The Rest of the World Report | Tuesday, March 10, 2026
War in Iran - Day 11 Morning Edition
Before we get into the news of the day I want to get something out to all of you - I know I said this in the first RotWR, but considering story #3 on today’s report it bares repeating for accountability: these stories are all aggregated with the use of AI. Specifically, RotWR is built on Claude. The same AI model that is embedded in Maven Smart System and is central to this story is the one generating this newsletter. The tool has no knowledge of how it's being used elsewhere, has no say in its deployment, and Anthropic's own CEO drew a public line that the Pentagon then stepped over anyway.
Twice-daily briefings on the US-Israel-Iran war for Americans who want the full picture. Sourced exclusively from international and independent press.
THE NUMBERS (as of 6:00 AM Eastern)
Iran killed 1,300+ (Iranian Red Crescent; war entered Day 11 with overnight strikes described as “most intense yet”)
Iran injured ~10,000 (Iranian Health Ministry)
Lebanon killed 486+ (Lebanese Health Ministry — up from 394 yesterday; 700,000+ displaced)
Israel killed 14 civilians + 2 soldiers; 2,000+ injured; 3,000+ displaced
US KIA 8 confirmed (8th announced Tuesday by Al Jazeera tracker — 24 hours after Sgt. Pennington became 7th)
Gulf states killed 14+ across Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE
Brent crude Briefly $119.50 Monday → fell to ~$90 on SPR rumors → settling ~$100–108 as of Tuesday AM
US gas prices Approaching $4/gallon nationally, up ~14% in one week
Strait of Hormuz De facto closed to non-Chinese/non-Iranian commercial traffic (Bloomberg, Putin’s own words)
STORY 1: “IRAN WILL DETERMINE THE END OF THE WAR”
The IRGC answers Trump — and raises the stakes
Overnight, Iran’s IRGC spokesman Maj. Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini fired back at Trump’s Monday press conference with a statement that should be headlining every newscast in America: Iran, not the United States, will decide when this war ends.
“The armed forces of the Islamic Republic are awaiting the US naval fleet in the Strait of Hormuz — and are waiting for the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford,” Naeini said, per Iranian state media (Al Jazeera, CNN). He claimed US warships have already retreated to more than 1,000 kilometers from the strait to avoid Iranian missiles and drones.
That was paired with an escalatory threat from IRGC Brigadier General Majid Mousavi, posted directly to X: from now on, the IRGC would fire no missile with a warhead lighter than one tonne. For context — the missiles Iran has been firing throughout this war carry warheads in the 500–700kg range. A one-tonne warhead is a different category of weapon entirely.
The IRGC also rejected Trump’s central claim that Iran’s missile program has been destroyed: “We are deploying projectiles in greater numbers,” the Corps said (Al Jazeera live blog).
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told PBS NewsHour on Monday that negotiations with the United States would not “be on the table” again. He rejected Trump’s framing of Hormuz as an Iranian closure: “The transportation of oil has been slowed down or stopped not because of us — because of the attacks and aggression made by Israelis and Americans against us.”
For the record: Trump’s Truth Social post Monday night warned Iran it would be hit “TWENTY TIMES HARDER” and face “Death, Fire, and Fury” if it blocked Hormuz — calling the threat “a gift to China.” Hours earlier, he had told reporters the war would be over “very soon.” The IRGC’s response to both messages was the same: no.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The international press — Al Jazeera, CNN, NPR, Times of Israel, i24 — all treated the IRGC Hormuz statement as the lead overnight story. The one-tonne warhead announcement is not a propaganda line; it describes a specific missile upgrade with measurable consequences if carried out. The contrast between Trump’s “almost over” framing and Iran’s “we will determine the end” statement is the central editorial tension of Day 11.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: When the president says the war is “very complete” and Iran fires back with “we decide when it ends,” one of them is wrong. The IRGC still has missiles in the air. They just announced bigger ones are coming. The G7 energy ministers couldn’t agree on an oil reserve release. And Brent crude is still above $100 a barrel. The gap between the White House narrative and the international news feed is widening by the hour.
STORY 2: 40 DEAD IN EASTERN TEHRAN — THE BUILDING THEY COULDN’T IDENTIFY
A residential strike the fire chief described as unlike anything he’d seen
Monday evening, a US-Israeli strike destroyed two residential apartment buildings in Tehran’s Resalat Square in the east of the capital. Each building contained 20 flats. At least 40 people were killed.
The head of the Tehran Fire Department, speaking to semi-official Mehr News Agency, said: “Tens of martyrs have been taken out. Many bodies are still under the rubble, and one body recovered from the building cannot be identified as a woman or a man because it is totally disintegrated.”
The Iranian Red Crescent released video of first responders extricating victims from the debris. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, pledged a “harsh response” to attacks on residential areas. Iran’s total death toll is now reported by Iranian authorities at over 1,255, with about 10,000 injured — including 55 healthcare workers wounded and 11 healthcare workers killed (Al Jazeera tracker).
The Resalat Square strike occurred while pro-Mojtaba rallies were underway across the city. Residents of eastern Tehran told BBC Persian they heard explosions during the Enghelab Square gathering. State TV also reported a blast near a loyalist gathering in Isfahan’s historic Naqsh-e Jahan Square — footage showed people waving flags and chanting as a cloud of smoke rose in the background.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The Resalat Square detail — a fire chief unable to identify whether a body is male or female — appeared in ABC News and Mehr News Agency, and was largely absent from the top of US broadcast news. This is the texture of the war that international correspondents on the ground are reporting and that American primetime is not carrying.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The US government has not confirmed or denied the Resalat Square strike. It has not been attributed to Israeli or US aircraft in any official statement. Iran’s death toll — 1,300+ — is now above the total US combat deaths in the first two years of the Afghanistan war. That context is not in most American headlines.
STORY 3: THE ALGORITHM AND THE SCHOOLGIRLS
Did AI kill the children of Minab? The mechanism is confirmed. The investigation is ongoing. The accountability gap is already a matter of international law.
This is a story ROTWR has been watching since Day 1. It now has enough sourcing to run.
On the morning of February 28, the first day of the war, a missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, a city in southern Iran overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. School was in session. Most of the students were between 7 and 12 years old. A second missile struck minutes later — as first responders and parents were arriving. Iranian authorities put the final death toll at 165 people, the majority of them girls. At least 95 others were wounded.
The US and Israel both initially denied involvement. Subsequent reporting by Reuters, NPR, CBC, and the New York Times — drawing on satellite imagery, munitions analysis, and Pentagon sources — concluded the strike was almost certainly American. Trump said Monday the investigation continues. Six Senate Democrats have formally demanded an accounting.
What the AI targeting system actually does
The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg have all confirmed, citing multiple sources, that the US military used Palantir’s Maven Smart System — with Anthropic’s Claude AI integrated into it — to generate targeting recommendations throughout the Iran campaign. On Day 1 alone, the system produced approximately 1,000 prioritized targets, complete with GPS coordinates, weapons recommendations, and what sources described as automated legal justifications for each strike. This is the first large-scale deployment of generative AI in active US warfighting operations.
Maven synthesizes classified satellite imagery, signals intelligence, communications intercepts, and surveillance feeds in near real time. A top Pentagon official told Fortune magazine the system had become so “deeply embedded” that losing access to it mid-war would represent a genuine operational risk — which is why, despite Trump banning Anthropic products from federal use just hours before the war started, Claude remained in use throughout.
The mechanism that likely killed the children
The building housing the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was originally constructed within an IRGC naval compound. Satellite imagery confirms it was walled off from the compound between 2013 and 2016. Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigations Unit found it had operated as “a clearly defined civilian institution for more than 10 years.” The Guardian found no indication it served any military purpose. A medical clinic and pharmacy occupied the adjacent buildings.
Multiple independent analysts — including a detailed reconstruction published by Robots4theRestofUs Substack, cited by Futurism, and examined by the European Journal of International Law (EJIL Talk) — have identified the most probable failure mechanism: the building’s database entry was never updated. In US and Israeli military targeting databases, the coordinates were still tagged as part of an IRGC compound. The AI queried that stale metadata, classified the location as a legitimate military target, generated a strike recommendation, and a human reviewer had seconds — not minutes — to catch the error before authorization.
An AI researcher’s reconstruction, circulated widely and cited in multiple outlets: “Human analysts looking at a 2026 satellite image would clearly see the wall and the distinct school structure — playground, civilian layout. An AI system, however, often relies on tagged metadata in a database. If the database entry for that coordinate was never manually updated to say ‘School,’ the AI continues to treat it as ‘Military Asset’ indefinitely.”
The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi noted on X that Israel also bombed Tehran’s “Police Park” — a public park with no police function — apparently because the word “police” appeared in its name in a database. The same pattern: keyword match, no visual verification, strike authorized.
The “rubber stamp” problem
This is the part that has international law scholars alarmed. In a mass strike operation — 1,000 targets on Day 1 — human reviewers cannot meaningfully evaluate each recommendation. One Israeli intelligence officer, speaking about the Lavender AI system used in Gaza (the direct predecessor to the Iran targeting architecture), told +972 Magazine: “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day.” The system’s outputs were treated, in that officer’s words, “as if it were a human decision.”
Professor Marko Milanovic of the University of Reading, writing in EJIL Talk, laid out the accountability gap directly: under current international law, negligence-based prosecution of individual soldiers is nearly impossible, and AI involvement doesn’t change that. There is, as he put it, “no political appetite at the international level to change the current framework.” The children of Minab fall into a legal void — too many decision points, too little individual culpability, too fast a process to prosecute.
The Anthropic contradiction
Anthropic, the company whose Claude model is embedded in Maven, had refused Pentagon demands for “unrestricted use” — specifically objecting to mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. CEO Dario Amodei said Anthropic “cannot in good conscience” accept those terms. Hours before the war started, Trump signed an order banning Anthropic products from federal use and declaring the company a “supply chain risk.” The Pentagon was given six months to find a replacement.
Claude was used throughout anyway. It is still being used now. OpenAI subsequently accepted the “all lawful purposes” contract language Anthropic refused. A senior OpenAI robotics engineer resigned in protest the same week.
The Asia Times summarized the Gaza-to-Iran pipeline concisely: “Gaza was the prototype. Iran is the launch.”
Sources: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, NPR, CBC, New York Times, Al Jazeera Digital Investigations Unit, EJIL Talk (Prof. Marko Milanovic), Robots4theRestofUs, Futurism, Responsible Statecraft, Asia Times, Fortune, +972 Magazine, Quincy Institute, Anadolu Agency.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The AI targeting angle has been covered extensively in international technology and legal press, and has been largely absent from US primetime news, which has framed the Minab story primarily as a Trump-vs-Iran blame dispute. The international legal and technology community has moved past the “who fired the missile” question to the harder one: when a machine selects a target and a human has 20 seconds to review it, who is responsible for the dead children?
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The US military used AI — specifically an AI you may have heard of, built by a San Francisco company currently in a public dispute with the Pentagon — to generate 1,000 strike targets on the first day of this war. The same system almost certainly flagged a girls’ school as a military compound because a database hadn’t been updated in a decade. A human reviewer had seconds to catch it. They didn’t. One hundred and sixty-five people died. The investigation is ongoing. No one has been charged. Under current international law, no one likely will be.
STORY 4: THE MOJTABA PARADOX — HOW TRUMP’S CRITICISM MADE HIM SUPREME LEADER
International analysts say US pressure backfired — and created a more dangerous outcome
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied Monday in support of Mojtaba Khamenei across Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz, Qom and at least seven other cities. The IRGC was among the first to pledge allegiance, saying its forces are prepared to “fully obey and sacrifice for the divine commands” of the new leader.
But the international analysis of how Mojtaba got the job is more revealing than the job itself.
The Christian Science Monitor spoke to Dr. Sanam Vakil of Chatham House: Trump’s public attacks on Mojtaba — calling him a “lightweight” and insisting the US should have a say in the selection — almost certainly helped Mojtaba’s cause. “I did not think he was a real candidate until his father was killed in this way,” Vakil told the Monitor. His selection “was a vote of defiance, to spite Trump and showcase that the ruling system has resolve and will not bend the knee.”
Amwaj.media, citing a senior Iranian political insider, reported that the push for Mojtaba was reportedly “against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s written will” — and that Trump’s statements gave hardliners within the IRGC the ammunition they needed to push their candidate through.
The result: an IRGC-aligned supreme leader whose wife, mother, and other family members were killed in US-Israeli strikes — someone analysts at Chatham House and CS Monitor describe as potentially “vengeful and confrontational,” bent on consolidating hardline power. One IRGC commander has already stated Iran can sustain “considerable attacks for at least six months.”
Meanwhile, online in Iran itself — away from the state-organized rallies — a different picture was emerging. Videos circulated Monday showing Tehran residents chanting “Death to Mojtaba” from balconies, echoing the anti-regime chants of January’s protests when thousands were killed. The internet blackout remains in place on Day 11.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The Chatham House / CS Monitor analysis of the Trump-as-kingmaker dynamic is the story Western commentary is almost entirely missing. The US president’s public interference in Iran’s succession — demanding a say, calling the chosen candidate a lightweight — appears to have actively produced the worst-case outcome from Washington’s own strategic perspective.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The US went to war partly to change Iran’s leadership. The new leader is the son of the man who was killed, is closer to the IRGC than his father was, lost family members in US strikes, and was arguably boosted into power by Trump’s own statements. That is not a successful regime-change operation. That is the opposite of one.
WATCH LIST — Day 11 Morning
G7 energy ministers meeting today: Finance ministers said “not there yet” on oil reserves Monday. Energy ministers hold a virtual follow-up Tuesday. The US wants a 300–400 million barrel coordinated release. Sources indicate talks are “positive.” Any announcement would move markets immediately. (CNBC, Euronews, Reuters)
IRGC 1-tonne warhead threat: Brig. Gen. Mousavi’s announcement is unverified in practice — no confirmed launch yet. If it materializes, it represents a qualitative escalation. Watch for CENTCOM response.
8th US soldier confirmed: Al Jazeera’s tracker confirmed an eighth US service member killed Tuesday. Pentagon has not yet released identity or circumstances.
Iran cluster warhead, Yehud: An Iranian missile carrying a cluster warhead struck multiple sites in Yehud, central Israel, killing two civilians — the first use of cluster munitions confirmed in the conflict, per AJC. Total Israeli civilian death toll now 14; 2,000+ wounded.
Hezbollah ceasefire feelers: JFeed (Israeli outlet) reported Monday that Hezbollah leadership had “initiated secret feelers for ceasefire negotiation.” Unconfirmed and sourced to a single Israeli outlet. Watching for second source before elevating.
Trump-Putin readout: The Kremlin described Monday’s call as “frank and businesslike,” lasting about one hour. Putin said Russia is ready to help end the Ukraine war and positioned Moscow as a potential Iran mediator. Putin also congratulated Mojtaba Khamenei and pledged Russia’s “unwavering support” for Tehran — doing both within the same 24 hours. (PBS, Ukrainska Pravda, CNBC)
Iran FM: talks off the table: Araghchi told PBS NewsHour Monday that negotiations with the US would not be “on the table.” Worth watching to see if this hardens into official policy.
Arak residential strike: ISNA reported a US-Israeli strike on a residential building in Arak, western Iran, killing 5 and injuring several others. Not yet confirmed by second source — on watch list.
THE REST OF THE WORLD REPORT publishes every morning and evening. Every source labeled. Every story translated for American readers. Sources today: Al Jazeera, NPR, ABC News, CNN, BBC Persian, The National (UAE), OSV News, AFP wire, Arab News, L’Orient-Le Jour, Newsweek, Christian Science Monitor, Chatham House/Dr. Sanam Vakil, CNBC, Euronews, PBS NewsHour, Times of Israel, i24NEWS, Haaretz, Amwaj.media, Mehr News Agency, Iranian Red Crescent, Lebanese Health Ministry, Vatican News.
ROTWR DAY 11 MORNING — CHEATSHEET WITH LINKS
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
NUMBERS
- Iran dead: 1,300+ | Injured: ~10,000 | Healthcare workers killed: 11
→ AJ Death Tracker: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/us-israel-attacks-on-iran-death-toll-and-injuries-live-tracker
- Lebanon dead: 486+ (up from 394 yesterday) | Displaced: 700,000+
→ Newsweek live: https://www.newsweek.com/oil-price-surges-after-iran-names-leader-and-launches-more-strikes-live-updates-11642957
- Israel dead: 14 civilians + 2 soldiers | Injured: 2,000+ | cluster warhead used in Yehud (first confirmed)
→ AJC tracker: https://www.ajc.org/news/the-iran-strikes-explained-how-we-got-here-and-what-it-means
- US KIA: 8 confirmed (8th announced Tuesday AM per AJ tracker, above)
- Brent crude: $119.50 peak Mon → ~$100–108 Tuesday AM
→ CNBC oil: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/10/crude-oil-prices-today-iran-war.html
- Hormuz de facto closed
→ Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-08/latest-oil-market-news-and-analysis-for-march-9
- US gas ~$4/gallon, +14% in one week
→ Euronews G7/oil: https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/03/09/g7-not-there-yet-on-releasing-oil-reserves-as-iran-war-drives-price-surge
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STORY 1 — IRGC: “WE DETERMINE THE END”
- IRGC spokesman Naeini: forces awaiting US fleet in Hormuz; claims Gerald Ford retreated 1,000km
→ CNN Day 10 live: https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/iran-war-us-israel-trump-03-09-26
- IRGC Brig. Gen. Mousavi on X: “No missile with warhead lighter than 1 tonne from now on”
→ Al Jazeera Day 11 live: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/3/10/iran-war-live-trump-says-conflict-will-be-over-soon-40-killed-in-tehran
- IRGC: “Deploying in GREATER numbers” — directly refutes Trump’s “destroyed” claim (above)
- Iran FM Araghchi: talks “not on the table” again
→ PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-war-in-iran-has-entered-a-second-week-heres-where-things-stand
→ NPR Day 11: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/10/nx-s1-5742828/iran-war-us-trump
- Trump Truth Social: “TWENTY TIMES HARDER” / “Death, Fire and Fury” if Hormuz blocked
→ Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/death-fire-and-fury-trump-threatens-iran-with-unprecedented-force-if-it-blocks-oil-flow-through-strait-of-hormuz/
→ i24NEWS: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/iran-eastern-states/artc-trump-if-iran-blocks-strait-of-hormuz-they-will-be-hit-20x-harder-live-blog
→ Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-03-09/ty-article-live/u-s-servicemember-dies-of-wounds-bringing-total-killed-to-7-centcom-says/0000019c-cf7a-d8f8-a9de-fffbff0b0000
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STORY 2 — 40 DEAD IN EASTERN TEHRAN
- Two residential buildings destroyed, Resalat Square, eastern Tehran (20 flats each, 40+ killed)
→ ABC News live: https://abcnews.com/International/live-updates/iran-live-updates/?id=130893022
- Fire chief quote via Mehr News: “One body cannot be identified as a woman or a man because it is totally disintegrated” (above)
- Strikes occurred DURING pro-Mojtaba rallies; explosion near Naqsh-e Jahan Square Isfahan during rally
→ BBC Persian via Kahawatungu: https://kahawatungu.com/strikes-shake-iran-cities-as-crowds-rally-in-support-of-mojtaba-khamenei/
- Parliament speaker Ghalibaf pledged “harsh response”
→ AJ Day 11 what we know: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/10/iran-war-what-is-happening-on-day-11-of-us-israel-attacks
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STORY 3 — THE ALGORITHM AND THE SCHOOLGIRLS
THE SYSTEM — PRIMARY SOURCES:
- Washington Post (paywall — use RS summary below):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/04/anthropic-ai-iran-campaign/
- Responsible Statecraft full breakdown (FREE — best single source):
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ai-war-iran/
- Anadolu Agency summary (FREE):
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-used-ai-powered-system-to-identify-targets-in-iran-report/3851248
- Fortune — Pentagon “whoa moment” / Emil Michael quote:
https://fortune.com/2026/03/07/pentagon-emil-michael-anthropic-claude-defense-ai-openai-iran-war-palantir/
- Futurism — ban contradiction (banned but still deployed):
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ban-anthropic-military-pentagon-relying-iran
- WSWS — full Claude/Maven breakdown + 1,000 targets Day 1:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/03/05/jxos-m05.html
- Commonweal Magazine — ethics / first AI war framing:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/slattery-ai-artificial-intelligence-war-iran-trump
THE MINAB MECHANISM:
- Wikipedia Minab school airstrike (good overview/timeline):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_airstrike
- Al Jazeera Digital Investigations Unit (satellite imagery, 10-year civilian use confirmed):
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/questions-over-minab-girls-school-strike-as-israel-us-deny-involvement
- Robots4theRestofUs Substack (stale database / rubber stamp reconstruction — best analysis):
- Futurism / Pentagon refuses to confirm AI used:
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/pentagon-ai-claude-bombing-elementary-school
- Philadelphia Inquirer / Will Bunch (names of children + AI context):
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran-girls-school-bombing-ai-20260308.html
- This Week in Worcester (DoJ anonymous source — AI error exclusive):
https://thisweekinworcester.com/exclusive-ai-error-girls-school-bombing/
LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITY GAP:
- EJIL Talk / Prof. Marko Milanovic, University of Reading (peer-reviewed intl law analysis):
https://www.ejiltalk.org/ai-and-the-commission-and-facilitation-of-international-crimes-on-accountability-gaps-and-the-minab-school-strike/
GAZA LINEAGE / AI WARFARE CONTEXT:
- Asia Times (”Gaza prototype, Iran launch” + Lavender/Gospel overview):
https://asiatimes.com/2026/03/israel-unleashes-its-gaza-tested-ai-killing-machine-on-iran/
- Tehran Times (Police Park example / algorithm targets civilians):
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/524548/How-the-US-and-Israel-are-using-AI-to-automate-mass-murder-in
- Fortune / Anthropic-OpenAI feud and safety theater:
https://fortune.com/2026/03/05/anthropic-openai-feud-pentagon-dispute-ai-safety-dilemma-personalities/
KEY QUOTE (social/pull quote):
“I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day.”
— Israeli intelligence officer on Lavender AI system, +972 Magazine (via Asia Times above)
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STORY 4 — THE MOJTABA PARADOX
- Hundreds of thousands rallied across Iran Monday; IRGC pledged full allegiance
→ Al Jazeera continuity story: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/irans-authorities-showcase-continuity-as-they-back-new-leader-during-war
- IRGC commander: Iran can sustain “considerable attacks for at least 6 months” (above)
- Dr. Sanam Vakil / Chatham House: Trump’s attacks on Mojtaba “almost certainly helped his cause”; “I did not think he was a real candidate until his father was killed in this way”
→ CS Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2026/0309/iran-war-ayatollah-khamenei-supreme-leader-succession
- Amwaj.media: push reportedly “against Ali Khamenei’s written will”; IRGC hardliners used Trump’s words as ammunition (CS Monitor above)
- “Death to Mojtaba” chants from Tehran balconies (social media, unverifiable but widely reported)
→ Kahawatungu: https://kahawatungu.com/strikes-shake-iran-cities-as-crowds-rally-in-support-of-mojtaba-khamenei/
- World reaction to appointment
→ Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/world-reacts-to-appointment-of-mojtaba-khamenei-as-irans-supreme-leader
---
WATCH LIST LINKS
- G7 energy ministers meeting TODAY (Tuesday) — talks “positive,” US wants 300-400M barrel release
→ CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/10/crude-oil-prices-today-iran-war.html
→ Euronews: https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/03/09/g7-not-there-yet-on-releasing-oil-reserves-as-iran-war-drives-price-surge
- Trump-Putin call
→ PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-has-call-with-putin-to-discuss-iran-war-kremlin-says
→ Ukrainska Pravda: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/03/09/8024693/
→ SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3346023/trump-and-putin-discuss-quick-ending-iran-war
- Father Pierre al-Rahi, Maronite priest killed by Israeli tank fire, Qlayaa (MOVED TO EVENING)
→ The National UAE: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/03/09/israeli-strike-kills-priest-as-war-with-hezbollah-spreads-in-south-lebanon/
→ OSV News: https://www.osvnews.com/lebanese-maronite-catholic-priest-killed-by-israeli-tank-fire-in-southern-lebanon/
→ Arab News: https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5249260-israeli-fire-kills-priest-south-lebanons-qlayaa
- Al Jazeera Day 11 live (all breaking)
→ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/3/10/iran-war-live-trump-says-conflict-will-be-over-soon-40-killed-in-tehran
- Britannica conflict tracker (context/overview)
→ https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iran-Conflict
We'd. March 11, 2026
12:18 AM USA TIME
TIME
word on substack is Netanyahu and leader of Mossad have been killed. Any verification in Paris. US as of last night still being told nothing, except Trump again saying how great he is
is
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