March 7

This article was published by John Gao.

Iran

• US and Israeli forces continued to pound targets in Tehran and Isfahan, with targets in these two Iranian cities stated as being infrastructure of the “terror regime,” according to the Israeli Defense Force.
• Israel attacked Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, with the IDF claiming that it destroyed 16 aircraft used by the IRGC Quds Force. Israel called the aircraft “a threat to Israeli Air Force aircraft operating in Iranian airspace.”

Smoke and fire rising from the Mehrabad airport in the aftermath of Israeli strikes.

Source: The Times of Israel

• Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, formally apologized on state television for the waves of missile and drone strikes that hit the Gulf states in retaliation for the joint American-Israeli attacks on Iran. Pezeshkian also announced that Iran would halt further strikes on its neighboring countries. 

President Masoud Pezeshkian at the United Nations General Assembly last September. 

Source: The New York Times

• A rift has opened between President Pezeshkian, who aligns with the moderate reformist wing of the Iranian government, and more hardline elements of the current state, especially after Pezeshkian’s apologetic remarks, which other legislators described as “humiliating”. 

The Gulf

• Iranian strikes hit compounds and oil refineries owned by the US-based oil firm Halliburton in Basra, Iraq. Drones also targeted a compound housing foreign oil company employees.

The aftermath of Halliburton-owned structures in Basra after the Iranian strikes. 

Source: Clash Report

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps attacked an oil tanker, Prima, in the Gulf after “ignoring repeated warnings from the IRGC Navy regarding the prohibition of traffic.” Prima is a Malta-registered oil and chemical tanker. 
• Going against President Masoud Pezeshkian’s claims that Iran will cease further strikes on Gulf nations, Iranian drones attacked Dubai International Airport, forcing the temporary suspension of operations.

United States

• The US State Department approved the sale of over $151.8 million worth of munitions to Israel. This includes 12,000 requested 1,000-pound bombs, which will help “improve Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats.” 
• President Donald Trump announced plans to go to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to pay respects to the six US service members who died during a drone strike in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. Trump, in a video statement, said that “there will likely be more [deaths] before [the war] ends.”
• The US deployed the USS George H.W. Bush to the Middle East amid escalating tensions, making it the third American carrier strike group in the region. The vessel is set to cross the Atlantic Ocean and then head into the eastern Mediterranean.

The USS George H.W. Bush in the Atlantic Ocean. The vessel’s construction began in 2003 and was completed in 2009, at a cost of $6.2 billion. Source: US Navy