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Monday, March 02, 2026

03/02 Links: America’s Invaluable Ally; The death of a tyrant; Tehran’s traffic cameras allowed Israel to track Khamenei; Two more US servicemembers killed raising total to 6

From Ian:

Israeli President: "If Someone Rises to Kill You, Rise to Kill Him First"
Speaking at the site of an Iranian missile attack in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked U.S. President Donald Trump "for his courage" and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "for the correct decision" in launching the strikes on Iran.

"We are united at this moment to defeat the enemy and bring about change," he said.

Israel is at war, "and in war, you must first take care of the home front and protect it, and second, attack and act with full force to defeat the enemy."

"If someone rises to kill you, rise to kill him first," he said, quoting the Talmud.

"It is our duty to be strong, resilient, and steadfast. We will get through this and move forward, and our children and grandchildren will one day be grateful for these moments."

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett said, "I've never been prouder to be an Israeli and we will never apologize for what we are doing. I give my full backing to the government and its leader." "There is no left and no right. The entire people of Israel stand behind the [air force] pilots."
John Spencer: Iran's War on the United States Did Not Start Yesterday
Iran started a war against the U.S. in 1979. It has never stopped. The Islamic Republic defined itself in opposition to the U.S. and built its foreign policy around confrontation with America and its allies. During the Iraq War, Iranian-backed militias killed 603 U.S. service members. I know this personally. My soldiers and I faced their weapons. This was part of a deliberate strategy by Tehran to attack American forces. The campaign never ended.

In January 2020, Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq. More than 100 American service members were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Between October 2023 and early 2024, Iranian-backed militias conducted more than 170 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

At the same time, Iran has enriched uranium to levels far beyond civilian energy requirements. It has developed longer-range missile systems with capabilities that are not defensive in nature.

Diplomacy has been attempted repeatedly over decades. While talks proceeded, Iran continued to fund Hizbullah, Hamas, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Houthis. It continued to refine missiles. It continued enrichment. It continued attacks on Americans. At some point, a pattern must be acknowledged for what it is.

The question today is not whether Iran's war on the U.S. exists. It is whether the U.S. ends it. History suggests that when America fails to respond decisively to sustained aggression, the aggression grows. Americans have been targeted for 47 years. Enough.
The death of a tyrant
What he lacked in religious scholarship and charisma he made up for in ruthless political maneuvering. Alongside other hardline members of the clergy, he developed a tight-knit partnership with the IRGC. And so from the 1990s onwards, Khamenei’s reign was marked by an ever-tightening grip on civil society.

After reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami beat Khamenei’s choice in the 1997 elections, he launched a crackdown on even mild challenges to the status quo. He closed down newspapers, jailed key politicians and had his henchmen silence reformers. This pattern of responding to any internal challenge through brutal and increasingly lethal repression increased in intensity throughout his reign. He violently put down student protests in 1999; beat and shot demonstrators during unrest following the disputed 2009 election; and crushed large-scale, increasingly working-class protests with lethal force in 2019, killing hundreds.

The death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, at the hands of the so-called morality police, prompted what were then the most widespread anti-regime protests of his rule. Khamenei responded by killing nearly 600 protesters and arresting more than 20,000. It turned out that was just a foretaste of what he was to visit on anti-regime protesters earlier this year. Officially, the Islamic Republic claims that just over 3,000 people were killed. External observers suggest the real death toll could be over 30,000.

The growth of popular Iranian opposition to the Islamic Republic is not a surprise. Iranians’ living standards have plummeted, and their freedoms crushed, under the reign of the two ayatollahs. The economy is shattered, state-level corruption rife and the most basic of civil liberties non-existent.

At the same time as the Iranian populace has been living in dire straits, Khamenei and his IRGC cronies have been relentlessly and expensively pursuing their Islamist mission abroad. They ploughed billions into supporting a network of Islamist militias – the so-called Axis of Resistance – across the Middle East. They invested an enormous amount of resources into the military and perhaps even more in pursuit of a nuclear-weapons capability. And all the while ordinary Iranians struggle to access water and electricity.

Right from the start, Khamenei was only too happy to neglect the lives of Iranians in the interests of violently promoting the Islamist mission abroad. With Iranian backing, Hezbollah detonated a truck bomb outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing four Israelis and 25 Argentinians, including children. It struck again in Buenos Aires in 1994, bombing a Jewish community centre, killing 85 people. That was just the start. Since the early 1990s, Iran has backed its proxies to the hilt in their transnational war against the supposedly Satanic forces of America and Israel. Countless lives have been lost and a region torn apart, as Khamenei’s Islamic regime expanded its reach into Iraq during the 2000s, and Syria and Yemen in the 2010s.

It’s possible to argue that the Islamic Republic’s war with the Great and Little Satans has now come home to roost. The current US-Israeli intervention is the latest, most dangerous phase of a conflict started by an Iranian proxy slaughtering hundreds of Israeli Jews over two years ago – Hamas’s pogrom on October 7. And it has now claimed the life of Khamenei himself. He has become the most significant fatality in a war he has done so much to stoke.


Tehran’s traffic cameras allowed Israel to track Khamenei, senior Iranian officials — report
Israel hacked into Tehran’s extensive traffic camera network in order to track the bodyguards of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top Iranian officials, the Financial Times reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Iran’s cameras are believed to be part of the state’s surveillance apparatus that allows them to identify and pursue protesters and regime opponents. But the Mossad was able to use them against the regime.

Israel gained access to the cameras years ago, and found that one particular camera was angled in such a way that it showed where members of Khamenei’s security team parked their cars. Through the cameras, Israeli intelligence built files on the guards’ addresses, work schedules, and whom they were assigned to protect.

Israel and the US also disrupted cellular service on Tehran’s Pasteur Street, where Khamenei was assassinated, so those trying reach the bodyguards and deliver possible warnings would receive busy signals, per the report.

“We knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem,” an Israeli intelligence official tells the Financial Times. “And when you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place.”

Israel used AI tools and algorithms it had developed to sort through mountains of data it was amassing on Iran’s leadership and their movements, according to official who spoke with the British daily.

That allowed them to track Khamenei to the Saturday meeting where he was struck, and assured the Mossad and CIA that senior officials were on their way to the meeting. The CIA also had a human source who provided key intelligence, according to the sources.
America’s Invaluable Ally
The majority of wars are coalition wars, but some of the partners in these wars are barely seen or invisible. So it is with the current Iran war. Most of the Western commentary is focused on the United States and, inevitably, Donald Trump and his decision to pursue war—and indeed, it was his decision to launch it. But in the conduct of actual operations, the Israelis have been much closer to peers than minor partners.

According to an Israeli air-force spokesperson, in the opening wave, some 200 Israeli jets hit more than 500 targets in the first day, quite apart from any attacks by drones or special-operations forces. U.S. Central Command has yet to release its number of strikes from the first day, but they will likely be on the same order of magnitude, although conducted from a wider variety of platforms, including from the sea.

This is a remarkable level of allied effort. During the Gulf War, for example, when Great Britain was still a major power, it deployed barely 60 strike aircraft to deliver munitions—some of which, such as the runway-denial weapon JP-233, were both unnecessary and dangerous for the pilots—in a much larger American air campaign. Today, however, the Israeli air force is equipped with the latest American aircraft and its own and American munitions, and is operating on a scale that no U.S. European ally could match in this theater.

That is an astonishing thing. It was made much easier by the sensible decision of the first Trump administration to put Israel in the Central Command area of responsibility, rather than leaving it, as it had been for 40 years, for the European Command. It was facilitated as well by the American military’s realization that here was a first-class fighting force with whom it could readily work.

The anti-Iran coalition is larger yet. There have been reports that Saudi Arabia, standoffish in public, privately urged Trump to order the attack on Iran. By lashing out against its Arab neighbors, including attacks on Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and even Iraq (it attacked Irbil, in the north), Iran has expanded the coalition fighting against it. Why it has done so is baffling—perhaps its leadership figured that these states would put pressure on Trump to end the war. But Iranian strikes are more likely to make it easier to conduct American combat missions from bases in surrounding countries.
The Clasped Hands of Israel and America
The Hamas paragliders, who were tentacles of Iran, began today's war on Oct. 7, 2023, igniting one of history's most spectacular backfires. Iran's regime and its terrorism multipliers, Hamas and Hizbullah, have unintentionally magnified Israel's security.

And Iran's regime, whose mantra since its inception in 1979 has been "Death to America," is near death by the clasped hands of Israel and America.

The at least 30,000 protesters who perished in Iran's streets in January did not die in vain. Iran's protesters dramatically underscored the regime's barbarism, so those who today regret the regime's demise reveal their barbarism.

Some say that U.S. involvement in Iran constitutes a "war of choice." That casually bandied phrase rarely fits untidy reality. Donald Trump's administration has chosen not to wager U.S. safety on Iran's abandoning its multi-decade pursuit of nuclear weapons, or on Iran's acquiring them but not really meaning "Death to America."

For Israel, the death of Iran's self-proclaimed genocidal regime was a choice only in the sense that Israel chose to believe the regime when it called Israel a "one-bomb country."

In 1939, Adolf Hitler said a world war would mean "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Israel exists because Hitler meant that. Israel's survival depends on forever thinking that nothing is unthinkable.
Charles Moore: Netanyahu – the leader who is hardest to beat
After Israel’s initially not very effective retaliation to the October 7 attacks, victory after victory was won. Trump could see the sense in tucking in behind this. First came the decapitation of the Hamas leadership; then the astonishing exploding pagers that disabled the Hezbollah high command; then the attacks on nuclear installations and personnel within Iran itself.

And now, as soon as the assault began, US/Israeli intelligence and technological accuracy have killed the tyrant. The radioactive theocrats are threatened as never before, with Israel as the sharp tip of the American spear and Netanyahu as the man who knew what to do when he needed to do it.

The most powerful promoter of international terrorism over the last half-century is on its knees. The most powerful nation on earth is now working harmoniously with a Mediterranean democracy of only 10 million citizens to defeat a 47-year reign of tyranny, globalised racist and Islamist propaganda, international subversion (including in British universities) and assassination.

In a photograph released after the attacks, Netanyahu was shown sitting in his office with a copy of Tim Bouverie’s recent book, Allies at War, by his side. Its subtitle is “The Politics of Defeating Hitler”. Thanks chiefly to Netanyahu, who fancies the Churchill role, America’s truly special relationship is now with Israel. Meanwhile, back in Britain, our Government sounds like a prissy, second-rank lawyer gabbling ill-digested passages from an out-of-date rule book.

The US/Israel attack could still go wrong, chiefly because the US is under-prepared to support revolt within Iran. And yes, in an extremely open democracy such as Israel, nothing is the achievement of a single leader. Credit should be widely shared. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s story is epic.
Stephen Daisley: International law should not prevent regime change in Iran
Defenders of international law might make common cause with non-interventionists on the subject of regime change, but any alliance can only ever be temporary. Those who are philosophically opposed to intervention in any circumstances tend, for the most part, to be sceptical of international humanitarian law, seeing it as an encroachment on state sovereignty. International law and foreign policy realism will always be awkward bedfellows.

International legal theorists and practitioners need an answer to the regime change question. Either work to establish a consensus on the lawful removal of a despotic regime or double down on the status quo. The latter would be the easiest course of action, but not necessarily the wisest. All weekend, the general public has been bombarded with images of Iranians celebrating the death of their oppressor, waving Israeli and American flags in gratitude, and talking about their people’s suffering at the hands of the Islamic republic. The public has been bombarded too with activists, ideologues and academics repeating the same mantra: ‘This is a violation of international law.’

It might well be, and what does that say about international law? That it required these people dancing in the streets to be cowering still in fear? That it involved disapproving of the regime’s barbarity while blocking any action to stop it? That respecting international law means accepting the sovereignty and legitimacy of a country where beating women and publicly hanging gays are national pastimes? If international law says Khamenei should still be in place, maybe international law deserves to be detonated along with him.
Israel Is Prepared to Fight Iran
Israel is prepared to fight Iran to the end. Across the political and security establishment, there is near unanimity that there is a rare window of opportunity to bring about a historic turning point in Iran, and as a result in the entire region. Are there risks? Absolutely. But Israel appears ready to take them, provided it believes other chances for meaningful change have been fully exhausted.

It is difficult to find anyone in Israel who believes a good agreement with Iran is achievable. A good agreement, in Israeli terms, would permanently halt all nuclear activity under strict and continuous supervision; limit Iran's missile program to production volumes and ranges that do not threaten Israel, under a rigid monitoring mechanism that does not currently exist; and completely end Tehran's support for its proxy organizations across the region.

Even if such an agreement were signed, few in Israel believe Iran would honor it. Without the nuclear program, the missile arsenal, the network of proxy organizations and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia, there is no revolution and no regime.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Confronting Iran's Regime Is a Moral and National Imperative
This is meant to be a war to reshape the face of the Middle East. Nothing less. Nearly every ring of fire constructed around Israel in recent decades was built by Iran. Regime change will not be simple. Even if most Iranians have grown weary of a regime of repression and terror, there are still tens of millions who support it, who make their living from it, who are complicit in its crimes. They are far more organized and far better armed.

War is evil. But there are circumstances in which failing to attack early brings enormous damage later. For decades, we have heard the regime's leaders declare, "Death to America, death to Israel." They mean every word. They truly believe they can destroy Israel. So it is a supreme moral and national duty to the people living in Israel to strike the regime.

Without an attack, Iran and Iranian proxies would have grown far stronger. From every moral perspective and under international law, this is a war of no choice. In Jewish tradition, it is a mitzvah war, a commanded war. So move forward, soldiers of Israel, in the Air Force, in intelligence, in the Mossad, and all who are involved. You must succeed. We simply have no other option.
The Strongest Weapon To Use Against Iran
Many Americans today are too young to recall firsthand the Cold War victory. They remember instead the disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Kabul after a bipartisan consensus emerged opposing the continued presence of American troops to keep the Taliban and the terror threat at bay. The Afghanistan experience has been almost Vietnam War-like in its ability to make America hesitate before turning to military force to achieve foreign policy goals. A difference between dealing with the Soviet Communists and the Islamist revolutionaries in Iran, alas, as the great historian of the Middle East Bernard Lewis warned, is that for the ayatollahs, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent but an inducement.

President Trump, in his State of the Union address, said the Iranian regime had killed 32,000 protesters in the past two months, and that Iran has "developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas." On Jan. 2, 2026, Trump had posted to social media, "If Iran sho[o]ts and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" The "rescue" promise preceded the mass slaughter, which is not much consolation to the families of the 32,000 killed mostly on Jan. 8 and 9.

If there's another Cold War precedent that comes to mind it's that of Hungary in 1956, when America and its allies looked on as Soviet troops crushed a student-led pro-democracy rebellion. Everyone got the message—until decades later, Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Natan Sharansky, Andrei Sakharov, and Lech Walesa and his allies like Lane Kirkland and Albert Shanker in the U.S. labor movement began to see what might be possible.

It's something for Trump and his generals to keep in mind as the refueling tankers, aircraft carriers, and warplanes deploy around Iran. America has the world's most powerful, expensive, and high-technology weaponry, and Israel—with the same intelligence operation that put pagers on the waistbands of Hezbollah's leaders—has been working overtime helping to come up with target lists. But as Trump and his team weigh which weapons to use and when and how, it is worth remembering that the most potent weapon of them all is a person living in an unfree country who wants freedom.

Trump and some of his advisers show signs of understanding this. The CIA is posting guidance in Farsi inviting Iranians who want to help to get in touch. When Hugh Hewitt asked Trump on Jan. 8, 2026, if he had a message for the people of Iran, Trump said, "All I can say is you should, you should feel strongly about freedom. There's nothing like freedom." The Persian word for it is Azadi, and if things go right in Iran, that is the word that will be remembered.
The Collapse of Europe's Containment Policy in the Face of Iranian Terror
For years, Europe chose to look the other way as the tentacles of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) entrenched themselves across the continent. The recent Iranian attack in Cyprus is a wake-up call to the EU, which has discovered that the Middle East penetrates the heart of the shared European space.

Lax enforcement of sanctions has allowed advanced European technology to find its way directly into Tehran's drone and missile industries. Electronic components, engines, and navigation systems manufactured in Germany, France, and Italy have been used to build weapons that sow destruction in Ukraine and now threaten targets within the EU itself.

Iran is still viewed in the corridors of Brussels as a problem that can be managed through dialogue and containment. When Iran exports terror into European cities, assassinates regime opponents on German and Dutch soil, and supplies the weaponry that kills Europeans in Ukraine, the EU continues to take largely symbolic measures.
By Striking Its Neighbors, Iran Has Deepened the Gulf's Resolve to Fight Back
The Iranian regime has struck at least nine countries across the Middle East. The apparent calculation was that, by targeting rich Persian Gulf monarchies, Tehran could force Washington and Israel into a rapid de-escalation. So far, this calculus seems to have backfired. Gulf states are concluding that the Iranian peril must be confronted. Rather than seeking an offramp, the prevailing mood in the Gulf - at least for now - is that the Iranian regime can't be allowed to get away with this unprecedented onslaught on its neighbors.

"Iran is coming to the countries and people of the Gulf and saying: 'You know, I am actually your number-one threat.' This has long-term implications, regardless of whoever is actually in power in Iran," said Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president. "Targeting Gulf states is completely irrational, and very shortsighted."

Iran has struck all six of the oil-rich Gulf Arab states, including Oman, which had mediated nuclear talks between Tehran and the Trump administration. It also hit Jordan, Iraq and Israel. At first, all the Gulf states publicly opposed the U.S.-Israeli assault on the Iranian regime. But the mood changed quickly once the brunt of the Iranian response targeted cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE, Doha in Qatar, and Manama in Bahrain, inflicting widespread damage to infrastructure and civilian casualties.

"Many people in the Gulf woke up Saturday pissed off at the United States and Israel, and went to sleep pissed off at Iran," said William Wechsler, director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
As war widens, Trump says US has yet to launch largest strikes on Iran
The US-Israeli war with Iran widened on its third day, as Gulf states were drawn deeper into the conflict and Hezbollah took heavy Israeli fire after launching rockets at Israel.

The joint campaign against the Iranian regime began on Saturday, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and hitting scores of targets. US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said the operation aims to give Iranians the space to topple their regime.

On Monday, Trump laid out more specific goals for the operation — targeting Iran’s ballistic missiles, nuclear program, navy, and support for proxy groups — and said that the largest wave of strikes was still to come. He declined to rule out using ground troops and said that the campaign could last about four weeks.

“We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” Trump told CNN.

US and Israeli officials lauded the success of the campaign, even as six American troops were killed and three US planes shot down by friendly fire from Kuwait, though nobody was killed in those incidents. The US said air superiority was achieved over Iran, and the Israel Defense Forces said it had destroyed some 600 Iranian targets so far.

In response, Iran escalated its attacks on the region, continuing to target Israel with barrages of missiles and claiming to target Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem — a claim the PMO denied.

It also continued to fire at Gulf states, which have threatened to retaliate. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have all been drawn deeper into the conflict, warning of a further escalation in the fighting.

Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon, joined the fray early on Monday, firing rockets at Israel for the first time in over a year. In response, Israel struck a range of Hezbollah targets, including in Beirut, and said it killed the group’s intelligence chief. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said Israel had decided to “go on the offense” against the terror group, which the IDF had damaged heavily in a 2023-2024 war. He later said that the military would not end its new offensive against the group until “the threat is removed.”
Trump won’t rule out US troops in Iran, says doesn’t care about polling
U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Post that he would not rule out sending American troops into Iran “if they were necessary.”

“I don’t care about polling,” he said.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ ‘if they were necessary.'”

The Post reported that recent polling shows a lack of American support for the war.

“I think that the polling is very good, but I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing. I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago,” the president said.

“Look, whether polling is low or not, I think the polling is probably fine. But it’s not a question of polling,” he added. “You cannot let Iran, who’s a nation that has been run by crazy people, have a nuclear weapon.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Monday that he would not place any time limit on U.S. military operations against Iran and refused to rule out ground operations.

Speaking at the Pentagon alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth said that it was “foolishness” to lay out a timeline or make statements about “boots on the ground.”


Two more US servicemembers killed in Iran
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Monday announced the death of two additional US servicemembers during the Iran operations, raising the total number of casualties since the beginning of the war to six.

According to their release, the soldiers were killed during the Iranian attack against US bases in the Middle East, with their bodies being retrieved recently.

"As of 4 pm ET, March 2, six U.S. service members have been killed in action. U.S. forces recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted-for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran's initial attacks in the region," the announcement read.

"Major combat operations continue. The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification," it added.

Three soldiers killed, five wounded in first American casualties of the war
On Sunday, CENTCOM announced the first US casualties of the war. In total, three US soldiers were killed in action and five others seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury in Yemen.

The announcement confirmed that major combat operations are ongoing as American forces continue strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets.

Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, sent his condolences and highlighted his gratitude for the fallen US soldiers in a statement published on his X/Twitter account.
Half of Iran’s missile launchers destroyed in first 24 hours
The staggering scale of the opening assault on Iran has begun to emerge, and it is far more extensive than even seasoned observers expected.

Within the first 24 hours of the conflict, hundreds of missiles belonging to the Iranian regime were destroyed and production of at least 1,500 additional ballistic missiles prevented, according to military assessments shared with Jewish News on Sunday afternoon.

Around 200 ballistic missile launchers have been dismantled, with dozens more rendered inoperable. Officials say that amounts to roughly half of the regime’s operational ballistic launcher fleet at the time of the strike.

One senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Jewish News the objective was not symbolic retaliation but structural paralysis. “This was designed to hit the regime’s ability to threaten Israel and the region at its root. Launchers, production lines, explosive cores. Not a headline strike, but a systemic one.”

The operation was launched jointly by the United States and Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning after months of escalating confrontation and intelligence assessments indicating Iran’s missile output was accelerating.

Washington provided strategic support and coordinated strikes, while the IDF carried out precision attacks against core industrial and military sites. The action followed repeated warnings from both governments that Tehran’s expanding ballistic missile programme and its support for regional proxies had crossed red lines. A Kashmiri Shiite Muslim mourns as he holds a photograph of the deceased Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest against the U.S. and Israel.

Among the most significant targets hit has been the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the strike on Saturday morning and Iran’s central explosives production site. That facility manufactured the explosive material used in ballistic missile warheads as well as rockets, UAVs and cruise missiles. Its dismantling is expected to create a major bottleneck across multiple weapons systems.
Australia says Middle East military HQ hit by Iranian drone attack
Australia said on March 3 that its military headquarters in the Middle East was hit by an Iranian drone attack over the weekend and that all staff were safe.

Speaking on morning TV, Defence Minister Richard Marles said he could confirm reports that the Al Minhad Air Base – just 24km south of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates – had been hit over the weekend.

“There were some drones which did attack that base on the first night,” said Mr Marles, who is also deputy prime minister.

“We have a number of Australians who operate from a headquarters that we’ve had at Al Minhad now for many, many years,” he said.

“They are all safe and accounted for.”
Suspected drone strike hits RAF base in Cyprus
A suspected drone strike hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.

There were no casualties in the incident at the base near Limassol in the early hours of Monday, but the Sovereign Base Areas Administration said “a temporary dispersal” was being planned for non-essential personnel.

An MoD spokesperson said: “Our armed forces are responding to a suspected drone strike at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus at midnight local time.

“Our force protection in the region is at the highest level and the base has responded to defend our people.

“This is a live situation and further information will be provided in due course.”


IDF strike kills Hezbollah intel chief; Lebanon to ban terror group’s military activity
Israel said Monday that the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence arm was killed in an overnight strike and Beirut said it would ban the terror group’s military activities, hours after the Iran-backed organization fired rockets and drones at Israel, leading to major retaliatory strikes overnight and throughout Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that the overnight strike in the Lebanese capital killed Hussein Makled, whom it called “the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.”

The military said Makled was responsible for “forming the intelligence picture using various intelligence collection tools to provide the Hezbollah terror organization with intelligence assessments regarding IDF troops and the State of Israel.”

“He also closely cooperated with senior commanders in Hezbollah who planned and advanced terror attacks against Israel and its citizens,” the IDF added.

The terror group’s overnight attacks — which it said were in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in the opening minutes of the joint Israeli-US assault on Iran on Saturday — led to waves of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon, including in the capital.

One overnight strike in southern Beirut killed a senior commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades. The terror group identified him as Adham al-Othman, 41, and described as “commander of al-Quds Brigades in the Lebanese arena.”


Kuwait shot US pilots down in ‘apparent friendly fire,’ American military says
Kuwaiti air defenses shot three American F-15E Strike Eagles down shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time on March 1 in an “apparent friendly fire incident,” U.S. Central Command said.

The American fighter jets were operating as part of the Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. attacks on the Iranian regime. CENTCOM said that all the six Americans were recovered in stable condition after ejecting from their planes.

According to the U.S. Air Force, each of those fighter jets costs $31.1 million as of April 2019. That would be nearly $40 million each, or a combined $120 million, in January 2026 dollars, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“During active combat that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones, the U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” CENTCOM said.

“Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation,” it said. It added that there is an investigation of the cause of the incident.


9 victims of Iranian missile strike on Beit Shemesh named, including 3 teen siblings
The nine people killed when a ballistic missile fired from Iran slammed into a residential neighborhood in Beit Shemesh were named by authorities on Sunday and Monday.

Nine people were killed and more than 40 were injured when the missile destroyed a synagogue and caused extensive damage to a public bomb shelter beneath it, as well as surrounding homes.

The victims were three teenage siblings, a mother and her adult daughter, and a mother and her adult son, a 16-year-old boy, and a man.

It was the deadliest missile strike in Israel during the current conflict with Iran — Philippine national Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, 32, was killed in a missile strike in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

The IDF said that the failure to intercept the missile that hit Beit Shemesh was under investigation by the Israeli Air Force.

Air defense systems were activated in the area, but the interceptors failed to shoot down the missile for as-yet unclear reasons, resulting in the direct hit by the estimated 500-kilogram warhead.

Even as they were buried, mourners at some of the funerals were forced to take cover as Iran fired further missiles at Israel.


Filipina caretaker killed by Iranian missile in Tel Aviv was pregnant with first child
The Filipina carer Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, 32, who was killed Saturday night in an Iranian missile strike on Tel Aviv, was “an angel on Earth,” according to her previous employers — her first upon arriving in Israel.

Barbara Wachspress and her sister Janice Prawer reached out to The Times of Israel because, they said, they wanted the public to know how special she was.

They also revealed that the young woman, who had married another Philippine national two years ago, was pregnant with the couple’s first child when she became the first fatality in Israel of the current war with Tehran.

She was “injured while selflessly assisting her patient to safety” during the Iranian missile attack, according to the Israeli embassy in Manila.

Velasquez de Vera was found in critical condition after the ballistic missile struck next to an apartment building in the coastal city. Paramedics pronounced her dead while rushing her to the hospital. She was identified by her husband.

The woman she was caring for was extracted by rescue workers from the rubble alive.


19 injured, one moderately, as Iranian missile hits Beersheba amid multiple barrages
At least 19 people were injured Monday when an Iranian ballistic missile hit the southern city of Beersheba, amid several barrages fired throughout the day.

All 19 were taken to Soroka Medical Center after the missile slammed into a residential area, damaging surrounding apartment buildings, medics said.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said it treated a 35-year-old man in moderate condition. The other 18 were lightly injured.

Resident Amit, who lives in a building near where the missile hit, told the Kan public broadcaster that after a missile alert was issued, many people gathered in the building’s shelter.

Amit said he, along with some others, sat close to the shelter door. Moments before the missile hit, someone opened the door, and the shockwave from the explosion rushed into the room.

“There was such a loud boom, we were sure it had landed on our building. There was a shockwave, the whole shelter filled with dust, and we suddenly started suffocating,” he said. “We just wanted to get out.”


Yet again, Israel’s public shelters become sites of camaraderie amid steep danger
Spirits ran high inside a large public bomb shelter in the Israeli coastal city of Jaffa, with loud chatter, singing and greetings of “Happy Iran Holiday,” an incongruous soundtrack to the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran and the hundreds of missiles that followed.

The room itself looked much cheerier than most shelters, with a ball pit and bright Gymboree mattresses left over from its other job in peacetime, when it doubles as a kindergarten.

A day earlier, the shelter became the accidental venue for a bar mitzvah celebration, when worshipers from the synagogue across the road took refuge there.

One particularly raucous group was made up mostly of American-Israelis from the neighbourhood. One of them, Steph Graber, said she was in a good mood despite being exhausted from middle-of-the-night runs to the shelter.

“I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the adrenaline of war or something,” she said on Sunday morning. “But also it’s amazing to see the U.S. and Israel as allies working together to reduce the threat from Iran.”


Saudi Aramco shuts down Ras Tanura refinery, its biggest, after Iran drone strike causes blaze
Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco shut its Ras Tanura refinery after a drone strike caused a blaze, an industry source said on Monday, after Tehran launched strikes across the region in response to the US-Israeli attack on Iran.

Videos posted to social media purporting to show the facility after the attack showed flames and a thick cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky.

A Saudi defense ministry spokesman said two drones had targeted the refinery, Saudi Arabia’s biggest and one of the world’s largest, and been intercepted, according to a statement posted by the Saudi Press Agency on X.

“A limited fire resulted from falling shrapnel during the interception operation, with no civilian casualties,” the spokesman said.

A source familiar with the incident told AFP the blaze had already been extinguished.

The Ras Tanura complex, on the kingdom’s Gulf coast, houses one of the Middle East’s largest refineries with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) and serves as a critical export terminal for Saudi crude.

It was shut as a precautionary measure, and the situation is under control, the source said.


Qatar shoots down two Iranian Su-24 fighter jets over airspace as Gulf states suffer Iran strikes
Qatar shot down two Su-24 fighter jets coming from Iran, the Qatari defense ministry said on Monday.

It did not provide further details on the incident.

Arab states in the Gulf, all close US allies, have come under Iranian drone and missile attack since the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on Saturday.

Prior to the war, Iranian spokespeople stated that all US military bases in the region would be targeted. US embassies across the region have issued security alerts to American citizens, urging caution amid heightened tensions.

Gulf states suffer as Iran continues strikes
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported an incident on Monday at the port of Bahrain, where a vessel was struck by two unknown projectiles, sparking a fire. According to UKMTO, the fire was quickly extinguished, and the crew was safely evacuated. The vessel remained at the port following the attack.

In a related development, the US embassy in Bahrain issued a warning, stating that terrorist groups and those inspired by such organizations are targeting US citizens abroad. The embassy’s statement followed an incident at Salman Industrial City in Bahrain, where a missile interception resulted in debris falling onto a ship, causing a fire.


Call me Back Podcast: What is the military strategy in Iran? - with Gen. David Petraeus
What's the state of play after the first day of operation Roaring Lion? What tactical resources have the United States and Israel deployed and what's their division of labor? What are the operation's risks and opportunities? General David Petraeus joins Dan to examine the strategic and tactical planning and goals of the war.

General Petraeus is a retired four-star U.S. Army general and former CIA Director who led coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and is widely recognized for shaping modern U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. He's also co-author of 'Conflict' with Andrew Roberts: https://tinyurl.com/57t8h8c8

In this episode:
1:00 – Khamenei killed: The decapitation strike
3:00 – Day one of the war: Epic Fury and Roaring Lion
5:00 – How a strike like this gets built
8:00 – The daylight gamble
12:00 – U.S. forces in position
16:00 – Regime change or something else?
20:00 – U.S.–Israel coordination
28:00 – What comes next for Iran


Call me Back Podcast: How Israel wiped out Iran's leadership in 10 minutes - with Ronen Bergman
How did Israel manage to eliminate Supreme Leader Khamenei and his top lieutenants within the opening strike of Operation Roaring Lion? How was the Iranian regime infiltrated? What tactical abilities were necessary to deliver the final blow? And how much of it was luck?

Ronen Bergman, senior correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth and The New York Times Magazine, takes Dan through the story of the strike from plan to execution, and through the many ways in which things could have gone differently.

In the episode:
(3:00) How did Israel know where Khamenei was hiding?
(6:30) Was Iran careless?
(8:48) Sponsor break: United Hatzalah
(10:09) How did the plan to strike Khamenei take shape?
(13:40) 6am on the morning when it happened
(21:36) Sponsor break: United Hatzalah
(22:28) The second and third waves of the attack
(28:30) Iran's attack on Arab states: another miscalculation?
(33:30) What's the mood in Iran?


Ask Haviv Anything: Episode 94: America's war, not Israel's
As missile sirens wail over Jerusalem and families crowd into bomb shelters on the eve of Purim, this episode steps back from the noise and the slogans to ask a harder question: What war are we actually watching? In a moment when pundits argue over Israel, regime change, and partisan loyalties, I lay out a different frame -- two chessboards, one regional and one global -- and argue that what looks like another Middle Eastern conflagration is in fact a pivotal move in a far larger US–China confrontation. If we misunderstand that, we will misunderstand everything that follows: America’s resolve, Iran’s desperation, and the shape of the world that may emerge from this fire.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction: The Current State of War
04:02 Understanding the Chessboards: Regional vs Global
08:54 China's Role: Military and Economic Support for Iran
17:25 Iran's Strategic Miscalculations and Dependency on China
29:41 The American Perspective: Regime Change and Strategic Interests




Commentary PodCast: EMERGENCY POD: Epic Fury
Eli Lake of the Free Press joins us for another emergency update on the ongoing American and Israeli military operations against Iran. What aces might Iran still have up its sleeve, and what does the future hold for the future of the region?


Commentary PodCast: Iran Out Of Time
We continue our ongoing coverage of the Iran War by discussing this morning's press conference with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, and the implications of American strategy on the day after.


Ben Shapiro: BREAKING: Trump DEVASTATES Iranian Defenses, Iran Attacks EVERYONE
The US and Israeli air forces continue to devastate Iran’s defense apparatus and the leadership of the IRGC; a Muslim terrorist attacks Americans in Austin, Texas; and we examine what’s coming next.




Boundless Insights: The Legal Case for the Iran Attack – with Natasha Hausdorff
We want to hear from you. Send questions and comments to podcast@boundlessisrael.org or message Aviva on X at @avivaklompas.

Following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, accusations that the operation was “illegal” and a violation of international law spread rapidly from social media to Congress to global institutions, often with great certainty and little explanation.

In this episode of Boundless Insights, host Aviva Klompas is joined by Natasha Hausdorff to cut through the noise and examine what international law actually says about the use of force. They explore when military action is lawful, how imminence is assessed in an age of missiles and proxy warfare, whether UN approval is required, how proportionality works in practice, and how states are held responsible for terror groups they fund and direct.


Democratic lawmakers rally support for war powers resolutions at J Street conference
Democratic members of Congress addressing J Street’s national convention in Washington on Monday used the occasion to rally support for long-shot resolutions coming before the House and Senate this week that will attempt to end U.S. military strikes against Iran.

“The president’s refusal to pursue consent from Congress, as required by the Constitution, is perhaps his most grievous assault on democracy, and we should not let it stand,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said to the 1,500 activists gathered at J Street’s morning plenary.

Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) told the crowd that he expects to see “very robust, possibly unanimous support” from congressional Democrats on the measures, which would put an immediate end to U.S. operations against Iran.

“I’m not the whip, but certainly the caucus seems to be very on board with asserting their constitutional authority,” Casten said. Even some hawkish Democrats, like Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), are expected to vote in support of the measure, although a handful of Democrats, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), have already said they will oppose it.

Casten was speaking alongside Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), both of whom had recently returned from a J Street-sponsored trip to Israel and the West Bank. Dean said President Donald Trump should have used his State of the Union address last week to more directly discuss the coming attacks on Iran.

“Wouldn’t that have been the time, at least by then, to begin messaging to the American people what the vision and the mission was — if he was going to take this extraordinary military action, and of course, to message it to Congress, to say to Congress, ‘I recognize your role’?” Dean said. “We are a constitutional democracy. We are supposed to actually make sure that the people closest to the ground, closest to the people, have some say.”

The war powers resolutions are likely to fail, given Republicans’ control of Congress and their overall support for the military action ordered by Trump over the weekend. Even if passed, they would need two-thirds support to override an inevitable presidential veto.
Congressional Progressive Caucus invites Trita Parsi, Ben Rhodes to brief on Iran strikes
The Congressional Progressive Caucus organized an “emergency convening” on Saturday evening for members to receive a briefing on Iran from the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi and former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes, according to an invitation obtained by Jewish Insider.

CPC members have been largely unified in condemning the U.S. strikes on Iran.

Parsi, a cofounder of the National Iranian American Council, has long faced accusations of being overly cozy with and supportive of the Iranian regime, while Rhodes has come under scrutiny for his hostility toward Israel — a stance that earned him the nickname “Hamas” inside the Obama White House.

Throughout the first day of the war, Parsi was vociferous in condemning the attack, characterizing it as a U.S. operation in service of “Israel’s war” and condemning a variety of international actors, particularly in Europe, that he said have failed to respond forcefully enough and he claimed are acting as “vassals” of the U.S. and Israel.

He has further suggested that the public in Arab states are rallying around Iran, despite the forceful and united condemnation of Iran’s indiscriminate strikes across the region by all Gulf countries.

Parsi also highlighted a strike on a girls’ school in Iran which killed dozens, according to Iranian media, though the source of the missile has not been determined. He claimed such incidents would make a civilian uprising in Iran less likely.

Rhodes has also forcefully condemned the operation. “A war that has no domestic or international legal basis. A war that Americans do not support. A war in response to no imminent threat. A pointless war,” Rhodes said in response to the attack. “Trump and Netanyahu seem to be totally unconcerned about the human beings — on all sides — who will suffer.”
Ayatollah who once received UK ‘tolerance’ grant issues fatwa for Muslims to avenge Khamenei
One of two high-profile Shi’ite religious leaders in Iran who issued fatwas following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei formerly received a £15,000 ‘religious tolerance’ grant from Brent Council.

On Sunday, following the assassination of Khamenei by the US and Israel, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Noori Hamedani and Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi issued fatwas calling on Muslims worldwide to take revenge.

Hamedani responded in writing to a request from the presidium of the Assembly of Seminary Students and Scholars in Qom, saying that “avenging the blood of the martyred leader of the revolution is obligatory for all Muslims.”

“Without doubt, criminal America and the bloodthirsty Zionists have reached the end of their path, and this time the powerful armed forces will deliver a decisive and unforgettable response,” he warned.

Shirazi issued a fatwa calling Israel and the US the “most wicked enemies of humanity” and “the principal perpetrators of this crime.”

“The people of Iran and the Islamic world are the avengers of the blood of the martyred leader of the Revolution,” he said, adding that “seeking revenge is the religious duty of all Muslims worldwide so that the evil of these criminals may be removed from the world.”

Brent Council alerted to IRGC links
Shirazi, one of the most important religious figures in Iran, launched a representative office on Harrow Road in London called the Babul Murad Centre in 2008.

Via the center, Shirazi also had a charity in the UK named International Islamic Link, which received a £15,000 grant in 2009 from Brent Council, a local government body in London, to promote “religious tolerance.”
Handala group places bounty for beheading of critics after Piers Morgan show
The Iran-linked Handala hacking group has placed a bounty of $250,000 for the beheading of Iranian-American lawyer and activist Elica Le Bon and Canadian politician and activist Golsa "Goldie" Ghamari.

The group claimed to have leaked their LA and Ottawa-based home addresses to its “CJNG” partners, according to social media posts by the two women.

CJNG may refer to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which, according to Reuters, has maintained operations in the US despite the US and Mexico targeting senior members of the cartel.

Experts previously told Iran International that CJNG was among the many Iran-linked groups spreading insecurity across Latin America.

Money-laundering connects global criminal finance
“There are longstanding money-laundering and trafficking ecosystems that connect Latin American cartels, Iranian state-aligned networks and global criminal finance,” investigative journalist Sam Cooper told Iran International.

The threat against Le Bon and Ghamari came after they both appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored. The hacker group claimed the women “laughed like hyenas and called for war on our great leader” during their appearance on the show.

Le Bon claimed the language in the email she received from the group replicated language used by the Executive Producer and host of the left-wing show The Young Turks, Ana Kasparian.


Australian mosques hold memorial services for 'pious and pure' Khamenei following his assassination
Scores of mosques across Australia held memorial services for Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his assassination by Israel on Saturday.

El Zahra Centre in Melbourne announced a Majlis [gathering] in commemoration of Khamenei.

“We offer our condolences and congratulations to the presence of Imam Mahdi (may our souls be sacrificed for him), the Islamic Ummah, the esteemed religious authorities and scholars, and the great nation of Iran on the honorable martyrdom of the pious scholar, the foremost martyr of the Islamic Revolution, and the rightful deputy of the Imam of the Age, Ayatollah Khamenei, in the blessed month of Ramadan,” it said.

Arrahman Islamic Centre in Sydney held a mourning gathering for the “pure soul” of Khamenei and "for the souls of the martyrs who rose in the face of the American-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The Flagbearer Foundation in North South Wales referred to Khamenei as “the Imam of Our Time” and will hold three nights of recitations for him.

Husaineyat Sayeda Zaynab in NSW, Al Zahra Mosque in Sydney, Taha Association, Hossaini Society Community Centre, and Muhammad Rasulallah Islamic Centre all held similar services.

Hossaini eulogized the Ayatollah as “a towering leader of faith, resistance, and unwavering devotion to Islam and humanity.”


Scottish Labour leader’s father posts tribute to ‘martyr’ Ayatollah Khamenei
Mohammad Sarwar, father of the Scottish Labour leader, has praised Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “a strong voice of resistance” after he was killed in US and Israel-backed airstrikes.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died when his compound in Tehran was bombed on Saturday. Sarwar, a former Labour MP and ex-governor of Punjab in Pakistan, posted a tribute in Urdu to Khamenei on X, the Times reports.

In a television appearance on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, his son Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, called for “urgent de-escalation” in the Middle East and warned that the conflict risked spreading further.

Speaking to the Press Association at Glasgow Airport, Anas Sarwar said he did not agree with his father’s comments. “He’s wrong,” the Scottish Labour leader said.

“My view is that the leader of Iran has been a brutal dictator that has obviously done many bad things to his own citizens, has threatened many of his neighbours, has funded countless attacks, has been behind several threats to our own country here, and I think there will be lots of people who have very strong views about what he was like as an individual, or what that regime was like.

“In terms of the broader situation, look, this is a really dangerous time. It’s a dangerous time, of course for Iran itself, but it’s a dangerous time for the entire region, and what needs to happen really quickly is a de-escalation and an end to the war.

“That means no nuclear capability for Iran, of course, but it also means freedom and peace and security for all the nations across the broader Middle East, and that has to be our priority.”


University College London Islamic society mourns Ayatollah’s death and urges Muslims to ‘remain ready’
A Muslim student society at University College London has publicly mourned the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader and urged Shia Muslims in the West to “remain aware and ready”.

The Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society at UCL (ABSoc) issued a statement following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing his killing as “martyrdom” and offering condolences from “all at UCL ABSoc”.

In a post shared on social media, the society’s mental health team referred to his death as an “unimaginable loss for the entire Ummah”, using the Arabic term for the global Muslim community.

The post added: “This is not the end to resistance. The Shia in the West must remain aware and ready.”

ABSoc said the tribute was not “incitement, endorsement of violence, or unlawful mobilisation”, and argued that mourning the Iranian leader constituted “lawful expression” protected under freedom of expression and academic freedom.

In a further statement, the society said the Ayatollah served a “broadly religious” role for Shia Muslims, comparing his position to that of the Catholic Pope. It added: “Students are entitled both legally and morally to mourn, to speak, and to organise within the law.”

The language used in the post prompted swift condemnation from Jewish commentators and alumni.

Author and educator Dov Forman described the statement as “extraordinary”, saying: “A UCL student society publicly mourning Ayatollah Khamenei and urging Shia in the West to stay ‘aware and ready’. On a UK campus. Universities cannot keep pretending this is just ‘student expression.’”

Former government adviser and UCL alumnus James Price said it was “disgusting to see how far Britain has fallen,” adding: “I hope UCL acts appropriately.”

The controversy comes amid heightened concern within the Jewish community over extremist rhetoric on university campuses, particularly in the context of the ongoing regional conflict involving Iran and Israel.


From Glorifying the Ayatollah to “Boom Boom Tel Aviv”: The Worst Social Media Takes on the Iran-Israel War
As negotiations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran faltered, Israel and the U.S. launched a pre-emptive strike against the Islamic regime, hoping to stave off its nuclear enrichment, development of ballistic missiles, and support for terrorist proxies in the region.

As part of this opening salvo, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei was killed, along with several other leaders of his theocratic regime.

No sooner had the first bombs landed in Tehran than the worst actors on social media took to their accounts and started posting the most absurd and obscene takes, spreading misinformation and lies while accruing hundreds of thousands of likes and views.

From claiming the attack is a cover for the Epstein files to hoping that Israel has been destroyed in Iranian missile attacks, these are some of the worst takes that have appeared on social media over the past 24 hours.


Andrew Fox: The BBC is lost in the fog of war
So why does the BBC keep doing this to itself? Because being first is still regarded as a professional virtue, in spite of the obvious dangers of this mindset. Disinformation succeeds because initial claims stick, particularly if they are of a tragic or controversial nature. Subsequent corrections rarely reach the same audience. People favour information that bolsters their opinions, and manipulative actors are only too happy to provide them with it – increasingly, through the easily-seduced medium of a BBC reporter.

The BBC’s own editorial guidelines emphasise accuracy and a duty not to mislead audiences. That should mean leading with what can be verified and the limits of its knowledge. At the very least, it should mean treating death tolls proclaimed by the Iranian regime and Hamas as contested claims, not definitive facts.

If the BBC wants to rebuild trust, it should begin at the source of the damage: the headline and the push alert, which it uses to broadcast ‘breaking news’. It should always place the source first and include qualifying facts in the same sentence. Above all, it should stop turning the propagandist’s preferred number into the story. Trust is declining because the pattern is clear: dramatic figures first, questions later. Until that changes, the BBC will not be a neutral referee in the information war, but rather an amplifier of it.

When legacy outlets damage trust, audiences defect to platforms that feel more direct. Increasingly, that means X – and X is a swamp. During the initial hours of the Iran war, hundreds of viral posts spreading misattributed footage, altered or AI-generated images and dubious ‘expert’ opinions flourished. The public was swimming in falsehoods from the moment the first missile was launched.

That is why the strike on the girls’ school in Minab is more than a horror story from the front – it is a live demonstration of what happens when journalism erodes its credibility. The facts that can be responsibly stated are already stark: reported casualties well above 100, a building filmed in ruins, and credible indications that the school sat adjacent to, or was intertwined with, an IRGC facility. Yet even these facts are difficult to independently verify because Iran restricts access to information.

In a healthier media ecosystem, a public broadcaster’s cautious phrasing would mark the start of shared understanding. Instead, audiences conditioned by years of politicised reporting interpret every ‘according to officials’ as code for ‘propaganda’. Increasingly, they rush to X to work it out for themselves in an attention economy that favours the loudest certainty. Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning do the rest, and repetition solidifies speculation into ‘truth’.

What happened at the girls’ school in Minab appears to be a tragedy. However, in the fog of war, there is much we simply don’t know. A responsible news organisation would accept this fact. Unfortunately, the BBC has proved itself time and again to be anything but responsible.
The Missing Images: How Iran’s School Strike Claim Moved Globally Without Visual Scrutiny
The Claim and the Amplification
When Iranian state media reported that dozens of schoolgirls had been killed in an alleged strike in southern Iran, the claim moved rapidly across international news platforms.

Major outlets attributed the information to Iranian sources and published reported death tolls. Headlines circulated widely. Social media amplified the narrative within hours.

The event was framed as a grave escalation.

What received far less attention was the evidentiary environment surrounding the claim.

Related reading: “Iran Says School Massacre” and the Media Repeats: How a Regime Claim Became a Viral Headline

An Image-Driven Era
Modern conflict reporting is visual.

Mass-casualty incidents typically generate immediate photographic documentation:
Hospital corridors
Ambulances
Rescue operations
Damage assessments
Funeral processions
Grieving families

In conflicts involving Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, or elsewhere, graphic imagery often appears within hours. Satellite imagery is analyzed. Geolocation is performed. Verification language is prominent.

Visual evidence is treated as central.

In the Iran school incident, however, the visual record was markedly limited. The Absence of Aftermath
In the days following the initial claims, there were:
No independently verifiable hospital scenes
No casualty photographs
No funeral documentation
No wide-angle aftermath imagery consistent with a mass-fatality strike

Images that circulated largely originated from state-affiliated channels.

There was no visible presence of independent photojournalists operating freely at the scene.

In an era where mobile phone footage frequently emerges even from tightly controlled environments, the absence of corroborating imagery raises reasonable questions.

In other recent mass-casualty events, visual documentation has typically appeared within hours, becoming central to reporting. In this instance, that pattern did not materialize.

Those questions were not widely asked.

In contemporary conflict reporting, casualty figures and imagery typically travel together. When they do not, editors ordinarily signal that discrepancy. In this case, the numerical claim traveled independently of visible corroboration – and the gap itself received little attention.


ABC boss urged to intervene after star reporter John Lyons calls PM's support of strikes against Iran ‘political propaganda’
The ABC Managing Director Hugh Marks has been urged to crack down on biased political commentary at the national broadcaster after a star reporter called the Prime Minister’s support of oppressed Iranians “political propaganda”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong released a joint statement after US and Israeli forces struck Iran over the weekend.

“Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression,” it read.

It was the government's stance against "oppression" of innocent Iranian civilians which the ABC's Americas Editor John Lyons labelled "political propaganda".

“What they actually mean, they don’t say it, but what that sentence should say, if they’re being accurate, if the Prime Minister of ­Australia is telling the truth, it should say: ‘Australia stands with Israel and the US in their new war on Iran’. So that is absolute, in my assessment, political ­propaganda,” Lyons said during an ABC broadcast over the weekend.

Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson said she was "really concerned" by Lyons' "unsavoury commentary".

She said Mr Marks needed to "shut down this commentary", before noting the analysis was "extraordinary" given the Prime Minister's statement simply supported Iranian civilians.

"I don't think the ABC, any person from the ABC should be making any commentary like that, we just need the facts impartially and accurately, complying with the ABC statutory obligations," Senator Henderson told SkyNews.com.au.

"I am really concerned about the tenor of this commentary and I would call on Hugh Marks as the editor-in-chief to shut down this sort of commentary and just stick with the facts.

"I hope and trust that Mr. Marks is able to address this properly so that all Australians can have full trust in the ABC's coverage."

Senator Henderson then questioned why Communications Minister Anika Wells had not defended the Prime Minister's reasonable statement.

"Where is the Minister for Communications, Annika Wells, why am I defending the Prime Minister and Mr Miles and Minister Wong because he's claimed that this is political propaganda. Now that is just a step too far," she said.
‘He can’t see common sense’: ABC’s John Lyons riddled with ‘anti-Israel disease’
Sky News host Sharri Markson reacts to ABC America Editor John Lyons being “pretty upset” with Israel over the conflict with Iran.

“This is a disease from someone who is so anti-Israel that he can't see or think clearly,” Ms Markson said.

“That he has lost rationality to the point that he accuses Albanese and Penny Wong of disinformation.

“Again, this is the disease of someone who blindly hates Israel. To the point he can't see common sense.”






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