{"id":514976,"date":"2026-03-10T12:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/514976\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:20:07","slug":"defense-secretary-hegseth-briefs-media-on-operation-epic-fury-tuesday-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/514976\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Hegseth briefs media on Operation Epic Fury Tuesday morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is providing an update Tuesday morning about Operation Epic Fury as the United States and Israel continue to launch attacks in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news conference comes after Hegseth stressed during an interview with “60 Minutes”<\/a> that “this is only the beginning.”<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Israel began their large-scale military attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, leading to the death of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. <\/p>\n

On Monday, Iranian state TV announced Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, will be the new supreme leader<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Iran’s Assembly of Experts chose the 56-year-old, who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the latter years of the Iran-Iraq War. The Council on Foreign Relations<\/a> describes the IRGC as \u201cone of the most powerful and feared organizations in Iran,\u201d with central roles in power projection, internal security, and the economy.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump said on Monday that operations in Iran could end “soon,”<\/a> with Operation Epic Fury moving ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

“Two levels of leadership are gone, most people have never even heard of the leadership that they’re talking about, so it’s obviously been very powerful, very effective,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the strikes on Iran would continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur aim is to bring the Iranian people to cast off the yoke of tyranny, (but) ultimately it depends on them,\u201d Netanyahu said during a meeting with Israel\u2019s hospital and health system leaders. “There is no doubt that with the actions taken so far, we are breaking their bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s parliament speaker on Tuesday dismissed any suggestion that Tehran sought a ceasefire in the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are definitely not looking for a ceasefire; we believe that the aggressor should be punched in the mouth so that he learns a lesson so that he will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again,\u201d Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X<\/a>. “The Zionist regime sees its shameful existence in the continuation of the cycle of \u2018war-negotiation-ceasefire and then war again\u2019 to consolidate its dominance. We will break this cycle.”<\/p>\n

Seven U.S. soldiers have been killed<\/a> while supporting the military efforts.<\/p>\n

Over 36,000 Americans have safely returned to the United States <\/a>from the Middle East since the operation began, according to the State Department. <\/p>\n

Trump and other top administration leaders have justified the strikes as a preemptive military operation against what they described as imminent threats from Iran, particularly related to ballistic missiles and potential nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is providing an update Tuesday morning about Operation Epic Fury as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-514976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}