Hurry up. America’s top shooters are moving into position to target Iran.  With Sunday night’s announcement hastening the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and moving the submarine USS Georgia under U.S. Central Command’s control, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is making sure U.S. Central Command is prepared to attack Iran, and/or its proxies, if Tehran strikes Israel in the next few days.

Air Force F-22 fighter jet pilots have already unpacked their bags at a Middle East base where they arrived Aug 8.  Here are more top shooters under Central Command’s operational control – that we know of. 

The guided missile submarine USS Georgia

It’s very unusual for the Pentagon to make announcements about secretive submarines. But then, theUSS Georgia is a very special vessel.  Powered by a nuclear reactor, the USS Georgia began life as an Ohio-class ‘boomer’ designed to carry nuclear weapons, then underwent a high-tech conversion into a conventional guided-missile attack submarine.  Now she can carry an astounding 154 precision Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles.  And SEAL teams with mini-submarines.  Add in a highly advanced communication suite, and USS Georgia can stare down Iran all by herself. 

The USS Georgia was already on exercises in Europe and is positioning in the Eastern Mediterranean. Her Tomahawk missiles have roughly a 1,000-mile range, which equates to good coverage well into Iran.  The most modern Tomahawks also accept targeting updates while in flight, giving commanders maximum flexibility to act on fresh intelligence. 

Eight U.S. Navy destroyers

That’s six in the Persian Gulf, and two more in the Red Sea, per a count from the Washington Post on Aug. 2.  Crews from ships like USS Laboon have been whacking Houthi drones, missiles and unmanned boats for months.  The DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers can fire Tomahawks, too, as but the destroyers will have some of their vertical launch tubes loaded with Standard Missiles for air defense across the region, as seen when Iran attacked Israel back in April. 

Two aircraft carriers

Austin ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to speed up its transit from the Pacific to the Middle East, where the USS Theodore Roosevelt is already running sustained flight operations.  Nuclear-powered carriers can charge ahead at 35 knots per hour without slacking off, since they don’t refuel.  The Middle East crisis has compelled Central Command to keep a carrier in the Red Sea area almost non-stop for 10 months and it has required four carriers – Ford, Eisenhower, Roosevelt and Lincoln – to meet the tasking. Moving the Lincoln actually leaves the Navy one carrier short in the Pacific. 

A squadron of F-35C carrier jets flown by Marines

Austin touted the F-35Cs on the Lincoln by name on Sunday, because these stealthy, carrier-based jets have tremendous radar and other sensor capabilities known to intimidate Iran.  In an unusual twist, it’s a U.S. Marine Corps squadron flying the F-35Cs.  Other Marines fly the F-35B vertical take-off and landing variant with amphibious ships.  But this squadron, the ‘Black Knights’ of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron VMFA 314, trains and flies as part of Carrier Air Wing 9.  (Don’t look so shocked.  Marines flew from carriers in World War II and Korea.)

F/A-18EF Superhornets

Yes, the very jet flown by Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’  Carrier Air Wing 11 on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt has three F/A-18E squadrons.  They have been busy day and night with air patrols against Houthi aggression in the Red Sea and doing their part in knocking out Houthi drones, missiles and unmanned boats. 

Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles

This ground-attack variant of the F-15 air superiority fighter is affectionately known as the ‘Mud Eagle’ and has been operating quietly in theater for ages. The F-15Es are true fighter-bombers, and their most experienced pilots have thousands of combat hours from the anti-ISIS war.  The two-seat F-15Es carry air-to-air missiles, a gun and ‘any nuclear or conventional weapon in the USAF inventory.’ Just so you know, Iran.

Austin’s choice to deploy America’s top of the line strike options serves two purposes. The first, obviously, is to deter Iran and constrain Iran’s tactical options as the mullahs mull their retaliation plans.  But the specific choice of these forces is to provide Central Command with capability for sustained, precision strikes against military targets in Iran or among Iran’s militia groups.

Don’t forget that U.S. B-2 bombers can reach any spot on the globe.  Also, B-1 bombers were used by Central Command in attacks on Syrian targets. I would not be surprised to see the B-1s in action again with their joint stand-off missiles.

Beyond this, expect Britain, France, regional allies like Jordan, and others to have forces in play.

Of course, China is taking note of this firepower display. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a statement on Saturday supporting Iran’s ‘dignity’ and right to self-defense, whatever that means.  Iran is the center of Mideast terror and China is Iran’s top ally. 

Gen. Erik Kurilla at U.S. Central Command will soon have all he needs to defend, deter or strike back. 

As they strive to keep a lid on this crisis, we owe a big debt of gratitude to the American men and women making these crisis deployments in the Middle East. 

On Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at 2 a.m., the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran, just a day after Fuad Shukr, the most powerful military commander of Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon. 

Shukr was wanted by the U.S. for 41 years, with a $5 million ‘Rewards for Justice’ bounty for any information about him due to his central role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel and wounded 128 others. Haniyeh also directed and celebrated the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the killing of 1,200 people and over 300 days of hostage-taking of hundreds, including Americans, by Hamas.

Adding to the shock, Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper, citing an unnamed source in Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported that a high-level American security delegation, brokered by Oman, secretly traveled to Tehran. 

Their mission was to deliver a ‘calming and cautionary’ message to deescalate the situation and ensure the supreme leader of Iran understood that the Biden-Harris administration was ‘kept in the dark’ by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the killing of two major terrorist leaders last week. 

The detailed report stated that the American delegation, arriving on a private plane from Turkey, landed at Payam-e-Khorram Airport in Karaj on Thursday and held a two-hour meeting with Iranian officials before returning to Ankara. 

According to the same report, ‘the delegation presented a list containing the names of ten Mossad agents inside Iran, whom the Americans believe were involved in the assassination, directly or indirectly. This was intended as a good faith initiative in response to the Israeli state’s stunning strike, which was carried out without coordination with Washington.’ It could be one of the most valuable souvenirs given to the Iranian mullahs lately.

Although the U.S. State Department rejected the report on Sunday, later in the week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that to deescalate the conflict, the Biden administration had ‘engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, communicating that message directly to Iran,’ which largely confirms the Kuwaiti newspaper’s report. 

Additionally, immediately after the reported visit by the U.S. delegation, ‘more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials, and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran,’ were arrested in response to the assassination of the Hamas leader, according to the New York Times based on reports from two Iranians familiar with the investigation.

Iran delayed its retaliation attacks on Israel, a move for which some in the Biden administration claimed credit. However, on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, two major events clearly demonstrated that the supreme leader of Iran did not respect the Biden administration’s pleas for deescalation and did not appreciate the American overtures. On that day, Iran-backed militias in Iraq attacked an American Army base, injuring five U.S. troops and two contractors.

Simultaneously, a high-ranking Russian delegation, led by Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a senior ally of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, visited Iran. The delegation included Russia’s defense ministers and several Russian army generals, who met with Tehran’s top leaders.

They delivered Putin’s direct message to his minion the Comrade Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordering him not to act recklessly by attacking Israel with outdated missiles as they did on April 13, an act that resulted in humiliation. Putin promised to soon deliver advanced weapons, including air defenses, to Iran.

Additionally, the Islamic regime of Pakistan announced plans to provide Iran with advanced ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, in case the supreme leader decides to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

It is clear that it was not U.S. diplomacy that worked but rather Russian military and intelligence advice/orders that influenced Iran’s decisions. 

We are on the brink of World War III. Russia and China’s Communist Party are setting their war chessboard. Iran’s regime is likely to attack Israel with a nuclear bomb soon unless Israel, with the help of America, destroys all nuclear and missile facilities of Iran, thereby giving the Iranian people an opportunity to overthrow the weakened regime of the mullahs.

JERUSALEM – The Hamas terrorist movement’s use of paragliders as part of its mass murder of nearly 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans, in southern Israel on Oct. 7 was laid out in a methodical plan that Fox News Digital can disclose for the first time.

A Hamas military plan obtained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip reveals the great lengths the Iranian regime-backed terrorist organization Hamas went to deceive the world about its use of the aerial sports device. 

The Hamas document, originally in Arabic and translated into English and reviewed by Fox News Digital, shows how the terror group was looking to exploit its wider use. ‘The sport should be developed so that the paragliders become motorized. Areas where the sport can be exploited from a military aspect: Landing behind enemy lines, as part of a silent infiltration across the border using paragliders,’ it read. 

The document continued, ‘This can be done using silent launch positions. Camouflage of military experiments and training. Reducing costs through the dual use as civilian experiments. Opening the possibility of utilizing civilian activity in other sports that can benefit military activities. Gaining benefits from foreign information obtained through civilian activities.’

Terrorists on paragliders swarmed into the Supernova music festival in Kibbutz Re’im and participated in the slaughter of over 300 attendees.

The Hamas document goes onto state, ‘Vision: Establishing a military and civilian aviation force in service of the liberation project. Problem: The occupation is working to prevent the establishment of this force and is fighting against it with all means. One of the solutions: Expose this pattern and work towards integrating it into society in a way that prevents the enemy from ending it. Create a reality that forces the enemy to accept it in some form.’

According to the Hamas plan of action, the ‘steps’ necessary to mainstream the paraglider sytem in Gaza involved, ‘Conduct personal civilian experiments with paragliders, and publish them on social networks and in the global press….Work to attract the attention of adventurous young people to engage in such sports. Establish a special club for this sport in the Strip and encourage a spirit of competition to spread the sport more widely. Create groups and pages on social networks to showcase the beauty and fundamentals of this sport. The Ministry of Youth and Sports must support the sport. The sport should be connected to the global paragliding association, FAI.’

Brigadier General (Res) Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the IDF Gaza Division, told Fox News Digital ‘The first use of a paraglider was done by a Palestinian terrorist in 1987 in a devastating attack in the north from south Lebanon in Beit Hillel base with 6 soldiers killed and 10 soldiers injured. … We have dealt with this threat for years. It’s not new and definitely Hezbollah has these capabilities. Today we have much more advanced capabilities to detect and destroy this kind of threat.’ 

Avivi is the founder and chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum. 

In July, Israeli fighter jets struck a depot containing paragliders used by Hamas on Oct. 7. The airstrike targeting the paraglider depot in Rafah carried great weight for Israel because the image of Hamas terrorists on paragliders was invoked as a symbol on clothing and posters among pro-Hamas supporters across the world. Neo-Nazis and the Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago have glorified the Hamas paraglider terror attack. A New York City public school teacher, Mohammad Jehad Ahmad, also displayed the same Hamas paraglider image on his Facebook page.

Emory University reportedly fired Dr. Abeer AbouYabis, an Emory School of Medicine assistant professor and employee at its Winship Cancer Institute, in November for waxing lyrical over Hamas’ aerial attack on Israel. 

She wrote ‘They got walls / we got gliders Glory to all resistance fighters,’ AbouYabis wrote, apparently referencing the paragliders used by Hamas fighters to ambush an Israeli music festival in the early morning hours of the October 7 terrorist attack. ‘Palestine is our demand No peace on stolen land / Not another nickel not another dollar / We will pay For Israel slaughter / Not another nickel not another dime / We will pay for Israel crimes.’

Fox News’ Kendall Tietz contributed to this report.

Former President Trump has had a number of legal victories in recent weeks, putting a pause on a majority of cases and delaying others that could have complicated his campaigning during the general election season. 

The Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States last month that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts in office but not for unofficial acts. The high court left it to the lower court to determine exactly where the line between official and unofficial is.

‘The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,’ the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts states. ‘That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.’

The question of presidential immunity stemmed from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case against Trump. Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges. That trial was put on hold in a lower court pending the Supreme Court’s ruling, which wiped out any charges related to official presidential acts.

That case has been returned to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Smith requested a delay to amend and prepare his argument in the case, following the Supreme Court ruling. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s request. A joint status report is now due Aug. 30 and a status conference is now set for Sept. 5. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling then prompted Trump’s lawyers to request that the former president’s sentencing be delayed in New York v. Trump. He was found guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree after an unprecedented criminal trial stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. 

The sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11, before the Republican National Convention, where Trump was set to be formally nominated as the GOP presidential nominee. Judge Juan Merchan agreed to delay and said a hearing on the matter would take place Sept. 18. 

But days later, Trump’s lawyers asked Merchan to overturn the former president’s guilty verdict in New York v. Trump.

Trump attorneys cited the Supreme Court ruling, saying the court should ‘dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdict based on violations of the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause.’ In the formal motion, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche pointed to the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and argued certain evidence of ‘official acts’ should not have been admitted during the trial.

Specifically, Blanche argued that testimony from former White House officials and employees was inappropriately admitted during trial. 

Blanche argued Bragg ‘violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.’ 

A ruling on the motion is pending. 

Days later, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith’s classified records case against Trump. 

Trump had faced charges related to alleged improper retention of classified records at Mar-a-Lago. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts from Smith’s probe, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements. 

But Cannon dismissed the case altogether, ruling Smith was unlawfully appointed and funded, citing the appointments clause in the Constitution. 

The appointments clause states, ‘Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States be appointed by the President subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, although Congress may vest the appointment of inferior officers in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.’ 

Smith, however, was never confirmed by the Senate. He is appealing the ruling. 

Meanwhile, in Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis had charged Trump with crimes related to alleged 2020 election interference. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts. 

The judge in that case dismissed six of the charges against Trump, saying Willis failed to allege sufficient detail. 

The case also was thrown into limbo when it was revealed Willis reportedly had an ‘improper affair’ with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she hired to help bring the case against Trump. Wade later resigned his position.

Last month, the Georgia Court of Appeals paused the proceedings until it hears the case to disqualify Willis in October, yet another major setback for Willis. 

Last week, the Georgia Court of Appeals said it would hear Trump’s argument to have Willis disqualified on Dec. 5, a month after the 2024 presidential election. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruling could be applied by Trump attorneys in several civil cases he has been fighting. 

In the civil defamation case brought against him by columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump was ordered to pay more than $83 million in damages after he denied allegations he raped her in the 1990s. 

Carroll alleged Trump raped her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store across from Trump Tower in Manhattan in 1996. 

The jury found Carroll was injured as a result of statements Trump made while in the White House in June 2019. 

Trump’s denial came while he was president during a press gaggle at the White House. Trump attorneys could say the denial came as part of an official presidential act. 

His denial resulted in Carroll slapping Trump with a defamation suit, claiming his response caused harm to her reputation. 

Trump is also appealing the civil fraud ruling that demanded he pay more than $450 million after a lawsuit brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump’s legal team this week filed paperwork with a mid-level appeals court, calling the ruling ‘unconstitutional.’