I - On Defense Podcast

For review:
1. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “wounded and likely disfigured,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a briefing Friday.
2. US President Donald Trump announces that American forces “totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.
3. Five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing two US officials.
The planes, which were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, the Journal says, adding that no one was killed in the strikes.
4. All six crew members of a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed while supporting operations against Iran are dead, the U.S. military said Friday.
CENTCOM said the crash in Western Iraq on Thursday followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace” and that the other plane landed safely.
5. After several statements over the past months and weeks urging Iranians to prepare to take to the streets and seize power from the government once the bombing stops, US President Donald Trump on Friday acknowledged that it will be very difficult for them to overthrow the regime.
6. Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday threatened the Lebanese government that Israel would destroy the country’s national infrastructure used by Hezbollah if the terror group isn’t disarmed, after the Israel Defense Forces struck a bridge that it described as a “key crossing” for the group.
7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped former minister and longtime aide Ron Dermer to handle the Lebanon file for the duration of the ongoing Mideast war, Channel 12 news reported Friday, citing senior Israeli and US officials.
Dermer, who served as strategic affairs minister from 2022 until his resignation late last year, will lead talks with the US government regarding Lebanon, the report said.
8. The Pentagon’s supplemental funding request to replace weapons expended in Iran is expected to involve buying new types of equipment, not just legacy systems, the department’s chief financial officer said today.
9. On March 4, when a U.S. Navy submarine sunk an enemy combatant ship for the first time since World War II, three Australian submariners were aboard.
Two days later, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the presence of Royal Australian Navy (RAN) sailors aboard the U.S. submarine when the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was sunk.
10. A fire broke out aboard aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) on Thursday, multiple sources confirmed to USNI News.
The initial fire has been extinguished, but the crew is still doing damage control, according to a U.S. official. 
“On March 12, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) experienced a fire that originated in the ship’s main laundry spaces,” reads a U.S. Central Command statement posted to social media website X. “The cause of the fire was not combat-related and is contained.

For review:
1.Two oil tankers were struck in the Gulf, killing one person, as Iran continued its attacks on targets across the region and the IDF reported hitting a “critical” nuclear site near Tehran, amid ongoing US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic.
2. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public, ostensibly vowed on Thursday to avenge the deaths since the start of the war with the US and Israel, in a statement read out by a presenter on state TV.
3. UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted a Bahrain-led resolution condemning Iranian attacks on several regional states, while a separate draft resolution introduced by Russia on the wider crisis failed to pass.
4. Spain permanently withdrew its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday as a diplomatic standoff worsened between the two countries over Spain’s opposition to Israeli policies.
Israel’s embassy in Spain is also run by a charge d’affaires after Israel in May 2024 recalled its ambassador, Rodica Radian-Gordon, in protest of Spain's decision to recognize a Palestinian state.
5. Israel and the US appeared Wednesday to be increasingly at odds over the time frame for the war with Iran, with US President Donald Trump saying the conflict would end “soon” as there was “practically nothing left to target” and Israel’s defense minister meanwhile insisting there was no time limit to the US-Israeli operation against Iran.
6. There is no guarantee that the Iranian people will rise up after Israel “creates the conditions” for them to topple the regime in Tehran, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“You can lead someone to water, you cannot make him drink,” says PM Netanyahu. “We will create optimal conditions to do this, including airstrikes as we did yesterday, as we are doing these days, to try to give them the space needed to take to the streets.”
7. The IDF said it continued to strike key strategic targets across Iran, while the US military said it had struck around 6,000 targets since the start of the war. Among the targets hit by US forces were more than 90 Iranian vessels — around 60 ships and 30 minelayers — according to US Central Command, 
Targets struck by Israel included members of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force as well as its drone operations and capabilities.
8. At least 25 Iranian attacks have targeted US sites or locations housing American military personnel in the Middle East since the start of the war, according to an AFP analysis.
Of Iran’s attacks, recorded between February 28 and March 11 at 5 p.m. in Israel, four targeted US embassies or consulates in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.
The other 21 Iranian missiles or drone attacks targeted 13 different military sites housing American personnel.
9. The US Central Command on Thursday said a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq in an apparent accident involving another tanker.
“The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing. Two aircraft were involved in the incident. One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
10. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday he has warned Lebanon that if it does not stop the Hezbollah terror group’s continuing rocket and drone attacks, Israel will “take the territory and do it ourselves.”
On Wednesday, Hezbollah launched some 200 rockets and around 20 drones at Israel over a period of several hours. The vast majority of the rockets were intercepted or struck open areas. 
11. The International Energy Agency agreed Wednesday to release the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the effects on energy markets of the war in the Middle East.
The Paris-based organization said it will make 400 million barrels of oil available from its members’ emergency reserves

For review:
1.The Swedish Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, published its global arms export and import report on Monday, comparing the arms exports of various countries in the years 2016–2020 to 2021–2025.
2. Kurdish rebels say they are ready to fight the Islamic Republic, but hope for an uprising before they intervene, with or without US support.
3. In a press conference at the Pentagon, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Tuesday would be “the most intense day of strikes” on Iran. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most intelligence, more defined and better than ever.”
At the same time, he said, the last 24 hours saw the lowest number of missiles Iran has fired over the course of one day in the ongoing campaign.
4. The US military said it destroyed 16 Iranian minelaying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the key waterway, through which roughly a fifth of global oil shipments travel.
“US forces eliminated multiple Iranian naval vessels, March 10, including 16 minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz,” the US Central Command wrote on X.
5. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Tuesday that Israel was not seeking an “endless war” in Iran, while hosting German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul in Jerusalem.
While declining to give a timeline for the operation, Mr. Sa’ar said Jerusalem does not aim to continue the conflict indefinitely and would coordinate with Washington on when to end the fighting.
6. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday his country would keep fighting as long as necessary, casting doubt on US President Donald Trump’s insistence the previous day that the conflict would be over “soon.”
And the Islamic Republic’s security chief, Ali Larijani, dismissed Trump’s “empty” threats, insisting that the people of Iran did not fear them.
7. About half of the roughly 300 ballistic missiles Iran has launched at Israel in the current war carried cluster bomb warheads, according to Israel Defense Forces assessments published Tuesday.
8. British warplanes have begun “defensive air sorties” in support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and taken out drones elsewhere in the Middle East amid the ongoing war, the UK defense ministry says.
More US B-52 bombers landed at the UK air force base in Fairford, in southwestern England, today, AFP witnessed, after a first one landed on Friday.
9. Saudi Arabia says that it has intercepted seven ballistic missiles in separate attacks targeting an airbase and its eastern region.
10. The IDF says it has launched a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The strikes come after the military on Tuesday reiterated its warning to evacuate the area, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh.

For review:
1. Turkey said on Monday that NATO air defenses shot down a second ballistic missile that was fired from Iran and had entered Turkish airspace, warning it will take any necessary steps against threats.
2. Turkey deployed six F-16C fighter aircraft to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on Monday, defense officials here said.
The warplanes were sent as part of a phased approach to enhancing security in light of recent developments in the region, the Ministry of Defense wrote in an announcement.
3. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, after an incoming Iranian missile was intercepted in Turkey’s airspace.
4. The French Navy will send eight frigates and two amphibious assault ships to the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea, joining aircraft carrier FS Charles De Gaulle (R91).
5. US President Donald Trump doubles down on his threat to strike Iran with unprecedented force if it stops the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump writes on Truth Social.
6. US President Donald Trump said Monday he was “not happy” with the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s next supreme leader, and asserted he had a replacement in mind, without saying who that was.
7. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pledge allegiance to the country’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, after he was appointed his father’s successor by the Assembly of Experts.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps… is ready for complete obedience and self-sacrifice in carrying out the divine commands of the Guardian Jurist of the time, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei,” the Guards say in a statement.
8. President Donald Trump described Iran War as “short term” Monday — suggesting the 10-day conflict could be nearing its end while also warning of intensifying strikes if a key oil route is restricted.
9. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it will “determine the end of the war” in the Middle East after US President Donald Trump said the conflict would end “soon.”
“It is we who will determine the end of the war,” the IRGC says in a statement.
10. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urges Iraq’s leadership to keep protecting the US embassy after violent protests over the US-Israeli war on neighboring Iran.
In a call with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Rubio “reiterated the importance of the Iraqi government taking all possible measures to safeguard US diplomatic personnel and facilities.
11. Another Iranian naval vessel has sought refuge in a neutral port following an expansion of the Iran conflict to the Indo-Pacific and U.S. efforts to target Tehran’s naval forces.
IRIS Lavan (514) docked at the Port of Kochi following engine troubles, government officials told Indian news outlet Wion.
Alongside the now stricken frigate IRIS Dena (75) and currently interned oiler IRIS Bushehr (422), Lavan was a part of Tehran’s diplomatic naval mission around the Indian Ocean region. 
12. Talks to advance US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war have been on hold since last week when the US and Israel jointly attacked Iran.
The pause threatens to stall implementation of Trump’s flagship Middle East peace initiative.

For review:
1. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was chosen Sunday to succeed him, despite never having been elected or appointed to a government position.
A secretive figure within the Islamic Republic, Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen publicly since the start of the war.
2.  US President Donald Trump told The Times of Israel on Sunday that a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one that he’ll make together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
3. Israel Defense Forces chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned on Sunday that there was “no safe place” for the Iranian regime to hide.
The military provided details on a strike carried out on Saturday against the newly appointed military secretary to Iran’s supreme leader, 
Abol-hasem Babian, who was appointed last week- was confirmed killed by the IDF.
4. Iranian Fars news agency reported that Israel's Saturday strikes hit four oil storage facilities and an oil production transfer center in Tehran and Alborz. 
Residents reported the smell of burning lingering in the air, with many saying it appeared dark even as the sun rose and rain poured on the city. 
5. ·NYT Report:  Iran may be able to access and move highly enriched uranium that had been previously thought to have been buried underground by US strikes on the Isfahan nuclear facility last June.
6. ·Emirati officials raged on Sunday over what they called false Israeli media reports claiming that the United Arab Emirates had carried out a military strike on Iran amid the ongoing US-Israeli bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.
7. · Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that while it favors a diplomatic settlement to Iran’s conflict with the United States, continued attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.