live Heavy Strikes Pound Tehran

The Iranian Navy destroyer Dena sank near the Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean on March 4 after an explosion following an attack by a submarine.

US defense chief Pete Hegseth confirmed the hit to reporters in Washington.

"An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters," he said. "Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo."

Sri Lanka's military rescued at least 30 crew members from the warship as it was sinking, according to Reuters, which cited Sri Lanka's foreign minister.

According to Sri Lankan officials, the rescue operation began after the destroyer sent a distress signal early March 4. Sri Lanka’s navy launched the mission after receiving the call.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath did not provide further details about the incident, but said the government would take “appropriate measures.”

Local Sri Lankan media reported that the ship ran into trouble near the coastal town of Galle in the south of the country, and that several injured crew members were taken to a hospital in the port city.

Sri Lankan authorities said the Dena had about 180 crew members, and search operations were continuing for others who may have been on board. Sources in Sri Lanka's navy and Defense Ministry ⁠said at least 101 people were missing after the incident.

On March 2, U.S. President Donald Trump said the American military had sunk nine Iranian naval vessels in its attacks, adding that “some of them were relatively large and important.” He also said that after destroying Iran’s naval headquarters, US forces would target other Iranian military vessels.

Iran’s government has not yet reacted to the report, though some state news agencies have republished the story citing AFP.

Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura complex, home to the kingdom’s largest domestic refinery and a major crude export terminal, has been struck again by an unidentified projectile, four sources told Reuters.

The incident on March 4 came two days after a reported drone attack shut the refinery.

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said initial indications suggested the latest strike was carried out by a drone but caused no damage. An Saudi Energy Ministry source said supplies were not disrupted.

Persian Gulf producers, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq have been unable to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz since US and Israeli attacks on Iran began on February 28.

Hundreds of vessels have anchored near the strait as Iran threatens to fire on ships attempting to transit it.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain needs to keep a "cool head" to tamp down public concerns about escalation as the conflict in the Middle East rages.

Starmer was grilled by lawmakers during Parliament's question period on March 4, enduring heaving opposition criticism a day after US President Donald Trump questioned his leadership over Britain's limited support for US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

"I know the whole country is worried about the potential for escalation," Starmer said. "We ‌need to act, therefore, with clarity, with purpose and with a cool head."

A drone struck an arms depot at the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in the town of Dekala in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on March 4, wounding two fighters, security sources told Reuters.

Iran has long accused the autonomous Kurdish region of harboring militant groups involved in attacks on the Islamic republic and has repeatedly targeted their bases.

As the US-Israeli strikes pound targets in Iran, Iranian Kurdish armed groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan have held discussions with US officials in recent days about the possibility of attacking Iranian security forces in western Iran, according to reports.

NATO has condemned Iran’s “targeting” of Turkey after Ankara said a missile heading toward its airspace had been intercepted by alliance air defense systems.

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said on March 4 that a ballistic munition launched from Iran passed through Iraqi and Syrian airspace before being engaged by NATO air and missile defense assets stationed in the eastern Mediterranean.

The missile was destroyed before reaching its target, and debris from the intercept fell in the Dortyol district of Hatay Province, with no casualties reported.

Following the incident, Turkey cautioned Tehran against actions that might escalate the conflict. In a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that “any steps that could lead to the spread of conflict should be avoided,” according to a Foreign Ministry source.

NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart said the alliance “stands firmly with all allies, including [Turkey],” and stressed that NATO’s deterrence and defense posture remains strong as Iran continues attacks across the region.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Washington's objectives in the war with Iran are both military and political, including neutralizing the threat Tehran poses to the United States and its allies and creating conditions for political change inside the country, according to Nathan Sales, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism who is now a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

Sales said a key short-term measure of success would be how quickly Iran’s attacks begin to decline. In his view, a drop in missile and drone strikes would show that the US campaign is weakening Iran’s ability to continue attacking.

“I think operations to target the security services are also important because those are the elements of the regime that would try to put down any uprising, any future uprising by the Iranian people to restore democracy and freedom to their country”.

Sales also warned that the war could create security threats beyond the Middle East.

Read the interview by RFE/RL's Amra Zejneli Loxha here.

As US military operation names go, Epic Fury marks a break from tradition.

The title for the ongoing American strikes on Iran, "is unusual for its edginess," Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International studies told RFE/RL. "Operations more commonly have names that will appeal to a wide audience, like Iraqi Freedom," he added, referencing the official name for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The former US Marine Colonel says the name for the war on Iran would have been selected from a list of options generated by military staffers "based on their sense of what [US defense chief Pete Hegseth], wanted to convey."

Read more here.

The United States is considering arming Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in neighboring Iraq, according to reports, in a move that could open a new front in the war on Iran and risks igniting a civil war in the Middle East country.

Several Iranian opposition Kurdish groups are based in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region and have been waging a low-level insurgency against Tehran for years. Some have demanded autonomy within Iran while others are fighting for secession from the Islamic republic.

The possibility of the United States supplying weapons to Iranian Kurdish groups and supporting potential cross-border ground attacks in the western part of the country comes as the United States and Israel wage a massive aerial bombardment of Iran.

To read the full report, click here.

Balkan, in western Turkmenistan along the Iranian border, is one of the first regions to feel any disruption in trade from Iran. Residents there are reliant on imported goods arriving daily from nearby crossings, so even minor delays or price changes in Iranian shipments are immediately noticeable in local markets.

As one Balkan resident put it: "We are almost entirely dependent on Iran for both food and household items. Without these imports, our markets would be nearly empty."

Another resident, reporting on current market shortages, said there are already apparent shortages due to cargo from Iran being held up. "Five liters of Iranian cooking oil used to be 150 manats ($29), and today it's 200. Prices for cleaning and chemical products have gone up by 5 manats across the board. Some shops that normally sell Iranian food in bulk are now selling only in small quantities."

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital, located just 25 kilometers north of the Iranian border and roughly 350 kilometers northeast of the main Sarakhs crossing, sees supply fluctuations and price increases with a slight lag after border regions. But residents there are feeling the pressure on daily staples.

To read the full report, click here.

WARSAW -- EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says she doubts Iran's capacity to sustain its pace of attacks on countries across the Middle East given its decimated military following the 12-day war last year with Israel and the current US-Israeli campaign launched against it over the weekend.

"We have to understand that the Iranian capacities are not endless, especially if also the big friends are not supporting them," she told RFE/RL in an interview conducted in Warsaw on March 4.

"Americans have also said that their target is the missile launchers and missile factories, then their capacity to cause harm is also and maybe more limited than they want to show. So this is always also a fight for narratives."

To read the full report, click here.