Photo: Alamy
Operation Epic Fury continues this week, bringing fiery warfare to the Middle East amid the U.S.-Israeli joint operation to decimate the Iranian terrorist regime in a mission that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described as “laser-focused and maximum authority.”
“As someone who led troops, led soldiers, in the streets of Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq, and who trained counterinsurgents in Kabul, Afghanistan, and who still carries the weight of brothers lost to Iranian terror proxies…this fight, Operation Epic Fury, hits home,” Hegseth said during a Tuesday morning press briefing at the Pentagon.
“Our generation understands this fight,” he added.
Hegseth, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Dan “Razin’” Caine, provided key updates about the U.S. military strikes against Iran, and it was welcome news: “Iran stands alone, and they are badly losing,” Secretary Hegseth said, noting that Iranian allies or proxies are systematically leaving the terrorist regime to fend for itself.
The secretary reiterated the key objectives of Operation Epic Fury, which he said were the same as when he initially delivered his first briefing on this mission: destroy Iran’s missiles and industrial missile base, destroy the Iranian Navy, and permanently deny Iran the ability to make nuclear weapons.
“On Day 10 of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning, with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives,” he said.
“…It’s a laser-focused, maximum authority mission, delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision,” he said. “No hesitation, no half measures, as President Trump declared yesterday. We’re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force. We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. But we do so on our timeline.”
Hegseth said that “today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran – the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes – intelligence more refined and better than ever.”
He also said that Iran had fired the “lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet” in the past 24 hours during this conflict.
To assuage Americans’ fears of a forever war, Hegseth noted, “This is not 2003. This is not endless nation-building, under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama. It’s not even close. Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again, and nor will this president, who very clearly ran against those kinds of never-ending, nebulously-scoped missions. Those days are DEAD.”
Key updates from the Pentagon from General Caine on Tuesday included:
- The U.S. military continues to focus on three critical objectives: destroy Iranian missiles and drone capabilities, destroy the Iranian Navy, and go “deeper into Iran’s military and industrial complex” to terminate its capability to execute on terrorist activities against Americans and U.S. interests,
- More than 5,000 Iranian targets have been struck across the southern flank of Iran. Gen. Caine mentioned the U.S. military’s use of 2,000-pound GPS penetrating weapons targeting buried missile launchers across the southern flank,
- Iranian missile factories have also been targeted,
- Ballistic missile attacks from Iran have plunged by 90 percent since the onset of Operation Epic Fury,
- One-way drone attacks from Iran have also decreased by 83 percent,
- Strikes against Iranian naval vessels will continue.
