‘Israelis are not looking for a negotiating partner, they’re looking for decimation.’
Ross Harrison joins an Al Jazeera panel discussion on what the US and Israel are seeking with their killing of senior Iranian leaders.
“We’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.” While the US wages an outright military assault on Iran, the US president and his secretary of state also have an eye on Cuba, demanding a change of leadership in Havana.
More than 200 Ukrainian military experts are in the Gulf region and wider Middle East helping governments in their defence against Iran’s drone attacks, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
In an address to dozens of members of the United Kingdom Parliament in London on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader said 201 Ukrainian anti-drone experts are in the region and another 34 “are ready to deploy”.
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“These are military experts, experts who know how to help, how to defend against Shahed drones,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, referring to the Iranian-designed “kamikaze” drones that Russia has been using in its war against Ukraine since 2022.
“Our teams are already in the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait,” the Ukrainian leader said.
“We are working with several other countries – agreements are already in place. We do not want this terror of the Iranian regime against its neighbours to succeed,” he said.
Last week, the Ukrainian leader said military teams had been sent to several Gulf states and Jordan.
Zelenskyy, who met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO chief Mark Rutte earlier on Tuesday, said Russia had received the Shahed-136 drones from the Iranians, who had “taught Russia how to launch them and gave it the technology to produce them”.
“Russia then upgraded them. And now we have clear evidence that Iranian Shaheds used in the region contain Russian components,” Zelenskyy said, describing the drones as designed for “low-cost destruction of expensive critical infrastructure”.
“So what is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us, because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran,” he said.
“The regimes in Russia and Iran are brothers in hatred, and that is why they are brothers in weapons. And we want regimes built on hatred to never win – in anything,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader then addressed his country’s newly developed prowess in drone warfare and manufacturing, claiming that 90 percent of Russian losses on the front lines in Ukraine are being “caused by our drones”.
Ukraine has moved on from making sea and aerial drones to producing interceptors that target drones, he said, adding that Ukraine is capable of producing at least 2,000 interceptors per day – half of which are required for its own defence and the remainder available for use by Kyiv’s allies.
“If a Shahed needs to be stopped in the Emirates – we can do it. If it needs to be stopped in Europe or the United Kingdom – we can do it. It is a matter of technology, investment, and cooperation,” he said.
While Ukraine has become one of the world’s leading producers of sophisticated, battlefield-proven drone interceptors, US President Donald Trump has said he does not need Ukraine’s help with countering Tehran’s drones targeting military targets in the Middle East.
After meeting with Zelenskyy at 10 Downing Street, Starmer said Russian President Vladimir Putin “can’t be the one who benefits from the conflict in Iran, whether that’s oil prices or the dropping of sanctions”.
Taipei, Taiwan – As thousands of Chinese government officials gathered in Beijing for China’s annual legislative meetings known as the “two sessions” this month, at least a dozen active and retired military officers were absent from the proceedings.
Among the absentees was General Zhang Youxia, who has been under investigation since late January for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law”, according to China’s state Xinhua news agency.
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Zhang is one of the highest-ranking officials to be caught up in a wider anticorruption sweep that has become a hallmark of Xi Jinping’s long tenure as president and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
Xi launched the initiative shortly after rising to power in 2012, setting off an “unprecedented anticorruption storm” that targeted “both high-flying ‘tigers’ and lower-level ‘flies’” across China’s state, military, and Communist Party apparatus, according to a Xinhua report last year.
Recent government reports indicate that Xi has embarked on a renewed sweep through the military leadership of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to Chieh Chung, an adjunct associate research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. This time, Xi’s net appears to be even wider, he said.
It now includes operational commanders in addition to members of China’s Central Military Commission and military functional institutions, political commissars, and commanders across the PLA’s five military theatres and various military branches, he said.
According to China’s official military newspaper last month, corruption remains a priority for President Xi.
“Corruption is the biggest cancer eroding combat effectiveness. The more thoroughly we eliminate hidden dangers, the more promising the century-long battle against corruption will be,” the paper read, according to an English translation.
The PLA’s latest work report – released during the two sessions – placed the fight against corruption as equal to other goals like “political rectification” and ensuring loyalty.
The anticorruption drive comes as the PLA prepares to mark its 100th anniversary in August 2027, when it will take stock of its decades-long modernisation campaign.
Tristan Tang, a non-resident Vasey Fellow at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum research institute, told Al Jazeera that Zhang and other military targets reflect Xi’s long-running dissatisfaction with management of the armed forces.
The Chinese leader renewed his focus on the military between 2016 and 2017, according to Tang. The more recent removals should be seen as an extension of that campaign, he said.
“My interpretation is that the leadership has discovered longstanding problems in the PLA’s personnel system. That may explain why a large number of generals and admirals have been removed or investigated while many positions remain unfilled – because officers across the system, possibly even senior colonels, are undergoing re-evaluation and investigation,” Tang told Al Jazeera.
“As a result, when a unit commander is purged, it does not necessarily mean there was a problem within that unit; the issue may stem from actions taken in a previous post,” he said.
Zhang and his ally General Liu Zhenli have been two of the most high-profile cases to date, but dozens of officials have been removed in recent years.
According to one estimate from the US-based CSIS China Power Project, about 100 senior officers in the PLA have been “purged or potentially purged” since 2022.
The list includes 36 generals and lieutenant generals, according to a late February report, and 65 officers who are “missing or potentially purged” based on their absence from important meetings.
While corruption has been cited as the official reason in many cases, security experts across East Asia have been trying to assess what it could mean for one of the world’s most powerful militaries.
Zhang and Liu, who were removed around the same time, are members of China’s powerful Central Military Commission, where Xi has cleaned house over the past year, according to Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat and research director of the Tokyo-based Canon Institute of Global Studies.
“Roughly speaking, since last year, several senior officials of the Chinese Central Military Commission have been ousted, and of the seven members, only two remain, including President Xi Jinping,” Miyake wrote, according to an English translation.
“This is an extraordinary situation on the same level as the loss or absence of the Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff and the Commander in Chief of Joint Operations in Japan, or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Commander in Chief of the Indo-Pacific Command in the United States,” he said.
In-Bum Chun, a retired South Korean lieutenant general, told Al Jazeera that the changes raise questions about the overall “internal health” of the military.
“If the dismissals are primarily anticorruption measures, they may indicate deeper institutional problems within the system. If they are primarily political, they may reflect concerns in Beijing about loyalty at senior levels,” Chun said.
“In either case, frequent leadership disruptions can create uncertainty within any military organisation. While it may strengthen central political control, it can also affect morale and internal trust among officers,” he continued.
The shake-up in PLA leadership has been closely watched in Taiwan and raised questions about China’s intentions.
China has promised to annex Taiwan, a 23-million-person democracy, by peace or by force. The United States has separately pledged to help Taiwan defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, although it has not committed troops.
By one often-repeated estimate from retired US Admiral Philip Davidson, the PLA will be capable of launching a military campaign against Taiwan by 2027.
William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Crisis Group, said China’s latest Government Work Report, released earlier this month at the National People’s Congress in Beijing, indicates that annexing Taiwan remains a top priority.
The report shows “Beijing’s growing confidence in the overall trend of cross-strait dynamics, which it believes is trending in its favour, and also reflects its growing determination to accelerate preparation for unification, including through more coercive means, in the coming years,” he told Al Jazeera.
Security experts told Al Jazeera the leadership shake-ups do not appear to have affected China’s military operations around Taiwan, although, they cautioned, they are still assessing the fallout.
The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command carried out the “Justice Mission 2025” military exercises around Taiwan in late December 2025, around the time that Zhang and others were under investigation or already removed, according to Alexander Huang, chairman of the Council of Strategic and Wargaming Studies in Taipei.
“This suggests that the PLA’s training and exercise system has not been significantly disrupted,” he said.
One of the top counterterrorism officials in the United States, Joe Kent, has resigned over his country’s war against Iran.
On Tuesday, he published a copy of his resignation letter on the social media platform X, addressing his correspondence to US President Donald Trump.
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“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Until this week, Kent served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the US agency responsible for coordinating and analysing terrorism intelligence.
The resignation marks the highest-profile rebuke yet of the war effort from within the Trump administration.
Here is what to know about Kent’s resignation and its fallout:
Kent, 45, is a former political candidate who has faced scrutiny over past connections to far-right activists.
He is a former soldier with the US Army Special Forces who completed 11 combat deployments, including tours during the US-led war in Iraq.
His first wife, Shannon Kent, a US Navy cryptologic technician, was killed in Syria in 2019 in a suicide bombing; she left behind two children.
After leaving the military, Kent worked as a paramilitary officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before launching a political career.
Twice, he campaigned as a Republican to represent southwestern Washington state in the US Congress. But both times, in 2022 and 2024, he was defeated by centrist Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
Trump had endorsed Kemp in both races, though the candidate was dogged by controversies, including that he paid a member of the far-right group Proud Boys a consulting fee.
Kent had been head of the National Counterterrorism Center for less than eight months.
In July, the Senate voted to confirm him by a margin of 52 to 44, with support only from Republicans.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was Kent’s boss during his time in the Trump administration.
She was among the first to celebrate his confirmation in July, describing him as a “patriot” and highlighting his experience as a combat veteran.
“His experience serving as the tip of the spear in some of the world’s most dangerous battlefields has given him a deep, practical understanding of the enduring and evolving threat of Islamist terrorism,” she wrote.
Gabbard, Kent and Vice President JD Vance were seen as part of a faction within the Trump administration that is more sceptical of US military intervention abroad.
Last week, Trump told reporters that Vance had been “maybe less enthusiastic” about striking Iran, but he added that “we get along very well on this”.
For her part, Gabbard distanced herself from Kent’s resignation in a post on Tuesday that emphasised her support for Trump’s campaign in Iran.
“Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief,” she wrote, without naming Kent.
“As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.”
As a military veteran, Kent said he was concerned about the risk of another major war in the Middle East.
In his resignation letter, Kent explained that he supported the foreign policy agenda Trump championed during his last three presidential campaigns.
Kent pointed out that Trump had pledged to keep the US out of “never-ending wars”, like those that had unfolded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Until June 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation,” Kent wrote.
But he argued that Trump had been misled about the threat posed by Iran. He blamed members of the media, as well as high-ranking Israeli officials and lobbyists, for prompting Trump to abandon his America First agenda.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that if you struck now, there was a clear path to a swift victory,” Kent said.
“This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.”
Kent cited the loss of his wife, Shannon, in US combat operations in Syria as an example of the stakes.
Paul Quirk, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, said Kent’s departure serves as an illustration of how Trump’s actions go “against the advice of the relevant military, intelligence and foreign affairs experts in government”.
But Quirk added that he is sceptical as to how much impact Kent alone will have on Trump’s decision-making.
“Normally, a high-level resignation, along with explicit contradiction of the president’s rationale for a major decision, would be a major blow to the president and his administration,” Quirk told Al Jazeera.
“It would prompt co-partisans in Congress to challenge the president’s decision and withdraw or qualify their support.”
But in this case, Kent’s resignation comes amid already intense criticism of the administration’s campaign in Iran.
“Kent’s statement is merely a substantial addition to what was already a mountain of evidence that Trump’s rationale for attacking Iran was fictitious, and that the war was launched recklessly, without planning,” Quirk said.
“It’s possible that Kent’s resignation could have a dramatic impact on support for Trump and the war, but it would be a matter of ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’.”
While Kent’s resignation is unlikely to change US military strategy, analysts say it could carry political consequences.
Fewer than eight months remain before the pivotal midterm elections. Backlash to Trump’s policies could harm his fellow Republicans at the polls.
Al Jazeera correspondent Mike Hanna noted that Kent maintains a high profile within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.
Kent’s criticism of the president could therefore be a bellwether for wider disillusionment among Trump’s followers.
“Kent’s criticism of the US-Israel war on Iran is very significant because he is not an average Trump-appointee bureaucrat figure,” Hanna said.
“He’s a veteran who has done several tours in special forces and has always been an avid supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement. A figure like this accusing Israel of influencing Trump to enter the war with false information is a very damning statement that could affect support for the president among parts of the right-wing community.”
Kent’s letter has divided Republicans. Some supported his resignation as a principled stand, while others denounced him as ill-informed and disloyal to the president.
Kent received a sharp response from Trump himself, who addressed the resignation during an appearance in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,” Trump told reporters. “It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt likewise dismissed Kent’s claims as “both insulting and laughable”.
Meanwhile, in Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson called Kent “clearly wrong” in his assessment that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US. That was a rationale Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas echoed.
“Kent and his family have sacrificed greatly for our nation, and I thank him for his service,” Cotton wrote in a statement. “But I disagree with his misguided assessment.”
Conservative media commentator Tucker Carlson, however, praised Kent’s decision.
“Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Carlson said in a New York Times interview. “He’s leaving a job that gave him access to the highest-level relevant intelligence. The neo-cons will try to destroy him for that.”
“He understands that and did it anyway,” he added.
Some critics highlighted lines in Kent’s letter that blame Israel for Trump’s decision to strike Iran.
They claimed such remarks are anti-Semitic, painting Israeli leaders as a malevolent force responsible for manipulating Trump with lies.
Representative Don Bacon, a former US Air Force brigadier general who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, was among the critics who took up that line of argument.
“Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government,” Bacon wrote in response to Kent’s departure on social media.
Democrat Josh Gottheimer likewise accused Kent of “scapegoating” Israel and engaging in a “tired antisemitic trope”.
“Kent’s reduction of Iran to ‘Israel’s fault’ isn’t leadership,” he wrote. “It’s bigoted deflection.”
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.
In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.
Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.
As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.
I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.
Joseph Kent
Ali Larijani, the late secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned the US and Israeli that killing Iranian leaders would only strengthen the country. Larijani made the comments a week before he was killed in an Israeli strike.
