Tag: israel

Pentagon Prepares for Possibility That Iran War Will Last Through September

The US military is preparing for the possibility that the US-Israeli war against Iran lasts until September of this year, according to a report from POLITICO, far beyond President Trump’s initial four-week timeline.

The report said that US Central Command is asking the Pentagon to send more intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days, but likely through September.

The news of the Pentagon preparing for a long war comes as US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said that the US is sending more forces to the Middle East and will be escalating its bombing campaign.

“More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound, and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” Hegseth said on Wednesday.

Hegseth has also declined to set a timeline on the war. “You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three,” he said. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we’re going to keep them off balance.”

So far, more than 1,000 Iranian civilians have been killed by US-Israeli strikes, and at least six US soldiers have been killed by Iranian drone attacks. The Pentagon is working to get more missiles and air-defense munitions into the region, as its stockpiles have quickly dwindled after the first five days of war.

The POLITICO report also detailed how the State Department was scrambling to get stranded Americans out of the Middle East as the administration had no evacuation plan despite a months-long military buildup in the region and Trump’s constant threats to bomb Iran.

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X Users Find Their Real Names Are Being Googled in Israel After Using X Verification Software “Au10tix”

Awide range of anonymous X (Twitter) users have reported that their real names are suddenly being Googled in Israel shortly after they began criticizing the country for its actions in Palestine. Some connected the phenomenon to Au10tix, the software X requires users (even anonymous ones) to use in order to verify their real identities.

Au10tix is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former Israeli spies from the elite Israeli military intelligence group Unit 8200. MintPress News investigates this disturbing phenomenon.

“The Largest Honeypot Operation On the Planet”
“I’m not even kidding when I say my full legal name, including my middle name, has been searched up in Israel 11 times in the past day,” wrote TransFemPOTUS, an anonymous X user who has been highly critical of Israel’s actions.

This was not an isolated incident. “So apparently my full legal name got searched for in Israel the other day,” revealed TheAtlantean9, an anonymous far-left user with a Palestinian flag in their bio.

Meanwhile, artist Bionico Bandito stated that “My full name got searched 100 times in Israel when I posted this,” referring to a cartoon depicting associates of Jeffrey Epstein being executed.

Across the world, from conservative Japanese accounts to American conspiracy theorists, anonymous users are reporting that data from Google Trends shows their real names, not divulged anywhere online, are being mass searched in Israel.

How could this be happening? Some laid the blame at Au10tix’s door. “Only Au10tix and X holds my data obtained from ID verification,” wrote one user in a viral post, adding, “The rumors are absolutely true.”

“Israel is now 100% confirmed to be Googling anonymous users on X and their family members shortly after they speak out against the country,” wrote another, concluding that, “X is now the largest honeypot operation on the planet.”

The theory centers around Israeli security company Au10tix, who, in 2023, was tasked with verifying users’ identities, a prerequisite for joining X’s premium service which allows users a far greater reach.

The process requires individuals to upload a picture of their passport or other photo I.D., and allow Au10tix to scan their face via their device’s camera. Au10tix claims that it deletes users’ data within 72 hours of receiving it. However, the fact that the company was founded and is staffed by veterans of notorious Israeli spying group Unit 8200 – a group that has been behind many of the most outrageous hacking, infiltration, and cyberwarfare scandals of the past decade – has led many to be extremely suspicious.

The idea that Au10tix itself, or the Israeli government could be using the data given to it by users in order to combat online criticism is far from outlandish. The Department of Homeland Security is already known to be doing the same, sending hundreds of subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.

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The Misconception That Air Supremacy Has Been Achieved Over Iran

There are growing misconceptions that the U.S. and Israel have achieved total control of the airspace in Iran and sanitized the threat of ground-based air defenses to a degree that their forces have relatively free rein — commonly referred to as air supremacy. This is absolutely not true, nor has this been the outright claim of the U.S. military. It also should be of no surprise at this point in the campaign.

A lot of the commentary I try to provide for events like this is on X. It allows me to respond quickly to what is going on, and often that includes trying to swat down false narratives, some of which originate in the social media echo chamber and among general commentators/influencers, but also increasingly among the mainstream media. This is one of those times.

Moving as fast as possible from standoff attacks to stand-in (direct) attacks isn’t just about trying to conserve expensive long-range munitions. In fact, this is far from the primary concern. Doing so is absolutely essential to ramping up the frequency and amplitude of the air campaign. This is something we have been highlighting in our rolling coverage of the conflict for days.

Moving to direct strikes allows for a significant increase in the total volume of targets hit, as well as offering a broader array of effects to be brought to bear on those targets. Very deep-penetrating bunker-buster munitions, for instance, are typically not available in a standoff capability.

This transition to direct attacks has now begun.

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Covering for International Abusers, Media Reverse Victim and Offender in Iran

People who study domestic violence have an acronym, DARVO, for the set of tactics abusers use to avoid accountability: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

It’s that last tactic that came to mind while reading news reports of the United States and Israel’s unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran, and the assassination of Ali Khamenei, its leader. US corporate media frequently presented Iran as responsible for the predictably violent consequences of the US/Israeli aggression.

Sometimes the reversal is straightforward, as when an NBC News “analysis” (2/28/26) warned that “Iran’s Retaliatory Strikes Threaten an Escalation Across the Region”—as though it is Iran’s response, and not the ongoing attacks by the US and Israel, that poses a threat to the region.

Another NBC analysis (2/28/26), by Richard Engel, more subtly tried to pin the blame on Iran, noting in the headline that “Iran Is Now in Conflict With Pretty Much All of Its Neighbors.” Wrote Engel:

Today Iran has launched drones and missiles not only at Israel, but also at US military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq…. It puts Iran in a difficult position, because now it is at conflict with pretty much all of its neighbors.

Pretty much all of its neighbors, that is, except for Turkiye, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Azerbaijan said Iranian drones crashed in its territory on Thursday; Iran denies targeting the country.) And if we’re going to count Jordan as Iran’s “neighbor,” then Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. Aside from those, though, pretty much all of them.

The point of depicting Iran as “in conflict” with “pretty much all of its neighbors,” of course, is to paint it as the country that no one can get along with. In reality, the countries Iran isn’t getting along with are the ones allowing the US to use them as platforms for launching bombs and missiles at it—behavior that will put a damper on any relationship.

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Epstein Army: Jeffrey Epstein helped place 18-year-old woman in ‘elite IDF unit’

Emails show sex trafficking billionaire Jeffrey Epstein worked Israeli connections to help his lawyer’s daughter join an elite IDF unit. The woman, who Epstein wrote would make a “fantastic ambassador for Israel” at Columbia University, served on the board of Hillel International.

Jeffrey Epstein personally recruited an 18-year-old girl from New York to serve “in one of the elite IDF units,” email records show.

Epstein’s request came in a June 29, 2011 email to Anat Barak, the daughter of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In the message, the financier described the girl in question, “Tali,” as an 18-year-old who’d been accepted to Columbia University’s Barnard College and had “been to Israel more than a dozen times.”

His young female friend had spent a summer hiking the so-called Israel Trail and another “working as a counselor at a summer camp in Dimona Israel for children who are victims of terrorist attacks,” and would therefore “be a great asset to any unit,” Epstein wrote.

Tali, he said, would continue serving Israeli interests long after her placement in the Israeli army. Upon her return from military service in Israel, Epstein wrote that “she would be a fantastic ambassador for Israel” at what he called “one of the more important college campuses in the country, Columbia.”

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Israel’s Mass Murder of Palestinian Children Set Up the Iran School Bombing

On February 28, 2026, the last thing most of the now one hundred and sixty-eight dead elementary schoolgirls saw was a fleet of missiles fired by the US or Israel. Their coloring books were painted red, later retrieved by parents forced to identify their newly dismembered children.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention Israel’s cutthroat, merciless attacks on Palestinian children during the Gaza genocide – a campaign that has fostered a climate of impunity among the upper echelons of Israel’s government, who appear to believe they can evade punishment for countless war crimes against innocent children. The estimated death toll of Palestinian children since October 2023 is a staggering 20,000, according to UNICEF. Twenty thousand innocent lives – children punished for the circumstances of their birth, for an identity they did not choose, for a conflict they did not create.

This, sadly, is what we’ve come to expect from modern-day Israel – some of the most heinous war crimes witnessed since the early 2000s. Schools and children are heavily protected under international humanitarian law, yet those protections seemingly never apply to Israel. The strike on this elementary school, filled with wide-eyed children eager to learn, crosses a universal moral boundary – because war does not suspend morality. In a just world, Israel would answer for this inhumane attack. But this world is dark, godless, and depraved.

This comes shortly after the IDF shot a fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy, Jad Jadallah, last winter – as reported by the BBC – and left him to bleed out, even blocking emergency vehicles from reaching him. Anyone could argue that Israel has been intentionally targeting children in its attacks.

Each of the one hundred and sixty-eight schoolgirls (ages 7–12) at Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ Elementary School had a future – a family, friends, dreams, creativity, and innocence. Last week, they were pulled from the rubble; their small bodies shattered by missiles that brought nothing but destruction and despair.

The longer Israel and the US are treated as above the law, the more tumultuous the world will become – especially in the Middle East. It is time for real accountability for Israel and Netanyahu before it is too late. This situation has long been volatile, but we are now on a one-way flight to the point of no return – where it becomes acceptable, perhaps even encouraged, to bomb elementary schools, starve children, and put bullets into skulls that should be filled with toys, dreams, and love.

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Gavin Newsom Labels Israel an ‘Apartheid State,’ Suggests Cutting Off All Military Support

California Governor Gavin Newsom has come out swinging against Israel.

In comments likely intended to boost his progressive credentials, Newsom likened the country to an “apartheid state.”

During a book tour appearance on Wednesday, Pod Save America host Jon Favreau asked about America’s relationship with the Jewish state under a Democratic administration.

“Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?” asked Favreau.

“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration,” Newsom responded.

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Hacked Tehran Traffic Cameras Fed Israeli Intelligence Before Strike On Khamenei 

Years before the air strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israeli intelligence had been quietly mapping the daily rhythms of Tehran. According to reporting by the Financial Times (paywalled), nearly all of the Iranian capital’s traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei’s compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted. That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a “pattern of life,” detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel’s intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.

When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would attend a Saturday morning meeting at his compound, the opportunity was judged unusually favorable. Two people familiar with the operation told the FT that US intelligence provided confirmation from a human source that the meeting was proceeding as planned, a level of certainty required for a target of such magnitude. Israeli aircraft, reportedly airborne for hours, fired as many as 30 precision munitions. The strike was carried out in daylight, which the Israeli military said created tactical surprise despite heightened Iranian alertness. The Financial Times reports that the assassination was a political decision as much as a technological feat. Even during last year’s 12-day war, when Israeli strikes killed more than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and senior military officials and disabled air defences through cyber operations and drones, Israel did not attempt to kill Khamenei.

The capability to do so, however, had been built over decades. Former Mossad official Sima Shine told the FT that Israel’s strategic focus on Iran dates back to a 2001 directive from then-prime minister Ariel Sharon instructing intelligence chief Meir Dagan to make the Islamic Republic the priority target. What distinguishes the latest operation, according to the FT, is the scale of automation. Target tracking that once required painstaking visual confirmation has increasingly been handled by algorithm-driven systems parsing billions of data points. One person familiar with the process described it as an “assembly line with a single product: targets.”

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US commanders tell troops Iran war ‘God’s divine plan,’ Trump anointed to ‘ignite Armageddon’: Report

Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported on 2 March that numerous US service members have lodged dozens of complaints saying senior officers are calling the war on Iran part of “God’s divine plan,” with claims that US President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to spark Armageddon.

“President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” one combat-unit commander allegedly told troops during a readiness briefing, according to a complaint submitted to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaint is one of more than 110 logged within 48 hours, spanning over 40 units across at least 30 military installations, with soldiers telling the MRFF that commanders are describing the Iran campaign as divinely ordained and tied to the Book of Revelation.

The Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) stated they were writing on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew, and described the remarks as “so toxic and over the line” that they shocked those present. 

The email sent to Larsen argued that such rhetoric “destroy[s] morale and unit cohesion and [is] in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”

MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said the over 110 reports share “one damn thing in freaking common” – what he called “the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders” who view the war as “biblically-sanctioned” and a sign of the approaching “End Times.”

Weinstein warned that commanders celebrating how “bloody all of this must become” in order to align with “fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology” may be violating constitutional and military law. 

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Fury as Marco Rubio admits Israel forced US into war with Iran: ‘The worst possible thing’

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 blow before we responded.’

Rubio said the Department of War determined that a defensive posture following an Israeli attack would only open the US to more casualties. Five American soldiers have died so far in combat. 

‘We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage,’ he said. 

‘Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen, and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life,’ Rubio explained. 

The revelation outraged both Democrats and Republicans.

‘Secretary Rubio’s remarks indicate that Israel put U.S. forces in harm’s way by insisting on attacking Iran,’ Congressman Joaquin Castro reacted on X. ‘And the administration was complicit—joining their war instead of talking them down.’

Conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote: ‘So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.’

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