PDB Afternoon Bulletin | March 18th, 2026: Iran’s Security Forces Are Now On The Run & Russia Boosts Tehran’s War Effort

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It's Wednesday, the 18th of March. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin.

I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage.

Alright, let's get briefed.

First up, new reporting reveals Iran's security forces are now on the run as Israeli strikes push regime enforcers out of their headquarters and into hiding.

Later in the show, Russia is now backing Iran more directly, with new reporting that Moscow is providing satellite imagery and upgraded drone technology to target U.S. and Allied forces.

But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

I want to start with some very solid new reporting from the Wall Street Journal that's giving us an inside look at what's happening inside Iran.

And what we're starting to see are signs that the regime's internal security apparatus is under increasing pressure.

Iran's security forces aren't operating out of established headquarters and known facilities anymore.

They're not coordinating from command centers or fortified compounds.

According to reports, some are now sleeping in their cars hiding under highway overpasses and even setting up tents and wooded areas outside Tehran, just trying to stay alive.

Now from the outset, the U.S. focused on degrading Iran's military capabilities.

Its missile launchers, its air defenses, its industrial base.

But Israel took on a different mission going after the regime's internal enforcement arms.

That would be the besiege militia, internal police units and elements of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, responsible for keeping control inside the country.

In other words, while the U.S. focused on Iran's military, Israel was striking at the security elements responsible for suppressing protests and maintaining internal order.

The units, mostly responsible for the recent murder of thousands of Iranians during the popular uprising earlier this year.

And now that campaign appears to have evolved.

According to the journal, Israel has dropped roughly 10,000 munitions across thousands of targets, including more than 2,000 tied specifically to Iran's internal security forces.

It started with large, fixed targets, headquarters, command posts, staging areas, then Israeli intelligence identified fallback locations, places where these forces would regroup once those facilities were destroyed.

One example would be sports stadiums.

For example, at Tehran's Azadi Stadium, hundreds of security personnel were reportedly killed after gathering there as part of a contingency plan.

In other cases, police and militia units have taken over hospitals, forcing patients aside.

But what we're seeing now is something more precise. It's no longer just about striking locations, it's about tracking people.

Israeli forces are now flying, loitering surveillance and armed drones over Tehran, targeting small units, checkpoints, patrols, even individual busseesh teams.

In some cases, just two or three personnel at a time.

In the past 24 hours, Israel says it's also killed Iran's intelligence minister, Esmil Katib, in an overnight strike.

If confirmed, well that would mark the third senior Iranian official tied to internal security that's been eliminated in less than 48 hours.

Part of what makes this campaign different is the level of intelligence penetration.

According to the reporting, Israeli operatives are receiving tips from inside Iran, from ordinary citizens pointing out where security forces are gathering or hiding.

In one reported case, a tip led Israeli forces to a wooded area outside Tehran, where the head of the besieged militia was reportedly killed while hiding in a tent with its deputies.

At the same time, there are reports of direct psychological pressure. Israeli intelligence agents allegedly contacting Iranian commanders by phone, warning them by name, threatening consequences if they continue to support the regime.

And on the ground, the effects are starting to show. Security personnel are reportedly abandoning traditional facilities and moving into civilian spaces, mosques, residential buildings, underneath highway bridges to avoid detection.

Some have been sleeping in stairwells or inside buses. Basic policing functions are beginning to break down, in some areas routine crime investigations have stalled not because the crimes have stopped, but because there's no one left at the station to handle them.

Now, as always, it's important to keep this in perspective. History shows that air campaigns, even aggressive ones, rarely topple regimes on their own, and despite everything that we're seeing around security forces are still in the streets.

They're still capable of suppressing dissent, still capable of maintaining order, at least for now. So being, quote, on the run, doesn't necessarily mean they're losing control, but it does suggest something else.

It suggests that the systems designed to enforce that control are under real stress, forced to adapt, disperse, and operate in ways that they weren't built for.

And that raises the bigger question going forward. Is this the beginning of something breaking inside Iran, or just the chaos of a regime that still knows how to hold on?

Later in the show, a closer look at Russia's growing role in this conflict as new reporting shows that Moscow is sharing intelligence and drone technology to bolster Iran's war effort.

I'll have those details when we come back.

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Welcome back to the PDB afternoon bulletin. For a while, we've been tracking reports that Russia may be quietly sharing intelligence with Iran on US military movements across the Middle East.

That support appears to be expanding with Moscow now providing satellite imagery to help Tehran target American assets more effectively.

If you've been following PDB coverage of the war, well, you'll remember that early in this conflict, anonymous intelligence sources suggested that the Kremlin had been providing the regime with drone targeting information on US military forces and regional allies across the Gulf.

The White House was dismissive of those reports saying that even if true Russia's assistance wouldn't have a negative impact on US operations.

That reporting then later expanded with indications that Moscow may be helping the regime refine its drone tactics against American assets using methods drawn from its war in Ukraine.

Now, new reporting from the Wall Street Journal reveals that cooperation appears to have deepened even further moving beyond earlier intelligence sharing into more direct guidance.

According to officials familiar with the matter, including a senior European intelligence officer in a Middle Eastern diplomat, Moscow is now supplying Tehran with targeting data via satellites that gives a regime a far more precise picture of US and allied positions before and after strikes.

But simply, this is no longer just broad intelligence sharing, it's actionable battlefield information.

The intelligence aiding the regime is coming from a fleet of military satellites operated by the Russian aerospace forces.

That intelligence provides the Iranian military and IRGC with detailed insight into both land-based and sea-based targets, everything from specific aircraft and munitions sites to air defense systems and naval movements.

That's the kind of information that the regime simply didn't have in previous weeks, and it can be used not only to plan strikes but to evaluate their effectiveness.

Those same officials state that Russia is also upgrading Iran's drone capabilities, providing modified components for she had drones to improve navigation, communication and strike accuracy.

At the same time, Moscow is also reportedly sharing their battlefield experience gained during Putin's for your invasion of Ukraine.

In drawing on lessons from its Ukraine conflict, Russia is advising the Islamic Republic on how to deploy drone swarms more effectively, such as how many to launch what altitudes to fly, and how to sequence attacks to overwhelm air defenses before follow-up strikes.

So, you may ask, are we seeing the results of all of that? Increasingly, it looks like the answer is yes.

Iranian attacks across the region have shown a higher level of coordination and precision in recent days, including strikes on American radar and missile defense infrastructure.

Among the latest targets hit was an early warning radar tied to a terminal high altitude area defense system, commonly known as THAD, a transportable ground-based US missile defense platform located in Jordan.

Officials say those operations closely resemble the tactics Russia's used in Ukraine, where waves of drones are deployed to saturate defenses before more precise strikes follow.

And notably, Iran appears to be having greater success targeting US and Gulf state military assets in this conflict than it did during last year's brief 12-day war, raising new questions about how much of that improvement may be tied to expanding Russian support.

So, you may be asking, how did this relationship between Tehran and Moscow evolve to this point? Well, of course, the answer is the relationship between Russia and Iran has been building for years, but accelerated rapidly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Iran's been one of Moscow's most important military partners, supplying the Kremlin with tens of thousands of sheaher drones that have been used extensively against Ukrainian cities and military sites and civilian infrastructure.

Since then, Russia has begun producing those same drones domestically, refining their ability to navigate, target more precisely and withstand electronic warfare, and they're now feeding those improvements back to the Iranian regime, creating a two-way pipeline of military innovation.

Of course, in this shall not surprise you, Moscow says none of this is happening. Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov dismissed the Wall Street Journal report as quote, fake news.

Okay Dmitry. Now, the White House, at some point, will have to deal with the reality that the Kremlin is providing Iran with the ability to more effectively target American lives and facilities in the region.

It's a simple fact. The better your intelligence on your adversaries' locations, movements, personnel, and facilities, the more lethal your targeting becomes.

Russia is an adversary to the US, also another fact, and they have a very close relationship with Iran on military matters, including technology and intelligence.

Oh, look at that. Yet another fact. So, Russian support to Iran during this conflict makes Iran more lethal. It enables them to better target and kill US personnel.

The US administration can be dismissive of all that, but it doesn't, in any way, change those facts.

And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Wednesday, the 18th of March. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com.

And to listen to the show at free, you can do that. It is very simple. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting PDB premium.com.

I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool.

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