Intel Update — Feb — 28 — The War Begins
Hello again everyone, and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for February 28th, 2026. Due to current events, this will be more of a topical special update on the large-scale regional war that has broken out in the Middle East. So, let's get right to it. This morning, large-scale bombing campaigns began throughout the nation of Iran as American and Israeli forces began their war to topple the Ayatollah. This campaign has been dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon with the Israelis calling their component Operation Roaring Lion. Based solely on President Trump's address to the nation that was posted early this morning, the goal of this operation is regime change, which so far has taken the form of American forces bombing Iranian targets to assist the Iranian people in rising up and overthrowing the Ayatollah, which we'll get to in a moment. American airstrikes have been conducted in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, Shiraz, and many other locations.
Right now, it's challenging to see what actually got hit due to the internet and power outages throughout the nation. However, we can see what they did in response. Immediately after the first bombs were dropped, Iranian forces retaliated with whatever munitions they had ready for an immediate knee-jerk response. Most of these munitions were long-range Shahed 136 drones or some of their longer-range cruise missiles. So, as of right now, the big guns have not come out when it comes to the Iranian response just yet. Nevertheless, Iranian targeting efforts have been so far fairly minimal, all things considered. Civilian aviation has largely been grounded throughout most of the region as Iranian and American cruise missiles pass each other in the skies on their way to their targets. Kuwait International Airport was hit by Iranian forces a few hours ago with Terminal 1 being severely damaged.
Structures in downtown Dubai have also been targeted with various Palm hotels receiving direct hits this morning. To protect against the potential deployment of ballistic missiles within Iran itself, American and Israeli forces are flying Reaper drones in many cities around the nation, which are probably watching and waiting for a ballistic missile TEL or transporter erector launcher to pop out of a tunnel somewhere, which will then be struck. This is pure speculation on my part, but locals in Shiraz have made posts on social media indicating that they can visually see drones flying around overhead. So, that's my guess as to what they are doing. Hit the first wave of targets and while those strikes are ongoing, put ISR assets overhead to hopefully catch the Iranians trying to launch a ballistic missile and hopefully call in an airstrike on it before it's launched. Either way, it's a very dynamic situation. Things are changing by the minute and it's been a very busy morning so far.
This afternoon, the Iranians announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, though at the present time it is unclear as to if they have the naval capability to enforce that. Some strikes have occurred at their naval facilities on the Persian Gulf. However, that's really hard to confirm at the moment. Commercial vessels appear to slowly be getting the word to avoid the strait and the White House a few minutes ago just recommended all commercial shipping to avoid the area for a while as the war continues. Around the entire Middle East, several other nations have become involved, officially making this a region-wide war. Following the Iranian strikes in other Middle Eastern nations, the Saudis have announced that they will be willing to conduct strikes of their own in Iran as well. So, now the Saudis are playing ball and will probably begin flying bombing sorties against the Iranians as well.
In the Horn of Africa, the Houthis in Yemen have announced that they will also begin targeting American vessels in the region once again in response to the strikes. Which, if these remarks are serious and not just the usual rhetoric, could mean that the United States might be facing a multi-front war such that it is. None of these forces pose a particular risk to the US Navy in the region, but again, if we crack open our history of warfare textbooks, we remember that the purpose of a disadvantaged adversary opening up an additional front is mostly to pull resources from another front. The Houthis don't really have the resources to do much, but what they can do is hit Israel with their missiles, which they proved last year. And a destroyer that has to hang out in the southern Red Sea to provide this missile defense is a destroyer that can't be elsewhere.
So, the Houthis might not be that combat effective, but they are certainly combat effective enough to divide American resources throughout the region. In Lebanon, similar efforts are underway as Hezbollah takes advantage of the fray to launch their standard short-range rockets into Israel. The Iron Dome has been busy all morning intercepting missiles and drones both from Hezbollah and the Iranians. It is also interesting to note that the timing of the first strikes is significant. Daytime bombing raids are unusual in this case and provide some insight on the targeting efforts at large. Most of the time deliberate targeting efforts are carried out during POD or period of darkness, usually in the middle of the night. This is for two main reasons. Usually, you know where the bad guys are located and also where civilians are located, which is usually in bed in their homes. So, bombing missions of this scale are usually conducted at night so as to reduce overall civilian casualties.
There is also the side benefit of the concealment the darkness provides. In this case, the very first explosions were reported in Tehran just after 8:00 a.m. local time. Though it is speculative, to me this indicates that the Americans and Israelis were trying to catch Iranian troops at their posts or that sometime sensitive trigger was tripped, probably regarding the strikes targeting senior leadership, which is not surprising but interesting to note. So, moving forward, all things considered, what is the actual plan here? Well, to be honest, we don't really know for sure. The White House really just went full send with their largest air campaign since the surge in Iraq in 2003 without really fully explaining the why behind it all. So, as of President Trump's address this morning, this whole thing is about regime change and openly encouraging a revolution. In terms of how this seems to work out, it's anyone's guess.
The US could simply bomb all military hardware in the country and just walk away and leave the smoking crater for the civilians to deal with, which certainly seems like that's the plan right now. Right now, it looks like the general plan is just to bomb everything and not really care about any power vacuum that might arise if and when the Ayatollah and his government falls. Because as of right now, this is not a certainty. Israeli controlled media aside, there are no reports on the Ayatollah's whereabouts or what his status is. The US bombed his official residence in Tehran during the first wave of strikes. However, he hasn't been living there for some time. He's probably been in his bunker to the north for several days at least, and there are no indications of whether or not we actually hit that site just yet. But again, until more information comes out, it's impossible to know where the Ayatollah is at the moment.
On the home front, as a result of the regional war that has broken out in the Middle East, threats within the American homeland are elevated. I know that everyone is concerned about the potential for sleeper cell activation throughout the United States right now. This has been a very infamous threat for many, many, many years. However, this is also always an unknown risk that we can't really do a lot with in terms of mitigation. If the sleeper cells are real and they are activated, there's not a whole lot the average American can do about it. It would make sense for these cells to exist. Surely they do. But in terms of how many and where they're located, it's going to be impossible to know for sure. The first time the United States has struck at the Iranian nuclear program, nothing really happened. No sleeper cells were activated throughout the US. So, there is some credence to the argument that this is kind of an overblown threat.
However, once again, we're in a very dynamic and very dangerous world these days. So, it would be wise to just consider that yeah, there are probably some at least lone wolf attack plans out there just waiting to go into the operational phase. More broadly, the threats that are presented by various factions within the United States are a lot more clear. It is far, far more likely for a far left Reddit tier terrorist to conduct a lone wolf attack over this due to their own radicalization, rather than a deliberately planted sleeper cell agent. From my wheelhouse, this is the risk that is worth focusing on and being aware of. There are a lot of crazy people out there, people who desperately want to use violence for some political cause, even one that they might not have any skin in themselves. Other than more kinetic terrorist attacks, protests and demonstrations are likely to break out in the usual places.
And this morning, the London Metro Police announced several pop-up demonstrations taking place throughout the city, which have caused travel disruptions for many people. It's Saturday and perfect protesting weather throughout most of the United States and Western Europe, so that's probably going to be on the menu for the next few days as air strikes continue. This is most certainly not a one-and-done strike on nuclear facilities like we've seen before. This campaign will last at least a few days. Similarly, in the US, we will probably see protests break out in the short term with more organized efforts continuing as the war drags on. Once again, I want to be explicitly clear that we do not know the true scale of this operation. This could be a drop in the bucket or it could transition to a much more substantial campaign. We just don't know. This has not been explained to us by our government and we're just having to watch this like everybody else.
The next satellite passes of the region are a few days away and as of right now, the US government has not stated which sites were struck, so we're just going to have to wait. So, that's the situation as it stands right now. Not a whole lot to go on, but hopefully we will at least get some answers as time goes on. We've been expecting this for a long time, but even still, I know that a lot of people aren't feeling super great about this right now, which I understand more than you could possibly imagine, but we'll get through it all right. No matter what happens overseas or here at home, it is our responsibility to do the best we can, no matter what. So, stay frosty, keep your head on a swivel, and do your utmost to help improve the world around you in whatever little way you can. For tracking these events in as real time as I can manage, I plan to be constantly updating all of my mapping products throughout the next few days.
It takes a lot of time because every single point has to be geolocated and corroborated if possible, but we'll get there. If you want to follow along with the work I do, there are many different ways to visualize my work. The most popular will probably be the dashboard I have created, but if you want to filter events by type or date, or if you want to create your own sort of dashboard arrangement, just viewing my online common intelligence picture is probably what you want. And of course, if you are a user of A-TAC, I also publish KMZs of all of this, which can be easily imported as needed. So, that's all I have for today. I will hope to provide more information in a standard wire report as it becomes available, but that might be a while if the US is bombing targets throughout the next few days. But in any case, we'll give it a try. So, thank you all for watching. Thanks for sticking around, and I'll see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.