US, Israeli air forces moving toward ‘uncontested’ control of Iranian skies, Hegseth says

Hegseth credited the cooperation between US forces and the Israel Defense Forces, saying the combined capabilities of the two militaries had created overwhelming pressure on Iranian targets.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that American and Israeli forces are moving rapidly toward full control of Iranian airspace, describing a joint campaign in which the two militaries expect to dominate the skies within days.

Speaking at a press briefing alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Hegseth said the ongoing operation has already produced major results only four days after it began.

He said that beginning overnight and expected to be completed within less than a week, “the two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control over Iranian skies – uncontested airspace… We will fly all day and all night, finding and fixing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military. Finding and fixing their leaders and military leaders… Iranian leaders will look up and see only US and Israeli airpower every minute until we decide this is over.”

Hegseth characterized the early phase of the campaign as highly successful. “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without warning,” he said.

He credited the cooperation between US forces and the Israel Defense Forces, saying the combined capabilities of the two militaries had created overwhelming pressure on Iranian targets. “When you add the Israeli Defense Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist adversaries. They are toast, and they know it,” he said.

Hegseth echoed President Donald Trump’s warning that the operation is expected to intensify. “More and larger waves are coming. We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating.

Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour, while American strength grows fiercer, smarter, and utterly dominant. More bombers and more fighters are arriving just today,” he said.

He said US forces plan to employ 1,000- and 500-pound GPS- and laser-guided precision gravity bombs as part of the campaign and asserted that Iran’s missile stockpiles are diminishing.

Hegseth also confirmed that US forces sank the Iranian navy’s flagship Soleimani overnight and said an American submarine torpedoed another Iranian warship operating in international waters. The vessel “thought it was safe in international waters. Instead it was sunk by a torpedo; quiet death. The first sinking by a torpedo since World War Two,” he said.

Referring to six US servicemembers killed in Iranian missile attacks, Hegseth said: “We will avenge them, no doubt.”