The 2026 U.S.-Iran War and the Global Energy Crisis

Chapter 5: Twelve Hours of Operation Epic Fury

5.1 Operation Launch

February 28, 2026, 10:15 AM Iranian Standard Time. In Minab, a port city in Hormozgan Province, first-period elementary school classes were in full swing. Bankers in Tehran were heading to work on their first day of the weekend. Market vendors in Shiraz were arranging pomegranates and pistachios on display tables. Saturday is the start of the week in Iran.

Exactly three hours and twenty-five minutes earlier, on the opposite side of the Earth: Thursday, February 27, 3:38 PM Eastern Time. Aboard Air Force One en route to Corpus Christi, Texas, President Donald Trump received a phone call. It was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The intelligence Netanyahu had conveyed to Trump five days earlier,that Khamenei would be meeting with senior security officials at the Tehran residence,had been finally confirmed. Trump approved the launch of the operation.

2:00 AM Eastern Time on February 28 (07:00 UTC, 10:30 AM Iranian local time). Trump posted an eight-minute video on his social media platform Truth Social. There was no address to Congress, no press conference, no televised address to the nation. Advance notification to the Gang of Eight (eight senior members of the congressional intelligence committee) just before the airstrikes began was the sum total of official procedure. In the video, Trump declared: "The United States has initiated major combat operations in Iran. We will destroy their missiles and completely sweep away the missile industry from the ground."

The final thirty seconds of the video were a direct message to the Iranian people. "Your time for freedom is approaching. Once we finish, take over the government. It will be yours." This statement was the most explicit call since the Cold War for a U.S. president to publicly urge regime change in another country.

As Trump's video began spreading across the internet, Tomahawk cruise missiles were already firing from the vertical launch systems of the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Thomas Hudner and USS Spruance deployed in the Persian Gulf. At 06:35 UTC, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) issued an official statement: "CENTCOM and partner forces have initiated airstrikes against Iran." At the same moment, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced its operation code name: Operation Roaring Lion.

The first wave of the operation was to blind and deafen Iran first. In this phase,called Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, or SEAD in military terminology,over two hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles flew toward early warning radar bases, surface-to-air missile batteries, and electronic warfare facilities throughout Iran. Over decades, Iran had built a dense air defense network using Russian-made S-300PMU2 systems and its own domestically developed Bavar-373 air defense system. That defense network was torn apart in minutes.

Through the breached air defense network, fourth and fifth-generation fighters from the U.S. Air Force and Israeli Air Force poured in. F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor aircraft swept out remaining air defense assets and secured entry corridors for follow-on bombers. CENTCOM stated that it had simultaneously struck at least nine major cities and twenty-six provinces across Iran. Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Bandar Abbas, Abadan, Mashhad. On the target list were not only Iran's military facilities but also government buildings, the command structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), missile production facilities, and drone launch bases.

During the first twelve hours of the operation, the U.S. and Israeli combined forces carried out over nine hundred airstrikes. This figure set a record for the first day of war. By one hundred hours after operation launch, the cumulative number of targeted strikes exceeded five thousand. The United States called this operation "Operation Epic Fury," and Trump later said he had chosen the name himself.

Major financial markets around the world were closed for the weekend. But there was one place operating twenty-four hours: the cryptocurrency market. Within minutes of news of the airstrikes, over 128 billion dollars in cryptocurrency market capitalization evaporated. Bitcoin plummeted from the 66,000-dollar range to below 63,000 dollars. Traders and energy analysts around the world could not sleep that weekend, wondering how Asian stock markets would react on Monday, how far oil prices would spike, what would become of the Strait of Hormuz.

This was the largest military operation the United States had conducted in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But there was one decisive difference from the 2003 operation. This time, there was no congressional authorization for war. Notification under the War Powers Resolution took place only after the fact. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war. Trump circumvented this on the basis of the president's powers as commander in chief. Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie immediately objected on the day of the airstrikes and demanded a congressional vote. In a post on X, Khanna wrote: "This is not 'America First.'"

Just two days earlier, on February 26, at U.S.-Iran indirect nuclear negotiations in Geneva, Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albuosaidi announced that "a breakthrough had been achieved." Iran had promised not to stockpile enriched uranium, had accepted full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and stated it could bring its enriched uranium stockpile "back to the lowest possible levels." The negotiations were scheduled to resume on March 2. On February 25, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said: "A historic agreement has come within reach."

March 2 never came. The bombs fell first.

According to reporting by the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman had called Trump repeatedly urging an attack on Iran. The Israeli government had made the same request repeatedly. The Wall Street Journal reported that Senator Lindsey Graham had provided Trump with the most persuasive arguments for attacking Iran. In a report to Congress on March 1, the Pentagon acknowledged that there had been no evidence that Iran was planning to attack the United States before the operation was launched.

The time gap between the negotiating table and the bombing was forty-eight hours.

5.2 Simultaneous Deployment of B-2, B-52, Tomahawk, and HIMARS

To understand the scale of firepower deployed in Operation Epic Fury, we must first establish a comparison. On the first day of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in the "Shock and Awe" operation, U.S. forces struck approximately five hundred targets. During the first twenty-four hours of Operation Epic Fury, the number of targets struck approached twice that. In the words of CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper, "It was nearly double the firepower of the first day of the Iraq invasion."

Looking at the list of deployed assets, one can see that nearly every type of strike platform in the U.S. military arsenal was mobilized.

From the air. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber was the most decisive weapon system in this operation. Unit cost approximately two billion dollars. A number of the U.S. Air Force's total complement of twenty-one B-2s were deployed. A B-2 formation departing from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri flew east, crossed the Atlantic, passed through the Mediterranean, and reached the Middle East. One-way flight time: eighteen hours. During the journey, they received refueling several times from KC-135 and KC-46A tankers. Meanwhile, a B-2 formation flew west toward the Pacific. This was a decoy. It was a deception operation meant to direct the attention of amateur aircraft trackers, some media outlets, and intelligence agencies of various nations toward the Pacific. In a briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Dan Kane explained that it "was part of the plan to maintain tactical surprise."

The B-2's mission was to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities. The weapon was the GBU-57 MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator). Six meters long, weighing approximately fourteen tons, it is the heaviest bomb in the U.S. conventional arsenal, designed to penetrate reinforced concrete over thirty meters thick before detonating. Each B-2 carries two MOPs. In Operation Epic Fury, the B-2 formation dropped fourteen MOPs on underground nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz.

The Fordow nuclear facility is a uranium enrichment installation buried eighty to ninety meters underground in the mountains, ninety-five kilometers southwest of Qom in central Iran. Iran began construction in 2006, and the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) first became aware of its existence in 2009. From that point forward, DTRA analysts grappled with the question of "how to destroy a facility inside a mountain," and the answer was the development of the GBU-57. Development began in 2004, it underwent test detonation in December 2020, and was first deployed in combat in Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025. Operation Epic Fury marked the MOP's second combat use.

Fordow had two main ventilation shafts. The B-2 formation dropped a total of twelve MOPs, six down each shaft. The first bomb shattered the concrete covering of the ventilation shaft, and the rest penetrated through the opening into the facility. Two additional bombs were dropped on Natanz. The bombs' fuses were set to detonate only after penetrating deep underground. The overpressure effect created by the underground explosions destroys the centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Centrifuges are extremely sensitive to vibration. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated: "Taking into account the scale of the explosive force deployed and the vibration sensitivity of the centrifuges, we expect very severe damage to have occurred."

The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center was inundated with over thirty Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from Ohio-class nuclear submarines.

The B-2 formation's mission duration was approximately thirty-six hours. This was the second-longest B-2 operational flight in history, after the B-2's Afghanistan mission following 9/11. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Kane confirmed it was "the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. military history." Over 125 aircraft participated in this mission.

While the B-2 destroyed underground facilities, B-52H Stratofortress and B-1B Lancer bombers laid waste to Iran's ground military installations. Ballistic missile silos, missile production facilities, drone launch bases, and military airfields became targets for precision-guided bombs.

At sea. Over five hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from destroyers, cruisers, and submarines deployed in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group provided operational support in the North Arabian Sea, and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was additionally deployed. Within minutes of operation launch, nine Iranian Navy vessels sank. Ultimately, over twenty major Iranian Navy surface combatants were sunk or destroyed. This included Iran's latest Soleimani-class frigates and submarines. The IRIS Shahid Bagheri, a drone carrier mothership that the IRGC possessed as a key asset for blockading the Strait of Hormuz, also sank within the operation's first hour. This vessel, a converted container ship that operated Shahed-series drones, was also sunk.

In a statement, CENTCOM declared: "Not a single Iranian vessel remains operating in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or the Gulf of Oman." Trump told reporters: "We've destroyed nearly everything. Iran no longer has a navy, an air force, air defenses, or radar."

On the ground. HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) units forward-deployed in gulf-adjacent nations struck anti-ship missile batteries and radar facilities on Iran's coast. For the first time, PrSM (Precision Strike Missile) was deployed operationally on a large scale in this operation. PrSM is a next-generation surface-to-surface missile fired from HIMARS, with a range approximately double that of the older ATACMS.

At low altitude. An unexpected weapon made an appearance around the Strait of Hormuz. The A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters,considered relics of the Cold War,were deployed. The IRGC Navy possessed hundreds of fast attack craft designed specifically for asymmetric warfare in the Strait of Hormuz. Using SM-6 interception missiles, which cost approximately 5.3 million dollars per round, against these small fast attack craft was not economically viable. Instead, the U.S. military used the A-10's 30mm GAU-8 rotary cannon and the Apache's Hellfire missiles to destroy dozens of Iranian fast attack craft. The logic of cost-effectiveness operated on the battlefield.

All this firepower poured down simultaneously from air, sea, and land. It was a real-world application of what the U.S. military calls "Multi-Domain Operations." And this overwhelming firepower came with a price. The number of Patriot interceptor missiles consumed in the operation's first four days equaled eighteen months of U.S. production capacity. Tomahawk inventory also decreased critically. Production lines at defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed Martin shifted to three-shift twenty-four-hour operations, but the pace of war outstripped the pace of production.

A summary of major deployed assets during the operation's first ten days is as follows: B-2 stealth bomber, B-1B Lancer, B-52 Stratofortress, LUCAS drone (a new drone publicly unveiled in the operation), Patriot interceptor system, THAAD ballistic missile defense system. The numbers from the fact sheet the U.S. Defense Department released on March 9 were these: over five thousand targets struck, fifty Iranian vessels sunk or destroyed, and seven U.S. military personnel killed in action.

Seven. This figure was from ten days after operation launch. The death toll on the Iranian side was impossible to count at this point. The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported 787 deaths as of early March, but that was only counting deaths that had arrived at hospitals.

5.3 Decapitation Operation

The first strike of Operation Epic Fury targeted not military installations, but a person.

At 06:45 UTC, 10:15 AM Iranian local time. Ten minutes after the U.S. and Israeli forces began striking air defense networks throughout Iran, the Israeli Air Force unleashed precision-guided munitions on a building in central Tehran. The target was the compound known as the "Leadership House," which served as both the residence and office of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The background to this attack stretches back months. During Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, Israel had also planned to eliminate Khamenei. Trump refused. After that, Khamenei entered an extremely reclusive existence. The bunker beneath his residence was so deep it took more than five minutes to descend by elevator. Opportunities for him to appear above ground became extremely rare.

The CIA had been tracking Khamenei's movements and schedule for months. On February 23, Netanyahu called Trump. It was a report that Khamenei was scheduled to meet with top security officials, and that the location had been confirmed. U.S. and Israeli military intelligence officers had confirmed that Iran's leadership would be meeting simultaneously in three locations. It was an opportunity to strike all three places at once.

On the morning of February 28, Khamenei was above ground, not in the underground bunker. It was broad daylight.

Israeli bombardment struck the building hard. Satellite images of the residence complex first reached the public through video released by Iran International on March 2. The building had been completely destroyed.

Iran's government's first response was denial. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei announced that Khamenei was "safe." Reuters reported that Khamenei had been "transferred to a secure location outside Tehran." Iran's state news agencies Tasnim and Mehr repeatedly stated that Khamenei was "alive and well and directing the battlefield."

Netanyahu said "evidence is mounting" pointing to Khamenei's death. Trump also emphasized the possibility of death, saying "justice for the Iranian people." But confirmation was not easy.

Confirmation came just before midnight Iran Standard Time on February 28. An anonymous Israeli official stated that "Khamenei died in an airstrike, his body was found, and his identity was confirmed through intelligence assets." In the early morning of March 1, Iran's state media finally confirmed his death officially. Pars News, under the IRGC, conveyed additional facts. Khamenei's daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and daughter-in-law Zahra Hadad Adel died in the same airstrike.

Iran's government declared a 40-day national mourning period.

It was not only Khamenei. Through this decapitation operation, Iran's top security and military leadership was almost entirely eliminated. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the deaths of seven Iranian security leaders. Defense Minister Aziz Nassirzade. IRGC Commander Mohammad Pakpour. Former Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and Khamenei's top advisor Ali Shamkhani. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri. Four senior officials from Iran's intelligence service. Iran International reported that a total of 48 top-level figures died in airstrikes at the start of the war.

The 86-year-old supreme leader who ruled Iran for 37 years from 1989 had died. With him, the key figures that made up Iran's regime's decision-making structure had vanished.

America and Israel's calculation was this: cut off the head and the body collapses. If the command system is paralyzed, the Revolutionary Guards will split, the Iranian people will rise up, and the regime will be replaced. Trump's words "take over your government" were based on this calculation.

Iran did not collapse.

Khamenei's second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was alive. He was wounded in the airstrike that killed his father but survived. Beginning March 3, the process of selecting a successor for the Assembly of Experts (the council of 88 clergy with authority to elect the supreme leader) began. Normal procedures were impossible. The Qom office of the Assembly of Experts was bombed. For members to gather in one place was suicide. The meeting was held online, and five to six attempts at in-person meetings were foiled for safety reasons.

The IRGC moved. According to Iran International, the IRGC leadership exerted "repeated contact and psychological and political pressure" on Assembly members to elect Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader. Some members opposed hereditary succession. Eight members declared a boycott of the online vote. One of the core ideologies of Iran's Islamic Revolution was the overthrow of monarchy. The inheritance of power from father to son directly contradicted that ideology.

But war was ongoing. With American and Israeli bombing continuing and Iran firing missiles and drones across the Gulf, a leadership vacuum meant imminent defeat. On March 8, the Assembly of Experts elected the 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei as the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran through majority vote.

Assembly member Heydar Alekasir explained the reason for the election this way: According to the late Khamenei's advice, Iran's supreme leader must be "a person hated by enemies." "Even the Great Satan (America) mentioned his name." The very fact that Trump said days earlier "Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me" paradoxically became proof of Mojtaba's qualification.

Trump said in an interview with ABC News: "He must have our approval. Without it, he will not last long." The Israeli military had already warned that whoever succeeded Khamenei would be a target. Netanyahu publicly stated the goal at a press conference: "We will destabilize the regime and make change possible."

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed "unwavering support" for Mojtaba's election. China stated its opposition to any military threats against the new supreme leader.

Summarizing the results of the decapitation operation: America and Israel succeeded in eliminating Iran's supreme leader and key security leadership. Militarily, it represented a remarkable achievement in precision. But the political objectives,regime change or surrender,were not achieved. The seat vacated by the dead leader was filled not by a more moderate figure, but by one filled with rage over his father and family's death, most closely connected to the IRGC, and known to be even more hardline than his father.

Pragmatists capable of discussing diplomacy were replaced by extreme militarists. Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer at King's College London, analyzed Mojtaba Khamenei's first public statement and offered this assessment: "The change in rhetoric from a new leader that the Trump administration might have hoped for did not occur. What we are hearing is a doubling down on existing positions."

Mojtaba's first statement was issued through Press TV with an anchor reading it. He declared that he would continue to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and would immediately close or target all U.S. military bases in the region. It was a choice of continued fighting, not negotiation with America.

Linda Robinson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, commented after the operation: "Removing Khamenei is not the same as regime change. The Revolutionary Guards are the regime." The Stimson Center's analysis was more direct: "No bombing campaign in history, no matter how sophisticated or destructive, has ever achieved regime change."

5.4 Minab Girls School: 165

10:45 a.m. Iran Standard Time, February 28, 2026. Minab, a coastal city in Hormozgan Province. It was one hour after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes began striking the entire southern region of Iran.

Minab sits in a strategic position overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. It is a hub for the IRGC Navy's asymmetric capabilities, operating fast attack craft and coastal missile platforms. Eighty kilometers west of the city is Bandar Abbas naval base, and 400 kilometers to the southeast is the military facility at Konarak. On CENTCOM's targeting map, Minab was in the middle of a major U.S. operational area.

In the Shahrak-e Al-Mahdi residential district of Minab sat Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school, meaning "good tree." The school was adjacent to a base complex of the IRGC Navy's Seyyed al-Shohada Asif Missile Brigade. The precise meaning of "adjacent" must be clarified. According to satellite image analysis, the school building was located inside the IRGC compound fence until 2013. It was separated by its own fence before September 2016. After separation, the school had three entrances, all directly accessible from public roads without passing through military security checkpoints. It had been a civilian facility converted to a school for over ten years.

Saturday morning, the beginning of the Iranian week. Students, both girls and boys ages 7 to 12, were in class on separate floors. At 10:45 a.m., when morning classes were underway, missiles struck the school.

According to Amnesty International's analysis, the school appears to have been struck during airstrikes on an IRGC base near the school. Amnesty analyzed visual and audio materials of missile remains released by Iran's state media and concluded they matched debris from Tomahawk cruise missiles operated exclusively by the United States. On March 2, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Kane confirmed in a briefing that the U.S. Navy fired Tomahawks in southern Iran on February 28. The targeting map released in an additional briefing on March 4 included Minab.

Investigations by multiple independent media outlets,the New York Times, CBC, NPR, and BBC Verify,concluded it is likely that the United States was responsible for the attack. Al Jazeera's investigation went further. Its analysis of attack patterns "raised fundamental questions about the accuracy of intelligence" and reported that "the possibility of deliberate targeting cannot be ruled out." The CBC investigation concluded that the school strike was part of a precision airstrike on the adjacent military complex and resulted from "either a malfunction of the weapons system or a serious intelligence collection error by CENTCOM."

According to Hormozgan Governor Mohammad Aseeri, missiles struck the school at 10:45 a.m., one hour after the start of military operations. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Baghaei stated that the attack was a "double tap" strike pattern,successive strikes on the same target. The first strike destroys the building, the second kills those rushing to rescue. Wikipedia's entry on the Minab school attack notes, based on satellite analysis, that there were "triple tap" strikes.

The roof of the two-story school building collapsed. Concrete poured down on the children in the classrooms.

The death toll rose over time. Shiva Amelirad, head of Iran's Teachers Union Council, cited local sources in Time magazine, reporting that more than 108 children had died. The Minab prosecutor announced through Iran's state IRNA news agency that 150 "innocent schoolgirls" had died. The final count from Iranian authorities was 165. Of the dead, 110 were students: 66 boys and 54 girls. Twenty-six teachers and four parents were included. More than 95 were wounded.

Some Western media and human rights groups reported 175 to 180 deaths. Independent verification was impossible with Iran's internet cut off. Iranian authorities had implemented intentional internet blackouts beginning February 28. Amnesty International stated it was not safe to contact witnesses and families directly.

America's first response was denial. The U.S. Defense Department spokesman and Israeli military spokesman told Time and the Associated Press they were "not aware of the school being struck." Trump told journalists: "If you ask whether America bombed a girls school, I will answer no." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "U.S. forces do not deliberately target schools."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a statement: "The American and Zionist aggression against Minab Elementary School will never be erased from the historical memory of our nation." Foreign Minister Araghchi warned: "Crimes against the Iranian people will not go unanswered."

On March 3, a mass funeral was held in a square in Minab for the 165 victims. Thousands of mourners gathered. Foreign Minister Araghchi posted on X with photos of newly dug graves: "These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent little girls. Their bodies were blown to pieces. This is what President Trump promised as a 'rescue'."

Human Rights Watch stated in its statement shortly after the attack that it had verified 14 videos and photos and analyzed approximately 40 satellite images over 25 years. In satellite photos taken after the strike, the characteristic "pancaking" phenomenon of a top-down airstrike appeared, with the school roof collapsed downward. Satellite images of Minab Hermod cemetery, about 3.5 kilometers from the school, showed that large-scale burial preparations using heavy equipment began on March 1, the day after the attack. Satellite photos from March 4 showed individual graves freshly dug in rows.

UNESCO condemned the attack as a "grave violation of international humanitarian law." Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said she was "heartbroken and appalled." UN human rights experts stated in a joint statement: "An attack on a school is a serious violation against children, education, and the future of the entire community." "There is no justification for killing girls in a classroom."

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasized that the mere proximity of military facilities does not change the civilian nature of a school, and stressed that "the United States and Israeli forces are not exempt from the legal obligation to carefully verify the nature of a target before striking."

One more fact about this school must be noted. In January 2025, IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami visited Minab and inaugurated the "Martyr Absalan Specialty Clinic," located at another corner of the military complex. This clinic, valued at 100 billion Iranian tomans (approximately two million dollars) and covering 5,700 square meters, was equipped with pediatrics, obstetrics, and dentistry and provided civilian medical services to residents of eastern Hormozgan Province. During Operation Epic Fury, this clinic sustained no damage. It was separated by a distinct civilian entrance. The clinic was spared, but the school was destroyed.

The Minab girls school incident was, as of March 15, the single attack with the highest civilian death toll throughout Operation Epic Fury and throughout the 2026 Iran war.

The tragedy left a technical question. The Tomahawk cruise missile combines GPS, inertial navigation, and terrain contour matching (TERCOM) to strike targets with accuracy within meters. The missile likely struck the coordinates it was given precisely. The problem was not the missile's precision, but the accuracy of the intelligence fed into the missile. Was the fact that the school had operated as a civilian facility for over ten years reflected in the targeting database? Had outdated information remained on the target list without updating? In an operation striking over 5,000 targets simultaneously in twelve hours, did procedures to individually verify each target's current use function?

As of late March 2026, the answer to that question had not been provided. A U.S. military internal investigation was underway but had not reached final conclusions. Mike Cancionone of CSIS predicted that "if an error could be traced to a specific individual, disciplinary action is possible," but that "even if official acknowledgment comes, it may yield only limited consequences."

The names of 165 victims first became known to the world through a photo collage of 119 children released by Iranian authorities on March 7. The children in the photos wore uniforms or looked straight ahead like school portraits. Seven, eight, nine years old. There was a first-grader and a child beginning to learn multiplication. A parent in Minab showed Democracy Now a blood-stained mathematics notebook: "Mohannas Zari, Grade 1. This is that child's math book. This is the file with homework."

Operation Epic Fury militarily destroyed or severely damaged Iran's nuclear facilities, missile forces, navy, air defenses, and leadership. Within twelve hours of launching the operation, Iran's military response capability had sharply degraded. During those twelve hours, the firepower projected by the United States and Israel was on a scale unseen in any airstrike of the twenty-first century.

And when those twelve hours ended, Iran did not surrender. The IRGC issued a statement: "The most powerful attack operation in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran's armed forces will begin shortly." Hours later, Iran began launching ballistic missiles and suicide drones at U.S. military bases and energy infrastructure in Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Iran called this retaliatory operation "Operation True Promise IV." Iran's state media also used another name: the Ramadan War. It was the same name Egypt and Syria gave to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

The scale of weapons Iran fired in the first 36 hours of war: According to the UAE Defense Ministry, 165 ballistic missiles, 2 cruise missiles, and 541 drones flew at the UAE alone. Kuwait reported intercepting 97 ballistic missiles and 283 drones. Bahrain shot down 45 missiles and 9 drones. Dubai International Airport, Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport, and Kuwait International Airport were struck by Iranian missiles and drones. Explosions occurred near the Palm Jumeirah landmark in Dubai. Fire broke out at Jebel Ali Port. Bahrain's state-owned oil company Bapco declared force majeure after its refinery caught fire from Iranian attacks.

Flight operations across the Gulf have been cancelled. Aircraft over Iranian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Israeli, and Bahraini airspace have disappeared from aviation maps.

Operation Epic Fury succeeded in destroying Iran's military capacity. Yet that success brought no peace. Twelve hours proved enough to start a war. The planners of this operation would soon discover that twelve hours would not suffice to end it. The Strait of Hormuz was closed, and the AIS signals of tanker ships were going dark, one by one.

Attorney Kim Kyung-jin, Artificial Intelligence Expert

Specialist in AI Law and Policy · Former Member of Congress · Author of Multiple Works

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