President Trump told the Financial Times the U.S. is actively considering seizing Kharg Island, Iran's primary oil export terminal, and threatened on Truth Social to destroy Iran's power plants, oil wells, and desalination infrastructure if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. Oil surged to $116 a barrel, up more than 50% since the start of March, exceeding the record set during Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Fighting continued across the region despite Trump's claim that negotiations are progressing. Israel struck weapons production sites in Tehran overnight, including an anti-aircraft missile assembly facility, while Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at bases in northern Israel and hit IDF forces in southern Lebanon, killing one Connecticut-born Israeli soldier.

Iran retaliated broadly across the Gulf over the weekend, striking an industrial zone in southern Israel, attacking a power and desalination plant in Kuwait, and hitting aluminum factories in the UAE and Bahrain. Russia's Rosatom warned that strikes are degrading the condition of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, and the IAEA confirmed Iran's Khondab heavy water facility has been rendered inoperational.

The Pentagon is assembling plans for multi-week ground operations in Iran involving both conventional infantry and special operations forces, according to multiple U.S. officials cited by the Washington Post. The operations would fall short of a full-scale invasion, but decisions on whether to green-light them rest with President Trump.

Planning accelerates as U.S. forces continue to mass in the region. The Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) arrived in U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) waters on Friday, while elements of the 82nd Airborne Division are slated to deploy, adding at least 1,000 soldiers to the theater.

The latest Iranian strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on Friday injured 12 U.S. service members, two seriously, and destroyed at least one E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. In total, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and nearly 300 wounded since Operation Epic Fury began February 28.

The Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, carrying the 2,200-strong 31st MEU with 1,200 ground combat forces and Marine Corps F-35B strike fighters, arrived in CENTCOM's area of responsibility on Friday. The group includes the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and the amphibious transport dock USS New Orleans, bringing the total embarked force to 3,500 sailors and Marines.

A second amphibious ready group is inbound. The USS Boxer, carrying roughly 2,500 Marines from the 11th MEU, departed San Diego on March 18 and is still en route. The aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush and its carrier strike group are also heading to the theater, making it the third carrier deployed to CENTCOM, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and the fire-damaged USS Gerald R. Ford, which has diverted to Croatia for repairs.

Since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, CENTCOM reports more than 11,000 targets struck and 150 Iranian vessels damaged or destroyed. The continued buildup of amphibious assets and ground forces signals a broadening of U.S. options beyond the air campaign, as analysts note air power alone has not been sufficient to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Anthropic's Claude is not a standalone targeting tool inside CENTCOM, it is an interface layer bolted onto Palantir's Maven Smart System, the AI-enabled targeting architecture that generates targets, matches munitions to them, and assesses battle damage. Claude functions as a sophisticated operator interface that synchronizes other Maven modules and AI models, rather than directly issuing targeting recommendations. Maven is slated to be transferred to the Chief Digital Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) as a DoD program of record by April 8.

The accidental Tomahawk strike on a girls' school in Minab highlights a core tension at the heart of Maven's design: the system can compress the targeting cycle to seconds, but that speed has outpaced humans' ability to validate the data flowing through it. In the Minab case, the school building had been fenced off from an adjacent Iranian military base sometime between 2013 and 2016; the Defense Intelligence Agency apparently missed the change, and the school was designated a target.

Efforts to generate targets faster than an adversary can respond date back to the Vietnam War and Cold War nuclear deterrence doctrine. The current architecture prioritizes operational speed over strategic verification, and Maven's impending elevation to a DoD-wide program of record means the tension between tempo and accuracy is about to be institutionalized at scale.

The USS Massachusetts (SSN 798), the Navy's 25th Virginia-class submarine and the seventh Block IV variant, was commissioned at Boston Harbor on March 28. The boat was built under a teaming agreement between General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII-Newport News Shipbuilding and was delivered to the Navy last November.

The submarine displaces approximately 7,800 tons and measures roughly 115 meters in length. It is powered by a nuclear reactor designed to last the vessel's entire service life without refueling, a design feature that reduces lifecycle costs and maximizes operational availability in an era of sustained high-tempo naval operations.

The commissioning adds a capable undersea platform to a Navy stretched thin by Operation Epic Fury. Virginia-class fast-attack submarines feature advanced stealth, sophisticated surveillance systems, and special-operations enhancements, making them a versatile asset across the full spectrum of potential missions in the increasingly contested waters of the Middle East and beyond.

Thales has unveiled the Expeditionary PathMaster, an AI-enabled mine countermeasure system designed to operate from any location, whether shore, a vessel, or a forward-deployed platform, without relying on dedicated minehunters or fixed infrastructure. The system integrates manned and unmanned assets, including autonomous unmanned vessels and remotely operated vehicles, through a portable operations center. Thales demonstrated the system's interoperability in partnership with the Lithuanian Navy.

PathMaster is powered by Thales' cortAIx AI accelerator, which the company says processes sonar data up to four times faster than traditional systems with a claimed 99% classification accuracy. When combined with the M-Cube mission management system, operators can run multiple analyses simultaneously and receive near-real-time object-detection updates.

The system is confirmed ready for operational use. Its timing is notable: mine countermeasures have surged in strategic importance as the Iran conflict has placed renewed pressure on sea lines of communication and Gulf shipping infrastructure, and allied navies are racing to build organic, expeditionary mine warfare capabilities that do not depend on a shrinking pool of purpose-built minehunters.

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