TOP STORIES
Iran Hits Qatar Energy Hub After Its Pars Oil Field Struck | Reuters
Iran’s huge Pars gas field was hit on Wednesday in a major escalation in the U.S.-Israeli war that sent oil prices shooting higher, and Tehran struck Qatar and fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after vowing attacks on oil and gas targets throughout the Gulf. Qatar’s state oil giant QatarEnergy reported “extensive damage” after the R as Laffan Industrial City was hit by Iranian missiles. Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted and destroyed four ballistic missiles launched toward Riyadh on Wednesday and an attempted drone attack on a gas facility in the east of the country.
Trump Wants No More Energy Strikes, but Supported Attack on South Pars | Wall Street Journal
President Trump wants no more strikes on Iranian energy sites after Israel's Wednesday attack on a vital Iranian gas field, U.S. officials said. Trump, who knew about the Israeli strike on South Pars in advance, supported it as a message to Tehran over its block of the Strait of Hormuz. The president believes Iran got the message and is now against attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure, the officials said. But Trump could once again be open to targeting more Iranian energy facilities depending on Tehran's future actions in the strategic waterway, the officials said.
President Trump hasn't made up his mind yet on whether he wants to send American forces into Iran and seize the country’s nuclear material, which would be a very dangerous operation, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. In private conversations, he has told people close to him: “I have a lot of decisions to make.”
UANI IN THE NEWS
For U.S., Unmet Expectations in Iran Fit a Familiar Pattern in the Region | New York Times
The regime has long put its own welfare above that of the population, analysts noted. “If it survives, it can claim victory, no matter how much destruction the country suffers,” [UANI Senior Advisor] Saeid Golkar, a military expert and a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, wrote in an online essay.
Spies, Lies and a New Wave of Repression from Iran’s Paranoid Regime | Times of London
Kasra Aarabi, the director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said the [Iranian regime’s] repressive measures were most acute in Tehran, the capital, where martial law had been implemented. “The environment is now suffocating,” Aarabi said. “People I have spoken to say that they are now even minimising their grocery shopping to avoid being out on the street as much as possible.” . . . “Martial law in January only happened after the uprising began,” Aarabi said. “The regime was effectively caught off guard that time, enabling people to get out on the streets for a time. But these current security layers were pre-emptively activated to prevent that happening again. Now Tehran is effectively a garrison city.”
UANI Policy Director Jason M. Brodsky Discusses Iran War| i24 NEWS
Brodsky: "Esmaeil Khatib is definitely a loss for the system, though I think he is more easily replaceable than someone like Ali Larijani"
Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told The Sun these targeted assassinations will ramp up across the next week with the US and Israel looking rid Iran of its final old guard leaders.
Who becomes [Ali Larijani’s] replacement is set to mark one of the most crucial decisions in Iran’s history, said Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran.
Iran's New Supreme Leader Issues Chilling Donald Trump Threat: 'Blood Has Its Price' | The Mirror
Prior to his appointment, Khamenei had occupied a position comparable to that of Ahmad Khomeini, a son of Iran's first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini—"a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper and power broker,” according to United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based pressure group.
On the fifteenth day of the U.S.-Israeli conflict against Iran, which started on February 28, 2026, missiles and bombs are hitting critical infrastructure, senior commanders have been killed, and the country has entered one of the most dangerous moments in its recent history. Yet the Islamic Republic still stands, not because it has achieved a conventional military victory or gained superiority on the battlefield, but because it follows a much simpler, more ideological principle: survival at any cost is victory. This is the core political logic of the Islamic Republic in the current war, which cannot win in the traditional sense. Instead, it is trying to stay alive, preserve the regime’s coercive power, control the streets, and keep its flag flying. From the regime’s perspective, if it survives, it can claim victory, no matter how much destruction the country suffers.
Israel Means Business on Iran | Jewish News Syndicate
[PHOTO CAPTION]: On September 24, 2012, United Against Nuclear Iran led protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Warwick New York Hotel (which housed Ahmadinejad) in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly.
Malaysia has, in recent years, been identified as a hub for illegal STS transfers. According to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), instances of such activity involving sanctioned Iranian oil in Malaysian waters rose from 280 in 2023 to 679 in 2025, driven largely by demand from China. . . . UANI, a US-based advocacy group that monitors sanctions evasion, said the Iranian shadow fleet has continued its operations in South-east Asian waters. Most recently, UANI senior adviser Charlie Brown observed that the Iranian tanker Amber was near two US Navy littoral combat ships that had arrived in Penang. He said the tanker had been spotted in Bandar Abbas, Iran, on March 4, four days after the start of the US-Israeli air strikes against Tehran, before passing through the Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Strait on March 15. On what possible action the US naval ships may have taken, he said: “The US won’t sink any of these ships, even Iranian-flagged vessels. They could seize as war prize the Iranian-flagged ships in certain circumstances.”
Kasra Aarabi, head of research on the Revolutionary Guards at United Against Nuclear Iran, said Iran's decentralized leadership structure was formed after learning from the collapse of the Iraqi military in 2003 during the US-led coalition invasion. If the regime survives, he believes that “the role of the Guards will become even more important.”
MILITARY/INTEL MATTERS & REGIME CHANGE
Gabbard Says Iran’s Regime ‘Degraded,’ Won’t Say It Posed Imminent Threat | Global News
“The regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury,” [Director of National Intelligence Tulsi] Gabbard said, referring to the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, in her opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s annual hearing on Worldwide Threats to the United States. “Even so, Iran and its proxies remain capable of and continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East. If a hostile regime survives, it will seek to begin a years-long effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV (drone) forces,” Gabbard said. Later, Gabbard deflected questions on whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, after claiming in her opening statement that there was no evidence the regime was seeking to rebuild its “obliterated” nuclear enrichment program.
U.S. President Donald Trump said late on Wednesday the attack on Iran's South Pars gas field was carried out by Israel, and the U.S. and Qatar were not involved in it. Trump also said Israel would not make any more attacks on Iranian facilities in South Pars unless Iran attacked Qatar, warning that the U.S. would attack those facilities if Iran acted against Doha.
Drones Over Base Where Rubio, Hegseth Live Prompt Iran Targeting Fears | Washington Post
U.S. officials detected unidentified drones above the Washington Army base where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live, according to three people briefed on the situation. Officials have not determined where they came from, two of the people said.
Pentagon Seeks Over $200 Billion in Iran War Supplemental Budget Request | Washington Post
The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran, according to a senior administration official, in an enormous new ask that is almost certain to run into resistance from lawmakers opposed to the conflict.
Iran Sets Its Price to End the War | Financial Times
Iran views the conflict as an existential threat, is desperate to restore its deterrent and wants to ensure its foes are not willing to pay the price of future attacks, a person close to the regime, diplomats and experts said. All this suggests it is digging in for a protracted war of attrition, they said, and will only stop if it receives guarantees as part of any ceasefire deal that the US and Israel will not resume attacks.
A foreign worker was killed in central Israel on Wednesday night and four Palestinian women were killed in the southern West Bank as the country faced multiple barrages of ballistic missiles from Iran. . . . About half the ballistic missiles launched by Iran at Israel in the current war have carried cluster bomb warheads, according to the IDF.
Couple Killed in Cluster Bomb Attack Near Tel Aviv | New York Times
The front of the apartment was blown away, the walls pockmarked from shrapnel. A metal walker lay in the rubble. This was the scene on Wednesday, hours after a missile from Iran killed an older couple near Tel Aviv, video footage from their apartment building showed. . . . The explosion was caused by a cluster bomb, a small rocket or grenade-like munition from a missile warhead that breaks apart in the air, according to Israeli military officials and emergency workers at the scene.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy commander warned oil facilities linked to the United States could be targeted alongside American bases in the region. “With the target bank updated, oil facilities linked to the US will be on par with American bases and will come under powerful fire,” Alireza Tangsiri said in a post on X. “We warn citizens and workers to stay away from these facilities,” he added.
NATO Allies Discuss Ways to Reopen Strait of Hormuz, Rutte Says | Iran International
NATO allies are discussing how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after disruptions to trade, Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday. “We all agree, of course, that trade has to open up again. And what I know is that allies are working together, discussing how to do that. They're working on that collectively, to find a way forward,” Rutte told reporters.
Tehran Will Assert Stronger Role in Strait of Hormuz After War, Adviser Says | Iran International
An adviser to Iran’s leadership said the country should use the war to reshape its position in the Strait of Hormuz, according to state media on Thursday. Mohammad Mokhber said the situation offers “one of the most important opportunities” to redefine Iran’s role in the strategic waterway.
Netanyahu Hopes Strikes on Iran Will Lead to Uprising and Regime Change | New York Times
Israeli attacks on Iran have been targeting the country’s internal security services as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy to destabilize the authoritarian government and create the conditions for a popular uprising.
UAE Official Says Iran War Tightens Gulf Ties to US, Israel | Bloomberg
A top adviser to the Emirati president says Iran miscalculated by attacking the UAE and other Persian Gulf states, driving them closer to Israel and the US while demonstrating why the region can’t accept Iranian nuclear and missile programs. Dr. Anwar Gargash also said that the United Arab Emirates is considering joining the US in securing the Strait of Hormuz for oil shipments, adding that other countries in Asia and Europe should do the same.
Spymaster Esmail Khatib Killed: The Man Who Turned Dissent into Espionage | Iran International
[Iranian Intelligence Minister] Esmail Khatib, killed in overnight strikes, mattered not because he ran spies but because he helped redraw the line between politics and security, turning dissent into an intelligence battlefield and recasting protest as hybrid war. . . . Under Khatib, the state increasingly treated social unrest as proof of foreign infiltration. Protesters were not simply angry citizens. They were portrayed as nodes in an enemy network. Foreign-based Persian media were not just broadcasters. They were recast as operational arms of hostile states. That logic also hardened into law. Under his watch, the state broadened the definition of espionage and hostile collaboration, making it easier to turn contact, information-sharing, media work and loosely defined cooperation with enemy states or affiliated groups into national-security crimes. The point was not only to punish spies. It was to widen the category of who could be treated like one.
PROXY WARS & TERRORISM
Two Men Charged with Allegedly Spying on London Jewish Community for Iran | BBC News
Two Iranian men have been charged with an offence under the National Security Act after an investigation into alleged reconnaissance of Jewish targets on behalf of Iran. Nematollah Shahsavani, 40, and Alireza Farasati, 22, were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service. The investigation is linked to Iran, the force said.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Three Protesters Executed in Iran After Accusations of Killing Police Officers | Iran International
Three protesters were executed in Iran on Thursday after being accused of killing two police officers during nationwide protests earlier this year, the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency reported.
Iran Executes Swedish Citizen Accused of Spying for Israel, Judiciary Says | Iran International
Iran has executed a Swedish-Iranian man identified as Kourosh Keyvani after convicting him of espionage for Israel, according to reports by the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency. Mizan said Keyvani was executed on Wednesday morning after his death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. He had been accused of passing “images and information of sensitive locations” to officers of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
Iran Maintains Near-Total Internet Blackout amid U.S.-Israeli Strikes | New York Times
For 19 days, the majority of Iran’s 92 million people have been cut off from the outside world, according to watchdog groups that track internet censorship in the country, as the country’s regime has tried to suppress communication and maintain control over its population during wartime. As U.S. and Israeli airstrikes continue across Iran for the third week, the state has imposed a near-total internet blockade for most Iranians while increasingly criminalizing and shutting down alternate methods of connecting to the web. The few workarounds available (international call packages, private network connections or Starlink) are becoming riskier, pricier and less reliable by the day. . . . Accounts on X for Iran’s president, foreign minister and state-affiliated news agencies, meanwhile, have been posting statements seemingly without interruption (X is mostly inaccessible to those inside the country).
MISCELLANEOUS
Children of Iran Regime Leaders Teaching at Elite US Universities | New York Post
Iranian leaders call the US the “Great Satan” and burn effigies of President Donald Trump in the streets—but that doesn’t stop them sending their kids over here to learn. Children of regime leaders and bigwigs are at prestigious universities across the US, including University of Massachusetts, New York’s Union College and George Washington University, The Post can reveal.