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Hegseth says Russia ‘should not be involved’ in Iran, says Trump had ‘good call’ with Putin
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Russia “should not be involved” in the conflict with Iran.
Hegseth made the remark after President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“The president, as I’ve said before, maintains strong relationships with world leaders, which creates opportunities and options for us in very dynamic ways. So the president said it was a good call,” Hegseth said.
“I was not on it, but those that were, said it was a strong call reaffirming, hopefully the opportunity for some for some peace in Russia-Ukraine and also, a recognition that as it pertains to this conflict, they should not be involved,” Hegseth added.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
5 mins agoIran war, 11 days in: US controls skies, oil surges and the region braces for what’s next
One week into the war with Iran, U.S. officials say American and Israeli forces are moving toward “complete control” of Iranian airspace — clearing the way for deeper strikes, a broader target list and a conflict that appears to be expanding rather than winding down.
In briefings this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine described what they called near-uncontested airspace over key corridors, a shift that allows sustained bombing operations deep inside Iran.
“We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives,” Hegseth said in a press briefing Tuesday morning.
Caine said U.S. forces have now struck more than 5,000 targets in the first 10 days of operations, including dozens of deeply buried missile launchers hit with 2,000-pound penetrating bombs.
The message from Washington is one of overwhelming military advantage.
But the broader picture, rising oil prices, expanding drone warfare, strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure, and regional spillover touching NATO territory, suggests a conflict that is growing in scope even as U.S. officials project confidence in its trajectory.
Posted by Morgan Phillips
40 mins agoPanama Canal chief eyes major gains as Iran crisis chokes off Strait of Hormuz shipping route
The Panama Canal administrator touted the canal’s logistical capabilities and plans to improve supply chain readiness as the Strait of Hormuz reaches a near standstill due to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Dr. Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, the authority administrator for the Panama Canal, sat down during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital and noted the canal’s anticipated improvements as the world’s busiest commercial shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, has seen little to no traffic over the past few days.
“We have been through the years a major channel to move LNG from the U.S. to Asia,” Morales told Fox News Digital. “Qatar usually supplies Asia, and after the Ukraine war, most of the American LNG has gone to Europe to replace the Russian LNG.”
“What we see is that probably prices are going to go up for LNG, which means that the current cost of the inventory on the vessel is going to increase,” he continued. “Fuel prices are going to go up.”
Morales predicts that transit will increase in the Panama Canal as restraints in the Strait of Hormuz have continued to hold.
“The Panama Canal should get one or two transits a day, which is, in the old days, we had about three transits per day,” Morales added. “So it’s gonna come up a little bit and moving from the East Coast of the United States to Asia.”
The Strait of Hormuz normally facilitates the transit of roughly 20–21 million barrels of oil per day. Since last Friday, only four cargo ships have successfully traveled through the strait, and one of those ships was carrying corn.
1 hour agoIran is ‘fighting,’ but is not ‘more formidable than what we thought,’ Caine says
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that Iran is “fighting, and I respect that.”
“But I don’t think they’re more formidable than what we thought,” he added about Tehran’s defensive capabilities.
“Our strikes mean we’ve made significant progress in reducing the number of missile and drone attacks out of Iran,” Caine also said. “Ballistic missile attacks continue to trend downward, 90% from where they’ve started, and one-way attack drones have decreased 83%, since the beginning of the operation.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
1 hour agoIran’s new leader ‘would be wise’ to listen to Trump, Hegseth says
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of Iran, “would be wise to heed the words of our president, which is to not pursue nuclear weapons and come out and state as such.”
The remark comes after Trump told Fox News he’s “not happy” that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was chosen as Iran’s next supreme leader.
“I don’t believe he can live in peace,” the president had said overnight to Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
1 hour agoPentagon reups Trump’s warning to Iran on Strait of Hormuz, addresses possibly escorting oil tankers
The Pentagon reiterated President Donald Trump’s warning to Iran should the regime block the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and addressed the possibility of the U.S. escorting oil tanking through the strategic waterway.
At a press conference Tuesday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said the Pentagon is looking at a “range of options” when it comes to possibly escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
“On the potential, if tasked to escort, we’ll look at the range of options to set the military conditions to be able to do that. And then, like we always do with every potential mission, come to the secretary and the president with both,” Caine said Tuesday.
“What are the resources required? What is the command and control required, and what are the risks and how do we mitigate those risks? So we’re looking at a range of options there and we’ll figure out how to solve problems as they come to us,” he added.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth then referenced Trump’s Monday night Truth Social Post. Trump wrote in part, “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
“He goes on to say, ‘death, fire and fury’ will rain upon them,” Hegseth said of Trump’s post at Tuesday’s press conference. “You’ve you’ve seen the Truth and read it. But he takes very seriously the condition of that strait.”
“We have capabilities that no other nation on earth has, and we’re certainly working with our energy partners across the administration to control for that,” Hegseth added. “That’s part of that scoping of this. The world needs to understand this doesn’t have, this isn’t intended to be nor is it something that will expand. We know exactly what we’re attempting to achieve here, scoped properly. And the American people can count on that for sure.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
2 hours agoHegseth says Iran striking Arab partners was ‘big mistake,’ pushes them toward US
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Iran choosing to launch attacks at its Arab neighbors during Operation Epic Fury was a “big mistake” as those countries “instead decided to come to us.”
“Big mistake by the Iranian regime to start targeting its neighbors right away, exposing who they are and what they’re all about, indiscriminate targeting, flailing recklessly at the beginning. I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react, but we knew it was a possibility,” Hegseth said in a briefing at the Pentagon.
“And I think it was a demonstration of the desperation of that regime then and that regime now, that they still think their pathway out is to try to alienate their Arab partners even more, who’ve instead decided to come to us and have been willing to go on the offense, have been given us access, spacing and overflight in a in a new partnership that will continue to remake the region the way that President Trump did with the Abraham Accords,” he continued.
“I see in the media banners that say, you know, ‘war expanding’ or ‘war spread,’ it’s actually the opposite. It’s actually quite contained. And more allies or more of those countries are coming on side, recognizing that you can’t live under a conventional umbrella with nuclear ambitions, with a radical regime like that,” Hegseth also said.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
2 hours agoHegseth asserts US takes extensive precautions against targeting civilians, ‘unlike Iran’
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said “No nation takes more precautions to ensure there’s never targeting of civilians than the United States of America,” unlike Iran.
Speaking Tuesday at the Pentagon, Hegseth added, “From the boat strikes in the Caribbean, where every single strike is assessed, to this campaign here, no nation in the history of warfare has ever attempted in every way possible to avoid civilian casualties.”
“And frankly, that’s a point that just isn’t appreciated enough. Where things happen that that need to be investigated, we will investigate,” Hegseth continued.
“But ultimately, unlike Iran, who targets civilians indiscriminately, who we’ve seen in the intel moving rocket launchers into civilian neighborhoods, near schools, near hospitals to try to prevent our ability to strike, that’s how they operate. And then they set, you know, the targeting of drones and missiles toward civilian targets, hospitals, hotels, airports,” Hegseth added.
“That’s how terrorist regimes fight. They target civilians. We do not,” he said. “And I can tell you this, this administration and this Pentagon, focuses on that very, very closely.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
2 hours agoGen Caine honors 7th service member killed supporting Operation Epic Fury after dignified transfer
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said Tuesday that Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, the seventh American service member to die while supporting Operation Epic Fury, was “a great one.”
“When I met Ben’s family last night, his mom, his dad and his sister, they showed me a picture, a drawing that Ben had made when he was in kindergarten,” Caine said, recalling a moment during Pennington’s dignified transfer Monday night at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
“It was clear all the way back then that Ben wanted to do one thing in his life, and he wanted to serve his country and be a soldier. And to the Penningtons, just know how Ben was absolutely a great one,” Caine added.
Pennington, a 26-year-old from Glendale, Kentucky, was injured in a strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and died days later from his injuries, according to officials.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey contributed to this report.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
2 hours agoHegseth says US ‘winning with an overwhelming and relentless focus’ as operation enters 11th day
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday at the Pentagon that the United States is “winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus” as Operation Epic Fury against Iran entered its 11th day.
“As President Trump declared yesterday, we’e crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force,” Hegseth said. “We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. But we do so, we do so on our timeline and at our choosing.”
“For example, today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever,” Hegseth continued. “So that’s on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.”
“The mullahs are desperate and scrambling,” Hegseth also said. “Like the terrorist cowards they are, they fire missiles from schools and hospitals, deliberately targeting innocents, because they know their military is being systematically degraded and annihilated.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
2 hours agoHegseth asserts ‘this is not 2003,’ rejects US operation against Iran is ‘endless nation building’
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that “this is not 2003” when it comes to U.S. military action against Iran in Operation Epic Fury.
“This not endless nation building under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama,” Hegseth said, referencing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
“It’s not even close. Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again,” he continued. “And nor will this president, who very clearly ran against those kinds of never ending, nebulously scoped missions. Those days are dead. Instead, we’re winning decisively with brutal efficiency, total air dominance, and an unbreakable will to accomplish the president’s objectives.”
“This fight, Operation Epic Fury. It hits home,” Hegseth also said. “Our generation understands this fight. For 47 years, these barbaric savages and the Iranian regime have murdered our brothers in arms.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
3 hours agoSecretary of War Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine hold briefing on Operation Epic Fury
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are set to hold a briefing at the Pentagon at 8 a.m. ET regarding Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
President Donald Trump told Fox News overnight that Operation Epic Fury – which began on Feb. 28 and caused the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – is “Way beyond expectation in terms of result this early.”
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
3 hours agoUnited Arab Emirates says air defenses responding to ‘incoming missile and drone threats from Iran’
The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that its air defenses are currently responding to and engaging with “incoming missile and drone threats from Iran.”
“The UAE’s air defenses are currently engaging with missile threats and incoming drones originating from Iran, and the Ministry of Defense confirms that the sounds heard in scattered areas of the country are the result of the air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles, as well as fighter jets intercepting drones and loitering munitions,” the UAE’s Ministry of Defense wrote on X.
“Since the start of the Iranian attacks, 253 ballistic missiles have been detected. Of these, 233 were destroyed, 18 fell into the sea, and 2 landed within the country,” it said on Monday.
“The Ministry of Defense affirmed that it remains fully prepared to deal with any threats and will respond firmly to any attempts to undermine the country’s security, ensuring the protection of its sovereignty, security and stability, and safeguarding its national interests and capabilities,” it added.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
3 hours agoUS military delivering ‘overwhelming firepower’ during Operation Epic Fury, CENTCOM says
U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that American forces, day and night, “continue to deliver overwhelming firepower” during Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
“The Iranian regime can try to hide their missile launchers, but U.S. forces won’t stop looking. When we find them, we’re taking them out,” CENTCOM added in an overnight post on X, alongside a video that showed the destruction of multiple missile launchers.
Operation Epic Fury was launched against Iran on Feb. 28.
CENTCOM said on Monday that over the first 10 days of the operation, more than 5,000 targets have been struck and over 50 Iranian ships have been damaged or destroyed.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
4 hours agoTrump warns Iran faces strikes ‘twenty times harder’ if Strait of Hormuz oil flow blocked
Iran will face much stronger U.S. military strikes if it closes the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, President Donald Trump said Monday.
In a post shared on Truth Social, Trump also said he prayed that it would never happen.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump said.
“Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!” he said.
“This is a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait,” he said before adding that hopefully, it is a “gesture that will be greatly appreciated.”
4 hours agoTrump says he’s ‘not happy’ with Iran’s pick of Mojtaba Khamenei as next supreme leader
President Donald Trump told Fox News he’s “not happy” that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was chosen as Iran’s next supreme leader.
“I don’t believe he can live in peace,” the president told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst.
Trump said Operation Epic Fury – which began on Feb. 28 and caused the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – is “Way beyond expectation in terms of result this early.”
“One of the things that surprised me most was when they attacked countries that were not attacking them,” Trump said about Iran’s response to the U.S. military action.
“When we attacked them first, we knocked out 50% of their missiles. And if we didn’t, it would have been a much harder fight,” Trump added.
Operation Epic Fury was launched following negotiations between the U.S. and Iran about the future of the latter’s nuclear program.
“No other President had the guts to do it… I don’t want some President who hasn’t got the courage in five years or in ten years to go in,” Trump said.
Fox News’ Trey Yingst contributed to this report.
Posted by Greg Norman-Diamond
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