ðšð®ð·ðºðžA sailor is believed dead after a missile tore into a ship on the Omani side, the first crew death of this whole cycle, and the U.S. response is rolling right now
Malcolm Nance heard the difference before the confirmations came.
The strikes on shipping until tonight were slow drones and loitering munitions, more message than murder.
This came in FAST, which means an anti-ship missile, maybe the fifth of the entire war.
Per the reports he'd seen, the IRGC called the Cypriot vessel by name and told it to reverse into Iran's traffic scheme. It didn't.
Now Centcom says it's heavily damaged, a crewman likely gone, and alpha strikes that were sitting loaded on flight decks are hitting the same coastal grid from Bushehr to Bandar Abbas.
Something else is new: Himars batteries firing from Kuwaiti soil, deep-strike rockets arcing across the Gulf.
Malcolm's blunt warning for the hosts of those launchers: expect an answer, and not three missiles and five drones.
He kept stripping the euphemisms off.
This isn't tit-for-tat anymore, by Geneva's definition it's war, cycling UP the escalation ladder rather than stepping.
And in his read Iran holds the tempo, pushing Washington to keep spending ordnance while the oil clock runs.
The unconfirmed report that made him nod rather than flinch: Iranian clandestine mining of the Omani corridor.
His response: it's overdue.
@MalcolmNance
