Iran has been laying traps and transferring further navy personnel and air defenses to Kharg Island in latest weeks in preparation for a potential US operation to take management of the island, in accordance to a number of folks conversant in US intelligence reporting on the problem.
The Trump administration has been weighing utilizing US troops to seize the tiny island within the northeastern Persian Gulf — an financial lifeline for Iran that handles roughly 90% of the nation’s crude exports — as leverage over the Iranians to coerce them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, NCS has reported.
But US officers and navy consultants say there could be important dangers concerned in such a ground operation, together with a big quantity of US casualties. The island has layered defenses, and the Iranians have moved further shoulder-fired, surface-to-air guided missile methods generally known as MANPADs there in latest weeks, the sources stated.
Iran has additionally been laying traps together with anti-personnel and anti-armor mines across the island, the sources stated, together with on the shoreline the place US troops might presumably stage an amphibious touchdown if President Donald Trump moved ahead with a ground operation.
Some allies of the president are elevating critical questions on whether or not there’s a want to try such an operation, since efficiently taking the island wouldn’t, by itself, resolve issues associated to the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s stranglehold on the worldwide vitality market, the supply added.
US Central Command didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Iranian actions on Kharg.
The US navy had already focused Kharg with strikes on March 13, with Central Command saying that 90 targets had been hit, together with “naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites.” Trump had announced the attack by saying that US forces had averted hitting oil infrastructure on the island “for reasons of decency.”
An Israeli supply stated there may be concern that taking management of Kharg would lead to assaults by Iranian drones and shoulder-fired missiles, main to the deaths of American troops. “The hope is that they won’t take that risk and will instead fire at the oil fields, but there is no way to know,” this supply stated.
“I would be very worried about this,” stated retired Adm. James Stavridis, the previous NATO Supreme Allied Commander who now serves as a NCS navy analyst. “Iranians are clever and ruthless. They will do everything they can to inflict maximum casualties on US forces both on the ships at sea, and especially once ground troops are anywhere in their sovereign territory.”
The speaker of Iran’s parliament on Wednesday warned the nation’s “enemies” against trying to occupy any Iranian islands.
“Based on some data, Iran’s enemies, with the support of one of the regional countries, are preparing to occupy one of the Iranian islands,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X. “All enemy movements are under the full surveillance of our armed forces. If they step out of line, all the vital infrastructure of that regional country will, without restriction, become the target of relentless attacks.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Ghalibaf stated, “We are closely monitoring all US movements in the region, especially troop deployments.”
Kharg Island is roughly a 3rd of the scale of Manhattan, which means the US would wish to deploy a strong touchdown pressure to take the island if it moved forward with such an operation, an individual conversant in US navy planning advised NCS. It’s situated on the very northern finish of the Persian Gulf, away from the Strait of Hormuz however critically close to Iranian oil services.
Two Marine Expeditionary Units, which concentrate on rapid-response amphibious landings, raids, and assault missions from Navy amphibious ships, have not too long ago deployed to the Middle East. Those models embody a number of thousand Marines together with amphibious warships, aviation belongings and touchdown craft. They are the most probably to be concerned in an operation to take Kharg, the sources stated. Approximately 1,000 US troopers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division are additionally anticipating to deploy to the area within the coming days.
Another particular person conversant in the US navy planning stated that Central Command has near-constant and chronic overhead surveillance of the island, so the navy has been ready to see each bodily and environmental adjustments in areas that seem to have been laid with traps.
The US navy’s strikes on the island degraded some of its air and sea defenses, which embody HAWK surface-to-air missiles and Oerlikon anti-aircraft weapons, according to Stavridis.
But US forces would nonetheless be susceptible to Iranian ballistic missile and drone assaults given the island’s proximity to the Iranian coast, and Trump officers are nonetheless grappling with whether or not a ground mission is definitely worth the danger, in accordance to a supply conversant in the administration’s inner deliberations on the problem.
The US retains plans to rapidly destroy delicate info and infrastructure if US installations and navy posts overseas are overrun, a supply acquainted advised NCS. It stands to cause, the supply stated, that Iran might have related plans.
Gulf allies are additionally privately urging the Trump administration against prolonging the warfare by placing boots on the ground to occupy Kharg Island or take away Iran’s extremely enriched uranium at a nuclear facility that was previously bombed by US aircraft, a senior Gulf official stated. The concern is that occupying Kharg island with US troops would lead to excessive casualties, possible triggering Iranian retaliation against Gulf international locations’ infrastructure and prolonging the battle, the senior Gulf official stated.
Instead, Gulf nations are urgent US officers on the necessity to dismantle Iran’s ballistic missile program earlier than the battle ends, which US officers agree with. In latest days, the Pentagon briefed Gulf international locations that a big portion of Iran’s ballistic and cruise missile functionality has been destroyed and that the US is shut to finishing its goal listing, with out specifying a timeline, the official stated.
Stavridis stated one potential means to stress the Iranians is to think about an offshore blockade of Kharg, making it inconceivable to export the oil. “This could be done without actually putting troops ashore,” he stated.
NCS’s Haley Britzky contributed to this report