The State of the War
Seven Days In — and Washington Is Accelerating
Operation Epic Fury entered its seventh day on Friday with a dramatic escalation. US B-2 stealth bombers dropped dozens of 2,000-pound "penetrator" bombs on deeply buried ballistic missile launchers inside Iran — the kind of hardened underground facilities that conventional weapons cannot reach. CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper announced the strikes alongside Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who made Washington's intentions unambiguous: "It's more fighter squadrons, it's more capabilities, it's more bomber pulses, more frequently." This operation is not approaching its conclusion. It is entering a new, more intensive phase.
The arithmetic of what has been done to Iran in seven days is staggering. The US has struck nearly 2,000 targets inside Iran since February 28. More than 30 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk or destroyed — CENTCOM announced on Friday that an Iranian drone carrier roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier had been struck and was on fire. Iran's ballistic missile attacks have fallen 90% since Day One. Its drone strikes have dropped 83%. Cooper put it bluntly: "Built for 1996. Destroyed in 2026. The Iranian Navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf." Trump, for his part, told reporters that Iran has "no navy, no air force, no air detection, no radar." He also said he is considering US involvement in selecting Iran's next supreme leader — a statement with no modern precedent in any conflict.
Iran is far from finished, however. Despite the degradation in capability, Iranian forces attacked a US-owned oil tanker off the coast of Kuwait on Friday. Drones struck two residential high-rise buildings and the Hilton Hotel in Bahrain's capital Manama in the early hours of the morning. Iranian missiles have hit Bahrain's state oil refinery, Qatar's Al Udeid airbase — the largest US military installation in the Middle East — and Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Six US service members have been killed. At least 18 more have been seriously injured. Iran has now fired retaliatory strikes across nine countries.
Iran has lost its navy. It has lost its air force. It is fighting back with everything it has left — and it still has enough to hit nine countries simultaneously.
The Game Changer
Russia Enters the War — Quietly, From the Shadows
The most consequential development on Day Seven was not a strike or a casualty count. It was a report from The Washington Post, confirmed by Fox News and not denied by the White House, that Russia has been providing Iran with real-time intelligence on the locations of American warships and aircraft in the region. Three officials with knowledge of the intelligence confirmed the reporting. The Kremlin has not acknowledged this publicly, and the US government has not formally attributed it — but the operational implication is stark.
This marks the first confirmed involvement of a major US adversary in the conflict. Russia is not firing weapons. It is not deploying troops. But it is feeding targeting data to a country that is actively shooting at American service members. That is a form of participation in the conflict, and it changes the strategic calculus in ways that are not fully understood yet. Iran has already been using Russian-made Shahed drones — the same munitions Russia has used extensively in Ukraine. Ukraine's President Zelensky confirmed that the US has formally requested Ukrainian assistance in countering Iranian Shahed drones, and Trump accepted. The lines between conflicts are now fully blurred.
What Russia gains from this is obvious. Every American asset destroyed, every US service member killed, every dollar Washington spends in the Middle East is a resource not pointed at Ukraine. Moscow does not need to fire a single shot to benefit from this war — it just needs the war to continue and cost America dearly. The intelligence sharing is a low-risk, high-reward move for Putin. The risk for Washington is that it cannot escalate against Russia for an act it has not formally attributed.
The Human Cost
1,332 Dead. 181 of Them Children. And the Bombing Is Surging.
The confirmed death toll inside Iran has reached 1,332, according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency. UNICEF reported on Friday that at least 181 of those killed are children. The deadliest single incident of the war occurred in Minab in southeastern Iran, where a strike on an elementary girls' school killed at least 165 schoolgirls and staff. The school was located less than 60 metres from a military complex. Iran's Foreign Ministry called it a war crime. The US is investigating internally. Evidence assembled by The New York Times suggests the attack was carried out by the US military, not Israel.
A second school strike hit Tehran's Niloufar Square neighbourhood. The World Health Organisation has identified 13 Iranian health infrastructure sites struck during the war so far. Residential buildings in Tehran were hit on Friday morning, with Al Jazeera's correspondent on the ground reporting that the intensity of overnight bombing was greater than anything seen in the previous six days. The shockwaves from explosions were felt inside the Al Jazeera bureau in the city.
Outside Iran, civilian infrastructure is also taking hits. Iranian drones struck the Fontana Towers residential complex and the Hilton Hotel in Manama, Bahrain. The UAE has now intercepted 93% of nearly 1,400 Iranian projectiles fired at the country since the war began — a remarkable air defence performance, but one that also tells you how relentlessly Iran has been striking at Gulf civilians. Egypt's President el-Sisi warned his country is economically in a "state of near-emergency." Azerbaijan halted all cross-border truck traffic with Iran after Iranian drones injured civilians in its Nakhchivan exclave. The war is bleeding into countries nowhere near the original conflict zone.
The Wider Picture
No Exit, No Ceasefire, No Surrender — What Comes Next
Trump was asked directly whether there are time limits on this operation. His answer: "No time limits." Hegseth described the upcoming surge as bringing more fighter squadrons, more bomber pulses, and more defensive capabilities. A measure in the US House of Representatives that would have restricted the President's ability to take further action in Iran without Congressional approval failed in a 212–218 vote. The executive branch has full operational latitude. Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi warned that a US ground invasion would be a "big disaster" for Washington. Trump dismissed this, but also said it would be a "waste of time" currently — leaving the door open rather than closing it.
Iran's Ali Larijani warned that Iranian forces are "waiting" for a potential US ground invasion and threatened to capture thousands of American troops. Meanwhile, Arab states including the UAE and Saudi Arabia are reportedly considering tougher military postures and possible action to stop Iranian missile and drone attacks on their territory. Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain have confirmed they are sending warships to defend Cyprus. Nearly 20,000 Americans have been evacuated from the Middle East since the war began. The US Embassy in Kuwait City has been suspended. The embassy in Jerusalem is running bus services to Egypt for US citizens who cannot fly out.
The Sri Lanka Navy has interned the Iranian tanker IRIS Bushehr — 208 sailors — after it sought refuge following the sinking of IRIS Dena last week. A separate Iranian landing ship, IRIS Lavan with 183 sailors, was interned at Kochi, India. These are the first instances of warships being interned in neutral countries since World War II. The diplomatic complexity for India — which has now received two interned Iranian vessels in its ports while staying publicly silent on the conflict — continues to deepen.
My Take — Santhosh Vishwamitra
Seven days in, this war has already broken more records and crossed more red lines than most analysts thought possible in a month. Iran's military has been devastated — that is the factual reality. But devastated does not mean defeated. Iran has fired over 2,500 missiles and drones across nine countries and is still doing so. Its intelligence is now being supplemented by Russia. Its proxies are still active. And its civilian population is absorbing strikes that have killed 181 children — a number that, regardless of the military logic, will shape the politics of this region for a generation.
Russia's shadow entry into this conflict is the development that should alarm the most people and is receiving the least attention. Moscow is not a bystander. It is a beneficiary and now an active participant — just carefully enough to avoid formal attribution. The US is simultaneously fighting Iran, watching Russia feed targeting intelligence to its enemy, supporting Ukraine against Russia, and running naval operations from the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf. That is an extraordinary operational and strategic stretch. History does not smile on empires that fight on too many fronts at once.
For India, the IRIS Lavan internment at Kochi is the moment that crystallises just how deeply entangled New Delhi has become without making a single public statement. India now has interned Iranian warships in its ports, a war being fought in its maritime neighbourhood, a close strategic partner in Washington conducting that war, and no public position on any of it. That silence is a position — and it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as the bodies pile up and the pressure from both sides intensifies. India will have to speak eventually. The question is whether it speaks on its own terms or under someone else's.
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