I - On Defense Podcast

For review:
1. A missile strike on a house in Baghdad on Tuesday killed two people, with initial reports suggesting they are “Iranian advisers” to Tehran-backed groups, a security official tells AFP.
2. Rockets and at least five drones were launched at the US embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday from areas around the city, Iraqi security sources say, describing the attack as the most intense since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran.
3. Amid the latest Iranian missile attack on Israel, the military announces that it has launched “extensive” strikes against targets in both Tehran and Beirut.
In the Iranian capital, the IDF says it’s striking “infrastructure of the terror regime,” while in Beirut it’s attacking Hezbollah targets.
4. US President Donald Trump’s administration is urging US diplomats abroad to push allies to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon-based Hezbollah as terrorist groups, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters.
5. US efforts to open Strait of Hormuz:
Both The Wall Street Journal and Axios reported that President Trump was planning to announce the formation of such a multinational coalition as early as this week. 
Axios added, citing unnamed US officials, that President Trump was also mulling the option of seizing Iran’s key oil depot on Kharg Island -- if Tehran continues to deny oil tankers passage through the strait, a move that would require American boots on the ground.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC earlier Sunday that he has been “in dialogue” with some of the countries Trump had mentioned previously, and said he expected China “will be a constructive partner” in reopening the strait.
“It is in our interest to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and that’s why we are also discussing what we can do in this regard from the European side,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Monday ahead of a meeting of the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels.
6. Iran’s military apparatus is “in distress” and incapable of launching many missiles at Israel, while members of the country’s security forces stay inside for fear of Israeli and US warplanes, according to an assessment reportedly delivered by the IDF intelligence chief to political leaders.
7. Iraq’s powerful armed group Kataeb Hezbollah said Monday that its senior security commander, Abu Ali al-Askari, had been killed, without providing details on the circumstances of his death.
8. A “significant Israeli ground offensive” in Lebanon must be averted since it could have devastating humanitarian consequences, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Britain say in a joint statement.
9. US Navy mine warfare capabilities.
10. Lockheed Martin has announced it carried out the first flight test for the Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 2 program, the service’s initiative at developing a multimode seeker capable of hitting maritime targets on the move. 
Lockheed’s announcement comes shortly after the Army announced its PrSM Increment 1 capabilities, also developed by Lockheed Martin, were used for the first time in combat during the ongoing conflict in Iran.

For review:
1. On Sunday, citing “a senior source close to the new Iranian leader,” Kuwait’s Al-Jarida news outlet reported that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had been smuggled out of Iran in a secretive Russian operation on Thursday to receive medical treatment in Moscow for injuries sustained in the same airstrikes that killed his father and wife on the first day of the ongoing US-Israeli offensive.
2. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran had neither requested a ceasefire nor sought negotiations with Washington.
3. Iran’s relations with Arab Gulf states will require a “serious review” in light of the US-Israeli war on Iran, limiting the power of external actors so the region can become prosperous, Tehran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia told Reuters on Sunday.
Asked if he was concerned that relations would be harmed by the war, Ambassador Alireza Enayati said: “It’s a valid question, and the answer may be simple. 
4. The Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in the joint war with the United States against Iran is proceeding according to plan, and at a faster pace than initially expected, military officials said on Sunday.
Despite being apparently ahead of schedule, the military has said it is preparing for at least three more weeks of operations in Iran, as it still has thousands more targets to hit, both in Tehran and in other parts of the country.
The IDF is now focusing its efforts on destroying Iran’s military industry, according to the officials. 
5. US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speak today about the “importance” of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, currently blocked by Iran, the UK leader’s office says.
6. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denied reports on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon are set to hold direct talks in the coming days amid the fighting with Hezbollah, and demanded that Beirut first act against the terror group on its soil.
7. As the United Arab Emirates confronts a large number of attacks from Iran, the small Gulf nation just to Iran’s south appears to be sharing less information about how successful its air defenses have been in recent days.
8. The Australian government announced on March 10 it would send an E-7A Wedgetail early-warning aircraft to the Middle East and help replenish United Arab Emirates stocks of AIM-120 air-to-air missiles.
9. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry issued a response on March 14 after Iranian politician Ebrahim Azizi called Ukrainian territory "a legitimate target for Iran" in a social media post.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry called the threat "absurd" in a statement from a Spokesperson to the media.
"The Iranian regime has been supporting the murder of Ukrainians for years, by directly sharing drones and technology for Russian aggression against Ukraine,"

For review:
1. US President Donald Trump’s administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war. Iran, for its part, has rejected talk of a ceasefire until US and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, 
2. US President Donald Trump says that the United States may carry out more strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub, saying that while Tehran appears ready to make a deal to end the conflict, “the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
3. President Trump on the Strait of Hormuz: Tthe US “will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline” and “one way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait open, safe and free.”
Later on Saturday Trump said that “countries of the world that receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help — a lot! 
The US will also coordinate with those countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well.
4. Hamas on Saturday called on its benefactor Iran to refrain from striking neighboring nations, including Qatar and Turkey, two of the terror group’s other leading state sponsors.
5. Lebanon was said Saturday to be seeking talks with Israel on ending the renewed flareup between the Jewish state and the Hezbollah terror group, with landmark direct negotiations reportedly expected to be held within days.
6. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Friday his terror group was ready for a long confrontation with Israel, as the latter threatened to make Lebanon pay an “increasing price” in damage to infrastructure.
7. Israel is planning to launch a “massive” ground invasion of southern Lebanon in order to push the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group away from the border and destroy its weapons stores and positions, US and Israeli officials told the Axios news site on Saturday.
8. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on March 13 confirmed his government is holding talks with the Trump administration, in the latest sign that the communist-run nation is open to signing a historic economic deal with the United States.
9. The US Navy has prolonged the service life of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) to March 2027.

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