A week in which a four-year-old secret became a document, a ceasefire became a pressure cooker, and a presidential visit to China produced ceremony with a great deal less substance behind it

The Cipher Was Real

The document has a classification stamp. It is marked “secret.” Across the top it reads “no circulation.” Dated March 7, 2022, designated cable I-0678, it was transmitted from Pakistan’s embassy in Washington to Islamabad by then-ambassador Asad Majeed Khan. On the afternoon of May 17, 2026, Drop Site News published it in full and without redaction, for the first time since it entered Pakistani political history four years ago as the most contested document in the country’s postcolonial record

DropSiteNews Imran Khan Cypher Article

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What the cable documents is a luncheon meeting between Asad Majeed Khan and Donald Lu, then the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs. What Lu told the ambassador that afternoon was transmitted back to Islamabad as a classified diplomatic report. What followed, within weeks, was the no-confidence vote that removed Prime Minister Imran Khan from power in April 2022.

The Drop Site investigation, written by Waqas Ahmed, Murtaza Hussain, and Ryan Grim and based on leaked documents alongside interviews with former civilian and military officials, does not confine itself to the cipher alone. It traces the entire arc of the US-Pakistan relationship across five years: from the CIA director William J. Burns flying to Islamabad in June 2021 and waiting a full day before being told by phone that Khan would not see him, to the Field Marshal Asim Munir now described by Donald Trump as “my favorite Field Marshal.” The distance between those two points is the story.

Burns had come to Pakistan seeking territory for US drone bases to be used against targets in Afghanistan after the planned American withdrawal. He left with neither the bases nor the meeting. Khan had already told Axios co-founder Jonathan Swan, in plain language: “Absolutely not. There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan.” Kabul fell to the Taliban weeks later. The US evacuation became a political catastrophe for the Biden administration. The rupture between Washington and Islamabad hardened.

What the cipher documents, in the reconstruction offered by Drop Site, is the next phase of that rupture. By early 2022, US officials had communicated to Pakistani interlocutors that “all would be forgiven” if Khan were removed. The cable records the specifics of that communication in classified diplomatic language. Drop Site released the document so that, in their words, “it becomes part of the public historical record.”

The political consequences inside Pakistan were immediate. Supporters of Khan, still imprisoned following multiple convictions that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party describes as politically motivated, called the publication a vindication. What cannot be disputed by anyone reading the subsequent record is what followed Khan’s removal: under the military-backed government that replaced him, Islamabad reversed course on nearly every position Khan had held. Pakistan became a quiet supplier of artillery to Ukraine. It signed a mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia that Khan had refused. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s second phase stalled. Washington got everything it had wanted and could not extract while Khan governed.

Drop Site’s companion investigation includes a disclosure that Trump privately urged Asim Munir to “resolve” Khan’s detention during discussions last year. It also documents the irony embedded in the present moment: the same generals who engineered Khan’s removal to repair ties with Washington are now basking in international praise for mediating between the US and Iran, a role that required precisely the kind of independent regional positioning Khan was removed for attempting.

Drop Site also published an important caveat about the cipher’s provenance. The redactions next to the addressee list, as the outlet noted in a separate post, point both to the source of the leak and to who was not its source: the copy released by Drop Site did not originate from the prime minister’s office. The question of where it came from, and who held it for four years, is one the investigation has not yet fully answered.

The cipher’s release arrived on the same day that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the Sunday Times that the country’s role as mediator in the US-Iran war is “one of the shining moments in our history.” Former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Masood Khan told the same paper: “I’ve had a long diplomatic career and I have never seen Pakistan on such a high pedestal.” The collision of those two narratives, the diplomatic triumph and the documentary exposure of the mechanism that produced it, defined the week more precisely than any other single development.

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On the morning of May 6, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood before reporters at the White House and declared that Operation Epic Fury had concluded. The objectives of the US-Israel war on Iran which opened on February 28 with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and proceeded, over 38 days, to destroy what Washington claimed was more than 85 percent of Iran’s defense industrial base had been achieved. The United States now preferred, Rubio said, “the path of peace.”

By Sunday, May 10, Iran had launched drone strikes on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

The sequence follows from the structure of a war that has been declared over without being settled. The formal military campaign wound down, but no resolution has been reached, and what replaced combat operations is a dual blockade in which neither party can deliver a decisive blow but both retain the capacity to impose costs on everyone in range. The US Navy maintains a cordon around Iranian ports. Iran continues to strangle traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile passage through which, before February 28, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas moved each day. Since the US launched its “Project Freedom” convoy operation to guide stranded vessels through the strait, exactly two commercial ships have successfully transited under American naval protection. Major shipping lines have declined to send vessels through a corridor sitting within range of Iranian missiles, drones, and mines whose precise locations Iran has admitted, in one extraordinary moment of operational honesty, it can no longer fully track. Trump paused Project Freedom on May 6, the same day Rubio declared the war concluded, then posted on social media that bombing would resume “at a much higher level and intensity” if Iran did not accept terms. The press conference and the social media post arrived within hours of each other, each addressed to a different audience.

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On the evening of April 25, a gunman opened fire while attempting to force entry through the main security screening area of the Washington Hilton, where President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and senior Cabinet members were attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It was the first WHCA dinner Trump had attended as a sitting president. The Washington Metropolitan Police Department confirmed the suspect, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, charged a security checkpoint at approximately 8:36 p.m. EDT carrying a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives, firing at least one shot before being chased down and apprehended. One Secret Service officer was struck in a bullet-resistant vest and is expected to fully recover; no other injuries were reported.

Writings attributed to Allen included a roughly 1,000-word manifesto he sent to family members criticizing Trump administration policies and describing himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed authorities believe Trump and his senior officials were the intended targets of the attack. Trump was escorted off stage immediately by Secret Service and later appeared on 60 Minutes to address the nation, calling the event “a reminder of what we’re up against.”

Online, a subset of conservative commentators, MAGA-aligned influencers, and fringe media personalities circulated claims that the shooting was “staged” or orchestrated to generate political sympathy. Law enforcement officials, independent journalists, and security analysts have found no evidence supporting this framing; the FBI investigation is active and treating the attack as politically motivated. Scholars of political violence noted the attack reflects an accelerating pattern of real and perceived threat against the president, with the Correspondents’ Dinner shooting becoming the most high-profile security incident since the July 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania rally shooting.

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The U.S.-Iran Naval Blockade: What Washington Says

The U.S. military declared its naval blockade of all Iranian ports “fully executed” on April 15, announcing a “complete cessation” of Iran’s maritime economic activity. CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper stated that within just 36 hours, all sea trade with Iran had been disrupted, citing over 10,000 U.S. sailors, Marines, and Air Force personnel involved in the operation across the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. Vice President Vance, who led negotiations in Islamabad before their collapse, told reporters that the blockade was “particularly detrimental for Iran rather than for the U.S.” and that Iran had simply “opted not to accept our conditions.” On April 13, President Trump threatened to “BLOW TO HELL” any Iranian forces that fired on U.S. warships, calling Iran’s insistence on Hormuz fees “extortion.” Trump also said he had instructed the Navy to intercept any vessels in international waters that had paid those fees to Iran, an expansive operational mandate with no clear legal ceiling.

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US-Iran Talks Collapse After Historic Marathon Negotiations

The most consequential diplomatic encounter between Washington and Tehran in nearly five decades ended without a deal late Saturday night in Islamabad. Vice President JD Vance led a senior American delegation including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner into a two-day negotiation session hosted by Pakistan, marking the first direct, face-to-face talks between the two governments since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The sessions ran for more than 21 consecutive hours across Saturday and Sunday before Vance emerged to declare no agreement had been reached, calling the result “bad news for Iran.” Iran’s Vice President Mohajerani fired back immediately, telling state media that the “worse news is for the United States,” accusing Washington of trying to win at the negotiating table what it could not win on the battlefield. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the two sides remained far apart on two to three key issues and that excessive American demands had blocked any common framework. Vance, boarding Air Force Two, confirmed that the US had presented its “final and best offer,” that the terms were “quite flexible,” and that Iran had “chosen not to accept” them. As of Monday morning, April 13, all parties have departed Islamabad with no further talks scheduled.

The American View: Final Offer, Blockade Threat, and Military Buildup

Washington entered Islamabad with a clear bottom line: Iran must commit, in writing, to permanently abandoning its nuclear weapons program and relinquishing the enrichment capacity to rapidly develop one. President Trump publicly raised the stakes before negotiations even began, ramping up threats against Iran throughout the week of April 6 and declaring on Easter Sunday that he would bomb power plants and every major bridge in Iran by Tuesday unless Tehran reopened the Strait of Hormuz. After the ceasefire was announced on April 7, Trump momentarily stood down from that threat, but the Islamabad failure triggered an immediate reversal. Within hours of Vance’s press conference, Trump posted on Truth Social accusing Iran of “extortion” and declaring the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz effective Monday at 10 a.m. EDT. US Central Command confirmed that the blockade would cover all Iranian ports and coastal areas on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, though CENTCOM clarified it would still permit ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the waterway, moderating Trump’s earlier all-or-nothing framing. Military analysts noted the US has been moving combat power into the region throughout the ceasefire period: a third aircraft carrier as well as thousands of Marines and paratroopers are expected to arrive in the Middle East later this month. Rapidan Energy founder and former White House energy advisor Bob McNally told CNBC the US military is “getting ready for round 2,” and predicted that Iran’s leverage over the strait will erode as Washington systematically degrades Tehran’s ability to use mines, anti-ship missiles, small fast-attack boats, drones, submarines, and long-range artillery. Newsweek reported Trump separately warned the US military is “locked and loaded” and ready to act against Iran if no deal materializes.

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A bridge double-tapped on a public holiday. The Pasteur Institute destroyed. 244 children dead. The Hormuz deadline expires today.

The week began with Trump telling the Financial Times that U.S. and I…

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Houthis enter the war. Marines land. Eight million march.

The deadline Iran’s Revolutionary Guard set for the U.S. government to condemn strikes on Iranian universities expires at noon Tehran time today. If Washington does not comply, the IRGC has threatened to strike American and Israeli universities across the Middle East. The U.S. Marines who arrived Friday are already on the ground. The Houthis launched their first missiles at Israel over the weekend. The war is now in its 29th day. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Eight million Americans were in the streets Saturday. And Trump says a deal is “very close.” Iran says there is no deal.

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The strike landed on Nowruz.

As Iranians gathered on the evening of March 18 to mark the Persian New Year — the first new year of the war — Israeli aircraft hit the processing facilities at Asaluyeh in Bushehr Province, the onshore hub for South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas field. South Pars supplies seventy percent of Iran’s domestic gas consumption. The attack halted output at two refineries with a combined capacity of one hundred million cubic meters per day, accounting for an estimated twelve percent of Iran’s total gas production. Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum confirmed that facilities were “taken offline” to control fires. No casualties were immediately reported. Israeli military sources acknowledged the strike was deliberately targeted at Iran’s gas infrastructure. Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States “knew nothing” about it in advance. One Israeli official told CNN that the strike was carried out in coordination with the U.S.

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The bomb that hit Kharg Island was not a military strike. It was an energy weapon pointed at the world. March 9 to March 16, 2026

On the night of March 13, American forces struck Kharg Island.

The island is a flat, low-lying strip of land in the northeastern Persian Gulf, roughly five miles long, unremarkable in every sense except one: Kharg Island processes approximately ninety percent of Iran’s crude oil exports. It is the valve through which the Islamic Republic’s most important economic asset reaches the world. When U.S. Central Command announced on March 14 that its forces had struck more than ninety military targets on the island — naval mine storage facilities, missile bunkers, radar installations — it was describing a military operation conducted inside the engine room of Iranian state power.

President Trump announced on social media that the island’s military targets had been “obliterated.” He added, with deliberate care, that the oil infrastructure had not been touched. The distinction matters enormously to oil markets, which have been the most visible casualty of this war since its first week. The distinction also may not hold. Iran warned it was assessing the situation. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had warned publicly, days before the strike, that if the United States or Israel attacked Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, Tehran would “abandon all restraint.” The parliament speaker was not speaking metaphorically.

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FIRE AND OIL: THE WORLD AT THE EDGE OF A NEW ORDER

A nation under siege. A planet paying the price.March 2 to March 9, 2026

OPENING BULLETIN

Somewhere in Tehran, a hospital is treating the wounded from last night’s strikes. Down the street, a building that once housed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is rubble. Across the city, people who had nothing to do with centrifuges or missile programs are pulling their dead from the debris. The United States calls this precision. Iran calls it a war of extermination. The world, filling its tank at $110 a barrel, is beginning to wonder who is right.

This morning, Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the assassinated Supreme Leader, as the Islamic Republic’s third supreme leader. The IRGC has pledged its allegiance. The war is ten days old. There is no ceasefire in sight.

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Airstrikes and Aftershocks

The United States and Israel launched a massive joint air and missile campaign against Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a decapitation strike on his Tehran compound and plunging the region into open war, as Iran fired missiles and drones across the Middle East and the first US combat deaths were confirmed.

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Mexico’s most wanted man is dead. On February 22, the Mexican Army killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes “El Mencho” the feared leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in a military operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco. The killing immediately triggered waves of violence across Mexico, with armed groups setting fire to stores, banks, and vehicles, blocking highways, and forcing tourists in Puerto Vallarta into shelter-in-place. Meanwhile, President Trump’s 10-to-15 day ultimatum to Iran for a nuclear deal ticks down and on Tuesday, Ukraine marks four years of full-scale Russian invasion. This is the most volatile week of 2026 so far.

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Iran’s FM in Geneva for second round of nuclear talks Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Geneva today for high-stakes negotiations with the United States, scheduled for Tuesday, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards simultaneously conduct military drills in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the region and stated that regime change in Iran “would be the most favorable outcome,” while dispatching special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to the Geneva talks. These negotiations follow Iran’s violent January crackdown on widespread protests, which UN and international human rights organizations say resulted in thousands of deaths, particularly during the nights of January 8-9.

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NUCLEAR BRINKMANSHIP AND PEACE ULTIMATUMS

Russia threatens NATO peacekeepers while U.S. weighs Iran strikes as arms control collapses and Ukraine referendum looms February 2-9, 2026

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Russia Unleashes 408 Drones and 39 Missiles on Ukraine’s Energy Grid

Between February 6 and 7, Russia executed a massive assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, deploying 408 drones and 39 missiles targeting substations essential for nuclear power plant operations. Ukrainian Air Force reported Russian forces utilized 21 Kh-101 cruise missiles, 16 Kalibr cruise missiles, and approximately 250 Shahed drones in the overnight operation. Ukrainian air defenses successfully intercepted 382 drones and 24 missiles, but 13 missiles and 21 drones struck 19 different sites, affecting energy facilities in Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, and Lviv Oblast. The strikes targeted critical 750 kV and 330 kV substations, the Burshtyn thermal power plant in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, and the Dobrotvir thermal power plant in Lviv Oblast, resulting in emergency power outages affecting approximately 600,000 residents. The attacks occurred during some of the coldest winter temperatures, with Russia leveraging a temporary halt in energy strikes to accumulate drones and missiles for two devastating assaults following a brief pause from January 29 to February 1.

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International breaking stories

Russia Issues Direct Threat

Moscow Warns NATO Troops in Ukraine Would Be ‘Legitimate Targets’

Russia issued a stark warning Monday that any deployment of foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine would be treated as direct foreign intervention, with those forces becoming “legitimate targets” for Russian armed forces. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments, released by the ministry, specifically mentioned German troops as Moscow rejected European proposals to deploy NATO peacekeepers to help secure any future peace deal. “The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry stated. The warning comes just two days before U.S.-Russia-Ukraine trilateral peace talks are set to resume in Abu Dhabi, with Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev returning from weekend meetings with American officials in Miami. Moscow accused Berlin of “revenge fantasies” in its Ukraine policy while praising President Trump’s efforts at working toward a resolution.

Major U.S.-India Deal

Trump Slashes India Tariffs, Modi Agrees to End Russian Oil Purchases

President Trump announced a major trade breakthrough with India on Monday, slashing tariffs from 50% to 18% after Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop buying Russian oil and commit to over $500 billion in U.S. energy, technology, and agricultural purchases. “Out of friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and as per his request, I am reducing the reciprocal tariff immediately, as a deal between the United States and India, whereby the United States will charge a reciprocal tariff, cutting it from 25% to 18%,” Trump posted on social media. The White House confirmed the U.S. is eliminating a punitive 25% duty on all Indian imports related to Russian oil purchases, which had been imposed on top of reciprocal tariffs last August. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, will now purchase American and potentially Venezuelan oil instead of Russian supplies. The agreement comes hours after India and the European Union finalized a sweeping free trade deal affecting nearly two billion people.

Pakistan’s Bloodiest Battle in Decades

Pakistani Forces Kill 145 Militants in Two-Day Battle After Coordinated Attacks

Pakistani security forces killed 145 militants during a 40-hour operation in Balochistan province after coordinated attacks across multiple cities killed 31 civilians and 17 security personnel on Saturday. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the death toll marked the highest in decades, with authorities holding the bodies of all 145 militants, some from Afghanistan. The Balochistan Liberation Army launched near-simultaneous gun and bomb attacks across Quetta, Gwadar, Mastung, and Noshki districts, with militants disguised as civilians infiltrating hospitals, schools, banks, and markets. Pakistan accused India and Afghanistan of supporting the attackers, claiming senior BLA figures operate from Afghan soil charges both New Delhi and Kabul deny. Two attacks involved female militants, according to Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, who noted a concerning trend of increasingly targeting civilians and low-income communities.

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1) China military purge reaches Xi’s top general

China placed Central Military Commission vice chairman Zhang Youxia under investigation, a major escalation in the ongoing shakeup of the senior comm…

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One year into President Trump’s second term, the international system exhibits not gradual erosion but accelerating fragmentation. Today marks the anniversary of an administration that has redefined …

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