Iran has reportedly launched a covert strategy to escalate the conflict, with intercepted communications and intelligence suggesting that hard-line leaders are seeking to raise the costs for the United States and its regional allies.

According to the publication, after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran in mid-June, administration officials began working to secure support for a deal that, in their view, would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin winding down the war, UNN reported.

According to Iranian and Arab officials, "Iran's hard-line leaders gathered in Tehran and developed a different plan." "In their view, the pact was likely merely an attempt by the United States and Israel to relieve pressure on the global economy and buy time for a larger attack in the future. Instead of believing in negotiations, they spent the past two months preparing for a bigger battle," the publication says.

Their efforts reportedly "include giving the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps greater control over the country's regular army, appointing battle-hardened veterans of the war with Iraq and past domestic crackdowns to key positions, expanding domestic counterintelligence operations, and ramping up missile and drone production." The leadership, the publication writes, quickly seized the initiative by attacking ships to strengthen Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz and expand the battlefield to the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia had used to circumvent Iranian control in the Persian Gulf.

Arab intelligence officials "have gathered evidence, including communications between Iran and allied militias in countries such as Yemen and Iraq, of a strategic shift within the country's leadership - hard-liners preparing their forces to expand the war and increase the costs for the United States," officials familiar with the findings say.

"Iran's leaders are increasingly talking about offensive operations on enemy territory, raising concerns among weaker Persian Gulf countries such as Kuwait," the publication notes.