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pete hegseth
'Heinous Weapons': Evidence Reveals US May Be Dropping Landmines on Iran
“If confirmed, US military use of its Gator mine scattering system causing civilian deaths and injuries shows exactly why decades of work to ban these weapons cannot be undone,” said one advocate.
Mar 27, 2026
Nearly four months after the Trump administration reversed a Biden-era ban on the use of land mines—and two decades after the weapons were last by the US—images taken in southern Iran indicate the US military has deployed its its Gator Scatterable Mine system in residential areas, killing at least one person and putting residents at risk for years to come, even after the US-Israeli war on Iran ends.
Iranian media posted images online earlier this week of what it called "explosive packages dropped by American planes in Shiraz," the fifth-most populous city in Iran.
The open source investigative group Bellingcat reported Thursday that the images appeared to show US-made Gator anti-tank mines. The US is the only country involved in the war on Iran, which it started alongside Israel on February 28, known to possess Gator Scatterable Mines.
The Gator system is an "air-delivered dispenser system," Bellingcat reported, that distributes mines over an area nearly half a mile wide. They can dispense up to 94 BLU-92/B antipersonnel and BLU-91/B antitank mines.
N.R. Jenzen Jones, director of Armament Research Services, told Bellingcat that the images appeared to be antitank land mines.
Another expert, Amael Kotlarski of open source intelligence company Janes, said antipersonnel land mines at not "observable in the photographic evidence presented so far," but "this could be that they have not been found."
The two mines used by the Gator system, like other land mines and cluster munitions, can fail to properly explode when they are deployed. They have self-destruct features that can go off within hours, days, or weeks of deployment, and can also explode if they are disturbed—as was reportedly the case when a man picked up one of the mines that had landed near his car, and was killed.
“While these land mines are meant to target armored vehicles, they can still be extremely dangerous to civilians,” Brian Castner, a weapons investigator with Amnesty International, told The Washington Post.
The US last used antipersonnel land mines in Afghanistan in 2002, and scatterable antitank land mines were last used during the Gulf War in 1991.
The US is one of the few countries that have not signed the Ottawa Convention, a 1997 international treaty banning the use of antipersonnel land mines, which killed nearly 2,000 people in 2024 and injured more than 4,300—a 9% increase over the previous year.
Ninety percent of those killed in 2024 were civilians, nearly half of whom were children.
In 2022, President Joe Biden announced the US would begin to follow many of the convention's provisions. But two years later he moved to allow their use in Ukraine, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo in December allowing the use of the "inherently indiscriminate weapons," as one Amnesty International expert put it, in any conflict zone.
At the time, Tamar Gabelnick, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said that "by embracing these heinous weapons, the United States would be joining the ranks of countries like Russia and Myanmar, known for their blatant disregard for civilian safety in armed conflict.
Iranian media said "several" people have been killed by the mines dispensed across parts of southern Iran. The Iranian State News Agency said in a Telegram post that at least one person had been killed and others had been injured by “explosive packages that resemble cans." It urged locals to stay away from “any misshapen, deformed, or unusual metal cans" if they see them on the ground.
The Department of Defense did not respond to questions from the media regarding the reports about land mines in southern Iran.
“If confirmed, US military use of its Gator mine scattering system causing civilian deaths and injuries shows exactly why decades of work to ban these weapons cannot be undone without grave harm being the result,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, told The Washington Post.
A Canadian journalist, Dimitri Lascaris, also reported from a village in the Shiraz area, investigated two unexploded mines and visiting the home of a 31-year-old father who was "killed when he picked up one of the mines."
"The authorities have not yet had the opportunity to deal with the aftermath, the horrifying aftermath of what was done here," said Lascaris in a video report he posted on YouTube.
Alireza Akbari, a correspondent with Press TV in Iran, accompanied Lascaris and explained that even the rainy weather that was present in the village could pose a risk, as "the soil and the rain together, they might put pressure on the mine... It might be one of the things that can trigger the mine, and it can be exploded at any moment."
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Unprecedented God Squad Meeting Could Push Gulf Species Toward Extinction
If the defense secretary forces the God Squad to grant this sweeping—and unprecedented exemption—all the threatened and endangered creatures, both large and small, that call the Gulf waters and coastlines home will be at risk.
Mar 27, 2026
The Trump administration has made clear from day one that it intends to dramatically expand fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and in federal waters, with no regard for the consequences to wildlife or the public interest. In the latest jaw-dropping move, late on the night of March 25, government lawyers revealed in a court filing that, on March 13, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly contacted Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to demand he convene a meeting of the Endangered Species Committee, or “God Squad.”
Secretary Hegseth’s rationale for the convening is based on a false narrative that “national security” reasons dictate that the God Squad must grant an Endangered Species Act (ESA) exemption for all oil and gas activities the Interior Department authorizes in the Gulf of Mexico.
On March 16, Burgum publicly announced a snap God Squad meeting on March 31 to consider exempting oil and gas activities in the Gulf from the ESA’s requirement that federal agencies avoid taking actions likely to jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened species. The cryptic notice gave no indication that “national security” reasons warranted the meeting—the first in 35 years.
Certainly, none of the detailed statutory prerequisites to a God Squad vote have been met, and no complete exemption application has been teed up for the committee to consider, let alone for the public to examine.
No administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever tried to write itself a blank check to ignore the ESA’s requirements.
It cannot be a coincidence that Secretary Hegseth demanded a God Squad meeting just two weeks after the United States launched airstrikes across Iran. Iran has now blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies. The result: Global oil prices have spiked, and Republicans are on the ropes. But bypassing the ESA to further the administration's massive plans to expand Gulf oil production will do nothing to help Americans facing higher energy, food, and consumer goods prices today.
The truth is that the ESA has never stood—and is not now standing—in the way of oil and gas development in the Gulf. To assert otherwise is a red herring.
In fact, data shows that the ESA almost never stops projects.
Defenders of Wildlife’s Center for Conservation Innovation analyzed over 88,000 US Fish and Wildlife Service ESA consultations that took place between 2008-2015 and found that not a single project was halted or extensively altered due to a jeopardy finding. Most projects were not even delayed, and only two consultations resulted in a jeopardy finding.
And for a jeopardy opinion, the wildlife agency must try to develop a “reasonable and prudent alternative” that allows the project to go forward while avoiding jeopardy. The wildlife agency works closely with other federal agencies to ensure their actions can proceed without risking a species’ extinction.
If the defense secretary forces the God Squad to grant this sweeping—and unprecedented exemption—all the threatened and endangered creatures, both large and small, that call the Gulf waters and coastlines home will be at risk. From the critically endangered Rice’s whale with only 51 surviving animals to the beloved Florida manatee, from the tiny Alabama beach mouse and five sea turtle species to the largest animal that has ever lived, the blue whale and more—all will suffer the consequences if their ESA protections are ripped away.
No administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever tried to write itself a blank check to ignore the ESA’s requirements.
Invoking “national security” cannot justify potentially pushing the Rice’s whale—or any of our nation’s irreplaceable wildlife species—over the brink of extinction. If this administration were truly concerned about national security, it would focus on what is most important to Americans—a healthy environment; clean, renewable energy sources; an abundant and affordable food supply; public lands to recreate on; and the protection of our country’s shared heritage of treasured lands, waters, and wildlife.
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Fears of Imminent Ground Invasion Surge as Trump Weighs ‘Final Blow’ Options Against Iran
"Looking to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a similar invasion of Iran, given its population size, would require as many as 1.6 million troops," warned one analyst.
Mar 26, 2026
The Trump administration is reportedly considering several options for a massive escalation of its unlawful war on Iran, heightening fears that US troops—possibly as early as Friday or the weekend—could be hurled into a deadly quagmire with no clear objective, legal rationale, or exit strategy.
Axios reported that among the options the Pentagon is considering are "invading or blockading" Kharg Island—Iran's primary oil export hub—and sending American forces "deep inside the interior of Iran" in an effort to seize the country's enriched uranium. The reporting indicates that the administration views the options as a "final blow" against Iran, despite US President Donald Trump's public claim that the war has already been won decisively.
The new reporting marked just the latest signal that the Trump administration could be readying a ground invasion, which—like the ongoing bombing campaign across Iran—has not been approved by the US Congress and would be deeply unpopular with the American public. The US and Iran have both put forth demands for a diplomatic resolution, but Iranian officials have said there are no active negotiations with the Trump administration, contrary to the president's claim earlier this week.
Brandan Buck, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who has criticized the war from the start, warned in a recent blog post that "any serious American invasion of Iran would likely rival or exceed the scale of Vietnam or the 1991 Gulf War, making it the largest US military undertaking since the Second World War."
"Looking to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a similar invasion of Iran, given its population size, would require as many as 1.6 million troops," Buck noted. "Trump’s ill-considered decision to launch the war, coupled with his vague-but-ambitious goals, has made this impossible scenario a military possibility. Given the horrific costs such an invasion would entail, however, Trump should choose a different path: declare 'victory' and de-escalate."
Fears of an imminent ground invasion have spread to Republicans who were otherwise supportive of the Trump administration's decision to attack Iran. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who earlier this month voted against a resolution that aimed to stop the war, wrote on social media Wednesday afternoon that she "will not support troops on the ground in Iran."
Mace's post came shortly after she left a closed-door House Armed Services Committee briefing on Iran. The Republican lawmaker said she was "even more" opposed to a ground invasion following Wednesday's briefing.
"The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee," Mace wrote in a separate post on Wednesday. "This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people."
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who celebrated the US-Israeli bombing of Iran when it kicked off last month, told reporters following Wednesday's briefing—nearly a month into the war—that "we want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered."
"Trump has a well-documented pattern of escalating on Friday night, after the markets close."
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, faced backlash for reportedly deciding to punt a vote on an Iran war powers resolution until at least mid-April, even amid mounting evidence that the Trump administration is barreling headlong toward an illegal and potentially catastrophic ground assault.
"Congress is in session until Friday, after which they will go on a two-week recess," noted Nathan Thompson, senior policy adviser at Just Foreign Policy. "Trump has a well-documented pattern of escalating on Friday night, after the markets close. If House Democrats and [the House Foreign Affairs Committee] wait until after the recess, the damage could be done."
The Pentagon earlier this week ordered roughly 2,000 soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division to head to the Middle East. According to the US Central Command, more than 50,000 American troops are currently involved in the war on Iran.
During a briefing on Wednesday, a reporter noted to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt that the 82nd Airborne Division is "typically deployed at the beginning of conflicts."
"Does the White House consider this conflict as wrapping up, or is it changing shape?" the reporter asked.
Leavitt responded that "the president likes to maintain options at his disposal."
Drop Site's Ryan Grim, citing an unnamed source, reported Thursday that "Naval Special Warfare teams were also given deployment orders yesterday, as well as a bunch of Tier 1 operators."
Taken together, Grim argued, recent developments suggest that "all the pieces are in place for a ground operation within a day."
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