The 2026 interstate war

Summary

The campaign opened on 28 February 2026 with large-scale United States and Israeli strikes on Iran. Israel killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that day, and by 25 March the Congressional Research Service recorded more than ten thousand targets struck in Iran. Iran retaliated against Israel, against United States facilities across the region, and against all six Gulf Arab states, firing more than 6,700 drones and missiles between late February and mid-May — nearly half of them at the United Arab Emirates. It declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to normal commercial traffic on the opening day. A memorandum of understanding signed on 17 June, hosted and mediated by Pakistan, opened a sixty-day negotiating window that was declared over on 7 July and expired unextended on 17 August. At the research cutoff no agreement was in force. Vigil records the war as a shape and a sequence, not as a running account of strikes.

Why it matters

Almost everything else this module publishes is downstream of this campaign: the closure of the strait, the shut-in of eleven million barrels a day of production, the loss of a fifth of Qatar's liquefaction capacity for years, the withdrawal of marine war-risk cover, the divergence of the Gulf states' responses and the security arrangements two of them have since sought outside the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is also the reason the module's frame is a regional system rather than a war: the system predates this campaign and will outlast it.

Stated objectives

What the participants say. Each entry cites where the position was stated; Vigil records that it was made, not that it is true.

• United States and Israeli statements have framed the campaign around Iran's nuclear programme, its missile forces and its regional partner networks.

  Sources: Congressional Research Service — Iran, the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz

• Iran has framed its response as retaliation and as pressure on the states hosting the forces conducting the campaign.

  Sources: Congressional Research Service — Iran, the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz · Al Jazeera English↗

Assessed objectives

Vigil's reading, graded. Kept structurally apart from stated positions so an assessment can never be published as someone's declared aim.

• The campaign's effects on the regional system are better established than its objectives. Vigil records what has changed and does not characterise what either side is trying to achieve beyond what it says.

  Confidence: ModerateSources: Congressional Research Service — Iran, the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz

Primary forces

• US Central Command Primary force · Confidence: High · as of 2026-09

  The command conducting the American campaign. CRS carries CENTCOM's own reporting of the target totals and of the maritime interdiction, naming the command directly. No authorisation for the use of military force was obtained.

• Israel Defense Forces Primary force · Confidence: Moderate · as of 2026-09

  A co-belligerent from the opening day; CRS attributes the killing of Ali Khamenei to Israel. The source names the state, not a service, so the organisational identification is Vigil's. No joint command, shared target selection or unified planning with the United States is asserted anywhere in this module — none is established.

Opposing forces

• Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Opposing force · Confidence: High · as of 2026-09

  The Iranian institution that holds the missile and drone programmes and the Gulf maritime mission — the two things Iran has actually done in this war. CRS records US strikes on command and control centres associated with the IRGC specifically.

• Artesh Opposing force · Confidence: Moderate · as of 2026-09

  A separate belligerent institution rather than a branch of the same one. US officials claimed the destruction of much of Iran's regular naval surface fleet, which is the Artesh Navy and not the Guard's.

Affected parties

• UAE Armed Forces Affected party · Confidence: High · as of 2026-05

  Nearly half of all Iranian launches at the Gulf states were directed at the UAE, making its air and missile defence a continuously engaged function rather than an occasional one.

• Kuwait Armed Forces Affected party · Confidence: Moderate · as of 2026-09

  Kuwait reported its air defences engaging drones and missiles during the 1–2 September exchange — the only Gulf state besides the UAE whose forces' own conduct this module has established.

Outcome and present status

Ongoing at the research cutoff of 4 September 2026, with no agreement in force. Vigil states where the campaign stands and makes no claim about how it ends.

Economic implications

Production shut-ins peaked above eleven million barrels a day, OECD inventories fell to their lowest level since 2003, and Qatar lost around 17% of its liquefaction capacity for a period its operator estimates at up to five years.

Humanitarian implications

A United States strike on a school at Minab killed 168 people, most of them children, on the opening day. Approximately 20,000 seafarers were stranded aboard vessels unable to move, and the maritime regulator has confirmed 17 seafarer deaths.

Linked events

Locations

Places this module already publishes as map markers, listed because the campaign is about them. Not an operational area.

Reference layers

What remains unknown

• Participation is recorded at the level the evidence names. Sources name CENTCOM and the IRGC as organisations, but name Israel and the United States as states elsewhere, so no Israeli or American service appears as a participant and no Iranian service does either — even though the launches are by institutional definition the Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force's work. That absence is an evidence boundary, not a judgement about who fired.
• Casualty and damage figures from every party are treated as claims. The module publishes no total for either side, and attacker battle-damage assessment is never carried as established damage.
• The memorandum's fourteen reported points have not been read in an official text and are not authored.
• Whether United States and Israeli operations were jointly planned or separately conducted is not established, and no joint command is asserted.
• THE RAS TANURA ATTRIBUTION IS DISPUTED AND THIS MODULE DOES NOT RESOLVE IT. The physical event is confirmed: an interception, a debris fire, a terminal shutdown and a reopening in March 2026. The attribution is not. Saudi Arabia attributed the attack to Iran; Iranian officials publicly denied targeting Gulf energy facilities; and on the same day Iran’s defence ministry reported attacks on Qatari facilities while the Revolutionary Guard claimed a tanker strike, so the Iranian denial was not uniform. No canonical record in this module names an attacker at Ras Tanura as a matter of fact, and the greater detail of one account is not treated as evidence for it.
• THE 1–2 SEPTEMBER CASUALTY CLAIMS ARE DIRECTLY CONTRADICTORY AND ARE CARRIED AS THREE SEPARATE CLAIMS, NOT ONE NUMBER. The Revolutionary Guard claimed aircraft destroyed and a large number of United States personnel killed in Jordan; two United States officials told Reuters that initial assessments showed no American casualties, and a United States official told Al Jazeera there were no injuries or significant damage at the Marine facility; Iranian authorities reported civilian deaths from the United States strikes. A denial does not erase a claim and a claim does not survive a denial: both stand, attributed, and no figure from any party is carried as established.
• INTERCEPTION FIGURES ARE ONLY MEANINGFUL WITH THEIR DENOMINATOR, AND THE DENOMINATORS HERE DIFFER. Jordan’s military stated that thirteen ballistic missiles entered its airspace and that it intercepted ten, with the remainder falling on open ground — a count of missiles entering one state’s airspace. The module’s aggregate of more than 6,700 counts LAUNCHES at six states over eleven weeks. These measure different things at different scales and no percentage is calculated across them. Launched, entered airspace, engaged, intercepted, destroyed and impacted are six different quantities and the module never substitutes one for another.
• BATTLE-DAMAGE CLAIMS ARE GRADED AS CLAIMS WHOEVER MAKES THEM. More than ten thousand targets struck, air superiority over vast swaths of Iran, much of Iran’s missile manufacturing capacity destroyed, much of its regular naval surface fleet destroyed, more than 140 ships redirected and nine disabled — every one of these is a participant’s account of its own operations, carried with its attribution and none carried as confirmed damage. The same rule applies to Iranian and Gulf claims. Repetition by other outlets does not promote a claim, and the identity of the speaker does not grade it.

Readings the evidence also supports

• Part of the production shut-in total may reflect demand destruction and voluntary restraint rather than an inability to move cargo. The source attributes the series to the closure; Vigil records that attribution rather than independently establishing the cause of each barrel.

Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.