‘All ports in Persian Gulf will be legitimate targets if Iranian ports are attacked’
Press TV – March 11, 2026
The senior spokesman of Iran’s armed forces has warned that all ports and economic centers in Persian Gulf littoral states will be considered legitimate targets for Iran if the United States attacks Iranian ports as part of the ongoing joint aggression with Israel against the country.
“If the US follows through with its threat against Iran’s ports, there will definitely be no port, economic center, or location in the Persian Gulf that could remain beyond our reach, and they will be struck as legitimate targets,” Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said on Wednesday.
Shekarchi said that Iran has exercised restraint since the start of the US-Israeli aggression in late February by limiting its attacks to US military bases and assets in the region.
However, the general warned that attacks will expand to cover all locations in Persian Gulf countries if the US attacks key infrastructure in southern Iran.
The warning comes in response to US threats of attacking Iranian oil production facilities, as Washington faces growing pressure over rising international energy and commodity prices caused by the escalating conflict in the Persian Gulf.
Prices have increased steadily since earlier this week when Iran intensified its restrictions on the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway in the Persian Gulf responsible for a fifth of global oil demand.
Shekarchi rejected claims by the US military that its operations had caused Iranian naval vessels to be trapped in docks and economic ports in southern Iran.
“We consider this news one hundred percent wrong, and it is a lie… The (Iranian) armed forces are standing powerfully, and if necessary, we will carry out operations heavier than those we have carried out so far,” he told state TV.
Department of War Using Palantir AI to Pick Targets in Iran

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | March 11, 2026
The Pentagon is using an Artificial Intelligence system developed by Palantir to select targets in Iran. Some members of Congress are considering legislation to place restrictions and safeguards on the Department of War’s use of AI.
Two Congressional sources speaking with NBC News confirmed the use of Palantir’s AI for targeting and the potential bill. “AI tools aren’t 100% reliable — they can fail in subtle ways and yet operators continue to over-trust them,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs.
“We have a responsibility to enforce strict guardrails on the military’s use of AI and guarantee a human is in the loop in every decision to use lethal force, because the cost of getting it wrong could be devastating for civilians and the service members carrying out these missions,” she added.
None of the members of Congress who spoke with NBC News wanted to prevent the Pentagon from using AI in the targeting process. The Department of War has claimed that humans remain the final decision makers on what the US military will target.
AI targeting has become increasingly common in warfare. The US has used AI to help Ukraine identify targets, and Israel relied extensively on AI systems to determine who and what to bomb in Gaza.
Central Command (CENTCOM) claims that US forces have hit more than 5,500 targets in Iran. The US has already bombed a number of civilian targets in Iran, including Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school. That strike killed at least 175 people, mostly children and their parents.
Palantir’s targeting system, dubbed Maven, relies on Anthropic’s Claude. Anthropic has demanded that its AI not be used for targeting or mass surveillance, leading to retaliation from the White House.
Anthropic and Palantir did not comment on the story.
American bases do not protect – they attack the peoples of the Persian Gulf
By Eduardo Vasco | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 11, 2026
“Our success will continue to hinge on America’s military power and the credibility of our assurances to our allies and partners in the Middle East.”
These were the words spoken in December 2013 by the Secretary of Defense of the Obama administration, Chuck Hagel, to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. That reinforced the historical guarantees given by Washington to its puppets, reaffirming the deceptive propaganda that the United States is the guardian of global security.
Promises like that are made by every administration, whether Democrat or Republican. Twelve years later, Donald Trump would reinforce that mantra again, addressing Qatar specifically: “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory (…) of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.” According to Trump, the United States would respond to attacks against Qatar with “all lawful and appropriate measures,” “including militarily.”
Israel had just bombed Doha, targeting Hamas leaders. The entire speech by the president of the United States was completely hollow: the Patriot systems acquired for 10 billion dollars in the 2012 agreement, together with a new acquisition of Patriot and NASAMS systems for more than 2 billion dollars in 2019, did not intercept the Israeli bombardment. And the United States did not consider that attack a “threat to the peace and security of the United States” — on the contrary, they turned a blind eye to it.
Qatar hosts the U.S. Central Command, the U.S. Air Force and the British Royal Air Force at Al-Udeid Air Base, built with more than 8 billion dollars invested by the Qatari government. None of this has protected the Qatari people. Iran’s retaliation for the U.S.–Israel aggression revealed that the base itself (the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East) is a fragile target: it was struck by a missile on the 3rd, which likely damaged or destroyed the AN/FPS-132 early-warning radar, one of the most important sensors in the U.S. missile defense system, valued at about $1.1 billion. Satellite images suggest significant damage to the equipment, which could compromise the ability to detect ballistic missiles at long distances.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia spent $110 billion on U.S. military equipment in an agreement that foresees spending more than $350 billion by next year — including Patriot and THAAD systems. Apparently, this enormous expenditure is not guaranteeing fully secure protection. Despite important interceptions in the current war, the U.S. government instructed part of its personnel to flee Saudi Arabia to protect themselves — which reveals that even the United States does not trust the defensive capability it sells to others. In fact, in the early hours of the 3rd, two drones struck the U.S. embassy in Riyadh and, two days earlier, U.S. soldiers were also targeted.
Since 1990, Gulf countries have spent nearly $500 billion purchasing weapons and protection systems from the United States, according to data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database and reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The construction and maintenance of defense infrastructure by the United States is almost entirely financed by the host countries. All of this is being blown apart by the legitimate Iranian retaliation.
The ineffectiveness of the protection provided by the United States had already been demonstrated in last year’s war, but also by the launches from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis toward Israel, which shattered the myth surrounding the Iron Dome. In a certain sense, the success of many of those attacks represented a humiliation for the all-powerful American arms industry. The several MQ-9 Reaper drones shot down by the Yemenis represented losses amounting to $200 million — the drones used by the Houthis to shoot down the American aircraft cost an insignificant fraction to produce.
The ineffectiveness of American protection also reveals the extremely low quality of the products of its military complex. This complex is dominated by a small handful of monopolies such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon which, without competitors and with clients subservient to the American government, see no need to make the maximum effort to produce weapons and systems of unsurpassable quality. Finally, corruption runs rampant in this field, and inferior peoples such as those of the Gulf do not deserve to consume products of the same quality as those destined for America — apparently their regimes are willing to pay dearly for anything.
Iran, with all its experience of more than four decades dealing with aggression, has known how to use these vulnerabilities very well. Leaders at the highest levels of the Iranian state publicly insist that peace in the Middle East is impossible while U.S. bases remain operational in the region. Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, stated, “We have no option but to put an end to the existence of American presence in the Persian Gulf area.” These appeals are certainly circulating in neighboring countries — both among the general population and within the armed and political forces.
The Persian nation is not only attacking military installations but also strategic targets that affect the nerve center of the Gulf countries’ economies: the energy industry — in retaliation for the bombings of its own oil infrastructure by the United States and Israel. These Iranian attacks place even greater pressure on the puppet regimes of imperialism to do something to stop their masters. The obvious solution would be to prevent the use of their territory for aggression against Iran, which would necessarily imply closing the military bases.
Although all these countries are dictatorships that repress any dissent, as the suffering of the civilian population increases, popular discontent may become uncontrollable. Their rulers know this and are already racking their brains to find a safe way out of this potentially explosive situation.
Will the peoples of these countries swallow all the lying propaganda that their regimes — fed by the lie industry of the United States and Israel — try to tell them, that Iran is the aggressor and responsible for the attacks? But why do the United States build missile launch bases so close to residential neighborhoods? Clearly, just like the Israelis, this is not a “moral” and “ethical” army: those people exist to serve as human shields for American soldiers. The logic of protection is inverted: it is not U.S. anti-aircraft systems that serve to protect the Saudi, Emirati or Qatari people — it is these second-class citizens who must die to protect the occupying forces.
Moreover, U.S. military bases frequently house soldiers responsible for crimes against local populations. This became explicit during the Iraq War. For example, the rape of a 14-year-old girl named Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, followed by her murder and the killing of her family after soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division invaded her house in Mahmudiya in 2004. Or the rapes documented over years during the invasion of Iraq, together with the practice of sexual exploitation and prostitution carried out in areas near American military installations such as Balad Air Base, used by the 4th Infantry Division.
On the 1st, U.S. Marines killed at least nine protesters who attempted to storm the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, in protest against the criminal aggression against Iran that had already massacred about 150 girls in an Iranian school the previous day. This is what imperialist presence in the countries of the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America serves for: to rape, murder and use the natives themselves as human shields, not to protect them.
How long will it take before they rise up against this true military occupation? Probably not long.
‘We’ve Obliterated Their Missiles’
By Gerry Nolan | Ron Paul Institute | March 11, 2026
On March 3rd, Israel’s Channel 12, the IDF, Trump were all singing from the same hymn sheet: Iran’s launchers are virtually all destroyed, missile fire is collapsing, they’re running out.
Trump from his golf resort: “We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out, very completely.” The war is “very complete, pretty much.” It’ll end “very soon.” He’s “ahead of schedule.” It’s a “short-term excursion.” A reporter asked him to reconcile that with Hegseth saying it’s “just the beginning.” Trump’s answer: “You could say both.” He’s not looking very strongly, folks. Very weakly, sir. Very, very weakly.
Eight days after the “Iran is running out” headlines, on the night of March 10th into March 11th, Iran launched Wave 37 — its most intense and heaviest operation of the entire war. More than three hours of continuous, multi-layered strikes. Khorramshahr super-heavies. One-tonne warheads complete with their sub munitions which turned much of Tel Aviv into snow like soot.
Erbil, the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, Be’er Ya’akov, Tel Aviv — simultaneously. Four American THAAD systems out of commission. Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow-3 in a deep coma for the fourth consecutive day running. The Strait of Hormuz closed. Oil surging again past $100. Dubai a ghost town. And the Energy Secretary deleted a post claiming the Navy had opened the Strait — a lie that lasted forty minutes before the White House corrected him live on camera.
Want to visualize the humiliation in cold numbers? Iran is fighting the United States, Israel, the Gulf monarchies, combined with a military budget that doesn’t even reach 1–2 cents for every American dollar and after eleven days, Wave 37 was the heaviest strike of the entire war, and the Pentagon is already begging Congress for a $50 billion emergency top-up that is over three times Iran’s entire annual military budget.
This is Iran. A country under the most intense aerial bombardment since Vietnam, having lost its supreme leader on day one, fighting the combined military might of the United States and Israel simultaneously and it’s still escalating.
Think about that the next time someone in Washington starts a sentence with “against a peer adversary.” You couldn’t manage Iran. What exactly is the plan for Russia or China?
Gerry Nolan is a political analyst, writer, and strategist focused on geopolitics, security affairs, and the structural dynamics of global power. He is the founder and editor of The Islander, an independent media platform examining war, diplomacy, economic statecraft, and the accelerating shift toward a multipolar world.
Syrian president vows ‘absolute support’ to disarm Hezbollah
The Cradle | March 11, 2026
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun received a phone call on 10 March from his Syrian counterpart, ex-Al-Qaeda chief Ahmad al-Sharaa, who expressed his support for Beirut’s efforts in disarming Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Presidency said Aoun and Sharaa discussed regional developments and stressed that “the current delicate situation requires activating coordination and consultation between the two countries, especially with regard to the need to control the borders and prevent any security breaches from any side.”
The Syrian Presidency also released its own statement on the call with Aoun. “President Sharaa expressed his explicit and absolute support for the efforts led by President Joseph Aoun to disarm ‘Hezbollah.’ He affirmed that this step is essential for solidifying Lebanese state sovereignty and shielding the region from the repercussions of ongoing regional armed conflicts,” the statement said.
It also called for “joint action” between Lebanon and Syria, “to ensure the safety of the Syrian and Lebanese peoples and to protect the gains of stability achieved recently.”
The phone call comes hours after Damascus claimed that it came under attack by Hezbollah on the Syrian–Lebanese border.
The Syrian army said “Hezbollah militias” fired shells toward its positions near Serghaya, adding that reinforcements from the Lebanese resistance group had been observed arriving along the Syrian–Lebanese border.
Syrian officials said they were monitoring the situation, coordinating with the Lebanese army, and studying possible responses, warning that the Syrian army “will not tolerate any attack targeting Syria.”
Hezbollah, which is busy fighting an Israeli invasion in the south, has not released any statements commenting on the matter.
The Lebanese resistance fought in Syria for years alongside the former government, and took part in the recapture of several parts of the country from groups including Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and other extremist organizations who were at the time considered the Syrian opposition.
The Nusra Front was later rebranded into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government in 2024 and now dominates Syria’s Defense Ministry.
Nusra occupied large swathes of the northern and eastern Lebanese border region for years at the start of the Syrian war, and was eventually expelled by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army.
Clashes broke out between the Lebanese army and Syrian troops earlier this year, after Damascus’s forces advanced against the border under the pretext of dealing with smuggling.
Heavy clashes also erupted between the Syrian army and Lebanese tribes on the border in 2025. Damascus falsely claimed at the time that it was fighting Hezbollah.
Since the start of the war in Iran and the entry of Hezbollah into the conflict, the Syrian military has been building up its presence along the Lebanese border, claiming the measures are aimed at “combating smuggling.”
The new authorities in Damascus have allied themselves with Washington. Damascus has been working, at the request of the US, to prevent any Hezbollah-bound weapons from entering Lebanon.
It has also been cracking down on Palestinian resistance factions.
US envoy Tom Barrack threatened Lebanon last year with a Syrian incursion, and said Damascus would “actively assist us in confronting and dismantling the remnants of ISIS, the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist networks.”
Ukraine attacking Russian gas pipeline to stop deliveries to Europe – Defense Ministry
RT | March 11, 2026
Kiev has been deliberately attacking the infrastructure of the TurkStream gas pipeline in an attempt to halt deliveries to European consumers, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
The statement comes after pipeline operator Gazprom reported on Tuesday that the Russkaya compressor station in southern Krasnodar Region, which serves as the starting point for supplies through the TurkStream, came under attack overnight.
The company said the Beregovaya and Kazachya compressor stations were also targeted the day before, adding that its facilities in southern Russia were attacked 12 times in the past two weeks.
On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks, saying: “the Kiev regime, in order to stop gas supplies to European consumers, launched another attack using strike aircraft-type UAVs on the infrastructure of the Russkaya compressor station.”
The ministry stated that four Ukrainian drones were shot down by Russian air defense systems in the airspace adjacent to the station, two more were intercepted by fighter aircraft, and three were destroyed by mobile fire teams.
‘Heinous crime’: Iran denounces Israeli assassination of 4 Iranian diplomats in Lebanon
Press TV – March 11, 2026
Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani says the Israeli regime has assassinated four senior Iranian diplomats in a “heinous crime” in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday, the envoy said that on March 8, the regime had carried out a targeted strike against the Ramada Hotel in Beirut, claiming the lives of the victims.
Iravani noted that after the regime’s military had publicly threatened to target Iranian official representatives in Lebanon, the diplomats had been temporarily relocated to the hotel as a safety measure.
This relocation, he said, had been fully coordinated with the Lebanese authorities.
In his letter, the ambassador said that the assassination of the diplomats “while serving as official representatives of a sovereign state in the territory of another sovereign state is a heinous act of terrorism and a grave violation of international law.”
He further stressed that such a “flagrant breach” of the UN Charter and the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons could not go unpunished.
Iravani reiterated that the regime bears full responsibility for carrying out “this war crime” and must be held fully accountable for its consequences.
The assassinations came a week after the regime and the United States launched their latest bout of unprovoked aggression towards the Islamic Republic.
The aggression has led to the martyrdom of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and more than 1,332 civilians, including women and children, as well as several military commanders.
Iran has since taken swift retaliatory action, launching barrages of missile and drone strikes against the occupied territories and US bases across the region.
UK Parliament Plans ISP Blocking and Age Verification Powers
By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | March 10, 2026
If you wanted a case study in how modern democracies widen state oversight step by step, Britain has offered a clear example. On March 9, two major surveillance-related bills advanced through Parliament, each pointing toward broader government authority, reduced personal privacy, and tighter limits on protest activity.
These measures advanced through procedural votes and technical amendments that sounded administrative, yet carry consequences for how millions of people use the internet and exercise civic rights.
The main legislative action unfolded in the House of Commons during debate on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Members of Parliament actually rejected amendments from the House of Lords that would have required age verification for VPNs and certain user-to-user services.
But don’t get too excited. Replacement amendments approved by MPs would grant significant new authority to the state. The powers allow the government to require internet service providers to block or restrict children’s access to specific online platforms, impose time-of-day limits on when services can be used, and mandate age verification across nearly any platform that enables users to post or share content.
The replacement amendments allow the UK government to make regulations that require specified “information society services” (a definition that applies to most online services) to implement age verification to prevent children from using the service.
This is as bad as it gets. The practical challenges are considerable and the privacy issues are even worse. Internet service providers supply connections to households rather than individuals. Enforcing child-specific restrictions would require identifying which devices belong to minors through ID verification and applying controls selectively, a level of precision that home broadband systems were never designed to provide.
Enforcement may therefore produce household-wide restrictions or increased pressure on platforms to verify the age of all users.
The amendments now return to the House of Lords. Approval there would send the bill to Royal Assent.
Emirati billionaire rebukes US senator over call for Gulf states to join war with Iran
MEMO | March 10, 2026
Emirati billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor has sharply criticised US Senator Lindsey Graham after the American lawmaker called on Gulf states to join military operations against Iran alongside the United States and Israel.
In a lengthy post on the social media platform X, Al Habtoor rejected any Gulf participation in the conflict, arguing that the region is already paying the price for decisions taken without consulting Arab states.
Graham made the remarks during media interviews following a closed congressional briefing, where he urged Gulf countries to become more actively involved in military action against Iran. He argued that Iranian attacks on countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia could prompt Washington’s Arab allies to take a stronger role in the confrontation.
The senator also said that the United States “will not fight alone in the Middle East”, noting that arms sales to Gulf countries form part of broader strategic alliances.
Al Habtoor responded by criticising what he described as foreign pressure on regional states to join the conflict.
“We know perfectly well why we are being attacked, and we also know who dragged the entire region into this dangerous escalation without consulting its allies,” he wrote.
The Emirati businessman said Gulf countries do not need outside protection and warned against risking the lives of people in the region in a wider war.
“Nothing is more precious than the lives of our sons, and no alliance is worth risking them,” he said, adding: “We don’t need your protection… all we want from you is to keep your hands off us.”
Al Habtoor also criticised the role of the global arms trade, describing weapons sales as a major business rather than a form of protection, and argued that conflicts in the region benefit the international arms industry.
He further accused Graham of prioritising Israeli interests over those of the American public, saying the region’s countries seek peace and stability and prefer diplomatic solutions rather than military escalation.


