Iran war updates:

• Lawmakers React to Reports Pentagon Preparing for Ground Operations in Iran (The Guardian)
• Iran Warns U.S. Ground Troops Would Be 'Set on Fire' and Pakistan Says It Will Host U.S.-Iran Talks (PBS)
• There Are Now over 50,000 American Troops in the Mideast (NY Times)
• Iran Strike on Saudi Arabia’s Sultan Airbase Destroys Key US Air Force Platforms (Jerusalem Post)
• Iran Wipes Out US-Israeli Radars & Sensors, Changing Course of War (Responsible Statecraft)
• The Commodities Feed: Iran Hits UAE and Bahrain Aluminium Plants (ING)
• Donald Trump says US Could ‘Take the Oil in Iran’ (Financial Times)
• 4 Ways Iran Could Strike Back if Trump Invades Kharg Island (The Hill)
• 'What if Trump and Netanyahu Saved the Islamic Republic of Iran by Claiming to Overthrow It?' (Le Monde)

Hegseth's hosting "unprecedented" evangelical worship services and replacing insignia of rank on chaplains' uniforms with religious insignia has military chaplains fearing "limits that used to exist around proselytizing have evaporated":

• Invoking Faith in Wartime, Pete Hegseth Breaks Norms and Worries Critics (Washington Post)

Do the Houtis intend "to send a few missiles and drones from a distance towards Israel or ... [to] instead capitalise on its proximity to the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait to effectively close off the Red Sea to shipping":

• What the Houthis’ Entry into the Iran War Means for the Conflict and the Wider Region (The Guardian)

PM Nabih "Berri’s Amal party joined Hezbollah ministers in boycotting a cabinet session this past week in protest at the order to expel Mohammad Reza Sheibani":

• Source: Iran’s Ambassador Will Defy Lebanon’s Expulsion Order, Won’t Leave Country Today (AFP / Times of Israel)

"[T]he heavy water production plant in Khondab, Iran, saying that the facility is "no longer operational" ...

• 'Severe Damage' Done to Iran's Khondab Heavy Water Production Plant, Says UN Nuclear Watchdog (Andalou Ajansi)

... but "[s]atellite imagery shows that Iran could have transferred to Isfahan up to 540 kilograms—possibly all—of its highly-enriched uranium inventory before the June strikes last year":

• Analysis: Iran Likely Transferred Highly Enriched Uranium to Isfahan Before the June Strikes (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

"While the war on Iran is the most unpopular a US war has ever been at its onset, this ... has not yet translated into organized anti-war opposition":

• Americans Don’t Want This War. They Can End It (The Guardian)

"[A]n attack that struck a sports hall and adjacent elementary school near a military facility in southern Iran ... occurred the same day as a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile struck a school in the city of Minab":

• New U.S. Missile Hit Iranian Sports Hall and School, Analysis Shows (NY Times)

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