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U.S.-led campaign against Iran intensifies as regional retaliation eases

Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, has provided a briefing on the current status of operations against Iran. He claims the U.S. has deployed more than 50,000 troops, around 200 fighter aircraft, two aircraft carriers, and bomber forces, with additional capabilities on the way.

He describes the opening strikes, conducted with Israel, as larger than Iraq’s 2003 “shock and awe”, saying the first 24 hours were almost twice the scale and that strikes have continued around the clock across multiple domains, including cyberspace and space-enabled capabilities.

Cooper adds that U.S. forces are focused on destroying Iranian weapons systems that can target them, citing strikes by B-2, B-1, and B-52 bombers on missile facilities and command-and-control sites.

He also claims Iranian naval forces have been largely neutralized, with 17 ships destroyed, leaving no Iranian vessels operating in key Gulf waterways.

Iran’s missile strikes on Gulf targets appear to have dropped sharply by Wednesday, based on the clearest publicly available counts from the UAE. The UAE said it intercepted 11 ballistic missiles and 123 drones on Wednesday, compared with an early-war estimate of about 165 missiles and 600 drones launched at the UAE over the first 48 hours, implying a steep fall in daily missile volume and a smaller decline in drones.

Drone strikes continued against Gulf targets, including the U.S. consulate in Dubai and an oil terminal elsewhere in the UAE, but missile salvos were fewer, easing pressure on regional air defenses. U.S.-Israeli strikes continued across Iran, hitting Tehran and other cities heavily.

Cooper said that “hunting” operations will continue against Iran’s remaining mobile ballistic-missile launchers, while claiming Iran has fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones.

Gulf states are weighing retaliatory strikes, while France, Britain, and Greece are reinforcing regional defense, including naval deployments and fighter aircraft operations. The Lebanon front is also escalating, with Israeli strikes and incursions and so far ineffective Hezbollah rocket and drone fire into northern Israel.

Birthplace of civilization

Israeli media reports Iran’s new defense minister killed as succession scramble intensifies

Israeli media reported that Iran’s newly appointed acting defense minister had been killed, in what would be one of the fastest turnovers in Iran’s wartime leadership reshuffle. The report, attributed to Israel’s N12 channel has not been confirmed by Iranian state media or independently corroborated by major wire services.

Iran’s presidency had announced the caretaker appointment only a day earlier, naming Revolutionary Guards General Majid Ebnelreza as acting defense minister after the previous minister was reported killed in the opening wave of strikes.

The claim comes amid Israeli assertions that it is trying to disrupt Iran’s succession process following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On Tuesday, Israel struck a building in Qom linked to the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that appoints a supreme leader, with Israeli officials saying the aim was to derail a leadership-selection meeting.

Meanwhile, Iran International, an opposition-linked outlet, has reported that the Assembly of Experts has selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son, as new Supreme Leader, under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but that no public announcement has been made. Frankly, we doubt this.

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, raised the stakes further with a public threat that whoever Iran chooses as its next supreme leader will be “a target for elimination”, a warning that suggests Israel intends to keep Iran’s leadership under direct pressure as the conflict widens.

Strikes pound Iran’s Kurdish belt as security sites are reported destroyed

A U.S.-Israeli strike hit Iran’s western Kurdish belt today, with Kurdish-language outlets reporting that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility in Paveh, in Kermanshah province, was “completely destroyed”. Deaths have been reported among IRGC personnel as well as at least two civilians nearby.

The Paveh reports fit a wider pattern of attacks on Iran’s internal security apparatus, especially in the Kurdish areas. Other security-related targets in Kurdish areas have included targets in Sanandaj, and in and around Kermanshah province, including damage consistent with attacks on an IRGC drone-related site near Mahidasht, west of Kermanshah.

Local reporting has described repeated hits on IRGC, Basij, and border-guard installations across Kermanshah and neighboring provinces, suggesting an effort to degrade the security corridor running from Kermanshah toward crossings into Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

This comes as previously hostile Iranian Kurdish groups are now forming a united front, amid rumors of US weapons support to foment a Kurdish insurgency inside Iran.

Iran’s Kurdish population adds a sensitive dimension to the campaign. Estimates vary widely depending on definitions and sources, ranging from roughly eight million (about 10% of the population) to figures as high as 14–15 million (about 16–17%). Iran’s total population is commonly put in the low-90-millions.

Meanwhile, Baluch militants were reported to have attacked police patrols in Zahedan in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, with unverified online claims of officers killed or wounded and no official toll yet. The incident fits a pattern of recurring attacks in the restive, smuggling-linked Iran-Pakistan border region that Iranian authorities often attribute to Sunni Baluch groups such as Jaish al-Adl.

Should a concerted uprising against Tehran emerge from Baluch areas, it will further stretch internal security forces as they rush to oppose any serious emergence of unrest in Kurdish areas. There about 2 million Baluchis in Iran, but there’s another 8-10 million Baluchis across the border in Pakistan, where there also exists a simmering insurgency, especially around the Chinese-build port of Gwardar.

Lebanon’s leaders weigh election delay as war jitters spread

Lebanon’s leaders have agreed in principle to postpone parliamentary elections due in May and to extend the legislature’s term by two years, after this week’s renewed fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The officials said President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri settled the outline of the move on Tuesday. It would still require approval by a majority in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament.

Meanwhile, a statement attributed to prominent clans in Baalbek–Hermel, a Shiite stronghold in eastern Lebanon, offered public backing for Aoun and Salam as they press for Hezbollah to be disarmed. The text portrayed removing “military and security” weapons from non-state hands as a sovereign step toward restoring full state authority and securing a durable ceasefire with Israel.

The intervention matters because Baalbek–Hermel’s clan networks have long operated alongside Hezbollah’s party structure, sometimes uneasily. At a moment of renewed Israeli pressure and domestic fatigue, their endorsement offers Beirut political cover for a harder line, while hinting at strains within the broader Shiite constituency.

Those strains were echoed by reports that Berri is, for now, refusing direct contact with Hezbollah, as anger within his camp grows over the group’s attacks on Israel. Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, has traditionally operated as a mediator between the group and the outside world (including the U.S.). If the rift holds, it would complicate Hezbollah’s ability to rely on Berri as an intermediary with the state and deepen the sense that Lebanon’s traditional crisis managers have less room to maneuver.

Social tensions are rising as well. Scattered reporting in mainstream outlets and on social media points to frictions, and occasional clashes, between displaced Shiites from southern Lebanon and residents in other communities now being asked again to provide shelter. Many Lebanese opened homes and public buildings during the last major displacement wave in September–November 2024. In some areas, that solidarity appears to be thinning under the strain of repeated emergencies, scarce resources, and the fear that the country is being pulled back into a cycle it cannot afford.

Syria has meanwhile reinforced its border with Lebanon with rocket units and thousands of troops. The move has also stirred concern among some European and Lebanese officials about a possible incursion, a claim Syria strongly denies.

Iraq’s oil exports hit a choke point

Yesterday afternoon Iraq suspended production at Rumaila, its largest oil field, after export disruptions left storage tanks close to capacity and operators short of tankers at the southern terminals. Rumaila had been producing roughly 1.5m barrels a day, a large enough volume that even a “temporary” outage quickly ripples through Iraq’s finances and OPEC supply.

The shutdown is not isolated. Iraqi oil officials said that the country has already made sizeable reductions at West Qurna 2 oil field and fields in Maysan province. Deeper cuts are likely soon if exports do not resume. Iraq could be forced to halt almost all production if the bottleneck persists.

The immediate constraint is logistics rather than geology. With regional military escalation disrupting shipping and the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, vessels have stopped calling at Gulf export points, leaving Iraq with crude it cannot move. Baghdad says domestic refinery operations, around 1.1m barrels a day of capacity, are continuing for now, but exports are the main pressure point.

If the stoppages spread across Iraq’s biggest fields, the effect would be abrupt. Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest producer, and its southern system is designed for continuous flow. That makes the current episode less a managed curtailment than a forced shutdown, one that could tighten global markets quickly if the export logjam is not cleared.

Markets reprice war risk as Gulf bourses reopen

Markets shifted deeper into risk-off territory today, as the widening Middle East conflict fed through into higher energy prices, tighter credit conditions, and a jump in volatility.

U.S. equities extended their retreat from Tuesday’s selloff and European shares slid to a one-month low.

Asian markets were led lower by South Korea, where the KOSPI suffered its steepest one-day fall since 2008 and the won briefly weakened past 1,500 to the dollar, a reminder of how exposed a manufacturing economy which is also a major energy importer can be when oil and shipping risks rise.

Brent crude pushed up into the low $80s a barrel and global gas benchmarks rose, while gold climbed on renewed safe-haven demand. Industrial metals proved more resilient, but the broader message was one of repricing: investors are treating the shock less as a localized war premium and more as a potential inflation-and-rates problem, with Asia’s trade-sensitive economies, South Korea chief among them, in the firing line.

In the Gulf, the biggest move came in the United Arab Emirates, where trading resumed after a two-day, regulator-ordered halt prompted by Iranian missile and drone strikes. On reopening, Dubai’s main index fell about 4.7% (its steepest drop since May 2022), while Abu Dhabi’s index slid roughly 3.6%, with large local bellwethers, including Emaar and First Abu Dhabi Bank, among the hardest hit. Both exchanges also imposed a temporary 5% downside price limit to curb volatility.

Elsewhere in the GCC region:

Qatar’s aluminum shock

Qatar’s Qatalum aluminum smelter has begun a controlled shutdown after its gas supplier warned of an impending suspension of supply, adding to worries about global metals markets as conflict around the Gulf disrupts energy production and shipping. Norsk Hydro, which owns half of the joint venture, said the 648,000-ton-a-year plant expects to complete the shutdown by the end of March and has issued force majeure notices to customers.

A restart would be slow. Hydro said returning the smelter to normal operations could take six to 12 months, a reminder that aluminum production depends on continuous, high-intensity power and that prolonged stoppages can damage equipment.

Qatar produces roughly 1% of the world’s aluminum; the GCC nations overall account for about 8% of global supply.

The disruption follows QatarEnergy’s broader production suspensions after Iranian attacks forced a halt to liquefied natural-gas output, highlighting both the region’s importance to the aluminum supply chain and the exposure of Gulf producers to energy outages.

Insurance costs surge, Lloyd’s widens risk zone, U.S. becomes insurance broker

War-risk cover for ships transiting the Persian Gulf is tightening and growing more expensive as underwriters in London respond to the expanding Iran conflict. The Joint War Committee, an industry body that guides war-risk insurers, has broadened its “listed areas” designation for Gulf waters and nearby approaches, a move that typically triggers additional premiums and tighter policy terms.

Brokers say additional war-risk premiums have climbed quickly in recent days, in some cases adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of a single voyage for large vessels. The increase is uneven, with ships perceived as linked to the U.S., Britain, or Israel facing steeper pricing, reflecting fears of targeting and escalation.

Mutual insurers that provide liability cover through protection-and-indemnity (P&I) clubs are also taking a tougher line. Some clubs have issued notices to end war-risk cover tied to entry into the Gulf from 5 March, pushing shipowners to seek stand-alone war cover or reconsider Gulf calls altogether.

The immediate effect is operational as well as financial. More cargo is being diverted or delayed as owners weigh whether transits remain commercially viable at the new insurance rates. That risks feeding into higher freight rates and wider disruption to energy and commodity flows, even if physical damage to shipping remains limited.

Against that backdrop, the U.S. is considering providing military protection to oil and gas tankers traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, in an effort to contain energy prices, according to announcements by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.

The administration is also weighing whether the U.S. government should backstop some of the insurance tankers need, and how to limit the impact of insurers canceling war-risk policies. Supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are a particular focus, and restoring reliable access to the strait is being described as vital.

Portugal takes advantage of Spanish-American rift over use of bases

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “cut off” trade with Spain, deepening a transatlantic quarrel after Madrid refused to allow U.S. forces to use the joint bases at Rota and Moron to support operations related to Iran.

Trump cast the warning as retaliation for two grievances: Spain’s refusal to facilitate the Iran campaign and its failure to meet NATO’s defense-spending commitments, arguing that Madrid does not meet the long-standing target of spending 2% of GDP on defense.

In practice, a full trade cutoff would be hard to execute. U.S.-EU commerce is shaped by treaty obligations and domestic legal limits, and analysts say a blanket embargo on an EU ally would invite court challenges and likely provoke retaliation from Brussels.

Portugal, by contrast, appears to be putting fewer obstacles in the way of U.S. access to Lajes Air Base in the Azores, a strategically important mid-Atlantic transit and refueling node. Lisbon argues that increased U.S. activity there is already covered by long-standing bilateral arrangements. It has also sought to defuse domestic criticism by saying additional, case-by-case “authorization” may not be required under the treaty framework.

Dominant political bloc in Iraq withdraws Maliki’s nomination to be Prime Minister

Iraq’s Shiite Coordination Framework has reached a preliminary agreement to withdraw former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as its nominee for prime minister and to rally around an alternative candidate to be chosen later, according to officials and local media reports.

The shift comes after weeks of internal wrangling inside the Framework, a coalition that includes several powerful Shiite parties and armed-group-linked factions, and amid intensifying external pressure over Maliki’s possible return.

Details of the Framework’s internal decision-making remain fluid. The move was agreed in a leadership meeting last night, which Maliki did not attend. There has still not been any official announcement, while the identity of any replacement, and the timetable for selecting one, are still unclear.

Withdrawing Maliki amounts to an attempt to contain a widening political standoff and preserve the coalition’s unity while it searches for a compromise figure acceptable to its own factions, Iraq’s Kurdish and Sunni blocs, and the U.S. whose support Baghdad relies on for security and financial stability.

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