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Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

US President Donald Trump revealed that Iranian forces carried out a coordinated assault on the USS Gerald R. Ford, stating that the world’s largest aircraft carrier came under a multi-directional attack in the Red Sea as Tehran intensifies its retaliation against the US-Israeli aggression launched on February 28.

Speaking at a Saudi investment forum in Miami on Friday, Trump described what unfolded as “a serious situation” for US naval forces, indicating that the scale and intensity of the operation rapidly overwhelmed expectations.

“It was one o’clock in the morning,” Trump said, recalling the moment the vessel came under attack “from 17 different angles.”

“We knew we were in trouble,” he added.

“They were here, they were there. We ran for our lives, it was over,” Trump said, relaying the account of a Navy commander who was aboard at the time.

Carrier forced to withdraw

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the centerpiece of US naval power projection, had been deployed to West Asia as part of Washington’s aggression against Iran. In the immediate aftermath of the reported confrontation, the carrier was forced out of the theater following a fire that erupted onboard on March 12, injuring crew members and leaving nearly 200 sailors affected by smoke inhalation, while damaging large sections of the vessel.

The warship withdrew first to the Greek island of Crete before docking in Croatia for urgent repairs, after nearly nine months of continuous deployment marked by mounting technical failures, including persistent system malfunctions that had already raised concerns about its operational reliability under sustained pressure.

Despite the sequence of events, the Pentagon insisted that the damage stemmed from a “non-combat-related” fire in a laundry area, attempting to frame the withdrawal as a routine technical issue rather than the result of battlefield impact.

Iran exposes vulnerability

Iranian officials have categorically rejected this narrative, arguing that it is a transparent attempt to obscure the consequences of Iran’s retaliatory operations, which have increasingly exposed the vulnerability of even the most advanced US military assets.

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps ridiculed the US account, stating, “What kind of military giant is this that faces a crisis and is forced to leave the battlefield due to a fire occurring in its laundry room?”

Tehran has repeatedly warned that US aircraft carriers operating in regional waters would be treated as legitimate targets, stressing that their presence constitutes a direct threat to Iran’s sovereignty.

Within this context, Iranian officials and analysts view the carrier’s abrupt withdrawal as clear evidence that sustained missile and drone operations are imposing real constraints on US forces, undermining Washington’s ability to maintain control despite its overwhelming technological advantage.

Iran’s armed forces have also reported conducting successful drone and missile strikes against another US carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, reinforcing what Tehran presents as an expanding and effective deterrence posture capable of reshaping the military balance across the region.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’

Battle for Hungary: EU attacks on Orban are a sign of worse things to come

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | March 28, 2026

About a century ago – between those two World Wars which Europeans have generously given to the history of humanity – there was a joke about Hungary: It was a monarchy without a king and a landlocked country ruled by an admiral. It was funny because it was true.

Nowadays, though, we have proudly advanced. Now, we have a whole European Union, with 27 member states and 450 million people, run by an unelected German who really serves the US and has, a bit like Siegfried or Brunhilde, a special “shield” (about which more below) to protect a “democracy” administered and defined by an non-transparent, privileged, and aloof nomenklatura of equally unelected bureaucrats.

Contemporary Hungary, meanwhile, is, by the sober standards of reality, by no means a perfect but a perfectly normal country, that is, neither better nor worse than most of the rest. No longer a weird monarchy with a gaping hole at the top but a run-of-the-mill Western-style capitalist democracy, it has a feisty prime minister for a leader instead of an admiral without a coast. That prime minister, Viktor Orban, is a typical if especially canny and successful professional politician, who combines a knack for crowd appeal, demagoguery included, with deft political power plays.

It is true, if electoral districts need re-designing in Hungary, the party in power is likely to favor its own chances, just like they do in the EU’s big “daddy” the US, for instance. Likewise, if you are doing business in Hungary, being close to the party – or parties –in power tends to be better for your company. But that’s no different in, again, the US (with the caveat that there the current president and his extensive clan are now taking an extra large cut for themselves). Or, indeed, in Germany and France. The latter, as it happens, has just reached a new low in Transparency International’s annual corruption index.

Hungary may not have unbiased mass media, as its critics indignantly charge. But then, who does? Certainly not Germany, Britain, France, or, for that matter, the US. As a matter of fact, it is the EU and the German authorities which are currently obstinately misusing a sanctions regime designed for foreign policy purposes – and not working, but that’s another matter – to circumvent ordinary legal procedures, trample on civil and human rights, and punitively destroy the existence of individual dissidents and critical journalist.

Hungary’s elections may suffer from that media slant and some sharp administrative practice, too. But that again, is at least equally true of all major states in Europe and of the US as well. Indeed, say what you will about voting under real-existing Orbanism, it has not featured the brutal, EU-driven manipulation we have recently seen in Romania and Moldova.

And there is also nothing comparable in Orban’s Hungary to the extremely suspicious (to say the least) manner in which the last German elections featured a statistically bizarre accumulation of “mistakes” that eliminated the New-Left BSW from parliament.

Since it seems likely that a correct – or clean – result would make Germany’s current ruling coalition impossible, the implications of this case of deeply flawed elections at the very center of the EU are most disturbing: at this point, Germany may have an electorally baseless government, the German parliament’s refusal to permit a clearly necessary recount is either more foul play or indistinguishable from it, and Berlin’s political course – domestically and abroad – would be principally different under a government that would have to rely on the correct election results.

And let’s not even mention minor details, such as that Hungary’s mixed election system (combining first-past-the-post districts and national party lists) is far more representative than that of that “cradle of parliamentary democracy” and police-state-for-Zionism Great Britain.

In view of the above, you would expect, if anything, Budapest going after Brussels as well as some other individual EU member states to demand better democratic behavior. But this is the alternative-reality world of the EU’s sectarian “elite,” where genocidal Israel is only defending itself, “Europe is the values of the Talmud” (perish the thought its history may have a little more to do with first Christian and then Enlightenment ideas), the US is a good and reliable ally, and four white, blonde women serving the same radical Centrism proudly constitute “diversity.”

Hence, in topsy-turvy land, it is, obviously, once again the EU that is charging Hungary with flunking the test of “democracy.” That, in and of itself, might not be important: words are cheap. The problem is that, as before in Romania and even Moldova – not even a member state – the EU Commission has long passed from mere talk, at which it excels, to mean action, which makes everything only worse. Indeed, the EU’s meddling in Hungary has recently escalated.

The catalyst for this escalation is the upcoming Hungarian election. To be held on April 12, domestically, back in Hungary, the outcome will merely decide if Orban can stay in power – which he has been without interruption since 2010 – or will be replaced by the opposition’s new hope, Peter Magyar, a former Orbanist himself. Yet there are good reasons Politico has called these “the EU’s most important elections” this year despite the fact that Hungary is a small country of less than 10 million citizens.

For one thing, Orban is the primus inter pares of a group of very inconvenient sovereigntist rebels inside the EU, which also includes Slovakia’s leader Robert Fico, the Czech Republic’s Andrej Babis and, occasionally but with special weight, Bart de Wever from Belgium, which is an EU founding member. Orban’s toppling would not only weaken this loose group of leaders that still remember that they are supposed to serve their countries first but also make for a chilling object lesson in what happens to those frustrating Brussels too much.

Especially, if they resist the Commission party line on three topics: the relationship with Russia, the Western – now entirely EU-financed – proxy war waged against Moscow by means of Ukraine, and, last but not least, money, in particular money to be wasted – or not – on Kiev’s Zelensky regime. In all three areas, Orban has been Brussel’s main irritant, consistently arguing for normalization with Russia through diplomacy, a quick negotiated end to the proxy war, and an end also to the pathological inter-dependence with Zelensky’s ultra-corrupt and extremely dangerous regime.

Recently, this Hungarian resistance has led to repeated clashes with both the EU establishment and Kiev. Zelensky has publicly threatened Orban with violence in the worst Mafia style; Budapest has taken action against extremely suspicious transports of tens of millions of euro and dollars as well as bullion to Kiev; Hungary and Ukraine have been sparring over Kiev’s attempts to block the Druzhba pipeline; Budapest has been blocking yet another massive “loan” (never to be paid back) for Zelensky and his crew, and, most recently, Orban has called on Kiev to immediately withdraw its agents and operatives from Hungary.

And, by the way, you may suspect Orban of seeking an electoral boost. But even if that is the case, it makes no difference to the fact that aggressive subversion is exactly what the Zelensky regime does. Ask the Germans how things with their pipelines went. The braver ones might dare answer.

As we live in modern, online times, the shape much of the escalating EU meddling on the side of Orban’s opponents in Budapest and Kiev has taken is a nasty combination of social media manipulation at scale, illicit surveillance and spying, and the targeted dissemination of what is meant to be compromising information.

A smelly affair features a Hungarian journalist who has produced a source-free report alleging massive Russian interference in the elections, while spending his free time facilitating an EU country’s intelligence service eavesdropping on Hungary’s foreign minister. Some interference indeed. The hypocrisy would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

In Brussels, meanwhile, under the overall umbrella of the “European Democracy Shield” (EDS) initiative and the Digital Services Act (DSA), a so-called Rapid Response mechanism has been activated to – so the official brief tells us – combat disinformation and foreign influence. Yet, in reality, this is a set of compulsory measures that permit the Commission’s dependent auxiliaries to police social media platforms, suppress content in favor of Orban and, thus, promote his rivals.

What makes all of this particularly dreadful is not simply that it is so almost comically Orwellian: The “European Democracy Shield” is really a shield to protect the EU’s unelected bureaucrat rulers and their ideologized technocrats from democracy as a recent report has correctly argued. Its tools, from so-called “fact-checking” to systematic denunciation by “trusted flaggers” to “prebunking” – that is AI-based preventative propaganda campaigns – amount to a box of horrors.

Yet what is even worse is that all of this is only a small part of a much larger and long-term strategy that has been gathering steam for a decade already. The “European Democracy Shield” and the DSA exist in a large, constantly pullulating eco-system of narrative control that also includes, for instance, a “Defense of Democracy Package,” a “European Democracy Action Plan,” and a Digital Markets Act. Attached to this weaponized spearhead for manufacturing Brussels consent is an extensive – and very expensive – train of so-called civil-society organizations and NGOs that provide both censorship assistance and indoctrination.

Hungary, put simply, is a harbinger of more and even worse to come, of what Brussels wants for our future. The EU ‘elites’ are displaying an unbroken will to power over what we are allowed to think, say, and vote for. That is why – whether you like or dislike Viktor Orban – and I heartily dislike him because of his outrageous siding with genocidal Israel – you should certainly greatly dislike and resist the methods that the EU is fielding to stop him. Because they are coming for all of us.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Battle for Hungary: EU attacks on Orban are a sign of worse things to come

Iraqi resistance conducts drone strike on US-run base in Syria

Press TV – March 28, 2026

Fighters from the anti-terror group Islamic Resistance in Iraq have conducted a drone strike against an installation operated by US occupation forces in Syria’s southwestern al-Tanf region, close to the borders with Iraq and Jordan.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that air defense systems manned by members of the ruling Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group had intercepted and shot down an unmanned aircraft as it was flying in the skies over the base.

It added that the drone had most likely set off from an area in neighboring Iraq, without specifying the exact location.

Back on March 20, Iraqi resistance groups destroyed three critical sites at the US-run Harir base in Erbil — the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, sharply reducing American military activities there.

An informed source said the positions were targeted simultaneously with missile strikes on the Victory Airbase close to the Baghdad International Airport.

Over the past two weeks, coordinated drone and missile attacks have repeatedly struck key infrastructure at Harir, including its central radar system, which was hit at least four times and ultimately destroyed.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Iraqi resistance conducts drone strike on US-run base in Syria

Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War

By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | March 27, 2026

Openly declaring its intent to illegally occupy southern Lebanon, Israel finds itself in a costly ground battle with Hezbollah, from which there are indications Syria may soon be roped in. This is born from the understanding that in order to successfully weaken the Lebanese resistance, the Israeli military must penetrate the Bekaa Valley area.

Understanding the costly price of attempting to physically take all of south Lebanon militarily, both Washington and Tel Aviv have been attempting to devise strategies that would help achieve Israel’s war goals of weakening Hezbollah.

One possible option that has been placed on the table is the use of Syria’s military to invade Lebanon’s border and attack Hezbollah, aiming to go after what is labelled critical infrastructure belonging to the Lebanese group. According to reports, the US Trump administration has directly put pressure on Syrian leader Ahmed al-Shara’a to do just that.

In the event of such an assault, the Beka’a Valley would be the target territory. The Beka’a is what Israel’s Alma Research and Education think-tank calls “Hezbollah’s strategic depth”, which it argues is the group’s “operational and logistical center of gravity”. If Tel Aviv truly seeks to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, a ground incursion into this region is the only way to truly achieve such a goal.

Another plausible option is that Israel itself will use Syrian territory in order to invade Lebanon’s eastern border. This would appear possible, as the current Hayat Tahrir al-Sham administration in Damascus has allowed Israel to use Lebanese territory on two occasions so far.

Although al-Shara’a doesn’t grant direct permission, he refuses to deploy his forces to prevent the Israelis from violating Syria’s sovereignty. Earlier this year, the leadership in Damascus agreed to setting up a soft normalisation understanding with the Israelis. According to US State Department press release, the following was agreed upon:

“Both Sides have decided to establish a joint fusion mechanism—a dedicated communication cell—to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.”

It suffices to say that Syria’s current leader, who once spoke of conquering occupied Jerusalem, has clearly aligned himself with the United States and now openly states he will pose no threat to Israel. Instead of fighting back against Israel’s ever growing occupation of more Syrian lands, or responding to civilian massacres inside his territory, he has instead sought to disarm those Syrians who are threatened by the belligerent occupying force in the south.

Despite this, Israel has continually attacked Syrian territory, including bombing the ministry of defence in Damascus. Recently, it also attacked Syrian military positions in the Damascus countryside, citing renewed sectarian clashes between Israeli-aligned Druze separatists and HTS allied forces.

In December of last year, parades were held in Damascus and other Syrian cities, where armed factions making up the country’s new armed forces held marches in the streets to mark the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Notably, these soldiers chanted in solidarity with Gaza and issued threats to Israel.

Some groups belonging to the new Syrian security forces, also burned Israeli flags and expressed solidarity with the village of Beit Jinn, where a group of locals had organised an ambush against Israeli invading forces. Israel then bombarded the village, which is home to both Palestinians and Syrians, murdering at least 13 civilians.

A series of Syrian Resistance groups have also popped up in the country’s south, occasionally carrying out rocket attacks or opening fire on Israeli soldiers with light weapons. The most prominent group has been ‘Jabhat al-Moqowameh al-Islammiya Fe Souriya’ [The Islamic Resistance Front In Syria].

The newest group to emerge is called ‘Kataeb Jund al-Karrar Fe Balad as-Sham’ [Soldiers of  the Karrar Brigades in the Levant] also emerged on March 8, publishing a video of themselves firing rockets at US military positions in Syria’s Palmyra. The group has additionally claimed attacks on Israel.

If Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’a orders an attack on Lebanon, this could immediately trigger an incursion into Syria by the powerful Iraqi groups aligned with Hezbollah. An official statement issued by The Islamic Resistance Coordination Committee in Iraq explicitly threatened that:

“We see the treachery of the new authority in Syria and are monitoring its coordination with the enemy. We say clearly: if you dare violate the sovereignty of Lebanon and its patient, resisting people, we will turn your land into an open arena of fire. He who warns has given fair notice.”

On the other hand, due to the fragile security situation inside Syria, if the Israeli military does attempt to launch an offensive from inside Syrian territory, there is always a chance that they will come under attack from a whole myriad of forces. It is possible that what currently constitutes the Syrian Army, may even break ranks and refuse to listen to the leadership in Damascus.

On March 6, a botched Israeli special forces raid targeted the Lebanese village of Nabi Cheet, located east of Beirut. In order to conduct this infiltration operation – which was successfully repelled due to a joint effort from Hezbollah, local militias and the Lebanese Army – it used Syrian territory. Notably, it launched its assault from an area located north-west of Damascus.

Israel has so far displaced over a million people in Lebanon, openly declaring its intent to expand what it calls a military “buffer zone”. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz doesn’t mince his words however, openly declaring that he is seeking to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River.

To this effect, the Israeli military has not only ordered the entire population of southern Lebanon to evacuate the territory, but also bombed five primary bridges connecting the south to the rest of the country. And yet, on the ground, the Israeli army is having a difficult time simply passing the border villages, where Hezbollah has damaged or destroyed around 70 Merkava tanks so far.

If the Israelis come under attack from forces inside Syria itself, they could be dragged into a painful quagmire there. This could also come about in the event that Syria’s al-Shara’a decides to seize the opportunity of Israel being distracted in Lebanon, to launch an offensive against the Druze separatist militias in Sweida. In order to save their Druze militia allies from suffering a major defeat, the Israeli army itself could get roped into direct clashes with Syrian forces.

Therefore, if the Israeli leadership makes the decision to escalate the Lebanon conflict by making a move towards the Bekaa Valley, they could very easily find themselves dealing with a totally new reality inside Syria too.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War

US-Israeli war on Iran drives global fertilizer prices up 40%

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

The ongoing war on Iran is driving a sharp rise in global fertilizer prices, exposing how Western-led escalation is reverberating across critical sectors such as agriculture and food production, the German-based Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported on Friday.

According to Philipp Spinne, managing director of the German Raiffeisen Association, mineral fertilizer prices have increased by 30% to 40% since the beginning of the year. He noted that current market conditions are approaching levels seen at the start of the war in Ukraine, indicating mounting pressure on global supply chains. “A situation similar to what happened in February 2022 is recurring,” Spinne said, pointing to the rapid climb in nitrogen fertilizer prices toward previous peaks.

Hormuz disruptions

The surge is closely tied to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a significant share of global fertilizer trade passes, including roughly one-third of globally traded urea and about 20% of ammonia. Tehran’s response to the US-Israeli aggression has prompted restrictions on maritime flows, tightening supply and pushing energy prices higher, feeding directly into production costs.

Despite this, the immediate impact on European consumers remains limited. Many farmers had already secured their fertilizer supplies before the outbreak of the war. According to German industry estimates, around 80% of the required quantities for the entire spring season are already held in cooperative storage, while roughly 50% are already in the hands of farmers. However, industry representatives warn that a prolonged war will inevitably translate into higher production costs, which are expected to pass through to food prices over time.

A spokesperson for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association noted that while availability is currently manageable, farms that did not secure supplies early are now facing significant cost burdens. At the same time, relatively weak grain prices are compounding the pressure, squeezing margins and weighing on farm liquidity.

Rising fertilizer costs

Energy costs remain the central driver. Gas accounts for between 80% and 90% of the cost of producing ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers, meaning that fluctuations in energy markets, intensified by the war, directly affect agricultural inputs. Industry representatives added that the sharp rise in gas prices in Western Europe during the Ukraine war had already weakened the region’s chemical sector, a trend now deepening.

As prices rise, farmers may reduce fertilizer use, a shift that could lead to lower yields and tighter food supplies globally. The structural importance of fertilizers to global food systems reflects the scale of the risk: nearly half of the world’s population depends on crops grown using mineral fertilizers, while yields today are roughly double those of the early 20th century due to their use. Any sustained disruption, therefore, carries long-term implications for food security.

Although Europe produces a large share of its own fertilizers, covering roughly three-quarters of its nitrogen needs domestically and slightly more in the case of potash, it remains indirectly exposed through rising gas and LNG prices. While Europe has for years imported little fertilizer directly from conflict-affected regions, indirect pressures through energy markets continue to impact production costs.

Europe under pressure

At the policy level, European actors are increasingly turning to protectionist measures, including tariffs on Russian fertilizers, in an effort to shield domestic markets and reduce external dependency. Industry groups have also called for higher tariffs on Russian potash and for strengthening local production capacity. At the same time, Russia has introduced its own export restrictions to protect internal supply, further tightening global availability.

For now, German farmers remain partially insulated, but those forced to purchase at current prices are facing significantly higher costs, reinforcing concerns that the economic strain on agriculture will deepen if the war persists.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on US-Israeli war on Iran drives global fertilizer prices up 40%

Hezbollah’s Surprise Weapons Redefine Ground Battle with Israel

By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | March 28, 2026

An Israeli “tank massacre”, reminiscent of the Lebanon war of 2006, has been taking place in southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah surprises the invading army with the use of a range of anti-tank weapons and drones.

On March 25, Hezbollah unleashed a fury on Israel’s Merkava tanks, announcing that they had struck a total of 21, in addition to striking 3 D-9 Bulldozers and 2 militarized Humvees. The following day, the Lebanese group released a series of videos depicting some of their operations.

In order to carry out so many strikes against Israeli armored vehicles, Hezbollah has traditionally used a variety of guided anti-tank guided munitions (ATGM). Prominently made use of have been weapons ranging from varying kinds of the Russian-made Kornet anti-tank systems, to the Almas (diamond) system that is an Iranian reverse-engineered version of the Israeli-made Spike AGTM, a top attack missile that is particularly effective.

During the Lebanon-Israel war of 2024, Hezbollah announced that it had destroyed a total of 59 Israeli tanks between the end of September and November 27. This time around, Hezbollah has already claimed to have struck around 70. It is unclear how many of these hits damaged or destroyed the tanks, but it suffices to say that this is a significant development.

Between October of 2023 and October of 2024, the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to have carried out 480 operations targeting Israeli tanks. A later report by Israeli news outlet Maariv cited data arguing that at least 500 military vehicles of varying kinds had sustained damage in Gaza. How many were totally destroyed is unknown, due to Israeli military censorship.

However, even a damaged tank is a major issue as they take a long time to repair, and the process is often costly. The reason why the figures from Gaza matter is that, in the case of the Palestinian resistance groups, they primarily used weapons like the Yassin-105 tandem warhead RPG, and then later, they were forced to use less sophisticated kinds of RPGs. Hezbollah, by comparison, has a much more sophisticated arsenal of anti-tank weapons.

A Game Changer?

During this war, which Hezbollah entered on March 2, citing Israel’s 15,400 ceasefire violations against the country and refusal to withdraw from occupied territory, a new weapon appears to be shaping the group’s ground confrontation with the Israeli invading army. That is the FPV (first-person-view) drone, equipped with heavy explosive charges.

The video published on March 26 by the Lebanese group’s military media featured one of these FPV drones directly striking a weak spot on an Israeli Merkava tank. Since March 25, when these weapons started to be used to combat invading Israeli military vehicles, they have been deployed routinely to target their tanks.

FPV drones using a fiber-optic capability are notably immune to electromagnetic jamming, making them extremely difficult to bring down and have been used extensively in the Ukraine-Russia war. Although no statistic is presented to back up this claim, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that FPV drones account for most battlefield casualties in Ukraine.

Regardless of the precise numbers of casualties inflicted in the Ukraine-Russia war by this drone, it is broadly accepted that it has been a game-changer, with it being the weapon of choice against various kinds of tanks and armored vehicles.

Another bonus to the FPV drone, beyond its use to target weak points on military vehicles, is the fact that the recordings can also be recovered as proof of what it struck. In Baghdad, just over a week ago, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq used two FPV drones to target a US military base, with one drone filming the other striking its target.

When fighting a war against Israel, which is perhaps the most well-known military on earth for hiding its soldiers’ deaths, this can come in handy for Hezbollah, which could potentially use the footage to embarrass the Israeli military.

If Israel proceeds with its ground invasion of Lebanon, launching a full-scale invasion, it may at some point run out of tanks, or at the very least have to begin rationing its use of them.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Hezbollah’s Surprise Weapons Redefine Ground Battle with Israel

Yemen joins fight against US, Israel by firing missiles at occupied territories

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

Yemen’s Armed Forces have carried out their first military operation since announcing readiness for direct military intervention in the ongoing US-Israeli war on the Axis of Resistance, targeting military sites in southern occupied Palestine with a salvo of ballistic missiles.

Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree confirmed the operation on Saturday, stating that ballistic missiles struck “sensitive military objectives belonging to the Israeli enemy in southern occupied Palestine.”

Saree said the operation coincided with ongoing resistance operations by fighters in Iran and Lebanon, stressing that it “successfully achieved its intended objectives.”

He affirmed that operations would continue “until the declared goals are met and until the aggression ceases across all fronts of the resistance.”

Earlier this morning, Israeli media had reported missiles launched from Yemen toward the southern occupied territories, with sirens sounding in Eilat, the Wadi Araba region, and al-Naqab.

Saree’s warning

The strike follows a Friday warning from Saree that the Yemeni Armed Forces were prepared for direct military intervention should certain red lines be crossed.

He named three specific triggers: the formation of additional alliances alongside the US and “Israel” against Iran or Axis of Resistance states; the use of the Red Sea as a platform for hostile military operations against Iran or any Muslim country; and the continued escalation of the US-Israeli aggression.

Ansar Allah leader Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi had warned Thursday that the US and “Israel” are advancing a “scheme to reshape the Middle East and establish the so-called Greater Israel,” stressing that Yemen is “not neutral” but stands with the Islamic nation.

Sayyed al-Houthi affirmed that any developments requiring a military response would be met with full readiness, as in previous rounds, while reiterating that Yemen’s military activity targets only US and Israeli objectives, not Muslim-majority states or civilian populations.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Yemen joins fight against US, Israel by firing missiles at occupied territories

Seizing the Kharg: Washington’s path to defeat in the Persian Gulf

By Anis Raiss | The Cradle | March 27, 2026

Four weeks of US-Israeli war on Iran – and the stakes have climbed far higher than Washington anticipated. US President Donald Trump threatened on Truth Social to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened within 48 hours.

The deadline passed. He blinked and, for the second time, postponed his own ultimatum, recasting it as ‘productive conversations.’ Tehran denied any talks and insisted the reversal was driven by “fear of Iran’s response.”

The US-Israeli air campaign was supposed to break Iran. It didn’t. Now the hawks are pushing for boots on the ground. But the ground war being floated does not simply risk American lives on an island 15 miles (around 24 kilometers) off Iran’s coast. It threatens the entire US military architecture in the Persian Gulf – the bases, the alliances, and the energy infrastructure that has underwritten American dominance in West Asia for decades.

In an interview with NBC News, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in response to a question about a possible ground invasion by the US, delivered words the Pentagon had no answer for: “We are waiting for them,” which became a meme in the process. The bluff has been called. The question now is whether showing Washington’s hand collapses the entire table.

Raising the stakes with an empty hand

The ground invasion discourse is no longer hypothetical. Pentagon officials have submitted detailed preparation requests for deploying ground forces. Three Marine amphibious assault groups are converging on the Persian Gulf: the USS Tripoli carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit from Japan, the USS Boxer with the 11th MEU from California, and roughly 1,500 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

By the time all units arrive, between 6,000 and 8,000 US ground troops will be within striking distance of Iran. But the composition of these forces exposes the gap between rhetoric and reality. Military analyst Ruben Stewart noted that what is being deployed is “consistent with discrete, time-limited operations, not a sustained ground campaign.”

At the same time, Israel’s own military is showing signs of strain. Chief of staff Eyal Zamir warned on 25 March that the army is “going to collapse in on itself,” citing an eroding reserve force and a deepening manpower crisis as wars stretch from Gaza to Lebanon and now Iran.

Washington is pushing more chips to the center of the table – but the hand behind them remains weak. The scenarios now circulating form an escalation ladder where each rung risks pulling the US deeper into a fight it is structurally unprepared to sustain.

Pickaxe Mountain and the raid that takes too long 

The most politically attractive option is a covert raid on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile – believed to be around 400 kilograms enriched to roughly 60 percent, possibly stored near Isfahan or deep inside Pickaxe Mountain.

But the problem is one Sun Tzu identified centuries ago: speed is the essence of war – yet this mission demands the opposite. Extracting nuclear material requires troops to remain on-site long enough for Iranian forces to respond.

Former CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel described such operations as “feasible,” but issued a clear warning: “You’re going to have to take care of them, resupply them, medevac them. And that requires a logistical tail, and at some point that tail has to be protected as well.”

Washington still carries the scar of Operation Eagle Claw – the failed 1980 hostage rescue that collapsed in the Iranian desert and helped end Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Kharg Island: The trap disguised as a shortcut

If covert raids carry too much risk for too little certainty, the next option on the table is a limited territorial seizure – and Washington’s hawks have converged on a single target: Kharg Island.

An eight-square-mile (around 20.7 square kilometers) coral outcrop in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg processes roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports. US Senator Lindsey Graham urged Trump to “take Kharg Island,” while retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg described himself as a “big believer in boots on the ground” there.

The logic sounds surgical: seize Iran’s economic lifeline and force Tehran to the table. But it collapses under even basic scrutiny. Kharg sits just 15 miles (around 24 kilometers) off the Iranian mainland – well within range of coastal missile batteries, drones, rockets, and artillery. Any US force stationed there would face “near-constant bombardment.”

Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery put it bluntly: “If we seize Kharg Island, they’re going to turn off the spigot on the other end. It’s not like we control their oil production.”

Sun Tzu warned that there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. Modern analyses reach the same conclusion. Think tank assessments warn that Kharg is a textbook case of mission creep, pulling US forces step by step toward a wider ground war.

The war Iran has prepared for

What Washington’s hawks consistently overlook is that Iran has spent decades preparing for precisely this scenario – not to match US firepower, but to make any ground war prohibitively costly.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is divided into 31 autonomous ground divisions, each capable of operating independently if central command is disrupted.

When strikes killed the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, and Basij chief Gholamreza Soleimani, the military apparatus continued launching missiles, closing the Strait of Hormuz, and fighting. A command structure designed to survive decapitation appears to be doing exactly that.

At sea, Iran’s naval doctrine relies on asymmetric warfare. Its reported arsenal: hundreds of fast attack craft, coastal missile batteries, an estimated 5,000 naval mines, over 1,000 unmanned suicide vessels, and Ghadir-class midget submarines built for the Gulf’s shallow waters. The Persian Gulf is not an open ocean. It is a corridor shaped by geography and fortified by doctrine – designed to swallow conventional naval power.

On land, the scale alone is decisive. Iran is four times the size of Iraq, with a population exceeding 90 million. Estimates suggest that any conventional invasion would require “hundreds of thousands of troops.”

Then there is the Basij paramilitary network, reportedly capable of mobilizing up to a million reservists – and the IRGC’s decades of experience coordinating asymmetric resistance across the region.

The US currently has fewer than 8,000 moving into position. This is not a war Iran needs to win – but one that is designed to make Washington unable to sustain.

Winning Kharg, losing the Gulf

Even if Washington succeeds tactically – seizing Kharg and declaring victory – the strategic consequences are immediate.

Since the war began, Iran has already demonstrated its escalation capacity. Missiles and drones have targeted US-linked infrastructure across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Energy facilities, airports, and desalination plants have all come under fire.

A seizure of Kharg would likely trigger a far broader response. Iranian officials have explicitly warned of “continuous and relentless attacks” on regional infrastructure if Iranian territory is occupied.

Tehran has also signaled it could expand the conflict to the Bab al-Mandab Strait through allied Ansarallah-aligned forces in Yemen, threatening a second global chokepoint.

Every US position in the Gulf depends on supply lines that run through the very states already under threat. Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet. The UAE hosts Al-Dhafra. Kuwait functions as a logistical hub.

As the Stimson Center noted, Gulf states already fear Trump could declare victory and leave them fighting Iran alone.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Seizing the Kharg: Washington’s path to defeat in the Persian Gulf

Iran reports 500 US casualties in strikes on covert US military sites

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

Iran’s Armed Forces announced on Saturday that they inflicted heavy casualty losses on US military personnel after striking two covert sites used to shelter US troops, both in Dubai.

The spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, stated that the strikes resulted in casualties affecting more than 500 US soldiers and officers, with approximately 400 at the first site and over 100 at the second.

He confirmed ambulances were seen transporting the dead and wounded for hours following the operations.

Tehran issued a warning to US President Donald Trump and US military commanders in the wake of the strikes, declaring that the region had become “a graveyard for their soldiers” and that the United States has no option but to yield to Iran’s will or face inevitable consequences.

Dubai, al-Kharj targeted in coordinated strike

Zolfaghari also announced in a separate statement that the two secret locations were identified and struck using a combination of missiles and drones in precise operations.

He added that an IRGC strike on the US troop deployment site at Al-Kharj base in Saudi Arabia on Friday destroyed one refueling aircraft and severely damaged three others, rendering all four completely inoperable.

At the same time as the Dubai strikes, Zolfaghari revealed that a warehouse storing Ukrainian anti-drone systems, present in Dubai to support the US military, was also destroyed in a combined operation carried out by the IRGC’s aerospace and naval forces.

21 Ukrainian personnel were reported to have been at the site at the time of the strike. “There is no confirmed information regarding the fate of the Ukrainian personnel present at the site, who are likely to have been killed,” Zolfaghari said.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Iran reports 500 US casualties in strikes on covert US military sites

Pro-Israel terrorist arrested before assassination of pro-Palestinian activist

Press TV – March 28, 2026

The New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have arrested Alexander Heifler, a member of a pro-Israel terror group, for plotting the assassination of a well-known pro-Palestinian activist.

Heifler, 26, was charged in federal court on Friday with making and possessing Molotov cocktails that investigators said he was planning to use in the assassination attempt.

He was taken into custody at his home in the neighboring state of New Jersey, after detectives and federal agents searched his residence and found eight Molotov cocktails.

Police identified Heifler as a member of a branch of the so-called Jewish Defense League (JDL), a pro-Israel group designated by the FBI as a terrorist organization.

An undercover sting revealed that he was planning an assassination attempt of Nerdeen Kiswani, 31, the co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime (WOL), according to court documents.

Heifler had been planning the attack since at least February, when he discussed building and using Molotov cocktails for “self-defense” on a group video call that included an undercover detective, Investigators said.

The undercover detective met him in person the next day and then two more times in the weeks that followed, including Thursday, when they built the eight Molotov cocktails together in Heifler’s home. He was arrested shortly thereafter, according to the criminal complaint.

While making the weapons, Heifler told the undercover agent that he planned to throw some of the Molotov cocktails at cars and at least one directly into Kiswani’s home.

Heifler is being held without bond until his next court appearance. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Pro-Israel terrorist arrested before assassination of pro-Palestinian activist