On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury / Operation Roaring Lion, a joint military campaign against Iran that fundamentally altered the strategic landscape of the Middle East. The operation struck over 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours, eliminated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior regime officials, and deployed, for the first time in combat, artificial intelligence tools in active targeting and intelligence support roles. B-2 stealth bombers, Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-35 fighters, and low-cost one-way attack drones drawn from the LUCAS program formed the kinetic backbone of an operation described by U.S. Central Command as unprecedented in scale and speed.
Operational Scale and Target Architecture
Operation Epic Fury began at 1:15 a.m. EST on 28 February 2026, with simultaneous American and Israeli strikes across Iran. Within the first 24 hours, U.S. Central Command confirmed that more than 1,000 targets had been struck, a tempo and scale not seen since the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 (1). The target set was comprehensive: IRGC Joint Headquarters and Aerospace Forces Headquarters, integrated air defense nodes, ballistic missile launch sites, naval vessels, anti-ship missile batteries, and military communications infrastructure (2).
Crucially, the strikes achieved a strategic decapitation rarely accomplished in modern warfare. Israeli operations under Operation Roaring Lion eliminated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (along with dozens of senior regime officials) in what Israeli and U.S. officials described as a coordinated leadership targeting campaign carried out partly in broad daylight, reflecting the prior systematic dismantling of Iranian air defenses (3) This was not incidental; it was the product of months of ISR collection, pattern-of-life analysis, and AI-assisted target development.
The AI Dimension: Claude, CENTCOM, and the Algorithmic Battlefield
Perhaps the most consequential and least-understood element of Operation Epic Fury is the confirmed use of artificial intelligence tools from Anthropic, specifically its Claude large language model, by the Pentagon during the operation. Reuters first reported, citing a source familiar with the situation, that the Department of Defense deployed Anthropic’s Claude tools as part of its operational support infrastructure during the Iran strikes (4).
The precise function of these AI tools remains classified, and neither the Pentagon nor Anthropic provided immediate comment. However, Anthropic’s Claude had already achieved a significant milestone as the first peer AI system to work with classified information through a cloud supply arrangement via Amazon Web Services, embedding it across intelligence community and armed services applications (5). The strategic significance of this development cannot be overstated, even without granular operational detail. AI integration in modern warfare spans three primary functional domains:
Intelligence Fusion and Target Development: Large language models and AI analytical tools dramatically accelerate the processing of signals intelligence, imagery, and open-source data into actionable targeting packages. The ability to correlate pattern-of-life data, cross-reference HUMINT with technical collection, and identify time-sensitive targets at machine speed compresses the kill chain in ways that human analysts alone cannot match. This capability likely contributed to the precision and tempo of the first 24-hour strike package.
Decision Support and Wargaming: AI tools can rapidly model enemy responses, game out escalation pathways, and assess battle damage. In a campaign targeting a near-peer adversary with a sophisticated missile force, the ability to anticipate Iranian retaliatory strikes and pre-position missile defense assets in response is a force multiplier that reduces American casualties and protects regional partners.
Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Systems: The deployment of LUCAS one-way attack drones, combined with CENTCOM’s acknowledgment of ‘special capabilities’ it declined to publicly disclose, suggests that AI-enabled autonomy (in navigation, target recognition, and terminal guidance) played a role in the operation, even if not at the level of fully autonomous lethal decision-making.
The political context of the AI use adds a layer of strategic irony: the operation came one day after the U.S. government formally declared Anthropic a supply chain risk and a national security concern, and President Trump directed the government to cease working with the firm. That the Pentagon nonetheless deployed Claude tools in active combat operations underscores the degree to which AI dependence has become structurally embedded in American military operations, transcending political directives at the speed of war (6).
Assessing Effectiveness: What Was Achieved?
Against the standard criteria of strategic effectiveness (target destruction, leadership attrition, threat degradation, and deterrence signaling) Operation Epic Fury has achieved considerable early results.
Iran’s air defense architecture has been largely dismantled, enabling subsequent strikes to be conducted in daylight without stealth dependency. Iranian naval capacity has been significantly degraded; CENTCOM confirmed the sinking of a Jamaran-class corvette and Trump claimed nine Iranian naval ships destroyed, though CENTCOM declined to confirm the higher figure (7). The IRGC’s command infrastructure, its joint headquarters and aerospace forces nerve center, has been destroyed. Most significantly, the decapitation of Khamenei’s leadership removes the supreme decision authority that has coordinated Iranian regional strategy for decades.
However, strategic effectiveness cannot be assessed solely on kinetic metrics. Several critical questions remain open: the survivability of Iran’s dispersed ballistic missile stockpile; the coherence of the Islamic Republic’s succession and governance structure; and whether the elimination of leadership accelerates regime collapse, triggers a nationalist consolidation, or produces an unpredictable succession crisis. The Trump administration’s explicit appeal to Iranian patriots to ‘seize this moment’ suggests the political objective extends beyond military degradation to regime change, a goal whose fulfillment or failure will ultimately determine whether Epic Fury is judged a strategic success (8).
References:
- U.S. Central Command, official statement, 1 March 2026; Air & Space Forces Magazine, ‘3 Americans Killed in Operation Against Iran as US Strikes with B-2 Bombers,’ 1 March 2026.
- Fox News, ‘Inside the US weapons arsenal used in Operation Epic Fury against Iran,’ 1 March 2026; CENTCOM public affairs release.
- The Washington Post, ‘In surprise daytime attack, U.S., Israeltake out Iranian leadership,’ 28 February 2026.
- Reuters, ‘US uses Anthropic AI, B-2 bombers and suicide drones in Iran strikes,’ 2 March 2026.
- South China Morning Post, ‘US using AI, B-2 bombers and suicide drones in Iran strikes,’ 2 March 2026; Rappler citing Reuters, 2 March 2026.
- Reuters, 2 March 2026; The Tribune India, 2 March 2026.
- NPR, ‘U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran continue into 2nd day,’ 1 March 2026; Air & Space Forces Magazine, 1 March 2026.
- Daily Caller, “The Duty and Burden of a Free People: Trump Delivers First Update on Operation Epic Fury,” 1 March 2026.
