In a new escalation phase, everything seems to be entering the . It continues to hit both the , and American bases in the Gulf countries. At the same time, Hezbollah continues to put up strong resistance to IDF forces.
In fact, for one more night Northern Israel was attacked by Iran and Hezbollah. According to the Lebanese organization, the target was bases maintained by Tel Aviv near the border with Lebanon. The Israeli army said a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon, the fifth to be killed since hostilities resumed.
At the same time, Israel and the US launched new strikes against Tehran.
US prepares for ‘weeks’ of ground operations in Iran
The US Pentagon is making preparations for weeks-long ground operations in Iran, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing unnamed US government sources, as Washington begins to build up its ground forces in the Middle East.
These operations are not planned to be a full-scale ground invasion of Iran, at least according to the newspaper’s sources, but raids on Iranian soil by members of special forces and other, conventional units.
This information comes to light at a time when US forces in the Middle East have been strengthened with the arrival in the area of the USS Tripoli ship, which was announced yesterday by the US military.
The helicopter-carrier (capable of carrying twenty F-35s, capable of vertical landings) and landing craft has been put in charge of a strike group with “approximately 3,500” Navy and Marine personnel, according to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for the Middle East region (CENTCOM, “Central Command”).
The arrival of this vessel in the CENTCOM area of responsibility was announced against the background of the statement of the head of the US diplomacy Marco Rubio last Friday that the US may have achieved the objectives of the war in Iran within a few “weeks” and without the need to deploy ground units in the field.
However, for weeks US President Donald Trump has maintained an ambivalent attitude about the possibility of ordering ground operations, and American media reports in recent days that the possibility of sending at least 10,000 more troops to the Middle East is being considered in the near future.
Iran threatens to hit US universities in the Middle East
The Revolutionary Guards have threatened to target American universities in the Middle East, citing the destruction of two Iranian universities in US and Israeli airstrikes.
“If the US government wants its universities in the region not to suffer reprisals (…) it must condemn the bombing of the universities with its official statement by noon on Monday, March 30,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement quoted by Iranian media.
The Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic’s ideological army, advised “employees, faculty and students of American universities in the region to move one kilometer away” from campuses because the latter could become targets.
Several American universities have campuses in the Gulf states, for example Texas A&M, in Qatar, or NYU (New York University), in the United Arab Emirates.
