By Mirna Fahmy
The date of February 28, 2026, carried immense symbolic weight as it marked the tenth day of Ramadan and the Jewish Shabbat Zachor. This specific Shabbat is dedicated to remembering the ancient enmity of Amalek, an ancestor of Haman, who served as the Grand Vizier of the Persian Empire. This religious backdrop set a somber and significant tone for the events that were about to unfold across the Middle East, echoing ancient tensions within a modern context.
The significance of the tenth of Ramadan is also deeply rooted in regional history, as it is the anniversary of the day the Egyptian army breached the Bar Lev Line during the 1973 war. In 2026, the geopolitical balance shifted once again on this day.
At 9:45 a.mIRST (1:15 a.m. EST), the United States and Israel launched a massive, coordinated aerial campaign against Iran. Known as Operation Epic Fury by the U.S. and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel, the surprise attack targeted over 1,000 locations within the first 24 hours, focusing on Iranian military infrastructure, nuclear sites, and leadership hubs.
The opening wave of the assault saw the U.S. Navy and Air Force use a devastating array of technology, including Tomahawk missiles, B-2 stealth bombers, and F-35 fighter jets launched from warships and an Ohio-class submarine in the Persian Gulf.
The primary objective was the systematic destruction of Iran’s missile programs and naval assets. Key military sites in Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah were struck repeatedly to degrade the regime’s ability to respond or defend its borders. As the war is entering its second week, the IDF has reported that approximately 300 Iranian missile launchers destroyed and 5,000 bombs dropped on targets across Iran. Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) stated that the mission was not just to strike existing weapons, but to dismantle the entire industrial base for ballistic missiles so it could not be rebuilt.
A major turning point occurred at sea, where the U.S. reportedly sank or disabled a significant portion of the Iranian Navy. By March 6, the total number of destroyed or disabled Iranian vessels had exceeded 30 major ships in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman, according to Admiral Cooper.
Iran confirmed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz––which handles 20% of the world’s petroleum––on March 2, 2026, describing it as a retaliatory measure by the IRGC. However, disruptions had already begun earlier. Warnings were issued and shipping traffic dropped by about 70% starting on February 28, 2026. Iran also began targeting ships attempting to pass through the strait. After U.S. intervention, the waterway became “effectively closed,” not only because of the direct threat of attacks but also due to the financial consequences.
China, the main importer of Iran’s oil, called the US a war addict. “Throughout its over 240-year history, it has been at war for all but 16 years. The US has 800 overseas military bases in over 80 countries and regions. The US is the main cause of international disorder, global turbulence, and regional instability.”
By March 2, the U.S. expanded its targets to include hardened underground nuclear facilities like the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant. While satellite imagery confirmed heavy damage to the buildings at Natanz, international monitors reported no signs of radiation leaks or environmental hazards.
Simultaneously, the Israeli Air Force carried out the largest combat mission in its history, sending 200 fighter jets to hit 500 targets. Israel focused on neutralizing immediate threats and dismantling the systems used by the Iranian government to maintain internal control. Strikes hit the Ministry of Intelligence and the headquarters of the Basij paramilitary in Tehran.
The campaign reached a climax with a joint U.S.-Israeli precision strike on a high-level security meeting in Tehran’s Pasteur Street district. Using 30 specialized bombs, the operation targeted the heart of the Iranian leadership. The strike resulted in the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and roughly 40 other senior officials, including the Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh, top security adviser Ali Shamkhani and IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour.
The confirmation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death was first met with silence and confusion in Tehran. Israeli media began reporting his death almost immediately after the strike, but Iranian state media tried to maintain the appearance that everything was normal.
Officials even announced that Khamenei would soon deliver a speech. When the scheduled broadcast time passed and he never appeared, the truth became difficult to deny. Soon after, Iran officially declared forty days of national mourning. In the sudden absence of the Supreme Leader, a temporary leadership council was formed to take over his duties. The council includes President Masoud Pezeshkian, cleric Alireza Arafi, and Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who had previously been rumored to have been killed but was later confirmed alive.
How was the infiltration?
According to the New York Times, the CIA had been studying Khamenei’s routines and movements for a long time. The key moment came when intelligence agencies learned about a high-level meeting scheduled for Saturday morning at a secure compound in central Tehran. The original plan had reportedly been to carry out the strike at night, but the plan changed. The operation was moved to daytime so that Khamenei could be targeted while he was meeting several senior officials, including IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh.
The U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were the first to know of Khamenei’s death, even before the Iranian public. Major Israeli networks reported that a photo of the Supreme Leader’s corpse was transmitted directly from inside the compound to the two leaders as definitive proof of the mission’s success. This visual confirmation, sent by a spy within the palace walls, proved that the regime’s security had been compromised at every level. On social media, President Trump described the event as a moment of justice, noting that no amount of secrecy could hide the leadership from the sophisticated tracking systems deployed against them.
This window of opportunity was widened by a sophisticated “cyber siege” executed by Israel’s Mossad. The operation involved two massive technical breaches: the hacking of a popular Iranian prayer app and the compromising of Tehran’s entire traffic camera network. On March 3, 2026, Mossad was reportedly receiving real-time video feeds from the streets of the capital, allowing them to track Khamenei’s motorcade with total visual certainty. This massive influx of data was likely managed by advanced AI frameworks, linked to expansion of Open AI in the Middle East, which allowed the coalition to filter through millions of data points to find the high-value targets.
The technology didn’t provide only the “eyes,” a human source also provided the “heart” of the intelligence. Reports suggest the CIA had an operative within the Iranian leadership’s inner circle, a breach so deep it allowed the coalition to know exactly who was in the room at Pasteur Street. Central to this intelligence failure was the mysterious role of Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force. Following the assassination, speculation grew that Qaani had either been a primary target or was himself the source of the leak.
Unverified reports from Arab and Emirati media ‘The National’ suggested that the Iranian government had arrested or executed Qaani on suspicion of spying for Israel, fueled by his uncanny ability to survive numerous previous strikes that had killed his peers across the “Axis of Resistance.”
Iran’s retaliation:
In the hour following the decapitation of its top leadership, a chaotic and headless Iranian military launched a massive retaliatory campaign that expanded far beyond Israel.
Between March 1 and March 6, 2026, Iran directed a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones at nine different countries, with the United Arab Emirates bearing the brunt of the aggression. In a startling escalation, the UAE was struck by 863 missiles—a number far exceeding the 113 launched at Israel during the same period. Kuwait followed as the second most targeted nation with 562 strikes, while Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and even Cyprus and Saudi Arabia were pulled into the crossfire. This scorched-earth policy appeared to be driven by a “drowning” mentality, where the remnants of the Iranian regime sought to drag the entire region into conflict alongside them.
Despite the Gulf nations’ pleas for the United States to avoid using their territory for offensive sorties, Iran did not distinguish between the source of the attacks and the hosts of American military assets. The strikes bypassed the earlier promises of the Iranian Foreign Ministry that the response would be limited to military sites.
In the UAE, the devastation reached the heart of global commerce and tourism, with missiles striking Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3, Jebel Ali Port, and luxury icons like the Burj Al Arab. In Abu Dhabi, an AWS data center was ignited, symbolizing a direct attack on the region’s digital infrastructure. These strikes resulted in three confirmed deaths and dozens of injuries, successfully puncturing the Gulf’s hard-won reputation as a stable global hub for finance and travel.
The human and strategic toll continued to mount across the neighboring states. In Kuwait, a strike on Port Shuaiba claimed the lives of six American soldiers and three Kuwaiti citizens, marking one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces in the region. In Bahrain, the Financial Harbour Towers, which housed the Israeli embassy, were targeted alongside the international airport, causing significant damage to the Manama residential and commercial districts. Even Qatar, which has long served as a diplomatic mediator, saw its Al Udeid Air Base targeted by a strike that reportedly blinded a major U.S. radar installation.
In Israel, the Iranian missiles targeted sacred sites in Jerusalem, forcing the closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as a security precaution.
By March 6, the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East had shifted fundamentally, with the Gulf Cooperation Council declaring that all “red lines” had been crossed. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized an immediate military response to what he termed “cowardly” attacks. Saudi officials have expressed fury at the United States, accusing Washington of prioritizing Israel’s defense over its Gulf allies. Even a Saudi analyst just said to Al Jazeera: “America has abandoned us, and focused its defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones.”
The UAE withdrew its diplomatic staff from Tehran, stating that the bilateral relationship had been damaged beyond repair.
The conflict eventually spilled over into previously neutral territories, testing the limits of international alliances. Turkey, a NATO member that had avoided the initial fray, was forced to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile on March 4, an incident that Tehran flatly denied. This provocation placed immense pressure on Ankara’s delicate balancing act between its NATO obligations and its ties to Iran.
Azerbaijan as well was drawn into the war on March 5 when Iranian Arash-2 drones struck the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, damaging an international airport and a secondary school. President Ilham Aliyev condemned the strikes as “groundless acts of terror,” placing his military on full combat readiness and halting all border traffic with Iran.
The strategic logic behind these widespread strikes appears to be a desperate application of the “Dahiya doctrine”—the intentional creation of regional chaos to force an international intervention. By striking at the “fulcrum” of American operations and threatening the global energy supply through the Ras Tanura oil facilities, the remnants of the Iranian regime hoped to pressure the U.S. into halting Operation Epic Fury. However, the result was the opposite: a complete diplomatic and military unification of the region against Tehran. From the shooting down of Iranian bombers by Qatar to the mobilization of British and French air defenses in Cyprus, the “Axis of Resistance” found itself facing a world that had finally decided the cost of Iranian regional interference was too high to bear.
On the borders:
On the opening day of the conflict, while the world’s attention was fixed on the fireballs over Tehran, Israel moved decisively to secure its northern border. To preempt the inevitable retaliation from Hezbollah, the Israeli Air Force launched a simultaneous campaign against infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These strikes targeted the Iqlim al-Tuffah region and the strategic corridors between Rihan and Sujod, destroying weapons depots, tunnel shafts, and launch pads that had been rebuilt in violation of previous ceasefires.
Most critically, the IDF successfully eliminated senior Quds Force officials stationed in Lebanon, effectively severing the direct line of command between Iran and its most powerful proxy.
The reaction from Lebanon was as swift as it was unexpected. On March 1, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared an immediate ban on all IRGC activity within the country and ordered the arrest of any remaining Revolutionary Guard members. In a stunning announcement, the Prime Minister labeled all Hezbollah military activity as illegal and called for the group to surrender its arms. This internal political shift, triggered by the news of Khamenei’s death, signaled a potential end to the “state within a state” that had dominated Lebanon for decades.
Further south, the Houthi movement in Yemen adopted an uncharacteristically cautious stance. Although the leadership in Sana’a condemned the “unjustified” strikes on Iran, they notably refrained from launching their typical missile volleys at the Red Sea or Israel on February 28. However, on March 6, the Houthis began resuming limited asymmetric attacks, but by then, the regional focus had already shifted toward the crumbling borders of Iran itself.
Also, on the same opening day, strikes were reported against Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) bases in Iraq, specifically targeting Kataib Hezbollah headquarters in Jurf al-Nasr, killing at least two fighters.
The most significant ground development emerged along the Iran-Iraq border, where the U.S. and Israel began targeting the Iranian border––seizing three key border towns to create an entry point for Kurdish forces. After the 12-day war in June 2025, the CIA has even worked with them to arm them and spark an internal uprising. The Kurdistan sources denied the information of their arming and their preparation to make a move.
The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CNBC on March 5 that Iran could repel a potential U.S. ground invasion, warning it would be a big disaster for American forces.
Any Kurdish movement is always monitored by the Turkish government who remains vehemently opposed to any Kurdish military gains, viewing these groups as extensions of the PKK organization. There are unconfirmed reports suggesting that Turkish intelligence has begun sharing real-time data with the remnants of the Iranian military to help them intercept Kurdish units.