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SOF News: Iran War Weekly Update – 28 Mar 2026 | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University wpDiscuzInsert

Israel Defense Forces Iran-Israel War 2026: An IDF precision strike in Bandar Abbas eliminated IRGC Navy commander Alireza Tangsiri and intelligence chief Behnam Rezaei, key figures behind Iran’s maritime operations. Their removal deals a significant blow to the IRGC’s ability to threaten shipping and destabilize the Strait of Hormuz and the wider region. 26.03.26 In a significant overnight operation, the Israeli Air Force carried out a precise strike in the coastal city of Bandar Abbas, targeting senior leadership within Iran’s naval forces. Acting on high-quality intelligence provided jointly by the IDF Intelligence Directorate and the Israeli Navy, the strike resulted…

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs at companies that are federal contractors.While contractors are already subject to anti-DEI directives that the president enacted at the start of his second term, Trump wrote that this new order is necessary because “some entities continue to engage in DEI activities and often attempt to conceal their efforts to do so.”Under the directive, agencies must ensure that contracts and subcontracts, within 30 days, include a clause that states the contractor: Will not engage in DEI activities. Agrees to provide information and reports to assess compliance. …

How Many Reps? That people still ask this question confounds me as much today as it did when it was first asked of me by one of my very first training clients, way back in the day. Back then, one of the biggest hurdles the newfangled personal trainers—who, at the dawn of the fitness boom, were mostly broke bodybuilders—encountered when we all started training the “normal people” who all of a sudden started flocking to the gym—was taking for granted that they knew what was, to us, very basic stuff. Because it was so “normal” to us, it never dawned…

KYIV, Ukraine — After years of trying to stop Iran-designed Shahed drones over its own cities, Ukraine is now sending counter-drone teams to Gulf partners — and pitching the help as a trade between equals.As the same one-way attack drones ripple across the Middle East, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has deployed 228 counter-drone specialists across five regional partners — Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — to help intercept incoming threats, an expansion up from roughly 201 personnel a week earlier.Zelenskyy has framed Ukraine’s pitch in explicitly transactional terms: If partners can spare the…

KYIV, Ukraine — The price of U.S. security guarantees to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine became explicit this week: Kyiv must give up all of Donbas — about 10% of its territory, or about 15% of its prewar GDP.The United States has asked Ukraine to withdraw from all of the eastern region — including areas it has held during more than 14 years of Russian attacks — before it will finalize the long-term protections it has been discussing with Kyiv for months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, describing the negotiation in comments to Reuters.The demand followed bilateral talks in…

Israel Adesanya is out to prove that UFC Seattle isn’t the last ride for “The Last Stylebender.”It’s difficult to look past the potential worst-case scenarios looming over Adesanya, a two-time UFC middleweight champion and one of the best fighters of his generation. Four months shy of his 37th birthday, Adesanya finds himself in an unprecedented slump, having lost three straight fights dating back to April 2023. A loss to the relatively unheralded Joe Pyfer in Saturday’s main event would truly send Adesanya into a tailspin.Since a standout performance on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2022, Pyfer has scraped and clawed…

News March 27, 2026 Dan Taylor Technology Editor Military Embedded Systems Image via BAE Systems FALLS CHURCH, Virginia. BAE Systems and Scale AI have signed a strategic relationship agreement to speed the development and fielding of agentic artificial intelligence capabilities for Department of War mission environments and operational platforms, the company announced in a statement. The collaboration combines BAE Systems’ work in defense operations, systems integration, and platforms with Scale AI’s data and generative artificial intelligence tools, the statement reads. The two companies plan to embed those capabilities into the architecture of combat vehicles, deterrence programs, and future platforms used…

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has confirmed that both Aegis System Equipped Vessels (ASEV) planned for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) have already been laid down, marking the start of full-scale construction of the two-ship missile defense program. The JMSDF plans to operate two ASEV ships as part of Japan’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) architecture. The first vessel was laid down on July 18, 2025, at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Nagasaki shipyard on Kyushu Island. The second ship followed on February 5, 2026, at Japan Marine United’s Isogo shipyard in Yokohama City, south of Tokyo. The milestone confirms that construction of…

China’s People’s Liberation Army employs a variety of strategies to influence ROK public opinion, interfere in ROK elections, and seek to weaken the US-ROK alliance. With a special focus on the potential impact of artificial intelligence on PLA influence operations targeting South Korea, Washington and Seoul should improve coordination to mitigate these efforts and their potential impacts.