**Livewire** Operation Epic Fury Day Seven
The military operation against Iran entered its seventh day on Thursday. The United States says it has continued to dominate the Iranian Navy, with over 30 warships destroyed, and Tehran continues to launch strikes against Israel, albeit at a much reduced pace.
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**Friday’s live updates below. All updates in Eastern time**
09:00 AM: Trump wants “unconditional surrender”
The Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian broke cover this morning to claim “some countries have begun mediation efforts” to end the war, casting this nation in a dovish role. The U.S. is evidently unconvinced by such assertions, however, with President Donald Trump waking up America with a Truth Social post this morning stating “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”.
For what comes next, the President stated: “we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE”.
Repeating the rallying call we’ve been saying in anti-Ayatollah and pro-Shah protests in recent days, President Trump added “Make Iran Great Again”.
06:40 AM: Was it all for show?
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez talked a big game earlier in the week, defying NATO ally the United States over the Iran strikes and refusing to allow the use of its bases to make them happen. This has invited a harsh retaliation from Washington, with President Trump threatening a trade embargo on Madrid.
Yet is there more to this than meets the eye? As reported by Christian Caruzo this morning, behind the tough rhetoric there are military flights coming to and from Spanish military bases including “24 takeoffs by military aircraft — some of them on more than one mission — to carry out attacks in Iran, with stopovers in Germany and Italy”.
There’s much more detail in the report you can read here.
06:30 AM: Israel says airstrikes are working
The airstrikes are working and the threat from Iran has been much reduced, so says Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, who has spoken of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation creating air superiority and suppressing Iran’s missile networks. Overnight, strikes took place by U.S. B-2 stealth bombers, which dropped 2,000lb bunker buster bombs on launchers and facilities deep underground.
While the intensity of Iranian attacks are much reduced, with The Times of Israel noting the number of Iranian missile strikes is down 90 per cent and drone strikes down 83 per cent since Saturday, Zamir said “the threat has not yet been removed”. Indeed, more missiles were launched towards Israeli cities on Friday morning, sending locals to their shelters. No injuries have been reported in this morning’s strikes, at the time of publication, but there have been ten fatalities from Iranian missiles in Israel since the commencement of hostilities on Saturday.
The newspaper also cited the remarks of a government source who praised the pace of fighting, reportedly stating the campaign is going “smoothly” and “proceeding much better than expected”.
Iran itself, meanwhile, remained bullish in its rhetoric. The nation’s military boasted of strikes against U.S. military bases in Kuwait on Friday morning, promising they would continue, and said it would bomb Iraq if Kurdish fighters attempted to invade Iran.
For earlier livewire updates from Thursday please click here