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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.

President Donald Trump said he authorized the strike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before Tehran could act on alleged plots against him, telling ABC: "I got him before he got me. They tried twice … I got him first."

The president’s blunt remark appears to link Khamenei’s killing to previously reported Iranian-backed assassination plots targeting Trump during the 2024 election cycle — plots that U.S. prosecutors tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Khamenei marked the most dramatic escalation in years of tensions between Washington and Iran. Iranian state media confirmed the longtime supreme leader’s death after coordinated strikes targeted senior regime figures and key facilities around Tehran, Iran.

Israel estimates that 1,000-1,500 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian security forces have been killed in the strikes so far, an Israeli source told The Jerusalem Post.

Some estimates suggest much higher numbers, but the more conservative assessment speaks of over 1,000 fatalities among Iranian security forces. Since the start of Operation Roaring Lion and the joint American campaign Operation Epic Fury on Saturday, facilities belonging to the IRGC, the Basij militia, and government buildings have been hit.

On Monday, Israel carried out a significant strike in Tehran, focusing on internal security emergency bases, as well as Basij and IRGC installations.

U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Post that he would not rule out sending American troops into Iran “if they were necessary.”

“I don’t care about polling,” he said.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ ‘if they were necessary.'”

An Israel Defense Forces strike killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, an Israeli official told local media on Saturday night.

According to Israel’s Channel 12, the body of the 86-year-old, described as riddled with shrapnel, was recovered from the rubble after his compound in Tehran was targeted during the opening phase of “Operation Roaring Lion.”

Documentation supporting the assessment was in Israel’s possession and had been presented to the prime minister and senior members of the security establishment, the reports said.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli strike Saturday as part of a massive joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel, Iranian state media confirmed. The Iranian government announced 40 days of public mourning...

Two hundred fighter jets streaked across Israel’s skies with a thunderous roar, in “the largest military flyover” in Israeli Air Force history, the Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday.

“The IDF completed an extensive attack against the missile array and the defense systems of the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran,” the military said in a statement.

The operation, based on high-quality military intelligence, involved hundreds of munitions targeting roughly 500 objectives, including surface-to-surface missile launchers and aerial defense systems.

Satellite images revealed a strike in the complex where Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been transferred, according to Israeli media.

• President Donald Trump confirmed Saturday that the U.S. is carrying out "major combat operations in Iran." In a video posted to Truth Social, Trump said the objective is to defend Americans by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, describing it as "a vicious group of very hard, terrible people."

• In his message, Trump urged the Iranian regime to "lay down" its weapons or "face certain death." Calling it their "only chance for generations," Trump added that after the operation the people of Iran to "take over your government."

• The United States military attack against the Iran is "Operation Epic Fury." Israel, which coordinated the daytime morning blitz with the U.S., announced the Jewish State's mission as “Operation Roaring Lion."

• The joint military operation is expected to carry on for days. Officials tell Fox News that Israel is targeting Iranian leadership, while the U.S. is targeting military targets and ballistic missile sites that pose an "imminent threat."