal operations, indicating that the threat refers to rehearsed military scenarios rather than hypothetical political messaging, which suggests that amphibious or littoral warfare concepts are being incorporated into Iran’s deterrence signalling.

Although Simiari is not an official government spokesman, his repeated appearances on state television and perceived links to security institutions mean such statements are widely interpreted as controlled messaging intended to communicate escalation thresholds without issuing formal declarations.

The use of state media as the platform for the warning allows Tehran to transmit strategic signals while preserving deniability, a pattern often employed when Iranian decision-makers want to influence adversary calculations without committing to binding policy positions.

Observers interpret the remarks as part of a broader communication strategy designed to warn Gulf states that hosting American forces could make their territory a primary battlefield if the conflict transitions from strikes to ground operations.

The emphasis on coastal seizure rather than missile retaliation indicates a shift in the narrative toward territorial leverage, implying that Iran wants adversaries to consider the vulnerability of fixed bases and infrastructure along the Arabian Gulf littoral.

Such messaging also reinforces the idea that the conflict would not remain confined to Iranian territory in the event of a U.S. invasion, but would instead spread to neighbouring states that provide logistical depth to American operations.

The reference to military exercises suggests Tehran intends to demonstrate preparedness for operations that would disrupt shipping routes, base access, and energy infrastructure concentrated along the Gulf coastline.

This framing strengthens Iran’s deterrence posture by implying that escalation could rapidly expand beyond air and missile exchanges into a wider regional confrontation affecting multiple sovereign territories.

[…]

Via https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/iran-threatens-seize-uae-bahrain-coastlines-us-invasion-gulf-war-us-bases-risk/

Smoke and Mirrors: The Iran War as Deflection from Economic Collapse

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Trump: 'We don't need help' reopening Straits of Hormuz

Dmitry Orlov

Today the US-Israeli war on Iran turns one month old. The Strait of Hormuz is now open for Iran’s friends only (China is at the top of the list; Thailand just joined the club). A thousand oil tankers stay anchored within the Persian Gulf with scant hope of sailing out of it any time soon. The tankers that had made it out though the Strait before the attacks began have by now reached their destinations. Call that “old oil” and it has already been repriced up. But now will come “new oil” and its prices will be limited only by the ability to pay because the volumes will be restricted to just 80% of what oil importing nations require.

As I explained in two of my last two articles (1, 2) the US attack on Iran had scant chances of success. Why, then, did it happen? Explanations range from plain old stupidity — “Look who’s in charge!” — to “It doesn’t matter.” Why wouldn’t it matter? Why would a military quagmire that shuts down much of the world’s economy and triggers force majeure breaches of contract throughout much of it — not matter? One answer that immediately springs to mind is that “This sucker is going down” anyway. The attack on Iran would then be simply used as a way to deflect attention from this fact. The plan, then, would be as follows:

1. Attack Iran
2. Watch global economy seize up as a direct result
3. Blame Iran to pacify the angry mobs back home

But is this sucker going down? Let’s briefly review the fiscal position of the United States. According to the numbers most recently published by the US Treasury, it is as follows:

• Assets: $6 trillion
• Liabilities: $48 trillion
• Additional liabilities (virtually all social spending): $88 trillion
• Household debt: $19 trillion (a record)

That is, for every dollar the US actually has there are almost 26 dollars that the US must have but doesn’t. Another way to look at it is that the US has a debt to GDP ratio of over 500% while anything over 100% is generally considered economically fatal. Please keep comments about “the printing press” to yourself; when the only oil that makes it out of the Persian Gulf has to be paid for in yuan and when even the Gulf Arabs are selling off US debt as fast as they can, printing even more dollars would only accelerate the fiscal death spiral.

The Washingtonians must understand full well that no one will bail out the American economy. This may have been possible before because other nations saw potential in it. Indeed, the United States was the engine of innovation and global economic growth for several decades. But today the American economy is no longer in the lead and the rest of the world would rather turn off its life support and let it die.

What most mainstream economists would recommend in this situation is austerity: cut social spending before it’s too late; cancel Social Security, Medicare, disability, SNAP, housing subsidies, federal pensions and much else. Of course, such measures would not be sufficient unless the US defense budget were also zeroed out. But such measures would be unpopular and no politician would want to be held responsible for taking them. This is where tipping the entire world into a horrific energy crisis would be advantageous: it would give the politicians someone other than themselves to blame when the money machine that keeps a good half of the US population housed and fed suddenly stops working.

That seems like a good explanation. But if you prefer “It’s the stupidity, stupid!” — that works too. Of course, starting a war that has an excellent chance of ending in defeat is pretty stupid too, so it’s stupidity any way you look at it. And, either way, “This sucker is going down.”

[…]

Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/f9ea2a7f-6529-4f32-8bc1-da7016ad4b7c

Hezbollah’s Surprise Weapons Redefine Ground Battle with Israel

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Robert Inlakesh

An Israeli “tank massacre”, reminiscent of the Lebanon war of 2006, has been taking place in southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah surprises the invading army with the use of a range of anti-tank weapons and drones.

On March 25, Hezbollah unleashed a fury on Israel’s Merkava tanks, announcing that they had struck a total of 21, in addition to striking 3 D-9 Bulldozers and 2 militarized Humvees. The following day, the Lebanese group released a series of videos depicting some of their operations.

In order to carry out so many strikes against Israeli armored vehicles, Hezbollah has traditionally used a variety of guided anti-tank guided munitions (ATGM). Prominently made use of have been weapons ranging from varying kinds of the Russian-made Kornet anti-tank systems, to the Almas (diamond) system that is an Iranian reverse-engineered version of the Israeli-made Spike AGTM, a top attack missile that is particularly effective.

During the Lebanon-Israel war of 2024, Hezbollah announced that it had destroyed a total of 59 Israeli tanks between the end of September and November 27. This time around, Hezbollah has already claimed to have struck around 70. It is unclear how many of these hits damaged or destroyed the tanks, but it suffices to say that this is a significant development.

Between October of 2023 and October of 2024, the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to have carried out 480 operations targeting Israeli tanks. A later report by Israeli news outlet Maariv cited data arguing that at least 500 military vehicles of varying kinds had sustained damage in Gaza. How many were totally destroyed is unknown, due to Israeli military censorship.

However, even a damaged tank is a major issue as they take a long time to repair, and the process is often costly. The reason why the figures from Gaza matter is that, in the case of the Palestinian resistance groups, they primarily used weapons like the Yassin-105 tandem warhead RPG, and then later, they were forced to use less sophisticated kinds of RPGs. Hezbollah, by comparison, has a much more sophisticated arsenal of anti-tank weapons.

A Game Changer?

During this war, which Hezbollah entered on March 2, citing Israel’s 15,400 ceasefire violations against the country and refusal to withdraw from occupied territory, a new weapon appears to be shaping the group’s ground confrontation with the Israeli invading army. That is the FPV (first-person-view) drone, equipped with heavy explosive charges.

The video published on March 26 by the Lebanese group’s military media featured one of these FPV drones directly striking a weak spot on an Israeli Merkava tank. Since March 25, when these weapons started to be used to combat invading Israeli military vehicles, they have been deployed routinely to target their tanks.

FPV drones using a fiber-optic capability are notably immune to electromagnetic jamming, making them extremely difficult to bring down and have been used extensively in the Ukraine-Russia war. Although no statistic is presented to back up this claim, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that FPV drones account for most battlefield casualties in Ukraine.

Regardless of the precise numbers of casualties inflicted in the Ukraine-Russia war by this drone, it is broadly accepted that it has been a game-changer, with it being the weapon of choice against various kinds of tanks and armored vehicles.

Another bonus to the FPV drone, beyond its use to target weak points on military vehicles, is the fact that the recordings can also be recovered as proof of what it struck. In Baghdad, just over a week ago, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq used two FPV drones to target a US military base, with one drone filming the other striking its target.

When fighting a war against Israel, which is perhaps the most well-known military on earth for hiding its soldiers’ deaths, this can come in handy for Hezbollah, which could potentially use the footage to embarrass the Israeli military.

If Israel proceeds with its ground invasion of Lebanon, launching a full-scale invasion, it may at some point run out of tanks, or at the very least have to begin rationing its use of them.

[…]

Via https://www.palestinechronicle.com/hezbollahs-surprise-weapons-redefine-ground-battle-with-israel-analysis/

US-Israeli war on Iran drives up global fertilizer prices 40%

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Al Mayadeen

The ongoing war on Iran is driving a sharp rise in global fertilizer prices, exposing how Western-led escalation is reverberating across critical sectors such as agriculture and food production, the German-based Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported on Friday.

According to Philipp Spinne, managing director of the German Raiffeisen Association, mineral fertilizer prices have increased by 30% to 40% since the beginning of the year. He noted that current market conditions are approaching levels seen at the start of the war in Ukraine, indicating mounting pressure on global supply chains. “A situation similar to what happened in February 2022 is recurring,” Spinne said, pointing to the rapid climb in nitrogen fertilizer prices toward previous peaks.

Hormuz disruptions

The surge is closely tied to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a significant share of global fertilizer trade passes, including roughly one-third of globally traded urea and about 20% of ammonia. Tehran’s response to the US-Israeli aggression has prompted restrictions on maritime flows, tightening supply and pushing energy prices higher, feeding directly into production costs.

Despite this, the immediate impact on European consumers remains limited. Many farmers had already secured their fertilizer supplies before the outbreak of the war. According to German industry estimates, around 80% of the required quantities for the entire spring season are already held in cooperative storage, while roughly 50% are already in the hands of farmers. However, industry representatives warn that a prolonged war will inevitably translate into higher production costs, which are expected to pass through to food prices over time.

A spokesperson for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association noted that while availability is currently manageable, farms that did not secure supplies early are now facing significant cost burdens. At the same time, relatively weak grain prices are compounding the pressure, squeezing margins and weighing on farm liquidity.

Rising fertilizer costs

Energy costs remain the central driver. Gas accounts for between 80% and 90% of the cost of producing ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers, meaning that fluctuations in energy markets, intensified by the war, directly affect agricultural inputs. Industry representatives added that the sharp rise in gas prices in Western Europe during the Ukraine war had already weakened the region’s chemical sector, a trend now deepening.

As prices rise, farmers may reduce fertilizer use, a shift that could lead to lower yields and tighter food supplies globally. The structural importance of fertilizers to global food systems reflects the scale of the risk: nearly half of the world’s population depends on crops grown using mineral fertilizers, while yields today are roughly double those of the early 20th century due to their use. Any sustained disruption, therefore, carries long-term implications for food security.

Although Europe produces a large share of its own fertilizers, covering roughly three-quarters of its nitrogen needs domestically and slightly more in the case of potash, it remains indirectly exposed through rising gas and LNG prices. While Europe has for years imported little fertilizer directly from conflict-affected regions, indirect pressures through energy markets continue to impact production costs.

Europe under pressure

At the policy level, European actors are increasingly turning to protectionist measures, including tariffs on Russian fertilizers, in an effort to shield domestic markets and reduce external dependency. Industry groups have also called for higher tariffs on Russian potash and for strengthening local production capacity. At the same time, Russia has introduced its own export restrictions to protect internal supply, further tightening global availability.

For now, German farmers remain partially insulated, but those forced to purchase at current prices are facing significantly higher costs, reinforcing concerns that the economic strain on agriculture will deepen if the war persists.

[…]

Via https://english.almayadeen.net/news/Economy/us-israeli-war-on-iran-drives-global-fertilizer-prices-up-40

US ‘worked directly’ with terrorists in Syria on Israel’s behalf

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Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joseph Kent testifies before the House Committee on Homeland Security in Washington, DC, on December 11, 2025.
FILE PHOTO. Joe Kent. ©  Getty Images / Anna Moneymaker
RT

The US “worked directly with Al-Qaeda” and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) to topple former President Bashar Assad and destroy Syria, US President Donald Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, has said.

Kent, who resigned as head of the US National Counterterrorism Center in protest of the US-Israeli war against Iran, made the remarks in an interview with MintPress News on Friday.

The former senior official reiterated his take on the Iran conflict as the latest in a series of wars waged by the US on behalf of Israel, preceded by the Second Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War, in which Washington actively backed terrorist groups, he said.

“We came in and we said: We’re going to work with the Israelis, but we’re also going to have to work heavily with the Sunni population on the ground in Syria to create an uprising,” he added.

“And that’s where ISIS came from. We worked directly with Al-Qaeda; Hillary Clinton’s emails confirm this. The operations that we were doing to support the so-called Free Syrian Army, and there were some moderates there, but the most effective guys initially were Al-Qaeda and then eventually ISIS.”

IS ultimately “got out of control,” and the US “had to go back and put out once again the brush fire that we had started,” Kent said, referring to the US occupation of parts of Syria on the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The efforts to destroy Syria ultimately resulted in the fall of the Assad government in late 2024 and the Islamist takeover led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebranded Al-Qaeda offshoot.

Kent lashed out at the former leader of the HTS and Syrian interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, pointing to his long record of terrorism – which did not prevent the Trump administration from recognizing his government as legitimate.

“We had him in jail; [he] joined ISIS, broke off from ISIS, hand-selected by Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman Zawahiri, to lead Nusra, and then they rebranded,” Kent said, adding that the “number one way to fool Americans as a jihadist is just put on a suit.”

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/636560-us-syria-isis-kent/

Yemen officially joins fight against US, Israel by firing missiles at occupied territories

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Yemeni armed forces spokesman Yahya Saree

Press TV

The Yemeni Armed Forces says it has officially joined the war against the US-Israeli front in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Resistance Front in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine.

“In implementation of what was stated in the last statement of the Yemeni Armed Forces regarding direct military intervention in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the resistance fronts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, and in view of the continued military escalation, the targeting of infrastructure, and the perpetration of crimes and massacres against our brothers in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine,” the Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Saturday.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have carried out the first military operation using a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting sensitive Israeli military sites in southern occupied Palestine, it added.

This operation, it added, coincided with the heroic operations carried out by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“By the grace of Allah Almighty, the operation successfully achieved its objectives,” it noted.

It further said that the operation will continue until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases.

On Friday, Saree had warned that they are prepared for direct military intervention if American-Israeli aggression against Iran and the Axis of Resistance continues to escalate.

The statement came nearly a month into the launch of the United States’ and the Israeli regime’s latest bout of unprovoked aggression targeting the Islamic Republic, which has run in tandem with the escalation of their attacks on regional resistance groups.

According to Saree, in addition to the continuation of the escalation, other factors potentially prompting an intervention by the Yemeni servicemen would include other parties’ participation in the ongoing aggression, and the use of the Red Sea to carry out hostile operations against the Islamic Republic or any other Muslim country. “We will not allow that,” he asserted.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/03/28/765953/Yemen-officially-joins-war-against-US-Israeli-aggression

Trump claims Iran’s new supreme leader is ‘probably gay’

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Trump claims Iran’s new supreme leader is ‘probably gay’
US President Donald Trump. © Getty Images / Roberto Schmidt

Pres TV

US President Donald Trump has said that the CIA told him that Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, may be gay, quipping to Fox News that it puts the cleric “off to a bad start.”

The claim comes amid failed US-Israeli regime change efforts in Iran, a country where homosexual conduct is illegal under Islamic Law.

Trump had previously made other disparaging comments regarding Mojtaba Khamenei, dismissing him as a “lightweight” and an “unacceptable” leader. However, critics have noted that such claims have only consolidated Iranian public opinion against Washington.

The president’s latest insult comes as the US and Israel continue their unprovoked attacks against Iran which began with the assassination of Mojtaba’s father, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, late last month. US and Israeli officials have repeatedly called for regime change in Tehran, but the government has not collapsed.

According to a New York Times report on Sunday, the Trump administration had embraced an Israeli plan to foment a coup in Iran within days of the start of the war. Despite skepticism from US intelligence agencies, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly bet on the “optimistic outlook” that decapitating Iran’s leadership would spark a popular uprising.

The plan failed, and Mojtaba Khamenei was quickly appointed as the new supreme leader. However, he has remained out of public sight since being wounded in the strike that killed his father.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has dismissed the notion that the killing of top officials could bring down the government. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has a strong political structure with established political, economic, and social institutions,” he told Al Jazeera last week. “The presence or absence of a single individual does not affect this structure.”

Former Mossad official Rami Igra also told RT that the US‑Israeli strategy of decapitating Iran’s leadership in hopes of sparking a revolution was a “miscalculation,” noting that a revolution requires a popular movement, local leadership and armed control – none of which exist in Iran.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/636434-trump-claims-iran-leader-gay/

Handala brings FBI ‘to its knees’ by breaching director’s personal email

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A photo by FBI Director Kash Patel released by Handala

Press TV

Pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Handala says it has brought the so-called “impenetrable” systems of the FBI “to their knees” within hours.

In a statement released on Friday, the group announced that its team has gained full access to data belonging to FBI Director Kash Patel.

Patel’s “emails, conversations, documents, and even classified files are now available for public download,” the statement read.

Questioning “the security that the US government boasts about,” the group declared to the world that the FBI “is just a name, and behind this name, there is no real security.”

Handala stated that the cyber attack came after the FBI announced a $10 million reward for the capture of its members.

The group reiterated that Washington can never “silence the voice of resistance” through “bribes and threats.”

Handala dedicated this cyber operation to the 84 navy personnel martyred aboard Iran’s IRIS Dena on March 4.

The vessel was on an official mission in international waters to participate in a naval exercise in India when it was struck by a US Navy MK 48 torpedo from a submarine, approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka.

Reports indicate that around 20 sailors remain unaccounted for, while 32 were rescued by Sri Lankan authorities.

[…]

Vance chides Netanyahu in call over ‘overly optimistic’ Iran war predictions

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JD Vance (L) and Benjamin Netanyahu (R).

 

Press TV

A tense phone call this week between US vice president JD Vance and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid bare growing friction between Washington and Tel Aviv over an unplanned war that has proved disastrous for both allies.

According to a report published by Axios, a US-based news website closely aligned with the Israeli military apparatus, Vance used the call to chastise Netanyahu for his “overly optimistic” assessments regarding the likelihood of “regime change” in Iran.

“Before the war, Bibi (Netanyahu) really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was,” a US official was quoted as saying by the media outlet. “And the VP (Vance) was clear-eyed about some of those statements.”

The tense exchange underscores the delicate dynamics within the beleaguered Trump administration as it navigates both its partnership with Israel and bids to end the war that has failed to achieve any of its objectives.

Vance, who had previously projected himself as an opponent of open-ended foreign wars, reportedly was not in favour of the latest military aggression against the Islamic Republic but had to support it once Donald Trump and Netanyahu made the decision.

Vance has reportedly held multiple calls with Netanyahu, met with Persian Gulf allies of Washington, and been involved in indirect communications with some mediators in an attempt to persuade Tehran to give up its retaliatory military operations.

In a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump introduced him as a potential negotiator, replacing Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were the strong proponents of war against Iran.

Axios, however, said that the vice president’s scepticism of Israel’s prewar strategy and his push for a negotiated end to the war have made him a target of Israeli war hawks.

Meanwhile, as Press TV reported on Wednesday, Iran has responded negatively to an American proposal conveyed through Pakistan and aimed at ending the ongoing war, insisting that it will only occur on Tehran’s own terms and timeline.

The official with knowledge of the details of the proposal said Iran will not allow Trump to dictate the timing of the war’s end and will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met, emphasising Tehran’s resolve to continue its defense and inflict “heavy blows” on the enemy until its demands are fulfilled.

The official outlined five specific conditions under which Iran would agree to end the war. These include: A complete halt to “aggression and assassinations” by the enemy, the establishment of concrete mechanisms to ensure that the war is not reimposed on the Islamic Republic, guaranteed and clearly defined payment of war damages and reparations, the end of the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved throughout the region, Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is and will remain Iran’s natural and legal right, and it constitutes a guarantee for the implementation of the other party’s commitments, and must be recognized.

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Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/03/27/765925/vance-chided-netanyahu-call-over-overly-optimistic-iran-war-predictions-report