perestroika

...and they should both stop.

Nobody should target desalination plants.

It's even worse than targeting heating and power in the middle of harsh winter.

As for Persian Gulf countries, they are dangerously dependent on desalination for fresh water.

About 42 percent of the UAE’s drinking water comes from desalination plants, while that figure is 90 percent in Kuwait, 86 percent in Oman, and 70 percent in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also produces more desalinated water than any other country.

Iran is the least dependent with about 30% of fresh water coming from desalination. I would not be surprised if Bahrain would be 100% dependent.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/8/how-targeting-of-desalination-plants-could-disrupt-water-supply-in-the-gulf

Fortunately they remember. Having now observed the process for a few days:

• apparently, several politicians of Iraqi Kurdistan are not enthusiastic at all about the US war
• the president of Iraq, who is Kurdish, is not enthusiastic
• the first lady is publicly un-enthusiastic, writing that they are not guns for hire
• Iran is bombing Iraqi Kurdistan regardless, so they're learning how to deal with frequent drone attacks

Not money, but continued deliveries of antiballistic missiles. Trump's war is wasting them away at an unbelievable pace, but Ukraine needs them to function and survive.

and now wants to capitalize on it.

Ukraine is forced to trade its anti-drone expertise at this time. Explanation below.

Around Iran, during 3 days, the US, Israel and Arab countries have shot off the same amount of Patriot missiles as Ukraine has consumed in 4 years. They are doing something wrong, overconsuming missiles at a crazy pace.

This is unrelated to drones, but the balance of ballistic attack and defense is tilted heavily in favour of attack. If you are over 50% sane, you only defend if you absolutely must. Most of time, you calculate the trajectory, sound the alarm in relevant areas, everyone takes cover - and you absorb the hits. Because defending would bankrupt you. For example, an Iranian "Zolfaghar" ballistic missile costs around 150 K euros, while a Patriot PAC-3 interceptor might cost 4 M euros, and typical defensive tactics involve shooting 2 per target. (It is very fortunate that the Russian Iskander is a precision weapon with midcourse corrections and not comparably cheap.)

Ukraine has a dependency they cannot alleviate. About 75% of Ukraininan antiballistic defense relies on Patriot imports from the US to knock down Iskander, Kinzhal and similar items on certain trajectories (not all trajectories). European production of Aster and South Korean production of KM-SAM is unlikely to have enough volume. Buying from South Korea is doubtful if the US is pulling out Patriot and THAAD deployments for sending to the Middle East (South Korea has North Korea to worry about).

If Ukraine does not apply every political lever to ensure continued supply of Patriot missiles, a time will come when Putin will be given a menu every morning - to decide which Ukrainian power plants must stop working next evening.

This is not something that Ukraine can afford. So they will leverage their antidrone knowledge to get a continued supply of missiles, at least until their own missiles start reaching Russian missile factories. Currently they rarely catch Russian launch vehicles. They have made a good attempt at attacking a factory producing Russian "Iskander" missiles, but only 1 building was hit. They will be fired at, and need a sufficient number of interceptors to stay functioning.

So, they will smile and offer an exchange on some mutually bearable terms. Then they return home and curse - properly. Foremost they will be cursing the utter stupidity of the orange toddler who picked an avoidable battle at the wrong time (or allowed a certain war criminal to drag him into it).

Since the claim originates from an Iranian news agency and there are currently no photos of wreckage, I would wait for additional confirmation, but the publisher of the news is Yemeni (they are allied with Iran) so they would likely not wait.

This is certainly possible, everything that flies can be shot down and F-15 is not the hardest of them, as some guy in Kuwait accidentally proved when dots on his radar got too confusing.

Opinion: I think this news is true. I will not tell anyone if this is good or bad news, as it could be both.

Most likely, the CIA has been repeating to Trump and Pentagon like a broken grammophone: "you cannot win by aerial bombardment alone". It seems that now the CIA got authorization to make promises to Kurds, and have delivered weapons. Kurds however, most likely:

• remember being double-crossed in January (Turkey alerted Iran of their expedition)
• remember being double-crossed in December (US allowed HTS, now called "Syrian government" to surprise them)
• remember being double-crossed many times before

They are likely reluctant. According to the sources, they have asked for air support. The source cannot tell if support has been granted. US and Israeli strikes have certainly been above-average intense in Western Iran. An effective ground front might be the amount of pressure it would take to overwhelm Iran. Or maybe not.

Judging by the most recent speech by Reza Pahlavi, where he addresses all ethnic minorities and regional tribes and promises extensive safeguards to their identity and culture if a new Iran should form, I would estimate that a rift exists between Pahlavi's faction (they want an intact but democratic Iran) and the Kurdish factions (50 million Kurds are waiting for an opportunity to set up Kurdistan, 10 million of them live in Iran - this could be a condensation nucleus that starts the formation of a country). Reza Pahlavi obviously cannot promise them that, so he's willing to promise everything else.

As a note: Kurds will not declare statehood quickly at all - they know they must keep a low profile. They know Turkey will attack them if they declare statehood, Iraq will likely attack them, Syria has recently attacked them for mere ambitions of autonomy. They won't declare anything, but may try to carve out a highly autonomous province and see what happens in practise.

However, they will fear being betrayed again for the umpteenth time, which may reduce their eagerness to stick their heads into fire.

And it won't help the US break open the Hormuz strait, because there are no Kurds living there. They live in the western mountains. If Trump wants Hormuz, US soldiers will have to set their own feet on ground.

Given what I have read, I agree with Al Jazeera's evaluation. Either highly outdated info and no effort to update it (colorful murals on exterior walls, regular traffic by parents --> chances of updating the designation of the object)...

...or just people who give zero damns, or even worse, some form of AI generating target lists which people blindly rubberstamp, Israeli style.

Most likely, unfortunately yes.

There is one "if" however. There is a production line of Patriot missiles in Germany, and I hope the German government is refusing export permits to anywhere but Ukraine.

My understanding: there was no imminent threat to the US or Israel. The strike was driven by opportunity, not threat. Ali Khamenei made a mistake, exposing himself by convening a meeting at his official residence in Tehran. US intelligence found out and informed Israel. Israel sent planes and hit the complex with 30 missiles within one minute, killing everyone who they could have negotiated with.

‘Sixty seconds, that’s all it took’: the clinical Israeli-US operation to kill Ali Khamenei

...and there seems to be no long-term plan.

If Iran does not crumble instantly, the 40-kilometer strait of Hormuz cannot be made safe for international oil traffic without a ground invasion of Iran. Which the US is not prepared for, and Israel is not capable of.

So, unless Iran has a revolution (very unlikely during war), Iran can threaten the energy supply of Asian countries and the income of Arab countries. The US and Israel can pound Iran from the air, but drones can be made in a well equipped garage.

In my book, that's called a stalemate.

Wikipedia says 600, but I have not independently verified that.

Edit: I have indepdendently verified. From the school to the nearest perimeter of the thing that looks like an airfield, 200+ meters. To any structure likely to be targeted, more. I would say there was something military "in town", and the school was not in the middle of military stuff. It was in a civilian area of the town.

Photo obtained with Wikimapia. Several hundred meters off the possible mark (air field).

Possible clue from Time magazine:

According to Amelirad, based on reports from locals in Minab, the school had previously been used as a military facility but was later converted into a school attended by children from a mixture of military and civilian families attracted by lower tuition.

Source:

Shiva Amelirad, a Canada-based representative of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, a network of teachers’ unions in Iran

Speculation: the US targeted the school deliberately, because their software marked it as a military object. The software was not receiving timely intelligence updates. The building had been converted into a school years ago.

The casualty numbers have risen - it's already 165 people dead from this strike. :(

Re "Hamas tunnel" - there was an IRGC base 600 meters away.

Since the US military is unlikely to release the data, we probably cannot know if a weapon malfunctioned or the strike planner clicked on the school.

In an ideal world, if a strike planner knowingly clicks on a school, they go to prison. If they aren't given the information to tell apart a school, their boss goes to prison. Unfortunately in the current-time US, as things are - nobody will be held accountable. :(