Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has claimed that an Iranian leader who plotted to assassinate Donald Trump had been killed as he announced the US has taken total control of the skies and will now start dropping massive gravity bombs.
Hegseth said ‘the leader of the unit that attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed,’ at a press conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday. He did not identify the leader or specify the plot against Donald Trump.
Trump has claimed that he authorized the US-Israeli strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday because intelligence showed that Iran was targeting him.
‘Four days in we have only just begun,’ Hegseth said. ‘Now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision gravity bombs of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.’
Hegseth said that at the start of the war the US was using ‘exquisite standoff munitions,’ sophisticated, long-range weapons that allow strikes from distances great enough to remain outside the reach of enemy defenses.
The Defense Secretary said these munitions were no longer needed but ‘our stockpile of those remains extremely strong,’ hitting back at reports that supplies are stretched.
While standoff munitions like Tomahawk missiles can cost upwards of $2 million apiece, gravity bombs deliver a similar punch for a fraction of the price at roughly $25,000 per unit, though they require total air superiority to be flown within range.
Hegseth asserted that Iran is running low on missiles, saying the volume now in enemy hands was ‘not even close’ to the outset of the conflict on Saturday.
The Pentagon chief said that a torpedo from a US submarine sank an Iranian warship on Tuesday night, the first such attack on an enemy since World War II.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth arrives ahead of Congressional briefings on Iran at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday
A Dept. of Defense map entitled, Operation EPIC FURY Timeline – First 100 Hours, is displayed during a news conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, at the Pentagon, Wednesday
A view of a destroyed police facility on Wednesday, struck days earlierduring the US-Israeli strikes
People walk by a damaged building, struck days earlier, during the US and Israeli military campaign on March 4
‘An American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,’ Hegseth said. ‘Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo.’
An Israeli military official says top U.S. and Israeli commanders began planning the opening strike of the war against Iran three weeks ago.
Explosions sounded in Tehran and Jerusalem Wednesday as the war entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region.
The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television, while Israel’s military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
The war has killed more than 1,000 people in Iran and dozens in Lebanon, while disrupting the supply of the world´s oil and gas, snarling international shipping, and stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers in the Middle East.
