“US Israel Iran War”

The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, U.S. officials said, as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Donald Trump choose to escalate.

Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of Special Operations forces and conventional infantry troops, said the officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive military plans that have been in development for weeks.

Such a mission could expose U.S. personnel to an array of threats, including Iranian drones and missiles, ground fire and improvised explosives. It was unclear Saturday whether Trump would approve all, some or none of the Pentagon’s plans.

Only two countries, the United States and Israel, have finally confronted a regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, for nearly half a century, has held the world hostage and destabilized an entire region, all while brutally tormenting its own people.

If President Trump gives the go-ahead, the U.S. could soon have more than 17,000 ground troops on Iran’s doorstep. That is far short of what would be needed for a full-scale invasion, but they could seize strategic territory on the mainland, secure Tehran’s uranium stockpiles or take an island.

The Pentagon is considering sending another 10,000 ground troops to the Middle East, even as Trump weighs peace talks with Tehran, The Wall Street Journal has reported. That would add to roughly 5,000 Marines and 2,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division already ordered to the region. The additional troops would likely include infantry, armored vehicles and logistics support.

For decades, Iranian naval vessels have threatened and harassed global shipping in regional waters, but those days are over. pic.twitter.com/J4WUwpfU24

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 28, 2026

The skinny paratrooper from Arizona froze as he felt the ground depress beneath his booted foot. “Hey, I’m treading on something squishy,” he announced, a trace of alarm in his voice. His words had an instant effect on the 12 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne gathered around him.

“Don’t move!” they bellowed.

It was too late. In a moment of unwitting reflex, Sergeant Brandon Pilguy lifted his foot. Beneath it was a black PMN anti-personnel mine, its black cap just visible in the Afghan sands. Linked directly beneath the mine by a detonation cord dug into the soil, the Taliban had placed a 20lb Improvised Explosive Device (IED), made of homemade explosives laced with chunks of shrapnel. It did not explode.

The Pentagon is reportedly looking at sending 10,000 troops to the Middle East amid Operation Epic Fury, according to Defense Department officials with knowledge of the planning.

“The force, which would likely include infantry and armored vehicles, would be added to the roughly 5,000 Marines and the thousands of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who have already been ordered to the region,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. forces continue to eliminate the Iranian regime’s ability to project military power beyond its borders. pic.twitter.com/r2jAincxxd

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 27, 2026

US President Donald J. Trump has reportedly laid out a 15-point peace plan to Iran — with conditions that, taken together, amount to Tehran’s near-total strategic capitulation.

In response, the Iranian regime has not merely rejected them; it has countered with a series of conditions so detached from reality that they raise a fundamental question: is Tehran negotiating or hallucinating?

Billions of dollars of highly sophisticated military equipment has been lost or significantly damaged since the U.S. and Israel began striking thousands of targets across Iran more than three weeks ago. The bulk of the damage on the ground has been caused by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.

Battle damage and replacement of losses over the first three weeks of the war likely costs roughly $1.4 billion to $2.9 billion, according to Elaine McCusker, a top Pentagon budget official during the first Trump administration who has been tracking the cost of the conflict for the American Enterprise Institute. The higher estimate includes damage to a Qatari radar housed on a U.S. air base in the country.

Iranian-linked hackers have claimed responsibility for breaching FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account and publishing private images and documents online, according to a Justice Department official who confirmed the intrusion and said the materials appear authentic.

The hacking group, known as Handala Hack Team, announced the breach on its website Friday, boasting that Patel had been added to its list of “successfully hacked” targets. The group has previously presented itself as a pro-Palestinian vigilante operation, though Western cybersecurity researchers assess it as a front for Iranian government-linked cyber units.

For every day the war in the Middle East drags on, the crisis in energy markets deepens. The price of everything from gas and oil to jet fuel and plastics is rising sharply.

That crisis is set to get dramatically worse over the next week or two.

Energy shipments stopped in their tracks on February 28 when the war began and Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. But plenty of ships made it out to sea in those final days before the conflict began. The last of them should arrive in Japanese and Korean ports sometime over the next 8-10 days.

After that, there’s nothing coming.

Police say the instigators could have mimicked a Russian model of attack which involves paying recruits with cryptocurrency

Police investigating the arson attack on Jewish ambulances in north London are examining whether it may have been directed by Iran using proxy operatives recruited online, sources said.

Investigators believe that those behind the attack may have followed a model used by Russia, recruiting so-called “useful idiots” through online criminal networks and paying them in cryptocurrency.

Iran has made use of proxies to launch attacks across Europe, including by Chechen and Turkish gangsters, and is also suspected of deploying Iranian expatriates to conduct surveillance on dissidents in the UK.