Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that U.S. strikes on Tehran would continue to amplify, meaning Tuesday’s aerial strikes would mark “the most intense” of the 10-day conflict.
“Iran stands alone and they are badly losing on day 10 of Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth said. “We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury.”
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Tuesday in a post on social media that Iranians don’t fear “hollow threats,” a response to an earlier social media post from U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The Ashura-loving Iranian people do not fear your hollow threats; for those greater than you have failed to erase it… So beware lest you be the ones to vanish,” Larijani said.
Trump had earlier said the U.S. would amplify its strikes on Iran if the country moved to further restrict traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s internet shutdown– Iran’s near-total internet shutdown passed 240 hours on Tuesday, NetBlocks said in a social media post Tuesday morning
The shutdown “is now among the most severe government-imposed nationwide internet shutdowns on record globally, and the second longest registered in Iran after the January protests, with the country having spent a third of 2026 offline,” the online monitoring and advocacy group said.
Wave of strikes on Tehran– The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday that it had carried out another wave of strikes against the Iranian regime in Tehran overnight, with targets including a weapons research and development complex used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
