Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at major U.S. and Iranian military operations, concerns that Hungary is too close to Russia, and Israel’s new capital punishment law for Palestinians in the West Bank.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Tuesday that the next few days of the Iran war will be decisive, just 24 hours after President Donald Trump vowed to obliterate Iran’s energy sector if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to a peace deal by April 6.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at major U.S. and Iranian military operations, concerns that Hungary is too close to Russia, and Israel’s new capital punishment law for Palestinians in the West Bank.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Tuesday that the next few days of the Iran war will be decisive, just 24 hours after President Donald Trump vowed to obliterate Iran’s energy sector if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to a peace deal by April 6.

But Iran does not appear deterred. Instead, the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned on Tuesday that Iranian forces will begin targeting U.S. companies in the Middle East on Wednesday. Seventeen major corporations were listed as targets: Cisco, HP, Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, IBM, Dell, Palantir, Nvidia, J.P. Morgan Chase, Tesla, GE, Spire Solution, and Boeing. The Emirati company G42 was also listed.

Tehran said that the looming strikes are in retaliation for U.S. assassinations in Iran and for some of these companies’ involvement in U.S. defense contracts. The IRGC warned the companies’ employees and civilians within 1 kilometer of their facilities to evacuate and said that it would begin the strikes on Wednesday at 8 p.m. local time.

The threat comes amid a slew of major military operations on both sides. A U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that U.S. forces bombed an ammunition depot in Esfahan, the city where one of Iran’s main nuclear facilities is located. The attack used 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, which are much smaller versions of the same type of weaponry that the United States used to strike the Esfahan nuclear site (along with two others) last June.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Dan Caine confirmed that U.S. troops have begun flying B-52 bombers over Iranian territory for the first time since the war began. Using this strategic bomber—built by Boeing, one of the IRGC’s listed targets—suggests that Iran’s air defenses may be significantly degraded. According to Caine, the U.S. military has struck more........

© Foreign Policy