“The US has massive amounts of ‘munitions'” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on August 6, adding that claims of any munitions shortage were fabricated.
A general view of the Pentagon in Washington, DC, US, March 21, 2025.(photo credit: Kent Nishimura/Reuters)
ByESTHER DAVIS“Claims of US munitions shortages are false,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
“America’s military remains the most powerful fighting force on earth. We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing,” Parnell added
A Reuters report on August 4 found that the US Army had used up “virtually all” of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran.
These long-range munitions allow the military to carry out accurate strikes from a safe distance, playing a crucial role in the US-Iran conflict.
White House disputed reports of shortages
When asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the US had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need,” Reuters reported.
Sean Parnell speaks on stage, on the day Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump returns for a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, US, October 5, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/BRIAN SNYDER)
“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.
The Washington Post found that in the first month of the conflict with Iran, the US had fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and over 1,000 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles, and used at least 1,300 tactical ballistic missiles.
Additionally, Reuters reported that between February and July the US had used around 65% of its Patriot interceptors.
“The US has massive amounts of ‘munitions'” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on August 6, adding that claims of any munitions shortage were fabricated.
Pentagon orders plan for rapid weapons production
The Pentagon told US defense industry leaders to prepare plans to escalate production and delivery of weapons as reports of munitions shortages escalate, The Washington Post reported on August 8, citing a Defense Department memo.
Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg wrote that the leaders had no more than 21 days to present plans to “drive significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities,” on Wednesday, according to the memo.
“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable. We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.”
These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them,’ claims president, as US military said helping get millions of barrels of oil through Hormuz daily
US President Donald Trump listens as Gemini co-founder and president Cameron Winklevoss, left, and Gemini co-founder and CEO Tyler Winklevoss, right, watch, during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, August 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared “ECONOMIC D-DAY” against Iran, warning that any country doing business with the Islamic Republic will face “TREMENDOUS economic consequences.”
“Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social Post. “No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it.”
On Tuesday, Trump declared that he was not interested in talks with Iran, but by Wednesday, he said he was open to resuming them.
“Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” Trump said.
The US president has made countless threats of devastating force and economic sanctions against Iran, only to walk those back, while claiming progress in negotiations toward a diplomatic agreement.
This time, Trump insisted, it “will be economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale.”
“Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS economic consequences,” he said. “This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate and defeat the Iran threat.”
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” he writes, without describing what the measures actually are. “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Vehicles drive past a banner reading in English and Farsi, “We will kill Trump,” and banners showing portraits of the late Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, right, and his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, at a square in Tehran, Iran, August 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
The intensified economic pressure campaign comes as the war nears its sixth month with no immediate diplomatic or military off-ramp in sight and the vital Strait of Hormuz still significantly choked off. With November elections quickly approaching, Trump is also facing renewed domestic scrutiny over the war’s costs on US consumers and toll on the military.
Trump did not elaborate on what he would do to countries that continue doing business with Iran, which would appear to include US allies that have helped mediate peace talks, and he did not list any country by name.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had similarly said last week that the US would soon be ramping up efforts at economically isolating Iran, as part of a two-pronged approach with a US naval blockade.
“It will be a combination of economic isolation, like the world has never seen before,” Bessent told conservative television network Newsmax.
The US Treasury has for months been carrying out an effort, dubbed Operation Economic Fury, aiming to cut off Iran’s funding with targeted sanctions.
Iranian defiance
Iran has struck a defiant tone, having survived months of US military operations that failed to bring a decisive end to the war and has — according to US media reports — severely drawn down US munition stockpiles. The Pentagon has denied these reports.
The conflict broke out on February 28 with US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic, which retaliated with missile and drone strikes across the region.
Tehran’s missile and drone threat has severely curtailed shipping traffic through the strait, as a framework US-Iran deal to reopen it collapsed.
However, Trump earlier on Wednesday touted US military efforts to aid ships out of the strait, saying “right now, a lot of boats are coming through.”
Axios reported that US forces were facilitating the transit of 15 to 20 ships in and out of the Hormuz each night in recent weeks — carrying “roughly half the pre-war volume” of daily oil shipments, or some 10 million barrels.
“We have been controlling the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz for two months now. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can be a nuisance, but they don’t control the strait. We do,” a US official told the digital media outlet, which said the military operation to protect ships transiting the strait was preceded by strikes on radar and maritime surveillance sites that have rendered the Iranians largely “blind.”
An oil tanker approaches the new Jetty during the launch of the new oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, September 21, 2016. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
In recent days, both sides have said messages were being exchanged; however, Trump on Tuesday insisted talks were off and posted a message on social media suggesting the strait could be a “NEW US Territory.”
On Tuesday, the UAE announced that it was suspending all economic dealings with Iran after saying it had been targeted by two ballistic missiles.
The neighbors across the Gulf share deep cultural and historical ties, and the UAE — home to a sizable Iranian community — had been a major trading partner for US-sanctioned Iran, at least before the war.
“We need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” Trump said Wednesday on Truth Social
Australia ‘outraged’ after IDF closes probe into 2024 strike that killed aid workers, including Australian * Elderly Palestinian woman, young girl wounded by shrapnel, three beaten during IDF operations near Nablus –
Arson investigators from Israel Police and the Fire and Rescue Service inspect the site of a reported settler arson attack on a Palestinian home in the southern West Bank village of Khillet al-Farra, August 20, 2026, which Israeli authorities say was caused by an electrical failure. (Israel Police)
Responding to reports that a home was set ablaze by settlers in the southern West Bank overnight, Israel Police says forensic investigators determined that the fire broke out due to an electrical failure, not deliberate arson.
Palestinian media outlets had reported that Israeli settlers set fire to a home in Khillet al-Farra, in the South Hebron Hills. A video obtained by The Times of Israel shows the homeowner claiming that settlers told her personally to leave the area before throwing an incendiary device through her window and setting fire to the house.
In a statement, police say that arson investigators visited the site this morning and determined that a short circuit was to blame for the fire.
It adds that “no remains of a fire-accelerating substance were found at the scene,” which it says is in contradiction to the reports that the fire was started deliberately by Israeli settlers.
Settlers clashed with Israeli security forces during the evacuation of an illegal outpost in Area B of the West Bank, which is under Palestinian civil control, according to security sources.
The outpost was established near the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya, south of Nablus.
In an attempt to stop the evacuation, the settlers blocked a road and hurled stones at the Israeli security forces, the sources say.
Four suspects were detained and transferred to the police for further questioning, and the troops also confiscated a tractor and sheep at the outpost.
The evacuation of the outpost was carried out following an order signed by IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF, Civil Administration, or Israel Police on the evacuation.
Iran this morning executed a man over charges related to January’s nationwide protests, state media reports.
State media identifies the person as Qaem Hosseini, a foreign national, who, it says, took part in events that led to the killing of security force members during the protests.
Iran has executed dozens of people since the beginning of its war with the US and Israel, with large number of the executions being linked to the protest movement that engulfed the country at the beginning of the year.
According to Amnesty International, Iran conducts the second most executions of any country, after China.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says that the newly announced US “economic D-Day” against Iran is a “diversion from America’s own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs.”
“Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat—and enmity of Iranians,” Araghchi says in a post on X. “US economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide”
The post comes after US President Donald Trump announced what he called the “most crushing economic operation” ever taken against any country, which will target Iran with economic warfare.
Palestinian media outlets report that settlers set fire to a home in Khillet al-Farra, in the South Hebron Hills in the southern West Bank, overnight.
In a video obtained by The Times of Israel, the homeowner, Ila Nuwaja’a, says settlers arrived in the middle of the night, opened a window of the house, identified her by name and told her, “Go to Susiya” — another community in the South Hebron Hills — before throwing something through the window that rapidly set the house ablaze.
The family subsequently fled the home. No injuries are reported as a result of the fire.
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A fire reportedly started by settlers engulfs a Palestinian home in Khillet al-Farra, southern West Bank, August 20, 2026. (Courtesy)
Defense Minister Israel Katz says that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “dragging Turkey into dangerous adventures in Syria,” after the IDF bombed a Syrian air base this week due to what it says was a Turkish military buildup at the site, a claim both Damascus and Ankara have denied.
“Israel will not allow any entity to threaten its security,” Katz says in a Hebrew-language post on X.
“It is preferable for Erdogan to continue delivering empty, delusional speeches against Israel in the Turkish parliament rather than testing Israel’s resolve to defend itself,” he says.
Palestinians inspect a vehicle with the logo of the World Central Kitchen wrecked by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, April 2, 2024. (Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP)
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong expresses “outrage” at Israel’s decision to close an IDF probe into an April 2024 attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom.
Wong says her government was informed of the decision not to pursue a criminal investigation into the incident moments before it was announced yesterday, leaving officials no time to inform Frankcom’s family before it became public.
“There are still many unanswered questions,” Wong says.
Questions include why the convoy was struck three times in a designated humanitarian zone and why a senior brigade officer involved in the strikes was a signatory to a letter urging the restriction of aid to Gaza, Wong adds. Australia had yet to receive drone recordings from the attack, despite seeking them multiple times, she says.
“The Australian government does not believe that the removal of two officers from their positions and three officers being reprimanded is sufficient accountability for the deaths of seven people, including an Australian citizen,” Wong says.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (C), Defense Minister Richard Marles (center L) and Foreign Minister Penny Wong (center R) at Parliament House in Canberra on August 19, 2026. (Hilary Wardhaugh/POOL/AFP)
The minister hours earlier summoned Israel’s envoy to Canberra Hillel Newman for a meeting. However, she won’t expel the ambassador, Wong says, citing a need to continue engaging diplomatically with Israel.
Newman tells reporters after the meeting that he is “very sorry” for Frankcom’s family, but did not apologize for her killing.
“One cannot attack findings of a court if the findings are not suitable to one’s political agenda,” Israel’s envoy says, adding that the finding of no criminal liability came “after two years of independent research.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent says that a 70-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl were wounded last night by shrapnel from IDF gunfire in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus.
No further details about the incident are immediately available. The military has maintained a presence in the village since last week due to an outpost established by settlers that blocked access to homes on the outskirts of the village.
Later, the Red Crescent says three people were injured after being beaten by IDF troops, according to the report, during a military operation in Nablus’s Rafidia neighborhood. No further details are immediately available.
Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani addresses a media conference following the meeting of the Syria Partnership Coordination Forum in Brussels, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Brugelman)
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani denies to Axios that there are plans for Turkish forces to deploy at an air base in Syria that Israel bombed this week, which he says Damascus told Jerusalem before the attack.
“There was no Turkish military build-up at the base in any sense that would justify such an interpretation,” he tells the news site. “The base was, in fact, largely empty. It had not yet been fully rehabilitated or become fully operational, and the work there was still at the rehabilitation stage.”
“Therefore, linking the strike to a Turkish military presence at the base is not supported by the situation on the ground as it stood at the time,” Al-Shaibani adds, while acknowledging officers from Turkey’s military visited the Abu Duhur base days before the strikes as part of what he describes as “ongoing military cooperation in the areas of training and the exchange of expertise.”
“Syria is currently working to rebuild its military and civilian institutions and develop their capabilities. It therefore benefits from cooperation and training programs with a number of countries, not Turkey alone. Similar cooperation has taken place and continues with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Russia,” he continues. “Syria is a sovereign state, and it has the right to establish relations of cooperation and alliance with any country, including Turkey.”
Al-Shaibani also tells Axios that his government has informed the Trump administration “that we do not trust Israel’s intentions towards Syria, and that we believe current Israeli policy, including its military escalation and actions on the ground, does not contribute to stability in Syria or the region.”
“Security cannot be one-sided. Just as we take Israeli security concerns into account, Israel must also take Syrian security concerns into account and seriously address our concerns regarding its expansionist policy and military operations inside Syrian territory,” he says.
US President Donald Trump listens as Gemini co-founder and president Cameron Winklevoss, left, and Gemini co-founder and CEO Tyler Winklevoss, right, watch, during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, August 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
US President Donald Trump declares “ECONOMIC D-DAY” against Iran warning that any country doing business with the Islamic Republic will face “TREMENDOUS economic consequences.”
“Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are,” Trump writes in his latest Truth Social Post.
Trump doesn’t elaborate on what he will do to countries that continue doing business with Iran.
“No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it,” he writes.
On Tuesday, Trump declared that he wasn’t interested in talks with Iran, but by Wednesday, he said he’d be open to resuming them.
“Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” Trump says.
The US president has made countless threats of devastating force and economic sanctions against Iran, only to walk those back, while claiming progress in negotiations toward a diplomatic agreement.
This time, Trump insists, it “will be economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale.”
“Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS economic consequences,” he writes. “This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate and defeat the Iran threat.”
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” he writes, without describing what the measures actually are. “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Iran has shown little indication that it is prepared to back down from its insistence on some degree of control over the Strait of Hormuz, despite Trump’s repeated threats.
Australia summons Israel’s ambassador over the Israeli military’s decision not to pursue criminal proceedings in connection with the death of an Australian aid worker in a 2024 airstrike in Gaza.
The IDF said on Wednesday it had found no basis to open criminal investigations into the killings of seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity, including Australian Zomi Frankcom.
“This decision falls far short of the accountability we expect,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong says in a statement, adding Australia is “outraged” by the decision.
