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US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Iran’s military capabilities were being steadily degraded, adding that he is open to working with some Iranian officials who have survived the first few days of Operation Epic Fury. Trump noted that Iran could “keep lobbing missiles for a while.” For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. The US president said, “They’re running out, and they’re running out of areas to shoot them, because they’re being decimated,” Trump said. Speaking during a phone interview with POLITICO, he said Iran was “running out of launchers.” As...

Saudi Arabia’s said on Sunday that it condemned and denounced in the “strongest terms the blatant Iranian aggression” on Oman, adding that it was a “flagrant violation” to Oman’s sovereignty. “The Kingdom further affirms its readiness to place all its capabilities at Oman’s disposal in support of any measures it may undertake,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement on X. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. Saudi Arabia warned of “the serious consequences of Iran’s continued violations of states’ sovereignty” in a manner that undermines the region’s stability and...

Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when American military bases were hosted by the Shah, there was a separate tier of justice, like the difference between Sharia and Rum courts, to which American military criminal justice cases were referred. [The "Rum" (Orthodox Christians) under eastern Muslim governments, were generally governed by their own religious laws in civil matters. They were considered a minority protected under the millet-like system that allowed communal, self-governing ecclesiastical courts, particularly in religious, matrimonial, and inheritance cases, rather than strict Islamic Sharia. A similar system under British occupation was the Irish "Breton Law" courts in which,...

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against "designated terrorist organizations in Ecuador," U.S. Southern Command announced on Tuesday. This marks the first time that the U.S. military has engaged in a land operation against South American drug cartels. Until now, the U.S. military had only carried out airstrikes targeting smuggling boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry said Iran's attacks have crossed "every red line" and condemned the strikes which targeted civilian areas and facilities. Iran did not just target military facilities but all of Qatari territory including Doha airport and gas facilities, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry told reporters on Tuesday. Qatar also shot down two Iranian fighters jets who entered its airspace on Monday. "Red lines have already been crossed," Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, told reporters. "The attack on our sovereignty, the blatant attack on our people, on the security and safety of our nation has already crossed every...

Today, the most important developments come from the Huliaipole direction. Here, north of the main stronghold, Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian positions and are expanding their advance. Russian defenses began to fall apart more quickly than anticipated, allowing even deeper penetration by Ukrainian forces. Recently, the Ukrainian command reported restoring control over more than 400 square kilometers through counterattacks, while daily combat intensity in the direction has reached roughly fifty engagements per day. As Ukrainian forces regain control over key terrain, they improve their ability to observe Russian movement, making it harder for Russian forces to reposition without being...

The “Life in Venice” housing development, a multibillion-dollar replica of the Italian city on the Chinese coast, stands silent. But in recent years the remote, partially abandoned complex has drawn unlikely new residents like Sasa Chen, a burned-out young Chinese woman who until recently worked a high-earning finance job in Shanghai, China’s bustling commerce hub. The appeal? Chen pays just 1200 RMB, or $168, a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It’s so cheap that it's allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28. Experts say Chen is part of...

NOW - Lindsey Graham pleads with Trump to join the Israeli military fighting in Lebanon

... The newspaper cited former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as publicly calling Turkey a threat to Israel last week and accusing Ankara of aligning with a hostile regional bloc. Bennett warned Israel could not “turn a blind eye” to Turkey, adding that Tel Aviv must counter threats from both Tehran and Ankara...

Thousands of cruise line passengers are trapped in ports in the Persian Gulf due to ongoing military strikes in the Middle East. Cruise ships have become stationary hotels as the conflict in Iran has left many stranded. Escalating hostilities have raised fears over safety in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes. The Daily Mail wrote that at least six big ships are said to be stationary and awaiting word regarding when they can leave. These passengers are docked or anchored in port cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates...

Nobody should be surprised that Iran has adopted the Hamas strategy of conducting warfare out of hospitals and schools, and I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Pravda is covering it up. Yet I continue to be a bit shocked at the latter, because I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that an institution that is key to upholding Western constitutional values would betray us in favor of the worst people on Earth. Silly me. There really is no level of depravity to which many of these people will not stoop. Holy sh*t Members of the basij...

In a recent piece for National Review, Philip Klein astutely points out a fundamental difference between a potential confrontation with Iran and the quagmire that became the Iraq War: There will be no full-scale U.S. ground invasion under President Trump. Klein argues that with Iran’s military already crippled by sanctions and precision strikes, and Trump unwilling to commit to a major land advance, this won’t devolve into another endless occupation. He’s right, but the analysis stops short of the full picture. A war with Iran, should it come to that amid escalating tensions, would be short, sharp, and transformative, not...

Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has reportedly been appointed Iran's new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba, 56, Ali Khamenei's second oldest son, has strong links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and was chosen by Iran's Assembly of Experts 'under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards', according to Iranian opposition outlet Iran International. Mojtaba is not a high-ranking cleric, has never held office and does not have an official role in the regime. But he served in the Iranian armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war and is believed to wield considerable influence behind the scenes. He has been touted...

***Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that he was misunderstood one day prior when he said the US attacked Iran on Saturday because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” that would “precipitate an attack against American forces.” Rubio walked back his prior statements after President Trump flatly denied that Israel chose the timing of the attack — maintaining in an Oval Office pool spray hours earlier, as he had in interviews, that he chose to attack after unsuccessful US-Iran talks Thursday in Geneva. “This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a...

Air strikes continue across the region on Tuesday as Iran shows no signs of backing down after the US and Israel launched an attack at the weekend that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Follow our live blog. The Iran war has entered its fourth day, a campaign that US President Donald Trump said Monday would take several weeks. Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.” Meanwhile, Tehran has continued its attacks across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf states, including the...

Estimates suggest that at least 370-400 people have safely sought refuge in Azerbaijan after crossing the Astara border checkpoint. Some 100 of those were Azerbaijani nationals with the rest being expats from 19 different countries. The Astara Border Crossing between Iran and Azerbaijan has seen increased traffic over the last few days by foreign nations, as many continue to seek an exit from Tehran amid continued US and Israeli attacks. The increased crossing traffic comes after the Azerbaijani government announced on Saturday that it would open the crossing to enable its nationals trapped in Iran to safely evacuate, as well...

Like Reagan, the president has found a way to change the world without putting boots on the ground. Critics say President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran is a violation of his promise not to engage in “forever wars.” In fact, the opposite is true. Trump is not starting a forever war in Iran; he’s ending one. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has been waging war against the United States. That war began in 1979, when Iran seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 50 Americans hostage for 444 days. The war continued as Iran orchestrated the...

esident Trump is pushing back on arguments from former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson the president's so-called MAGA base does not support his recent air strikes on Iran, saying "MAGA is Trump." “I have to do what’s right, number one – and you can’t have Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That’s predominant to me,” Trump told independent journalist Rachel Bade on Monday. “I think that MAGA is Trump – MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump said of Carlson and Kelly. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing —...

The US launched preemptive strikes against Iran after learning Israel was about to attack — and American troops in the region faced an imminent threat of retaliation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday. Rubio made the revelation on Capitol Hill, where he briefed a small group of congressional leaders on the joint US-Israel offensive.'There absolutely was an imminent threat,' Rubio stated. 'And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a...

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump denies that Israel dragged the US into war with Iran, insisting that if anything, the opposite could be true and that he felt Iran was going to attack first. Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office, “Did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?” “No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [the Iranians] were going to attack first,” Trump claims in response, during...