Iran Rejects Trump’s 48-Hour Ultimatum, Threatens to “Completely Close” Strait of Hormuz and Inflict “Irreversible Damage” to Arab States
IDF eliminates commander of Hezbollah-Radwan Special Forces.
Iran responded with new threats following President Donald Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. President Trump, on Saturday, vowed to “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants, “starting with the biggest one first,” if the regime did not “fully open” the strait by late Monday night.
The Islamic Guard (IRGC), the regime’s military arm, which practically owns the Iranian energy sector, threatened to close the world’s busiest oil chokepoint “completely” if the U.S. president followed through on his ultimatum. Since the conflict began three weeks ago, Iran has nearly closed the waterway, cutting it down to just 5 percent of its pre-war volume.
“In a statement broadcast by Iranian media, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it will “completely close” the Strait of Hormuz if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure,” the BBC reported.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, upped the ante, threatening neighbouring Arab countries with “irreversible damage.” He declared that “the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be destroyed in an irreversible manner.”
Iran continues attacks on civilian, commercial targets across the Middle East
Reports from the region suggest Iran is already executing those threats, firing missiles at Arab oil infrastructure and Israeli cities. “Iran fired three ballistic missiles toward Riyadh early Sunday as it continued its daily attacks on Gulf states,” the Saudi daily Arab News reported. “Eleven drones were also launched toward the Kingdom’s Eastern Province, all of which were intercepted and destroyed.”
Sirens were sounded throughout the weekend across Israel, as several Iranian ballistic missiles breached the country’s airspace. Nearly 160 people were injured, 11 of them seriously, when an Iranian missile hit a residential area in the southern Israeli city of Dimona.
Missile strikes and falling debris were reported in several locations. “Some 200 [were] wounded in direct hits on southern Israeli cities on Saturday,” the Jerusalem Post noted.
Heavy missile barrage from Iran, in coordination with Lebanese Hezbollah, continued for the second day. “Missile fire from Iran continued Sunday, with seven launches reported since morning at different times toward Israeli cities,” Israel’s Ynetnews reported. “Five were aimed at central Israel, one at Eilat, and one toward the Be’er Sheva area.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is undertaking counter-measures, hitting an “Iranian military base used for training soldiers and storing missile systems intended to target aircraft.”
According to the IDF on Sunday, its fighter jets also struck a “weapons production and storage facility of the Ministry of Defense” and a “weapons production site of the IRGC’s Air Force.”
✈️🎯IAF STRIKES IN TEHRAN CONTINUE
A wide-scale wave of strikes on security bodies targeted:
• A military base used for training soldiers and storing missile systems intended to target aircrafts
• A weapons production and storage facility of the Ministry of Defense
• A… pic.twitter.com/kBeQmTLhx9— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 22, 2026
IDF eliminates commander of Hezbollah-Radwan Special Forces
With Hezbollah trying to open a second front on Israel’s northern border, the IDF, on Saturday, eliminated the head of its Iranian-trained Radwan Special Forces.
“[T]he Israeli Air Force struck and killed the terrorist Abu Khalil Barji, Commander of the Special Forces in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, along with two other terrorists in the area of Majdal Selm in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced. “Barji had served for years as a commander in the Radwan Force and recently commanded its special forces, which were responsible, among other roles, for attacking IDF troops. Alongside Barji, two additional Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated.”
Before the Hamas-led October 7 massacre, the Radwan Forces had been planning a similar terrorist incursion into northern Israel, called the plan to “Conquer the Galilee.” In October 2024, the IDF uncovered the secret attack plan during its ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
🔴ELIMINATED: Abu Khalil Barji, Commander of the Special Forces in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, along with 2 other terrorists in the area of Majdal Selm in southern Lebanon.
Barji served for years as a commander in the Radwan Force and recently commanded its special forces, which…
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 22, 2026
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Comments
“Since the conflict began three weeks ago, Iran has nearly closed the waterway, reducing it to around 95 percent of its pre-war volume.”
Presumably, that’s BY, not TO.
Presumably the author meant that shipping has been reduced to 5 percent of pre-war volume, not reduced to 95 percent, which would be a minor reduction in shipping through the strait.
Was it edited? Here is how it appears at 4:15 PDT: “… to just 5 percent of its pre-war volume.”
Fully expected and they will do whatever it takes….WHATEVER….to survive. Pulling down the world around them is exactly one of their goals to have the 12th imam jump out of the well and bring about the global caliphate. They have to be totally destroyed…. their best champions now are the Islam, MSM and Dems…. the Islamo-Marxist axis. The cost of freedom will be high unfortunately… since Obama and Biden primed the Islamists’ pump.
Obama bin Biden…..
DEMOCRATS – most people on this site knows Biden et al, are democrats but other people don’t. Please believe me. We should make every naming of any democrat preceded with the word, “democrat.”
Imagine if they had the bomb. It’s more clear than ever this was the right thing to do.
Thankfully President Trump understood that the time to act was upon us and that the threat if Iran obtained a nuclear bomb was imminent!
Next target – Iranian parliament leader – make it so.
Oh well we tried to avoid destruction of critical infrastructure. Hit the power plants and the dams. Turn out their lights, turn off their drinking water and their irrigation, hit their refineries and shut down their generators and the regime’s mobility and operational reach. Continue targeting their leadership class, their munitions, their launchers, known and probable launch sites for drones/missiles regardless of any co-location with civilians. Use radio broadcasts to inform the wider Iranian public of what is coming and warn them to keep away from those areas.
Do their irrigation first, they’re pretty tender about that recently.
Oh no, they didn’t back down! Guess the beatings will continue.
As long as the Iranians professed that they were sticking it to the Israelis, the U.S. and the Brits, the Saudis, the Qataris and the other middle eastern nations were willing to ignore some shenanigans in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq and actually enjoying the schadenfreude of watching the school bully beat up the kids they don’t care about. They weren’t pals with Iran but it was live-and-let-live. Now the bully is coming for their lunch money.
Let’s see what they do as Iran turns on them.
If you scream “jihad!” into the air and nobody listens, is it really jihad?
It’s going to take boots on the ground
Not American boots
Then whose?
There are going to have to be boots on the ground. Not many, not a full-scale invasion, but some. This is war, and we need to win it.
Drop leaflets telling Persians to leave Iran before total destruction begins. Then we carpet bomb them into dust. If we don’t do that, it will take a bloody boots on the ground war. Knowing how the mullah’s think, we can expect every dirty weapon known to mankind to be deployed by them. To walk away now without a regime change is a crime.
I don’t think they can freely leave.
There is a huge difference between bombing uranium enrichment and a functioning reactor. The Israelis bombed Iraq’s Osiris reaction before going critical. Bombing the Israeli reactor is the same as delivering a nuke…. should that happen, Israel has no option but nuke Iranian forces… ground game… concentrate IRGC and boom… wash off fallout…repeat.
Israel should have pulling Iranian citizens out and training them as sleepers. Then it would be iranian boots vs iranian boots with the good guys getting our backing.
Maybe they have.
I have heard similar.