KOENIG

The US defense chief warned that Tuesday would be the most intense day of the war against Iran so far, while Israel’s leader said regime change in Iran could only come from the people, as Washington and Jerusalem continued to strike targets across Iran on the 11th day of the conflict.

(photo: AP)

Iran escalated its rhetoric against the United States on Tuesday, issuing a direct warning to Donald Trump while announcing measures that could severely disrupt Middle Eastern oil exports.

Tehran said it would block oil shipments to countries it considers hostile, declaring that “not a single drop of oil” would leave the region for those states until further notice.

Ali Larijani responded sharply to warnings issued a day earlier by Trump. In a message posted on X, Larijani wrote that attempts to defeat Iran had failed in the past and warned the U.S. president to “be careful not to get eliminated yourself.”

The U.S. has intercepted encrypted communications believed to have originated in Iran that may serve as "an operational trigger" for "sleeper assets" outside the country, according to a federal government alert sent to law enforcement agencies.

The alert, reviewed by ABC News, cites "preliminary signals analysis" of a transmission "likely of Iranian origin" that was relayed across multiple countries shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The intercepted transmission was encoded and appeared to be destined for "clandestine recipients" who possess the encryption key, the kind of message intended to impart instructions to "covert operatives or sleeper assets" without the use of the internet or cellular networks. 

It's possible the transmissions could "be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country," the alert said.

[WWD Note: Please pray for the safety of our nation and Israel as well as our troops.]

"I don't think the question of talking with Americans or negotiation with the Americans once again would be on the table," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told PBS News Hour in an interview on Monday.

According to Araghchi, the US has soured the potential of future negotiations by repeatedly attacking in the middle of diplomatic talks - first last year in June, and then as the opening to Operation Epic Fury.

"This year, they tried to convince us that this time is different. They promised us that they don't have any intention to attack us," Araghchi said. "So I don't think talking with Americans anymore would be on our agenda anymore."

Iran’s ruling clerics on Sunday appointed their slain leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, after the US called him unacceptable and Israel vowed to kill whomever the Islamic Republic appointed.

The Assembly of Experts convened virtually to choose Iran’s next supreme leader nine days after the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign on the Islamic Republic, with an Israeli strike killing ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggering Iranian missile and drone strikes on Israel and the region. Mojtaba Khamenei’s mother, wife and son were reportedly also killed, and Israeli officials believe Mojtaba himself was wounded after being targeted in a strike last week.

The 56-year-old Mojtaba was “appointed and introduced as the third leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, based on the decisive vote of the respected representatives of the Assembly of Experts,” the 88-member clerical body said in a statement.

The reports emerged after four Iranian and British-Iranian men were arrested in London early on Friday under suspicion of surveilling “locations and individuals” linked to London’s Jewish community.

Despite doubts about recent IDF claims of having destroyed a secret nuclear site that was critical for the Islamic regime’s plans to develop a nuclear weapon, The Jerusalem Post has exclusively confirmed with Israeli sources the dangers the site posed.

Last week, IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin revealed in a press conference that the air force had destroyed a secret Iranian nuclear weapons development site.

Iran is targeting the radar systems that serve as the eyes of the air defenses in the Middle East, hitting several in recent days and degrading the ability of the U.S. and its allies to track incoming missiles.

Iranian strikes in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign have hit radar, communications and air defense systems in Qatar, the U.A.E., Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. officials, military analysts and commercially available satellite images.

The strikes are often carried out by Iran’s one-way attack drones, such as its Shaheds, which are a fraction of the cost of the missiles that the sophisticated U.S. systems were designed to defend against. Iran has fired fewer missiles in recent days.

Two ships owned by an Iranian company that the United States has accused of supplying material to Tehran’s ballistic missile program departed a Chinese chemical-storage port this week laden with cargo and headed for Iran, according to a Washington Post analysis of ship-tracking data, satellite imagery and Treasury Department records. 

The vessels are part of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a state-owned company under U.S., British and European Union sanctions that has been described by the U.S. State Department as the “preferred shipping line for Iranian proliferators and procurement agents.” 

The Shabdis and the Barzin — which can carry up to 6,500 and 14,500 20-foot-long containers, respectively — had docked at the Gaolan port in Zhuhai, a city on China’s southeastern coast. Experts told The Post that Gaolan is a loading port for chemicals including sodium perchlorate, a key precursor for solid rocket fuel that Iran desperately needs for its missile program.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iranians are fighting on two fronts while warning when the nation will endure its next intense military operation from U.S. forces on "Kudlow" Friday.

"Tonight will be our biggest bombing campaign, and we'll do the most damage to the Iranian missile launchers, the factories that build the missiles, and we are substantially degrading them," Bessent told FOX Business host Larry Kudlow Friday.

After failing on the military front after what Bessent described as the United States’ "overwhelming" strike campaign, Iran has been forced to play another card, the economy.

Iran's Assembly of Experts announced on Saturday that it would "meet within a day" to select the new leader to succeed former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media reported.

[Note: An earlier but not fully confirmed report had said Khamenei's son had been chosen.]

More than 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets dropped a total of some 230 munitions in an additional wave of strikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure in Tehran and central Iran, the military announced on Saturday.

The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) is expected to deploy to the eastern Mediterranean, Fox News reported on Saturday, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford as the third US Navy aircraft carrier active in the region.

The Bush recently completed the Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX), which “brings together all elements of a carrier strike group to operate as a cohesive, multi-domain fighting force,” according to the US Navy.

(photo: Getty Images)

US President Donald Trump affirmed on Friday that there would be no deal with Iran and that the US would only accept the Islamic regime’s “unconditional surrender.”

In his remarks, which were posted to his Truth Social account, Trump went on to assert that following Iran’s surrender, the US and its allies would “work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”

The American president added that Iran would have a “great future" following intervention from the US and its allies.

The Israeli Air Force conducted a broad wave of overnight strikes in Beirut, targeting Hezbollah terror infrastructure, the military said on Friday morning.

The attacks hit terror command centers, multi-story buildings used by Hezbollah and a facility storing UAVs used by for attacks on Israel.

Measures were taken to minimize harm to civilians, including the use of precision munitions and advance aerial surveillance.

Kristi Noem, the former South Dakota congresswoman and governor who has led President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security thus far in his second term, was fired on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump announced his he will nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to replace her on Truth Social. 

Noem, 54, will likely be at least temporarily replaced by Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar, a Navy veteran and former mayor of Los Alamitos, California, in the line of succession for the agency.

President Trump said Thursday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem would leave her role and be appointed as a special envoy for “The Shield of the Americas,” bringing her tumultuous tenure atop DHS to an end.

Noem faced scrutiny and intense questioning about the fatal shooting deaths of two American citizens by federal immigration authorities in Minnesota earlier this year. More recently, she was met with skepticism at a Senate hearing from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who argued that a more than $200 million ad campaign she oversaw and appeared in for DHS was primarily “effective in your name recognition.”

Trump’s Thursday announcement of her removal also comes as the country faces a partial government shutdown due to lawmakers’ refusal to fund the department until agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol get overhauled.

The Israeli Air Force has launched more than 5,000 munitions on targets across the Islamic Republic since the start of the ongoing operation, with a focus on the Tehran area, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday.

The latest strike destroyed a defense system operated by Iran’s regime and was followed by the release of missile-perspective footage from the assault, the military said.

The air campaign is designed to extend Israel’s aerial superiority throughout Iran, the IDF said.

(photo: Wikipedia / Israel Hayom)

Iran's Assembly of Experts on Tuesday selected Mojtaba Khamenei, son of eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the new supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, according to the Iranian opposition website Iran International, citing sources familiar with the matter. The report said the decision was made under heavy pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Iranian internal security and Basij command centers in Tehran in the latest wave of a joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign targeting the Islamic Republic’s military and repression apparatus, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday.

The Basij militia led efforts to suppress nationwide protests in Iran in December and January, during which tens of thousands were killed in a crackdown by the regime. U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 20 accused government forces of killing 32,000 people “over a relatively short period of time.”

The US military used a long-range Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) in a combat situation for the first time as part of Operation Epic Fury, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper announced on Wednesday.

March's full moon, also known as the Worm Moon, put on a show, and backyard astronomers who woke up early enough got to see the total lunar eclipse and "blood moon".

In the pre‑dawn hours of Tuesday, March 3, the full moon slid into the Earth’s shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse. And because it’s also March’s full moon, it was a two‑for‑one treat for skywatchers.

The eclipse was visible across much of North America and parts of Central Asia, while South America saw a partial eclipse. It will not be visible in Europe or Africa, according to NASA.

CENTCOM released its 72 hours into the war update on Tuesday, noting that American forces had now struck 1,700 Iranian targets, nearly double the number of the day before.

In the first 24 hours, the US struck 900 targets.

The pace went down in the 48-hour report, which reached only 1,200 targets, or only 300 targets in the second day.

The IDF targeted a building in which Tehran's 88-member Assembly of Experts was meeting to choose Iran's next supreme leader, Israeli sources told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Iranian news agencies reported that the building was "flattened" during the Israeli strikes.