Israel

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Israel Keeps Picking Off Iran's Leaders. Will It Backfire?
Israel's 'Decapitation' Strategy
Carries Its Own Risks
the rundown
Mar 18, 2026 10:01 AM CDT

Israel's 'Decapitation' Strategy Carries Its Own Risks

Israeli campaign keeps picking off Iranian leaders and top officials

(Newser) - First came Khamenei . And in the weeks since, Israel has tracked down and killed other top Iranian officials, with more big names falling this week . This "decapitation" strategy is meant to destabilize and demoralize the remaining leadership in Iran, and possibly encourage ordinary Iranians to revolt. Whether it will...

Resigned Counterterror Official Knows Well the Cost of War

Joe Kent invokes late wife Shannon Kent, killed in a suicide bombing in Syria

(Newser) - Joe Kent's departure from the National Counterterrorism Center this week came with a pointed critique of US policy on Iran—and a deeply personal reminder of the cost of war. In his resignation letter, Kent invoked his first wife, Navy linguist Shannon Kent, who was killed in a...

Israel Says It Has Taken Out Another Key Iranian Minister

Intelligence minister Esmail Khatib joins a growing body count among Tehran's top leaders

(Newser) - Israel's defense minister said on Wednesday that the Israeli military killed Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib. Israel Katz announced Khatib's killing, reports the AP , and said that "significant surprises are expected throughout this day on all the fronts," without elaborating. Israel's latest killing follows those...

Israel Calls for Uprising in Iran, but Fears a 'Slaughter'

Leaked US cable reveals Israeli doubts about Iran uprising's chances, reports Washington Post

(Newser) - Israeli leaders are publicly calling for Iranians to rise up against their government while privately warning Washington that demonstrators would be massacred if they did, per a US diplomatic cable obtained by the Washington Post . The cable, sent from the US Embassy in Jerusalem, says senior Israeli officials told American...

Bettors Threaten War Reporter, Demand Change to Story

Times of Israel correspondent details the warnings from Polymarket gamblers

(Newser) - A text on his phone put it bluntly: "You have 90 minutes left to update the lie." That's what Times of Israel war correspondent Emanuel Fabian says he received on WhatsApp after a short March 10 post in which he reported that an Iranian missile had hit...

A Top Counterterror Official Quits Over Iran War

Joe Kent says that 'Iran posed no imminent threat,' and that US caved to Israeli pressure

(Newser) - One of Washington's most senior counterterrorism officials is walking away from the Trump administration—and blaming the war with Iran and Israel's sway over US policy on his way out, reports the New York Times . Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation Tuesday in...

He Reported on Iran Missile Strike. Then the Threats Came

Betting-market dispute over March 10 attack fuels harassment against Times of Israel journalist

(Newser) - A routine live-blog entry about an Iranian missile strike has turned into something far stranger for Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian: a dayslong pressure campaign from online bettors who allegedly stood to lose big if he didn't tweak a key detail. In a first-person account , Fabian describes...

Military Shares American Toll of 'Operation Epic Fury'

Most injuries are being described as minor

(Newser) - American forces have taken significant hits in the conflict with Iran , according to a new US military tally. US Central Command says about 200 US service members have been wounded since the launch of "Operation Epic Fury," with spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins noting most injuries were minor and...

Israel: We 'Cut Off the Head of the Octopus,' Again

Attack near Tehran reportedly kills top Iranian security chief Ali Larijani

(Newser) - Israel says it has taken out one of Iran's top security figures. Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that on Monday night, airstrikes near Tehran killed Ali Larijani, described by officials as a key architect of Iran's military response to recent US-Israeli attacks, per the Wall Street Journal . Katz...

Trump Asks China to Postpone His Trip

President doesn't tie delay to his Strait of Hormuz request

(Newser) - President Trump said Monday he wants to delay a trip scheduled for the end of the month to Beijing for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "We've got a war going on," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think it's important that I...

Netanyahu Debunks Iran Death Rumors With Cafe Video

Video shows Israeli prime minister alive amid Iranian media rumors

(Newser) - Iranian state TV said Benjamin Netanyahu had been killed or injured; the Israeli prime minister answered with a coffee run, Reuters reports. On Sunday, Netanyahu's office posted a short video on his Telegram channel showing him at a café on Jerusalem's outskirts, joking with an aide about the...

Israeli Forces Fatally Shoot Palestinian Parents, 2 Children

Authorities say troops in West Bank town felt threatened

(Newser) - Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian couple and two of their young children in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. The family's car came under fire in the town of Tammum, near Tubas in the northern West Bank, while a joint operation by the...

Iran's Government Looks to Be Holding

US and Israeli strikes fail to significantly weaken ruling regime: Reuters

(Newser) - Iran's government is taking heavy hits but, for now, it isn't wobbling, according to US intelligence. Three sources who have seen recent assessments tell Reuters that a wide range of reports point to the same conclusion: Iran's ruling system remains coherent and in charge of the population, despite nearly two...

Relations Between Spain, Israel Get Frostier

Spain has permanently pulled its ambassador

(Newser) - Spain just made a diplomatic snub to Israel permanent. Madrid on Tuesday formally ended its ambassador's posting to Israel, confirming that the role is being scrapped and the embassy in Tel Aviv will now be headed indefinitely by a charge d'affaires. The ambassador had been recalled in September...

Another Khameini Is Now in Hiding, and Reportedly Injured

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's new supreme leader, is said to be holed up in heavily guarded location

(Newser) - Iran's new supreme leader has yet to show his face, and both Iranian and Israeli officials say there's a physical reason why. Three days after Mojtaba Khamenei was declared successor to his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Feb. 28, the 56-year-old...

Iran Security Leader Issues a Personal Warning to Trump

Don't 'get eliminated yourself,' senior security official Ali Larijani cautioned Trump in online post

(Newser) - Iran's war of words with Washington just escalated alongside a sharp squeeze on global oil. Responding to President Trump's warning that any Iranian move to stymie oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would bring US retaliation "twenty times harder," senior security official Ali Larijani wrote...

Iran War May Be Fortifying Kim Jong Un's Faith in Nukes

Analysts point out that Iran, unlike North Korea, stopped short of making a weapon

(Newser) - Multiple analyses about the war in Iran come to the same conclusion: The bombardment may be giving Kim Jong-un a real-time argument for never giving up his nukes. As Joshua Keating writes at Vox , two nuclear-armed nations—the US and Israel—"are overwhelming the defenses of a country that...

Trump: End of War Will Be Mutual Call With Netanyahu

President tells Israeli outlet that the strikes may have saved Israel from destruction

(Newser) - It's not clear when the Iran war will end, but President Trump says it will be a (mostly) joint decision between him and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. "I think it's mutual ... a little bit," he tells the Times of Israel . "I'll make a decision...

MTG Says Tucker Carlson Would Beat Trump

Taylor Greene backs pundit amid rift with Trump over Iran war

(Newser) - Tucker Carlson just picked up a 2028 presidential cheerleader—from inside the MAGA universe that President Trump says he defines, reports Axios . Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is publicly urging the ex-Fox News host to run for the White House, days after Trump told ABC News that Carlson had "...

Iran's 'Missile Cities' Turn Into Strategic Weak Spots

Enemy planes, drones hover nearby, waiting to strike as missiles emerge: WSJ

(Newser) - Iran's vast network of underground "missile cities" is starting to look less like a shield and more "like a blunder," the Wall Street Journal reports. Less than a week into Iran's conflict with the US and Israel, satellite images show scorched launchers and damaged tunnel...

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