With Iraian missles flying across the Middle East and now outside to Turkey and Crete?
NATO countries are beginning to move military assets into postion to defend against or strike Iranian targets…
Hegseth says he’s just getting started….
THAT is NOT making Trump’s MAGA types Happy….
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the U.S. military campaign against Iran was accelerating, with more warplanes arriving in the region, as he warned Iranian leaders that American forces would deliver “death and destruction all day long.”
Just before Mr. Hegseth briefed reporters on the fifth day of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, Turkey’s defense ministry announcedthat NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had been heading toward Turkish airspace. The ministry did not say what the missile’s intended target was, and Iran did not comment on the claim, but an attack on Turkey, a NATO member, would mark a dangerous escalation in Iran’s retaliatory targeting of neighboring countries.
Hundreds of people in Iran have been killed in the U.S-Israeli strikes, and Mr. Hegseth said there would be no letup in the attacks. He and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States and Israel would soon establish total control of Iranian airspace and that the strikes were devastating Iran’s ballistic missile program and its naval fleet.
But Iran’s leaders have vowed not to bow to the bombing campaign, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait all announced new Iranian attacks on Wednesday.
Top Iranian officials were deliberating over the replacement for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader assassinated by Israel on Saturday. Iran’s leaders are leaning toward anointing his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-liner who would likely carry on his father’s legacy, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the deliberations. Israel’s defense minister vowed that if the next supreme leader followed Mr. Khamenei’s ideology, he would become “an unequivocal target for elimination.”
Israeli forces took aim at command centers of the powerful state Basij paramilitary on Wednesday, after striking Iran’s police stations, detention centers and intelligence offices alongside U.S. forces. Analysts say the goal may be to weaken the Iranian government’s ability to crack down on any future protest wave and encourage Iranians to rise against their leaders, one of Mr. Trump’s avowed goals.
In Lebanon, Israel ramped up its attacks against Hezbollah, ordering a mass evacuation in the country’s south. The Israeli military ordered Lebanese to flee north of the Litani, a river long seen as a front line in the conflict.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
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Iranian vessel sunk: Mr. Hegseth said that a U.S. submarine-launched torpedo was used to sink an Iranian warship, the first time an American sub has fired a torpedo against an enemy ship since World War II. Dozens were feared dead after an Iranian naval ship with a crew of 180 people sank in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday off the coast of Sri Lanka, according to the authorities in that country. Officials said about 30 people had been rescued and a search was underway for any other survivors. Read more ›
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Markets tumble: Global market volatility continued for a third day on Wednesday, as investors assessed the effects of rising energy costs stemming from the war. Asian stocks fell precipitously, and oil prices rose again, though stocks in Europe and the United States appeared to stabilize. Investors fear that a prolonged conflict could send energy costs surging as shipping through the Persian Gulf stalls and drone attacks target energy infrastructure.
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Funeral rites: The farewell ceremony for Ayatollah Khamenei was postponed, Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, reported. The three-night observance had been scheduled to start on Wednesday. Hojjatoleslam Seyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council of Tehran, told IRNA that millions of people were expected to attend and authorities need to provide “the necessary infrastructure.”
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Evacuations: Western governments were working to evacuate hundreds of thousands of their citizens from the region. The State Department said it was facilitating charter fights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, after Mr. Trump was asked why the government was not helping Americans evacuate. Read more ›
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Death toll: The Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, said the death toll had risen to 787 since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks. The bombing of a girls’ elementary school in Iran killed at least 175 people. Dozens of people in Lebanon also have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry, in Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah. Read more ›
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Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict. The Defense Department released the names of four Army Reserve soldiers killed over the weekend in Kuwait in a drone attack on U.S. military facilities. Read more about them ›
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The U.K. and France are deploying planes and ships to the Middle East, despite misgivings.
Even as they voiced misgivings about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, some European nations found themselves deploying their armed forces to the Middle East to defend their citizens and interests.
Britain and France, neither of which is part of the assault on Iran that began on Saturday, announced they would use their navies and air forces to help blunt Iran’s retaliatory strikes. Greece also sent planes and warships to its neighbor, Cyprus.
The Netherlands was on Wednesday weighing a request from President Emmanuel Macron of France to use its military to help secure international shipping routes.
Mr. Macron said on Tuesday that, although France considers the offensive by the United States and Israel to be “outside the bounds of international law,” he would send air defense assets and a warship to defend the island of Cyprus from the widening retaliatory strikes from Iran and its allies.
Mr. Macron said he wanted to build an international coalition in the region that would secure commercial shipping routes that are “essential to the global economy.” He said France would contribute its aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle…….
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Trump IS fighting a internal MAGA protest over being involved in a ‘Foreign War’…..
As President Donald Trump directs military strikes on Iran, he’s also fighting online attacks at home from some of the loudest voices in his MAGA political movement.
“No one should have to die for a foreign country,” Megyn Kelly, another former Fox News host with a massive online following, said on her podcast Monday.
Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh beseeched fellow conservatives on Monday to stop supporting Trump’s military campaign. “I can’t take the gaslighting, guys. I really can’t,” he wrote on X.
MAGA critics of Trump’s new military conflict say they’re struggling to reconcile it with his “America First” principles and long record of criticizing costly and protracted American military interventions. The president has said operations against Iran could go on for four to five weeks, or longer.
“I think to them it feels legitimately like a betrayal on a fundamental tenet of Trumpism,” said Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
Trump has dismissed the idea that his critics could speak for the Make America Great Again movement: “MAGA is Trump,” he said in an interview with independent journalist Rachael Bade on Monday.
Online infighting is common in political movements but Dallek said the degree of open dissent among conservatives over Iran suggested it could be a “breaking point” for some of Trump’s most influential supporters. Carlson, Kelly and Walsh together list more than 13 million subscribers between them on YouTube, with millions more on X and other platforms…
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“This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war,” former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Tuesday on his weekly political podcast…
U.S. troops had little protection from drone strike that killed six, imagery shows
A facility in Kuwait, the site of the deadly attack, is among 10 U.S. military outposts to have been hit by retaliatory strikes, along with bases belonging to France and Britain….
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Congress is taking its first votes on the Iran war as debate rages about US goals
The U.S. Senate is headed toward a vote Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s decision to embark on a war against Iran, an extraordinary test in Congress for a conflict that has rapidly spread across the Middle East with no clear U.S. exit strategy.
The legislation, known as a war powers resolution, gives lawmakers an opportunity to demand congressional approval before any further attacks are carried out. The Senate resolution and a similar bill being voted on in the House later this week face unlikely paths through the Republican-controlled Congress and would almost certainly be vetoed by Trump even if they were to pass….
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Trump administration scrambles for congressional support
After launching a surprise attack against Iran on Saturday, Trump has scrambled to win support for a conflict that Americans of all political persuasions were already wary of entering. Trump administration officials have been a frequent presence on Capitol Hill this week as they try to reassure lawmakers that they have the situation under control.
“We are not going to put American troops in harm’s way,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in a raucous news conference at the Capitol on Tuesday.
But six U.S. military members were killed over the weekend in a drone strike in Kuwait.
Trump has also not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops….
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