Rubio: Iran War to Last ‘Weeks Not Months,’ Says No US Ground Troops Needed

*Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos, documents

Sunday Ehigiator with agency report

The United States expects its operation against Iran to conclude within weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday.
This comes as Iran-linked hackers broke into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet. The hackers and ‌the bureau disclosed this yesterday.

Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude ‌it at the appropriate time here – a matter of weeks, not months.”
While Reuters quoted him to have said Washington could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge.”

Washington has dispatched two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, the first of which is due to arrive around the end of March aboard a huge amphibious assault ship. The Pentagon is also expected to deploy thousands of elite airborne soldiers.
The deployments have raised concerns that an air war that has already disrupted global energy supplies could turn into a prolonged ground battle.

But U.S. President Donald Trump has also emphasised this week what he has described as productive negotiations aimed at a diplomatic solution to the war, despite repeated assertions from Tehran that no such talks have begun. On Thursday, Trump ⁠extended a deadline by 10 days for Iran to reopen the blockaded Strait of Hormuz or face attacks against its civilian energy grid.

Iranian media reported strikes on Iran’s decommissioned heavy-water nuclear research reactor and a factory producing yellowcake uranium late on Friday, and said there were no radiation leaks or danger arising from either attack. Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency there was no increase in off-site radiation levels at the yellowcake facility, the IAEA said on X, adding that it would look into the report.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on X that Israel, in coordination with the U.S., had also hit two steel factories and a power plant.

“Attack contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy. Iran will exact HEAVY price for Israeli crimes,” Araqchi said, using an acronym for the president.

A senior Iranian told Reuters that Tehran had not decided whether to respond to a 15-point proposal the U.S. sent this week after attackson industrial and nuclear infrastructure on Friday. The official said Iran had expected its response to be delivered on Friday or Saturday, but said the continuing strikes while the U.S. was seeking talks was “intolerable.”

The U.S. proposal, sent via Pakistan two days ago, is reported to include demands ranging from dismantling Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes to relinquishing control of the world’s most important trade route for energy supplies.

The war has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands of people and ‌causing the biggest ⁠disruption ever to energy supplies, hitting the global economy with soaring oil, gas and fertiliser prices that have fuelled inflation fears.

In Iran, more than 1,900 people have been killed and at least 20,000 injured, said Maria Martinez of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

nd with no end in sight, Gulf Arab states are telling the U.S. that any deal must not merely end the war but ⁠also permanently curb Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and ensure global energy supplies are never again weaponised, four Gulf sources said.

Far from being laid low, Iran’s clerical rulers and the increasingly powerful Guards are still peppering the region with airstrikes, driving up energy prices and roiling financial markets.

Meanwhile, Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and ‌the bureau said on Friday.

On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”

According to Reuters, the hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum.

The FBI confirmed that Patel’s emails had been targeted.

In a statement, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson said, “we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity” and that the data involved was “historical in nature and involves ⁠no government information.”

Handala, which presents itself as a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units.

Handala recently claimed the hack of Michigan-based medical devices and services provider Stryker (SYK.N), opens new tab on March 11, saying they had deleted a massive trove of company data.

Alongside the photographs of Patel, the hackers published a sample of more than 300 emails, which appear to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.

Reuters was not able to independently authenticate the Patel messages, but the personal Gmail address that Handala claims to have broken into matches the address linked to Patel in previous data breaches preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs. Alphabet-owned Google, which runs Gmail, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran-linked hackers – who initially kept a low profile after the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against the Islamic Republic last month – have ‌increasingly boasted ⁠of their cyber operations as the conflict drags on.

In addition to the hack against Stryker, Handala on Thursday claimed to have published the personal data of dozens of defense company Lockheed Martin employees stationed in the Middle East. In a statement, Lockheed Martin said it was aware of the reports and had policies and procedures in place “to mitigate cyber threats to our business.”