The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed two lawsuits on March 6 in federal court, seeking forfeiture of more than $15.3 million that was allegedly used to finance the illicit distribution of sanctioned Iranian oil.

The lawsuits come after the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28 that led to the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The military effort is ongoing.

The new legal complaints filed in federal court in the nation’s capital allege that Iranian oil magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani has run a network of companies and individuals that has sold and shipped Iranian oil and other commodities in violation of U.S. sanctions.

The federal government said last summer that Shamkhani uses a complex system of intermediaries to control a network of container ships and tankers that sell Iranian and Russian oil, as well as other goods, across the world.

The government also said at the time that Shamkhani takes advantage of personal connections and corruption in Tehran to produce tens of billions of dollars in profits, a large portion of which is used to support the Iranian regime.

The complaints say Shamkhani hid the source of the oil and the role that Iranian persons and entities played in the transactions, and used the funds at issue to run several distribution companies in his network.

The complaints also say Shamkhani is the son of Ali Shamkhani, “a top political advisor to the Supreme Leader of Iran.” Ali Shamkhani is the former head of Iran’s National Defense Council, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which sanctioned the younger Shamkhani on July 30, 2025.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the DOJ’s criminal division said the new lawsuits demonstrate that the department is working “to prevent Iranian-backed shadow companies from using the U.S. financial system to support terrorist organizations, in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran.”

“Shamkhani and the Shamkhani Network allegedly attempted to clandestinely use U.S. financial institutions to enrich themselves by evading sanctions on Iran and benefit Iran’s terrorist networks,” he said in a statement.

In these forfeiture actions, the federal government is suing the property itself, as opposed to any specific individuals or entities, on the theory that the property was involved in illicit conduct.

If the government prevails in the lawsuits, it will acquire ownership of the property without having to compensate its current owner.

The first lawsuit, which targets $12,973,529 on deposit with the U.S. Treasury in New York, states that the government is investigating Shamkhani’s “distribution and sale of petroleum products and other commodities using a network of individuals, front companies, shipping companies, and financial institutions.”

The complaint says Shamkhani’s property was intended “to promote ongoing violations of U.S. sanctions laws,” and gives his network “a source of influence over entities that have engaged in federal crimes of terrorism,” including the National Iranian Oil Company, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including the IRGC Quds Force.

The IRGC and the IRGC Quds Force have been formally designated in the United States as foreign terrorist organizations.

Citing the OFAC, the complaint says Shamkhani’s network consists of a large fleet of vessels, ship management companies, and front companies that “launder billions in profits from global sales of Iranian and Russian crude oil and other petroleum products, most often to buyers in China.”

The second lawsuit, which targets $2.4 million on deposit with the U.S. Treasury in New York, largely repeats the allegations against Shamkhani from the first lawsuit.

Both sets of funds that are allegedly linked to Shamkhani should be forfeited to the U.S. government because “they afford a person a source of influence” over the National Iranian Oil Company, the IRGC, and the IRGC Quds Force, and are intended to promote violations of U.S. sanctions issued under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, the DOJ said.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Shamkhani for comment.

The new lawsuits regarding Shamkhani’s assets came a week after the DOJ sued for forfeiture of the seized motor tanker Skipper, which allegedly violated U.S. sanctions by carrying Venezuelan and Iranian oil.

The United States seized the vessel in the Caribbean Sea in December 2025, along with its cargo of 1.8 million barrels of crude oil, under a judicially authorized seizure warrant.

The United States began seizing ships in December 2025 to target the so-called shadow fleet evading U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and sanctions related to Iranian and Russian oil.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is slashing exports of oil products and other materials in what insiders describe as akin to “wartime measures” and potentially providing indirect support to Iran.

A source in China’s foreign trade sector familiar with import-export policy told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on March 6, using the pseudonym Huang Juguang out of fear of reprisal, that amid rising tensions in the Middle East, Beijing has ordered relevant domestic enterprises to tighten export controls on strategic materials, including tactical drones, rare earth minerals, and refined petroleum products.

According to Huang, some technology companies and trading firms have already received verbal notices requiring additional reviews of export contracts and stricter approval procedures for the ones involving “sensitive regions.”

The directives come as joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have severely degraded the country’s military infrastructure and decimated the Islamic republic’s senior leadership.

Beijing and Tehran have maintained friendly relations for years. Under a 25-year “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement Beijing and Tehran signed in 2021, China committed to invest $400 billion in telecom, banking, ports, and other infrastructure in Iran. In return, Iran agreed to keep the oil flowing.

China imported an average of 1.5 million barrels of Iranian crude per day in 2025, according to commodity analytics firm Kpler, which tracks global shipments. That accounted for about 12 percent of China’s total crude imports and about 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports. Much of that heavily sanctioned crude is believed to have been falsely relabeled to obscure its origin.

Beijing has so far neither confirmed nor denied reports that it has halted or restricted exports of refined petroleum products. At a press briefing on March 5, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “not aware” of such measures.

Measures of this kind will typically not be made public, Huang said, but are instead conveyed through industry regulators or state-owned enterprise channels.

“Companies are being required to reclassify and recount the export countries and destinations for drone equipment, rare-earth materials, and some energy products,” Huang said. “But in the end, customs will be the final gatekeeper.”

Tactical drones and their core components have grown increasingly sought-after amid their expanding use in conflicts from Ukraine to Iran and Yemen, while rare earths and rare minerals remain critical inputs for missiles, radar systems, electronic equipment, and precision-guided weapons.

“Once these resources are brought under export controls, it could affect the military equipment supply chain in the relevant regions,” Huang said.

Another insider in China’s foreign trade industry, using only by the surname Mou out of fear of reprisal, said the directive reflects Beijing’s inclination to favor Tehran in its ongoing conflict with the United States and Israel.

China’s reduction in refined petroleum exports could make it easier for Iran to sell its crude oil, Mou said. That, in turn, might complicate U.S. and Israeli efforts to enforce energy sanctions on Iran.

“Before this latest U.S.–Iran conflict broke out, China had already been importing large volumes of Iranian crude oil,” Mou said. “Now that it has suddenly restricted refined petroleum exports, I believe it is very likely that the Iranian side has made a request, hoping China would leave more room [for Iranian crude] in the [regional energy] market.”

On the other hand, he added, if the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate, China will have to prioritize domestic supply security.

Wu Kegang, a Beijing-based trade researcher, told The Epoch Times that China occupies a crucial position in the global supply chain for critical minerals, and that any tightening of export restrictions by the government could have a major impact on international markets.

“These materials are treated in China as strategic resources and are indispensable to both the high-tech industry and the defense sector,” Wu said. “Judging from the current policy, it is already tantamount to activating wartime export restrictions.”

Wu also said that if the Middle East conflict drags on, Beijing may further tighten export measures or even suspend exports of related materials altogether.

Publicly, Beijing has issued routine denouncements and called for a cease-fire, echoing language it used in January in response to the U.S. military operation in Venezuela.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the U.S. and Israeli military operations in Iran “unacceptable” following the initial strikes, and condemned the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

It’s the second time in two months that the United States has taken military action against a CCP-friendly leader, after its surprise capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. It also comes just weeks ahead of President Donald Trump’s high-stakes meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, where both are expected to extend a truce that would prevent the world’s two largest economies from imposing tariffs of as much as 125 percent on each other’s goods.

Hu Ying of The Epoch Times Chinese-language edition contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump met with executives of the nation’s largest defense contractors on Friday in the White House and said they agreed to quadruple production of “exquisite weaponry … as rapidly as possible.”

The president said in a Truth Social post that he and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sat down with the CEOs of BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon parent RTX Corp., Boeing, Honeywell, and L3Harris Technologies to appraise how swiftly munitions stockpiles can be expanded under an accelerated program implemented last fall.

“Expansion began three months prior to the meeting, and plants and production of many of these weapons are already under way,” Trump said.

The president did not elaborate on what he meant by “exquisite weaponry” but there have been concerns raised this week in congressional hearings and elsewhere about stressed inventories of air-defense systems and interceptor missiles, most notably for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Patriot, and Aegis systems that have knocked down more than 500 Iranian missiles and 2,000 drones since the conflict kicked off on Feb. 28.

During a March 4 Senate Armed Services Committee Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee hearing, readiness and logistics chiefs from five branches of the military would not discuss munitions stockpiles in public.

“The Joint Forces is burning through costly inventories of precision-guided munitions when they are already in short supply,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said. “Moreover, these munitions take a long time to replenish and risk being unavailable for the unforeseen contingencies elsewhere, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, where we face a peer adversary.”

The five officers agreed to send Hirono “via classified email, a snapshot of … current munitions inventory, projected ‘burn rates,’ and any magazine-shifting you’re doing to meet the demands” of the massive U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran.

Trump and administration officials say they have more than enough munitions to handle any and all threats.

“We have a virtually unlimited supply of medium- and upper-medium grade munitions, which we are using, as an example, in Iran, and recently used in Venezuela,” the president said. “Regardless, however, we have also increased orders at these levels.”

Trump said he will meet with defense contractors again in two months to assess progress.

Pentagon officials referred The Epoch Times to the White House for comment on the meeting. The White House has not responded to the query.

The Trump administration will soon ask Congress to approve a supplemental $50 billion request from the Department of War to boost munitions production, Reuters first reported on March 3.

That prospective $50 billion request follows $150 billion in supplemental defense funding Congress approved after adopting a $900 billion Fiscal Year 2026 defense budget in late 2025.

The Trump administration created a $20 billion federal reinsurance program for commercial oil and gas vessels to restore tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

White House officials have been employing various measures to stabilize global energy markets as oil prices broke $90 per barrel at the end of the trading week amid the conflict in Iran.

President Donald Trump announced earlier this week that his administration would provide guaranteed political risk insurance and, if needed, naval escorts to ensure the global flow of oil.

The latest measure would see the International Development Finance Corporation—also known as the DFC—insure losses up to $20 billion on a rolling basis, according to a March 6 news release.

Maritime reinsurance will initially focus on Hull & Machinery and cargo. This is industry jargon that means the shipowner’s assets and the goods being transported.

Only vessels that meet these criteria will be eligible for insurance.

“DFC coverage will offer a level of security no other policy can provide,” DFC CEO Ben Black said in a statement.

“We are confident that our reinsurance plan will get oil, gasoline, LNG, jet fuel, and fertilizer through the Strait of Hormuz and flowing again to the world.”

DFC officials and the Treasury Department will coordinate with the U.S. Central Command to implement the plan to stabilize global commerce during the war in Iran.

The Strait is a narrow waterway that serves as a vital artery for the transport of oil and gas. Approximately 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products—accounting for one-fifth of global consumption—pass through the chokepoint. Additionally, 20 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports traverse the area.

The primary challenge for international energy markets is that insurance companies have either canceled coverage or substantially raised premiums. As a result, traffic has come to a standstill, prompting vessels to detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which adds several days and extra cost to these trips.

Other ships are worried about their safety, and it could take more than insurance to restore commerce, says Simon Wong, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.

“Even with this guarantee, there’s risk that the ships will still be attacked by Iranian drones or missiles, and shipowners may not want to risk of losing their ships as well as the lives of their crews,” Wong said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

In the meantime, several Gulf countries have halted production or slowed output due to a shortage of storage space. This could add further pressure to international energy markets.

U.S. oil prices—West Texas Intermediate—posted their best weekly performance in trading history, soaring 35 percent.

The conflict in the Middle East is affecting more than just crude oil.

Since half of the cost of gasoline is attributed to oil prices, motorists could experience some pain at the pump over the coming days.

The national average for a gallon of gas has risen 34 cents in the last week to $3.32, according to the tracking website American Automobile Association.

Natural gas prices advanced more than 5 percent to close out the trading week, topping $3 per million British thermal units.

Heating oil ticked up 0.3 percent to $3.62 per gallon, posting a weekly gain of 40 percent.

Israel has said that after the destruction of three Iranian nuclear sites by the United States and Israel during the Twelve Day War last June, Iran continued clandestine efforts to restore its nuclear weapons program.

On March 3, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it “struck and destroyed the secret nuclear headquarters in Minzadehei, located partly underground in the city of Tehran. A team of nuclear scientists was operating covertly at this headquarters.” 

The military added that during the June 2025 strikes, “the Iranian regime transferred some of its capabilities to secret bunkers and attempted to restore its efforts and conceal them.”

Senior Israeli security officials told Epoch Magazine in Israel that at the Minzadehei site that was struck, a team of nuclear scientists—reassembled by Iran from among those who had survived the bombing last year—was working to accelerate the country’s “Weapon Group” project. The  purpose of the project is to develop the bomb’s fuzing system–the component responsible for triggering the detonation mechanism—and adapt the weapon for delivery by ballistic missile. 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details.

The Weapon Group is the body responsible for developing the nuclear detonation mechanism within Iran’s nuclear program. In the process of developing a nuclear bomb intended for mounting on a ballistic missile, the bomb’s components are developed and built separately until the weapon’s final assembly. The team of scientists operating at the site was working on the fuze.

The same sources said the Iranian leadership recovered from the blow it suffered to its nuclear sites from the United States and Israel in June 2025, and that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered an accelerated push to produce a nuclear bomb.

In 2024, Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Khamenei, said in an interview with Al Jazeera: “We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine.”

In 2025, Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister and then an adviser to Khamenei, said if he returned to the defense portfolio, he would “move toward building an atomic bomb.” Shamkhani was among the Iranian leaders killed in the U.S.–Israeli strikes on the first day of the latest military operation on Iran.

Israeli security officials say those remarks reflected growing recognition at the top of the Iranian leadership that the absence of nuclear capability was a strategic disadvantage—one that weakens the Iranian regime’s ability to deter its enemies and defend against military strikes or attempts at regime change. For that reason, achieving the ability to produce a nuclear bomb quickly became a top priority for Tehran.

Iran’s Nuclear Program

In 2002, in response to U.S. congressional reports that the Iranian regime had built nuclear-related facilities it had not disclosed, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demanded access to certain sites, key personnel, and relevant documents to investigate.

“About three years later, the Americans began to understand that Iran had an active nuclear weapons development program, but they became convinced that the program had been halted,” David Albright, a leading expert on nuclear proliferation and founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told Epoch Magazine Israel.

In November 2011, the IAEA published findings that outlined “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s nuclear program. The agency said that based on information it received from member states, this was pursued under Iran’s initiative dubbed the AMAD Plan headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The program began to take shape in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the report said.

The report adds that based on intelligence provided by member states, the plan included work on explosives, uranium enrichment, and the development of a warhead that could be fitted onto a Shahab-3 missile.

The IAEA report said that based on intelligence it has reviewed and its own investigation, Iran had worked on the development of a nuclear explosive device, and tested advanced systems for initiating explosives from multiple points simultaneously in order to create a uniform blast, something required for an effective nuclear explosion.

It added that based on intelligence provided by member states, Iran conducted a test involving the detonation of a powerful hemispherical high-explosive charge. It noted that the materials and dimensions used in the test resembled what would be required to develop a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-3 missile.

“You can produce a nuclear explosive device with a mock core, which can be uranium, but not enriched uranium,” Ephraim Asculai, who worked at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission for more than 40 years, told Epoch Magazine.

“I’m not even sure the term ’mock core' is good enough, because it is a full-fledged nuclear explosive device in every respect, except that the uranium inside is not enriched to weapons grade,” Asculai said. 

“What is called a ‘cold test’ is carried out with this device—you measure all the parameters and examine them in order to confirm that it will work one day. Then, one day, you simply remove the non-enriched uranium core and insert an enriched uranium core, and the device will work.”

Documents from the Iranian Nuclear Archive—a collection of documents, photos, and videos obtained during a Mossad operation inside Iran and made public in April 2018 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—showed that under the AMAD Plan, extensive planning had been conducted for the construction of an underground test site where nuclear explosions would be carried out.

According to the documents, Iran called the project Midan. As part of the project, five potential sites were examined, and methods were developed for measuring the power of a nuclear explosion, including the use of seismic and other technologies. One of the documents deals with the depth of the shaft required for an explosion of a certain yield, the behavior of the ground during the explosion, methods for refilling the shaft after placement of the nuclear device, and the development of software to monitor the entire process.

The IAEA report stated that based on intelligence from member states, Iran ultimately halted the AMAD Plan and began cleaning equipment and work areas in order to conceal the activities that had taken place there. However, the report added that based on the same intelligence sources, some of those activities continued under different organizations.

According to Albright, the Iranians continued to advance the AMAD Plan, but in a different format. “They shifted from trying to build a nuclear weapon to trying to solve bottlenecks in the various parts of the program, so that when the time came, they could connect all the components quickly and efficiently and assemble the weapon.”

A former senior Mossad official who was involved in bringing the Iranian Nuclear Archive to Israel, said, “To illustrate, think about the structure of a newspaper.” 

“You have reporters covering different beats, and you have an editor who integrates all the content that comes in and creates a complete product. Now imagine that you decide not to publish the newspaper for the next three years for various reasons. You don’t shut it down. Instead, you decide that each reporter will sit at home, at his university, or at the research institute where he works, and continue researching and developing his area of expertise,” the former official told Epoch Magazine in Israel. His name is withheld because he is not authorized to speak publicly.

“You pay the reporters so they keep their skills sharp and continue writing drafts until the day the newspaper resumes operations and calls them back to assemble a finished product. The same thing happened in Iran—the nuclear program was operational, people met together to develop, produce, and assemble weapons, but then they were dispersed.”

The AMAD Plan was initially run under a body called SADAT, but moved under the  management of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), which began operations in 2011, according to the IAEA report. 

“The work in the SADAT Centres drew on resources at Iranian universities which had laboratories available to them and students to do the research,” the IAEA report notes. 

Fakhrizadeh, who headed the AMAD Plan and then SADAT, also led SPND until he was assassinated in late 2020.

“As a successor body, SPND inherited a substantial portion of the manpower that had been involved in the nuclear program in the early 2000s,” Albright said. “It has a network of subordinate groups, as well as front companies, through which it conducts research and procurement related to nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. The structure of the network makes it possible to incorporate many of the employees who worked in the AMAD Plan and who today work in private companies and universities in Iran.”

During the Twelve Day War in June 2025, the Israeli military said that SPND headquarters in Tehran had also been struck, along with attacks on nuclear sites and other critical infrastructure.

U.S. crude oil prices broke $90 per barrel on March 6 as President Donald Trump demanded an “unconditional surrender” from Iran.

A barrel of West Texas Intermediate—the U.S. benchmark for oil prices—rocketed 14 percent above $92 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The U.S. front-month contract is on track for a record weekly gain of about 37 percent, adding to its year-to-date gain of 60 percent.

Brent, the international benchmark for crude prices, advanced almost 10 percent, to around $93 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange.

The global gauge is poised for a 27 percent weekly increase, lifting this year’s rally to 53 percent.

In a March 6 Truth Social post, the president stated that the United States would not end the war in Iran without an “unconditional surrender” by the regime.

Once this happens, Trump says, the United States and its allies will work to resurrect Iran and make its economy “bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”

“Iran will have a great future,” he added. “Make Iran Great Again (MIGA!).”

The Iran War has disrupted energy production and halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global chokepoint for oil and gas shipments.

Twenty million barrels of oil and petroleum products and 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas transit through the area.

Scores of countries in the region have shut down oil output.

Iraq suspended operations that will remove 1.5 million barrels per day from global energy markets. Kuwait has started winding down production due to a lack of storage space. Market watchers anticipate other markets in the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates, to slow output until the narrow waterway reopens.

While Iran has not closed the shipping route, traffic has come to a standstill because insurance firms are no longer providing coverage to oil and gas tankers, or premiums have spiked.

The administration has attempted to mitigate this by offering guaranteed political risk insurance and naval escorts to restart trade. The White House has not offered a timeline.

Some market watchers are skeptical that this could stabilize transportation in the region.

“While the ballistic missile threat can be taken out, drones could represent a more long-term threat that, while not militarily significant, could discourage commercial tanker traffic for some time,” Simon Lack, portfolio manager at Catalyst Energy Infrastructure Fund, said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

“Drones are cheap, easily launched and need only a very low hit rate (probably <1 percent) to make the area look unsafe even with insurance.”

Still, the longer the war in Iran drags on, the worse it could get for energy markets, say ING commodity strategists.

“The market remains well supported with few signs of de-escalation in the Middle East and a resumption of energy flows in the region,” they said in a March 6 note. “Clearly, with every day that goes by without flows resuming, the oil market will reprice the amount of supply lost, leaving room for prices to move higher.”

The Treasury Department also authorized a 30-day waiver allowing India to purchase Russian oil again to ensure the flow of global crude.

While officials—at home and abroad—are considering different measures to stabilize oil markets, the International Energy Agency said its members have no plans to tap into emergency crude reserves.

“Based on my discussions with IEA member governments and looking at current market conditions, there are no plans for a collective action at this stage. We are facing a temporary disruption—a logistical disruption,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told reporters in Brussels.

Other Energy Markets

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has increased by about $0.27 in the past week, to $3.25, according to the American Automobile Association.

Heating oil prices spiked 40 percent this week, to about $3.61 per gallon.

Natural gas has also picked up steam, rising 6 percent during the March 6 trading session and climbing 12 percent for the week. But prices remain mostly stable, according to Phil Flynn, energy strategist at The PRICE Futures Group.

“Obviously, in Europe, that’s not going to be the case in the short term, but here in the United States, because of record production, we are producing more than we can use right now, and that is keeping our prices fairly stable,” Flynn said in a March 6 note.

In addition, weather forecasts suggest temperatures could be warming, which could weigh on home-heating demand and bolster domestic inventories.

Daily U.S. production is firmly above 100 billion cubic feet.

Global natural gas markets are being impacted primarily by Qatar, which accounts for a fifth of global LNG exports. It serves mostly Asian markets, including China, Japan, and India.

QatarEnergy declared force majeure on LNG shipments this week due to disruptions at its facilities caused by the Iran War. This allows the company to walk away from its contractual obligations because of circumstances beyond its control. It could take weeks for the major producer to restart operations.

Guy Birchall and Reuters contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said on March 6 that he would be open to Iran being ruled by another religious leader and said he wants Iran to undergo a process similar to what occurred in Venezuela in January.

When asked by CNN on Friday in a phone interview about whether he'd be open to another religious leader heading the country, Trump responded, “I may be, yeah.”

Iran has been ruled by a theocratic regime since 1979, encompassing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s reign since 1989. Khamenei was killed in U.S.–Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, and no replacement leader has been named.

“I mean, it depends on who the person is,” Trump also said. “I don’t mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders, and they are fantastic.”

Trump also said he would want Iran’s situation to play out in a manner similar to what happened in Venezuela after the U.S. military captured the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and extradited him back to the United States to face federal drug charges. His vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was named as the acting president after Maduro was removed.

“It’s going to work very easily. It’s going to work like it did in Venezuela. We have a wonderful leader there. She’s doing a fantastic job. And it’s going to work like in Venezuela,” the president said, referring to Rodríguez.

Trump also dismissed suggestions that Iran must have a democratically run government.

“No, I’m saying there has to be a leader that’s going to be fair and just. Do a great job. Treat the United States and Israel well, and treat [well] the other countries in the Middle East—they’re all our partners,” he told the outlet on Friday.

“And I became very friendly with all those countries. That’s why they’re all fighting for us. Before I got involved, we didn’t even speak to UAE and Saudi Arabia. They were all going to go to China.”

He said that in a short period of time, they became friends with him.

His comments to CNN build on previous ones a day earlier, when he said he wanted to be involved in picking the head of Iran’s government.

Iranian state television said on Friday that a leadership council had started discussing how to convene the country’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.

In the airstrikes targeting Iran’s regime, dozens of leaders other than Khamenei were killed, and much of the country’s military and navy have been degraded. Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut and Tehran earlier on Friday as Iran launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf countries that host U.S. forces.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts in the conflict, which was also carried by state media. He did not elaborate on those countries.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said that he wants Iran’s unconditional surrender “and the selection of a great & acceptable Leader(s)” before the United States and its allies would help rebuild Iran, making it “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on March 6 its members had no plans to release emergency oil reserves amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told reporters in Brussels that “there is plenty of oil in the market,” saying the problem was about logistics, not a lack of supply.

When asked about releasing emergency reserves, Birol said member governments were keeping “all options on the table” but currently saw no need for coordinated action. 

“Based on my discussions with IEA member governments and looking at current market conditions, there are no plans for a collective action at this stage. We are facing a temporary disruption—a logistical disruption,” he said.

Though Iran has so far not officially closed off the Strait of Hormuz, the fighting in the region has virtually brought all movement through the vital shipping lane to a halt.

About one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade flows and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas travel through the strait, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Since the fighting broke out on Feb. 28, the price of Brent crude has rocketed from $72 a barrel to more than $89 as of March 6, the largest spike since 2022.

That price could rise significantly higher, with Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi telling the Financial Times he expects all energy producers in the Gulf to shut down exports, a move he said could drive oil to $150 a barrel, according to an interview published on March 6.

Liquefied Natural Gas

“The bulk of the gas going from the Middle East is destined for Asia, and the implication for Europe would be, if the crisis continues in this way, the Asian buyers and the European buyers will need to compete for the LNG, which will get scarcer and scarcer,” Birol said, adding that this could be challenging for European countries.

Despite this, however, Birol warned Europe against pivoting back to Russia for its LNG supplies.

“One of Europe’s historical mistakes was the over-reliance of its energy sources on one single country, Russia,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Given the bitter experience Europeans had with Russia, given the very fact that there will be a lot of LNG anyways coming to markets, and the gas markets turning from the markets of sellers to buyers, I think looking at Russia as an alternative option for getting gas will be economically and, in my view, politically wrong.”

After Russia went to war against Ukraine in February 2022, the West moved quickly to cut its reliance on Russian oil and gas, in a bid to cripple the country’s economy.

Birol added that the IEA expects a large volume of LNG to reach the market over the next 5 years, which will put downward pressure on prices.

“We expect in the next five years a huge amount of LNG wave, about 300 BCM [billion cubic meters] of new LNG coming,” he said.

He added that the LNG industry had only been going for three or four decades, and that half of what the industry had built would hit the markets in the coming five years.

“This would mean there will be a downward pressure on the prices and most importantly, 75 percent of this LNG will be flexible,” he added.

“Flexible” in this context refers to LNG sold under contracts that do not specify fixed destinations.

This means suppliers can redirect shipments to different buyers or markets based on demand, pricing, or other factors, rather than being locked into long-term commitments to particular importers.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Just days after the United States fired a one-way attack drone for the first time in combat, a Senate committee on March 5 highlighted an urgent need to increase military unmanned vehicle production, training, and use.

“This issue has profound implications for both our warfighting readiness and our future prosperity. I’m not really sure Americans understand that fully yet,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate committee on Armed Services.

During the hearing, Wicker acknowledged the U.S. combat debut of the “Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System”—or LUCAS drone—during Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the Central Command leader of U.S. military forces in the Middle East, said the military had launched “countless one-way attack drones, achieving massive effects.”

Those drones were “originally an Iranian design,” Cooper said in a March 3 video. “We took them back to America, made them better—and fired them right back at Iran.”

An Arizona-based defense contractor, SpektreWorks, developed the LUCAS based on the Iranian Shahed-136 model, according to an independent defense research website, GlobalSecurity.org.

Iran has supplied that weapon to Russia, the website says, ever since the Russia–Ukraine war began in 2022.

Test-fired for the first time in December, the suicide-mission LUCAS drone costs about $35,000 each—far less than reusable, more sophisticated models that can cost up to $40 million each.

Wicker said that the Russia–Ukraine war “has forever changed the character of modern warfare and demonstrated the growing importance of small unmanned systems—what we colloquially call drones.”

U.S. drone development has lagged, largely because the Chinese Communist Party heavily subsidized its drone makers.

That strategy rendered drone companies in America and other nations unable to compete with lower-priced and more-advanced Chinese drones, Wicker noted.

But, he said, “we’re finally on the cusp of charting a future for American drone dominance.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in June 2025, intended to remove obstacles so that the United States could “unleash” drone capabilities.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a committee member, championed the American Security Drone Act of 2023.

That law banned federal agencies from purchasing or operating drones tied to foreign adversaries such as China; it took full effect in December 2025.

“We have to keep fighting to ensure Communist China has absolutely zero role in our drone supply or anywhere in our military, which is critical to American safety,” Scott said during the hearing.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the committee’s ranking member, said: “For too long, the United States was hindered by self-imposed restrictions and bureaucratic red tape.”

China continues to dominate the manufacture of “critical components” of drones, such as motors and batteries, he said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said a company in her state, ePropelled, is the nation’s sole producer of drone-propulsion motors.

“It’s one of the most glaring deficits in our domestic market,” she said, asking whether leaders are working to assist American businesses such as ePropelled.

A hearing witness, Owen West, senior adviser to the Defense Department’s drone dominance efforts, said ePropelled supplies several drone makers that won defense contracts.

He called drones “the most significant battlefield innovation in generations.”

That’s why the military must arm its troops with “lethal drone technology” as quickly as possible.

These drones can also be used for counterstrikes or defense.

Another witness, Maj. Gen. Steven Marks said the organization he directs—the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group—aims to pull together innovation and production to meet operational needs.

The group is tasked with “cutting across the traditional boundaries that have often slowed our process.”

Marks says he is confident in the group’s success because it has “collapsed the distance between the warfighter and the developer.”

“Operators and engineers are now working side-by-side at the tactical edge, solving operational problems in real time,” he said.

“This ensures capability is informed directly by battlefield needs and refined through immediate, real-world feedback.”

A third witness, Travis Metz, the drone dominance program manager, said $1.1 billion is to be spent over the next 18 months to buy drone systems for U.S. forces.

Winners of a recent contest will be given orders for a total of 30,000 small, one-way attack drones, Metz said. Those weapons will be delivered to U.S. forces during the next five months.

The world’s best drones are now made in Ukraine, Metz said, adding that the United States is trying to lure Ukrainian makers to manufacture their products in America.

Shaheen said she and fellow committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have visited Ukraine repeatedly and learned that Ukrainians are updating their drones every two weeks.

Lately, the United States has been conducting drone-contract contests every six months.

While she appreciates the work that is being done, Shaheen said U.S. efforts must accelerate.

Otherwise, “I don’t know how we think we’re going to compete,” she said.

Qatari Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi has said that the conflict in the Middle East could “bring down the economies of the world.”

Al-Kaabi, who is also the CEO of QatarEnergy, told the Financial Times on March 6 that oil prices could soar to $150 a barrel within two to three weeks if tankers and other merchant vessels are unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Everybody that has not called for force majeure we expect will do so in the next few days that this continues. All exporters in the Gulf region will have to call force majeure,” Al-Kaabi said.

“If they don’t, they are at some point going to pay the liability for that legally, and that’s their choice.

“This will bring down the economies of the world.”

He said that everybody’s energy prices will go up.

“There will be shortages of some products, and there will be a chain reaction of factories that cannot supply,” he said.

QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company and the world’s largest single liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, said in a March 4 post on X that it had declared “Force Majeure,” meaning it can’t guarantee deliveries amid the Iran War.

Force Majeure is a legal term meaning an unexpected event beyond someone’s control, such as war, natural disaster, or government action, that prevents them from fulfilling a contract.

If the halt applies across its 14 LNG trains, the shutdown could affect close to 20 percent of global LNG supply.

“We don’t think anybody would dare to come to us and say we are not reliable because you were being bombed and you did not deliver,” Al-Kaabi said.

“Let’s assume you want to buy 77 million and deliver it to customers; there is no 77 million tonnes lying around for you to buy.”

Vessel-tracking platform MarineTraffic said tanker traffic had fallen by about 90 percent, according to a March 4 post on X.

The Atlantic Council said in a March 5 report that while China would suffer from oil disruptions, a crisis resulting in major LNG outages would not cause significant harm to Beijing because natural gas plays a smaller role in its energy mix.

They said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has “the largest onshore crude stockpiles in the world, with inventory levels estimated at 1.2 billion barrels as of January 2026, with builds amounting to 100 million barrels over the previous year, per Kpler data.”

The European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan rely far more heavily on LNG imports.

It added that LNG outages in Qatar would benefit the U.S. LNG industry.

On March 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia could halt gas supplies to Europe.

When asked on Russian state television ​about European plans to impose a total ban on Russian pipeline gas imports by late 2027 and to ban new short-term Russian LNG contracts from ​late April 2026, Putin said it might be more beneficial for Russia to stop selling the gas right now.

“Now other markets are opening up. And perhaps it would be more profitable for us to stop supplying the European market right now. To move into those markets that are opening up and establish ourselves there,” Putin said.

“This is not a decision; it is, in this case, what is called thinking out loud. I will definitely instruct ​the government to work on this issue together with our companies.”

According to the International Energy Agency, Russia holds the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves and is the world’s second-largest producer of natural gas.

Reuters contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said on March 6 that he wants unconditional surrender from the Iranian regime and would then work to “bring Iran back from the brink.” His comments come in the midst of a week-long U.S. and Israeli military campaign targeting the country.

Detailing what the administration wants from Iran to potentially stop the military operation that took out the Islamic Republic’s top leadership, Trump wrote on social media that “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

The president then suggested that he wants to select Iranian leaders on his terms. He added that the United States, “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.”

Trump signed off his Truth Social post with “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!),” a take on his longtime campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts, without elaborating. On FridayU.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on all countries involved to de-escalate, saying, “The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze.”

Those remarks come as Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut and Tehran on Friday, and Iran launched another wave of retaliatory attacks against Israel and Gulf countries that host U.S. military forces.

The U.S. military confirmed early Friday that it struck an Iranian drone carrier.

Meanwhile, three drones hit the United Arab Emirates on Friday, the country’s Defense Ministry said in a post on X. It did not elaborate on where they fell or the damage they caused.

Qatar said early Friday it intercepted a drone attack targeting Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command.

Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles fired on Friday toward Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh, which also hosts U.S. forces, said a spokesperson for Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry.

On Thursday, drones hit territory inside Azerbaijan, which the country blamed on Iran. Azerbaijani officials said the Iranian regime must answer their questions about the drone strikes or face retaliation, although they did not elaborate on what that could entail.

On Thursday, Trump told media outlet Axios he wants to be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader after the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in airstrikes on Feb. 28. He said that he believes that the son of the late ayatollah, Mojtaba Khamenei, should not be named as his replacement to lead the regime.

“I have to be ​involved in the appointment, like with Delcy (Rodriguez) in Venezuela,” Trump said, referring to Venezuela’s former vice president, who became the interim leader after Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in January.

Trump, in remarks at the White House, once again urged the Iranian people to “help take back your country.” He also promised that the U.S. government would grant them immunity amid ongoing dangers under the current Iranian regime. He said the U.S. military’s objectives are “far ahead of schedule.”

“So you’ll be perfectly safe with total immunity,” he said. “Or you’ll face absolutely guaranteed death.”

Days before that, he said at an Oval Office meeting that he doesn’t believe the son of the late Iranian shah, Reza Pahlavi, would be an acceptable leader. Instead, Iran should be led by an insider or “somebody from within” the regime, Trump suggested.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on March 5 that there is no expansion of objectives in the military operation in Iran.

“We know exactly what we’re trying to achieve,” Hesseth said during a news briefing at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Hegseth was responding to a question about whether President Donald Trump’s desire to have a say in who will be the next leader of Iran represented an expansion of the objectives of Operation Epic Fury.

Later during the press conference, Hegseth addressed concerns that the operation could expand to other nations in the Middle East.

He said that Tehran’s targeting allied countries in the region that would otherwise stay out of the conflict is actually encouraging those nations to side with the United States and Israel in the war.

“This idea that [the conflict] is expanding—no, it’s actually simplifying, in a number of ways—exactly what we need to achieve and how we'll achieve it,” Hegseth said.

‘Next Phase’ of Operation

“So, we’re not just hitting what they have—we’re destroying their ability to rebuild,” Cooper said. “As we transition to the next phase of this operation, we will systemically dismantle Iran’s missile production capability for the future, and that’s absolutely in progress.”

Cooper praised U.S. partners in the region, who he said were, in many cases, “providing the most integrated air defense network in Middle East history.”

“We are fighting to win through combined U.S. and Israeli combat power; we will continue decimating Iran’s ability to project power outside its borders,” he said.

During the briefing, Cooper said that due to the decline in Iran’s combat capability, ballistic missile attacks from the regime have decreased by 90 percent and drone attacks by 83 percent since the start of the war on Feb. 28.

Israel Announces ‘Next Phase’

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a March 5 statement that since the start of the Iran War, Israeli air force pilots had executed 2,500 strikes, destroying about 80 percent of Iran’s air defense systems and neutralizing and destroying more than 60 percent of ballistic missile launchers.

“After completing the surprise strike phase, in which we established air superiority and suppressed the ballistic missile array, we are now moving to the next phase of the operation,” Zamir said. “In this phase, we will further dismantle the regime and its military capabilities. We have additional surprises ahead which I do not intend to disclose.”

Epic Fury Is ‘Laser-Focused’

“Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons,” Hegseth said on March 2 during a press briefing at the Pentagon, according to a statement from the Department of War.

The secretary had said the goals for Operation Epic Fury made it unlike past wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Our ambitions are not utopian; they are realistic, scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies,” Hegseth said. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. ... This is the opposite. This operation [has] a clear, devastating, decisive mission: Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”