The U.S. military is arming aircraft sent to the Middle East with “bunker busting” bombs. A squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft — otherwise known as “Warthogs” — have been saddled with the structure-penetrating payload in response to increasing aggression from the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal. The warthogs are each capable of carrying approximately 16 bunker busters, otherwise known as GBU-39/B bombs.

Additionally, the Biden administration sanctioned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence organization, accusing it of wrongfully detaining Americans. Iran’s Guard Corps was sanctioned at the same time as Russia’s Federal Security Service.

“Today, and every day, our message to Russia, Iran and the world is holding hostage or wrongfully detaining Americans is unacceptable. Release them immediately,” Biden said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Iran renewed threats to target former President Donald Trump and top members of his former Cabinet, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for the 2020 killing of its top military commander, Qasem Soleimani.

“God willing, we are looking to kill Trump [and] Pompeo … and military commanders who issued the order should be killed,” Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace force, told Iranian state television. The threats themselves were nothing new, though they came as Tehran announced a new long-range cruise missile capable of flying more than 1,000 miles, which could give it additional capabilities to strike U.S. forces in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Iran has shipped over 300,000 artillery shells and a million rounds of ammunition to Russia across the Caspian Sea in the past six months, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Iran has mostly used cargo flights to ship weapons to Russia, which are nearly impossible for Western countries to stop, and blocking the shipment of weapons in the Caspian Sea would require the agreement of former Soviet republics in the area. US-allied British forces in the region have also intercepted several Iranian weapons smuggling attempts over the past few months. The US Fifth Fleet is based out of Bahrain and is active in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Among their many responsibilities is maritime security in the region, which includes combating attempted Iranian smuggling efforts. For example, recently the US Navy managed to intercept an Iranian ship that was smuggling several weapons over to Yemen, where they would have gone to the Iran-backed Houthis.

This all comes amid deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran. This stronger relationship was forged amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Iran providing Russia with drones and Russia providing Iran with cash and seized Western weapons. Exactly how Iran manages to ship these drones to Russia is unclear, though a report indicated that many of them were smuggled by way of Iranian ships on the Caspian Sea. Iran has continued to try to smuggle as many munitions and drone technology as possible to Russia for use in Ukraine. They are doing this so that Russia will continue to cover for them, both in the United Nations and in a renewed nuclear deal. They hope that the threat of Russian intervention would protect them from any western interference if they ever went to war with Israel. Indeed, Iran knows that it cannot defeat Israel if they are backed by the American military. However, if America is limited by Russia, then Iran believes that they and their proxy allies could attack Israel in the future.

Biblical Connections: Ezekiel 38-39 has Iran, Turkey and possibly Russia in a future alliance with a few other nations in an invasion of Israel. Forty years ago, people questioned how Iran and Russia would ever work together. That seems to no longer be an issue in our modern context.

PRAY: Pray the threat of western interference will cause Iran to back down from their aggression and peace will be restored in the region.