{"id":178670,"date":"2026-03-05T01:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/178670\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T01:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:56:15","slug":"defense-secretary-hegseth-to-visit-tampas-macdill-to-talk-about-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/178670\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Hegseth to visit Tampa\u2019s MacDill to talk about Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is visiting Tampa.<\/p>\n

Hegseth will meet Thursday with the head of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base for updates on the military operation against Iran, according to a news release.<\/p>\n

The release didn\u2019t provide details on when Hegseth will visit.<\/p>\n

CentCom <\/a>launched Operation Epic Fury on Saturday with targeted strikes in coordination with Israel. The command, which is tasked in part with planning for war and its contingencies in the Middle East, is led by Adm. Brad Cooper.<\/p>\n

According to the CentCom news release, the first four days of the operation included more than 2,000 strikes launched from air, land and sea.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> and other top Iranian officials have been killed.<\/p>\n

Six U.S. military members were killed over the weekend in a drone strike in Kuwait, including a Floridian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hegseth on Wednesday<\/a> acknowledged that Iran is still able to carry out missile attacks even as the U.S. tries to control the country\u2019s airspace, and said the conflict could potentially last eight weeks.<\/p>\n

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is visiting Tampa. Hegseth will meet Thursday with the head of U.S. Central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[82501,84519,21539,18341,38981,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-178670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","tag-central-command-headquarters","tag-iran","tag-macdill-air-force-base","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}