AP News52%
Live updates: US deploys thousands more troops to the war as Iran threatens world tourism sites 9%
By Brian P. D. Hannon0% Sylvia Hui0% Luena Rodriguez-Feo Vileira8% Michael Warren8%
3/20/2026, 4:22:02 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Appeal to Emotion, and Quote-first Misdirection, with Self-Serving Bias as the most egregious example at 8.7% saturation with 393 hits. Analysis detected 1,708 faulty-reasoning hits from 4,542 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 25.6% and a BS Rank of 9% (15,409 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 91.60% of the article peer group.
Major developments we’re following:
A U.S. official confirmed that three more warships and roughly 2,500 more Marines are bound for the Middle East, where the U.S. military says it has about 50,000 troops.
The Pentagon’s request for another $200 billion to fund the war would need congressional approval as the U.S. national debt hits a record $39 trillion.
On one of the holiest days on the Islamic calendar, Iran fired on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states, insisting that it can still build missiles and issuing a new threat, to deny safety to its enemies in “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide.
Israel, meanwhile, pounded Tehran with airstrikes as Iranians marked Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Iran no longer has the ability to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles.
U.S. leaders said weeks of U.S. strikes have decimated Iran’s military.
Little information has come from Iran about damage to its weapons and energy facilities since the war began nearly three weeks ago.
Netanyahu said Israel will refrain from any further attacks on the Iranian gas field, at the request of U.S.
President Donald Trump.
Iran responded to Israel’s attack on the field, which Iranians depend on for their electricity, by intensifying targeting of energy infrastructure in other Middle East countries, sending oil and gas prices soaring.
More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the war.
Israeli airstrikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million, according to the Lebanese government.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire.
At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
Four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank were killed Wednesday as Israel and Iran exchanged airstrikes.
Britain’s top diplomat says the U.K. is involved only in defensive action, after Iran’s foreign minister said the U.S. use of British bases to attack Iran amounted to “participation in aggression.”
The British government says Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that “the defensive U.K. operations in the region were a response to the Iranian aggression against Gulf partners.”
In a call on Thursday she warned Iran against targeting British bases, territory or interests directly, and made clear that the U.K. wants to see a swift resolution.
One after another, Israel has taken out Iran’s top leaders.
First it was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the opening shots of the war.
Then fell Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security
Council, who was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country, has also been killed.
As have a raft of other top-ranking military and political leaders.
With so many top leadership figures taken out, who is now running Iran?
Here is a look at the country’s power structure, what is known — and what is not.
▶ Read more
The war in Iran is exposing the world’s reliance on fragile fossil fuel routes, lending urgency to calls for hastening the shift to renewable energy.
Fighting has all but halted oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, or LNG.
The disruption has jolted energy markets, pushing up prices and straining import-dependent economies.
Asia, where most of the oil was headed, has been hit hardest, but the disruptions also are a strain for Europe, where policymakers are looking for ways to cut energy demand, and for Africa, which is bracing for rising fuel costs and inflation.
Unlike during previous oil shocks, renewable power is now competitive with fossil fuels in many places.
More than 90% of new renewable power projects worldwide in 2024 were cheaper than fossil-fuel alternatives, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The images are providing a glimpse of the toll of the Iran war, with ships ablaze in an Iranian port and destroyed buildings at an American base.
Information about the damage being done across the Middle East, particularly when it’s inside military bases, has been scarce.
These images come from Planet Labs PBC.
The San Francisco-based firm is releasing them with two-week delays.
Some show ships ablaze on March 2 in a major Iranian military port in Bandar Abbas, along the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S.
Central Command says it has sunk or damaged more than 100 Iranian vessels so far.
More images, from March 6, show damage to buildings at the Parchin military base outside Iran’s capital.
Israel’s military said its Parchin strikes hit “infrastructure used for the production of essential components for the development of various weapons.”
The site has been linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program as well.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Friday that an Israeli force is trying to push into the Lebanese border area of Labbouneh near the coastal town of Naqoura.
The agency said the advancing Israeli force is being confronted by Hezbollah fighters.
Georgia has become the the first U.S. state to suspend fuel taxes as pump prices soar due to war in the Middle East.
The average gas price nationwide has risen from $2.93 a gallon on Feb. 20 to $3.91 today, motorist group AAA says.
Republican Gov.
Brian Kemp signed into law Friday a 60-day suspension of the state’s 33-cents-per-gallon tax on gas and 37-cents-per-gallon tax on diesel.
That’s $5 or $6 per tank for a typical passenger vehicle, and could mean forgoing $360 million to $400 million fuel taxes.
Other states aren’t moving in the same direction.
Florida Republican Gov.
Ron DeSantis said Thursday he won’t suspend that state’s taxes.
A leading Maryland Democrat on Friday rejected a GOP-supported gas tax holiday there.
Defense Ministry spokesman Col.
Saud al-Atwan said that the country’s air defenses also shot down 15 of 25 more drones fired into Kuwait.
Two of the drones exploded in an oil refinery, igniting a fire that was later extinguished, and there were no casualties, Al-Atwan said.
Al-Atwan said eight other drones exploded in open areas without causing any danger.
He said the missile and the drones were fired into Kuwait over the past 24 hours.
Israeli Police officers scaled the ramparts of Jerusalem’s Old City to inspect a public playground for missile fragments.
The playground was just below the site where debris from an intercepted Iranian missile careened onto the walled city’s southern flank.
The debris landed Friday in the Jewish quarter, less than 500 meters from The Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, and Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
It struck just above Dung Gate, one of seven functional entrances into the Old City.
It came as residents were entering Shabbat, disrupting preparations with a loud bang.
After the hit, soldiers swatted away crowds of ultra-Orthodox children craning their necks to see the damage.
Up a limestone passageway, an Armenian man quietly swept up shards of glass blown out from his window.
The president mentioned the war as he presented the Commander in Chief trophy to the Navy football team for beating Army during their 2025 game.
Without providing details, he said “We’re doing extremely well.”
Trump said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen.
Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, weren’t at the ceremony because they were in the White House Situation Room.
As the event unfolded, an official told The Associated Press that the U.S. was deploying three more warships, consisting of roughly 2,500 more Marines, to the Middle East, as the war in Iran continues.
Concluding his remarks, Trump said he’d lead the team on a tour of the Oval Office.
“Using the war with Iran as a pretext, they closed our first Qibla, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to worship,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, speaking to citizens during an Eid al Fitr celebration in the northeastern city of Rize.
“They have accelerated their illegal settlement activities and expansionist policies in the West Bank and in Palestinian territories they occupied,” he said.
“Terror by Netanyahu continues to threaten regional and global peace.
The Iran-centered attacks launched on February 28th, with provocations by Netanyahu, have further deepened instability in our region.”
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned strikes launched Friday by Israel on military infrastructure in southern Syria.
Israel had said it was acting to protect members of the Druze minority after attacks by government forces.
The foreign ministry said Israel was acting on “flimsy pretexts and fabricated excuses” in a “continuation of its policy of interference in internal affairs with the aim of destabilizing security and stability in the region.”
No casualties were reported from the strikes.
In recent days, there have been scattered clashes between Druze groups in Sweida province and Syrian government forces.
Last year, armed groups affiliated with Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri clashed with local Bedouin clans, spurring intervention by government forces, which effectively sided with the Bedouins.
Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters.
Since then, a group of the militias banded together under al-Hijri, creating a de facto autonomous area in large swaths of the province, with backing from Israel.
A British naval expert says it’s “fanciful” to try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while fighting still rages.
Trump has criticized other countries for failing to send naval ships to unblock the key oil route, which has been effectively shut by Iran.
But Retired Royal Navy Commodore Steve Prest said Friday that “the idea that you could force the strait, even with significant warships and firepower, against a determined enemy … is fanciful.”
Prest, an associate fellow at defense think-tank RUSI, said it’s necessary to degrade Iran’s ability to use missiles, drones, attack craft and mines “to bring the risks down to a tolerable level, even before you start sending warships through the strait.”
To restore shipping, “you have to come to a ceasefire.
The fighting has to stop and then you can create the necessary conditions of security,” he said.
NATO has pulled its security advisory mission out of Iraq and relocated several hundred personnel involved in the effort to Europe.
The move came after a series of attacks from Iran on other troops at British, French and Italian bases in northern Iraq.
NATO’s top commander, Gen.
Alexus Grynkewich, confirmed that the last troops left on Friday.
He thanked the government of Iraq and allies who helped to safely relocate them, as well as the troops involved, calling them “true professionals.”
The non-combat mission was launched in 2018 to advise Iraq’s national security chief, ministries of defense and interior, and police on how to develop and build effective institutions and forces.
It has worked mostly around Baghdad.
The mission will now be run from NATO’s headquarters in Naples, Italy.
A strike hit near Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, close to the hilltop compound home to religious sites revered by Jews and Muslims, marking the danger facing holy sites.
Israel’s military said it was Iranian missile fragments that smashed into a gate on a path toward the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock compound, less than 500 meters away.
The wall and hilltop compound is where Jews believe the ancient biblical temples once stood and Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Shrapnel also fell nearby on Monday.
Asked about Trump’s plans for the additional troops, and reports that the administration is considering plans to occupy or blockade Kharg Island, a White House official said that Trump has said he has “no plans” to send troops into Iran, but retains all options and does not broadcast his military strategy.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the U.S. military could “take out Kharg Island at any time.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians’ steadfastness in the face of war, saying that U.S. and Israeli attacks were based on an illusion that by killing top leaders they could cause the overthrow of the government.
Khamenei’s written statement marking the Persian New Year, Nowruz, was read on Iranian television.
He commended Iranians for “building a nationwide defensive front and strongholds across cities, neighborhoods, and mosques, delivering such a bewildering blow that the enemy fell into contradictions and irrational statements.”
Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader following the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war.
The United States and Australia’s political tug of war against Iran over the fates of seven members of the Iranian women’s soccer squad appears to have ended with the depleted team returning home, minus the two players who defected last week.
Critics now say politics trumped concern for the women’s best interests as the drama played out.
The evidence is that of seven Iranian women who initially accepted asylum in Australia, five changed their minds within days and returned to the team for reasons undisclosed.
Iranian media showed them wearing head coverings as they signed soccer balls Thursday during a welcome home ceremony in Tehran.
“We ended up with an outcome that is certainly far from ideal,” said Graham Thom, advocacy coordinator for the Refugee Council of Australia, a nonprofit umbrella organization representing asylum-seekers.
“Hopefully the two who are remaining get the protection they need, but we just hope that those who have returned are also safe.”
Hezbollah’s statement on Friday came a day after authorities in the oil-rich country said they dismantled a “terrorist network” working undercover.
UAE state media reported that authorities detained members of an Iran-backed network involved in money laundering and financing terrorism.
Hezbollah called the allegations a “baseless” attempt to harm its image, and said it has no presence in the Emirates.
Earlier Friday, Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry condemned “the terrorist plot targeting the United Arab Emirates.”
The statement noted that the Lebanese government declared on March 2 that all military and security activities by Hezbollah are illegal.
Ukrainian officials are helping five Middle Eastern and Gulf countries counter attacks by Iranian drones, while the United States and European countries have requested support, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.
Ukraine is also looking into whether it can have a role in restoring security in the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran war, he said.
Ukraine has become a leading producer of cutting-edge, battle-tested drone interceptors that are cheap and effective in defending against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A Ukrainian official said Ukrainian military specialists are operating in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan.
“Our teams are already working with five countries on countering (Iran’s) ‘Shahed’ drones — we have provided expert assessments and are helping build a defense system,” Zelenskyy said on X.
The news comes just days after the U.S. military redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying Marines from the Pacific to the Middle East.
Last week, U.S. officials also confirmed that the Japan-based USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit have been ordered to the Middle East — shifting them from exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan.
Earlier this week, the USS Tripoli and another amphibious assault ship, the USS New Orleans, were spotted sailing west of Malaysia on publicly available satellite imagery.
The pair of Marine Expeditionary Units will add about 5,000 Marines and thousands of sailors to the region where the U.S. is engaged in a war with Iran.
The U.S. military says it has about 50,000 troops in the region.
One U.S. official confirmed that the USS Boxer and two other amphibious assault ships, along with roughly 2,500 Marines of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are bound for the Middle East from their home port of San Diego.
Two other U.S. officials confirmed that the ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed.
All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
They’re slipping under the weight of another rise for yields in the bond market, which makes borrowing more expensive for U.S. companies and households, slowing the economy and grinding down all kinds of investments.
Treasury yields have climbed as the war with Iran threatens a long-term spike in oil and natural gas prices.
Worries have gotten so high that traders have canceled bets that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates multiple times this year, and some are even seeing a slight possibility of a rate hike in 2026, a nearly unthinkable scenario before the war began.
Lower interest rates would give the economy and investment prices a boost, and Trump has angrily called for them, but they risk worsening inflation.
Markets outside of Wall Street held up better following their wipeout on Thursday as oil prices pulled back Friday to $108.29 for a barrel of Brent crude.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group says it fired salvos of rockets and drones that struck Israeli military positions and towns and villages including Kiryat Shemona, Hanita, Avivim, Ramot Naftali and Shlomi.
The Iran-backed group’s statement Friday also said that its fighters attacked a group of Israeli soldiers inside the Lebanese town of Khiam, the scene of intense fighting over the past days.
The president said in a social media post Friday morning that, “NATO IS A PAPER TIGER!”
He also claimed that “that fight is Militarily WON” and that NATO members are complaining about high oil prices but don’t want to help open the strait.
“We will REMEMBER!”
he said.
The deployment of the Charles de Gaulle to the Mediterranean to help protect French and allied assets during the Iran war isn’t secret — reporters were briefed by video link from aboard the nuclear-powered 42,000-ton behemoth, which is also visible from space.
Still, the French newspaper Le Monde caused a stir by spotting a naval officer using the Strava exercise app, which narrowed its search for the satellite image taken that same day.
French military spokesman Col.
Guillaume Vernet told The Associated Press that sailors are warned about the security risks of using apps while deployed.
“Appropriate measures are being taken by the command,” he said.
Israel’s military said Friday that earlier this week the air force killed Esmail Ahmadi in a strike that hit the leadership of the Basij Force in Tehran.
The military said Ahmadi was the head of the intelligence division and played a central role in carrying out attacks and suppressing civilian protests.
Iran’s top military spokesman warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies.
Gen.
Abolfazl Shekarchi made the threat as Iran continues to be hit by American and Israeli airstrikes.
It renews a concern held by analysts as the war goes on — that Iran could revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic in the war.
“From now on, based on the information we have about you, even parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations anywhere in the world will no longer be safe for you,” Shekarchi said in a statement published online by Iranian state television.
At least two people were injured after a missile struck in central Israel on Friday, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency medical response team.
The two, who are around 70 years old, were in “mild condition” with suspected blast injuries, it said.
In the streets of Israel’s coastal city of Haifa, some Israelis are wary that there might not be a strategy in place to end the war with Iran.
“We just don’t see the end, we don’t see where this is leading,” said Harry Goldstein, a resident from Haifa.
While some Israelis feel relatively safe, even among a barrage of attacks launched from Iran toward the country, others worry that even shrapnel and debris falling onto their cities may cause extensive damage.
Some Israelis say they believe their country and the U.S. should press on until they bring an end to Iran’s theocracy.
“Dear Trump, I really hope something comes out of this war, that it topples the regime, finishes them off, and truly, there’s no one like you,” said Vered Turgeman from Haifa.
The army did not give more details in its statement Friday.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned the Syrian government against using the Middle East war as a cover to harm Syria’s Druze community, after Israel’s military said Friday it has struck sites in the Sweida area in response to what it said were attacks against the Druze.
There was no immediate word on casualties and Syrian state media has not commented or reported on the Israeli strikes.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the strikes took place.
“We will strike with even greater force,” Katz said.
Activist groups in the Druze majority province said that skirmishes have taken place between armed Druze groups and Syrian government forces in the past two days.
Israel’s police and domestic security service say an Israeli who served in the Iron Dome system was arrested on suspicion of committing security offenses involving contact with Iranian intelligence.
The statement, issued on Friday, said Raz Cohen had been in contact with Iranian intelligence for several months and was asked to carry out missions including the transfer of sensitive security information, for which he was paid cash.
It was not clear when he was arrested.
Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said Friday that his government rejected nearly simultaneous requests from Iran and the U.S for military visits two days before the war.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake made the statement to Parliament about the U.S. torpedoing the Iranian warship IRIS Dena, killing at least 84 sailors.
Dissanayake said Iran made a request Feb. 26 for three warships to visit Sri Lanka from March 9-13.
The government was studying the request when the U.S requested permission for two navel aircraft to visit Hambantota airport.
Iranian-linked facilities in Dubai have been closed as the Iran war has seen the United Arab Emirates repeatedly targeted by Iranian fire.
The Iranian Hospital, opened in 1972 under the shah in Dubai, stood closed Friday.
Its website was down and its phone number disconnected.
The hospital, while providing affordable medical care for decades, also had been linked to Iranian intelligence operations in the past, including an incident in which a Dubai police officer allegedly spied for cheaper health care for his daughter.
The Financial Times, which first reported the closure, quoted an anonymous Emirati government official saying institutions “directly linked” to Iran would be closed after being “misused to advance agendas that do not serve the Iranian people and in violation of UAE laws.”
The Emirati government acknowledged the closures in a statement.
“Certain institutions directly linked to the Iranian regime and (Revolutionary Guard) will be closed under targeted measures after being found to have been misused to advance agendas that do not serve the Iranian people, and in violation of UAE laws,” it said.
The Iranian Club in Bur Dubai earlier wrote on Instagram it would close “due to the current circumstances.”
Al Aqsa Mosque compound has closed for Eid prayers for the first time in decades.
The compound in Jerusalem will be closed to worshippers for Friday’s Eid al-Fitr, the holiday on which Muslims mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
The full closure of the holy site marks the first since the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City.
The mosque sits on a hilltop compound that is sacred to Muslims and Jews, who believe it was the site of biblical temples.
Access has been a flashpoint and historically sparked tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel has kept holy sites in the Old City closed to worshippers of all faiths throughout the Iran war citing security, though the restrictions have had the broadest effect on Muslims, tens of thousands who normally come for Friday prayer at Al Aqsa.
The spokesman for paramilitary Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been killed in an airstrike early Friday, Iranian state television reported.
Before his death, Gen.
Ali Mohammad Naeini issued a statement insisting Tehran was still able to build missiles despite the attacks coming from Israel and the United States.
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei called Friday for the enemies of his nations to have their “security” taken away, his latest message to the public.
Khamenei made the remarks in a statement issued on his behalf to President Masoud Pezeshkian after Israel killed Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.
Khamenei hasn’t been seen since he was named as supreme leader, succeeding his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war on Feb.
28.
There have been growing comments from American and Israeli officials that Mojtaba Khamenei was hurt in the war.
The spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard insisted Friday that Tehran was still building missiles, seeking to counter a claim by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it no longer could.
Gen.
Ali Mohammad Naeini made the comments in a report quoted by Iran’s state-run IRAN newspaper.
Referencing how Iranian schools consider a 20 as a perfect score, the general said: “Our missile industry score is 20 and there is no concern in this regard because we are producing missiles even during war conditions, which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling.”
He also said the war would go on.
“These people expect the war to continue until the enemy is completely exhausted,” the general said of the Iranian public.
“This war must end when the shadow of war is lifted from the country.
Fire crews in Kuwait were working to contain a blaze early Friday in one of Mina Al-Ahmadi’s oil refinery units.
The firest resulted from an Iranian drone attack, thee Kuwait fire force said.
There was no immediate information about the extent of damage.
This was the second attack on the refinery by Iranian drones Friday morning.
Kuwait reported new incoming Iranian fire just before noon Friday.
Israel’s army said Friday that missiles were being launched from Iran toward the country.
Loud explosions were then heard in Jerusalem.
Associated Press journalists heard airstrikes targeting Iran’s capital, Tehran, just before noon Friday.
Israel’s military said it detected a new missile attack coming from Iran on Friday morning.
Israel’s military said Friday it struck sites in Syria in response to attacks against the Druze.
The army said it struck infrastructure belonging to Syria in response to attacks on Druze population in Sweida in southern Syria.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency did not immediately acknowledge the attack, which marks the first Israeli attack on Syria as its war with the United States targeting Iran continues.
Israel has a significant Druze population.
Israel previously has intervened in defense of the Druze in Syria, launching dozens of airstrikes on convoys of government fighters and even striking the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in central Damascus.
Mina Al-Ahmadi can process some 730,000 barrels of oil per day.
It is one of three oil refineries in Kuwait, a tiny, oil-rich nation on the Persian Gulf.
The attack Friday comes as Iran increasingly targets energy sites in Gulf Arab states after Israel on Wednesday bombed Iran’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
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