InsideNK/GeoPolitics

Direct hit in Dimona, Southern Israel

ALERT | Israeli & U.S. strikes on Iran will intensify in the coming days, warning of a significant escalation in attacks on infrastructure (Israel Defence Minister).

ALERT | Iran fired ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia. Neither of the two missiles hit their targets, with one believed to have been intercepted by a US warship and the other having failed in flight. The attempted attack on the joint UK-US base, which is 2,500 miles from Iran, is the first time Tehran has used intermediate-range ballistic missiles and marks a significant escalation of the conflict (@Telegraph).

UPDATE | President Trump says the U.S. is considering winding down war in Iran, but that other nations must guard the Strait of Hormuz

The Gulf countries have a massive decision to make force Trump to the table or go after Iran (@Itwitius/Newsnight).

ALERT | U.S have started to make detailed preparations to deploy ground forces into Iran,

ALERT | Britain greenlights U.S. use of its bases for strikes on Iranian sites targeting Strait of Hormuz

ALERT | NATO has evacuated personnel from Iraq

BREAKING | Iranian man has been arrested with a woman after trying to enter the Faslane naval base, home to the UK's nuclear-armed submarines.

A U.S. naval escort in the Strait of Hormuz would not be a simple case of “warships sail next to tankers and the problem is solved.” In reality, it would be a high-risk, multi-layered combat operation inside a narrow maritime chokepoint that remains exposed to missiles, mines, drones and Iran’s asymmetric naval tactics. The Financial Times reports planners have examined escort concepts involving roughly 8–12 destroyers plus air support, but even that is viewed as dangerous and resource-intensive. The biggest problem is geometry and exposure. The Strait forces merchant traffic into predictable lanes, close to Iran’s coastline and within range of shore-based systems. That means escorts are not protecting shipping in open ocean; they are trying to move slow, commercially crewed vessels through what amounts to a confined kill zone. Analysts and officials have warned that even with naval cover, escorts cannot guarantee safe passage, which is why insurers, operators and maritime authorities remain cautious. Iran’s most dangerous advantage is not just missiles or mines, but mass and saturation. Iran and the IRGC Navy have long built doctrine around swarming attacks using large numbers of small, fast boats, and some naval analysts assess Tehran could field hundreds or even thousands of such boats for harassment, mine-laying, rocket fire, explosive strikes and diversionary attacks. In a real escort scenario, the threat would not be one dramatic attack from one direction; it would be multiple contacts appearing at once, forcing escort ships to split attention across radar, visual, drone and missile threats simultaneously. That is why escorting warships would themselves be vulnerable. They cannot sit packed tightly together around a convoy because warships need enough spacing to manoeuvre, maintain sensor coverage, avoid collision risk, preserve firing arcs and respond to contacts from several bearings at once. But the moment escorts spread out, the screen becomes thinner and fast boats can probe for seams, rush isolated points, or force one ship to defend itself while another part of the convoy is exposed. In other words, spacing is operationally necessary - but spacing also creates vulnerability against swarm tactics. This is exactly why former commanders and shipping officials have warned Hormuz escorts would remain exceptionally dangerous even after preliminary strikes on Iranian capabilities. The escort mission would therefore depend on much more than surface ships. It would require constant ISR, helicopters, drones, combat air patrols, mine-countermeasure assets and pre-emptive suppression of launch sites and boat concentrations ashore. Without that wider umbrella, the escorts risk becoming not just protectors of shipping, but high-value targets escorting slow-moving commercial vessels through one of the most contested waterways on earth. Even then, the likely outcome would be limited, cautious convoys - not a rapid return to normal shipping volumes. Bottom line: a Hormuz escort mission would be less like a routine naval patrol and more like a rolling combat corridor - where the core challenge is not simply escorting tankers, but surviving Iran’s ability to saturate the battlespace with mines, drones, missiles and waves of fast attack boats.

ALERT | The US has launched an offensive to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.  Washington has deployed low-flying jets and Apache helicopters to strike Iranian vessels and drones near the shipping lane (@Telegraph)

UPDATE | UAE Minister of Defense stated he would lead a ground invasion of Iran and be the first to occupy it.

UPDATE | Netanyahu - Signs that there are cracks in the regime and Israel is working on making it collapse.

ALERT | Netanyahu "I’m alive" Israeli PM Netanyahu: -Israel is a regional power -Iran cannot make missiles -Iran has zero capacity to make nuclear weapons -Iran's industrial base is wiped out -Iran is blackmailing the world by closing the Strait of Hormuz -All Iranian senior officials eliminated -War with Iran will take as long as necessary -Too early to say if there are conditions to change the regime

The Danish military sent explosives and blood supplies to Greenland in January as part of contingency planning for a US attack. Danish troops dispatched to Greenland at the start of the year took enough explosives to destroy the island’s main runways near the capital Nuuk and at a former fighter base in Kangerlussuaq. France and Germany backed Denmark in this approach (FT).

ALERT | Israeli PM to make a statement imminently

ALERT | The UK to step up defensive support for Gulf States says UK Defence Minister.

ALERT | Reports of an impact at Israel's Haifa oil refinery following an Iranian attack.

UPDATE | U.S calls for its citizens to leave Saudi Arabia.

ALERT | The World Health Organization has warned it is preparing for potential worst-case nuclear risk scenarios amid the war with Iran. Officials stress preparedness is essential - but emphasise the catastrophic, long-term global consequences any nuclear incident would bring.