Donald Trump
A War With No End Date: The United States Unleashes Its Military Might Against The Iranian Regime
The United States’ Operation Epic Fury against Iran will be, according to Donald Trump, a “massive and sustained” campaign in which the Pentagon plans to deploy its greatest military force in the Middle East in nearly a quarter of a century to strike the enemy country’s navy, its missile program, and its own authorities. With this plan, Washington aims to trigger a regime change and has pledged not to spare military efforts. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described it as ”the most lethal, most complex, and most-precision aerial operation in history.”
Saturday’s bombings, carried out in broad daylight, included dozens of Tomahawk missiles launched from warships that had been stationed for days in waters near Iran, with which the Israeli-U.S. coalition sought to neutralize the enemy country’s air defenses.
According to a senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the president decided to greenlight the operation this weekend because they “received indications” that Iran was considering striking first. “If we had sat back and waited to be attacked, the casualty and damage figures would have been much higher,” the official argued in justification of the bombings. According to U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, no U.S. service members were injured in Saturday’s attacks.
U.S. fighter jets also took part in the strike, which is expected to be the first in a series and which hit, among other places, a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, leaving more than 85 dead, most of them children, according to the state news agency IRNA. The attack, according to U.S. Central Command, was carried out by a joint force, Scorpion Strike, which, in addition to the ships and aircraft in the area, also included personnel from the Space Force, the Army, and the Marine Corps.
For the first time, that force used low-cost, single-use drones inspired by Iranian Shahed models. “Now delivering American-made retribution,” CENTCOM said in a statement distributed on social media.
The bombings have struck locations across Iran’s geography, from the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz in the south to Urmia, on the border with Turkey and Iraq, passing through the capital, Tehran; the city of Qom, sacred to Shiism; and Isfahan, which was hit last June in the brief (45-minute) Operation Midnight Hammer against Iranian nuclear facilities.
“All I want is freedom for the people,” Trump said in a brief late-night phone interview with The Washington Post. In a speech on social media, he called on Iranians to rise up against their regime once U.S. and Israeli forces have finished preparing the ground with their attacks. “[The ayatollahs] will then be ready for you to overthrow them,” he promised.
The president did not specify how long he expects Epic Fury to last or whether he believes diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran, which continued until Thursday, will resume. In a post on Truth confirming Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed, Trump assured that the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” will continue “uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
In his morning address, the president warned of the possibility of casualties among U.S. forces in an operation that could be much longer than the previous one in Iran or the one launched on January 3 in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro.
In the initial attacks, U.S. forces focused on “high-value targets,” including facilities belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite force. “Underground facilities” were also struck, likely linked to Tehran’s nuclear program, as well as naval installations.
The fact that naval facilities were targeted, and that the U.S. president specifically referred to the Iranian Navy as one of the primary objectives, is significant: analysts note that one of Tehran’s main cards in the war that erupted this Saturday is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and, with it, the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. Iran responded almost immediately by launching missiles at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf.
It does appear clear that, at least for now, the operation will not deploy U.S. ground forces — the major red line that Trump’s supporters would likely not forgive him for crossing. The deployment does not include the number of troops necessary for a land intervention — much less an attempt at regime change — in a country three times larger than Venezuela and with a population of 92 million people.
Experts believe that the U.S. military power amassed in the waters and skies of the Middle East gives the Pentagon the capacity to carry out strikes for several consecutive days, but not for weeks. Beyond that, they point out, additional supplies and ammunition would be required. And, according to U.S. media reports this week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, had warned Trump during planning and strategy discussions that current stockpiles are insufficient: the missing materiel was sent to Israel during the offensive in Gaza and to Ukraine over the course of four years of war.
For its part, Iran’s objective “now is to absorb U.S. and Israeli attacks, hold its position and signal expansion of war, and wait for worried regional actors to mediate a ceasefire,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and former diplomat, in a post on the social media platform X. “They expect that if Trump does not get a quick win then he will look for an exit, and negotiations afterwards will be different,” he added.
Accelerated deployment of aircraft
In recent days, the United States has accelerated the deployment of all kinds of military aircraft to bases in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from drones to fighter jets, as well as spy planes and KC-46 and KC-135 tanker aircraft — 39 of them in three days — and C-130J transport planes, which are commonly used to move troops and very heavy equipment.
The deployments also include E-3 Sentry aircraft, equipped with radar and airborne detection systems that make it possible to monitor potential battlefields and enemy positions, as well as Global Hawk surveillance drones. At the end of this week, a dozen F-22s arrived in Israel, a fifth-generation stealth fighter model that ranks among the most advanced in the U.S. Air Force.
In the Gulf of Oman, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is already in position, along with its escort group of three Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyers. On board the flagship are F-35 aircraft, the most modern fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force.
In waters near Israel is the colossal Gerald Ford, the largest and most modern aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. Its complement includes F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets, E-2D airborne surveillance aircraft, and MH-60S and MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. In addition, the Pentagon has other destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean: littoral combat ships converted into mine detectors and submarines.
According to spokesperson Leavitt in a social media post, Trump was overseeing the attacks overnight from his private residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, where he is spending the weekend. Earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had contacted seven of the eight Republican and Democratic leaders of both chambers of the U.S. Congress to inform them in advance of the imminent strike. The eighth was unavailable.
For its part, early Saturday morning in the United States, once the bombings had begun, the Pentagon notified lawmakers who are members of the Armed Services Committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
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America
ICE Used Arrest Quotas And Surveillance Technology In Oregon Immigration Raids, Rare Court Testimony Shows
Rare sworn testimony from federal agents revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Oregon were instructed to meet daily arrest quotas and use technological tools to identify potential “targets” during immigration raids, according to The Guardian.
The information emerged during hearings for a class-action lawsuit filed by the immigrant rights organization Innovation Law Lab, which challenges the practice of detaining people without a warrant or probable cause. The case compelled agents to testify in court, offering a rare glimpse into internal tactics that are not typically made public.
During a hearing held in December, an agent identified as “JB” testified that his team received a verbal order to make eight arrests per day during operations in the state. The group consisted of between nine and 12 officers. When the plaintiffs’ attorney asked him if he had met the quota, the agent replied, ““I made as many arrests as I could, as long as it was lawful.”
The operations were linked to a federal campaign known internally as Operation Black Rose, which took place in the Portland area last year and, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security, resulted in more than 1,200 arrests as of mid-December.
The testimony also revealed for the first time in court the use of an app called Elite, described by the agent as a tool similar to Google Maps, which shows the estimated concentration of people with an “immigration nexus” in certain areas. As he explained, the app helps locate areas where there is a higher probability of finding people subject to detention. However, he acknowledged that the data is not always accurate. “The app could say 100%, and it’s wrong. The person doesn’t live there. And so it’s not accurate. It’s a tool that we use that gives you probability, but there’s … no such thing as 100%,” he stated during the hearing.
The use of this tool was evident during an operation conducted on October 30 in Woodburn, south of Portland, where officers followed a van transporting farmworkers to their workplace. The officers smashed the vehicle’s windows and detained its seven occupants. During that same operation, another officer used a facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify to identify a worker who was detained and transferred to a detention center in Washington State. She was later released.
Federal Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, who reviewed the case, harshly criticized the tactics used, noting that tools like Elite could create inaccurate information and lead to the detention of people who are in the country legally.
As the case proceeds through the courts, federal data released this week shows the scale of the increase in immigration detentions in the U.S. Northwest during 2025. An analysis by the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights found that Oregon recorded 1,655 immigration arrests last year, more than in the previous three years combined. The increase was particularly notable in the final months of the year.
Between January and September 2025, monthly detentions in the state remained below 100, but in October and November they exceeded 400 per month, according to an analysis based on official ICE forms used to initiate deportation proceedings. The researchers noted that the Portland metropolitan area was one of the main hubs of that activity. “We were frankly blown away by the scale of the arrests in the Portland area from October to December of last year,” Phil Neff, the university center’s research coordinator, told reporters.
Other reports have also documented a sharp increase in arrests during that period. Data collected by researchers and analyzed by Oregon Public Broadcasting indicates that in some counties in the Portland area, arrests skyrocketed by more than 600% after President Donald Trump described the city as “war-torn.” The figures show that Multnomah, Washington, and Marion counties recorded the largest increases during the fall of 2025.
Attorneys and civil rights organizations argue that the pressure to increase arrests may have contributed to questionable practices during operations. Stephen Manning, executive director of the Innovation Law Lab and one of the lawyers behind the lawsuit, stated that court testimony shows how arrest quotas can influence the way officers conduct their operations. “The law is an impediment to the quotas,” he told The Guardian.
The lawsuit seeks to put a stop to arrests without a warrant and to determine whether the tactics used by agents violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Meanwhile, investigators warn that the available data may even underestimate the actual number of arrests, since the records analyzed reflect only a fraction of all ICE detentions.
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America
Cuba Negocia Con Estados Unidos Por Primera Vez En Más De Una Década En Medio De La Asfixia De La Isla
El presidente cubano, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmó en la mañana de este viernes que funcionarios de su Gobierno recién comenzaron las conversaciones con representantes de la administración de Donald Trump, en medio de la debacle económica que atraviesa la isla. Insistió en que ha sido práctica de la Revolución Cubana no “responder a las campañas especulativas sobre este tipo de tema”, tras varias filtraciones que apuntan a que el diálogo, en realidad, ya había comenzado hace semanas. A pesar de que el propio Trump dejó saber en varias ocasiones que estaban conversando con La Habana, la parte cubana mantuvo el silencio, y en ocasiones incluso negó que se estuviese llevando a cabo algún tipo de negociación.
Quince minutos antes de la transmisión que había sido anunciada para las 7:30 (hora de La Habana y de Washington, dos menos en México y cinco más en la España peninsular), la prensa oficialista adelantó que Díaz-Canel, desde la sede del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, en una reunión con miembros del Buró Político, del Secretariado del Comité Central del Partido Comunista, y del Comité Ejecutivo del Consejo de Ministros, dijo que “estas conversaciones han estado orientadas a buscar soluciones, por la vía del diálogo, a las diferencias bilaterales que tenemos entre las dos naciones”. “Hay factores internacionales que han facilitado estos intercambios”, sostuvo.
“En los intercambios que se han sostenido, la parte cubana ha expresado la voluntad de llevar a cabo este proceso, sobre bases de igualdad y respeto a los sistemas políticos de ambos Estados, a la soberanía, y a la autodeterminación de nuestros gobiernos”, dijo el mandatario cubano.
Trump, por su parte, reaccionó al anuncio a eso de las 10:00. Lo hizo en Truth, su red social. No fue esta vez uno de sus hiperbólicos mensajes, sino que se limitó a retuitear un artículo del diario USA Today, cuyo titular dice: “Cuba confirma las conversaciones con los funcionarios estadounidenses, lo cual acrecienta la esperanza de un acuerdo”. Ese mismo periódico publicó el domingo pasado una información que hablaba de la inminencia de un pacto económico, aunque no daba más detalles sobre su contenido. No obstante, deslizó que el plan de la Casa Blanca era quitar del medio a Díaz-Canel, pero mantener en la isla a los herederos del apellido Castro.
El mensaje de Díaz-Canel se ha emitido en medio de una histórica crisis económica y mientras La Habana se mantiene bajo una presión creciente por parte de Estados Unidos. Horas antes de esta comparecencia, el Gobierno cubano anunció la liberación de 51 presos por mediación del Vaticano. “Es una práctica soberana, nadie nos la impone”, dijo este viernes Díaz-Canel. “Responde a nuestra vocación humanista”. No queda claro, hasta el momento, si las decenas de presos por liberar incluyen a algunos de los más de 1.000 presos políticos que permanecen en las cárceles cubanas. Desde ya, la ciudadanía exige que cualquier acuerdo con Washington debe contemplar la amnistía para los presos de conciencia.
Después de 12 años del anuncio del restablecimiento de las relaciones diplomáticas por Barack Obama y Raúl Castro en diciembre de 2014, esta es la primera vez que el Gobierno cubano se sienta con su contraparte estadounidense, en aras de llegar a un acuerdo. Si en aquella ocasión el llamado fue a través del soft power (poder blando), con énfasis en el engagement (compromiso o involucramiento) entre ambos pueblos, hoy a Cuba no le ha quedado más remedio que transar con los estadounidenses, que le han puesto la soga al cuello tras la emergencia nacional decretada el pasado 29 de enero, que privó al país del combustible que llegaba de manos de Venezuela o México.
“Hace más de tres meses que no entra un barco de combustible en el país. Estamos trabajando en unas condiciones muy adversas, con un impacto inconmensurable en la vida de todo nuestro pueblo”, sostuvo. Ciertamente, esta es una situación que ha paralizado la vida en general, con la suspensión de escuelas, el escaso transporte, los largos apagones. Desde hace una semana, los cubanos se unen cada noche en cacerolazos a modo de protesta por una situación que se les hace insostenible.
En la aparición de Díaz-Canel de este viernes, llamó la atención, particularmente, la presencia de Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, nieto de Raúl Castro, conocido como El Cangrejo. El coronel de 41 años es quien, presuntamente, está manteniendo conversaciones con el secretario de Estado, el cubanoamericano Marco Rubio, en quien Trump ha depositado la misión del futuro de Cuba, un territorio que el político de Florida conoce bien.
Aunque aún es una incógnita qué clase de temas están abordando La Habana y Washington, los primeros pasos de un posible deshielo parecen haber comenzado ya. Los permisos para que el sector privado importe petróleo a Cuba directamente desde Estados Unidos, los constantes comentarios de Rubio sobre la importancia de un cambio económico en la isla y la excarcelación ahora de decenas de presos podrían dar indicios de lo que se está abordando en la negociación entre ambos países. Cuando en 2014 los entonces presidentes de ambos países anunciaron el restablecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas, el deshielo también llegó de la mano de ciertas aperturas para el sector privado y la liberación de 53 presos, también por mediación del Vaticano.
Aunque hay muchas similitudes entre ambas políticas, los expertos también hablan de marcadas diferencias entre Obama y Trump respecto al acercamiento con Cuba. “La administración Obama intentó normalizar las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba, sin derrocar al régimen de La Habana. En cambio, la segunda administración Trump se ha centrado en impulsar un cambio en el liderazgo cubano y lograr reformas económicas en la isla”, dijo a EL PAÍS Jorge Duany, exdirector del Instituto Cubano de Investigaciones y catedrático emérito de la Universidad de Florida. “Mientras Obama adoptó una retórica conciliadora hacia Cuba, Trump ha insistido en la confrontación con el régimen socialista. Obama facilitó los viajes y el comercio entre Estados Unidos y Cuba, buscando sustituir el aislamiento por el engagement. Por su parte, Trump 2.0 ha aplicado una política de máxima presión y asfixia económica para precipitar la caída del gobierno cubano”.
La aparente cordialidad del diálogo
Sin entrar en especificidades ni muchos más detalles sobre las conversaciones con la Casa Blanca, el mandatario cubano dijo que se trata “un proceso muy sensible, que se conduce con seriedad y responsabilidad, porque afecta los vínculos bilaterales entre las dos naciones y demanda enormes y arduos esfuerzos para encontrar solución y crear espacios de entendimiento, que nos permitan avanzar y alejarnos de la confrontación”.
En todo momento, Díaz-Canel trató de transmitir cordialidad entre las negociaciones con Washington. Incluso habló sobre el ataque a una lancha de exiliados cubanos el pasado 25 de febrero, que se pensó podía desatar la ira de Washington, pero que ha resonado con poca fuerza en la Casa Blanca.
La embestida dejó el saldo de cuatro personas fallecidas y seis heridos, quienes se acercaban a las costas de Villa Clara desde Florida, y que fueron atacados por los Guardacostas cubanos. Se trató de una “infiltración armada con fines terroristas”, “financiada desde territorios de EEUU”, dijo el mandatario. “En las investigaciones todos han reconocido su participación, que fueron ellos los primeros que dispararon contra nuestra embarcación de Guardacostas”, sostuvo. También aseguró que los heridos han recibido la debida atención médica y que los cadáveres fueron reconocidos por sus respectivos familiares. No obstante, hasta el momento varios familiares han afirmado no haber recibido información alguna de parte del Gobierno cubano.
El mandatario dijo que la Casa Blanca ha estado informada del incidente, que implicó a dos ciudadanos estadounidenses. “Han agradecido la información que se les ha dado. Han planteado su disposición de participar de conjunto en el esclarecimiento de los hechos”, sostuvo. Incluso dejó saber que están a la espera de expertos del FBI que participarán de las investigaciones junto a las fuerzas del Ministerio del Interior cubano.
El discurso, que desde bien temprano del viernes esperaban los cubanos tanto dentro como fuera del país, se presentó por el Gobierno como una continuación de la comparecencia del 5 de febrero, cuando Díaz-Canel dejó claro que “Cuba está dispuesta a un diálogo con Estados Unidos”. “Hay muchas cosas en las que podemos trabajar juntos, sin prejuicios”, insistió entonces.
Cuba, el próximo objetivo de Trump
Han pasado 43 días desde que la Administración de Trump declaró la emergencia nacional hacia la isla. Desde entonces, la vida en el país, que ya era precaria, se ha vuelto mucho más insostenible. Esa presión es parte, al parecer, del plan que tienen Trump y Rubio, quien ha dicho que, antes cualquier libertad política, Cuba necesita regenerar su economía.
Trump, a quien se le ha pedido un posicionamiento directo respecto a Cuba luego de la intervención en Venezuela, promete que la isla verá un cambio antes de fin de año. La imprevisibilidad de la guerra en Irán lanzada con Israel amenaza con enlentecer el avance de sus prioridades, pero incluso en mitad de un conflicto que cada día está un poco más fuera de control, Trump no ha dejado de girarse hacia la isla.
La última vez que se refirió a Cuba fue el sábado pasado, durante la presentación en su hotel del Doral (Florida) del llamado Escudo de las Américas, una alianza de Gobiernos latinoamericanos ideológicamente afines para combatir el narcotráfico. En ese foro, el presidente de Estados Unidos, que a menudo vincula el porvenir de La Habana con la experiencia personal de alguien que ha convivido con “ese problema desde pequeño”, afirmó que espera “con muchas ganas el gran cambio que pronto llegará a Cuba”. En el caso de Rubio, se trata de algo personal: el secretario de Estado es hijo de inmigrantes cubanos y producto del anticastrismo más convencido de Miami.
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