Conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is spilling into the Indian Ocean
The effective blockade of the strait during the US-Israeli war with Iran has increased the chance of accidents and forced ships into alternative routes with their own risks.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has turned the Indian Ocean into a theatre for major maritime confrontations.
On 2 March, in response to US-Israeli strikes, Iran announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz, the vital maritime chokepoint that connects Gulf waters and the wider Indian Ocean beyond. On 4 March, a US submarine sunk the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka. Since the outbreak of the conflict, at least 18 vessels have been attacked in Gulf waters.
The US now claims Iran’s navy is destroyed. Despite this, the Strait of Hormuz remains functionally closed.
While some analysts argue that Iran lacks the power to fully control the strait, Iran’s strategy does not depend on naval control. If Iran can launch missile or drone attacks from its coast, it can impose enough risk to disrupt shipping. The recent experience in the Red Sea illustrates this dynamic: a relatively small number of Houthi missile and drone attacks caused container traffic in the region to fall by roughly 90 per cent in 2024.
Iran’s ability to essentially close the strait will have a knock-on effect on wider maritime traffic, creating new security risks as ships seek alternative routes. While Iran has vowed to disrupt international trade to inflict pressure on US President Donald Trump, the US may seek to intercept ships bound for Iran, creating dangerous conditions for escalation in the increasingly crowded Indian Ocean and beyond.
Heightened risks of accidents and US seizures
The current conflict has created a de facto blockade in which the US seeks to deny maritime transit or access to Iran, while Tehran simultaneously seeks to stop all movement through the Strait.
These competing strategies have created a highly uncertain operating environment for commercial vessels in the Gulf. According to a briefing from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, more than 40 ships disabled their Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals at the start of the conflict – a practice known as ‘going dark.’ Ships typically disable AIS to conceal illicit activity. Many of these vessels are part of Iran’s sanctioned shadow fleet. The number of dark vessels is likely to increase.
At the same time, several Gulf countries have begun employing GPS jamming to interfere with guided missiles. While intended as a defensive measure, this jamming also disrupts navigation systems used by civilian ships. AIS signals can become scrambled or unreliable, making it more difficult for vessels to communicate with each other and avoid collisions. With maritime search and rescue capabilities already constrained by the conflict, such interference significantly increases the risk of accidents.
Amid this chaos, Iran announced that it would permit Chinese ships to transit through the Strait. In response, some ships are attempting to use their transponders to identify as Chinese. For example, a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier ship called SinoOcean broadcast its destination signal as ‘CHINA OWNER_ALL CREW’ to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Related workHow will the Iran war affect the global economy?
While these operations are not necessarily aimed at illicit activity, they do represent a newer category of false flag operations in shipping, which involve the deliberate misrepresentation of a vessel’s flag state to evade oversight. This tactic is most often used by shadow fleet vessels moving sanctioned commodities. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, both false flags and changing a ship’s flag during a voyage are considered illegal.
Taken together, GPS jamming, dark vessels, and false flag signals create significant uncertainty about the identity and activities of ships in the region. This ambiguity complicates attribution for maritime incidents and increases the likelihood that naval forces will misinterpret commercial behaviour.
In response, it is possible that the US will pursue more ships seizures across the Indian Ocean, especially under the pretext of the ongoing conflict. On 24 February, before the attack on Iran, the US seized an oil tanker allegedly linked to Venezuela’s illicit oil trade off the coast of Sri Lanka. Back in November, the US also seized a cargo ship going from China to Iran across the Indian Ocean.
Alternative routes in a crowded ocean
The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz will redirect shipping into other routes that pose their own risks. Since 2 March, the volume of traffic around Hormuz has dropped precipitously. Many ships have also decided to avoid the Suez Canal as a precautionary measure.
This will increase traffic through the Mozambique Channel and Cape of Good Hope as ships attempt to take the long way around Africa. Due to the slowdown, rising costs, and uncertainty about the duration of conflict, many ships may also remain at ports along the Indian Ocean.
These shifts in maritime traffic will create new security risks. Congested or poorly patrolled routes often attract piracy and other illicit activities. For example, pirates operating from Somalia have historically attacked ships off the coast of Africa in the western Indian Ocean, and piracy is on the rise again.
About a dozen B-1 bombers are now at RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom as a base from which to launch strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine—which could represent more than half of the U.S. Air Force’s mission-capable Lancer fleet.
The buildup at the air base in Gloucestershire, England, started March 6 when the U.K. Ministry of Defense started allowing the U.S. to use its bases for attacks on Iran and has continued apace in recent days, open-source data shows. All told, as many as 15 bombers are at the base, with three B-52 Stratofortresses in addition to the B-1s.
The press office for U.S. Central Command declined to comment. On March 7, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in a statement that “United States has started using British bases for specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region.” U.S. bombers are striking Iranian missile sites, the U.S. military says.
There are 44 B-1s in the Air Force inventory, but a portion of them are not available for operations at any given time, either for testing or for maintenance. As of late 2024, the service maintained a 47 percent mission-capable rate for the aircraft—suggesting around 20-22 jets are actually available.
While the U.S. has used both its B-52 and B-2 bombers to strike Iran, the B-1 is the most heavily deployed right now. It has the largest internal payload and is the service’s faster-flying bomber, making it ideal for reaching long distances and striking multiple targets over a wide area.
“I’m not surprised by it,” said retired Col. Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a former B-52 pilot. “I think the Air Force is using its bomber force quite effectively.”
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer takes off in support of Operation Epic Fury, March 6, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo
“For a fight of even this magnitude, relying on only one bomber variant could really put a lot of strain on that force and on their air crews,” Gunzinger said.
In the first few days of the operation, bombers were flying roughly 36-hour round-trip sorties from the continental United States to Iran and back. Those distances are doable but reduce the number of flights crews can make.
Initially, British leaders denied the United States use of its bases, such as Fairford and Diego Garcia, an island military base in the Indian Ocean. But officials relented following a March 5 Iranian drone attack on a U.K. base in Cyprus.
In a five-minute address on March 11, U.S. Central Command head Adm. Brad Cooper specifically referenced a bomber mission as part of the ongoing strikes.
“Just last night our bomber force hit a large ballistic missile factory,” Cooper said. He noted that such a strike was an example of targeting both current and future threats.
One B-1 arrived at Fairford on March 6, with four more arriving March 7. Those bombers were joined by three B-52s and three B-1s on March 9, and four B-1s on March 10, according to open source and flight tracker data.
Being able to fly out of Fairford significantly increases sortie rates.
“It certainly reduces strain on pilots, shorter sortie durations, less refueling, all translates to higher sortie rates,” Gunzinger said. “Greater rates mean more bombs on target.”
The B-1’s flexibility and munition carriage volume might also hint at why it’s in greater use at this stage.
B-1 Lancers and B-52 Stratofortresses Unleash Fury on Iran from British Soil
byAero News Journal-March 13, 2026
London, March 13 – The escalation in the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran has reached a significant new phase with the deployment of U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress bombers operating from Royal Air Force Fairford in the United Kingdom. Under Operation Epic Fury, which commenced on February 28, 2026, these strategic bombers are now launching long-range precision strikes deep into Iranian territory. The use of RAF Fairford as a forward operating base marks a strategic shift, allowing American forces to conduct sustained missions against hardened targets, including missile facilities, command centers, and other military infrastructure. This basing decision followed approval from British authorities for defensive operations against Iranian missile capabilities, enabling rapid response and extended reach without relying solely on assets closer to the Middle East theater.
The B-1B Lancer, known for its supersonic speed and substantial payload capacity, has been particularly active in delivering bunker-busting munitions and precision-guided weapons to neutralize deeply buried Iranian ballistic missile sites and underground launchers. Multiple B-1Bs arrived at RAF Fairford in early March 2026, with reports indicating a substantial fleet now supporting the campaign. Complementing these efforts, the iconic B-52H Stratofortress bombers, originating from bases such as Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, have joined the operations. Capable of carrying massive ordnance loads over intercontinental distances, the B-52s have targeted command-and-control posts and missile-related infrastructure, contributing to the degradation of Iran’s retaliatory capabilities. These heavy bombers, supported by aerial refueling, undertake lengthy missions from the UK, underscoring the transatlantic alliance’s role in projecting power across vast distances.
The strikes form part of a broader U.S.-led effort to diminish Iran’s military posture, focusing on air superiority and the systematic reduction of threats posed by its missile arsenal and associated networks. U.S. Central Command has emphasized that these operations aim to establish dominance in the airspace and prevent further escalatory actions from Tehran. The integration of B-1 and B-52 platforms enhances the campaign’s effectiveness, combining the B-1’s agility for targeted deep strikes with the B-52’s endurance for large-scale bombardment. As the conflict progresses, the forward deployment to the UK facilitates more frequent and intensive sorties, reducing transit times and increasing operational tempo against key Iranian assets.
This development highlights the enduring strategic importance of allied basing in modern warfare, allowing the U.S. Air Force to leverage advanced bombers like the B-1 Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress for decisive impact far from home stations. The ongoing missions from RAF Fairford signal a commitment to sustained pressure on Iranian military elements, as part of efforts to secure regional stability amid heightened tensions.
Trump says war with Iran will end when ‘I feel it in my bones’
Story by Ryan Mancini
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The Hill
Success In Iran? Trump and Hegseth Praise U.S. Military Amid Second Week Of Strikes | TRENDING
fallen warriors as they returned to American soil.
Current Time 0:08
Duration 6:44
President Trump on Friday said he knows the U.S. military operation in Iran will come to an end when he can “feel it in my bones,” a remark that comes almost two weeks after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Middle Eastern country began.
Since the bombing began, one thing has become steadily clearer: the hard-liners stayed in control. The IRGC was hit, but it did not fracture. Iran’s ruling system absorbed the blow, reconstituted leadership, and kept functioning. U.S. intelligence now says in multiple reports from multiple agencies and analysts: the regime is not at risk of imminent collapse.
That is news, but it is not the revelatory part.
The revelatory part is this: the resilience now visible in Iran was not merely a conclusion reached after the war failed to produce regime collapse. It was a assessment made clearly before the war and communicated clearly to Trump, who ignored it. Reuters has now reported that before the attack, CIA assessments presented to the White House warned that if Ali Khamenei were killed, he could be replaced by other hard-line figures, including elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or equally hard-line clerics. Reuters also reported that a separate U.S. intelligence report noted there had been no IRGC defections even during January’s mass anti-government protests, a crucial signal because successful revolutions usually require at least some fracture inside the coercive apparatus. This buttressed the assessment that the regime would not collapse. And it raises even more “what was he thinking?” questions.
The same pattern appears on the economic side. The Wall Street Journal reports that before the war, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine warned Trump in multiple briefings that an American attack could prompt Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil exports pass. Trump went ahead anyway, believing Tehran would likely capitulate before it could close the strait or cause major economic damage.
Put plainly: Trump does not just appear to have misread the war. He appears to have brushed aside intelligence that undercut the political premise of the war before it started, and military warnings about the economic consequences if it escalated. (Comment: I’m not the only intel oriented Substacker reporting this — see Jeff Stein’s article at Spytalk. He’s on it too.)
What was known before the war
In the run-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, the CIA produced assessments over a two-week period examining what might happen in Iran after a U.S. intervention. Those assessments consistently concluded that even if Khamenei were killed, he would almost certainly be replaced by hard-line figures from the IRGC or hard-line clerics. Reuters also noted that the reports did not treat any single scenario as certain, but hard-line continuity was clearly the most probable outcome in the assessment.
That matters because it cuts directly against the fantasy version of regime change that hovered over the opening phase of the war: kill the top leader, shock the system, trigger panic, open the way for internal collapse. It’s now clear the CIA never bought that script as the likely outcome.
Two days later, Reuters added another critical detail. It reported that the CIA assessments had been presented to the White House before the attack, and that they were reinforced by at least one separate U.S. intelligence report showing there had been no IRGC defections during the January protests. That is not a minor point. It goes to the heart of whether a regime is vulnerable to overthrow. If the coercive core stays loyal, battered autocracies often survive. If it fractures, they can fall. Reuters’ sourcing points toward a prewar intelligence picture in which the coercive core was still holding.
In other words, the idea that Iran’s regime was resilient was not something discovered only after the bombing began. It was already in the intelligence stream. Trump just ignored it.
What was learned after the war began
Postwar intelligence has only reinforced that picture.
Multiple US intelligence sources reported on March 11 that U.S. intelligence assessed Iran’s government was not currently at risk of collapse despite nearly two weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombardment. The reporting said the leadership remained largely intact, the regime retained control of the public, and the hard-line power structure was still functioning.
Reuters later reported that Trump’s aides were struggling to shape an exit from the conflict while Iran’s leadership continued to fight back and U.S. intelligence indicated that the regime was not at risk of collapse anytime soon. That same Reuters report says Iran has proved a much tougher and better-armed foe than the White House’s Venezuela analogy seemed to assume.
This is the distinction that matters. Before the war, the intelligence pointed to hard-line continuity and no obvious path to regime collapse. After the war began, the intelligence pointed to exactly what those earlier warnings implied: the regime was still standing.
The Strait of Hormuz warning
The Wall Street Journal fills in the other half of the accountability case.
According to the Journal, Dan Caine warned Trump in multiple briefings before the Feb. 28 assault that Iran would likely close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked. Trump acknowledged the possibility but decided to move ahead, believing Tehran would capitulate before it could shut the strait or cause serious economic damage. He also believed the U.S. military could handle the fallout if necessary.
That is not a side issue. It goes to strategic judgment.
The strait is the world’s most important oil chokepoint. A president choosing war after being warned that the adversary may respond by choking energy flows is making a decision with obvious global consequences. The Journal reports that Trump was warned about precisely that scenario and chose to gamble that Iran would fold first.
That gamble now looks catastrophic.
So where did Trump get the idea they would fall?
This is where the reporting becomes revealing in a different way.
At least on the evidence now in public view, the confidence that Iran would crack does not appear to have come from the CIA. It appears to have come from Trump’s own worldview, his reading of prior operations, and a highly compressed decision process.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump’s decision was shaped by his confidence in U.S. military power and by what he saw as the success of previous operations, including last summer’s strike on Iranian nuclear sites and the January mission in Venezuela. The Journal says those episodes reinforced his belief that swift regime change could be managed through a well-executed military operation and a more accommodating successor. It adds, bluntly, that “that didn’t happen this time.” Instead, Mojtaba Khamenei emerged as supreme leader and vowed to keep blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
The Journal also reports that planning was handled by a very small circle that included JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth, and that this narrowed the range of advice and dissent reaching the president. Even basic questions — including how to ensure a friendly successor in Tehran — were left unresolved.
Reuters points in a similar direction. It reported that although Trump publicly urged Iranians to “take back” their country, senior U.S. officials remained skeptical that the battered opposition could topple the regime in the near term. Reuters also reported that officials had grown pessimistic that any Washington-backed opposition figure could realistically control the country if the government fell.
So the picture that emerges is not one in which the intelligence community told Trump the regime would collapse and events proved them wrong. It is closer to the opposite. The intelligence pointed toward resilience. Trump appears to have preferred a story of rapid coercion, rapid capitulation, and manageable fallout.
This is the real scandal
Wars are full of uncertainty. Intelligence is not prophecy. No serious person should pretend that the CIA can predict every succession struggle or street uprising with perfect accuracy.
But that is not the issue here.
The issue is whether the president was warned that the most optimistic assumptions behind escalation were doubtful before he launched it. The Reuters and Wall Street Journal reporting strongly suggests that he was. Reuters says CIA assessments warned that killing Khamenei could simply harden the regime’s continuity under other hard-liners, and that other intelligence reporting showed no sign of the IRGC fracture that real regime collapse would likely require. The Journal says Trump was warned that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz and chose to believe it would surrender before that could happen.
That turns this from a story about bad luck into a story about accountability.
The resilience of the Iranian regime is not the revelation. The revelation is that Trump was told repeatedly in advance that regime change was highly unlikely — and went to war expressly for regime change anyway. When that didn’t work, the adlibbing began. And here we are.
Accountability is not a meaningful feature of life in America in 2026 — at least not when it comes to the highest levels of the Executive Branch. It’s wishful thinking to believe that independent media calling Trump out will accomplish any meaningful accountability — but we try. We try. Thank you—especially paid supporters—for helping give responsible independent media a voice. Collectively we may accomplish something. Your help matters.
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It’s not an invasion, it’s a liberation’: LA’s Iranian community speaks out after US strikes Tehran
The desire to see an increasingly ruthless Iranian regime collapse has intensified in Iranian expat communities
Andrew Gumbel in Los AngelesSun 1 Mar 2026 17.00 GMTShare
A decade ago, when Iran signed an agreement with the Obama administration and five other countries to give up its ambitions for a nuclear weapon, Alaleh Kamran was staunchly on the political left and welcomed the prospect of peace in the country of her birth.
Now, though, as Israel and the US launched punishing airstrikes on Iran, she finds herself in a dramatically different headspace.
“It’s not an invasion, it’s a liberation,” she says. “My support is behind this 100% .”
Kamran, a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles, which boasts the largest Iranian community in the world outside Iran, used to be at loggerheads with more conservative members of the Iranian Jewish community here who opposed the nuclear deal from the outset.
Demonstrators wave flags in celebration following the US and Israeli strikes in Iran; in Los Angeles. Photograph: Chris Torres/EPA
Now she agrees with them when they say there can be no negotiating with an authoritarian government they view as no better than murderers. She and other community members the Guardian spoke with believe that a majority of Iranians agree, too, particularly in the wake of last month’s killing of thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of street protesters seeking to overthrow the regime. In the run-up to the US and Israeli bombardments, some in the protest movement called openly for help from the outside world.
As of 2025, the population of Iran is estimated to be around 92.4 million. The population has been gradually increasing, but the growth rate has slowed in recent years. Wikipedia Trading Economics
Iranians in America:
As of 2024, there are approximately 750,000 Iranian Americans living in the United States, making up about 0.2% of the population. This number has grown significantly since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with many Iranians seeking refuge in the U.S. during that time. Pew Research Center ebsco.com
Deporting Iranians from America:
US begins deporting hundreds of Iranians after rare deal with Tehran
So, in the age of AI-slop, stay vigilant and be on the lookout for generative AI. When you read an article, familiarise yourself with the author and their sources. Become an active, thinking person on the internet, however brain-dead and robotic your fellow users are becoming. And no matter how many companies try to shove it down your throat, take a stance against artificial intelligence and the harm it causes the open and free internet we used to love.
If you ever visit Ternopil, you will see the pond.
But it is not a pond in the way you imagine.
You will be hundreds of miles from the sea, yet that body of water can fool you for a moment.
It stretches across the city like a harbor. It is not the ocean and not a great river, but when you stand on its edge and look across the water, on some days you barely see the other side.
And while everything there seems peaceful, it is impossible to forget the nation around it.
The surface moves with wind and light, and the pond becomes its own small world.
I often went there and sat for hours.
When we are close to water, it seems that thoughts flow differently in our minds.
But I was there more to watch than to think.
There are many birds in the pond. Swallows, gulls, and other fast flying creatures that flash across the water and disappear before you can follow them.
The ducks are different.
They move slowly. That makes them easier to observe, and so we can follow their lives for a while.
A mother guiding a line of ducklings. A duck dipping its head under the water looking for food.
Another one chasing a piece of bread someone threw from the shore.
Simple scenes.
Yet when I watched them long enough, a strange question started to form in my mind.
Do they know?
Do they know there is a war here?
This city is in a country at war. Missiles cross the sky. Sirens break the night. Every family carries a weight that didn’t exist some time ago.
But the ducks keep swimming across the pond.
I am sure they sense there is something wrong around them. Animals always feel the energy around them, but I doubt they understand the madness unfolding around them.
Animals fight too. They defend territory. They compete for food. They protect their young.
For a long time we humans liked to say that violence comes from our animal side.
That our primitive impulses are dangerous and our rational minds are what make us civilized.
Watching the ducks, I realized the opposite is what is true.
Animals do not design systems of destruction.
They do not invent theories to justify cruelty.
It never crosses their minds to build machines meant to destroy entire cities.
Those things come from human rationality.
From plans, strategies, doctrines, and calculations created in our human minds.
We don’t need the fantasy that the world inside that pond is gentle.
Every creature there struggles to live. Food must be found, danger must be avoided. Winter always returns.
I have no idea what these brave ducks do when the pond freezes over for months.
But there is balance.
No duck wakes up with the dream of conquering the entire pond.
No bird decides that another species must disappear.
They fight for life, then they continue living.
While I was there watching the water, thinking about drones, bombs, missiles, sirens, and shelters, I realized that a duck in Ternopil is living a more peaceful life than every single human being in Ukraine.
Possibly more peaceful than any of us anywhere, in times like these.
They are living under the same threat as us humans, for sure.
But they are not ignorant.
They simply does not carry our kind of rational madness.
The duck knows water, hunger, risk, movement.
That is enough.
And that small world stays in equilibrium.
Meanwhile we, the species that calls ourselves rational, keep pushing our world closer to destruction.
November 19, 2025. Two miles from the Ternopil Pond.
So I sit by the pond in Ternopil and watch the ducks moving calmly across the water.
I didn’t come there to think, only to watch.
Just a moment of stillness.
But in a country under invasion, it is impossible not to wonder which species actually understands how to live.
—Viktor
🇺🇦
This journal will be always open to everyone. Paid subscriptions are what make that possible, and they allow me to continue dedicating the time and energy this work requires.
However you subscribe, I thank you for reading. Slava Ukraini!
Meanwhile, as Trump lifts sanctions to promote Russian oil:
America earlier announced it was temporarily easing sanctions on Russian oil (brought in to cut off funding for the Ukraine war) in a bid to bring down rising prices.
Seyed Abbas Araghchi’s post featured the front of Friday’s Financial Times, which claimed Russia would be making $150m (£113m) a day following the US move.
Binance Fired Staff Who Flagged $1 Billion Moving to Sanctioned Iran Entities
Weeks after Trump pardoned Binance’s founder, the company dismantled probe and suspended the investigators; Binance denied inquiry ended or staff fired for the concerns
Listen
Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, and Changpeng Zhao, the crypto exchange’s founder. Daisy Korpics/WSJ, Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg News, Abedin Taherkenareh/Shutterstock, Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty, Sepahnews/Zuma Press
Weeks after President Trump granted a pardon to convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October, executives at the crypto exchange dismantled a staff investigation into $1 billion that had recently moved through Binance to a network funding Iran-backed terror groups, according to company documents and people familiar with Binance’s operations.
A trading account belonging to a close Binance business partner was identified as a primary channel that moved cryptocurrency to the Iranian network.
Wall Street Journal
Comment from Olga Lautman, Substack:
Why It Matters: Trump’s pardon weakened deterrence against terror financing and sanctions evasion as Binance did business with Trump-linked crypto ventures. When a firm tied to illicit flows is politically shielded while connected to a president’s family, enforcement becomes favoritism—blurring national security, private profit, and presidential power.
Add Decrypt as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.
In brief
Illicit cryptocurrency addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025.
Sanctioned entities accounted for about $104 billion of those flows.
Activity tied to Iran, Russia, and North Korea drove much of the volume.
Iran’s use of cryptocurrency to move money under sanctions is expanding, with more than $3 billion tied to networks linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2025, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Iran’s Crypto Market Shuts Down Amid U.S.-Israel Strikes and Internet Blackout
Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem has been severely disrupted following the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes that began on February 28, 2026, targeting military and leadership sites in Tehran—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trading volume on Iranian exchanges collapsed by nearly 80% between February 27 and March 1, according to blockchain research firm TRM Labs, with activity grinding to a near halt due to a nationwide internet blackout imposed shortly after the strikes.
Key Impacts on Iran’s Crypto Market
Volume crash: TRM Labs data shows an approximately 80% drop in trading volume on major Iranian platforms like Nobitex (Iran’s largest exchange) in the immediate aftermath.
Internet restrictions: NetBlocks and other monitors reported connectivity falling to 1–4% of normal levels within hours of the first strikes, severely limiting access to exchanges, wallets, and blockchain explorers. The blackout—lasting over 48 hours in many areas—has been attributed to both infrastructure damage from strikes and deliberate government throttling to prevent coordination of unrest and information flow.
Central bank intervention: Iran’s central bank ordered platforms to temporarily suspend trading of the USDT–toman pair (the main crypto-to-local-currency bridge). When trading resumed, liquidity was extremely thin, with uneven pricing and slow execution.
Massive but Brief Outflow Spike
While trading slowed dramatically, capital flight surged initially:
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported outflows from Nobitex jumped over 700% within minutes of the first strikes, with roughly $500,000–$3 million in crypto moving offshore in the first hour.
Many transactions were traced to foreign exchanges, suggesting users rushed to protect savings by moving assets beyond Iran’s borders.
The spike was short-lived—outflows slowed sharply as the internet blackout expanded, preventing further large-scale transfers.
Experts describe the current state of Iranian exchanges as “risk-managed” mode — slower withdrawals, tighter controls, and limited functionality to maintain operations under extreme uncertainty.
Broader Crypto Market Reaction
The geopolitical shock briefly rattled global crypto:
Bitcoin dipped to around $63,000 in the initial panic before recovering to the $66,000–$69,000 range.
Altcoins like Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and others fell 7–10% in the first wave but also saw partial rebounds.
The event underscores crypto’s dual nature: a potential hedge during local currency instability, but highly vulnerable to infrastructure disruptions like internet blackouts.
What This Means Going Forward
Short-term: Iran’s crypto market is effectively frozen for most users due to the blackout and controls. Any sustained conflict or prolonged restrictions could further isolate domestic traders.
Long-term: If tensions de-escalate and connectivity returns, outflows may stabilize. However, the episode highlights crypto’s dependence on internet access and the risks of centralized choke points (even in decentralized systems).
Global implication: The crisis demonstrates how quickly geopolitical events can trigger capital flight into crypto—then trap it when infrastructure fails.
The situation remains highly fluid, with the internet blackout now exceeding 48 hours in many areas and no clear timeline for restoration. Iranian crypto users are effectively cut off from global markets for now, underscoring the real-world limits of digital assets during national emergencies.Todor Tsonev publication: “Nationwide Blackout Freezes Iran’s Crypto Trading After Khamenei’s Death” was written for 24crypto.news
Videos show how Ukrainian helicopter crews use machine guns to hunt Russia’s exploding Shahed drones
By Matthew Loh FollowFollow Matthew LohEvery time Matthew publishes a story, you’ll get an alert straight to your inbox!Enter your emailSign upBy clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Thermal camera footage shows the Ukrainian helicopter crew firing at a delta-wing drone.Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine via Twitter
UAE’s AH-64 Apaches swat down Iranian Shahed drones with M230 chain gun
Story by Parth Satam
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A UAE AH-64 Apache. (Image credit: Defense Arabia)
The UAE showed that its AH-64 Apaches and F-16s are actively flying in the counter-drone role, tackling Iranian drones before they can reach their targets.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) released on Mar. 8, 2026, a video showing footage from an electro-optical system of eight Iranian Shahed-type One-Way Attack (OWA) drones being shot down. Based on the sound of the typically slow rate of fire, acknowledgements of “target destroyed” by one of the crew and airborne position of the engaging platform, we have concluded these are AH-64 Apache attack helicopters employing their chin-mounted M230 30 mm chain gun.
A US military refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Friday during an ongoing mission, according to United States Central Command (CENTCOM). The aircraft involved was a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker operated by the United States Air Force
Updated Mar 13, 2026, 05:20 IST
A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker crashed in western Iraq during Operation Epic Fury, with rescue operations underway. The refueling aircraft, built by Boeing, costs about $39.6 million and has served as a core aerial tanker for over six decades
CENTCOM said the incident occurred in friendly airspace during a mission linked to Operation Epic Fury. Two aircraft were involved in the incident. One aircraft went down in western Iraq, while the second aircraft landed safely.
The Kuwait drone attack that killed 6 servicemen:
But the three U.S. military officials questioned the assertion that the building was adequately fortified. They told CBS News the operations center was a triple-wide trailer made into an office space — a common setup at U.S. bases abroad.
The trailer’s only fortifications were T-walls, which are steel-reinforced concrete barriers that can range in height from 6 to 12 feet tall, used to protect military personnel from explosions, rocket attacks and shrapnel, the military officials said.
But T-walls could not protect the facility from an overhead strike. Two officials told CBS News that the strike appeared to hit dead-center on top of the building.
The Times has identified the weapon seen in the new video as a Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon that neither the Israeli military nor the Iranian military has. Dozens of Tomahawks have been launched by U.S. navy warships into Iran since February 28th, when the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran began. US Central Command said a video it released of several Tomahawks being launched from navy ships was filmed February 28th, the day the Iranian base and school were hit.
General Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said at a news conference Wednesday that US forces were carrying out strikes in southern Iran at the time the naval base and school were hit. A map he presented showed that an area including Minab, which is near the Strait of Hormuz, had been targeted by strikes in the first 100 hours of the operation, although it did not explicitly identify the town.
“Along the southern axis, the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group has continued to provide pressure from the sea along the southeastern side of the coast and has been attriting naval capability all along the strait,” the general said.
It is not the only time that Caine has acknowledged the role Tomahawk missiles played in the early hours of the war.
“The first shooters at sea were Tomahawks unleashed by the United States navy,” he said in a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon on March 2nd, as the navy “began to conduct strikes across the southern flank in Iran.
Investigations suggest the strike relied on outdated targeting data, possibly derived from old Iranian maps and processed by AI tools like Anthropic’s Claude alongside Palantir’s Maven Smart System. While the Pentagon emphasised human error over direct AI fault, experts noted AI failed to flag outdated data or recognise clear indicators of a school. This raises concerns about overreliance on AI in high-stakes targeting without adequate human verification.
Exclusive: Iranian girls killed by ‘double-tap’ strikes on Minab school
Eyewitnesses describe second blast which killed survivors as they sheltered in prayer hall
The girls’ school in Iran, where 165 people were killed by an apparent US–Israeli attack, was hit with two strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, two first responders and the parent of a slain child have told Middle East Eye.
“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” one of the Red Crescent medics said, citing conversations he had at the time with survivors.
“The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”
Almost all the 165 people killed in the attack were girls aged between seven and 12, according to local officials. There were around 170 girls at the school in southern Iran’s Minab at the time.
Previous reports have suggested that parents were asked to collect their children from the school when US-Israeli strikes began on Saturday morning.
Many people online — as well as Grok, X’s AI assistant — disputed the photo, saying it was miscaptioned and instead showed an aerial shot of graveyards in Jakarta, Indonesia, or Sao Paolo, Brazil, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Snopes readers asked us to confirm whether the image was actually from Brazil or Indonesia during the pandemic.
Contrary to the claims disputing the location of the photograph, we have confirmed that it is indeed authentic and shows the graves of people killed by airstrikes in Minab. Using photos and footage from Iranian government and media sources, as well as satellite imagery on Google Maps and Google Earth, Snopes was able to confirm where the graves were dug and authenticate the image in question.
As such, we rate the claim that the photo shows the airstrike victims’ graves as true.
The image was originallyreleased by the Iranian government and its press affiliate. On March 2, 2026, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi shared the aerial shot of the grave sites with the caption: “These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds.”
However, on Mar. 9, the UAE MoD also announced the passing of “two members of the Armed Forces following a helicopter crash due to a technical malfunction while performing their national duty.” There were little details at the time of writing.
Fallacy 4: Carbon Capture and Storage Is a Viable Strategy to Combat Climate Change
This fallacy, most popular with those in the fossil fuel industry and those of a more market-oriented and politically conservative bent, is no more realistic than the previous three.
An examination of the history, effectiveness, and efficiency of carbon capture and storage suggests that it is a far more limited approach to regulating greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere than proponents suggest.
As we examine the validity of these fallacies, we should be reminded of a quote variously attributed to Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and Ronald Reagan: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know, but what we know that isn’t so.”
UK announces £22 billion investment in carbon capture and storage
The UK government has announced a significant £22 billion investment in carbon capture and storage projects, focusing on developing two carbon capture clusters in Merseyside and Teesside. This initiative aims to stimulate private investment and generate jobs in these industry-heavy areas.
A carbon capture project is being used to greenwash the expansion of one of the UK’s largest waste incinerators, at Belvedere, Kent.
Cory Topco, which owns one incinerator and is building another, says it will capture greenhouse gases from burning waste, liquefy them, and send them by ship to Yorkshire, to be piped under the North Sea and stored.
□ Cory promises to capture more than 90% of its incinerators’ greenhouse gas emissions – but no carbon capture plant on earth ever got close to that.
□ Cory has an agreement with Viking CCS to to offtake its captured carbon in Yorkshire and bury it under the North Sea – but there are doubts about how, and whether, that could work. Competition authority officials, who say non-pipeline schemes should not get government funding, could cause problems.
□ Cory claims it will generate electricity to power 371,000 homes – but is more likely to put less than half of that into the grid. The CCS plant would have a devastating impact, though – doing irreparable damage to the Crossness nature reserve.
□ The incinerator expansion will encourage local authorities to send waste for burning that could be avoided or recycled, reinforcing fossil-heavy economic throughput and putting the impact-light “circular economy” ever further out of reach.
□ Cory hopes the project will be funded by the government’s multi-billion-pound carbon capture subsidy schemes – money that could be spent more effectively on genuine decarbonisation measures.
Doubts about Cory’s claims it can capture 90% of greenhouse gas emissions at Belvedere arise from carbon capture and storage (CCS)’s 40-year global history of failure.
Cory would use post-combustion carbon capture technology, that pulls carbon dioxide out of the flue gases (i.e. gases coming out of chimneys) with amine solvents. Only one company in the world – SaskPower, which operates the Boundary Dam coal-fired power station in Saskatchewan, Canada – uses this method. In more than ten years of operation it has not once hit its target of capturing 90% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Boundary Dam’s average capture rate was about 50%, not 90%, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found. Less than 65%, said separate analysis by Carbon Tracker.
Some CCS has higher capture rates, but only at gas processing plants, where the CO2 is easier to collect, because it comprises such a big proportion (up to 90%) of the flue gases. Even these plants struggle to make the process pay: usually they do so by pumping the CO2 back into oil fields, to increase the pressure underneath oil deposits and make them easier to produce … which obviously defeats any decarbonisation purpose.
Greens respond to carbon capture plans by Paul Corry
4 October 2024
Reacting to the government announcement of investment in carbon capture and storage projects, Green MP and party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:
“Labour has spent too long listening to the pleadings of energy companies for major public investment in unproven technological solutions like carbon capture that simply won’t deliver the immediate real change we need.
“This announcement is no substitute for the urgent and immediate investment needed in home and business insulation to cut energy use and the increased renewables funding that is badly needed to meet future energy needs.”
Iran has declared Google, Amazon and Microsoft “legitimate targets” for attack, publishing a hit list of tech company offices and data centres in the Middle East.
The Iranian Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday said Tehran was preparing to pursue “enemy technology infrastructure”.
In a Telegram post, Tasnim listed 29 offices, data centres and research hubs owned by the seven companies in Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
It also named the US tech companies Nvidia, Palantir, IBM and Oracle as targets for attack.
“As the regional war expands into an infrastructure war, the scope of Iran’s legitimate targets gradually broadens,” Tasnim said in a post titled “Iran’s new targets”.
The locations listed include not just data centres but advertising sales offices and research centres in busy cities.
The companies have not yet said if they have taken steps to protect staff, close offices or otherwise respond to the threat. Amazon evacuated employees from a damaged data centre last week.
Iran also threatened to attack banks and other financial institutions on Wednesday, saying that people should stay outside a one-kilometre radius.
Many of the tech companies named by Iran have significant operations in the Middle East, including several regional data centres, as governments and businesses demand local data storage, as well as major operations in Israel, a cybersecurity hub.
Nvidia has around 5,000 staff in Israel and spent $7bn (£5.2bn) acquiring the Israeli start-up Mellanox in 2019. Google has a Doha data centre region, and Microsoft has said it plans to open a data centre in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year.
Last week’s attacks against Amazon are believed to be the first military attacks against a US tech company’s data centres.
The actions threaten to affect the UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s dreams of capitalising on cheap energy and plentiful land to become major players in AI infrastructure.
Tech companies and Gulf states had outlined plans for major data centre investments in recent years, as the region’s governments seek to move beyond oil and curry favour with the US, which is racing against China to develop powerful artificial intelligence systems.
Data centres are typically large and sensitive to disruption, making them vulnerable targets for attack.
Microsoft did not comment. IBM, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Oracle and Palantir were contacted for comment.
Amazon is reviewing how its engineers deploy AI-assisted tools after a series of outages disrupted its retail website, reportedly locking customers out of checkout and key account features.
IRAN WAR – BIG UPDATE – from financial expert Robert Kiyosaki.
Israel struck a bank branch in Tehran. Iran called it an “illegitimate and unusual act in war.”
And then Iran changed the rules of this entire conflict.
The IRGC announced: “The enemy has left our hands open to targeting economic centers and banks belonging to the United States and Israel in the region.”
Then Tasnim published a list. Three slides on Telegram. Approximately 30 targets. Named. Located. Described.
– Google’s Dubai office and Qatar cloud center.
– Amazon’s offices in Tel Aviv and Haifa — plus more AWS data centers.
– Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, IBM, Palantir — offices across Israel and Gulf states.
Iran called them “enemy technology infrastructure.”
Then added: “As the scope of the regional war expands to infrastructure war, the scope of Iran’s legitimate targets expands.”
Let me explain why this is a completely different kind of threat.
When missiles hit military bases, soldiers expect that. That’s the known risk of war.
But when you’re an engineer at a Google office in Dubai, sitting at your desk writing code, you didn’t sign up for war.
That randomness is the entire point.
War doesn’t win by killing soldiers. It wins by making ordinary people feel like nowhere is safe.
It wins when companies evacuate staff.
When talent refuses to relocate. When billions in AI infrastructure investment starts looking for the exit.
Iran understands this perfectly.
And the financial damage has already started.
AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain were already struck in earlier Iranian attacks, taking banking, payments and enterprise services offline.
Here’s the detail that should terrify every CFO in the region: standard insurance policies do not cover losses from war or military action.
Every dollar of damage, uninsured. Think about what’s actually at stake.
– Microsoft committed $15 billion to UAE infrastructure by 2029.
– Oracle, Nvidia and Cisco are all part of OpenAI’s Stargate AI campus in the UAE — a 10-square-mile, 5-gigawatt facility.
– Saudi Arabia’s Humain is pouring billions more into regional AI buildouts.
This is where the next decade of AI gets built.
Iran just declared it a war zone.
Iran also warned civilians to “not be within one kilometer of banks” across the region.
This statement is designed to empty offices. To make every person working near a bank or a tech campus question whether they should show up tomorrow.
That uncertainty is the weapon.
I’ve been watching this war for 12 days. It started with missiles and fighter jets. Now it’s targeting the cloud infrastructure that runs the global economy. The battlefield keeps expanding.
According to the spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military headquarters, a bank in Tehran was struck by a missile attack in the early hours of Wednesday, March 11.
The spokesperson described the attack, which struck a branch of Bank Sepah on Haghani Street in Tehran, as “illegitimate and unconventional.” He emphasized that this action by Israel and the United States has given the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) a “free hand” to target economic centers and banks belonging to the U.S. and Israel within the region.
In response, the IRGC warned of possible retaliatory actions and advised people in the region to avoid areas around banks, urging them to stay at least one kilometer away from bank branches and central headquarters in their respective countries.
Since yesterday, reports have circulated regarding disruptions in online services and ATMs for both Bank Sepah and Bank Melli.
Domestic media outlets denied that these systems were hacked, instead attributing the downtime to a “system switch” within the branches.
However, the missile strike on that particular branch does not appear to be directly connected to the widespread outages reported the previous day, since damage to a single location would normally not cause disruptions across an entire banking network.
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