English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News
& Editorials
For March 27/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Satan tempts Jesus/It is written: ‘It is written, "One does not live by bread
alone
Luke 04/01-13: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the
Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was
tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they
were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is
written, "One does not live by bread alone." ’Then the devil led him up and
showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to
him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been
given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship
me, it will all be yours. ’Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, "Worship the Lord
your God, and serve only him." ’Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed
him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written, "He will command his angels
concerning you, to protect you", and "On their hands they will bear you up, so
that you will not dash your foot against a stone." ’Jesus answered him, ‘It is
said, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." ’When the devil had finished
every test, he departed from him until an opportune time."
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on March 26-27/2026
Tehran Regime Marks Persian New Year With Public Hangings
Trump Says Iran 'Better Get Serious' in Mideast War Talks
Israel Defense Minister Says Iran Guards Navy Commander Killed in Strike
Israel Reportedly Took Iran's Araghchi, Qalibaf Off Hit List after Pakistan
Request to US
Iran and the US Harden their Positions as Tehran Keeps Its Grip on the Strait of
Hormuz
Trump insists Iran operations ‘extremely’ ahead of schedule
Trump telling aides he wants Iran war to end in weeks as he faces other worries
— but it may no longer be up to him
Trump says Iran ‘better get serious soon’ in US talks before it’s ‘too late’
Pakistan says ‘US-Iran indirect talks are taking place’
US proposal to end war is ‘one-sided and unfair,’ Iranian official says
US denies targeting Iraqi forces, says it sought locations repeatedly
GCC chief says over 85 pct of Iran attacks targeted Gulf countries
Saudi finance minister warns of impact on global economy amid ongoing Iran war
US confirms death of Iranian IRGC naval commander
Germany FM says ‘encouraging’ if US speaking directly to Iran
Iran’s strategy of escalation and blackmail
US Activists Work to Connect Iranians Via Starlink
Pentagon Reaches Deals with Defense Firms to Expand Munitions Production
Australia Bans Visitors from Iran
G7 Meets in France to Narrow Transatlantic Iran Split
Iran bans sports teams from travelling to countries it deems 'hostile'
Ferrari resuming Middle East shipments
UN Rights Council Slams ‘Egregious’ Iran Strikes on Gulf, Demands Reparation
Guterres Names Envoy for Middle East… Warns of a Wider War
Israel Steps up Assassinations in Gaza
Russia Says It Hopes for New Round of Ukraine Talks with US as Soon as
Conditions Allow
Pentagon Reportedly Weighs Diverting Ukraine Military Aid to the Middle East
Venezuela's Maduro Back in US Court after Stunning Capture
News of the ongoing war between Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the
other. links to several television channels and newspapers
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on March 26-27/2026
Tehran Regime Marks Persian New Year With Public Hangings
Trump Says Iran 'Better Get Serious' in Mideast War Talks
Israel Defense Minister Says Iran Guards Navy Commander Killed in Strike
Israel Reportedly Took Iran's Araghchi, Qalibaf Off Hit List after Pakistan
Request to US
Iran and the US Harden their Positions as Tehran Keeps Its Grip on the Strait of
Hormuz
Trump insists Iran operations ‘extremely’ ahead of schedule
Trump telling aides he wants Iran war to end in weeks as he faces other worries
— but it may no longer be up to him
Trump says Iran ‘better get serious soon’ in US talks before it’s ‘too late’
Pakistan says ‘US-Iran indirect talks are taking place’
US proposal to end war is ‘one-sided and unfair,’ Iranian official says
US denies targeting Iraqi forces, says it sought locations repeatedly
GCC chief says over 85 pct of Iran attacks targeted Gulf countries
Saudi finance minister warns of impact on global economy amid ongoing Iran war
US confirms death of Iranian IRGC naval commander
Germany FM says ‘encouraging’ if US speaking directly to Iran
Iran’s strategy of escalation and blackmail
US Activists Work to Connect Iranians Via Starlink
Pentagon Reaches Deals with Defense Firms to Expand Munitions Production
Australia Bans Visitors from Iran
G7 Meets in France to Narrow Transatlantic Iran Split
Iran bans sports teams from travelling to countries it deems 'hostile'
Ferrari resuming Middle East shipments
UN Rights Council Slams ‘Egregious’ Iran Strikes on Gulf, Demands Reparation
Guterres Names Envoy for Middle East… Warns of a Wider War
Israel Steps up Assassinations in Gaza
Russia Says It Hopes for New Round of Ukraine Talks with US as Soon as
Conditions Allow
Pentagon Reportedly Weighs Diverting Ukraine Military Aid to the Middle East
Venezuela's Maduro Back in US Court after Stunning Capture
News of the ongoing war between Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the
other.
links to several television channels and newspapers
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on March 26-27/2026
Arabs Did Not Help the Gulf States: What Do they See as the Central Source of
Instability in the Middle East?/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 26,
2026
Beyond Washington’s five-day window: Gulf security in age of infrastructure
warfare/Abdullah F. Alrebh/Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Iran’s strategy of escalation and blackmail/Zaid AlKami/Al Arabiya English/26
March/2026
Military Bases in Shopping Malls!/Mamdouh al-Muhainy/Asharq Al Awsat/March
26/2026
Libyan ‘Elites’ and Perpetuating Disputes and Disagreements/Jebril Elabidi/Asharq
Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Sudan's War and the Strategy of 'Stretching the Peripheries'/Osman Mirghani/Asharq
Al Awsat/March 26/2026
War of choice prevents war of necessity as Iran threat expands and critics look
away/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/March 26/2026
Iran’s Most Powerful Weapon? Keeping the Market Guessing/Max Meizlish/National
Review/March 26/2026
Iran’s Iraqi Militias Are Coming for US Troops/Bridget Toomey, and Ahmad Sharawi/The
National Interest/March 26/2026
X Platform & Facebook Selected twittes for March 26/2026
on March 26-27/2026
The Weapon of Files: From the Hell of Epstein to Seizing Lebanese
Decision-Making by Castrated Leaders, Officials, Clerics, and Influential
Figures Implicated in Scandalous Files."
Elias Bejjani/March 25/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/03/153046/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE3vBxWCH2E&t=939s
1. The Doctrine of Political
Blackmail: A Global Lesson in "Epstein"
The Jeffrey Epstein case in the United States serves as a chilling blueprint for
how vice and scandal are converted into political assets. The ultimate goal of
compiling compromising files (Kompromat) on leaders and influencers—whether
sexual or financial—is not merely defamation; it is political enslavement. Once
a "handler" possesses incriminating evidence, the official’s free will is
extinguished. They cease to serve the public interest and become a mere
instrument, forced to execute the handler’s agenda to avoid exposure or
imprisonment.
2. The "KGB" Legacy and Its Levantine Iteration
This school of thought, pioneered by the Soviet KGB, was meticulously adopted by
regional intelligence apparatuses (namely the Syrian and Iranian regimes). The
strategy is simple yet lethal: "Fabricate or Entrap." Since the late 1970s, the
forces occupying Lebanon have ensured that no political, military, financial, or
even religious figure ascends to power without first being "secured" by a
scandalous file.
In Lebanon, this has evolved into a comprehensive system of "Social and
Political Engineering." The pervasive corruption from the bottom to the peak of
the state is not coincidental; it is systemic and protected. Any official who
fails to perform their constitutional or sovereign duties is likely shackled by
a file (sexual, financial, or treasonous) wielded by intelligence agencies at
every national crossroads.
3. The Lebanese Reality: A "Facade State" Controlled by the Deep State
The blatant failure to make sovereign decisions and the disintegration of
Lebanese institutions are rooted in a grim reality: the vast majority of
secular, spiritual, and financial leaders have lost the ability to say "No."
Field Control: Hezbollah, acting as the military and security arm of the Iranian
"Wilayat al-Faqih" and the remnants of the Syrian Ba'athist influence, holds the
keys to these files.
The Deep State: Hezbollah manages a "Deep State" that dominates
director-generals, judges, security commanders, and bankers through intimidation
and pre-packaged scandals.
Absolute Subordination: Lebanese officials have been reduced to executive
facades for an expansionist Iranian policy, executed by Hezbollah—a group
operating on a cross-border agenda that disregards Lebanese national identity.
4. The Path Forward: From "Rogue State" to International Guardianship
Given this paralysis, which has rendered Lebanon a "failed and rogue state"
managed by a designated terrorist organization, internal democratic mechanisms
are no longer viable. The only exit strategy involves:
International Guardianship: Placing Lebanon under international supervision to
rehabilitate its institutions away from the pressures of intelligence-based
blackmail.
Dismantling the Parallel Structure: A surgical operation to dismantle
Hezbollah’s military, financial, and intelligence wings, and the seizure of
assets built upon the ruins of the state.
Accountability and Deportation: Bringing the leaders who sold out national
sovereignty to justice, recovering looted funds, and purging the state of
political "mercenaries."
Conclusion: Lebanon does not merely suffer from "mismanagement"; it suffers from
"Occupation by Blackmail." The nation will not rise until those "black files"
are burned and those who used them to enslave a country are held accountable.
NB: Kompromat
Kompromat is a Russian term (short
for kompromitiruyushchiy material or "compromising material") that refers to
damaging information about a politician, public figure, or businessperson used
to create negative publicity, exert blackmail, or ensure loyalty. While the term
became internationally famous due to Russian intelligence tactics, the practice
itself is a universal tool of "dirty politics" and espionage. How Kompromat
Works. The goal of kompromat is rarely just to destroy someone's reputation; it
is more often used to control them. Once an agency or a rival has "the files,"
the target becomes a puppet who must follow orders to prevent the information
from going public. Collection: Information is gathered through surveillance,
wiretapping, financial audits, or "honey traps" (using romantic or sexual
entrapment). Verification: The material must be credible enough (photos, videos,
bank statements) to pose a real threat.The "Lever": The target is informed that
the material exists. They are then given a choice: total cooperation or total
ruin. Weaponization: If the target refuses to comply, the material is leaked to
the media or "anonymously" posted online to trigger a scandal.
Link to a video interview with
Dr. Saleh Al-Mashnouq on Piers Morgan's program; an explanation, with facts,
evidence, and dates, of Lebanon's tragedy at the hands of groups of charlatans,
hypocrites, criminals, and terrorists who exploit the so-called "resistance and
liberation."
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/03/153112/
Elias Bejjani/March 26/2026
Video link of Dr. Saleh El Machnouk’s interview with the Piers Morgan program; a
national, sovereign, scientific, and historical intervention that explains with
facts, evidence, and dates the tragedy of Lebanon and the Lebanese with groups
of imposture, hypocrisy, criminality, terrorism, and barbarism, and the ideology
of the fools, the ignorant, the terrorists, the frauds, and the traders of blood
and homelands who claim to carry the banners of resistance and liberation.
These, led by the Iranian Hezbollah and the delusional and hallucinating
jihadist, Lebanon and the Lebanese have reaped from them nothing but disasters,
death, destruction, ignorance, poverty, and migration, dragging Lebanon back to
pre-Stone Age eras.
Video-Link From Fox
News/Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Steve Witkoff on Iran War, Pak,
Gulf Mediation
March 26/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/03/153103/
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff outline the Iran
war strategy, claiming Tehran rejected a 15-point peace plan. They confirm
Pakistan and Gulf states are mediating potential talks, possibly in Islamabad,
as the U.S. weighs diplomacy after major strikes.
“Iran Rejected Deal”: Trump Team Reveals Pakistan Mediation, War Strategy
US Officials Confirm Pakistan-Led Talks as Iran Rejects 15-Point Peace Plan
Trump, Vance, Rubio Push Iran Deal via Pakistan After Massive Strikes
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and Special Envoy
Steve Witkoff speak on the Iran war during a cabinet meeting led by Donald
Trump. They reveal Iran rejected a 15-point peace plan mediated via Pakistan, as
Washington weighs diplomacy against continued military pressure.
Donald Trump cabinet meeting, Trump White House, Cabinet Room meeting, President
Trump cabinet, March 26 2026, White House live, Trump administration 2026, U.S.
cabinet session, Cabinet officials meeting, Trump policy discussions, Live
cabinet coverage, Washington D.C. live, Trump government priorities, Executive
branch meeting, Breaking US news, Trump second term, Cabinet deliberations, U.S.
politics live
Link to a video interview with
Dr. Charles Chartouni in which he explains the inevitability of Hezbollah’s
defeat, and of everyone who shares its position
And Israel’s victory, along with an emphasis on the importance of making peace
with Israel, recognizing it, and establishing full relations with it.
*The end of Hezbollah? A political analyst: We will negotiate directly with
Israel
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/03/153116/
The interview is from the Arab Files Youtube Platform.
The interview was conducted by Dr. Zeina Mansour.
March 26, 2026
Arab Files/ In a fiery discussion, Dr. Charles Chartouni declares the end of
coexistence with Hezbollah’s weapons, and predicts their upcoming military
defeat, which will impose on them a “surrender agreement,” not peace.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
End of coexistence: Dr. Chartouni confirms that the phase of coexistence between
the state and Hezbollah’s weapons has reached its inevitable end.
Direct peace or surrender: He presents two options: either direct negotiations
and comprehensive peace with Israel, or a military defeat that will impose on
Hezbollah and its allies an agreement of surrender and submission.
A new Lebanon: He sees that Lebanon’s future lies in a cohesive federal system
that ends external influence policies and establishes a real state.
Message to the Shiites: He addresses a direct message to the Shiite community to
make their choices away from the “resistance project,” which has proven its
failure and destroyed the country.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 “Defeat is coming… and we will make peace with Israel”
00:36 Introduction: Who is Dr. Charles Chartouni?
01:06 The end of coexistence between the state and Hezbollah’s weapons
02:20 Why are direct negotiations with Israel the solution?
03:46 The shape of Lebanon after the war: federalism is the inevitable solution
07:46 Hezbollah will not agree… and this is the result of its defeat
09:17 “We’re not waiting for anyone… we want to make peace with Israel”
11:05 Hezbollah is ready to destroy Lebanon completely
12:28 Is Hezbollah’s ability to endure measured in weeks or months?
15:30 Donald Trump, the new Middle East, and the end of the Iranian regime
18:55 The Iranian regime is breathing its last
Video-Link from AlHawya
YouTube Platform to an interview with journalist Nawfal Daou/Silence era is over
and Lebanon is not a burned Land for Al Daheya & Tehran lunatics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7NXujSXFgQ
In this explosive episode of #PowerOfLogic, Naufal Daou delivers a scathing
critique of the Iranian axis and its proxies in Lebanon. With unprecedented
boldness, Daou describes the recent actions of Hezb and Iran as the moves of a
"group of lunatics and maniacs" who are gambling with Lebanon's future, turning
the country into "burnt soil" to serve Tehran’s regional interests. Daou also
exposes the political chaos within the Lebanese state institutions, criticizing
the President’s silence and the conflicting official narratives, asserting that
the era of subordination must end to restore Lebanon's sovereignty and Arab
identity.
Lebanon: Hezbollah Claims
Targeting 10 Israeli Merkava Tanks
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah group said Thursday that it struck10 Israeli
Merkava tanks in three southern towns along the border. In a series of separate
statements, Hezbollah said that its members targeted the advanced Israeli tanks
with guided missiles in the towns of Deir Siryan, Debel, and Al-Qantara, and
achieved confirmed hits.Earlier, Hezbollah said it targeted the headquarters of
the Israeli Ministry of War in the center of Tel Aviv, and the Dolphin barracks
of the Military Intelligence Division north of Tel Aviv with a number of
missiles. The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was killed in fighting in
south Lebanon after the army announced it was conducting ground operations
against Hezbollah. "Staff sergeant Ori Greenberg, aged 21, from Petah Tikva, a
soldier of the Reconnaissance unit, Golani Brigade, fell during combat in
southern Lebanon," the military said. In total, three Israeli soldiers have been
killed in fighting in south Lebanon since Hezbollah drew the country into the
Israel and US war on Iran by launching rocket attacks against Israel on March 2
to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Israel is
responding by launching large-scale raids on Lebanon, while its forces have
advanced into southern Lebanon. After the Lebanese Presidency repeatedly
announced its readiness to open direct negotiations with Israel in order to end
the war, Hezbollah announced its refusal to negotiate "under fire."Its
Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said Wednesday in a statement: "When negotiating
with the Israeli enemy under fire is proposed, it is an imposition of surrender
and a deprivation of all of Lebanon's capabilities."He called on the government
to "reverse its decision to criminalize resistance and the resistance fighters,"
after announcing a ban on the party's security and military activities, as part
of a series of unprecedented measures it has taken since the outbreak of the
war.
Minister Makki says cabinet
key to crisis decisions, urges unity at critical moment
LBCI/March 26/2026
Minister for Administrative Reform, Fadi Makki, called for unity and stronger
state institutions as Lebanon grapples with what he described as an “existential
crisis,” stressing that the country urgently needs decisions that “unite, not
divide.”In a statement, Makki said bolstering the role of the state and
prioritizing national responsibility are essential at this stage, emphasizing
that constitutional institutions—chief among them the Cabinet—remain the natural
framework for sovereign decision-making, particularly in times of crisis.
Despite opposing a recent measure taken by the Foreign Ministry, Makki said he
attended the Cabinet session out of conviction that active participation is a
national necessity to ensure the proper functioning of public institutions and
to confront mounting challenges. He stressed that the immediate priority should
be addressing what he described as ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon,
citing systematic destruction and the targeting of civilians, medical teams,
infrastructure, and essential services, in what he called a clear violation of
international humanitarian law. Makki outlined several key priorities that
should guide Cabinet action in the coming phase, starting with giving absolute
priority to receiving and sheltering displaced people.He also called for
intensified political and diplomatic efforts to halt the ongoing attacks,
particularly in southern villages, alongside activating Lebanese diplomacy in an
urgent and effective manner to counter what he described as dangerous Israeli
rhetoric and actions regarding expansion and occupation, especially south of the
Litani River, and to mobilize international support to end the war in Lebanon.
Finally, Makki underscored the importance of preserving civil peace and
strengthening internal dialogue, describing them as the only path to protecting
the country and preventing further division and tension. “Once again, I came to
stress that Lebanon today is in dire need of decisions that unite rather than
divide, and of approaches that strengthen the state rather than weaken it,” he
said, concluding: “There is no choice but the state.”
Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session Over Iran Ambassador
Expulsion
This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
Ministers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal boycotted Lebanon's cabinet session
on Thursday in protest after the government declared the Iranian ambassador
persona non grata, a Lebanese official told AFP. The two Shia parties have a
combined four ministers, while one independent Shia minister was instead present
at the meeting, the official said, as the spat over the Iranian diplomat's
expulsion escalated. Hezbollah, an armed movement backed by Iran, also has
political representation in both government and parliament. Lebanon's foreign
ministry this week gave the Iranian ambassador until Sunday to leave the
country, the latest unprecedented step by Lebanese authorities since a new war
erupted on March 2 between Israel and Hezbollah. The foreign ministry had
accused him of making statements "interfering in Lebanon's internal politics".
Hezbollah has called the decision a "sin" and demanded the authorities reverse
the move. On Thursday, dozens of protesters gathered in front of the Iranian
embassy to protest the decision, AFP correspondents said. Some waved Iranian,
Lebanese or Hezbollah flags, or chanted "death to America, death to Israel" near
the embassy, located on the outskirts of Beirut's southern suburbs, which Israel
has repeatedly bombed in recent weeks. Protester Mohammed, who declined to
provide his surname, told AFP that "we came here to show our support for the
Iranian ambassador in Lebanon, so that the government will back down on this
decision, which is not befitting" of Lebanon. "There are a number of ambassadors
in Lebanon who violate our sovereignty, who speak and act to stir up internal
strife, but nobody says anything to them," he added. "This decision will not
pass," said protester Elham al-Mokdad, adding: "We stand with Iran proudly. Iran
has supported us for 40 years."Farida Noureddine, 43, instead demanded the
expulsion of the US ambassador in Lebanon and of Lebanon's Foreign Minister
Youssef Raggi. Raggi "does not represent us. He is carrying out Israeli
decisions," she said. Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah
began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel has responded with heavy air
strikes and has sent ground troops into the country's south. Beirut this month
banned any activity by the Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and also prohibited
Hezbollah's military activities. AFP
Hamas Operates Under Hezbollah Tutelage in Lebanon,
Documents Reveal
This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
The IDF released a cache of Hamas internal documents found in the Gaza Strip,
giving formal proof that Hamas operates under Hezbollah supervision in Lebanon.
The documents, dated to the period prior to Hamas’s October 7th terror attacks,
show that Hezbollah agreed to assist the group with “equipment, training, and
facilities" and that Hamas moved trained specialists and field operatives from
Gaza to Lebanon.
Deep Ties
Following a period of strained ties over the Syrian Civil War, during which
Hamas and Hezbollah backed opposing factions, in 2017, relations began to
improve between the two designated terror groups. According to the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, rapprochement began first with Iran,
following a series of internal Hamas elections, the movement of Hamas’s
political bureau from Qatar to Gaza, and a significant reduction of Qatari
financial assistance, all of which strengthened the influence of pro-Iranian
factions. By October 2017, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah received
the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut, kicking
off a series of reconciliation efforts. “In this period,” military analyst Dr.
Riad Kahwaji told This Is Beirut, “we saw several occasions where a few
Katyushas [rockets] fired from south Lebanon that landed in north Israel without
causing casualties. These isolated incidents were always attributed to
Palestinian factions.”“These were Hamas operatives,” he explained, adding that
Hezbollah used the group to threaten the Israelis without formally breaking the
informal rules of engagement that existed between the two countries since their
2006 war.
Document Cache
Though long known in intelligence circles, the IDF-released documents add detail
on how relations between Hezbollah and Hamas have deepened in the last
decade.One document dated March 13, 2022, details the dispatch of an
“intermediate field command” of 5-6 commanders from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon
along with a series of trained specialists in a number of fields, including
weapons manufacturing, operations, and intelligence capabilities. A later
document from March 2023 details a meeting between Hamas and Hezbollah contacts
on building out Hamas’s footprint in Lebanon under Hezbollah tutelage, assigning
Lebanese fighters to work the group, helping store and transfer “equipment,” and
providing training and facilities. An undated document reveals that Hamas aimed
to build an integrated branch capable of “supporting the resistance in Gaza in
any future confrontation,” hoping to avoid “relying on allies to activate the
fronts” against Israel. It also expresses the hope of “acquiring advanced
weapons, systems, and manufacturing materials” from Lebanon to be transferred to
the Gaza Strip.
Under Attack
Since this latest round of fighting began on March 2, the IDF has confirmed it
assassinated three Hamas operatives in Lebanon, including Wasim Attallah Ali in
Tripoli, whom it described as a Hamas commander responsible for training the
group’s military wing in Lebanon. IDF spokesmen said another two strikes killed
senior officials involved in Hamas’s financial network in Lebanon, with a third
claiming that Israel struck Hamas infrastructure sites in Tyre and Sidon on
March 3. However, the most high-profile of the Hamas killings in Lebanon was
Salah Al-Arouri, who died in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of
Beirut in 2024. According to Khawaji, the strikes reflect a wide range of
motivations, from retaliation for acts committed on October 7th to preemptive
efforts to thwart Hamas operations in Lebanon and moves to eliminate broader
financial and military capabilities that could impact operations inside the
occupied territories.
Lebanon to Appeal to the UN Security Council Over Israeli
Attacks
This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
The Lebanese government has decided to “immediately” appeal to the UN Security
Council over Israeli actions that “threaten Lebanon’s sovereignty,” its
spokesperson announced Thursday, as Israel says it intends to intensify its
military campaign against Hezbollah. Following a cabinet meeting, Information
Minister Paul Morcos said the decision was driven by “the bombing of most of the
Litani bridges,” the river that separates part of the south from the rest of the
country, “the mass forced displacement of residents,” and “the advance of
Israeli troops into Lebanese territory, accompanied by destruction… that
threatens Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Israeli Advance in the South
The Israeli military said it is intensifying its operations in southern Lebanon,
combining expanded ground maneuvers with sustained strikes on Hezbollah targets.
According to IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ella Wawiya, more than 2,000
targets have been hit and around 700 militants killed, including members of the
elite Radwan Force, as the army also focuses on dismantling Hezbollah’s economic
infrastructure.The Israeli Army’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee
added that the 91st Division is continuing targeted ground operations to expand
the forward security zone, having destroyed over 350 sites and eliminated more
than 330 operatives.Meanwhile, local media reported that the 162nd Division has
joined the offensive today alongside the 91st and 36th divisions, signaling a
further escalation of Israel’s ground campaign in the south. With AFP
Hezbollah targets defense ministry in Tel Aviv, rocket attack kills man in
Nahariya
Agence France Presse/March 26/2026
Hezbollah said Thursday it had targeted a defense ministry complex in Tel Aviv,
as well as other military objectives in northern Israel.Israeli emergency
services said a rocket fired from Lebanon killed a man and seriously wounded
another in Nahariya in northern Israel on Thursday.
Hezbollah also said it had fired rockets in Lebanon's Khiam, scene of fierce
fighting with Israeli troops. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on
Wednesday that his country's forces were expanding a "buffer zone" in southern
Lebanon, adding that dismantling Hezbollah "remains central" to Israel's
objectives in Lebanon.The Israeli army meanwhile said it has killed more than 30
Hezbollah operatives, including ten members of the group's elite Radwan Force,
in one area of southern Lebanon during ground operations in recent days. Egypt's
Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced on a visit to Beirut on Thursday the
delivery of 1,000 tons of humanitarian aid, while calling for the immediate
cessation of what he called Israel's "aggression". Hezbollah and its ally Amal
condemned the government's decision to declare Iran's ambassador persona non
grata, while movements aligned with the groups called for a sit-in to support
the envoy Thursday afternoon.
IDF Soldier Killed in Lebanon Gunfight as Hostilities Increase
This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
An Israeli soldier, Staff Sergeant Ori Greenberg of the Golani Brigade’s
reconnaissance unit, was killed during a gunfight in southern Lebanon, while
four additional IDF troops were injured by Hezbollah mortar fire and another
soldier was wounded in a separate incident, according to The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, tensions escalated further as Iran launched four missile salvos
toward Israel within a two-hour span, injuring at least seven people. In
northern Israel, one person was wounded by shrapnel following the latest
ballistic missile barrage. The injury was reportedly caused by either a
submunition from a cluster bomb warhead or falling missile fragments. In total,
three Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in south Lebanon since
Hezbollah drew the country into war by launching rocket attacks against Israel
on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Air raid sirens were
activated across central and northern Israel, the Jerusalem area, and parts of
the West Bank. This marks the fourth Iranian missile attack since the morning,
highlighting a rapid escalation in regional hostilities.
Kuwait Says Arrested Six People Planning 'Assassinations'
Linked to Hezbollah
This is Beirut/March 26/2026
Kuwait arrested six people linked to Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group who
were planning "assassinations" in the Gulf state, the interior ministry said on
Wednesday. Those arrested were planning "assassinations targeting symbols and
leaders of the state and recruited people to carry out these missions," the
ministry said in a statement.Five of the six people were Kuwaiti nationals, it
said. This is at least the third set of arrests in Kuwait linked to Hezbollah in
recent weeks. Last Wednesday, Kuwait said it had arrested 10 Hezbollah members
who were planning attacks on vital infrastructure.
And on March 16, the country announced the arrest of 16 people, two of them
Lebanese and 14 Kuwaiti, who it said had been planning acts of sabotage.Kuwait
has been repeatedly targeted with missiles and drones by Hezbollah's sponsor
Iran during the Middle East war. AFP
Lebanon condemns Kuwait terror plot, pledges full
cooperation
LBCI/March 26/2026
Lebanon's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the terror plot announced by
Kuwait on March 25, which aimed to undermine the country's sovereignty and
security.
The ministry stressed Lebanon's firm rejection of any use of its territory or
citizens to harm Kuwait's security and confirmed that Lebanese authorities are
ready to cooperate in investigations to ensure those responsible are held
accountable.'
Hezbollah again denies any presence in Kuwait after latest Gulf state arrests
Agence France Presse/March 26/2026
Hezbollah on Thursday again denied it had any presence in Kuwait, a day after
the Gulf country announced more arrests of people allegedly linked to the
Iran-backed group. "For the third time, Hezbollah reiterates its complete denial
of the accusations" made by Kuwait's interior ministry, the group said in a
statement."Hezbollah has no presence in the state of Kuwait or any other
country," the statement added, calling the accusations "removed from reality and
devoid of truth."On Wednesday, Kuwait's interior ministry said the country had
arrested six people linked to Hezbollah who were planning "assassinations
targeting symbols and leaders of the state" and who allegedly "recruited people
to carry out these missions."Five of the six people were Kuwaiti nationals, it
said. A statement issued after a Lebanese cabinet meeting on Thursday expressed
"strong condemnation of these terrorist acts and Lebanon's full solidarity" with
the Gulf country. Lebanon's foreign ministry in a statement "affirmed Lebanese
authorities' readiness to cooperate in the investigations." It was at least the
third set of arrests allegedly linked to Hezbollah that Kuwait has announced in
recent weeks. Last week, Kuwait said it had arrested 10 Hezbollah members who
were planning attacks on vital infrastructure, while earlier this month it
announced the arrest of 16 people, including two Lebanese, who it said had been
planning acts of sabotage. Hezbollah also issued denials after those
announcements. Kuwait has been repeatedly targeted with missiles and drones by
Hezbollah's backer Iran during the Middle East war. In previous years, Lebanon
has faced tensions with Gulf states including Kuwait, which have expressed
concern about Hezbollah's influence on the Mediterranean country.
Hezbollah Rejects Truce Talks as Israel Presses Lebanon
Strikes
This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said negotiations with Israel under fire would
amount to "surrender", as the Iran-backed group launched attacks and Israel said
it was expanding a "buffer zone" inside Lebanon. Israel, which occupied southern
Lebanon for around two decades until 2000, has kept up strikes on its northern
neighbour and sent ground troops to take control of a strip up to the Litani
River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border. Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said the military had already "created a genuine security
zone" and was now expending it, pushing deeper into Lebanon. "We are simply
creating a larger buffer zone" that could prevent a ground invasion of Israel
and missile attacks, Netanyahu said in a video shared by his office. Hezbollah
meanwhile issued dozens of statements claiming attacks on Israeli forces, and
said it also launched missiles early on Thursday at military sites in central
Israel, where air raid sirens sounded. Israeli media said six Hezbollah rockets
headed for central areas were all intercepted. UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres called on both sides to cease fire. He warned Israel against
replicating "the Gaza model" in southern Lebanon as some Israeli officials have
suggested, raising fears of mass displacement.Hezbollah said its fighters had
launched more than 80 attacks on Wednesday, the largest daily number in the
current war, and attacked Israeli forces in nine border towns. Israel's military
said that one of its soldiers was severely wounded by rocket fire in southern
Lebanon, having earlier reported an officer being lightly injured in combat.
Rockets fired towards the Haifa area in northern Israel resulted in no injuries.
Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets
into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. In an attempt to put an end to the fighting, Lebanon's president
is calling for unprecedented direct negotiations with Israel, which has so far
rebuffed his proposal. Hezbollah chief Qassem said Wednesday his group would
have none of it: "When negotiations with the Israeli enemy are proposed under
fire, this is an imposition of surrender." Health Workers Killed. Lebanon's
state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes and artillery
shelling in several locations in the south on Wednesday, where the health
ministry said at least eight people were killed.The NNA also reported an
airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. Israel's
military said it struck a "command centre" there after a renewed evacuation
warning. An AFP correspondent saw a street covered in debris, including
shattered cement and warped metal, after the early morning strike, while an
apartment building's upper floors appeared damaged.The area has been targeted
multiple times during the conflict and is largely empty of residents, who have
fled. In southern Lebanon, Israel's military said ground troops "dismantled a
weapons storage facility" and the air force killed "several terrorists".
Hezbollah said its fighters targeted Israeli troops "massed in the border towns
of Naqura and Qawzah" and in sites across the border "with more than 100
rockets" on Wednesday. According to the Lebanese health ministry, 42 health
workers are among more than 1,000 people killed in Lebanon in more than three
weeks of Israeli strikes. Lebanese authorities say upwards of one million people
have been displaced. AFP
South under fire as Hezbollah clashes with troops in
Qantara-Deir Seryan
Naharnet/March 26/2026
The Israeli army struck overnight into Thursday several villages and towns in
south Lebanon including Srifa, Kafra, Shaqra, Majdalzoun, Kfar Remman, Bint
Jbeil, Jibal al-Botom, Siddiqine, Ainata, Harouf and Arab Salim. At least seven
people were killed in the strikes and 16 others were wounded. A strike on a
building in Kfar Remman in the Nabatieh district killed two people. AFP images
showed a badly damaged building and smoke rising from the rubble, while rescue
workers and firefighters worked at the scene. Another strike in the border area
of Bint Jbeil killed another three people, the agency said. The Health Ministry
said 22 people had been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to
1,094 people since the start of the war on March 2. At least 121 children and 81
women were among the dead in Lebanon, the ministry said. 153 people were also
wounded over the past day, raising the total number of injured to 3,119. Israeli
artillery also shelled al-Khiam, Kfar Hamam, Rashaya al-Fakhar, Wadi Slouki and
Wadi al-Hujair as troops tried to advance deeper into south Lebanon. Israeli
troops had advanced from the southern border town of Taybeh toward Qantara and
Deir al-Seryan near the Litani river as Israel said it wanted to take control of
a strip up to the Litani River. Hezbollah launched Wednesday more than 80
attacks on Wednesday, the largest daily number in the current war. On Thursday,
Hezbollah said its fighters have targeted Avivim, Malkia, Nahariya, Kiryat
Shmona, Manara, Krayot, the Poriya Base and Mount Adir in north Israel with
attack drones, rockets and advanced missiles, and attacked overnight into
Thursday troops near Alma al-Shaab and in Raas al-Naqoura, al-Taybeh, Deir al-Seryan,
and al-Qawzah. Israel said one soldier was killed in the clashes in south
Lebanon. The Poriya Base near Lake Tiberias is a strategic site for Iron Dome
missile defense batteries, which are positioned there to protect the Galilee
region and the city of Tiberias from aerial threats.
Industry minister says diplomat intervention must support
Lebanon
LBCI/March 26/2026
Industry Minister Joe Issa el-Khoury emphasized Lebanon’s decision to expel the
Iranian ambassador, saying that “a Lebanese minister took action against a
foreign individual who exceeded diplomatic boundaries,” and stressed that the
move should have the support of all Lebanese citizens. El-Khoury clarified that
there is a clear distinction between a diplomat intervening to support the
Lebanese state and a diplomat acting to back an “illegitimate group” operating
outside the framework of the state.
Lebanon to file complaint to UN Security Council over
Israeli attacks
Agence France Presse/March 26/2026
Lebanon will file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over Israel's
attacks in the country, the prime minister said Thursday, as Israel continues to
strike as part of a war against Hezbollah. Lebanon's government said during a
cabinet session that it considers Israel's "actions and statements, under
whatever label they may come... to be extremely dangerous, threatening Lebanon's
sovereignty, the integrity of its territory, and the rights of its people."Prime
Minister Nawaf Salam said: "I request that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Emigrants immediately file a complaint with the Security Council in this
regard."
Israel opposition leader warns of looming 'security disaster' due to shortage of
troops
LBCI/March 26/2026
Israel's main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, accused the government Thursday of
steering the country toward a "security disaster" due to a shortage of combat
soldiers. "The Israeli army is stretched to the limit and beyond. The government
is leaving the army wounded out on the battlefield," Lapid said in a televised
statement, echoing a warning delivered a day earlier by military chief
Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir to the security cabinet, according to Israeli
media reports. "The government is sending the army into a multi-front war
without a strategy, without the necessary means, and with far too few soldiers,"
Lapid said. AFP
Israel says Hezbollah firing more than 100 rockets 'some days' towards Israel
Agence France Presse/March 26/2026
The Israeli military said Thursday that its forces had killed around 700
Hezbollah militants since the war with the Lebanese armed group began on March
2.
"So far, I can provide you a number of approximately 700 (Hezbollah) terrorists
that have been eliminated," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani
told journalists. Shoshani noted that Iran-backed Hezbollah had continued to
fire rockets, "some days more than 100... mostly towards northern
Israel."Lebanon’s health ministry has reported that Israeli attacks have so far
killed 1,094 people -- 121 children, 81 women and 892 men. Since the beginning
of the war, Hezbollah has not announced its casualties.
Egypt FM visits Lebanon, says Cairo making major efforts to
halt escalation
Naharnet/March 26/2026
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met Thursday with President Joseph Aoun
and said he conveyed to him a message from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
affirming "the full solidarity of Egypt and its leadership, government and
people with Lebanon in these difficult circumstances." He stressed that "Egypt
strongly condemns the daily Israeli violations that infringe upon Lebanon's
sovereignty and territorial integrity, and emphasizes the importance of
implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and the complete Israeli
withdrawal from Lebanese territory." He also affirmed "Egypt's readiness to meet
all of Lebanon's needs.""We have brought with us a shipment of humanitarian,
medical, and food aid to support the Lebanese people, especially the displaced,"
he said. He noted that "the internal displacement crisis is a major concern, but
we are confident in the cohesion of the Lebanese people and in maintaining civil
peace in the face of challenges."Abdelatty added: "I also conveyed Egypt's full
political and diplomatic support for Lebanon, as Cairo is making intensive
efforts with various regional and international parties, including the United
States and France, to reduce the escalation and stop the attacks." He stressed
his country's "complete rejection of the ground incursion and Israeli violations
that contravene international law," calling for "their immediate cessation."He
also emphasized that "Egypt continues its contacts with all parties, within the
framework of seeking a ceasefire and preventing the region from sliding into
widespread chaos," underscoring "the need to support the Lebanese state and its
institutions, foremost among them the Lebanese army, to impose state sovereignty
and confine weapons to its hands."
Israel army says more troops are needed on Lebanese front
LBCI/March 26/2026
The Israeli military said on Thursday it requires additional troops for
deployment in southern Lebanon, where forces are engaged in fighting Hezbollah
as part of efforts to establish a buffer zone. "On the Lebanese front, the
forward defensive zone that we are creating requires additional army forces,"
military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a televised briefing,
noting that the military is operating simultaneously across multiple fronts,
including the West Bank, Gaza, and Syria."For that, more combat soldiers are
needed in the army."AFP
Egypt pledges support for Lebanon
LBCI/March 26/2026
President Joseph Aoun met with Egypt’s foreign minister on Thursday, receiving
assurances of Egypt’s full support, from its president, government, and people,
for Lebanon and its citizens amid the current crisis. Aoun welcomed any Egyptian
efforts to advance the Lebanese initiative aimed at halting the war, emphasizing
that Lebanon does not want to become a battleground for others’ conflicts on its
soil. The president also affirmed the unity of the Lebanese people and rejected
any attempts to draw the country into civil war, expressing gratitude to Egypt
for the aid it has provided to Lebanon.
Journalist with Hezbollah-affiliated media released on bail
Agence France Presse/March 26/2026
Lebanese authorities on Thursday released Al-Manar journalist Ali Berro on bail
after three weeks of detention on charges of insulting the Lebanese president
and army and inciting sectarian strife. Authorities had arrested Berro for
comments on President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and he had
failed to appear for questioning three times over accusations that included
insulting Salam. The arrest warrant was issued in October, and the Lebanese
government has since banned Hezbollah's military activities.
Lebanese Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro provides 43
tons of aid for displaced families
LBCI/March 26/2026
The Lebanese Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro announced it has secured a
humanitarian aid shipment totaling approximately 43 tons for displaced Lebanese
families, as part of ongoing efforts to support those affected. The aid includes
around 200,000 boxes of medicine, weighing roughly 15 tons, covering treatments
for a wide range of conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart
disease, cancer, and other medical needs. The shipment also contains essential
goods and vital supplies.
The initiative is the result of coordination with supportive organizations and
local partners, aiming to help alleviate the suffering of displaced families and
meet their health and basic living needs during this critical period.
What is Israel’s Invasion Calculus in Lebanon?
Jeremy Brecher/This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
Israel appears poised to dramatically expand its invasion in southern Lebanon,
with troops pushing deeper into the country as officials increasingly adopt
rhetoric about establishing a buffer zone. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu told local officials in northern Israel that the military was
working to expand a “security zone to push the anti-tank threat away from our
communities and our territory.”The day before, Israeli Defense Minister Israel
Katz said that Jerusalem aims to establish a “security zone” between the Blue
Line demarcating its northern border and the Litani River in southern Lebanon.
Katz signaled that this buffer zone would be depopulated. “Hundreds of thousands
of residents of southern Lebanon who evacuated northward will not return south
of the Litani River until security for the residents of the north is ensured,”
he said. As Israel presses forward with ground fighting in southern Lebanon,
coupled with escalating rhetoric about establishing a buffer zone, a key
question has emerged over its long-term intentions, whether it plans to
undertake an extended occupation of Lebanese territory or withdraw once its
current campaign against Hezbollah ends.
A Bargaining Chip
Israel’s expanded ground invasion in southern Lebanon aims to use an occupied
“security zone” as a bargaining chip to increase its leverage over the status of
Hezbollah in Lebanon, retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brigadier general
Assaf Orion told This is Beirut. Orion, a fellow at The Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, said that Jerusalem seeks “to create for itself the conditions
to decide whether to stay, whether to go forward, whether to withdraw, under
which security arrangements, in which conditions it would be made.”Israeli
officials indicate they intend to reprise their strategy from the Gaza war,
where Israel does not plan to withdraw until Hamas disarms. Katz said Israel
would maintain a “security zone” in southern Lebanon until it considers its
security concerns over Hezbollah resolved. Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich said that “just as we control 55% of Gaza, we should do the
same in Lebanon.”While Israeli officials appear to be advancing the objective of
establishing a buffer zone for now, the IDF does not necessarily have a clear or
immediate long-term plan for its presence in southern Lebanon. By having an
open-ended approach toward Lebanon, Israel aims for a “more flexible situation
than a mechanical engineering plan,” Orion stated. Israel’s options range from
limited, targeted operations against Hezbollah to a full occupation south of the
Litani River. For now, it appears to be preserving strategic flexibility to
determine its long-term policy at a later stage while pursuing the disarmament
of Hezbollah directly and on its own terms. In the short term, Israel sees a
need to directly intervene against Hezbollah on Lebanese territory. Beyond that,
it may seek to use the areas it occupies as a bargaining chip in negotiations
over a security arrangement with Lebanon that could “prevent Hezbollah’s
resurgence without a direct Israeli presence,” Orion said.
Prospects for Diplomacy?
Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf
Salam, have conveyed their openness to negotiating directly with Israel to
achieve a mutually agreed-upon security arrangement. However, Israeli officials
have yet to take them up on their offer. “There is a space for diplomacy… but
for the time being Hezbollah has to be addressed and de-escalation doesn’t serve
that,” Orion said. Even prior to Hezbollah’s opening of a military front from
Lebanon on March 2 in support of Iran, Israeli officials had expressed
skepticism over the pace and process of Beirut’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah.
While Lebanon in January declared that its military had completed disarmament
operations south of the Litani, Hezbollah’s intensifying military operations
against Israel have raised questions about Beirut’s credibility. From the
Israeli point of view, the Lebanese state “has a credibility issue because they
were already committed and hadn’t delivered,” Orion said. He added that Israel
views the need for “some kind of direct approach” using the IDF, saying that
“Hezbollah reconstitutes faster than it’s being disarmed or attacked.”Israel’s
zero-tolerance approach toward any Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon, or
the group maintaining its capabilities, is a key factor shaping its policy
toward Lebanon. Orion said that from Israel’s perspective, the alternative to
complete Hezbollah disarmament is “going to war.”“The Israeli approach is not
rebuffing diplomacy altogether but seeing it as a complementary element to
military action,” he said.
Lebanon Declares Iran's Ambassador Unwelcome, But Can It
Make Him Leave?
Claudia Groeling/This Is Beirut/March 26/2026
The Lebanese state has formally expelled Iran’s envoy to Beirut, its latest step
to curb Tehran’s influence as the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed
Hezbollah intensifies. On March 24, Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji said
he had instructed his ministry to inform Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Lebanon,
Toufiq Samadi Khoshkou, that Beirut had formally withdrawn its accreditation of
Mohammad Reza Shibani as ambassador. Rajji further declared Shibani persona non
grata and requested that he leave Lebanese territory by March 29 at the latest.
The question now is whether Tehran will accept the decision—denounced by
Hezbollah as a “national and strategic sin”—and, if not, how Lebanon will
enforce it. The move comes after Lebanon’s cabinet on March 5 ordered the
country’s security services to apprehend and deport operatives of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps. While the expulsion of Iran’s ambassador might appear
on the surface to be a technical diplomatic move, it is likely to carry broader
political ramifications.
Understanding the Protocol
A former Lebanese ambassador told This is Beirut that the recent decision to
declare Shibani a persona non grata, a diplomatic term for an individual no
longer welcome in the country, follows well-established protocol. The Lebanese
president, not the foreign minister, holds the exclusive authority to declare
any ambassador persona non grata, the source said. Following such a move, the
envoy’s home country is expected to recall its ambassador. If the ambassador
remains beyond the deadline, his presence would be considered illegitimate, and
Lebanese authorities could detain him if he leaves his embassy’s premises. Once
notified, the ambassador is expected to pack and leave, as remaining would
violate standard diplomatic norms, the source emphasized. All Lebanese state
officials will be obliged to boycott Shibani as well, the diplomatic source
added. He will not be able to meet with ministers, engage with government
agencies, or perform his official duties as an ambassador. “This is primarily a
political situation, which makes it more complicated than routine protocol,” the
source added.
Exiting the Embassy
Lebanon’s judiciary is responsible for issuing an arrest order for Shibani if he
refuses to leave the country, which General Security would be responsible for
executing, a former officer in the security agency told This is Beirut. The
process requires coordination between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Interior to ensure all legal and
procedural requirements are followed, the source added. In standard cases, if
the expelled diplomat’s home country refuses to take them back, authorities may
coordinate with the United Nations to transfer them to a third country.
However, the retired General Security officer noted that since Shibani’s case is
unusual and politically charged, it is unclear what will happen if Iran refuses
to recall him. There is no precedent for General Security to detain and forcibly
deport a diplomat in a political standoff, he said.
Political Repercussions
Mustafa Fahs, a journalist and political analyst, told This is Beirut that the
diplomatic drama is a result of building tensions. “Even before this matter,
Iran did not listen to the Lebanese state,” he said. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry
has been seeking detailed information from the Iranian embassy about its
diplomats, their activities in the country and their political statements, but
its requests have reportedly been rebuffed by Tehran, according to media
reports. “This lack of cooperation prompted the need for action,” Fahs said.
Lebanon’s move could carry significant repercussions on domestic politics amid
rising tensions brought on by Hezbollah’s war with Israel and mass displacement.
“The concern is that any escalation could have domestic ripple effects,
impacting both the street and the cabinet, particularly the stance of Shia
ministers and their constituency,” he added. For Fahs, the move risks being
framed not as a diplomatic dispute with the Iranian embassy, but as an added
form of pressure targeting the Shia community. “In my view, the issue of the
Iranian envoy is likely to evolve into a domestic political crisis in Lebanon,
extending beyond diplomacy into both governmental and international dimensions,”
he said. “The state now faces a dilemma: enforce the decision and risk political
fallout, or refrain and risk undermining its credibility.”
Bassil meets Aoun, presents proposal to 'protect Lebanon
through dialogue'
Naharnet/March 26/2026
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil met Thursday in Baabda with
President Joseph Aoun and said he presented a proposal aiming to protect Lebanon
through dialogue. "We began a round of meetings with officials, starting with
His Excellency the President, due to our awareness of the great danger facing
Lebanon," Bassil said. "We presented a proposal aimed at protecting Lebanon
through dialogue among the Lebanese, not confrontation," he added. "We put
forward three fundamental ideas. The first is an internal code of conduct based
on rejecting violence and media and political incitement, and adhering to the
state as the unifying authority, especially during conflicts. We emphasized the
commitment to the unity of Lebanon across all its territories and rejected any
rhetoric that leads to division or internal tension," the FPM chief said. He
continued: "The second idea is based on the rejection by all Lebanese of any
internal strife, the rejection of Israeli occupation, and the rejection of any
foreign interference in Lebanese affairs.""The third idea concerns the solution
we envision, which is based on the Lebanese Army and the state having a monopoly
on the use of force, along with a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese
territory," Bassil added. He said: "The solution includes the neutralization of
Lebanon and the adoption of a national defense strategy to which the government
is committed, leading to a just peace that guarantees all the rights of the
Lebanese."Bassil continued: "We affirmed that this initiative aims to bring the
Lebanese together at the table of dialogue instead of conflict, and it is a
national responsibility under the auspices of the President of the Republic." He
concluded: "We emphasized our support for the Presidency and legitimate state
institutions, even though we are in the opposition, because protecting the
Presidency and the state remains a national priority."
Lebanese Fear Another Occupation as Israel Threatens to Use
Gaza Tactics in the South
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
As Israel trades fire with Hezbollah, calls for mass evacuations and sends
ground troops deeper into Lebanon, its leaders have hinted at a long-term
occupation modeled on the devastating conquest of much of Gaza after Hamas' Oct.
7, 2023, attack.
Israel says it needs to establish a zone of control in the depopulated south to
shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily rocket attacks since
the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group joined the wider war. Many in Lebanon
fear that could mean the open-ended displacement of over a million people, the
flattening of their homes and a loss of territory. Israel's Defense Minister
Israel Katz said this week that it would create a “security zone” up to the
Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border in some places. He
said troops would destroy homes, which he claimed were being used by militants,
and that residents would not return until northern Israel is safe. The campaign
would mirror the one in Gaza, in which Israeli forces flattened and largely
depopulated the eastern half of the Palestinian territory, Katz said on Tuesday.
Israel has said it won't withdraw from the enclave until Hamas disarms as part
of a US-brokered ceasefire deal. “We have ordered an acceleration in the
destruction of Lebanese homes in contact-line villages to neutralize threats to
Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah in
Gaza,” Katz said, referring to border towns that were largely obliterated.
From one war to the next
After a 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, Israeli forces
gradually withdrew from southern Lebanon except for five strategic hilltops
along the border.
Lebanese returned to find that homes, infrastructure, and some entire villages
destroyed. Israel said it had dismantled Hezbollah infrastructure that could
have been used to launch an Oct. 7-style attack, and it continued to strike what
it said were militant targets on a near-daily basis after the truce. Hezbollah
resumed it attacks after Israel and the United States launched the war with Iran
on Feb. 28, accusing Israel of having repeatedly violated the ceasefire. Israel
accused Lebanon's government of failing to carry out its pledge to disarm
Hezbollah, despite its unprecedented steps toward criminalizing the group.
In the latest fighting, Israel has launched blistering air raids across Lebanon,
killing more than 1,000 people — mostly outside of the border area — and
displacing over a million. It has warned residents to evacuate a wide swath of
the south, extending from the border to the Zahrani River, some 55 kilometers
(34 miles) away.
The Israeli military says it has launched a limited ground operation. Political
leaders speak of more ambitious plans. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right
finance minister and a member of its Security Cabinet, said this week that the
current war must end with “fundamental change.”“The Litani must be our new
border with the state of Lebanon,” he said. Echoes of an earlier occupation
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982 during the country's civil war.
Hezbollah, established that year, waged a guerrilla campaign that eventually
ended the Israeli occupation in 2000. This time around, Israel has bombed seven
bridges over the Litani, the northern edge of a UN-patrolled buffer zone
established after previous conflicts. Israel says Hezbollah was using the
bridges to move fighters and weapons, and that its military will control the
remaining crossings. Heavy fighting has meanwhile erupted in the town of Khiam,
the fall of which would cut off the south from Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley,
another area with a large Hezbollah presence. After the bridges were bombed,
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of seeking to sever the south from
the rest of the country “to establish a buffer zone, entrench the reality of
occupation, and pursue Israeli expansion within Lebanese territories.”UN
peacekeepers say the bombing of the bridges and ongoing clashes have hindered
their operations and put personnel at risk. “This is the closest fighting
activity we have seen to our positions,” said Kandice Ardel, spokesperson for
the UN mission known as UNIFIL. “Bullets, fragments, and shrapnel have hit
buildings and open areas inside our headquarters.”Ardel said peacekeepers at
observation points have seen a growing presence of Israeli troops and
“engineering assets,” though they have not seen any new military positions built
yet.
‘Different shades’ of control
Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East think tank in
Beirut, said Israel has already established “different shades” of control. “The
first line of borders is a no-man zone. This is basically a large parking lot
that is facing Israel,” he said. “There is nothing there, no movement, nothing
at all.”Lebanese movement is restricted farther north. During last year's olive
harvest, farmers struggled to reach their groves because of regular Israeli
strikes and had to be accompanied by Lebanese troops and UNIFIL peacekeepers,
who coordinated with Israel. Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Alma
Institute and a retired Israeli military officer, said Israel will likely
establish a more extensive area of control stretching farther north. She
acknowledged that Israel was unlikely to defeat Hezbollah and was at risk of
having to maintain a long-term presence in southern Lebanon. “But the other
alternative is to take the risk that we will be slaughtered. It’s as simple as
that,” she said.
No diplomatic offramp in sight
Lebanon's government has broken a longstanding taboo by proposing direct talks
with Israel. It has also taken action against Hezbollah since the last war,
criminalizing its activities and claiming to have dismantled hundreds of
military positions.
But neither the US nor Israel has shown any interest in such talks as they focus
on the wider war with Iran. If negotiations occur, Israel could demand major
concessions in exchange for relinquishing territory taken by force — an updated
version of the decades-old “land for peace” formula. Israel seized parts of
Syria after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is in talks with
the new government in Damascus about an updated security arrangement. In Gaza,
it has vowed to keep half the territory until the militant Palestinian Hamas
group lays down its arms, as each side has accused the other of violating the
truce reached in October. Lebanese who fled their homes are meanwhile in limbo —
and some fear they may never return. Elias Konsol and his neighbors fled the
Christian border village of Alma al-Shaab with UNIFIL's help. He was reunited
with his mother, who cried in his arms, at a church near Beirut where funeral
services were being held for a resident killed in an Israeli strike. Konsol said
there were no weapons or Hezbollah fighters in his village, but it was forced to
evacuate anyway. “We no longer know our fate,” he said. “We don’t know if we
will see our homes and village again.”
Lebanon: Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session over Iran Ambassador Expulsion
Asharq Al Awsat/26 March/2026
Ministers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal boycotted Lebanon's cabinet session
on Thursday in protest over the government declaring the Iranian ambassador
persona non grata, a Lebanese official told AFP. The two Shiite parties have a
combined four ministers, with one independent Shiite also represented in the
cabinet present at the meeting, the official said, as the spat over the Iranian
diplomat's expulsion escalated. Hezbollah is an armed movement backed by Iran,
which also has political representation in both government and parliament.
Explainer-Israeli plan for Lebanon 'buffer zone' follows
long past of invasions, occupation
Reuters/JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/March 26/2026
Israel has said it will seize a chunk of southern Lebanon to create a "buffer
zone" against Hezbollah militants, stoking fears among Lebanese of Israeli
military occupation that could deepen instability and stoke further
displacement.
WHAT HAS ISRAEL DONE, AND WHAT IS IT PLANNING?
Israel on March 4 ordered all residents south of Lebanon's Litani River to leave
the area, two days after Hezbollah joined the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran by
firing rockets at Israel. The river runs east from the Mediterranean about 30 km
(19 miles) north of the border with Israel. About 8% of Lebanese territory lies
south of the river. Israeli ground troops have set up new fortifications south
of the river and destroyed homes in emptied villages. Israel views the area as a
stronghold for the Iran-backed Shi'ite militia, but the south has historically
been a diverse region with Christian and Sunni villages as well.
Marking an escalation of Israel's plans, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on
March 24 that Israel had destroyed five bridges over the river and that the
military would "control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the
Litani." He said troops would remain there as long as there is "terrorism and
missiles".The military's spokesperson, Effie Defrin, said the same day that the
military had defined the Litani River as the "northern security line" and that
Israel was "deepening its ground operation with the aim of preventing direct
fire at (Israel's) northern communities." Making his first comments on the
subject, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on March 25 that Israel was
"expanding this security strip to keep the threat of anti-tank weapons away from
our towns and our territory.""We are simply creating a larger buffer zone," he
said. Israel's military says it has massed thousands of troops in the border
area and that troops have carried out what it describes as limited invasions
into Lebanese territory. It has not said when or whether it plans ground
activity on a larger scale.
WHAT HAS LEBANON SAID?
Lebanon's government has not yet made any public comments on Israel's plans.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday it would fight to prevent Israeli troops occupying the
south, calling such a move an "existential threat" to Lebanon. Hezbollah has
fired rockets from locations both north and south of the Litani this month. Its
attacks have caused damage and injuries in northern Israel, as well as one
death. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon since March
2, the military has said, and one woman has been killed in northern Israel by a
Hezbollah rocket in that time. Israel's troops are clashing with Hezbollah in
southern Lebanon and its warplanes have heavily bombed the south, the east and
the capital Beirut. More than 1 million people have been displaced and more
than 1,000 have been killed, including more than 120 children, 80 women and 40
medics, Lebanon's health ministry says. It does not otherwise distinguish
between civilians and militants. Shahira Ahmad Dabdoub, a 61-year-old woman
displaced by Israeli strikes, is among Lebanese civilians worried that an
occupation of south Lebanon could put Beirut within the Israeli military's
reach."That's the fear - if they take the Litani, then they'll come here next,"
she told Reuters in a displacement centre in the capital.
HAS ISRAEL INVADED OR OCCUPIED LEBANON BEFORE?
Israeli troops have invaded south Lebanon in a decades-old cycle.
In 1978, Israel invaded south Lebanon and set up a narrow occupation zone in an
operation against Palestinian guerrillas after a militant attack near Tel Aviv.
Israel backed a local Christian militia called the South Lebanon Army (SLA).
Four years later, Israel invaded Lebanon all the way to Beirut in an offensive
that followed tit-for-tat cross-border fire. It pulled back from central Lebanon
in 1983 but retained forces in the south. In 1985, Israel established a wider
occupation zone in southern Lebanon, about 15 km deep, controlling the area with
the SLA.Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, after continued attacks
on Israeli military positions in occupied Lebanese territory by Hezbollah,
ending 22 years of occupation. In 2006, Hezbollah crossed the border into
Israel, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing others, leading to a
five-week war involving heavy Israeli strikes on both Hezbollah strongholds and
national infrastructure. On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah opened fire at Israel,
one day after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people
in Israel and led to war in Gaza, pitting Israeli forces against the Palestinian
militant group. Israel responded to Hezbollah with a bombing campaign and
eventually sent its ground troops into southern Lebanon again. After a 2024
ceasefire, Israel kept troops on five hilltops in southern Lebanon.
DOES ISRAEL KEEP BUFFER ZONES ELSEWHERE?
In the war in Gaza, Israel razed swaths of the enclave along its border with
Israel to create a zone it says is meant to defend Israeli civilians living
nearby.
Israeli attacks have killed over 71,000 Palestinians in the war in Gaza, most of
them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israeli leaders accuse Hezbollah of planning its own incursions for years. In
May 2023, Hezbollah invited media to watch its elite Radwan fighters simulate an
invasion of Israel.
Defence Minister Katz said Israel was working in Lebanon according to the "Rafah
and Beit Hanoun model", referring to two towns in Gaza that Israeli forces have
nearly completely destroyed and depopulated.
Israeli troops also seized the strategic Mount Hermon summit in southern Syria
after the fall of then-President Bashar al-Assad in Syria in late 2024. Israel
has demanded Syria's new leaders create a demilitarized zone stretching from
Damascus to the Hermon and has launched numerous raids in southern Syria.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Additional
reporting by Emilie Madi in Beirut; Editing by Rami Ayyub and Timothy Heritage)
1 million displaced in Lebanon
but aid groups are crippled by foreign aid cuts
Associated Press/March 26/2026
Humanitarian organizations under intense strain because of the United States'
steep cuts to foreign aid say they are scrambling to find the funds needed to
respond to the war in the Middle East, where millions of people have already
been displaced by the widening conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump's decision
last year to dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development — once the
world's leading donor of humanitarian assistance — forced aid groups around the
world to fire tens of thousands of staffers and shutter lifesaving programs.
Now, some of those same groups are struggling to mount a response in the Middle
East. Already, the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates 3.2 million
people inside Iran and 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced since the
U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
The UNHCR — which axed 30% of its staff last year due to the funding cuts — has
issued an urgent appeal for donations, noting that in Lebanon alone, the agency
needs an additional $61 million to support 600,000 people over just the next
three months. Across the region, the agency said its operations are
"dramatically underfunded," particularly in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and
Afghanistan. "The drop in global humanitarian funding is having a major impact
on humanitarian actors at the very moment as needs are rising sharply," the
UNHCR said in an email to The Associated Press. "These reductions mean we are
operating with far fewer people and resources at a time when displacement is
growing."
The aid groups' mounting anxieties come as the U.N.'s World Food Program — which
saw its funding cut by a third last year — warned last week that nearly 45
million more people could face acute hunger if the war doesn't end by the middle
of the year and if oil prices stay above $100 a barrel. "If this conflict
continues, it will send shockwaves across the globe, and families who already
cannot afford their next meal will be hit the hardest," WFP's deputy executive
director and chief operating officer Carl Skau said in a statement. "Without an
adequately funded humanitarian response, it could spell catastrophe for millions
already on the edge."Though the U.S. only spent around 1% of its budget on
foreign assistance, Trump's now-shuttered Department of Government Efficiency,
or DOGE, dismantled USAID after the president dubbed it a waste of money.
Several other countries also cut humanitarian aid, in some cases saying they
needed the funds to shore up defense. The results have been devastating for the
world's most vulnerable; children have starved to death, young girls have been
forced into underage marriage and impoverished HIV-positive patients have
struggled in vain to find lifesaving medication. In response to questions from
the AP, the State Department said it was dedicating more than $40 million in
additional emergency assistance to Lebanon, including to the WFP. The department
also said it was working with the U.N. and other partners to address
humanitarian needs, but urged other countries to step up. Last week, the agency
announced it was setting up 12 regional hubs to coordinate disaster and
emergency humanitarian responses worldwide under a new bureau overseeing some of
the functions once handled by USAID. "The U.S. remains the most generous country
in the world, our reforms make our assistance more effective, and President
Trump's actions are making the world safer, including for the Iranian people who
have been slaughtered by the regime," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott
said in a statement to the AP. "Instead of funding terrorists, the regime should
fund water, food, and energy infrastructure."
Aid workers have criticized the amount of money being spent on the war, when the
humanitarian response remains severely underfunded. The first week of the war
alone cost $11.3 billion, according to the Pentagon. "That is close to the total
amount of all global humanitarian aid spending in the final year of the Biden
administration," said Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, who
served as the director of USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance
during the Obama administration. "This administration will have burned through
that amount of money in a week. So it also puts a lie to the argument that what
DOGE did was ever even remotely about the budget." The Pentagon, meanwhile, is
seeking an additional $200 billion in funds for the war. When queried about the
figure last week, Trump said, "This is a very volatile world." In a separate
exchange with reporters about the funding request, Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth said: "It takes money to kill bad guys." The U.N.'s humanitarian chief,
Tom Fletcher, condemned the cost of the war amid the world's cascading crises.
The agency's campaign to raise $23 billion to support 87 million people
worldwide this year is only one-third funded. "We're seeing staggering amounts
of money — reportedly a billion dollars a day — spent on destruction, while some
politicians boast of cutting aid to those in gravest danger globally," Fletcher
said in a March 11 briefing to the U.N. Security Council. "With a fraction of
this money, we can save millions of lives globally."In January, the U.S.
Congress appropriated $5.5 billion for humanitarian aid as part of its 2026
foreign aid package. Humanitarians say that money should be released to the aid
groups trying to mitigate the crisis in the Middle East. "They have the money,
they have the staff, they have the information about what's happening on the
ground -- they're deciding not to do anything about it," said Sam Vigersky, an
international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who worked at
USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance from 2014 to 2019. The State
Department said it was inaccurate to suggest it was not actively using
appropriated humanitarian resources and said it was spending the money across
the world "as needed." The agency pointed to its plans to release $40 million in
additional emergency funds to Lebanon, and said many regional responses were
already "well-funded" by the U.S.'s recent $2 billion contribution to a U.N.
umbrella fund for humanitarian aid. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not
answer AP's questions about whether the U.S. planned to allocate additional
funding to the humanitarian response in the Middle East, instead saying the U.S.
remained the world's largest provider of aid and that Trump "will always stand
on the side of the Iranian people and all innocent civilians."
"There is nothing more humanitarian than eliminating the short- and long-term
threats posed by the terrorist Iranian regime, which has targeted civilians
throughout the region and long committed egregious human rights abuses against
their own people," Kelly said in a statement to the AP. Compounding aid groups'
woes are surging food and fuel prices and delays to humanitarian deliveries due
to the disruption of shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian
strikes on commercial ships in and around the strait have effectively closed it.
That has caused a ripple effect for aid groups responding to humanitarian crises
across the world, Vigersky said. "They're cut off from billions of dollars of
funding, their costs to do these programs are going up and the markets that
they're working in have increased food prices for populations that are already
starving," Vigersky said. The International Rescue Committee said last week that
shipping delays caused by the war were disrupting supply chains for
temperature-sensitive items used in health care, nutrition programs and vaccine
delivery. In one case, the IRC said around $130,000 worth of urgently-needed
pharmaceutical supplies intended for the group's humanitarian response in Sudan
were stranded in Dubai. The IRC urged governments to provide flexible,
predictable funding. "IRC's Lebanon program was itself faced with funding cuts
just as a major scale-up is needed," the group's president, David Miliband, said
in a statement. "The result is an overstretched humanitarian system forced into
impossible trade-offs."Beyond aid groups, governments, too, have begun sounding
the alarm about the war's humanitarian toll. Last week, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement warning that a
significant Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon would have "devastating
humanitarian consequences" and must be averted. Lebanese fear another occupation
as Israel threatens Gaza tactics in south Lebanon by Naharnet Newsdesk 13 hours
ago
As Israel trades fire with Hezbollah, calls for mass evacuations and sends
ground troops deeper into Lebanon, its leaders have hinted at a long-term
occupation modeled on the devastating conquest of much of Gaza after Hamas' Oct.
7, 2023, attack. Israel says it needs to establish a zone of control in the
depopulated south to shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily
rocket attacks since the Hezbollah joined the wider war. Many in Lebanon fear
that could mean the open-ended displacement of over a million people, the
flattening of their homes and a loss of territory. Israel's Defense Minister
Israel Katz said this week that it would create a "security zone" up to the
Litani River, some 30 kilometers from the border in some places. He said troops
would destroy homes, which he claimed were being used by militants, and that
residents would not return until northern Israel is safe. The campaign would
mirror the one in Gaza, in which Israeli forces flattened and largely
depopulated the eastern half of the Palestinian territory, Katz said on Tuesday.
Israel has said it won't withdraw from the enclave until Hamas disarms as part
of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal. "We have ordered an acceleration in the
destruction of Lebanese homes in contact-line villages to neutralize threats to
Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah in
Gaza," Katz said, referring to border towns that were largely obliterated.
From one war to the next
After a 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, Israeli forces
gradually withdrew from southern Lebanon except for five strategic hilltops
along the border. Lebanese returned to find that homes, infrastructure, and some
entire villages destroyed. Israel said it had dismantled Hezbollah
infrastructure that could have been used to launch an Oct. 7-style attack, and
it continued to strike what it said were militant targets on a near-daily basis
after the truce. Hezbollah resumed it attacks after Israel and the United States
launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28, accusing Israel of having repeatedly
violated the ceasefire. Israel accused Lebanon's government of failing to carry
out its pledge to disarm Hezbollah, despite its unprecedented steps toward
criminalizing the group. In the latest fighting, Israel has launched blistering
air raids across Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people — mostly outside of the
border area — and displacing over a million. It has warned residents to evacuate
a wide swath of the south, extending from the border to the Zahrani River, some
55 kilometers away.The Israeli military says it has launched a limited ground
operation. Political leaders speak of more ambitious plans. Bezalel Smotrich,
Israel's far-right finance minister and a member of its Security Cabinet, said
this week that the current war must end with "fundamental change.""The Litani
must be our new border with the state of Lebanon," he said.
Echoes of an earlier occupation
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982 during the country's civil war.
Hezbollah, established that year, waged a guerrilla campaign that eventually
ended the Israeli occupation in 2000. This time around, Israel has bombed seven
bridges over the Litani, the northern edge of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone
established after previous conflicts. Israel says Hezbollah was using the
bridges to move fighters and weapons, and that its military will control the
remaining crossings. Heavy fighting has meanwhile erupted in the town of Khiam,
the fall of which would cut off the south from Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley,
another area with a large Hezbollah presence. After the bridges were bombed,
President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of seeking to sever the south from the rest
of the country "to establish a buffer zone, entrench the reality of occupation,
and pursue Israeli expansion within Lebanese territories." U.N. peacekeepers say
the bombing of the bridges and ongoing clashes have hindered their operations
and put personnel at risk. "This is the closest fighting activity we have seen
to our positions," said Kandice Ardel, spokesperson for the U.N. mission known
as UNIFIL. "Bullets, fragments, and shrapnel have hit buildings and open areas
inside our headquarters."Ardel said peacekeepers at observation points have seen
a growing presence of Israeli troops and "engineering assets," though they have
not seen any new military positions built yet.
'Different shades' of control
Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East think tank in
Beirut, said Israel has already established "different shades" of control. "The
first line of borders is a no-man zone. This is basically a large parking lot
that is facing Israel," he said. "There is nothing there, no movement, nothing
at all." Lebanese movement is restricted farther north. During last year's olive
harvest, farmers struggled to reach their groves because of regular Israeli
strikes and had to be accompanied by Lebanese troops and UNIFIL peacekeepers,
who coordinated with Israel. Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Alma
Institute and a retired Israeli military officer, said Israel will likely
establish a more extensive area of control stretching farther north. She
acknowledged that Israel was unlikely to defeat Hezbollah and was at risk of
having to maintain a long-term presence in southern Lebanon. "But the other
alternative is to take the risk that we will be slaughtered. It's as simple as
that," she said.
No diplomatic offramp in sight
Lebanon's government has broken a longstanding taboo by proposing direct talks
with Israel. It has also taken action against Hezbollah since the last war,
criminalizing its activities and claiming to have dismantled hundreds of
military positions. But neither the U.S. nor Israel has shown any interest in
such talks as they focus on the wider war with Iran. If negotiations occur,
Israel could demand major concessions in exchange for relinquishing territory
taken by force — an updated version of the decades-old "land for peace" formula.
Israel seized parts of Syria after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar
Assad and is in talks with the new government in Damascus about an updated
security arrangement. In Gaza, it has vowed to keep half the territory until the
militant Palestinian Hamas group lays down its arms, as each side has accused
the other of violating the truce reached in October. Lebanese who fled their
homes are meanwhile in limbo — and some fear they may never return. Elias Konsol
and his neighbors fled the Christian border village of Alma al-Shaab with
UNIFIL's help. He was reunited with his mother, who cried in his arms, at a
church near Beirut where funeral services were being held for a resident killed
in an Israeli strike. Konsol said there were no weapons or Hezbollah fighters in
his village, but it was forced to evacuate anyway. "We no longer know our fate,"
he said. "We don't know if we will see our homes and village again."
The War on Hezbollah-The Iranian Terrorist Proxy Continues/LCCC website
The just war being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran and its
proxies—devils, terrorists, drug traffickers, and mafia networks—continues
relentlessly and will not stop before their complete defeat.
To follow the news, below are- links to several
important news websites:
National News Agency (Lebanon)
https://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/ar
Nidaa Al Watan
https://www.nidaalwatan.com/
MTV Lebanon
https://www.mtv.com.lb/
Voice of Lebanon
https://www.vdl.me/
Asas Media
https://asasmedia.com/
Naharnet
https://www.naharnet.com/
Al Markazia News Agency
https://almarkazia.com/ar
LBCI (English)
https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/en
LBCI (Arabic)
https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/ar
Janoubia Website
https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/ar
Kataeb Party Official Website
https://www.kataeb.org
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports
And News published
on March 26-27/2026
Tehran Regime Marks Persian New Year With Public Hangings
Janatan Sayeh/FDD-Policy Brief/March 26/2026
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/03/25/tehran-regime-marks-persian-new-year-with-public-hangings/
Iranians’ greatest fear is not the
bombs exploding around them, but the hangman’s noose wielded by their own
rulers.Not content with the mass slaughter of some 40,000 unarmed Iranians
during the January wave of protests, the regime’s judiciary branded the
protesters as “terrorist elements,” declaring on March 23 that “no leniency will
be applied.”
It is not surprising that the Islamic Republic, which leads the world in
executions per capita, continues killing its own people. What stands out,
however, is that nothing alters its behavior; war, negotiations, and appeasement
alike have failed to shift a system that consistently prioritizes eliminating
dissidents to preserve its hold on power.
For the people of Iran, the only way out of this living nightmare is to end the
system behind it.
Public Hangings: The Regime’s Domestic Terror Weapon
Just one day before Nowruz (Persian new year), authorities publicly hanged three
young men, Saleh Mohammadi, Saeed Davoudi, and Mehdi Ghasemi, in the city of Qom
on March 19. All three were arrested after the January protest wave and charged
with moharebeh, or “waging war against God,” a commonly used charge to execute
political prisoners. Mohammadi, a well-known wrestler who turned 19 in prison on
March 11, told the court his “confessions” had been extracted under torture,
with reports indicating that his arms were broken during interrogations.
Regime media reported in 2025 that roughly 90 public hangings were carried out
between 2011 and 2023, often in major provincial centers, using a rope tied to a
crane as crowds that included children watched the gruesome spectacle.
Over 2,657 executions were carried out in Iran’s prisons over the last Persian
calendar year (March 2025-March 2026), including minors, more than doubling the
1,159 recorded the prior year, and marking the highest level in three decades.
Over 1,000 Arrested Under Wartime Crackdown
Iranian state media reported on March 24 that police arrested 466 people accused
of online activities aimed at undermining national security, including
“spreading propaganda in favor of the enemy.” A day earlier, police said they
had arrested 68 people for allegedly sharing war footage with Iranian diaspora
media outlets. The police claimed that most of the detainees were affiliated
with “monarchists.” In the previous two weeks, regime outlets had similarly
announced that 75 people were arrested on suspicion of ties with “terrorists”
and “monarchists,” while also stating that 500 people accused of sharing
information with the “enemy” had been arrested, of whom around half had engaged
in serious offenses, such as providing targeting data and conspiring with
anti-regime groups.
Anti-Regime Momentum Persists Among Iranians
Iranian protesters who survived the January massacre said on March 21 that the
public remains on standby, awaiting direction from opposition leader Crown
Prince Reza Pahlavi to return to the streets. Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of
U.S. Central Command, stated on March 23 that Washington would send “a clear
signal” for Iranians to mobilize, reinforcing similar remarks made by President
Donald Trump on February 28.
Nightly rooftop chants against the regime and in support of Pahlavi have echoed
across Iranian cities throughout the war, with many voicing support for attacks
on regime targets.
The wave of strikes targeting the regime’s repression apparatus has resonated
with ordinary Iranians, with Israeli operations reportedly leveraging citizens’
social media posts identifying checkpoint locations to enable precise,
hyperlocal attacks across the country.
Battlefield Success Must Be Matched by Political Transformation
While there is no doubt the ongoing conflict has significantly degraded Iran’s
military and security agencies, the true breakthrough, comparable to the fall of
the Berlin Wall, would be a political one.
Weakening the regime while allowing it to survive removes capabilities but
leaves intent intact, meaning that it is only a matter of time before the threat
reemerges. Ending the conflict prematurely risks forfeiting a transformative
moment to ensure Tehran is governed by a system aligned with the West that
reflects Iranian national interests rather than Islamist ideology.
**Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD), where he focuses on Iranian domestic affairs and the Islamic
Republic’s regional malign influence. For more analysis from the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD), please subscribe HERE. Follow Janatan on X @JanatanSayeh.
Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_Iran. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan
research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Trump Says Iran 'Better Get Serious' in Mideast War Talks
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
US President Donald Trump warned Iran on Thursday to engage in talks to end the
Middle East war "before it is too late", after Tehran publicly spurned US
overtures to resolve the nearly four-week conflict. Trump's warning came as
Israel said it had killed the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards'
navy, calling him "directly responsible" for throttling the Strait of Hormuz
since the war's outbreak.Hopes for a negotiated end to the US-Israeli war with
Iran, which has engulfed much of the region, rose after Washington was said to
have put a peace plan to Tehran, only for the Islamic republic to deny the sides
were speaking, AFP reported. But Pakistan confirmed Thursday it was indeed
facilitating "US-Iran indirect talks" by relaying messages -- and that a
15-point American plan was being "deliberated upon" by Tehran. "They better get
serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO
TURNING BACK, and it won't be pretty!" Trump warned on social media, saying Iran
had been "militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback". Iran's
foreign minister flatly denied Wednesday that "negotiations" had been engaged
with Trump's administration -- but did concede messages were being exchanged
through "friendly countries"."We seek an end to the war on our own terms," Abbas
Araghchi said on state TV.Islamabad has been touted as a go-between, given its
longstanding ties with both neighbouring Iran and the United States, as well as
its network of regional contacts.
Israel Defense Minister Says Iran Guards Navy Commander
Killed in Strike
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Thursday that an Israeli airstrike had
killed Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' navy.
"Last night, in a precise and lethal operation, the IDF eliminated the commander
of the Revolutionary Guards' navy, Tangsiri, along with senior officers of the
naval command," Katz said in a video statement. "The man who was directly
responsible for the terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of
Hormuz to shipping was blown up and eliminated." Since the start of the joint
US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, Israel has announced the killing of
several top Iranian officials, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the
security chief, Ali Larijani. In recent days, Israeli forces have carried out
several strikes targeting the naval assets of Iran. Last week, Israeli
airstrikes hit several Iranian naval ships in the Caspian Sea, including ones
equipped with missile systems, support vessels and patrol craft.
Israel Reportedly Took Iran's Araghchi, Qalibaf Off Hit List after Pakistan
Request to US
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Israel took Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliamentary Speaker
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf off its hit list after Pakistan requested that Washington
not target them, a Pakistani source with knowledge of the discussions told
Reuters on Thursday. "The Israelis had their coordinates and wanted to take them
out, we told the US if they are also eliminated then there is no one else to
talk to, hence the US asked the Israelis to back off," the source said.
Pakistan's military and foreign office did not immediately respond to requests
for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the two top Iranian
officials had been temporarily removed from Israel's list of officials to
eliminate as they explore possible peace talks. The two officials have been
removed from the list for up to four or five days, the Journal said, citing US
officials, but did not mention any Pakistani role in it. Pakistan, Egypt and
Türkiye are playing the role of mediator between Tehran and Washington to end
the Iran war. Islamabad has maintained direct contact with both Washington and
Tehran at a time when such channels are frozen for most other countries.
Islamabad has also been seen as a likely venue if peace talks are held. Iran is
reviewing a 15-point proposal from US President Donald Trump, sent through
Pakistan, to end the war. The proposal calls for removing Iran's stocks of
highly enriched uranium, halting enrichment, curbing its ballistic missile
program and cutting off funding for regional allies, according to Israeli
cabinet sources familiar with the plan. Trump has said Iran is desperate to make
a deal, while Araghchi said Tehran was reviewing the US proposal but had no
intention of holding talks to wind down the conflict.
Iran and the US Harden their Positions as Tehran Keeps Its Grip on the Strait of
Hormuz
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Iran and the United States hardened their positions as diplomacy aimed at
reaching a ceasefire in the war in the Middle East appeared to be faltering on
Thursday. Tehran moved to formalize its control over the crucial Strait of
Hormuz while Washington prepared for the arrival of US combat forces in the
region that could be used on the ground in the Iranian Republic. Iran is
instituting a “de facto ‘toll booth’ regime,” industry experts say, with some
ships paying in Chinese yuan to pass through the strait, where 20% of all traded
oil and natural gas is transported in peacetime. Meanwhile, a strike group
anchored by the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli drew closer to the Mideast
with some 2,500 Marines. Also, at least 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd
Airborne have been ordered to the region, The Associated Press said. The troop
movements don’t guarantee US President Donald Trump will try to use force to
compel Iran to open the strait and halt its attacks on Gulf Arab states. Trump
previously deployed a large force in the Caribbean before the American military
captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January. In the current
situation, the US is seen as focused on possibly seizing Iran’s oil terminal at
Kharg Island or other sites near the strait. US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, who
commands the American military in the region, said his forces have hit more than
10,000 targets since Israel and the US started the war Feb. 28, destroying 92%
of Iran's largest ships and more than two-thirds of the country's missile, drone
and naval production facilities. “We’re not done yet,” said Cooper, who heads
the US Central Command, in a video message. “We are on a path to completely
eliminate Iran’s wider military apparatus.”Iran seen as operating Strait of
Hormuz as ‘de facto toll booth’With its stranglehold on traffic through the
Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Arabian Gulf toward the open ocean, Iran
has been blocking ships it perceives as linked to the US and Israeli war effort,
but letting through a trickle of others. The Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both
close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, quoted lawmaker Mohammadreza
Rezaei Kouchi as saying that parliament was working to formalize the process of
charging fees to let ships pass. “We provide its security, and it is natural
that ships and oil tankers should pay such fees,” he was quoted as saying.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence called it a “de facto ‘toll booth’ regime.”The
shipping intelligence firm said vessels have to provide manifests, crew details
and their destination to Iran’s Guard for sanctions screening, cargo alignment
checks that currently prioritizes oil over all other commodities, and for what
is described as ‘geopolitical vetting.’” “While not all ships are paying a
direct toll, at least two vessels have and the payment is settled in yuan,”
Lloyd’s List said, referring to China’s currency.
Iran's grip on the strait and relentless attacks on Gulf regional energy
infrastructure has sent oil prices skyrocketing and concerns of a global energy
crisis surging. Brent crude, the international standard, traded at US$104 early
Thursday, up more than 40% from the day the war started. “To make it crystal
clear, this war is a catastrophe for world's economies,” German Defense Minister
Boris Pistorius told reporters during a visit to Australia. US maintains
negotiations are ongoing but Iran says there are no talks. Using Pakistan as an
intermediary, Washington has delivered to Iran a 15-point ceasefire proposal,
which includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.Trump, speaking at a
fundraiser Wednesday night in Washington, insisted that Iran still wants to cut
a deal. “They are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so
badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they figure they’ll be killed by
their own people,” Trump said. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an
interview on state TV, however, that his government has not engaged in talks to
end the war, “and we do not plan on any negotiations.”Araghchi said the US had
tried to send messages to Iran through other nations, “but that is not a
conversation nor a negotiation.”Press TV, the English-language broadcaster on
Iranian state television, said Iran has its own five-point proposal, which
includes “sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”
A wave of Israeli airstrikes hits as Iran fires on Gulf neighbors
Israel said it carried out a wave of attacks early on Thursday targeting Iranian
infrastructure, and air defenses were heard in Tehran, while heavy strikes were
also reported around Isfahan, a city some 330 kilometers (205 miles) south of
the Iranian capital. Ifahan is home to a major Iranian air base and other
military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the US during the
12-day war between Israel and Iran in June. Sirens sounded very early on
Thursday morning in parts of Tel Aviv and cities in central Israel. Rescue
workers said two people were injured in a blast in Kfar Qasim.
Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said it intercepted multiple drones over its
oil-rich Eastern Province, the United Arab Emirates' air defenses also worked to
intercept incoming fire, and Bahrain reported extinguishing a blaze in a
neighborhood that is home to the Bahrain International Airport. Since the war
began, more than 1,500 people have been killed in Iran, its Health Ministry
says. Twenty people have been killed in Israel; two Israeli soldiers have also
been killed in Lebanon. At least 13 US military members have been killed. More
than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states have also
died. Nearly 1,100 people have died in Lebanon, authorities said. In Iraq, where
Iranian-supported militant groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the
security forces have been killed.
Trump insists Iran
operations ‘extremely’ ahead of schedule
AFP/26 March/2026
US President Donald Trump said Thursday that the Iran war was “extremely” ahead
of schedule, as he pushed Tehran to make a deal at his first cabinet meeting
since the conflict began nearly a month ago. As Tehran publicly rebuffed
negotiations, Trump again cited the original timeframe of four to six weeks that
he gave early on in the joint US-Israeli military offensive.“They’re lousy
fighters, but they’re great negotiators, and they are begging to work out a
deal,” Trump said at the White House alongside top officials including Secretary
of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.
“We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our
mission. Twenty-six days in we’re extremely, really, a lot ahead of schedule,”
added Trump. “The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been
decisively defeated.”Trump has been saying for days that Iran wants to make a
deal, amid growing signs he is seeking a quick end to the conflict. Iran,
however, says there are no direct negotiations.The US leader also launched a
fresh attack on NATO allies after they rejected his appeals to send naval assets
to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the oil chokepoint Iran has effectively closed
in response to the US-Israeli attacks. “I’ll say it publicly. We’re very
disappointed with NATO, because NATO has done absolutely nothing,” Trump said.
He particularly lambasted Britain, saying it had offered to send aircraft
carriers too late and describing the UK ships as “toys” compared to their US
equivalents.
‘Inflection point’
During the meeting, roving US envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed for the first time
from the US side that Washington had sent a 15-point “action list” to Iran via
mediator Pakistan.Businessman Witkoff, who led failed negotiations with Iran in
the weeks before the US-Israeli strikes began, said there were indications
Tehran was ready to make a deal.“We will see where things lead, and if we can
convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for
them, other than more death and destruction,” Witkoff said. “We have strong
signs that this is a possibility.”In his usual style for his lengthy cabinet
meetings, Trump let officials around the table have their say.Vice President JD
Vance, previously a staunch anti-interventionist who was widely reported to be
against the Iran operation, said Trump was ensuring that Iran “didn’t get a
nuclear weapon.” Noting that Easter is approaching, Catholic convert Vance said
US forces were “fighting at a time... that celebrates the return of Jesus Christ
to Jerusalem.”Top US diplomat Rubio appeared to quote rappers Public Enemy as he
praised Pentagon chief Hegseth, saying that “every day, the Department of War
lets the drummer get wicked over every portion of Iran.” Hegseth launched an
attack on the media for failing to support Trump’s war, before hailing for
“doing the work of the free world.”“We pray for a deal, and we welcome a deal,”
Hegseth said. “But in the meantime... the Department of War will continue
negotiating with bombs.”
Trump telling aides he wants Iran war to end in weeks as he faces other worries
— but it may no longer be up to him
Rhian Lubin/The Independent/March 26/2026
President Donald Trump has told aides in private that he wants to end the war in
Iran “in the coming weeks,” according to a report. As the conflict drags on to a
fourth week, killing 13 U.S. service members and wounding 300, Trump wants to
focus on other matters, including the midterm elections and pushing through
legislation that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls and prove
their citizenship, The Wall Street Journal reports.“Trump told an associate that
the war was distracting from his other priorities,” according to the WSJ. The
problem, though, is that ending the war is not down to Trump alone, the
newspaper noted. America entered into the conflict in a joint operation with
Israel, which could continue its operations in the Middle East without the U.S.
At the same time, negotiations between Washington and Tehran do not appear to be
progressing, and the Iranian regime has so far rejected direct talks with the
Trump administration. Trump has reportedly told aides that he wants to stick to
the four-to-six week timeline outlined publicly at the beginning of the war.
Allies close to the president want him to pivot to addressing the cost of living
amid rising gas prices because of the war, which remains one of the most
pressing issue for Americans, while others want him to turn to Cuba and emulate
the swift operation carried out in Venezuela in January, according to the WSJ.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump was
“extraordinarily skilled at multi-tasking” and was addressing multiple
challenges at once. “The President is laser focused on fully achieving the
military objectives against the terrorist Iranian regime. The president’s sole
focus is always victory,” Leavitt told the WSJ. Those close to the president
told the outlet that it is “often difficult to predict” the decisions Trump will
make about the war, and reportedly said that he has swayed between embracing
diplomatic routes and escalating strikes on Iran. Allies close to the president
want him to pivot to addressing the cost of living amid rising gas prices
because of the war, which remains the most pressing issue for Americans
There are also some advising Trump to “go harder” against Iran because “regime
change could be legacy-defining,” if the president were to achieve it. It comes
as reports claim that the Pentagon is preparing scenarios for “a massive final
blow” in the war. Trump could choose from four proposals, including the use of
troops on the ground and a possible invasion of Kharg Island, a vital component
of Iran’s oil network, according to Axios. The options, described as
“hypothetical” by White House officials, come as Trump claimed Iranian
negotiators are “begging” the U.S. to end the conflict despite Iran’s foreign
minister, Abbas Araghchi, declaring on state television that the country does
not plan on holding “any negotiations.”Trump has not yet made a decision on any
of the options, but the president is “ready to escalate” if negotiations with
Iran do not progress soon, the officials told Axios.
The president warned Iran Thursday to make a deal to end the war “before it’s
too late.”
Trump says Iran ‘better get serious soon’ in US talks
before it’s ‘too late’
Ghinwa Obeid - Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran “better get serious soon” in
US talks to end the Middle East war. Iranian negotiators are “begging us to make
a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated,”
Trump posted on Truth Social, calling the unnamed negotiators “strange.”“They
better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there
is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!” Trump said criticizing the Iranians
for downplaying the proposal talks. In his TruthSocial post Trump has reiterated
his comments from Wednesday when he said Iran was negotiating for a deal and
wanted to make one, contradicting the Iranian foreign minister. Iran’s Foreign
Minister Abbas Araghchi has denied any “negotiations” with the administration in
Washington but conceded that messages were being exchanged through “friendly
countries.”“At present, our policy is the continuation of resistance,” he said
on state television late on Wednesday. “We do not intend to negotiate -- so far,
no negotiations have taken place.”Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on
Thursday that “US-Iran indirect talks are taking place through messages being
relayed by Pakistan.” He also confirmed that the US has shared a 15-point
proposal.“The United States has shared 15 points, being deliberated upon by
Iran. Brotherly countries of Turkey and Egypt, among others, are also extending
their support to this initiative,” Dar said. With AFP
Pakistan says ‘US-Iran indirect talks are taking place’
AFP/26 March/2026
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed Thursday that indirect
negotiations between the United States and Iran were being held to end their
war, using Islamabad as an intermediary. Dar, who is also deputy prime minister,
described speculation about “peace talks” as “unnecessary,” adding: “In reality,
US-Iran indirect talks are taking place through messages being relayed by
Pakistan. “In this context, the United States has shared 15 points, being
deliberated upon by Iran. Brotherly countries of Turkey and Egypt, among others,
are also extending their support to this initiative,” he wrote on X, using
Turkey’s official name. Dar’s comments are the first on-the-record confirmation
from Islamabad that Pakistan is playing a facilitating role. Two senior
officials told AFP on Wednesday that the US plan had been “conveyed to Iran via
Pakistan,” but spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to speak to the
media. Islamabad has been touted as a go-between given its longstanding ties
with both neighboring Iran and the United States, as well as its network of
regional contacts. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Dar have both been in
regular contact with senior Iranian government officials, as well as their Gulf
allies. The powerful head of the Pakistan army, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has
equally been involved in the diplomatic efforts, and spoke to US President
Donald Trump last Sunday, officials said. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
has denied any “negotiations” with the administration in Washington but conceded
that messages were being exchanged through friendly countries.” “At present, our
policy is the continuation of resistance,” he said on state television late on
Wednesday. “We do not intend to negotiate -- so far, no negotiations have taken
place.”
US proposal to end war is ‘one-sided and unfair,’ Iranian
official says
Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Iran’s initial response to the US proposal to end the war, which was conveyed to
Pakistan, was that it was “one-sided and unfair,” a senior Iranian official told
Reuters on Thursday, adding that a path forward might still be found if realism
prevailed in Washington.
The official said the proposal “was reviewed in detail on Wednesday night by
senior Iranian officials and the representative of Iran’s supreme leader.”“In
brief, the proposal suggests that Iran would relinquish its ability to defend
itself in exchange for a vague plan to lift sanctions,” he said, adding that the
proposal lacked the minimum requirements for success. He said there was “still
no arrangement for negotiations, and no plan for talks appears realistic at this
stage,” while Turkey and Pakistan were trying to help “establish common ground
between Iran and the United States and reduce differences.”Citing an “informed
source,” Iran’s state-linked Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday that Tehran
had formally responded to a 15-point proposal from the United States. The
response was sent overnight through intermediaries, and Tehran is now awaiting a
reply from Washington, the source said. According to the report, Iran outlined
several conditions for ending the conflict, including a halt to what it
described as “assassinations and aggression,” as well as guarantees that war
would not be repeated. Tehran also called for compensation for war damages to be
clearly defined and guaranteed, and for the conflict to end across all fronts,
including with pro-Iran groups in the region that have taken part in the
fighting. The source added that Iran emphasized its sovereignty over the Strait
of Hormuz as a “natural and legal right” that must be recognized. The source
also expressed skepticism about Washington’s intentions, saying Iran views US
calls for negotiations as a “deception” aimed at achieving multiple objectives.
These include portraying the United States as seeking peace, keeping global oil
prices low, and buying time to prepare for further military action involving a
ground incursion in southern Iran, the source said. With Reuters
US denies targeting Iraqi forces, says it sought locations
repeatedly
Joseph Haboush/Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
The US said it has repeatedly asked Iraq to provide information on the
whereabouts of its security forces to ensure they are not mistakenly targeted
during operations against Iran-backed militias, but has not received a response
from Iraqi authorities.
A State Department official told Al Arabiya English that the request was made in
recent weeks as part of ongoing efforts to protect US personnel and facilities
in Iraq amid a surge in attacks by Iran-backed groups. The official said that
having clarity on the locations of Iraqi Security Forces is essential to avoid
unintended incidents, particularly as US forces take defensive measures against
militia threats. The official also strongly condemned widespread attacks by Iran
and Iran-backed militias against American citizens and US-associated targets
throughout Iraq, including diplomatic personnel and facilities. The US has
characterized the attacks as part of a broader campaign by Iran-aligned groups
to destabilize the region and threaten both US and Iraqi interests. The State
Department official stressed that US actions in Iraq are focused solely on
defending personnel and infrastructure from these threats.
The official emphasized that coordination with Iraqi authorities is a priority,
and that the request for information about Iraqi force locations was intended to
enhance safety and prevent misunderstandings on the ground. Despite the lack of
response from Baghdad, the United States said it remains willing to work with
Iraqi authorities to counter the influence and operations of Iran-backed
militias. The official noted that these groups pose a significant threat not
only to US forces but also to Iraq’s sovereignty and long-term stability. At the
same time, the United States firmly rejected allegations that it has targeted
Iraqi Security Forces. Such claims, the official said, are “categorically false”
and contradict the longstanding partnership between the two countries. The
official described the accusations as offensive and inconsistent with years of
cooperation between American and Iraqi forces in combating terrorism. The United
States reiterated its commitment to maintaining strong ties with Iraq while
continuing to defend against militia attacks. The US hopes ongoing dialogue will
lead to improved coordination and a more effective joint effort to address the
security challenges facing Iraq and the wider region. On Wednesday, Iraqi Prime
Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani instructed the foreign ministry to summon the
US chargé d’affaires in Baghdad over attacks that targeted its “military units.”
GCC chief says over 85 pct of Iran attacks targeted Gulf
countries
Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary General on Thursday said Iran directed
most of its recent attacks toward Gulf countries, warning that Tehran’s actions
pose a serious threat to regional security and global economic stability. “Iran
directed more than 85 percent of its attacks at Gulf countries,” Jasem al-Budaiwi
said. “Iran targeted hotels, embassies, water facilities, and airports, striking
civilian sites and resulting in civilian deaths.”The GCC chief said that the
Gulf states would not accept continued deception or attempts to justify
aggression and rejected any effort to turn the Gulf countries into “arenas for
regional score-settling.”According to al-Budaiwi, Gulf states had offered
assurances to Iran but still they were met with missile attacks. He held Iran
responsible for the escalation in the conflict, stressing that the Gulf
countries had a right to self-defense under international law. He accused Iran
of systematic attacks against Gulf oil facilities, adding that attacks targeted
sites near the Strait of Hormuz and hit refineries in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the
UAE, and Kuwait.He called for an immediate halt to the attacks and emphasized
the need to include the Gulf states in any talks on a potential ceasefire
between the United States and Iran. Al-Budaiwi also condemned Iran’s reported
imposition of transit fees in the strait, calling it a breach of international
law. He stressed that global regulations prohibit any disruption to navigation
in international straits and that no country has the right to impose such
restrictions.The GCC secretary general emphasized that Gulf states have made it
clear that they are not part of the ongoing conflict and had made extensive
efforts to prevent escalation. His remarks come amid heightened tensions in the
region, raising concerns over the security of vital shipping routes and the
stability of global energy markets.
Saudi finance minister warns of impact on global economy
amid ongoing Iran war
Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said on Thursday that the war
in the Middle East could have significant global economic consequences, adding
that the risks have not yet been priced into the markets. “You will need to mute
a lot of the media noise for you to really understand what’s happening on the
ground,” al-Jadaan said. Despite economic activities being quite normal in terms
of day-to-day activity “obviously there are potential serious impacts on the
global economy, not only in the region, but generally that we really believe
that has not yet been priced in the markets,” the minister said. “We really need
to make sure that we resolve the conflict very quickly and come together to do
that for the global economy not to be impacted even more.”Al-Jadaan says that
while oil has dominated media coverage, it is refined products – including
fertilizers, steel and aluminum – that have been most affected. Nevertheless, he
underscored that GCC states have come together during these difficult times.
“And they are a lot more resilient working together,” al-Jadaan said. Al-Jadaan
was speaking at the FII Priority conference in Miami. The summit is hosted by
the Future Investment Initiative Institute. Also speaking at the event was PIF
Governor Yasir al-Rumayyan. He said that the Saudi macroeconomic and fiscal
position remains strong, stable and resilient. He noted that the Kingdom is very
well positioned to take advantage of AI. Al-Rumayyan added that the PIF will
reveal its next five-year strategy in the coming weeks, and that it will
encourage third-party capital to work with the PIF, including international
investors.
US confirms death of Iranian IRGC naval commander
Agencies/26 March/2026
The United States on Thursday confirmed the death of Iranian Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy commander Admiral Alireza Tangsiri from an
Israeli airstrike, according to a post on X from US Central Command. Defense
Minister Israel Katz announced on Thursday that an Israeli airstrike had killed
Tangsiri. “Last night, in a precise and lethal operation, the [Israeli military]
eliminated … Tangsiri, along with senior officers of the naval command,” Katz
said in a video statement. “The man who was directly responsible for the
terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz to shipping was
blown up and eliminated.”Since the start of the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran
on February 28, Israel has announced the killing of several top Iranian
officials, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the country’s influential
security chief, Ali Larijani. In recent days, Israeli forces have carried out
several strikes targeting the naval assets of Iran. Last week, Israeli
airstrikes hit several Iranian naval ships in the Caspian Sea, including ones
equipped with missile systems, support vessels and patrol craft.
Germany FM says ‘encouraging’ if US speaking directly to Iran
AFP/ 26 March ,2026
Germany’s foreign minister Thursday said it was encouraging if the United States
was talking directly to Iran to end the war in the Middle East, but Washington
should make its intentions clear. “I hear that there are signs that the US is
speaking directly to Iran. I think that this is encouraging and this is
welcome,” Johann Wadephul told reporters before heading into the meeting of G7
foreign ministers outside Paris. With US Secretary of State Marco Rubio set to
join the discussions from Friday, he added: “For the German government it is of
great importance to know precisely what our American partners are intending.”
Iran’s strategy of escalation and blackmail
Zaid AlKami/Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Since Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, the region has repeatedly opened
its doors to Tehran to behave as a normal state. Yet the outcome has been the
exact opposite. Since then, negative developments have continued to unfold
across the region. Tehran has not only transformed its own political structure
into a system of Wilayat al-Faqih, but has also sought to export this theocratic
project to its neighbors, even if that meant using force. In its attempt to
spread its model both regionally and beyond, it has created numerous proxy arms
throughout the region to support this project, too many to list here. These arms
have continued to erode stability in neighboring countries, inciting unrest
against governments and undermining security through violence. This has further
inflamed its relations with its neighbors. Iran continues to pursue this
escalation to this day, which indicates that this behavior has not changed.
While the faces have shifted from Ruhollah Khomeini to Ali Khamenei, and now the
name Mojtaba is emerging, the underlying approach remains the same: Exporting
crises and using force in multiple forms. It resembles a fully integrated
pattern in which foreign policy is managed with a provocative mindset to
compensate for losses, using pressure as a tool to restore balance, and
persisting in exporting the theocratic model. For this reason, Tehran tends to
take greater risks whenever it feels it is losing ground, which explains part of
its current behavior. Following the events of October 7, 2023, Tehran’s actions
were not merely political alignment but appeared to be a clear attempt to
compensate for a strategic loss. The loss of Syria and the reduced effectiveness
of Hezbollah pushed Iran to expand its use of tools, including supporting
militias, launching cruise missiles, and accelerating its nuclear program. This
was not a reflection of stable strength, but of mounting pressure, which is
increasingly reflected in more dangerous decisions. The Iranian regime appears
to operate according to the rule: The more you feel you are losing, the higher
you raise the level of risk. The ongoing war today between the United States and
Israel on one side and Iran on the other clearly exposes this pattern. The Gulf
states are not parties to this conflict, yet they have been targeted by more
than 6,000 drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. This reality raises
an important question: if Iran has used these tools against Gulf states in this
war, how would it behave if it possessed nuclear weapons? The current experience
does not point toward moderation. Rather, it confirms that the problem lies in
Iran’s underlying approach and mindset itself. A state that uses missiles and
drones against its neighbors and the wider region, threatens to close global
maritime routes, and imposes fees on passing ships is a state seeking full
dominance and nothing less. What, then, if it were to possess nuclear weapons?
In that case, they would become a tool of blackmail to impose political will
across the entire region, with no clear way to stop it, and would pose a direct
threat to the global economy. This is not an exaggeration, but a reading of the
current reality. A state that weaponizes geography to threaten global trade,
targets civilian infrastructure and civilians in Gulf countries, Jordan, Syria,
and northern Iraq, and treats the region as an arena of pressure and open
conflict cannot be expected to suddenly become a disciplined state simply
because it acquires more destructive weapons.What Iran is practicing today goes
beyond a policy of influence to a model based on turning loss into a driver for
risk-taking and sustaining constant pressure against regional stability. In
doing so, it entrenches this approach into an open-ended cycle of escalation,
leaving the region exposed to the consequences of decisions driven by a sense of
loss rather than by rational state calculations. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear
weapons is not aimed at deterrence, but rather at consolidating control and
imposing a continuous equation of blackmail. This strategy is based on
convincing major powers that the cost of confronting it would be higher than the
cost of containing it, raising the stakes to an unbearable level. Therefore, any
potential settlement between the United States and Iran, which has been widely
discussed in recent days, should not exclude the Gulf states. These countries
were not parties to the decision to go to war, yet they have been among the most
affected, security-wise, economically, and strategically. It is therefore
essential that they be included in any settlement. Gulf participation in any
negotiation track is not merely a political option but a necessity imposed by
the scale of the damage and the cost of what has occurred. The United States
must also remember the crises it has faced, from the attack on and bombing of
the American embassy in Beirut to many other events recorded in history.
US Activists Work to Connect Iranians Via Starlink
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
With the war in Iran leading to a near-total internet blackout in the country,
activists around the world -- especially in the United States -- are mobilizing
to help Iranians stay connected via Starlink. Despite being banned, billionaire
Elon Musk's satellite internet system has gained ground in Iran thanks to a
network of international activists, multiple people involved in these efforts
told AFP.The digital activists' efforts began in 2022, when mass protests broke
out following the death of Mahsa Amini, who was being held by Iran's police for
violating the country's strict dress code for women.
Smuggling networks -
"As of this year, we have more than 300 devices that we have delivered to the
country," said Emilia James of the US-based organization NetFreedom Pioneers.
She declined to go into further detail to protect the operation and the users,
said AFP. Ahmad Ahmadian, executive director of Holistic Resilience, explained
that his organization purchased Starlink devices in European countries or
elsewhere, before moving them into Iran via "neighboring countries."The
government cracked down hard on the Starlink terminals in 2025, and those caught
using them face imprisonment. Charges may be enhanced if the device is found to
have been sent by a US organization, Ahmadian pointed out. His group has
supplied "up to 200" antennas to individuals in Iran, and has facilitated the
sale of "more than 5,000 Starlink devices" by connecting ordinary citizens with
underground resellers, he said.
This approach is less risky for both the activists and for the users.For these
reasons, Holistic Resilience taps smuggling networks and provides security tips
and usage instructions remotely.
Astronomical costs -
To get a Starlink antenna on the black market, Iranians previously had to shell
out around "$800 or $1,000" at the end of 2025, Ahmadian recalled, a prohibitive
amount for many. Then there's the issue of paying for usage. The devices can --
theoretically, at least -- provide internet to an entire family or apartment
building. But in practice, usage remains "limited" because "the costs are still
prohibitive for most users," according to NetFreedom Pioneers' Emilia James. For
those that can afford the fees, Visa and Mastercard payments do not work in
Iran, forcing users to find workarounds. Since the bloody crackdown on
protesters in January, free usage has been granted for new subscribers. However,
the cost of terminals has skyrocketed to some $4,000, according to Ahmadian.
Demand is not the only factor driving up costs. Many of the terminals were
brought into Iran through the "southern borders and through the waterways,"
Ahmadian said. The closure of the Straight of Hormuz due to the war "suppresses
the supply" of the devices.
'More than 50,000' -
While the number of terminals within Iran is not publicly known, Ahmadian
estimates that "there are more than 50,000 Starlink terminals in Iran, for
sure."For her part, James estimates that there are "tens of thousands" of
Starlink devices in the country of 92 million.
Starlink did not respond to AFP requests for details.James said that she has
heard reports of Iranian authorities searching rooftops and balconies for the
antennas since the start of the war. And earlier this month, a man described as
the head of a network that sold internet access via Starlink was arrested by
Iranian authorities.
Pentagon Reaches Deals with Defense Firms to Expand
Munitions Production
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
The Pentagon said on Wednesday it had reached framework agreements with BAE
Systems, Lockheed and Honeywell to boost production of defense systems munitions
as part of a push to put the US military on a “wartime footing.”The
announcements come more than three weeks after US President Donald Trump and
Israel launched a war on Iran. They also follow Trump's meeting earlier this
month with executives from seven defense contractors as the Pentagon sought to
replenish weapons stocks depleted by US strikes on Iran and other recent
military operations. The Pentagon also plans to send thousands of airborne
troops to the Gulf to give Trump more options to order a ground assault,
Reuters reported on Tuesday. Under the agreements, Honeywell Aerospace will
“surge production of critical components for America's munitions stockpile,” as
part of a $500 million multi-year investment, the Pentagon said. BAE Systems and
Lockheed Martin will also quadruple production of seekers for the Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor, while a new framework agreement with
Lockheed will accelerate production of its Precision Strike Missile, the
Pentagon added. Honeywell said the agreement would support increased output of
navigation systems, missile steering actuators and electronic warfare products
used across US military platforms. Honeywell Aerospace CEO Jim Currier said
the company was ready to help meet the urgent demand. Lockheed Martin CEO Jim
Taiclet also said the company was “working closely with the Department of War
and the US Army to scale production to meet operational demand.”Trump in January
signed an executive order directing officials to identify contractors deemed to
be underperforming on government contracts while continuing to return profits to
shareholders. His administration has also stepped up pressure on defense
companies to prioritize production over shareholder payouts. “We discussed
production and production schedules,” Trump said of the earlier meeting, which
included executives from Lockheed Martin, RTX, BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell
Aerospace, L3Harris Technologies and Northrop Grumman. The United States has
drawn down billions of dollars worth of weapons from its stockpiles since
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and during Israel's military operations in Gaza,
including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles.
Australia Bans Visitors from Iran
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Australia banned visitors from Iran on Thursday, saying war in the Middle East
increased the risk they would refuse to fly home once their short-term visas
expired. For the next six months people travelling on Iranian passports will be
barred from visiting Australia for tourism or work, the Home Affairs department
said. "The conflict in Iran has increased the risk that some temporary visa
holders may be unable or unlikely to depart Australia when their visas expire,"
it said in a statement. Some exceptions would be made on a case-by-case basis,
the department added, such as for the parents of Australian citizens. "There are
many visitor visas which were issued before the conflict in Iran which may not
have been issued if they were applied for now," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke
said. "Decisions about permanent stays in Australia should be deliberate
decisions of the government, not a random consequence of who booked a
holiday."More than 85,000 Australian residents were born in Iran, according to
government figures, with vibrant diaspora communities found in major cities such
as Sydney and Melbourne. Australia angered Iran this month when it granted
asylum to seven players and officials from the visiting women's football team.
The players were branded "traitors" at home after refusing to sing the national
anthem before an Asian Cup match -- a gesture seen as an act of defiance against
the Iranian republic. Five of those seven later reversed their decisions to seek
sanctuary in Australia, fueling suspicions their families had come under threat.
G7 Meets in France to Narrow Transatlantic Iran Split
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Foreign ministers from the G7 meet outside Paris from Thursday with European
nations and allies seeking to narrow differences with the US on the Middle East
war while keeping other crises like Ukraine and Gaza high on the agenda. The
two-day meeting of seven leading industrialized democracies at the Vaux-de-Cernay
Abbey in the countryside outside Paris comes as the White House said President
Donald Trump is ready to "unleash hell" if Iran does not accept a deal to end
the US-Israeli war against the Iranian republic. Making his first trip abroad
since the war started, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will join fellow top
diplomats from Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Japan and the UK, but only on the
second day. One of the objectives of France, which holds the rotating G7
presidency this year, is "to address the major global imbalances which explain
in many respects the level of tension and rivalry we are witnessing with very
concrete consequences for our fellow citizens," French Foreign Minister
Jean-Noel Barrot told AFP on Tuesday. With Lebanon pulled into the war as
Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, Barrot also
urged Israel to "refrain" from sending in forces to take control of a zone in
south Lebanon. In a bid to broaden the scope of the elite G7 club -- whose
origins go back to the first G6 summit held in the nearby Chateau de Rambouillet
in 1975 -- France has also invited foreign ministers from key emerging markets
Brazil and India as well as Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. France will
also on Monday host a separate G7 meeting bringing together finance ministers,
energy ministers and central bank governors, Finance Minister Roland Lescure
told RTL radio on Thursday. The meeting, to be held via video call, will address
what Lescure described as a "convergence of energy issues, economic issues and
inflation issues".
'Misguided policies'
While all G7 nations are close US allies, none have unambiguously offered
support for the assault on Iran, angering Trump. German Finance Minister and
Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil even complained Trump's "misguided policies" in
the Middle East were hitting Germany's economy. Trump has claimed the US is
speaking to a "top person" within Iran's clerical system in talks to end the
conflict. But Iranian state TV said on Wednesday Tehran had rejected a peace
plan conveyed through Pakistan. Trump's threat to hit Iranian energy facilities
-- which he is now holding back on amid the purported talks -- troubled European
allies who have all called for de-escalation and not engaged militarily in the
conflict. British foreign minister Yvette Cooper on Tuesday voiced unease that
the war had shifted focus away from the Gaza peace plan and violence in the
occupied West Bank.Over four years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
Barrot told AFP that support "for the Ukrainian resistance" and pressure on
Russia would continue
Iran bans sports teams from
travelling to countries it deems 'hostile'
LBCI/Reuters/March 26/2026
Iran has banned national and club sports teams from travelling to countries it
considers hostile until further notice, Iranian media reported on Thursday
citing the Sports Ministry, which said the move was due to concerns over the
safety of Iranian athletes.
"The presence of national and club teams in countries considered hostile and
unable to ensure the security of Iranian athletes and team members is
prohibited until further notice," the ministry said.The ministry added that the
Football Federation and clubs are required to notify the Asian Football
Confederation to relocate match venues.
Ferrari resuming Middle East shipments
LBCI/Reuters/March 26/2026
Italian luxury sports car maker Ferrari said on Thursday that it has resolved
logistical issues in the Middle East, which were caused by the conflict in the
region. "Ferrari is pleased to confirm that its shipments to the Middle East
are resuming and that retail operations across the region are fully
operational," Ferrari said in a statement.
UN Rights Council Slams ‘Egregious’ Iran Strikes on Gulf,
Demands Reparation
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
The UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday condemned Iran's "egregious attacks" on
Gulf countries and demanded full "reparation" for all victims of its strikes.
The 47-member council backed a resolution brought by the six Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) countries and Jordan demanding Iran immediately "cease all
unprovoked attacks.”The resolution was adopted by consensus. The resolution
"condemns in the strongest terms the egregious attacks" by Iran, condemns
Tehran's actions aimed at closing the Strait of Hormuz and voices "grave
concerns at the Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure.”
It demands Iran "immediately and unconditionally cease all unprovoked attacks"
against the GCC states and Jordan and "provide full, effective and prompt
reparation to all victims for the damage and injury caused by its attacks.”Saudi
Arabia welcomed the UN Human Rights Council’s unanimous adoption of the
resolution, which reflects the international community’s rejection of Iranian
attacks and its condemnation of these brutal acts as grave violations of human
rights. In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said Iranian attacks on the
Kingdom and other countries in the region “constitute a flagrant violation of
the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and a clear breach of
international conventions and international law.”“Targeting countries that are
not party to the conflict is a blatant act of aggression that cannot be
justified or accepted,” it added.
Guterres Names Envoy for Middle East… Warns of a Wider War
London: Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday named veteran French diplomat
Jean Arnault as his personal envoy to support efforts to end the Middle East
conflict, saying the “world is staring down the barrel of a wider war.”Guterres
told reporters that he had been in close contact with many in the region and
around the world and that a number of initiatives for dialogue and peace were
underway. “It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder – and start
climbing the diplomatic ladder,” he said in New York. The UN chief also warned
that prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz was choking movement of oil, gas,
and fertilizer at a critical moment in the global food planting season. Guterres
said Gulf countries are important suppliers of raw materials for nitrogen
fertilizers crucial for developing countries. “Without fertilizers today, we
might have hunger tomorrow,” he noted. Guterres said UN mediators have offered
their services and Arnault would do “everything possible” to support peace
efforts. The UN says Arnault has more than 30 years' experience in
international diplomacy focusing on peace settlements and mediation, with a
background in UN missions in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. His most
recent assignment was in 2021 as Guterres' personal envoy on Afghanistan and
regional issues. Disrupted fertilizer shipments and soaring energy prices are
threatening to unleash a fresh food-price surge across vulnerable nations,
risking a years-long setback just as many were recovering from successive global
shocks, UN and other experts warn. An analysis released by the UN World Food
Programme last week warned that tens of millions more people will face acute
hunger if the Iran war continues through to June.
Israel Steps up Assassinations in Gaza
Gaza: Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
A relative lull hangs over efforts to shape Gaza’s future, as global and
regional attention shifts to the US-Israeli war against Iran. Still, Israel has
continued targeting commanders from Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades,
using intelligence from collaborators and surveillance devices. One such device
was recently uncovered in a displacement camp in central Gaza and
self-destructed during inspection. Israel killed Ahmed Darwish, an elite
commander in the Central Brigade of the Qassam Brigades, along with his aide
Nader al-Nabahin, while a third man was critically wounded. An Israeli drone
struck them shortly before midnight on Tuesday into Wednesday near a football
field south of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Field sources told
Asharq Al-Awsat that Darwish had survived several assassination attempts during
the war. One source said he led an elite unit in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and
captured several Israelis. Sources said Darwish had recently emerged as a key
figure in the Central Brigade after senior commanders were killed, and had been
working with others to rebuild the Qassam Brigades. The Israeli military said it
struck Hamas elite operatives during what it described as military training in
central Gaza, calling them a threat. Hamas field sources denied this, saying
they were gathered normally when they were hit.
Mysterious blast of a surveillance device
A blast struck near a displacement camp in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza before
noon on Wednesday, causing no injuries and initially thought to be a drone
strike. Field sources said fighters had found an Israeli surveillance device and
tried to dismantle it to access images and recordings. It then self-destructed,
possibly due to a malfunction or remote detonation by an Israeli drone. Hours
later, a warplane hit the same site, killing one person and wounding six others,
one critically. Sources said armed factions in Gaza have found several such
devices before and during the war, used to transmit live images to drones and
Israeli operations rooms. Israel has stepped up intelligence and operational
activity in central Gaza, areas less damaged during the war and hit by fewer
ground and air attacks than elsewhere. Hebrew media say the Qassam Brigades have
largely retained their strength there.
Repeated strikes on police vehicles
On Sunday evening, the third day of Eid al-Fitr, a drone struck a Hamas-run
police vehicle, killing three and wounding others. Field sources said one of the
dead was Ahmed Hamdan, an elite field commander in the Nuseirat Battalion of the
Qassam Brigades.
The Israeli military did not comment. The strike followed a similar attack days
earlier on a Hamas police vehicle that killed at least four people, including
prominent Qassam operatives, in central Gaza. Asharq Al-Awsat monitoring shows
that at least 10 field commanders, including company leaders, elite unit
commanders, and deputy battalion commanders, have been killed by Israel in the
past three weeks in a series of strikes. Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least
690 Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10,
2025, bringing the total death toll since the war began to more than 72,265. The
killings have come alongside continued airstrikes, artillery fire, and
demolitions along both sides of the so-called “yellow line,” and bulldozing of
remaining homes along the main Salah al-Din road, particularly near Khan Younis
and in areas such as Shuja’iyya and Jabalia.
Foiled assassination attempt
Military activity has coincided with operations by armed gangs in areas under
Israeli control. Hamas’ Radea (Deterrence) force said it foiled an attempt to
assassinate a resistance commander, arresting two suspects and seizing their
weapons and equipment, while two others fled. It said interrogations revealed
details about coordination between armed gangs and Israeli intelligence, which
could help dismantle the groups. Field sources said the target was a senior
faction leader. They added that tighter security measures helped thwart the
plot. Silenced pistols, cameras, and communication devices with Israeli SIM
cards were seized. Armed gangs have stepped up attacks on faction leaders and
senior Hamas government officials. Some attempts have been foiled, while others
have succeeded in recent months.
Russia Says It Hopes for New Round of Ukraine Talks with US as Soon as
Conditions Allow
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Russia is in contact with the United States about a new round of talks on a
Ukraine peace settlement as soon as conditions allow, the Kremlin said on
Thursday. "We remain open, we are in contact with the Americans, and we are
counting on holding the next round of talks as soon as circumstances permit,"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov rejected the thesis of a New
York Times opinion piece that said the Iran war had caused President Vladimir
Putin to lose interest in negotiating an end to the Ukraine conflict, Reuters
reported. "This is an absolutely false invention that does not correspond to
reality. During the rounds of trilateral talks that have taken place, some
progress was made toward a settlement," Peskov told reporters. Peskov said
Russia had not lost interest in peace talks but added that key issues -
including territory - had yet to be settled. The NYT opinion piece, by Russian
journalist Mikhail Zygar, said Russia's economy had been faltering earlier this
year, prompting Putin at that point to take negotiations on a Ukraine
settlement more seriously. However, Zygar said the Iran war had reversed those
dynamics by boosting oil prices, easing the economic pressure on Moscow and
reducing the US focus on Ukraine, weakening any incentive for the Kremlin to
seek a settlement. Earlier this week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the US had
briefed Russia about Washington's latest round of talks with a Ukrainian
delegation in Florida, which took place last Saturday. The last three-way peace
talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US took place last month, before the Trump
administration and Israel began airstrikes against Iran on February 28.
Pentagon Reportedly Weighs Diverting Ukraine Military Aid
to the Middle East
Washington: Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
The Pentagon is weighing whether to redirect weapons originally meant for
Ukraine to the Middle East, as the war in Iran strains supplies of some of the
US military's most critical munitions, the Washington Post reported Thursday,
citing three people familiar with the matter. The weapons that could be
redirected include air defense interceptor missiles purchased through a NATO
initiative launched last year, under which partner countries buy US arms for
Kyiv, the report said. The consideration comes as US operations in the region
intensify. Admiral Brad Cooper, the Central Command chief leading US forces in
the Middle East, on Wednesday said the US had hit over 10,000 targets inside
Iran and was on track to limit Iran's ability to project power outside its
borders. A Pentagon spokesperson told the newspaper that the Defense Department
would "ensure that US forces and those of our allies and partners have what they
need to fight and win." In response to a query about the report, a NATO official
said members of the alliance and its partners continue to contribute to its
Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program that funds the supply of US
arms for Kyiv.
"Equipment is continuously flowing into Ukraine," the official added. "The
amount pledged to PURL so far is of several billion US dollars and we expect
more contributions to follow." The Pentagon and the US State Department did not
immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Venezuela's Maduro Back in US Court after Stunning Capture
Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro will appear Thursday in a New York
court for the second time since his capture by US forces in an extraordinary
nighttime raid. Maduro, 63, and wife Cilia Flores have been held in a Brooklyn
jail for almost three months after American commandos snatched the pair from
their compound in Caracas in early January, said AFP. The stunning operation
deposed the strongman who had led Venezuela since 2013 and has since forced the
oil-rich country to largely bend to the will of US President Donald Trump.
Maduro has declared himself a "prisoner of war" and pleaded not guilty to the
four counts of "narco-terrorism" conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy,
possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess
machine guns and destructive devices. Thursday's hearing at 11:00 am (1500 GMT)
will likely see Maduro push for the dismissal of his case as lawyers tussle over
who will pay the former leader's legal fees. Venezuela's government is seeking
to cover the costs, but because of Washington's sanctions, his lawyer Barry
Pollack must obtain a US license that has not been issued. Pollack argued in a
court submission that the license requirement violated Maduro's constitutional
right to legal representation and demanded the case be thrown out on procedural
grounds.
Deadly raid -
Detained in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal prison known for
unsanitary conditions, Maduro is reportedly alone in a cell with no access to
the internet or newspapers. A source close to the Venezuelan government said the
incarcerated Maduro reads the Bible and is referred to as "president" by some of
his fellow detainees. He is only allowed to communicate by phone with his family
and lawyers for a maximum of 15 minutes per call, the source added. "The lawyers
told us he is strong. He said we must not be sad," said his son, Nicolas Maduro
Guerra, adding his father told him: "We are fine, we are fighters."Maduro and
his wife were forcibly taken by US commandos in the early hours of January 3 in
airstrikes on the Venezuelan capital backed by warplanes and a heavy naval
deployment. At least 83 people died and more than 112 people were injured in the
assault, according to Venezuelan officials. No US service members were killed.
US pressure -
At his first US court appearance in January, Maduro struck a defiant tone as he
identified himself the president of Venezuela despite being captured. The South
American country is now led by Delcy Rodriguez, who had been Maduro's vice
president since 2018. Under US pressure, she is grappling with leading a country
saddled with the world's largest proven oil reserves but an economy in shambles.
Rodriguez has since enacted a historic amnesty law to free political prisoners
jailed under Maduro and reformed oil and mining regulations in line with US
demands for access to her country's vast natural wealth. This month, the State
Department said it was restoring diplomatic ties with Venezuela in a sign of
thawing relations. Security is expected to be heightened around the New York
courthouse for Thursday's hearing. Presiding over the case is Alvin Hellerstein,
a 92-year-old judge credited with overseeing several high-profile trials during
his decades on the bench.
News of
the ongoing war between Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the other. The
news is abundant, fragmented, and difficult to keep track of as it evolves
constantly. For those wishing to follow the course of the war, the following are
links to several television channels and newspapers:
Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper
https://aawsat.com/
National News Agency
https://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/ar
Al Arabiya/Arabic
https://www.alarabiya.net/
Sky News
https://www.youtube.com/@SkyNewsArabia
Nidaa Al Watan
https://www.nidaalwatan.com/
Al Markazia
https://www.nidaalwatan.com/
Al Hadath
https://www.youtube.com/@AlHadath
Independent Arabia
https://www.independentarabia.com/
The Latest
LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on March 26-27/2026
Arabs Did Not Help the Gulf States:
What Do they See as the Central Source of Instability in the Middle East?
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 26, 2026
While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their
frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab
states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as
the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise.
For decades, the Arab world has been organized around a single political
narrative: Israel is the central threat to regional stability. This narrative
has shaped diplomacy, media, education, and public discourse across the Arab
world. It has served Arab regimes as a tool of legitimacy and deflection – a way
to redirect internal frustrations toward an external enemy.
The Arabs' failure to help the Gulf states appears to stem from a desire to
continue depicting Israel, and not Iran, as the central political issue.
Arab inaction is driven mainly by fear, weakness, and division, but it is
reinforced by a lingering reluctance to fully abandon the old regional narrative
centered on Israel.
If Arab states were to fully mobilize in defense of the Gulf against Iran –
politically, militarily, and rhetorically – they would be forced to confront an
uncomfortable truth: that the primary threat to Arab security no longer aligns
with the anti-Israel narrative that has defined the region for generations.
For the people of the Gulf states, the conclusion is clear: When it matters
most, Arab solidarity is unreliable, and, contrary to the political discourse in
the Arab world, Israel is not the central threat to regional stability.
While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their
frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab
states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as
the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise.
Recent Iranian missile and drone attacks on Gulf states – including Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Kuwait – have exposed a
deep and widening rift within the Arab world.
While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their
frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab
states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as
the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise.
For decades, the Arab world has been organized around a single political
narrative: Israel is the central threat to regional stability. This narrative
has shaped diplomacy, media, education, and public discourse across the Arab
world. It has served Arab regimes as a tool of legitimacy and deflection – a way
to redirect internal frustrations toward an external enemy.
The Arabs' failure to help the Gulf states appears to stem from a desire to
continue depicting Israel, and not Iran, as the central political issue.
If Iran becomes the universally acknowledged primary threat, that narrative
collapses. So, there is an underlying hesitation in some parts of the Arab world
publicly to shift the spotlight away from Israel and redefine Iran as the main
enemy. Acknowledging Iran as the primary threat carries political and
ideological costs in the Arab world. Arab inaction is driven mainly by fear,
weakness, and division, but it is reinforced by a lingering reluctance to fully
abandon the old regional narrative centered on Israel.
If Arab states were to fully mobilize in defense of the Gulf against Iran –
politically, militarily, and rhetorically – they would be forced to confront an
uncomfortable truth: that the primary threat to Arab security no longer aligns
with the anti-Israel narrative that has defined the region for generations.
Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan, recently criticized what he described as the failure of joint Arab and
Islamic countries to respond effectively to escalating Iranian threats against
Gulf states.
In a post on X, Gargash wrote that Gulf countries are facing repeated attacks
from Iran, raising urgent questions about the effectiveness of institutions such
as the 22-member Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the
world's second-largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations,
with 57 member states across four continents.
He emphasized that any criticism of Western or US presence in the Middle East
would be "unobjective" if Arab and Islamic countries themselves fail to act
meaningfully in the face of such threats.
"With this [Arab and Islamic] absence and inability, it would not be acceptable
later to talk about the decline of the Arab and Islamic role or to criticize the
American and Western presence."Gragash's remarks reflect growing frustration in
Gulf states with what are perceived as largely symbolic or rhetorical reactions
from Arabs and Muslims, which have often stopped short of implementing concrete
measures or strategies for deterrence.
Gargash's criticism signals that the Arabs of the Gulf states have begun
questioning the reliability of traditional Arab solidarity. That may well be why
some have already begun adjusting by moving closer to security cooperation with
non-Arab partners -- including the US and Israel -- considering more independent
military responses, and preparing for a scenario where they must act alone.
For Gulf leaders watching their skies light up with incoming projectiles, the
lack of a response from many Arab and Islamic countries to the Iranian attacks
does not constitute an act of solidarity; it is abandonment and betrayal.
Beyond standard condemnations, broader Arab backing has been extremely limited.
While Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have coordinated internally,
pan-Arab mobilization has been largely absent. Arab responses, meanwhile, have
largely consisted of statements condemning escalation, and calls for restraint
and de-escalation.
What is missing from the Gulf perspective: military coordination, air defense
integration beyond the GCC, and political alignment against the Iranian
aggression.
Not all Arab states, however, see Iran as the primary threat.
For Gulf countries, Iran is an immediate, kinetic threat targeting their
territory. Its actions threaten energy security and regime stability. Control
over the Strait of Hormuz is an existential concern for the Gulf countries.
Other Arabs and Muslims do not seem to share this concern. For them, the Iranian
regime is a secondary or manageable adversary.
For the Arabs and Muslims living outside the Gulf region, domestic priorities
and internal stability take precedence. Many Arab and Islamic leaders face
publics that oppose alignment with the US or Israeli military actions. They are
also most likely afraid of Iranian retaliation. These Arab and Muslim leaders
worried that entanglement in the conflict could expand into a full-scale
regional war that would pose a direct threat to their national security and
regimes. Muna Busamra, editor-in-chief of Al-Bayan, a Dubai-based
Arabic-language newspaper, agreed with Gargash's criticism of the muted reaction
of the Arabs and Muslims to Iran's attacks on the Gulf countries.
"Between silence and justification, Arab positions have redrawn the map of trust
and partnership in the region," Busamra remarked.
"In the Iranian terrorist aggression against the Gulf states, the surprise lay
not in the nature of the threat, but in the magnitude of the void exposed by the
moment of truth. Claims crumbled, rhetoric faltered, and entire systems that had
long spoken of 'solidarity' without demonstrating the ability to practice it
when it became an obligation were uncovered.
"In light of this escalation, the event was not merely military, but a revealing
moment for the reality of Arab and Islamic action. The question is no longer
theoretical: Where are the institutions that were supposedly established for
such situations? Where are the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation? And where are the countries that have long been at the forefront
with grand pronouncements about shared national security?..."What is more
dangerous is that some [Arab and Islamic] parties did not merely hesitate, but
silently bet on a different outcome. They bet that the [Iranian] strike would be
devastating, and that the Gulf states would enter a state of confusion that
would reshape the balance of power in the region. This gamble was not innocent;
rather, it reflects a profound misreading of reality, and perhaps an implicit
desire to see a different scenario, even at the expense of the region's
security....
The Gulf states, which have always been present in supporting their Arab
surroundings—politically, economically and humanely—were not expecting anything
in return, but they certainly did not expect that absence would turn into a
stance, or that historical support would be met with cold silence at a moment of
direct threat."This experience will reshape many assumptions. It will no longer
be possible to treat the concepts of "partnership" and "brotherhood"
superficially, and alliances will no longer be built on pleasantries, but rather
on clear positions and converging interests. The region is moving toward a more
frank phase... and one less tolerant of ambiguity...
"The Gulf states, which have proven their resilience and ability to manage
crises effectively, will base their future choices on one principle: who was
present when presence was required."Mauritanian journalist Ould Salek, writing
in the UAE's Al-Ain newspaper, also weighed in on the lack of Arab and Islamic
backing for the Gulf states.
"Since Arab national security becomes meaningless if it does not include Gulf
national security, citizens and residents of the Arab Gulf states have the right
to ask with genuine concern: Where are the institutions of joint Arab and
Islamic action, foremost among them the Arab League and the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, while the Gulf states are exposed to direct threats and
repeated Iranian aggression?... Where are the major Arab and regional powers
when the situation has become critical, and Gulf security is in the eye of the
storm?...
"For decades, these [Gulf] countries opened their doors to millions of Arabs,
who settled there, worked, built homes, raised children, and whose interests and
lives became intertwined with the life of the Gulf itself. They were in a
welcoming Arab space where they found dignity, opportunity, and stability.
"The role of the Gulf states was not limited to hosting and providing
livelihoods; it extended to supporting their brethren in times of hardship.
Foremost among these was the Palestinian cause, which, were it not for Gulf
support, would have been lost. When Arab economies faltered, cities crumbled
under the weight of war, or peoples sought a lifeline, the Gulf states were
present, offering assistance, aid, relief, and economic and political
support....
"But the current regional landscape reveals a reality that cannot be ignored:
the Gulf states view Iran as the primary threat, due to geography, direct
experience, and Iran's activities across multiple Arab arenas. Conversely, other
Arab states consider Israel the most significant threat in their priorities....
"Ultimately, the most undeniable truth remains that Arab solidarity should not
be selective, nor should it be based on double standards. Palestine has the
right to receive support, but no one has the right to use it as a pretext to
attack the Gulf and then demand Arab silence. Just causes do not justify
injustice, grand slogans do not erase aggression, and those who attack the Gulf
do not become friends simply because they raise the Palestinian flag."
For the people of the Gulf states, the conclusion is clear: When it matters
most, Arab solidarity is unreliable, and, contrary to the political discourse in
the Arab world, Israel is not the central threat to regional stability.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22382/arabs-did-not-help-gulf-states
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
**Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)
© 2026 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute
Beyond Washington’s
five-day window: Gulf security in age of infrastructure warfare
Abdullah F. Alrebh/Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
The performance of coercive diplomacy in the Gulf has rapidly transitioned into
a precarious theater of infrastructure warfare. As the United States navigates
its current military standoff with Iran, the recent five-day delay on threats to
obliterate Iranian power plants serves less as a resolution and more as a
temporary pause in an escalating kinetic reality. This rhetorical normalization
of targeting critical energy and electricity infrastructure introduces a
dangerous new paradigm to the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. By
explicitly placing civilian lifelines on the frontline, this approach
fundamentally alters the regional deterrence calculus and invites a reciprocal
doctrine from Tehran. Iranian officials have clearly articulated that any
transition from threats to strikes will render Gulf desalination plants, power
stations, and oil facilities as legitimate targets. Consequently, the collapse
of this diplomatic window could immediately project the harsh reality of kinetic
conflict onto the civilian infrastructure of the GCC, demonstrating how quickly
asymmetric cost-imposition can bypass conventional military defenses. At the
core of this escalating tension lies the strategic criticality of the Strait of
Hormuz and the paramount importance of Gulf maritime security to the global
economy. The current crisis is anchored in a de facto partial closure of this
vital artery, which has already choked transit volumes by more than 80 percent.
Crucially, this bottleneck is not maintained by formal legal mechanisms or a
traditional naval blockade, but by the psychological and material weaponization
of risk through Iranian missiles, drones, and naval posturing.
The five-day extension of Washington’s ultimatum fails to resolve this
underlying threat. Regional economies and global supply chains face unacceptable
risks from asymmetrical decisions, while the persistent threat of anti-ship
missiles and unmanned surface vessels ensures that the maritime and insurance
industries continue to treat the Strait as a high-risk war zone. This dynamic
reveals a stark reality: control over global maritime chokepoints is
increasingly dictated by non-traditional threats rather than sheer naval
tonnage. In traditional sociological understandings of the state, institutions
function as the vital link between the governing and the governed, meant to
generate predictability and uphold the social contract. For Gulf states, this
crisis inextricably links external security to their ambitious economic
transformations and long-term national visions. The conflict has already
resulted in collateral damage to civilian infrastructure, and a prolonged
disruption of the Strait of Hormuz threatens severe GDP contractions across a
region that serves as an anchor for global markets.
Beyond the macroeconomic shock, a primary concern for global stability lies in
the potential for power outages and water shortages due to targeted desalination
facilities. By weaponizing the basic necessities of modern life in a broader
geopolitical standoff, this asymmetric warfare threatens to disrupt the momentum
of long-term developmental projects and economic diversification efforts. These
sustained resource shocks impose a heavy, unjustifiable burden on nations
prioritizing domestic prosperity and global energy stability, especially when
they are not primary belligerents in the Washington-Tehran standoff.
Understanding this shifting paradigm demands a new analytical lens regarding the
regional security architecture and the evolving role of great powers. As the US
administration publicly pressures its historic allies to shoulder more of the
security burden, it privately weighs high-risk experiments such as blockading or
occupying Kharg Island. Such maneuvers would inevitably internationalize the
conflict, pressuring regional states that have consistently prioritized balanced
diplomacy, economic growth, and energy market stability, and accelerating the
fragmentation of the traditional security umbrella.
Ultimately, the current five-day window acts as a stress test for the wider Gulf
security architecture. It remains to be seen whether US-led coalitions, ad hoc
maritime task forces, or alternative global power centers like Europe and China
will successfully shape the long-term security guarantees of a region caught
between the performance of maximum pressure and the specter of total
infrastructural warfare. The crisis exposes the urgent need for a more
resilient, multipolar security framework capable of managing these compounded
structural threats.
Iran’s strategy of
escalation and blackmail
Zaid AlKami/Al Arabiya English/26 March/2026
Since Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, the region has repeatedly opened
its doors to Tehran to behave as a normal state. Yet the outcome has been the
exact opposite. Since then, negative developments have continued to unfold
across the region. Tehran has not only transformed its own political structure
into a system of Wilayat al-Faqih, but has also sought to export this theocratic
project to its neighbors, even if that meant using force. In its attempt to
spread its model both regionally and beyond, it has created numerous proxy arms
throughout the region to support this project, too many to list here. These arms
have continued to erode stability in neighboring countries, inciting unrest
against governments and undermining security through violence. This has further
inflamed its relations with its neighbors.
Iran continues to pursue this escalation to this day, which indicates that this
behavior has not changed. While the faces have shifted from Ruhollah Khomeini to
Ali Khamenei, and now the name Mojtaba is emerging, the underlying approach
remains the same: Exporting crises and using force in multiple forms. It
resembles a fully integrated pattern in which foreign policy is managed with a
provocative mindset to compensate for losses, using pressure as a tool to
restore balance, and persisting in exporting the theocratic model. For this
reason, Tehran tends to take greater risks whenever it feels it is losing
ground, which explains part of its current behavior.
Following the events of October 7, 2023, Tehran’s actions were not merely
political alignment but appeared to be a clear attempt to compensate for a
strategic loss. The loss of Syria and the reduced effectiveness of Hezbollah
pushed Iran to expand its use of tools, including supporting militias, launching
cruise missiles, and accelerating its nuclear program. This was not a reflection
of stable strength, but of mounting pressure, which is increasingly reflected in
more dangerous decisions. The Iranian regime appears to operate according to the
rule: The more you feel you are losing, the higher you raise the level of risk.
The ongoing war today between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran
on the other clearly exposes this pattern. The Gulf states are not parties to
this conflict, yet they have been targeted by more than 6,000 drones, ballistic
missiles, and cruise missiles. This reality raises an important question: if
Iran has used these tools against Gulf states in this war, how would it behave
if it possessed nuclear weapons? The current experience does not point toward
moderation. Rather, it confirms that the problem lies in Iran’s underlying
approach and mindset itself.
A state that uses missiles and drones against its neighbors and the wider
region, threatens to close global maritime routes, and imposes fees on passing
ships is a state seeking full dominance and nothing less. What, then, if it were
to possess nuclear weapons? In that case, they would become a tool of blackmail
to impose political will across the entire region, with no clear way to stop it,
and would pose a direct threat to the global economy.
This is not an exaggeration, but a reading of the current reality. A state that
weaponizes geography to threaten global trade, targets civilian infrastructure
and civilians in Gulf countries, Jordan, Syria, and northern Iraq, and treats
the region as an arena of pressure and open conflict cannot be expected to
suddenly become a disciplined state simply because it acquires more destructive
weapons.
What Iran is practicing today goes beyond a policy of influence to a model based
on turning loss into a driver for risk-taking and sustaining constant pressure
against regional stability. In doing so, it entrenches this approach into an
open-ended cycle of escalation, leaving the region exposed to the consequences
of decisions driven by a sense of loss rather than by rational state
calculations.
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is not aimed at deterrence, but rather at
consolidating control and imposing a continuous equation of blackmail. This
strategy is based on convincing major powers that the cost of confronting it
would be higher than the cost of containing it, raising the stakes to an
unbearable level. Therefore, any potential settlement between the United States
and Iran, which has been widely discussed in recent days, should not exclude the
Gulf states. These countries were not parties to the decision to go to war, yet
they have been among the most affected, security-wise, economically, and
strategically. It is therefore essential that they be included in any
settlement. Gulf participation in any negotiation track is not merely a
political option but a necessity imposed by the scale of the damage and the cost
of what has occurred. The United States must also remember the crises it has
faced, from the attack on and bombing of the American embassy in Beirut to many
other events recorded in history.
Military Bases in Shopping Malls!
Mamdouh al-Muhainy/Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Some commentators have asked why the Iranian regime is striking airports, energy
infrastructure, and shopping complexes in Gulf countries and then claimed these
locations are foreign military bases! The real answer, of course, is that the
Iranian regime knows full well what these sites contain. Its intention is
sending a clear message: the regime survives or the region burns. The Gulf
states have refrained from entering the war and declared their opposition to it
early on, but this means nothing to the authorities in Tehran, who had made
their decision beforehand. Indeed, even before the war began, they had decided
to turn the Gulf states into hostages as means for applying pressure to ensure
the regime's survival. All attempts by supporters of the Iranian regime to
rationalize its behavior are failing. Their actions defy rationalization,
rendering these efforts an impossible task. No state can justify striking
airports or destroying the oil and gas facilities of neighboring countries that
have not attacked it. But the Iranian regime is ultimately less a conventional
state than a transnational ideological project, and this war has made that
abundantly clear, as have the armed ideological groups it has fostered in across
several Arab countries.
The more important question is this: what are the regime's objectives? Why does
it insist on obtaining nuclear weapons, antagonizing its neighbors, and
projecting influence in far-flung arenas?
The answer is that Tehran seeks to reshape the regional order in its image. It
is determined to overturn what it describes as the American or Western order and
impose its own. To this end, it is targeting "American interests" and attacking
what it calls "America's allies" in the Gulf. The goal is to create chaos and
push Washington to withdraw, and it has pursued this strategy before, succeeding
in some cases, failing in others.
In Iraq after 2003, it contributed, through its allies, to bogging down American
forces and accelerating their withdrawal in 2011. In Beirut in 1983, the bombing
of the US Marine barracks, which killed 241 American soldiers and coincided with
the rise of Iran-linked groups, led the Reagan administration to pull out of the
country. Iran was also behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia,
which was carried out by its affiliates. It even hosted al-Qaeda members on its
soil, despite their ideological differences, when their objectives converged. It
used them as the terror group as part of its broader struggle and its effort to
shift the balance in Saudi Arabia - an effort that failed. The cultivation of
IRGC-modeled militias across multiple arenas and undermining of Arab states seek
to achieve the same objective: creating a quagmire in the region. Given that the
US no longer tolerates prolonged entanglements, Iran’s bet is that the former
will eventually grow weary, pack up its back, and leave, clearing the field for
Tehran.All forms of unlawful activity are undertaken as part of this strategy:
support for armed groups, drug trafficking, undermining states, and spreading
chaos. This is the model Tehran favors and seeks to consolidate, fostering
allies in pursuit of this ultimate objective. The Palestinian cause, needless to
say, is invoked as a convenient narrative.
This is all unfolding within a broader international struggle. Iran is aligned
with China and Russia, and they seek to counterbalance American and Western
influence and a more prominent role in managing Gulf and Middle Eastern affairs.
It is also worth noting that, although this vision is contrary to the interests
of most Gulf states, which see themselves as strong allies of Washington, other
regional actors who do not necessarily view this as contrary to their interests
and facilitate Iran’s project by cooperating with it in a game of shared
influence.
Despite its consistent efforts, Iran has not succeeded in dismantling the Gulf
system, which is built on everything the Iranian regime opposes: strong states,
capitalist economies, and close financial and military ties with the United
States and the West. Undermining this model serves the Iranian regime's
interests, which is why, from the very first hours of the war, it did not
hesitate to attack these countries with thousands of missiles and drones. The
goal was to break the two pillars of the GCC model: stability and development.
There is no point in asking Iranian officials why they target airports, disrupt
air traffic, and kill civilians. They state their intentions clearly: eroding
this regional order and precipitating its collapse.
Libyan ‘Elites’ and Perpetuating Disputes and Disagreements
Jebril Elabidi/Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Libya is suffering as a result of political divisions. Its fragmentation and
geographic disintegration threaten its political and territorial integrity and
unity. All parties heavily rely on vetoes, and there is a complete absence of
consensus, or even basic agreement, on serving the national interest, which has
been replaced by narrow partisan considerations that hinder the emergence of
democracy. Democracy is, after all, a mode of collective action and a culture
centered on respect for others and the rule of law. The current Libyan political
scene is obscure and being shaped by a struggle of the will amid explicit
partisan conflict and the absence of genuine popular representation within a
functional party framework. This impasse is largely the result of the absence of
any real political presence on the ground. Libyan society, structured along
tribal lines, renders any party-based framework ineffective within a social
fabric grounded in tribal, not partisan, legacies. Yet, politicians have managed
to disguise themselves as independents, as happened in the first elections after
2011 for the General National Congress (the first elected parliament), tilting
the balance decisively toward partisan domination. This rendered partisan
politics itself the core problem and the main culprit behind the institutional
dysfunction that has led the country down a dead end and removed the possibility
of building a civil state free of conflict.
The West promotes partisan democracy in Libya in every proposed solution.
However, leading political theorists acknowledge that it is not easy to
consolidate democracy in tribal societies. Defining the politics of Libya
through- and subordinating the will of its people to- a narrow partisan
framework is a grave mistake. Parties can import ideas and visions that have
already failed in their countries of origin, making attempts to replicate them
in Libya wholly unacceptable, as it is an exercise in reproducing failure and
chaos. Free will, as reflected in behavior and action, must arise independently
and without foreign interference. Partisan democracy has requirements and a
transformation in social culture is needed to allow parties to proliferate. Now
numbering over a hundred, many parties in Libya have no real members, and this
is a country of only a few million people where tribal affiliations run deep.
This points to democratic illiteracy that can even become dangerous,
particularly after forty years under the slogan: "Whoever forms a party is a
traitor."
The solution to Libya's crisis is prioritizing the national interest and
territorial unity. That is the only path toward building a homeland for all that
is free of exclusion and marginalization. At the same time, political
institutions must be built, and a national project suited to the demands of
transition must be launched: from revolution to state and from tribe to state.
It also requires accelerating the finalization of a constitution rather than the
repeated delays that merely keep the flow of salaries and benefits going. The
homeland is not an ornament worn by a party. Dialogue is not a window through
which those shown the door should be allowed to slip back in; it is reaching
consensus within a framework that respects legitimacy and the people's
democratic choice.
The failure- due to a variety of factors, including parties and the shelter of
partisanship- of those in power has led them to practice a politics of
collision, leaving the ship of state to sink as they prioritize the interests of
their factions over those of the nation. This has fragmented the country, eroded
national cohesion, and generated broad frustration. In light of this
unacceptable division, it may be in the country's interest to adopt a consensual
form of democracy given the failure of the so-called ideological party "elites"
to lift the state out of the morass of chaos and violence engendered by partisan
discourse. These actors often serve their own agendas, which have produced
nothing but confusion, disorder, and political immaturity. The national interest
must be shielded from the noise of self-serving disruptions. All of this amounts
to opportunism and partisan authoritarianism, leading the people to lose faith
in freedom itself.
Differences of opinion are valuable to society in as much as they create a
diversity of ideas and solutions. Society is inherently diverse that is not made
of carbon copies, and disagreement is healthy for democracy. It prevents the
dominance of a single opinion and the emergence of dictatorship born of fear of
the other. To move from conflict steeped in hostility to difference enriched by
diversity, we must first understand disagreement as the plurality of opinions
rather than a permanent source of antagonism to be exploited. As Mahatma Gandhi
said: "Differences of opinion should never mean hostility. If they did, my wife
and I would be sworn enemies of one another..." Only when we understand this can
we build a democratic culture grounded in accepting others- the homeland is "you
and me," not "me or you."
Sudan's War and the Strategy of 'Stretching the Peripheries'
Osman Mirghani/Asharq Al Awsat/March 26/2026
Whenever the Sudanese army makes an advance that brings the prospect of ending
the war into view, a new front opens, expanding the conflict and perpetuating
it. From the early stages, arms have been flowing in from abroad across the
borders of several neighboring countries. Recruits and mercenaries joined the
fray, while some border regions were turned into key hubs for supporting the
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and supplied them with weapons and everything the war
required.
When certain countries became neutral, whether through domestic pressure (as in
Chad) or external pressure (as with other neighboring parties), new fronts
opened along the borders with Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The recent escalation in Blue Nile State should therefore come as no surprise.
Movements from South Sudan had been observed for some time, alongside a
noticeable increase in southern mercenaries joining RSF ranks. Some areas in the
south also became treatment centers for wounded RSF fighters. Documented reports
confirm that a large camp has been set up for training and supplying RSF forces
in Ethiopia; the French newspaper “Le Monde” has published an investigation into
flights- 36 over four months, from late last year to early this year-
transporting weapons through Ethiopian territory.
The Sudanese army had publicly warned Ethiopia against this course of action,
and the latter continues to deny any involvement in these developments. The
battles that erupted in Kurmuk (in the Blue Nile region of southeastern Sudan)
have, along with drone attacks on other cities near the Ethiopian border,
nonetheless confirmed that foreign actors were attempting to open new fronts
aimed at dispersing the army's forces and obstructing an anticipated offensive
against the RSF in Darfur.
The escalation in Kurmuk will not be the last instance of this strategy to
"stretch the peripheries" designed to wrong-foot the Sudanese army, disrupt its
plans, and relieve pressure on RSF forces retreating on western fronts,
particularly in Kordofan. The Le Monde investigation indicates that the RSF's
backers have recently activated alternative corridors to funnel arms through the
Central African Republic and Ethiopia. It noted that nine flights were recorded
in the past month alone, all of them carrying weapons and equipment through both
countries in what were described as efforts to supply the RSF and allow it
operate on a southeastern front.
This strategy of stretching the peripheries is not new. It began with the
outbreak of the war and has steadily intensified; in fact, early indicators
suggest that this war is part of a broader, longer-standing scheme against
Sudan.
In 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s book “Fighting Terrorism”
was published in English. In it, he laid out his vision for confronting what he
described as the ideology of terrorism. His approach rested on the principle
that “prevention is better than treatment,” arguing for action to weaken and
isolate states he deemed sponsors of terrorism through sanctions and, when
necessary, military action. Sudan was among the countries he mentioned. It also
appeared on a list made by Avi Dichter, Israel's former Minister of Public
Security, in a 2008 lecture at the Institute for National Security Studies at
Tel Aviv University, "The Dimensions of Israel's Next Strategic Movement In The
Regional Environment." Dichter explained that since the 1950s, Israel has viewed
Sudan- with its resources, vast territory, and population- as a potential major
regional power, which called for early intervention to weaken it. In his
account, this effort encompassed involvement in the South Sudan war through to
secession, and later in Darfur, which Israel had hoped to push toward secession
as well.
The Sudanese army faces more the capabilities of the RSF alone in this war. The
RSF is receiving immense supplies and advanced weapons through foreign
interventions by actors that have sought to encircle Sudan by turning its
neighbors against it and turning these countries into conduits for arms- and at
times as launch points for strategic drone strikes. In this context, the war is
no longer merely a domestic conflict. It has become part of a broader regional
struggle in which militias serve as proxies, allowing the powers behind them to
avoid direct involvement and the complications it would entail. Despite this,
many prefer to ignore the war's strategic dimensions, clinging to simplistic
narratives like that of the "war of the two generals" or "the Islamists' war,"
refusing to acknowledge the deeper nature of the conflict: an existential war
against Sudan itself that constitutes part of an ongoing plan to destabilize the
region.
War of choice prevents war
of necessity as Iran threat expands and critics look away
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/March 26/2026
Strategic action reduces future danger while delay risks catastrophic conflict
and global instability
On the illiberal left and the defeatist right, America’s military campaign
against the Islamic Republic of Iran is being condemned as “a war of choice, not
a war of necessity.”I’m here to make the case for wars of choice. My argument is
simple: Delaying wars does not ensure lasting peace. On the contrary, delaying
wars has often led to wars more costly in blood and treasure. World War II is
the most obvious example.A war of choice is a conflict we decide to wage to
achieve vital goals before our enemies push our backs up against the wall.
American troops should never be in a fair fight. If our enemies see that we have
both the means and the will to defeat them, that may deter them. Nothing else
will – certainly not endless negotiations and attempts to appease them. What
about the related argument that Iran’s rulers did not pose an “imminent threat”?
It’s irrelevant. First, because even under the most creative interpretations of
international law and just-war theory, there’s no prohibition against addressing
threats that are not “imminent.”Second, because there is no agreed-upon
definition of imminence. If your enemy picks up a pistol, does that constitute
an imminent threat? Or must you wait until you see his finger on the trigger –
by which time it may too late for you to defend yourself?
The 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy – the NSS that followed the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – explicitly endorsed preemptive action against
gathering threats. In line with that criteria, CIA Director John Ratcliffe last
week told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran posed a “constant threat
to the United States…and posed an immediate threat” before the war began. For
decades, we have allowed the threat from the self-proclaimed jihadis in Tehran
to metastasize. They’ve been building nuclear weapons facilities under
mountains. They’ve been funding, arming, and instructing terrorist militias
beyond their borders. They’ve plotted assassinations and kidnappings in America
and Europe. They’ve been amassing thousands of drones and missiles.
The regime’s allies in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang have been assisting them
militarily, economically, and diplomatically – not because they embrace
Khomeinist theology but because they want the Islamic Republic to become a more
powerful member of their anti-American axis. Ali Khamenei, the Islamic
Republic’s “supreme leader” from 1989 until his timely death on Feb. 28th, was a
man with a plan. But that plan required patience and, on Oct. 7, 2023, Yahya
Sinwar, the commander of Hamas in Gaza, jumped the gun, invading Israel and
carrying out mass murders, mass rapes, and hostage-taking.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel from the north. The
Jewish state found itself fighting a multifront war of necessity. It was not a
given that, over the months that followed, Israel would manage to cripple both
Hamas and Hezbollah.
Strikes against Israel directly from Iranian territory began in April 2024. That
phase of the conflict culminated with the Twelve-Day War in June of last year, a
joint Israel-U.S. operation that halted after President Trump sent B-2 bombers
to strike some of Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities. After that, President
Trump probably figured that Iran’s rulers had learned a lesson and would soon
look for a deal. Instead, Iran’s rulers immediately went to work on Pickaxe
Mountain, a nuclear facility that was to be buried so deep that even MOPs,
Massive Ordnance Penetrators, couldn’t destroy it.In addition, between the June
24, 2025 ceasefire and the start of the current campaign on Feb. 28, 2026,
Iran’s rulers not only replaced all the missiles and drones lost in the
Twelve-Day War – they added thousands more.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is producing interceptors at anything like that
rate.
Last Friday, the regime fired two ballistic missiles at Naval Support Facility
Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, over 2,300 miles from Iran. That demonstrated
that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was lying when he said the regime wasn’t
building missiles that could strike as far as Europe. One of two Iranian
missiles targeting the joint American-British military base failed in flight,
the other was intercepted by an SM-3. Currently, the US can only produce about
70 of these per year at a cost of over $20 million each. I’m now going to make
an odd assertion: We’ve been lucky. Imagine if Mr. Sinwar, killed by Israeli
forces in October 2024, had not been a genocidaire in a hurry. Imagine if
Tehran’s nuclear program had continued to develop while its arsenal of missiles
and drones continued to expand without interruption over the past two years.
Eventually, we would have come to a point where a war of choice would not have
been an option. Instead, we’d have had to contemplate a war of necessity whose
outcome would be, at best, uncertain. Tehran, in concert with its nuclear-armed
allies in Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang, might have offered America this deal:
no war in return for concessions that would lead to a new world order, what
Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping has called “a common destiny for mankind”
with Beijing making and enforcing the rules.
We might then have deceived ourselves, that “bad agreements are better than no
agreements,” and that it’s only prudent to “avoid escalation,” and besides
“there’s no military solution.”Great nations can decline into impotence with
astonishing rapidity. You’ve seen that happen to some of our old friends in
Europe. President John F. Kennedy was a Cold War liberal who today would
not fit in either on the illiberal left or the defeatist right. “There are risks
and costs to action,” he observed. “But they are far less than the long-range
risks of comfortable inaction.”
**Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD), a columnist for the Washington Times, and host of the
“Foreign Podicy” podcast.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/24/war-choice-prevents-war-necessity-iran-threat-expands-critics-look/
necessity-iran-threat-expands-critics-look/
Read in The Washington Times
Iran’s Most Powerful Weapon? Keeping the Market Guessing
Max Meizlish/National Review/March 26/2026
https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/03/irans-most-powerful-weapon-keeping-the-market-guessing/
In order to hurt Washington, Tehran is practicing a deliberate strategy to
weaponize uncertainty. The United States is fighting on two fronts in the war
against Iran. One is in the skies. The other is in the market. Washington is
winning the first. Tehran knows its best chance lies in the second.
Much has been made of Iran’s asymmetric drone advantage — cheap, unmanned
systems that strain the capacity of conventional air defenses. But there is
another asymmetry at work, one that has received far too little attention:
Iran’s ability to undermine American economic messaging with nothing more than a
denial. This past Monday morning offered the clearest example yet. President
Donald Trump announced that the United States and Iran held productive talks
over the weekend, leading him to instruct the Pentagon to postpone strikes on
Iranian energy infrastructure for five days. Markets responded positively,
expecting that talks with Iran could help open the Strait of Hormuz, which has
remained closed to most commercial traffic since the war began and is ordinarily
the transit point for about one-quarter of seaborne oil trade and a fifth of
liquefied natural gas trade. Brent crude fell below $100. Major stock indexes
rallied 2 percent. European natural gas futures dropped more than 6 percent.
Global bonds flipped to gains. Then Iran denied the talks ever happened — and
markets noticed. Oil prices, which had fallen as much as 14 percent, increased
again following Iran’s denial before resuming their fall when Trump reiterated
that a deal could come within days.
How Iran Is Setting Up the Starvation of the World’s Poorest People
While the war rages on, market stability will remain Iran’s kryptonite. Denial
is therefore part of the regime’s strategy of information warfare. The United
States does not control global commodity markets. It cannot set oil prices by
decree. What it can do is shape market expectations — signaling that supply will
remain sufficient, that disruptions are temporary, that American sanctions will
not stand in the way of stabilizing energy flows. That is the message behind the
historic 400-million-barrel release from international strategic reserves and
behind recent, albeit misguided, authorizations for the sale of sanctioned
Iranian and Russian oil that had already been loaded in ships and was either
floating in storage or transiting to its final destination. The stakes extend
far beyond the price at the pump. Supply disruptions are driving up diesel- and
jet-fuel costs and could soon strain the petrochemical sector, rippling into
consumer goods, fertilizer, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing. If
markets lose confidence that Washington can manage these pressures, political
support for the war could erode even in congressional districts that strongly
back the campaign, forcing the United States to the negotiating table before it
has achieved the entirety of its objectives. Tehran’s strategy is to ensure that
happens. Denying messages of market stability is central to that effort. When
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled last week that the United States would
authorize the sale of 140 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian crude, Iran’s
oil ministry spokesman Saman Ghodousi quickly responded, saying Iran has no
crude oil left in floating storage and no surplus to offer the market. In
reality, estimates from Goldman Sachs and analytics firm Kpler put the figure at
between approximately 100 million and 170 million barrels on the water. For
Iran, the framing was simple: If there is no oil on the water, there is no
relief for the market to price in.
The timing of Ghodousi’s remark was particularly important, since Iran had just
attacked energy facilities across the Middle East. Brent crude settled Friday at
$112 a barrel — its highest close since July 2022 — despite Bessent’s
announcement.
Iran’s denial of productive talks over the weekend follows the same playbook.
Tehran’s foreign ministry said there had been no contact with Washington, direct
or indirect. Reporting suggests otherwise: Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan appear to
have served as intermediaries, with all three countries’ foreign ministers
holding separate conversations with White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi over the preceding days. Notice the pattern:
Washington signals stability while Tehran undermines it. Compare this with
Russia. Whereas Iran denies having any oil to supply the market, Russia is
promoting all that it can offer. This is because Moscow and Tehran are
exploiting the same American policy — the decision to “unsanction” oil at sea —
for opposite ends. What’s most important for Russia is generating more revenue
so it can keep fighting. What’s most important for Iran, however, is promoting
market panic so the United States can no longer afford to, politically.
Policymakers and market participants should recognize Tehran’s denials for what
they are: a deliberate strategy to weaponize uncertainty. In a conflict where
global energy prices, bond yields, and consumer confidence are all in play,
Washington must do more to prepare for battles over market messaging. The United
States doesn’t just need to defeat Iran militarily. It must win in the global
market, where much lies beyond Washington’s direct control.
**Max Meizlish is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies. He previously worked on sanctions enforcement and licensing at the
Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Follow him on X @maxmeizlish.
Iran’s Iraqi Militias Are Coming for US Troops
Bridget Toomey, and Ahmad Sharawi/The National Interest/March 26/2026
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/irans-iraqi-militias-are-coming-for-us-troops
The United States must act to punish and, by extension, deter militia attacks on
US bases in Iraq. Iraqi militias have bombarded US assets in Iraq for weeks.
Flames rose from the embassy compound on March 17 while rockets and drones
sought to evade its air defenses. The US military is hitting Iranian targets
hard inside Iran, but it is time for President Donald Trump to step up the
effort against Tehran’s proxies in Iraq.
The militias have attacked bases that host US forces across the country. Iran’s
proxies also struck hotels that they claim house US servicemembers in the
capital of Baghdad and the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region. In southern Iraq,
militia drones have targeted US-operated energy infrastructure. President Trump
included degrading Iran’s regional terror network as a goal of the Iran War.
This will require targeted military action against Iraqi militias and sanctions
on their political and financial enablers in Baghdad.
The last time tensions escalated to this level was between October 2023 and
February 2024, after the Hamas-led October 7 massacre in Israel that killed
1,200 people. Iran-backed militias launched a sustained campaign of attacks on
US bases in Iraq and Syria—more than 200 claimed attacks, with rockets and
drones targeting US forces almost daily. Faced with this onslaught, Washington
hesitated. The Biden administration did not respond militarily as the strikes
mounted, projecting weakness rather than resolve. The Islamic Republic’s proxy
network came to believe it could target American forces with impunity. In
January 2024, a drone attack launched by Iraqi groups killed three US
servicemembers at the Tower 22 base in Jordan. President Joe Biden decided to
act. Even then, the response was limited—strikes on mid-level Iraqi militia
figures temporarily curbed attacks on US bases but left the network intact.
These groups kept targeting Israel, and today, they’re once again going after
American interests.
President Trump should not repeat his predecessor’s approach. He has already
shown that he’s willing to use force in Iraq. Now he needs to go further—expand
the strikes, hit higher-value targets, and make clear that attacks on Americans
will be met with an overwhelming response. Since the war with Iran began on
February 28, the United States has already carried out airstrikes focused on
local headquarters and bases affiliated with US-designated terror groups, which
killed militia fighters. On March 16, the strategy seems to have shifted to
include senior militia leadership as targets. Kataib Hezbollah, a US-listed
Foreign Terrorist Organization and participant in attacks against American
interests, announced that its security commander and spokesperson, who used the
online profile Abu Ali al-Askari, was killed in an airstrike. This was a direct
hit on the voice of one of Iran’s most dangerous proxies in Iraq. It comes after
the group openly threatened the United States, warning that if Washington
“ignites the fuse of war in the region,” it would suffer “massive losses that
cannot be contained or recovered.”
Just days after an airstrike took out Askari, Kataib Hezbollah agreed to a
temporary ceasefire with the United States. The terms included a five-day pause
in attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad in exchange for an end to American
attacks on “residential” areas in Iraq—code for leadership hideouts. Targeting
senior militia figures—those who order strikes on American interests, not just
the cells that carry them out—pushes leadership to reevaluate the risks of
attacking the United States. But taking out top leaders isn’t enough. Washington
must ramp up operations against the militias’ weapons smuggling routes across
Iraq’s borders with Iran and Syria. That also means going after weapons depots
of Iranian-made cruise missiles, Shahed drones, and other projectiles used to
target US troops across the region. Washington should also take the fight
directly to the source—wiping out the cells pulling the triggers and the
commanders giving the orders.
The United States needs to establish a hard line and enforce it. Every attack on
an American base, diplomatic mission, or energy asset should be met with an
immediate response. The only way to rebuild deterrence is to make every
attempted strike against the United States a guaranteed losing move.
However, military action alone may not deter the most aggressive militias.
Additional targeted sanctions should be levied against the militias’ financial
lifelines and political enablers. Shia leaders, either directly from Iran-backed
militias or affiliated with them, have spent years entrenching their influence
in Baghdad to protect and enrich themselves, the terror groups, and ultimately
Tehran. Trump has a clear path to break Iran’s proxy network. Still, it requires
hitting them from both sides at once—degrading operational capacity while
simultaneously stripping away the money that keeps them alive. Doing so will
make Americans in the region safer than they’ve been for many years.
About the Authors: Bridget Toomey and Ahmad Sharawi
*Bridget Toomey is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, focusing on Iranian proxies, specifically Iraqi militias and the
Houthis. Prior to joining FDD, she was a Fulbright Fellow in Israel, where she
completed an MA in security and diplomacy at Tel Aviv University. During her
undergraduate studies, she interned for the American Enterprise Institute’s
Critical Threats Project, focusing on jihadi terror groups, and for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. She holds a BA in government with a minor in modern
Middle Eastern studies from Harvard.
*Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at The Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, focusing on Middle East affairs, specifically the Levant, Iraq, and
Iranian intervention in Arab affairs, as well as US foreign policy toward the
region. Previously, Sharawi worked at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy. He created a map visualizing the border clashes on the Israeli-Lebanese
frontier and authored articles on Jordan and Morocco. Ahmad previously worked at
the International Finance Corporation and S&P Global. He holds a BA in
international relations from King’s College London and an MA from Georgetown
University’s School of Foreign Service.
X Platform & Facebook Selected twittes for
March 26/2026
Nadim Koteich
Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of
Two futures are competing for the Middle East.
One exports instability. The other builds industry.
One invests in proxies. The other invests in progress.
One seeks to build bombs, the other seeks to build bridges.
The UAE made its choice a long time ago. We chose openness over
isolation, dialogue over discord, commerce over conflict.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Ministers of Hezbollah and its ally Parliament Speaker Berri did not attend
today's session of the Lebanese cabinet to force Lebanon to revoke its expulsion
of the Iranian ambassador in Beirut.
America must sanction Berri. The Shia bloc in Lebanon
behaves like this: My way or no state, plus civil war.
The Lebanese should not concede to their blackmail.
Rami Kiwan
https://x.com/i/status/2037117014188437978
I don't always see eye to eye with @saleh_machnouk, but he nailed this
intervention with @piersmorgan . It's Iran and its proxy Hezbollah that dragged
Lebanon into this war (and other wars in the past) with Israel. This is not an
opinion. This is an empirical fact.