ongoing

WASHINGTON — Late September in the Oval Office, President Trump declared, “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We’re gonna win that war very soon.”

It wasn’t the first time he’s described the hostilities as “war.”

On Feb. 28, the day U.S. and Israeli began bombarding Iran, he warned that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war, but we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”

But throughout seven months of back-and-forth strikes with Iran, Trump administration officials, and sometimes Trump himself, have performed verbal acrobatics to avoid the “W” word.

President Trump, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22, used the word “war” one time when referring to hostilities with Iran.

(Pool / Getty Images)

Senior administration officials loosely tossed around “war” during the first stages of conflict, but with polls showing the war in unpopular and congressional support waning, “war” and even “Operation Epic Fury” have become taboo among members of the Trump administration.

Trump has called attacks on Iran a “military operation,” “military decimation,” “excursion” and “skirmish.”

At a White House press briefing last month, Vice President JD Vance attempted to clear the air when a reporter asked about a potential end to what she called a “war in Iran.”

“I wouldn’t call it a war right now,” Vance said. “Major combat operations lasted for about six weeks.”

Vice President JD Vance, addressing reporters at the White House on Sept. 3, said, “I wouldn’t call it a war right now” when asked about the conflict with Iran.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tread carefully in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee in July, repeatedly referring to a “conflict” in Iran that needed additional funding to continue.

On May 5, during the first of two delicate ceasefires with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an end to the objectives laid out in Operation Epic Fury and the beginning of “Project Freedom” — an effort to escort merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

In April, Trump announced the blockade of Iranian ports. When asked about whether the blockade constituted an act of war, Rubio replied, “That’s not an act of war, that’s a defensive measure. It’s a counter to what they have decided to do.”

Senior Trump officials have maintained that the conflict can no longer be viewed as war because the intensity of strikes between the two countries has been reduced.

The “end” of Operation Epic Fury, the name Trump used when he announced hostilities on Feb. 28, was declared on May 5 — 60 days after the fighting began.

The timing was no coincidence. Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a president must cease all hostilities abroad after 60 days if there is no congressional declaration of war.

Legal and political considerations

Under the Constitution, only Congress declares war, but past presidents have routinely circumvented this rule by exercising their authority to direct the military and initiate strikes on targeted nations.

Nearly every modern president, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Trump, has used this justification to undertake military action without the declaratory approval of Congress.

Congress can also choose to approve an Authorization for Use of Military Force, which grants the president legal authority to conduct military operations overseas.

Unless Congress sets a time limit on the authorization, authority to use the legal justification to launch military strikes can theoretically span multiple administrations.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor at American University, said that presidents of both parties have avoided the term “war” when attempting to evade congressional approval of hostile action abroad.

“Trump has followed some of his predecessors in playing word games with the war power,” Raskin said. “What makes his case so extreme is that he proudly described it as a war and depicted it in glorified military terms.”

In March, seven days into the fighting, Trump said, “The war itself is going unbelievably. It’s as good as it can be.”

Congress has not officially declared war since World War II. The Vietnam War, the invasion of Afghanistan and both wars in Iraq were all approved by Congress under the umbrella of an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

This year Congress has not approved such an authorization for the action with Iran. Fourteen Senate votes for a War Powers Resolution to curb Trump’s war efforts have failed in the chamber so far.

According to a CNN/SSRS poll last month, only 26% of Americans approve of the Trump administration’s handling of the Iran war.

Raskin said that he believes Trump’s terminology has shifted with the public mood, adding that he hasn’t heard any of his Republican colleagues “play along with the semantic games.”

“When things have turned south in the fortunes of this war, he has tried to pretend it’s something else,” Raskin said. “I think that has just further enraged the population.”

Past handling of congressional war power

The administration’s declaration that Operation Epic Fury had concluded echoed May 2003, when then-President George W. Bush stood in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, approximately six weeks after Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Bush said. “And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”

President George W. Bush speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast on May 1, 2003.

(J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Despite the victory lap, combat operations in Iraq and across the Middle East continued through the aughts. The Iraq war wouldn’t officially end until 2011, with President Obama’s signature.

Obama himself relied heavily on the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — passed by Congress under Bush — in his military campaign against Islamic State during his presidency.

According to Council on Foreign Relations data, Obama launched 542 drone strikes and killed 3,797 people in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia without renewed approval from Congress.

A case more analogous to Trump’s comes in former President Truman’s unilateral decision to deploy U.S. troops to Korea in 1950. The Truman administration forwent congressional approval altogether and used United Nations Security Council resolutions to justify the intervention against Communist forces in the north, according to a White House news release from the time.

There were many critics of this exercise of executive war powers, most notably, Ohio Republican Sen. Robert A. Taft, who argued that Truman had usurped congressional war powers.

However, that Congress still provided monetary support, granting Truman military funds and extensions to the draft to raise additional troops for the Korean War effort. According to historical Gallup polls, 78% of Americans in 1950 approved of U.S. intervention in Korea.

Trump sticking with ‘war’

While Vance and other administration officials continue to avoid “war,” it does slip out now and then. Trump has been, perhaps, the most discordant messenger of the administration when discussing Iran.

After referring to the “war” on social media and public interviews more than a dozen times, Trump backed Vance’s comments about the Iran war no longer being active as he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office in September. He refuses to call the conflict a “war,” Trump said, because “you are supposed to get approval.”

“I call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us,” Trump said.

Leicestershire have had eight points of their 27-point County Championship deduction reinstated but their Division One status remains in limbo.

The original penalty for breaching pitch regulations, relating to their win against Glamorgan in August, was announced on 16 September.

Leicestershire took 19 points from the match against Glamorgan – 16 for winning and three bonus points – which were removed but remain the subject of appeal.

The Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had applied an additional eight-point deduction, a further eight-point penalty suspended for a year, plus a £5,000 fine.

The latter two sanctions remain part of the amended decision but the eight-point deduction for this season has been waived because the docking of the 19 points for winning the game in question is considered punishment enough.

Without the 27 points being docked, Leicestershire would have finished two points above the relegation zone.

With the 19-point penalty currently in place, the Foxes are 17 points behind Essex and will be relegated if their appeal is unsuccessful.

The amended punishment comes after the Cricket Regulator raised with the CDP whether the 19-point penalty imposed, after its initial hearing, under the County Championship’s playing conditions had been taken into account when making its original decision.

A section of the County Championship’s playing conditions state that teams charged with producing a pitch rated as poor or below average, and the Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) upholding the charge, would receive zero points from the fixture in question.

Leicestershire had already stated their intention to appeal against the panel’s decision and a statement by chief executive Emma White said the club’s position is “unchanged” by the amended decision.

More to follow.

Remnants claimed to be photographed in Iran have been identified as belonging to a Raytheon ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD). The wreckage was reportedly recovered after an Iranian interception that occurred earlier in the day, although the exact location and circumstances remain unconfirmed and there is reason for caution. Iranian state and military media have a long record of presenting unverified or exaggerated claims, especially during periods of conflict, and imagery released through those channels warrants independent scrutiny. Still, the MALD identification appears credible based on the visible wreckage, but its provenance, location, and the circumstances of its loss have not yet been independently established. MALDs were likely used at least in the opening stages of Operation Epic Fury, as well.

With that being said, the showing off of the MALD wreckage, regardless of its original use case, is something of a reminder that U.S. and Israeli forces are continuing to evaluate Iran’s electronic order of battle, which can include probing activities that leverage deception and decoys to better understand the state of Iran’s air defenses and command and control architecture. This is critical information that needs to be constantly updated for contingency and future potential air campaign purposes.

Iranian sources today reported the destruction of an Orbiter-type reconnaissance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, before the separate imagery emerged showing what appears to be the wreckage of a MALD. It is not yet clear whether the two reports refer to the same incident or separate losses.

The appearance of the wreckage could also shed a light on how the U.S. and Israel can conduct ongoing air operations against Iran, even if kinetic actions have largely slowed to a trickle.

MALD is an expendable store, launched from another aircraft. The ADM-160 family was developed to provide a flexible way of decoying and distracting an enemy’s air defenses, while also adding to the survivability of allied aircraft and standoff weapons. Raytheon won the U.S. Air Force development contract for the current-generation ADM-160B in 2003. The B design is significantly different from the initial A-model from Teledyne Ryan (later Northrop Grumman), the development of which had started in the late 1990s. The B also features a more powerful turbojet engine and possesses greater range.

The ADM-160B is approximately 6.5 feet long, has a wingspan of roughly 5.6 feet when deployed, and is powered by a small turbojet. It has an operational range of around 550 miles.

Rather than carrying a conventional warhead, the MALD carries equipment intended to reproduce the radar signature of specific aircraft or standoff weapons. It can therefore provide additional and often highly enticing tracks for an adversary’s radar operators and surface-to-air missile crews to respond to. It can be programmed to fly intricate routes to better rival the target it is emulating and to provoke the attention of air defenders.

The related ADM-160C MALD-J adds an electronic warfare capability, allowing it to perform stand-in jamming and other forms of active electronic attacks against enemy air defense nodes. Further improved variants of the MALD, which the U.S. Navy has also been acquiring, have since been developed as you can read more about here.

The exact variant involved in today’s incident cannot be established from all publicly available imagery at this stage.

The possibility that the United States had used MALDs against Iran had already attracted considerable attention following Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.

During the operation, U.S. officials described a complex deception plan involving aircraft and other decoy measures designed to prevent Iran from determining the true direction and composition of the attack.

This strongly pointed to MALD as one likely component of that deception architecture.

The opening hours and days of Operation Epic Fury also likely saw MALD employments. ADM-160s have also been used extensively by Ukraine against Russia, primarily for provoking air defense systems into radiating and as penetration aids for cruise missiles.

MALD® Operational Scenario & Capabilities

In the Strait of Hormuz context, the MALD could serve a dual purpose. It could act in its primary role, as a defensive measure for allied aircraft and standoff weapons, drawing Iranian air defense systems away from it and toward the decoy. It can also be used more independently, triggering Iranian defenses and revealing their locations and operating characteristics, as well as the state of Iran’s command and control for those assets. Surveillance platforms, especially those in the air, can then soak up all that signals data. This can then be used to generate intelligence for future operations, and all without putting a person or an expensive piece of equipment at risk.

The unique nature of the current state of the Iran conflict would allow for MALD to be used in this unique manner. While kinetic actions have become sporadic, they are still occurring, so firing a decoy that looks like something much more threatening to Iranian air defenders would not be an unprecedented escalation.

Iran has characterized the incident as a shoot-down. If Iranian forces did successfully engage the MALD, that would represent a real air defense interception of a U.S. deception system, although these are expendable by design. It is equally possible that the MALD malfunctioned or just flew its route and ran out of fuel and crashed, as designed.

The wreckage also does not, by itself, identify the aircraft that launched the MALD.

The system has been integrated with a broad range of U.S. aircraft. In the course of U.S. operations against Iran, we have notably seen Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II attack jets returning from theater with markings depicting MALD missions.

It is also worth noting that the MALD wreckage has appeared at the same time as reports of unusual, UAP-like objects over Iran, with videos and eyewitness accounts circulating online. Their authenticity and nature remain unclear.

A number of videos are circulating showing an unidentified object in the skies above Tehran, Iran, it’s not immediately clear what is being filmed. pic.twitter.com/bHNAQGFPNv

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 21, 2026

Such reports come amid an increasingly sophisticated use of low-end drones, decoys, and other forms of deception. These kinds of systems can be employed not only to stimulate adversary air defenses, but also to distract populations and probe how information moves out of a denied area. In such an environment, unusual aerial sightings should be viewed with caution — but not necessarily dismissed as irrelevant. We have been talking about how new forms of misdirection and guile will leverage relatively low-end technologies in future conflicts for many years now. While it isn’t clear if this light show in the sky over Iran was such an activity, it is certainly a reminder to keep that possibility in mind.

I don’t know what this is, or if it’s legit BUT remember we are in a new age of misdirection, decoy and guile. Specifically using low end drone technology. There are more ways to stimulate an enemy air defense system, distract a populous, assess the flow of public info from a… https://t.co/wW7YVlbayB

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) September 21, 2026

Meanwhile, the prospect of renewed U.S. strikes is increasingly being raised on both sides. Iran’s central military command said Sunday that it had received information that Washington was preparing to resume attacks, while President Donald Trump told Fox News that he was in a “deciding mode” and was considering further military action alongside economic pressure and a deal.

Trump had also told Axios last week that he was approaching a major decision on whether to resume large-scale military operations, with U.S. forces in the region being maintained at current levels through the end of the year.

Iranian officials have warned that a renewed U.S. attack would trigger retaliation against American forces and interests across the region. At the same time, Qatar and Pakistan are pursuing diplomatic efforts to restart negotiations.

This situation is exactly why keeping as detailed intelligence on the status of Iran’s air defense overlay would be so critical. Building a highly detailed electronic order of battle and maintaining it is critical to the effectiveness of future air operations. There is usually an observable burst of such activity prior to a major operation kicking off, as well. There are also many unseen assets that help with this, from those in space to those in the air and even those under the sea. There have been reports of Israel’s secretive RA-01 stealth flying wing drone being spotted over Iran and of course the U.S. has its own RQ-170 and RQ-180 aircraft, just to name a couple known penetrating assets that are likely highly capable of collecting this information.

Regardless, the U.S. and Israel will have a lot of ‘maintenance’ to do in order to roll back any air defense capabilities Iran has been able to reconstitute should hostilities break out in full again, and a lot of critical intelligence data will need to be up-to-date in order to support such an operation.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

MORE flights are being cancelled at a major airport in Europe due to continued strike action.

Charleroi Airport in Brussels is expecting to cancel around 34 flights today with a further 21 flights set to be rescheduled.

So far, 16 departures have already been cancelled including one to the UK.

Around 20 arrivals have also been cancelled including one from the UK.

It comes as the air traffic controllers have been carrying out strike action since September 16 regarding the management of night-shift bonuses.

The unions for the air traffic controllers have warned that strike action could continue until October 10.

Read more on travel inspo

GO ON

All the little-known websites for cheap or FREE tickets to gigs, theatre & festivals

CHEAP BREAKS

UK’s best 100 cheap stays – our pick of the top hotels, holiday parks and pubs

Strike action takes place during every night shift from 10pm to 8am the following morning.

Since the strike began, around 160 flights have been cancelled.

Last week, Ryanair confirmed that it had cancelled at least 30 flights so far.

The budget airline flies to the airport from Newcastle, Manchester and Edinburgh.

So far one flight to the UK has been cancelled today, which is to Manchester with Ryanair at 7:40pm.

The airport said in a statement: “We are monitoring the situation very closely and sharing verified general information through our official channels.

“For information regarding your specific flight, we encourage you to regularly check the communications from your airline.

“We share our passengers’ frustration and hope that the social conflict at Skeyes will be resolved quickly.”