WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. was announced, leaders in President Donald Trump's administration have been quick to say Iranian military and arms capacity have been all but wiped out during weeks of fighting.
But there is also an acknowledgment that Tehran retains some capabilities, whether to strike back or defend itself.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this week said the U.S. military has hit more than 13,000 targets. He listed high percentages for attacks or destruction to Iran's air defenses, navy and weapons factories.
However, the totals stop short of Iran’s military capabilities being “decimated” as the Republican president has asserted.
Independent data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a U.S.-based group that tracks conflicts around the world, shows Iranian strikes persisted at a relatively steady and uninterrupted pace since the war began Feb. 28 through Wednesday.
Here's a look at what the U.S. says has been targeted, has been degraded or remains from Iran, by the numbers:
Caine told reporters on Wednesday at the Pentagon that many of Iran's air defenses have been destroyed with the U.S. striking more than 1,500 air defense targets, more than 450 ballistic missile storage facilities and 800 one-way attack drone storage facilities. He said, “All of these systems are gone.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly claimed that “Iran no longer has an air defense” and that “we own their skies” before conceding soon afterward that Iran “can still shoot — we know that.”
Hegseth later elaborated, saying that while the Iranians may “have a system here or there,” they no longer had an air defense “system that’s capable of defending their skies.”
Neither Caine nor Hegseth said what the remaining 20% of Iran’s air defenses looked like or which parts of the country have the ability to carry out the sporadic fire they described.
Caine offered no new details about what kind of weapon the Iranians used to shoot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle last week. It was the first time an American military jet was shot down during the war, showing Tehran’s continued ability to hit back despite assertions from the Trump administration.
Trump described it on Monday as a “handheld shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile.”
Caine also told reporters that the military has sunk much of the Iranian fleet and 150 Iranian ships “are at the bottom of the ocean."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went further, telling reporters Wednesday that the Iranian navy was “completely annihilated.”
However, Caine also noted that only half the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s small attack boats — ships the government used to swarm and harass warships and merchants in the Strait of Hormuz — have been sunk.
Caine also said that after more than 700 strikes, the military believed it has destroyed more than 95% of Iran's naval mines.
Since the U.S. has not said how large Iran's stockpile was before the war, it's unknown how many naval mines make up the remaining 5%. Semiofficial news agencies in Iran published a chart Thursday suggesting the Revolutionary Guard put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial trade route for oil, during the war.
The message is likely designed to be a pressure tactic as Iran, Israel and the United States head into negotiations this weekend in Pakistan. Independent analysts say they have seen no change in merchant traffic through the strait since the tenuous ceasefire began this week.
Caine said Wednesday that the military “destroyed Iran’s defense industrial base” while pointing to the fact that the U.S. and allies attacked “approximately 90% of their weapons factories.”
He also said, “nearly 80% of Iran’s nuclear industrial base was hit, further degrading their attempts to attain a nuclear weapon.”
While he noted that Iran was no longer able to produce certain components like solid rocket motors, he stopped short of saying that Iran could not eventually rebuild or get weapons in other ways or that the factories attacked had actually been destroyed or rendered unusable.
Trump acknowledged this possibility when he warned countries against arming Iran.
“A Country supplying Military Weapons to Iran will be immediately tariffed, on any and all goods sold to the United States of America, 50%, effective immediately,” Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military pointed to how many drones or missiles it has been able to stop from landing. It said it had an interception rate of more than 90% through its aerial defense systems.
Over the decades, Israel has developed a sophisticated system capable of detecting incoming fire and deploying only if a projectile is headed toward a population center or sensitive military or civilian infrastructure.
Israeli leaders say the system isn’t 100% guaranteed but credit it with preventing serious damage and countless casualties.
Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Workers remove debris at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology complex that Iranian authorities say was hit early Monday by a U.S.-Israeli strike, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
MIAMI (AP) — A close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged Monday with bribing top officials to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from lucrative contracts to import food at a time of widespread hardship in the South American country.
Alex Saab made his initial court appearance after being deported over the weekend by acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are believed to have enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.
Shackled and wearing a beige prison uniform, Saab answered “Yes, ma'am,” in English after being asked by a federal judge in Miami whether he understood the charges against him: a single count of money laundering tied to a decade-old conspiracy to create fake companies, falsify shipping records and skim from government contracts to import food from Colombia and Mexico.
Saab, 54, was previously charged during the first Trump administration in 2019 and then arrested during a refueling stop in Cape Verde on what the Venezuelan government described as a high-level humanitarian mission to Iran.
But President Joe Biden pardoned him in 2023 in exchange for the release of several imprisoned Americans in Venezuela. The deal, part of a failed effort by the Biden White House to lure Maduro into holding a free presidential election, was harshly criticized by Republicans and federal law enforcement officials, who immediately began investigating Saab for other alleged crimes not covered by the narrowly tailored pardon.
U.S. officials have long described Saab as Maduro's “bag man” and could ask him to serve as a valuable character witness against his former protector, who is awaiting trial on drug charges in Manhattan after being captured in a raid by the U.S. military in January.
The new U.S. prosecution of Saab is taking place against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul relations with Venezuela.
Trump and senior administration officials have heaped praise on Rodríguez, who has thrown open Venezuela's oil industry to U.S. investment at a time of surging oil prices tied to the war in Iran. In exchange, the White House has dampened talk of elections, which are required by Venezuela's constitution within 30 days of the president becoming “permanently unavailable.”
But Rodríguez faces enormous domestic pressures from the more radical, ideological wing of the ruling socialist party, some of whom, like Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, wield great influence inside Venezuelan security forces and face criminal charges themselves in the U.S.
Mario Silva, who for years spread pro-government propaganda as the host of a program on state TV before being removed from the airwaves after Maduro's capture, questioned the legality of Saab's removal, saying it violates a constitutional ban on extradition.
“The imperialists don't negotiate. They conquer, test and probe — until our country shatters,” said Silva in a livestream posted Sunday on social media. “Nobody is safe right now.”
Cabello, for his part, expressed support for Saab's deportation, saying he had obtained his Venezuela national ID through illegal means.
Perhaps anticipating blowback, Venezuela's immigration authority, SAIME, in a statement Saturday referred to Saab only as a “Colombian citizen" implicated in several criminal investigations in the U.S. Rodríguez on state TV Monday echoed those sentiments, saying she was committed to defending Venezuela's national interests.
Rodríguez heaped on Saab a few years ago during the international campaign Venezuela's government mounted to free him from U.S. custody. Serving then as Maduro's vice president, she described Saab as an “innocent Venezuelan diplomat” who had been illegally “kidnapped” by the U.S.
But as Rodríguez cements her rule, she has distanced herself from Saab, firing him from her Cabinet and stripping him of his role as the main conduit for foreign companies looking to invest in Venezuela.
Saab amassed a fortune through Venezuelan government contracts. The indictment against him in 2019 was tied to a government contract for low-income housing that was never built.
The new indictment stems from another case the Justice Department brought against Saab’s longtime partner over the so-called CLAP program set up by Maduro to provide staples — rice, corn flour, cooking oil — to poor Venezuelans at a time of rampant hyperinflation and a crumbling currency.
Saab had been identified in the 2021 indictment as “Co-Conspirator 1” and allegedly helped set up a web of companies used to bribe a pro-Maduro governor who awarded the business partners a contract to import food boxes from Mexico at an inflated price.
As U.S. sanctions crippled Venezuela’s foreign trade, Saab and others allegedly expanded their corrupt influence deep inside the Maduro government, accessing billions of dollars in oil sales from state-run oil company PDVSA, prosecutors said in a five-page indictment unsealed Monday.
Now in U.S. custody, he could be asked to testify against his former protector — something he has considered in the past.
Saab secretly met with the Drug Enforcement Administration before his first arrest and, in a closed-door court hearing in 2022, his lawyers revealed that the businessman for years had helped the DEA untangle corruption in Maduro’s inner circle. As part of that cooperation, he forfeited more than $12 million in illegal proceeds from dirty business dealings.
AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
This story is part of an investigation that includes the FRONTLINE documentary “Crisis in Venezuela,” which aired Feb. 10, 2026, on PBS. Watch the documentary at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.
FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, left, and Alex Saab stand together during an event marking the anniversary of the 1958 coup that overthrew dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jesus Vargas, File)
