Editor's note: Unwanted advertising popups are now the default on Google Blogger. The Boresight highly recommends installing the free Adblock Plus add-on for your browser to suppress this annoyance and view our content in peace.
27- Feb 2026: The United States and Israel launched military airstrikes on Iran during daylight hours on Saturday, targeting Iran's leadership. Initial footage from the region shows the US 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain on fire.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in these strikes.
We also strongly recommend scanning "X" [Twitter] for updates on development, as events are moving so quickly, and also as all traditional media outlets are effectively useless as information sources due to their heavy censorship.
Since events are still evolving, we recommend reading our "The Last Question First; Attacking Iran" writing in the meantime for background.
In response to the U.S.–Israeli strikes, Iran launched widespread ballistic missile and drone attacks across the Middle East, targeting Israel and bases used by the US in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Cyprus, Turkey, and the UAE. The counterstrikes have included all effectively (all) US installations in the Middle East. This is now a regional conflict.
On 3/2/26, three (3) American F-15E fighter jets were shot down in quick succession under mysterious circumstances over Kuwait. All aircrews ejected safely.
As of March 3, 2026, U.S. military casualties with CENTCOM confirming six (6) American service members killed. These numbers will rise dramatically, however.
 |
| USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72. She is part of Operation Epic Fury. |
Iran's strategy is clear. Push American forces away by keeping US facilities under fire, therefore denying them safe basing to launch and resupply. This will become apparent in the coming days/weeks. This will turn US and Israeli operations into a long-range proposition with low sortie rates.
After 8 days of war, in total, the US and Israel conducted around 4500 strikes across Iran, while Iran retaliated with 3500 vectors, including ~905 MRBMs:
After ~ a week of fighting, two narratives have emerged:
The first is that the US/Israel have established air superiority over parts of Iran. We know this to be true because the US is now switching to JDAM munitions, which means aircraft can fly over their targets.
The second is that most US bases in the region have largely been made unusable by Iranian strikes. This also appears to be true. Iran took out five (5) THAAD radars in the region, with some of the radar arrays costing upwards of $1.1billion dollors; as a result, Israel can no longer reliably warn its citizens of incoming fire.
Heavy GPS spoofing by Iran means GPS-guided munitions like Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) will not hit their targets with 5-meter accuracy. We saw the same thing in Ukraine. The primary backup to GPS for JDAM is an Inertial Navigation System (INS), so accuracy will be down no closer than 30 meters. So lots of bombing with no better than 30-meter accuracy. This also explains the laser designation flashes we see on IDF-CENTCOM press release video of attacks on Iranian launchers and other targets.
Iran has used cluster munitions to attack Ben Gurion Airport, where US air tankers are operating from.
Russia is now actively assisting Iran. The manner of this assistance is not clear - likely targeting intelligence.
US air tankers are orbiting over Jordan. These assets and their basing should be the primary target for Iran/Russia.
Here is one information source.
09-Mar, 2026: After 10 days of fighting, Iran/Russia has been able to suppress US-Israeli airstrike capacity by 65 percent. Source. Further reports are that Trump is looking for an off-ramp and his people have made a 2nd overure for a ceasefire.
12-Mar, 2026: U.S. Central Command confirmed the loss of one KC-135, tail numbers 63-8017 and 62-3556, are not receiver-capable KC-135R(RT) variants.
The second tanker involved in the incident managed to return to base:
12-Mar, 2026: Five (5) U.S. tankers were struck and damaged while on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia during an Iranian ballistic missile strike. Per one official, the battle damage to the tankers was not enough to destroy them, and they are being repaired. No injuries reported. Source.
This would be a very bad idea for Iran as they now have Israel and the US on the back foot. Stopping now would only reset everything, and the US-Israel will simply attack again in the future. Iran needs to keep its foot on the gas pedal. Iran/Russia have collapsed the THAAD and Arrow systems, so both US bases in the region and Israel are now free fire "Turkey Shoot" zones for Russia-Iran and Hezbollah.
This war also proved that "missile defense" is simply unfeasible. Intercept rates were far too low for more modern MRBMs, even with enough interceptor rounds on hand. The war has also shown that Western technology cannot deal with the battle-hardened [Ukraine War] Shaed-136 platforms.
Iran had far more missiles and drones than Western estimates. Perhaps tens of thousands.
Apparently they killed the Ayatollah.
ReplyDeleteApparently they killed the Ayatollahs successor.
ReplyDeleteIt's hardly mysterious what shot down the F-15's, the Kuwaits have their own patriot systems.
ReplyDeleteI understand the single american commentator in the comments of this blog desire to poison the well with each and each comment saying nothing and in shallow polemism, but this wont work. no one who reads this cares about your western military consensus bs.
ReplyDeletealso, no one cares about us/american censored/poisoned, military data. "apparently", there are more than 800 americans dead in the gulf states.
Delete