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Interactive Map: U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran (2026)

storymaps.arcgis.com 10 September 2026 at 10:44 View original article →

The original link is the material being checked. It may contain false or misleading claims — we link for transparency, not endorsement.

88/100
Verdict High Trust High Trust – Authentic institutional methodology/product page from an established, identifiable research...

The text is not a news article but the framing/boilerplate page for an ISW–AEI Critical Threats Project (CTP) ArcGIS StoryMap tracking US and Israeli strikes in Iran, together with an 'Iran and Axis of Resistance Response' layer.

✓ 9 checks out ✕ 0 disputed ? 9 unverified
☰ Full analysis The complete summary ⌄

The text is not a news article but the framing/boilerplate page for an ISW–AEI Critical Threats Project (CTP) ArcGIS StoryMap tracking US and Israeli strikes in Iran, together with an 'Iran and Axis of Resistance Response' layer. Independent research confirms (a) that such a map exists at storymaps.arcgis.com and was updated within the last two days, (b) that the ISW–CTP team publishes recurring Iran conflict coverage with a 2:00 PM ET data cut-off, (c) that US and Israeli strikes on Iran did begin on 28 February 2026 and that Iranian retaliatory strikes have hit US-hosting states including Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and the UAE, and (d) that the four-tier colour-coded strike taxonomy quoted here matches the definitions ISW published on 1 March 2026. The page contains almost no evaluative or emotive language (emotion_score 0.07) and is transparent about evidentiary tiers, which is a methodological strength. Deductions arise from: two hyperlinks truncated to '[here](' so the referenced fair-use policy and hardware-acceleration guidance cannot be inspected; the phrase 'daily conflict coverage' being slightly imprecise given ISW–CTP's stated Monday-to-Friday publication cadence; the underlying incident dataset being unauditable from the text alone; and the known hawkish institutional orientation of ISW and AEI-CTP, which shapes framing (e.g. 'Axis of Resistance', US/Israel-centric target categorisation) even where the geospatial recording is careful.

What checked out (9)
  • VERIFIED: The map exists and is a live ISW–CTP product. A StoryMap titled 'Interactive Map: U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran (2026)' opens with the identical sentence about complementing 'the daily conflict coverage that the combined ISW-CTP team produces for conflicts in the Middle East' and was indexed as updated ~2 days before assessment (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/089bc1a2fe684405a67d67f13bd31324).
  • VERIFIED: The four strike-confidence definitions (Confirmed Airstrike/green, Reported Airstrike/blue, Report of Explosion with Footage/yellow, Report of Explosion without Footage/red) reproduce ISW's own published wording announcing the map on 1 March 2026 (https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/2028123103793230047).
  • VERIFIED: The 28 February 2026 start date is accurate. The UK House of Commons Library states that on 28 February 2026 Israel and the United States began a series of strikes against Iran (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10521/); Britannica dates initiation of the '2026 Iran war' to the same day (https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iran-war).
  • VERIFIED: Iranian/'Axis' retaliation against the US, Israel and countries hosting US bases is factually grounded. Reporting describes Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain (https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-907279), on assets in the UAE and Jordan (https://thehill.com/policy/international/6060457-iran-retaliation-jordan-uae-us-strikes-resume/), and an attack on a Jordan base on 9 September 2026 (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/9/us-destroys-five-iranian-tankers-iran-retaliates-with-attacks-on-jordan-base).
  • VERIFIED: The 2:00 PM ET timestamp convention is consistent with ISW–CTP practice; the CTP Iran Update of 4 September 2026 references a 2:00 PM ET data cut-off (https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-september-4-2026).
  • VERIFIED: The 'Axis of Resistance' label is ISW–CTP's own defined analytical term, described by CTP-ISW as the unconventional alliance Iran has cultivated in the Middle East since 1979 (https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-august-2-2024).
  • VERIFIED: Funding attribution is plausible and corroborated. The Dr. Jack London Geospatial Fund at ISW is a real named fund created in 2022 and routinely credited on ISW/CTP maps (https://nmdf.org/jennifer-london-phd/; https://www.jmu.edu/news/cisr/2022/10/261-2/03-261-mathews.shtml).
  • VERIFIED (partial, one name): Daniel Mealie is an identifiable ISW geospatial analyst/deputy team lead on ISW's mapping programme (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-mealie-8148a81ba/).
  • VERIFIED: Institutional identity and joint branding are accurate — ISW is a Washington, D.C. 501(c)(3) think tank founded in 2007 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_War), and ISW and AEI's Critical Threats Project have a documented history of jointly launching interactive Iran maps (https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/institute-for-the-study-of-war-and-aeis-critical-threats-project-launch-new-interactive-map-of-iran).
? Unverified claims 9 claims ⌄
  • UNVERIFIED: That the map 'does not work if lockdown mode is enabled' on iPhone/iPad/iOS. No ISW or Esri documentation confirming this specific lockdown-mode incompatibility was located; only generic Esri Community threads about StoryMaps failing or crashing on iOS were found (https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-storymaps-questions/new-public-storymap-not-working-on-mobile-ios/td-p/1148602). Plausible but not corroborated — not marked False.
  • UNVERIFIED: That the map 'does not work on some Google Chrome browsers' on Android and requires Mozilla Firefox. No independent technical confirmation found; treated as a self-reported publisher advisory.
  • UNVERIFIED: That enabling hardware acceleration improves performance for these specific maps — generic and untestable from the text; the supporting hyperlink is truncated to '[here](' with no URL.
  • UNVERIFIED: The existence and current configuration of the 'Toggleable Iranian Nuclear, Military, and Energy Infrastructure sites' layer and the side-by-side scroll/zoom controls. These are interactive features not resolvable from static text; the search snippet for the StoryMap did not expose layer metadata.
  • UNVERIFIED: The exact map currency stated as 'February 28 - September 9, 2026, at 2:00 PM ET'. Consistent with the assessment date of 10 September 2026 and with the StoryMap being updated ~2 days prior, but the specific timestamp could not be read directly from the live product.
  • UNVERIFIED: Authorship of nine of the ten named contributors (David Schulert, Megan Ewert, Nathaniel Kramer, Carolyn Weinstein, Eliana Ornelas, Samuel McRee, Natalie Mesplay, James Thompson, Mikayla Green). Only Daniel Mealie was independently corroborated; staff-roster pages were not retrievable. No contradicting evidence found.
  • UNVERIFIED: The content and terms of 'ISW's Fair Use and Attribution Policy'. The claim that ISW asserts copyright over 'ISW Materials' is consistent with ISW's standard practice, but the linked policy URL is missing from the ingested text, so its terms could not be inspected.
  • UNVERIFIED: The accuracy, completeness and geolocation precision of the individual strike and retaliation events plotted on the map. The underlying incident dataset is not exposed in the text and was not audited; no independent replication of ISW–CTP's point data was performed.
  • PARTIALLY IMPRECISE (not False): 'daily conflict coverage'. ISW–CTP's own 4 September 2026 update states that ISW and CTP publish updates Monday through Friday, with Monday editions covering the weekend (https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-september-4-2026). 'Daily' is therefore loose shorthand for a weekday cadence rather than a factual error.
⌕ Sources & how we checked Search journal, source grades, confidence ⌄
Confidence

Medium-High (approximately 78%) — Confidence is high on publisher authenticity, on the provenance of the colour-tier methodology (matched verbatim to ISW's own 1 March 2026 announcement), and on the external chronology underpinning the page — the 28 February 2026 start date is confirmed by a parliamentary research briefing and Britannica, and continuing US–Iran strike exchanges through 9 September 2026 are confirmed by multiple dated news sources. Confidence is reduced by four factors: the live map's layers, controls and exact timestamp could not be directly rendered, only inferred from an indexed snippet updated two days before assessment; two hyperlinks were truncated in ingestion, blocking inspection of the cited fair-use policy; nine of ten named contributors could not be independently corroborated; and the substantive strike dataset itself is unauditable from the supplied text, so the trust score reflects the credibility of the framing, methodology and provenance rather than a validated accuracy rate for individual plotted incidents. A single discrepancy ('daily' versus the publisher's own stated Monday-to-Friday cadence) was recorded as imprecision rather than falsity, in line with the guardrails.

Search journal

Institute for the Study of War Critical Threats Project interactive map Iran strikes

ISW CTP "U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran" map

ISW Dr. Jack London Geospatial Fund

ISW Fair Use and Attribution Policy

US Israel strikes Iran February 28 2026 began

Iran retaliation US bases March 2026 news today

Institute for the Study of War Iran update March 2026

ArcGIS StoryMaps lockdown mode iOS map does not work swipe

Daniel Mealie ISW geospatial analyst map

understandingwar.org copyright fair use attribution policy ISW materials shapefiles

Iran war ceasefire April 8 2026 collapsed resumed strikes

ISW map "Report of Explosion without Footage" "Confirmed Airstrike" definitions Iran

Institute for the Study of War criticism bias hawkish funding defense contractors

"Critical Threats Project" "Axis of Resistance" definition Iran proxies

Iran Update September 9 2026 Critical Threats ISW

ISW Iran strikes map toggleable nuclear military energy infrastructure sites layer

Iran Strait of Hormuz closed US naval blockade September 2026

Article metrics

Emotion 7% · Reading grade 12.9 · 392 words

≡ The article we checked Full text as retrieved ⌄
This interactive map complements the daily conflict coverage that the combined ISW-CTP team produces for conflicts in the Middle East. February 28, 2026 Note for iPhone, iPad, and iOS users: This map does not work if lockdown mode is enabled. Turn off lockdown mode to view this map. Note for Android users: This map does not work on some Google Chrome browsers. Download the Mozilla Firefox web browser and open this map in Mozilla Firefox to view this map. Enabled hardware acceleration is recommended for improved performance when viewing these maps. More information on how to enable hardware acceleration is available [here]( **U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran** February 28 - September 9, 2026, at 2:00 PM ET U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran **Toggleable Iranian Nuclear, Military, and Energy Infrastructure sites** **U.S. and Israeli Strikes in Iran**_(use the scroll wheel to zoom one side of the map, use the +/- buttons to zoom both sides of the map together)_ ### US and Israeli Strikes in Iran Definitions **Confirmed Airstrike (Green)**: This denotes an airstrike that has been visually confirmed and corroborated by sources with accompanying photos or other verifiable information. **Reported Airstrike (Blue)**: This denotes an airstrike that has been reported by a source with accompanying photos or other verifiable information. **Report of Explosion with Footage (Yellow)**: This denotes a report of an unverified explosion with accompanying photos or video. **Report of Explosion without Footage (Red)**: This denotes a report of an unverified explosion without accompanying photo or video. ### Iran and Axis of Resistance Response Definition The Iran and Axis Response feature represents Iranian and Axis of Resistance retaliatory strikes against the US, Israel, and countries hosting US bases, and other targets. The feature consists of discrete kinetic events recorded by date, location, and actor. The Institute for the Study of War creates and publishes original analytical products, including maps, shapefiles, developer notes, reports, and other associated materials (together, the “ISW Materials”). These materials are protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights held by ISW. ISW's Fair Use and Attribution Policy can be read,[here]( Map by Daniel Mealie, David Schulert, Megan Ewert, Nathaniel Kramer, Carolyn Weinstein, Eliana Ornelas, Samuel McRee, Natalie Mesplay, James Thompson, and Mikayla Green © 2026 Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project. All rights reserved. Made possible by the Dr. Jack London Geospatial Fund at ISW

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