Wars 2026 02/28 Israel-Iran War 3.0

[Saif]

US National Counterterrorism Center director resigns over war in Iran

The head of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned on Tuesday, becoming the first and most senior member of US President Donald Trump’s administration to resign over the war in Iran, saying Tehran posed no imminent threat to the United States. “I cannot in good conscience suppor

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Reactions to Trump’s call for help to secure Strait of Hormuz

REUTERS
Published :
Mar 16, 2026 21:38
Updated :
Mar 16, 2026 21:38

US President Donald Trump called on allies over the weekend to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian forces continue attacks on the vital waterway amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its third week.

Trump said his administration has already contacted seven countries, but declined to identify them. In an earlier social media post, he said that he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others would participate.

Iran has effectively shut the Strait, a narrow passage of water between Iran and Oman, choking off a fifth of global oil supply in the biggest disruption ever.

Below are how some countries have responded to Washington’s call to send ships to the region:

JAPAN

Japan does not currently plan to dispatch naval vessels to escort ships in the Middle East, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Monday.

“We have not made any decisions whatsoever about dispatching escort ships. We are continuing to examine what Japan can do independently and what can be done within the legal framework,” Takaichi told parliament.

Takaichi will travel to Washington this week for talks with Trump that she said will cover the conflict with Iran.

AUSTRALIA

Australia will not send naval ships to assist in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a government minister said on Monday.

“We won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz. We know how incredibly important that is, but that’s not something that we’ve been asked or that we’re contributing to,” Catherine King, a member of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s cabinet, said in an interview with state broadcaster ABC.

SOUTH KOREA

“We will communicate closely with the US regarding this matter and make a decision after careful review,” South Korea’s presidential office said on Sunday.

Under South Korea’s constitution, overseas troop deployments require parliamentary approval, and opposition figures have said any dispatch of warships to the Strait would need consent from the legislature.

BRITAIN

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday he would not be “drawn into the wider Iran war” whilst reiterating he was working with allies to reopen the Strait.

“We are working with others to come up with a credible plan for the Strait of Hormuz to ensure that we can reopen shipping and passage through the Strait. Let me be clear, that won’t be and it’s never been envisioned to be a NATO mission,” he told reporters.

EUROPEAN UNION

EU foreign ministers will on Monday discuss bolstering a small naval mission in the Middle East but they are not expected to discuss expanding its role to include the choked-off Strait, diplomats and officials say.

The EU’s Aspides mission - named after the Greek word for “shields” - was established in 2024 to protect ships from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group in the Red Sea.

GERMANY

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday that Germany would not participate with its military in securing the Strait.

“What does Trump expect from a handful of European frigates that the powerful US Navy cannot do? This is not our war, we have not started it,” Pistorius said.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in an interview with Germany’s ARD television on Sunday that he was “very sceptical” that extending Aspides to the ⁠Strait of Hormuz would provide greater security.

DENMARK

Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Monday ahead of the EU ministers’ meeting that it would be wise to keep an open mind to this question “as the small country that we are, but a large maritime nation”.

Even if Europe did not support the US-Israeli decision to go to war, “we must face the world as it is, not as we want it to be”, he told journalists.

ITALY

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Monday that diplomacy was the right way to solve the crisis in the Strait, adding there were no naval missions Italy was involved in that could be extended to the area.

GREECE

A government spokesperson said on Monday that Greece would not engage in military operations in the Strait of Hormuz.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Iran should dismantle the whole ME. There's nothing holding it back anymore. All these converted colludzz people are trembling from fear as their energy gets cut. Iran should show no mercy at all because these are all harami baasturddz who side with the west and Israel:

 

[Saif]

US senators to grill Trump intelligence team, weeks into Iran war

US senators get a chance on Wednesday to question top aides to President Donald Trump in public about national security nearly three weeks into the Iran war as the Senate intelligence committee holds its annual hearing on worldwide threats to the United States. The hearing is likely to focus on th

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US senators to grill Trump intelligence team, weeks into Iran war

REUTERS
Published :
Mar 18, 2026 20:53
Updated :
Mar 18, 2026 20:53

US senators get a chance on Wednesday to question top aides to President Donald Trump in public about national security nearly three weeks into the Iran war as the Senate intelligence committee holds its annual hearing on worldwide threats to the United States.

The hearing is likely to focus on the Middle East conflict that began on Feb 28, as lawmakers - including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats - have said they want more information about a war that has killed thousands of people, disrupted the lives of millions and shaken energy and stock markets.

Democrats in particular have complained that the administration has not kept Congress adequately informed about a conflict that has cost US taxpayers billions, and demanded public testimony rather than the classified briefings held in the past two weeks.

The testimony from officials including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe is also likely to touch on the shock announcement on Tuesday that a top aide to Gabbard had resigned, citing the war.

Joe Kent, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center, is the first senior official in Trump’s administration to resign over the conflict.

The Office of the DNI oversees the counterterrorism center and Kent is close with Gabbard, who has kept a low profile since the Iran war began.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby,” Kent wrote in a letter posted to social media.

The White House rejected Kent’s assertion, saying his letter included “false claims.”

REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS DIFFER

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the committee, said on Tuesday that the military campaign had been “extraordinarily successful” and it would take time to achieve the administration’s goals for Iran, but he was confident the US would do so.

“In the end, we will have defanged the Iranian regime, their missile forces, their drones, their missile launchers, their manufacturing capability will be ended. Their nuclear program will once again be pulverized,” Cotton said.

Cotton said he felt the campaign was carefully planned, a contrast with Democrats and other critics who have said Trump did not seem to have planned for actions like Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy shipping lane.

Questions have swirled around what Trump was told before he decided to join with Israel in striking Iran.

Sources familiar with US intelligence reports have said Trump was warned, for example, that attacking Iran could trigger retaliation against US Gulf allies despite his claims on Monday that Tehran’s reaction came as a surprise.

Trump’s assertion followed other administration claims ⁠that have not been backed by US intelligence reporting, such as that Iran would soon have a missile capable of hitting the US homeland and that it would need two to four weeks to make a nuclear bomb.

Trump was also briefed ahead of the operation that Tehran would likely seek to close the Strait of Hormuz, according to two other sources familiar with the matter.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the committee’s Democratic vice chairman, called the conflict a war of choice.

“There was no imminent threat to the United States, and I don’t believe there was even an imminent threat to Israel from Iran,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

The House of Representatives intelligence committee is due to hold its worldwide threats hearing on Thursday.​

 

[Saif]

Iran hits back as Israel, US continue pounding Iran

Iran vowed revenge as it prepared the funeral for its security chief Ali Larijani on Wednesday, firing off a wave of missiles against Israel while also reporting fresh Israeli-US strikes across the Islamic Republic...

www.newagebd.net

Iran hits back as Israel, US continue pounding Iran
Agence France-Presse . Tehran, Iran 19 March, 2026, 00:48

Iran vowed revenge as it prepared the funeral for its security chief Ali Larijani on Wednesday, firing off a wave of missiles against Israel while also reporting fresh Israeli-US strikes across the Islamic Republic.

A barrage of Iranian missiles killed two people near Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv overnight, while Iranian media said seven people were killed in strikes in its western Lorestan province.

Deadly attacks were also reported Wednesday in Lebanon, which has been pulled into the Middle East war by Iran-backed Hezbollah, with the health ministry saying Israeli strikes on central Beirut killed at least 12 people.

US intelligence concluded Wednesday that Iran was not rebuilding nuclear enrichment capacities that were destroyed in a June 2025 US-Israeli attack, contradicting president Donald Trump’s justifications for his on-going war.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Trump ally who is director of national intelligence, shared the conclusion in written testimony as part of an annual threat assessment but did not repeat the finding when speaking to senators.

‘As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,’ Gabbard said in the testimony to the Senate intelligence committee.

Pressed by a Democratic senator on why she did not repeat the conclusion on camera, Gabbard said that she did not have enough time to read the full testimony at the hearing but did not deny the assessment.

Russia condemned the killing of Larijani. ‘We firmly condemn actions aimed at harming the health and, even more, the killing of the leadership of sovereign and independent Iran. We condemn such actions,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing.

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed on Wednesday that intelligence minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in the war with the US and Israel, blasting a ‘cowardly assassination’.

In a post on X, Pezeshkian did not say who had carried out the attack but earlier Israel’s defence minister announced that Khatib had been ‘eliminated’.

‘The cowardly assassination of my dear colleagues Esmail Khatib, Ali Larijani and Aziz Nasirzadeh, along with some of their family members and accompanying team, has left us in mourning,’ he said, referring to Iran’s recently killed security chief and defence minister.

Iranian media said that Israel and the United States had launched fresh strikes in across several areas of the country, including the capital Tehran.

Among the locations hit were areas in Lorestan province and Hamedan city, both in the west of Iran, as well as Fars province in the south.

Tasnim news agency said ‘seven people were killed and 56 were injured in an American-Zionist attack on residential areas in Dorud town’ in Lorestan province.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online website said US-Israeli strikes hit a judiciary building in Fars province.

Israel said Wednesday its forces had killed another top Iranian official, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, and said its military was authorised to kill any senior figure of the Islamic republic in its sights.

The announcement, the day after Iranian security chief Ali Larijani was confirmed killed in an Israeli strike, is part of a longstanding strategy by Israel to target its enemy’s leaders.

Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV said the director of its political programmes was killed alongside his wife in Israeli strikes on central Beirut on Wednesday, which killed at least 12 people according to Lebanese authorities.Politics

In a statement, the channel said the ‘director of political programmes at the channel, Mohammad Sherri and his wife’ were killed ‘in the Zionist raid on the Zuqaq al-Blat area in Beirut’.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when militant group Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel responded with intense strikes on multiple regions around the country and by launching ground operations in the south.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Wednesday that Israeli attacks have killed 968 people in the country since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, raising a previous toll of 912 a day earlier.

The new ministry statement said the toll included 77 women, 116 children and 40 health workers, with 2,432 other people wounded.

The repercussions of the war in the Middle East would be felt globally, Iran’s top diplomat said on Wednesday, suggesting more Western officials should push back against the conflict.

‘Wave of global repercussions has only begun and will hit all — regardless of wealth, faith, or race,’ Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X, accompanied by a copy of the US National Counterterrorism Centre director’s resignation announcement prompted by the war on Tuesday.

‘A rising number of voices — (including) European and US officials — exclaim that the war on Iran is unjust. More members of the international community should follow suit,’ the post added.

Donald Trump angrily suggested Wednesday that he could leave US allies to secure the Hormuz strait on their own since they have refused to fight alongside US forces against Iran in the crucial shipping lane.

Saying the United States doesn’t need the strait — a major global oil shipping pathway — Trump wrote on his Truth Social site that he could ‘let the Countries that use it’ find a solution.

Traditional European and Asian partners have refused Trump’s repeated requests for mine sweepers and other military hardware to clear the strait, which Iran has effectively choked off in response to the nearly three-week US-Israeli war.

Trump has responded to the Hormuz crisis with a series of contradictory statements, saying both that allies must help the United States and then on Tuesday saying ‘we don’t need any help.’

NATO chief Mark Rutte said Wednesday that the military alliance’s members were discussing the ‘best way’ to open the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large chunk of the world’s oil supply normally passes.

‘I have been in contact with many allies. We all agree, of course, that strait has to open up again. And what I know is that allies are working together, discussing how to do that, what is the best way to do it,’ Rutte told a news conference during a visit to a NATO exercise in northern Norway.

‘They are working on that collectively, to find a way forward,’ Rutte added.

Trump has urged other global powers to send warships to escort convoys of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

The International Atomic Energy Agency ‘has been informed by Iran that a projectile hit the premises of the Bushehr NPP on Tuesday evening’, the Vienna-based agency posted on social media.

‘No damage to the plant or injuries to staff reported.’

Agency head Rafael Grossi ‘reiterates his call for restraint during the conflict to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident’, the statement said.

Russia, which helped build the plant and has staff on site, said it had received a report of a missile strike on the plant’s inner perimeter and called the attack ‘completely unacceptable’.

At least four explosions were heard on Wednesday in the city of Erbil in the autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP journalists reported.

It was not immediately clear what the target was. From a suburb of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, AFP journalists saw interceptions of projectiles over the city, which is home to a major US consulate complex, while its airport houses US-led coalition troops.

Iraq was drawn into the Middle East war after having long been a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran.

In addition to its attacks on Israel and its neighbours, Iran has been hitting the global economy through attacks on energy infrastructure in the oil-rich Gulf.

Its attacks and threats against ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz have all but closed the key waterway, through which a fifth of global oil and LNG flows.

With oil still hovering around $100 a barrel, the US military said it brought out some of the heaviest bombs in its arsenal to penetrate sites near to the strait.​