U.S. positioned for "highly kinetic" war in Middle East

US assets in the Middle East are positioned for a "highly kinetic" war, a former senior Pentagon official warns. Dana Stroul told Fox News Digital that the current force posture stands ready to execute whatever orders President Trump gives.

The U.S. military has built up one of its largest recent deployments in the Middle East, and a former top Pentagon hand says we're now set up for a "highly kinetic" campaign against Iran if things go that way.

Dana Stroul, who now serves as research director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, dropped this assessment on Sunday as Washington and Tehran gear up for a second round of indirect nuclear talks in Oman.

"The US military is ready for a sustained, highly kinetic campaign should President Trump order it, and also prepared to defend allies and partners in the Middle East from Iran's missiles," Stroul told the outlet.

"The US military can rapidly reposition assets from all over the world and deploy overwhelmingly lethal force in a short period of time to one theater," she said. She added that "no ally or enemy [is] capable of what we have seen from the US in this current buildup." Stroul pointed out how this posture differs from the June 2025 strikes on Iranian-linked nuclear targets. Back then it was limited, highly targeted hits to degrade key facilities without kicking off a wider regional mess. Now the U.S. has ramped up both offensive and defensive muscle.

"Two US aircraft carriers and their accompanying vessels and air wings were stationed in the Middle East last summer during the 12-day war and the US operation Midnight Hammer," she explained.

"The addition of the Ford is really important, it expands US offensive capabilities if we go to war with Iran," she said.

The U.S. has also "increased the number of guided-missile destroyers, fighter aircraft, refuelers, and air defense systems" in the region. Carriers like the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln are carrying serious weight here strategically. The Ford was recently tracked heading east through the Strait of Gibraltar, while the Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea.

"They will both be in the Middle East CENTCOM theater," Stroul explained. She noted there could be "one in the eastern Mediterranean and the other in the Arabian Gulf."

"There would probably be a combination of reasons for that based on availability, readiness, proximity to the Middle East. The Ford was heading home and directed to turn around," she added.Exact destinations stay under wraps for obvious operational security reasons, but just having them there sends a clear message of escalation leverage and deterrence.

This buildup rolls on while indirect diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran keep going, with Oman playing mediator again on Feb. 26.

Stroul says Iran's leadership is juggling brinkmanship and negotiation.

"Iran's leaders are playing a weak hand by combining saber-rattling about their own capabilities, staging preparations and exercises to signal readiness," she claimed.

"They are attempting to slow this down by pursuing negotiations. No one should be under any illusions about the reality of US dominance, Iran is completely outmatched in conventional terms," Stroul said.

Meanwhile, the Ayatollah is somewhere in a hidey-hole with a target on his hairy back.

"Israel dominated Iranian airspace in one day last year, targeted many of Iran's security leaders, took out half of its missile arsenal, and the US significantly set back its nuclear program," Stroul said.

Iran's proxy network, Hezbollah, Shi'ite militias in Iraq, elements in Syria, has taken a beating too after over two years of Israeli operations.

"Iran's long-cultivated network of proxies across the region is degraded after more than two years of Israeli operations, and they declined to enter the war and support Iran's defense last summer," Stroul explained.

"No matter what Iran's leaders say, Iran is not able to rebuild a decades-long project in a few months."

"That said, the US military is in a position to execute whatever orders President Trump gives," she said. "It is not a question of military readiness, but a political decision."

It seems to be more of a question of 'when', than it is a question of 'if'. 

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"Don't leave the resort" Mexican tourists are warned as cartel clashes go wild

Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro is sounding the alarm as violent fallout spreads across multiple regions following a major federal operation.

The US Embassy has issued an alert, urging Americans to shelter in place. It was also learned that the US government shared information that got the CJNG leader el Mencho, neutralized, which may have sparked the insanity.

CJNG is making two demands: 1, release the body of el Mencho; and 2. everyone responsible for his death, including CIA who may have been involved, surrrender.

Tourists vacationing in the popular Mexican beach spot of Puerto Vallarta got a rude awakening on Sunday: stay inside your resort and don't even think about venturing out. That's the word from folks on the ground, they were told. Resort staff reportedly told them to hunker down, though no immediate explanation was provided for the lockdown.

The U.S. State Department followed up with its own stern travel warning Sunday afternoon, telling American citizens to shelter in place until further notice in several hotspots due to "ongoing security operations and related road blockages and criminal activity."

The alert covers parts of Jalisco state, including Puerto Vallarta, Chapala, and Guadalajara; Tamaulipas state, including Reynosa and other municipalities; and sections of Michoacan state, Guerrero state, and Nuevo Leon state.

Smoke could be seen rising over Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco state on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)

Jalisco Gov. Pablo Lemus Navarro took to X to lay out the situation, explaining that federal forces had conducted an "operation" in the town of Tapalpa earlier in the day, which sparked "clashes" in the area.

"Also as a result of said operation, in various points of that region and in other parts of Jalisco, individuals have burned and blocked vehicles with the aim of hindering the actions of the authorities," Navarro wrote in Spanish.

In follow-up posts, the governor made it clear the trouble was escalating. He noted that "the violent incidents have spread" and "blockades have shifted" while authorities scramble to protect citizens.

Navarro declared a "Code Red" to prioritize public safety.

Tourists said they were told not to leave their resort in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)

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"We reiterate the recommendation to avoid leaving your homes," Navarro wrote in another post. "The clashes are occurring in several federal entities."

Officials were tight-lipped at first about specifics of the federal operation, but local media reports point to the Jalisco New Generation cartel and its infamous leader, Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, as being at the center of it all.

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Turkish boxer attacks Israeli opponent before bout then gets his butt kicked in two rounds

Israeli Muay Thai fighter Ahavat Hashem Gordon just dominated his Turkish opponent Ali Konyuncu in Kaunas, Lithuania, on Saturday night, February 21, 2026. Gordon remains undefeated and walked away with the win after only two rounds.

Muay Thai, aka Thai Boxing, is Thailand's national sport, consisting of full-contact striking martial arts, also known as "Art of Eight Limbs" [fists 2; elbows 2; knees 2; and shins/feet for kicks as 2].

The drama happened on Friday at the weigh-in. 

Gordon draped an Israeli flag over his shoulders as he faced off with Konyuncu. The two traded the usual trash talk threats that come with big fights. Then the Turk, Konyuncu lunged at Gordon's neck. Both guys got restrained fast, but they kept trying to break loose.

Even with people holding them back, Konyuncu still managed to land a kick to Gordon's midsection before they finally got separated. Video of the whole thing blew up on social media.

The actual fight however, told a different story.

First round was even. Nobody pulled ahead. In round two, Konyuncu hit Gordon with an uppercut, but Gordon fired back with a solid head shot that dropped him. When they got pulled apart, Konyuncu was bleeding heavily from a serious boo-boo on the side of his head. The judges called it right there and awarded the victory to Gordon.

Israel's Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar (Likud) posted on X late Saturday night: "Another brilliant victory for our Israeli fighter." And an embarrassing loss for a Turkish Muslim loser.

Gordon celebrated with the Israeli flag, and it's another proud moment for Israeli combat sports. Israel has turned out strong athletes in these disciplines for decades, like judokas Yael Arad and Oren Smadja who brought home Israel's first Olympic medals (silver and bronze) at the 1992 Summer Games. 

More judo medals have followed, and Israel sent top Muay Thai fighters like world champions Sarah Abraham and Nili Block to major competitions.

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Just last November, the Israeli kickboxing team crushed it at the World Championships in Abu Dhabi, coming back with 7 medals from an event with about 2,000 athletes from around 85 countries.

Mazel tov to Ahavat Hashem Gordon on the big win. Another one for the good guys. 

Am Yisrael Chai!

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UPDATE: Man armed with shotgun and gas can killed at Mar-a-Lago IDENTIFIED

A man in his early 20s unlawfully entered Mar-a-Lago armed with a shotgun and a gas can at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, U.S. Secret Service announced. 

UPDATE: The armed intruder has been identified after being reported missing by his family.

Austin Tucker Martin, who was reported missing by his family on Saturday, was identified as the man armed with a shotgun and a gas can attempting to breach Mar-a-Lago, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.

The FBI, Secret Service, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, are investigating the incident and potential motive, which seems somewhat obvious.

The individual was observed near the north gate carrying a shotgun and a fuel can and was ordered to put the items down by police. In response, he lowered the gas can to the ground and then aimed the shotgun at the officers who immediately shot him dead.

No Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured, and no Secret Service protectees, including President Trump, were present at the location during the time of the incident, officials said.

The FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are investigating, including the man’s background, actions and potential motive, as well as the use of force.

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This third incident of the same type, appears to be the results of a media-fed public hating the administration and attempting to assassinate the President of the United States. The first incident was in Butler, PA in which President Trump was shot in the ear. The second was at Trump's golf course where the person was confronted and eventually taken into custody and is now serving life in prison.

This should be reminder of the difficulty that exists protecting the President, particularly at Mar-a-Lago.

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Newsom's Calif. Gov't paid protestors over $100,000,000

Independent journalist Cam Higby has dropped yet another receipts bomb on the Golden State's ruling class, revealing that California taxpayers have been forced to cough up over $115 million to fund what can only charitably be called "left-wing protests," or, more accurately, the organized tantrums of the progressive industrial complex.

The lucky recipient is the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), which modestly describes itself as the premier spot for "organizations and people who support human rights to work together for policies that advance justice and full inclusion for all immigrants."

And here's their own humble brag from the website: "CHIRLA has since become one of the largest and most effective advocates for immigrant rights, organizing, educating and defending immigrants and refugees in the streets, in the courts, and in the halls of power.”

Ah yes, "in the streets," the part where your tax dollars apparently buy the signs, the bullhorns, and probably the bail money.

Higby's digging shows CHIRLA wasn't just handing out voter guides; they were knee-deep in GOTV efforts pushing the full leftist agenda, racking up nearly 100,000 voter contacts during the 2020 election. They also boast about wrangling $175 million in taxpayer-funded COVID relief for illegal immigrants through a cozy little consortium of 11 groups (with CHIRLA right in the middle, naturally).

But wait, there's more taxpayer-funded fun: a high school program designed to churn out the next generation of "activists" (because nothing says education like mandatory radicalization), a college mobilization push for mass amnesty legislation, and a charming "Rapid Response" network explicitly aimed to “shut down detention centers.”

Because nothing screams "humane" like trying to dismantle immigration enforcement with other people's money.

Higby has made it clear this is merely the first domino in a long line of "non-profits" that are basically government-subsidized protest mills advancing the most radically left-wing causes imaginable. 

California Democrats have turned the state budget into a slush fund for their activist allies, and the rest of us get the bill.

Your average Californian is out here paying sky-high taxes so the ruling elite can bankroll the very chaos they pretend to be shocked by. It's almost like the whole thing is one giant, self-licking ice cream cone of progressive grift.

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Stay tuned because if this is just the start, the full exposure is going to make Sacramento look even more like the clusterfrack we always knew it was.

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IAF airstrikes kills 8 Hezbollah scumbuckets in Lebanon

Israeli airstrikes hammered eastern Lebanon late Friday, taking out eight members of Hezbollah, the Islamic terror group, including several local officials, according to two sources inside the organization.

The Lebanese Health Ministry bumped the overall death toll to 10 but conveniently declined to specify how many were militants versus civilians. This is the same game Hamassholes play when they give the media statistics about Gaza deaths, and the media believes them without question.

Those Hezbollonian officials, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't cleared to yap about it, confirmed the eight fighters were eliminated near the village of Rayak in northeast Lebanon. An AP crew on the ground Saturday morning confirmed the damage: the top floor of a three-story building was completely obliterated.

The Israeli military on Saturday, announced that several members of Hezbollah's missile unit were "eliminated" across three separate command centers in the Baalbek area. They added that the targets were "operating to accelerate readiness and force build-up processes, while planning fire attacks toward Israel."

One Hezbollah source named three of the dead as local commanders: Ali al-Moussawi, Mohammed al-Moussawi, and Hussein Yaghi. Yaghi was the son of prominent Hezbollah figure and founding member Mohammed Yaghi, who passed away in 2023. Mohammed Yaghi had also served as a close aide to the late Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah, who was blown to bitesize pieces by an Israeli airstrike in September 2024.

Lebanon's Health Ministry reported Saturday that the strikes across eastern Lebanon killed 10 people and wounded 24, including three children.

Ali Abdullah, executive director of Rayak Hospital, told the media that the strike hit after sunset. They received 10 bodies and 21 wounded. Among the dead were two non-Lebanese: a Syrian man and an Ethiopian woman. The wounded included five Syrians and three Ethiopians. Ethiopians, of course, frequently end up in Lebanon as migrant domestic workers.

A funeral took place Saturday afternoon in the eastern village of Nabi Chit for two of the Hezbollah members killed in the strikes.

This all traces back to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamasshole-led attack on Israel that ignited the Gaza war. Hezbollah jumped in almost immediately, launching rockets from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas and the Palestinians. Israel hit back with airstrikes and artillery. What started as a low-boil skirmish exploded into full-scale war in September 2024, only to be partially cooled, but not ended, by a U.S.-brokered ceasefire two months later.

Since then, Israel has repeatedly called out Hezbollah for trying to rearm and rebuild, responding with near-daily strikes targeting militants and facilities. Hezbollah has fired exactly one claimed strike into Israel since the truce.

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Friday's body count stands out as unusually high and lands amid spiking regional tensions. The United States has warned it could strike Iran, a key backer of both Hezbollah and Hamas, if talks over Tehran’s nuclear program collapse and no deal materializes.

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Woke woman Alex Taylor Fontenot faces stiff prison sentence for threatening to kill ICE agents: "just a joke"

Alex Taylor Fontenot, a woke 27-year-old woman from Lake Charles, Louisiana, has been federally indicted on charges of making threats in interstate commerce. Prosecutors allege she posted a social media video threatening U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, stating that if they entered her home, they would leave "in a body bag" and be "dropped like flies." 

She reportedly described herself as "crazy" and expressed eagerness to confront what she called a "tyrannical government uprising."

Well she may be crazy, but not so crazy as to now claim that she was simply joking about the killing/body bag thingy. She evidently FAed and now is about to FO.

The indictment was issued on February 4, 2026, following an FBI investigation prompted by the video seen in part above. 

If convicted, she faces up to 5 years in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release. However, my guess is she'll be given a pat on the hand and maybe some supervision, but I don't think there will be any hard time for her to face.

Recent coverage describes her as now claiming the statements were "just a joke" and expressing concern about her life being ruined, though federal authorities treated the statements as credible threats rather than humor.

This case has circulated widely on social media, often highlighted by accounts critical of left-leaning or anti-ICE views, with some framing it as an example of "leftist extremists." 

The ordeal of having to go to court and face possible incarceration may be enough to keep other cretinous-like leftists/anarchists from copying her example. These people tend to be more like keyboard warriors rather than actual ones.

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Anti-ICE thug who threw rocks at Feds faces big time fallout

A violent rioter who nearly killed a federal officer by chucking rocks through a car window during last summer's unhinged anti-ICE meltdowns in Los Angeles County finally pleaded guilty on Tuesday to assaulting a federal officer. Rocks, as you may know, are the objects thrown at non-Islamic folks such as gays, women who refuse to wear cloth coffins, and atheists, and are frequently killed by them.

Elpidio Reyna, 41, copped to one count of assault with a deadly or dangerous weapon resulting in bodily injury. He was among the dozens of geniuses rounded up after the riots kicked off when ICE actually started doing its job in the LA area.

"This defendant could have easily killed a federal officer or innocent bystander," said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. "As he found out the hard way, violence against law enforcement is not constitutionally protected and will be met with swift justice. Those who engage in similar violence will be arrested, charged, and eventually convicted in a court of law."

Back on June 7, 2025, Reyna decided to join the party, hurling rocks and improvised explosives at federal officers near a Home Depot in Paramount (about 11 miles north of Long Beach, for those keeping score).

"Protestors, including the defendant, began to throw rocks at the officers' official vehicles, lit objects on fire, and impeded law enforcement activity. During this, defendant knowingly and intentionally lit objects on fire in the middle of the street and threw rocks at a convoy of law enforcement vehicles occupied by Customs and Border Protection Officers," according to the plea agreement.

One rock smashed through a window and sliced open a CBP officer's forehead. The Justice Department even released video showing Reyna, decked out in a motorcycle helmet like some kind of wannabe tough guy, pelting vehicles with rocks and chunks of concrete.

The FBI had to dangle a $50,000 reward before someone finally ID'd him from his brilliant TikTok videos. He made the FBI's most wanted list until he turned himself in at the U.S.-Mexico border on July 23 like the hero he isn't.

Reyna now faces up to 20 years when he's sentenced August 7 by U.S. District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha. He's been cooling his heels in federal custody since July 2025.

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Dozens got pinched during the June-July freak-outs across LA and San Francisco over federal immigration enforcement. The chaos got so bad that President Donald Trump sent in the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property, which of course triggered an epic, months-long legal tantrum from California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom over the "outrage" of actually defending federal law. Classic.

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