The “Fedayeen for Iran” drills began in Tehran on Friday morning, with 313,000 Iranians taking part, according to the Mehr News Agency. The gathering marks Sacred Defense Week and the 200th night of the Iranian people’s steadfastness in the face of US-Israeli aggression.
The drill began at 8:00 am, with participants from across Iran marching from Imam Hussein Square and the nearby highway intersection toward Enqelab Square.
The drill is organized under the “My Life as a Sacrifice” initiative, run by the IRGC’s Mohammad Rasoul Allah Corps. Brigadier General Hassan Hassanzadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ Mohammad Rasoul Allah Corps in Tehran, told Al Mayadeen that roughly 33 million Iranians have registered to join the initiative nationwide, with registrations in Tehran alone surpassing 400,000 ahead of Friday’s event.
On Friday morning, Iranians took to the streets to participate in the Fedayeen of Iran military and popular maneuver.
Hassanzadeh said that Friday’s event was one of the largest drills and organized popular gatherings in the country’s history, adding that “friends and enemies alike” would witness it.
Iranian officials have repeatedly affirmed that the Iranian people stand fully prepared to mobilize and make sacrifices in defense of their land, country, and national achievements.
Iran more prepared than before the 12-Day War
Speaking to Al Mayadeen ahead of the drill, Hassanzadeh said Iran is now more prepared than it was before the 12-Day War and the Ramadan War, noting that Tehran operates within a defensive strategy to protect itself, its country, its values, and its people.
He stressed that the US and “Israel” failed to defeat or destabilize Iran, and that the hostilities against the country instead strengthened national cohesion.
“Throughout history, the Iranian people have proven that whenever they face aggression, they become more united,” Hassanzadeh said.
Continued missile production
Hassanzadeh said the IRGC holds extensive military capabilities and equipment that have not yet been disclosed, adding that Iran used only a portion of its capabilities in prior confrontations. He warned that Iran’s adversaries would “experience these capabilities” if necessary.
He added that Iran’s missile and drone production and development continue at full pace without interruption, and that Iranian forces have reached a higher level of readiness to respond to any aggression targeting the country.
Riyadh Shelled, Shock in Tel Aviv… Yemen Is Being Slaughtered with Cotton Wool, Yet Saudi Arabia Is Surrendering! The F-35 Has Fallen for Good – Najah Mohammed Ali قصف الرياض وصدمة في تل أبيب.. اليمن يذبح بالقطنة والسعودية تستلم! ال f35 سقطت للأبد نجاح محمد علي
A battalion of volunteer forces parades in Tehran during the Janfada drill on September 18, 2026, as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other officials attend the event (Photo by ISNA).
The massive “Janfada-ye Iran / Sacrifice for Iran” rally began in Tehran on Friday, bringing together hundreds of thousands of people, including women, youth and other segments of the Iranian public, with simultaneous gatherings held across the country.
In Tehran, the main rally features a 313,000-strong parade stretching from Imam Hussein Square to Enghelab Square, highlighting the broad public participation in the Janfada-ye Iran campaign.
The figure 313 carries particular significance in Islamic tradition. It is associated with the Battle of Badr in 624 CE, the first major battle of the early Muslim community, whose victory became an important symbol of faith and steadfastness in Islamic history.
The rally also features a display of Iranian drones, showcasing part of the country’s indigenous unmanned aerial capabilities.
Thousands of people took part in the “Sacrifice for Iran” campaign in Tehran, staging a march from Imam Hossein Square to Enghelab Square to demonstrate national unity.
Thousands of people took part in the “Sacrifice for Iran” campaign in Tehran, staging a march from Imam Hossein Square to Enghelab Square to demonstrate national unity.
Veterans of the Sacred Defense wars have also joined the gathering, while women and Iranian youth are taking part in separate sections of the parade, according to Tasnim news agency.
Participants wearing burial shrouds have also joined the rally, symbolizing their readiness to sacrifice themselves in defense of Iran.
⚡️BREAKING: Mobilization has Begun in Tehran with the aim of Forming 1,000 Battalions and will now be Expanded to the Entire Country pic.twitter.com/p2hI6HizRH
According to General Hassan-Zadeh, commander of the Greater Tehran Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, about 500,000 people had registered in Tehran to participate in the event.
The “Janfada-ye Iran” campaign began on March 29 following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, and has since grown into a nationwide mobilization with more than 32 million participants, as a symbol of faith, steadfastness and readiness for sacrifice in defense of the country.
On the Second Anniversary of the Israeli Pager Massacre, the Wounded sent a message to affirm steadfastness and allegiance to the Resistance path, command and community.
What follows is the full text of the message:
On the second anniversary of the epic of patience and blood, when betrayal wore the cloak of technology, a light shines from the darkness of wounds that does not fade. Two years since the “pager” massacre; the enemy thought through its betrayal that it would break the will of the resistance and paralyze its community, only to be astonished when those wounds turned into a bridge of certainty, and the loss of sight became a insight illuminating the path to victory.
We stand before a story crafted by blood and limbs—a story of men who defied the impossible and wrote a new chapter of pride and dignity through their pain.
Before that fateful day, the lives of these noble men were full of vitality and vigor, flowing with tireless jihad across various fields. In their community, they were a beneficial rain, racing day and night so that no price was too high for the dignity of this proud environment. They served people with love and humility, defending their families and villages with all their strength and might. They were stern against enemies, merciful among themselves. In their homes, they were tranquility and joy—affectionate fathers, dutiful sons, and supportive husbands who filled every corner with laughter and hope. They watched their children grow day by day, caring for their comfort, sharing the smallest and largest details of life, instilling values of pride, surrounding them with overflowing affection, and leading social life with unflagging energy.
Then came that moment—the moment of betrayal that the enemy intended to be the end, but God made a passage toward a higher glory. Explosions echoed, shrapnel flew, and blood mixed with the soil. The features of the body changed, but the identity remained untouched.
Limbs that used to greet the dawn were lost, eyes that guarded the borders were extinguished, and fresh bodies were transformed into records telling stories of steadfastness. From the womb of those pains, and after a long and arduous treatment journey, these heroes did not bow to the storm, nor did they surrender to the wounds that marked their bodies as badges of honor.
The wounded of the resistance have never surrendered, and never will.
The proof lies in what we witnessed in previous stages of conflict and during the battle of “Al-Asf Al-Ma’kul” (The Eaten Chaff). Heroic fighters were injured by pagers and lost an eye, yet they unhesitatingly continued the path of jihad with their remaining eye, inspired by the resolve of Hussein. Some had a limb amputated, yet carried their weapon with the other hand, armed with the might of Abbas. Among these free men were those who continued the path until later earning the honor of martyrdom, while others suffered new injuries resulting in paralysis—yet their spirit remained vibrant and their determination was never paralyzed.
Today, these proud men pass their days not on the margins of life, but once again in the very heart of the battle. The loss of sight or limbs did not prevent them from continuing the path; they awoke to announce a new jihadi beginning. In their lexicon, jihad is not limited to carrying weapons on the frontlines; it is a vast and expansive field. They transformed into knights in the “Jihad of Clarification,” carrying the free word, pursuing knowledge, and memorizing the Holy Quran, dedicating whatever health remains to raising a resistant generation that does not break. It is the spirit that merges human emotion and deep pain with firm resolve and unrelenting Husseini might.
Our Message to Our Honorable Resistance Community: “Our Insight Is the Secret of Our Steadfastness”
O people of patience and loyalty, O environment of pride that embraced our blood and wounds: we are from you, and through you we continue. Our pledge to you is that these wounds will remain a beacon illuminating the path of honor, and that we will be nothing less than an impregnable shield for you. Your sacrifices with us and your pride in our wounds are the fuel that enables us to overcome every pain, building together an invincible resistance community.
“O our loyal people, the enemy intended through its deceit and treacherous crime to sear our consciousness, weaken our resolves, and rob us of the will to fight in order to cast despair and frustration into your hearts. But today, through our blood and wounds, we convey to you a message of pride and lofty dignity: Do not worry about us, and do not look at us with pity or defeat, for we are still in the heart of the battle. All this devotion we have offered, and all the sacrifices you have made in homes, wealth, and beautiful patience, will not be in vain, but will inevitably be crowned with a near victory, and God does not break His promise. We will break the enemy’s malicious plans, and as long as our insight pulses and our patience grows stronger, we see on the horizon nothing but the tidings of victory and a clear conquest.”
A Message to the Enemy: The Wounds Are Our Weapon
“To this brutal enemy who is ignorant of the nature of our men: You thought that by cutting hands and taking eyes you would extinguish God’s light in our hearts or deter us from the choice of resistance. Know that you are delusional; every wound in our bodies has become a mouth speaking the truth, every amputated palm has turned into a raised flag, and every lost eye has become an insight illuminating the path of the mujahideen toward Jerusalem. We say to you with the might of Abbas and the insight of Hussein: You will never be able to erase our mark, and every wound in us is a promise of your destruction. We do not die; we extend, and our wounds today are our strongest weapon with which we will disturb your sleep, and tomorrow is near for those who await it.”
A Message to the Leader of the Resistance: Remaining Faithful to the Covenant
“To his eminence, our inspiring leader and dear secretary of our resistance: O Sheikh Qassem, our wounds are our renewed oath of allegiance to you every day. A pledge to you from our hearts—which have never beat and will never beat except with loyalty—and from our bodies that take pride in what they bore in the cause of God: We are at your command, and what our bodies failed to do, our spirits and determinations will carry out. Take from our blood and wounds until you are satisfied, and know that you lead men who, even if blood flowed from their veins as rivers, would never leave the arena, nor abandon the path. We are with you, and through you we will cross to the great prayer of victory.”
To the Remnant of God on His Earth, the Master of the Era and Refuge of Hearts (may our souls be sacrificed for the dirt beneath his feet):
Peace be upon you, my master, in our trial and our patience. Peace be upon you the day you were born and the day you are raised alive to wipe over hearts that have bled with longing and wounds.
My master, O Master of the Affair… Here we stand today on the second anniversary of our wounds, carrying to you scars that we count on our bodies as badges of dignity. Yesterday we were in a position of silent giving, moving in the fields of daily jihad—planting resistance in the land and guarding the borders with eyes fixed on victory. Suddenly, on that memorable day, a door of a great test opened before us, and we transitioned from the stage of obscure field work to the threshold of bleeding wounds; a threshold where limbs and eyes were taken from us, but which granted us an unextinguishing insight and an unyielding resolve. The conditions of our bodies changed, but our hearts remained on the same covenant, moving today in a state of strategic patience, dressing the wound and continuing the journey—neither disability has sidelined us, nor has pain turned us away from supporting your religion.
My master, these wounds of ours are but a ray from the eternal Husseini revolution. We learned in the school of Karbala that the body perishes while the creed remains. Even if we have lost eyes or limbs, today we embody the might of Abbas (peace be upon him)—that might which knows no defeat. If hands are severed from us, our spirits will remain defending the tents of resistance, and if eyes are injured, we see the splendor of your coming victory with even greater clarity.
They threw us into the well of darkness, as Joseph was thrown into the depths of the pit, thinking that absence swallows the story, unaware that God was with him, and that the shirt emerging from the heart of trial was good news that loss may conceal within it the secret of reunion.
In the depth of the wound, we learned to shake the trunk of light; we do what we can, then leave it to the Unseen to drop upon us the fresh dates of His mercy. Joseph emerged from the pit as a noble ruler, Moses emerged from the river to fulfill his message, and Mary stood beneath the palm trunk carrying a secret greater than her capacity to speak. Thus, God does not ask the wounded person to be a stone that feels no pain; He only asks them to be a soul that knows how to turn its pain into a path toward Him.
O Master of the Era… Our wounds complain to you of the length of absence, and beseech God by the blood of the oppressed to hasten your honorable relief, so that we may be in your ranks as soldiers, the wounded, and martyrs.
Palestinians carry the body of Nael Abo Obeida commander of Qussan Brigades in Rafah during funeral after he was killed in an Israel attack in Khan Younis, Wednday, Sept, 16, 2026. (AP Photto/Yousef Al Zanoun)
Anonymous IOF sources claim the assassinations dealt a severe blow to the Resistance’s command, and that Hamas sees them as crossing red lines.
The Israeli occupation forces’ Southern Command is preparing for a possible response by the Palestinian Resistance after assassinating a string of senior Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, according to sources cited by “Israel’s” i24NEWS.
The report, published Wednesday by i24News’ military affairs analyst Yossi Yehoshua, says that the IOF has killed two brigade commanders, a battalion commander, and a number of company commanders in an assassination campaign in Gaza.
The anonymous sources within the Southern Command claimed the killings were a severe blow to the Resistance’s command structure and said Hamas views the assassinations as a crossing of red lines.
The IOF has therefore stepped up security measures alongside its ongoing aggression in Gaza, the sources said, running a “parallel defensive effort” to thwart any Hamas attempt to carry out an attack.
Commanders martyred in the campaign
Among those martyred were Rafah Brigade commander Nael Atiya Mohammad Abu Obeid, known as “Abu Atiya,” killed in an Israeli assassination operation on Tuesday, and Khan Younis Brigade commander Mohammed al-Yazouri, martyred in an assassination operation carried out by enemy aircraft on September 11.
Both were members of al-Qassam Brigades’ General Military Council, and both were mourned by the group in statements vowing to continue their path.
The count, published September 14, includes 1,787 live-fire attacks, 1,967 airstrikes and shelling incidents, 184 military incursions, 453 home demolitions, and 90 detention operations, amounting to roughly 14 violations a day since the ceasefire began.
The violations have killed 1,381 Palestinians, including at least 278 children, and wounded 4,757 others, with 186 Palestinians detained.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have released footage showing the downing of the Saudi F-15 fighter jet and its wreckage in Marib, while announcing another operation targeting a Wing Loong II drone.
The Yemeni Military Media released footage of the downing of a Saudi F-15 fighter jet over Marib Governorate, as the Saudi aggression against Yemen continues while the Yemeni Armed Forces respond with top-tier operations targeting hostile aircraft and enemy ground forces.
The aircraft downed by the Yemeni Armed Forces, tail number 5529, was Saudi Arabia’s most advanced F-15 variant, surpassing the older F-15C/D in radar, ground-attack capability, flight controls, countermeasures, and several other systems, and costing up to $110 million or more.
Only Qatar’s F-15QA and the newer F-15EX, which has yet to enter service in significant numbers, are more modern.
Earlier today, spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the aircraft was targeted and brought down using a homegrown surface-to-air missile, marking a successful operation against Saudi aerial aggression.
Saree said the operation comes in response to Saudi aerial aggression after Saudi warplanes carried out more than 450 airstrikes during the past week using F-15 and Typhoon aircraft launched from the Khamis Mushait and Taif air bases.
YAF down Wing Loong II over Marib
In another operation, spokesperson Yahya Saree announced that the armed forces had intercepted and successfully shot down a Saudi-operated Wing Loong II drone over Marib.
According to Saree, the aircraft was downed while carrying hostile missions over the governorate using the appropriate weapons.
The first operation targeted Saudi Aramco facilities in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, according to the statement. Saree said the strikes directly hit their targets, causing major fires and extensive damage.
The second operation targeted the Khamis Mushait airbase with several ballistic missiles. The statement said the attack also achieved a direct hit.
Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree in an image from archive.
Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced in a statement two qualitative military operations against Saudi targets in response to the Saudi aggression and ongoing siege.
What follows is the full text of the statement:
The criminal Saudi enemy continues its unjust aggression and oppressive siege against our country and our people for twelve years, and has escalated its aggression this week by launching more than 450 airstrikes targeting most Yemeni governorates.
In response to this brutal aggression against our country and people, the Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah’s help, carried out two qualitative military operations:
The first targeted the Aramco facility in Yanbu with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, the strikes were precise and direct, thanks be to Allah, causing large fires and widespread destruction.
The second targeted the Khamis Mushait Air Base with a number of ballistic missiles, and the strikes were also precise, thanks be to Allah. The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to defend our country and our people, and will teach the criminal Saudi enemy lessons they will never forget, relying on Allah Almighty and placing their trust in Him, the best of protectors and the best of helpers.
We will continue our military operations deep inside Saudi territory, targeting Saudi troop buildups, and maintaining the equation of “a siege for a siege” and “an escalation for an escalation” until the aggression ceases and the blockade on our beloved country is lifted.
The Yemeni Armed Forces on Wednesday declared a new operation in which they shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet over Marib Governorate while it was conducting hostile mission.
The aircraft was downed by a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile, Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said while reading a statement.
He said Saudi warplanes had carried out more than 450 airstrikes across seven Yemeni governorates this week, using F-15 and Typhoon aircraft launched from Khamis Mushait and Taif airbases, causing Yemeni civilian casualties.
“In the face of this brutal aggression against our country and people, the Yemeni Armed Forces, with God’s help and grace, were able to shoot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet,” Brig. Gen. Saree said.
In a related operation, Yemeni forces engaged two Saudi F-15 and Typhoon fighter formations over Marib with locally manufactured missiles, forcing them to retreat while searching for the wreckage of the downed aircraft, according to the Yemeni military spokesman.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to protect our country’s airspace and sovereignty from any aggression or violation by all available means,” he said, adding that Yemen’s airspace “will not be violated.”
In a related operation, Yemeni forces engaged two Saudi F-15 and Typhoon fighter formations over Marib with locally manufactured missiles, forcing them to retreat while searching for the wreckage of the downed aircraft, according to the Yemeni military spokesman.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to protect our country’s airspace and sovereignty from any aggression or violation by all available means,” he said, adding that Yemen’s airspace “will not be violated.”
Claims on Targeting Mecca
Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. Saree firmly rejected Saudi claims that Yemeni operations had targeted the holy sites, saying Yemen’s attacks are directed at Saudi oil facilities and military bases and “are far removed from the holy sites.”
Earlier, the Saudi-led Coalition claimed that Saudi air defenses intercepted and destroyed a Yemeni drone before it entered the restricted airspace over the holy city of Mecca.
For his part, Member of Yemen’s Ansarullah politburo Hizam Al-Assad dismissed Saudi claims as a “tired, worn-out lie.”
“No one believes anymore, O’ Jeffrey Epstein’s widows,” he said on his X account, adding an insulting reference to the Arab allies of the US.
مزاعم استهداف مكة المكرمة كذبةٌ ممجوجة استُهلكت سابقًا، ولم تعد تنطلي على أحد، يا أرامل جيفري إبستين!
A new Pentagon Inspector General Report revealed that Operation Epic Fury cost an estimated $33.4 billion between February 28 and June 30, 2026, leading to critical munitions shortages.
“Operation Epic Fury (OEF) was launched by U.S. forces on February 28, 2026, as a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. The operation was carried out through coordinated air, land, sea, cyber, and space capabilities,” the report maintained.
“Before the operation began, the United States had already strengthened its military presence and regional partnerships. Thousands of service members, fighter aircraft, refueling tankers, aircraft carriers, supplies, and intelligence assets were moved into the region. During the major combat phase from February 28 to April 7, U.S. forces reportedly struck about 13,500 targets and conducted approximately 36,000 combat sorties and more than 1,800 fire missions. Targets included missile bases, air defenses, command centers, naval facilities, weapons-storage sites, and parts of Iran’s defense industry.”
The Strait of Hormuz became a major focus of the operation because of its importance to international shipping and energy supplies, the Pentagon report added.
“A ceasefire with Iran was announced on April 7 in order to create an opportunity for negotiations, although U.S. forces remained prepared to resume combat. Diplomatic efforts continued with the involvement of Pakistan and other regional actors. On June 17, the United States and Iran signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, with Pakistan acting as mediator. The agreement included arrangements for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and proposed an initial 60-day period for negotiations on a final agreement.”
“The operation required a very large U.S. military deployment. More than 50,000 U.S. service members were deployed throughout the U.S. Central Command area. At the height of the conflict, the force included numerous fighter squadrons, destroyers, air-defense batteries, THAAD missile-defense systems, HIMARS, and part of the 82nd Airborne Division. Two carrier strike groups and two Marine Expeditionary Units also supported the operation,” the report added.
The Pentagon report indicated, “The United States also worked closely with ‘Israel’ and other regional partners. American Patriot and THAAD systems operated alongside Israeli Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome systems. Gulf countries strengthened their own air defenses with U.S. military sales, training, and information-sharing.”
“The conflict caused significant damage to U.S. military facilities and equipment. Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in several Middle Eastern countries. Dozens of U.S. aircraft were also damaged or destroyed, including fighter aircraft, refueling aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned systems. These losses increased the financial and logistical burden of sustaining the operation and replacing damaged equipment.”
“The estimated cost of Operation Epic Fury reached $33.4 billion as of June 29. This figure included $7.4 billion in additional operational obligations, $22.3 billion for expended munitions, and $3.7 billion for equipment losses. However, the estimate did not include infrastructure-repair costs or some broader economic effects. The difficulty of calculating the full cost was partly due to the fact that Congress had not provided a specific FY2026 appropriation for OEF.”
“The conflict also affected U.S. diplomatic operations throughout the region. Iranian strikes damaged U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with estimated damage of about $184 million. Approximately 3,500 diplomatic personnel were at some point on authorized or ordered departure or outside their posts. Several facilities, including U.S. diplomatic missions in Baghdad and Beirut, temporarily closed or suspended operations.”
“Protecting and evacuating American citizens became another major U.S. government responsibility,” the Pentagon report noted.
Mohsen Rezaei Appointed Sayyed Khamenei’s Representative, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary (August) 9, 2026)
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Major General Mohsen Rezaei said Iran will not enter negotiations with the United States until Tehran’s conditions are met, dismissing mixed signals from US President Donald Trump.
“Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals—from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we’re ready to talk,’” Rezaei said in a post on X in English language.
Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals—from “no negotiations” to “we’re ready to talk.” The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming. No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!
He added that “the stakes around oil and the straits have changed,” warning that “damage control won’t stop what’s coming.”
“No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!” Rezaei stressed.
Trump’s Shifted Rhetoric
The warning by the top Iranian security official came hours after US President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that “Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” while saying he would decide “whether or not the USA will choose to engage” and acknowledging that Washington was open to the idea.
The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) September 14, 2026
Trump’s latest remarks contrasted with his earlier statements. In August, he claimed that “there are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” while insisting that the naval blockade remained in place and falsely stating that the Strait of Hormuz was “open and operating.”
On the same day, however, his son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner said discussions with Iran were “probably more robust than it’s maybe ever been.”
Trump has repeatedly shifted his rhetoric, at times threatening to “keep the oil like Venezuela,” claiming Iran was “calling constantly” to negotiate, and suggesting that the war would end only after the US midterm elections.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A rapid advance by Yemen’s Ansarullah toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait has opened another strategic challenge for US President Donald Trump as the war on Iran enters its seventh month, adding pressure on Washington amid growing disruption to regional energy and shipping routes.
Ansarullah forces have advanced south along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, seizing the strategic port city of Mocha and moving toward positions around the Bab el-Mandeb, including Perim Island in the middle of the strait.
The development comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains heavily disrupted, leaving Washington facing the prospect of simultaneous pressure on two of the Middle East’s most important maritime corridors.
The widening crisis has further complicated Trump’s efforts to contain the consequences of a war that has already placed pressure on US energy prices, military resources and domestic politics.
Separately, the advance has increased pressure on Saudi Arabia, which has relied more heavily on Red Sea ports to move oil while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely constrained.
Reuters reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with Trump on Thursday and sought US military assistance against Ansarullah, but Washington has so far declined to intervene directly and has instead offered intelligence support.
Trump confirmed the conversation on Saturday and said Ansarullah had also contacted his administration and asked Washington not to become directly involved.
A senior Trump administration official said the United States remains focused on national security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, while seeking to have regional partners take the lead in addressing regional security challenges.
The situation leaves the United States facing a difficult strategic choice.
Direct military intervention against Ansarullah would open another front for US forces already engaged in the conflict with Iran, while declining to intervene could leave Saudi Arabia and its regional partners to confront the advance themselves.
Analysts and former US officials have warned that a renewed American military campaign in Yemen could require significant naval, air and intelligence resources and further strain US stocks of munitions and air-defense interceptors.
The prospect also threatens to unravel an agreement reached last year under which the United States halted bombing Ansarullah in exchange for a halt to attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Any renewed US strikes could expose American forces to missile attacks from Yemen and expand the geographic scope of the conflict.
“This was always the worst-case scenario, that the Iranians exert control not only of Strait of Hormuz but Bab el-Mandeb, two of the leading energy choke points in the world,” said David Schenker, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during Trump’s first term and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.
“It’s an enormous amount of leverage that they have in hand.”
Meanwhile, the growing pressure on Washington comes as the economic consequences of the war on Iran intensify.
The International Energy Agency said global oil supply in 2026 is expected to decline by 5.7 million barrels per day because of continuing Middle East conflict and disruptions to Persian Gulf energy routes, while Saudi oil production has fallen sharply.
Reuters has also reported that crude prices have risen above $100 a barrel amid the continuing disruption, while US fuel prices have added to domestic political pressure on the Trump administration.
The military consequences are also becoming more difficult for Washington to contain.
The advance by Ansarullah now adds another layer to that conflict, potentially forcing Washington to choose between expanding its military involvement and accepting greater pressure on regional shipping and energy routes.
“Just weeks ago, Trump adopted a strategy of squeezing Iran’s economy while keeping military conflict at levels too low to squeeze the American economy,” said Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Rear Admiral Brigadier General Ali Azmaei, indicated that the supertanker “Al Gaya” (IMO number 9325336), which intended to pass through the prohibited area in the southern Strait of Hormuz, exploded after striking naval mines.
Attempts to control the fire were to no avail, and the entire tanker was engulfed in flames. A warning regarding the danger of this illegal passage had been issued earlier, he added.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy firmly declares that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and remains under our smart control.”
Tunisian wave national flags to show support for their government in front of the prim minster’s office in Tunis, Friday, May 26, 2017. (APPhoto/Riadh Diradi)
Tunisian activists rallied in central Tunis in support of Sanaa on Sunday, expressing solidarity with Yemen amid the ongoing Saudi military campaign and blockade.
The demonstration was organized by the Tunisian Network Against Normalization, with participants saying Yemen had achieved what they described as an exceptional strategic victory in confronting the Saudi-led aggression.
“The world is witnessing these days an exceptional strategic victory achieved by the Yemeni people in confronting the aggression and blockade,” demonstrators said.
Participants raised the flags of Yemen, Iran, Palestine and Hezbollah, alongside slogans expressing support for the various fronts of the Resistance.
تونس: الناشطون المتظاهرون في العاصمة يرفعون رايات اليمن وإيران وفلسطين والحزب وشعارات داعمة لكل جبهات المـقاومـة#الميادينpic.twitter.com/BtqQVqe0H2
The demonstration comes amid renewed escalation between Sanaa and Saudi Arabia, with Yemeni officials continuing to frame their military operations as a response to the ongoing aggression and blockade.
The protesters expressed support for the Yemeni people and praised their continued retaliation against Saudi military pressure, portraying Yemen’s actions as part of a broader regional struggle against aggression.
The rally also reflected the Tunisian network’s opposition to normalization and its support for Palestinian and regional Resistance movements.
Demonstrators back Yemen’s confrontation with Saudi Arabia
The protest followed a series of developments announced by the Yemeni Armed Forces.
On Friday, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they had completed their control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait and Mayyun Island and reached the Dhubab district, amid the ongoing escalation with Saudi Arabia.
The developments came after the Yemeni Armed Forces announced a large-scale military operation on September 3 targeting what they described as Saudi military concentrations.
Sana’a said the operation was conducted in response to the continuing aggression and blockade against Yemen, as well as escalating attacks against residents and villages along the western coast.
The Yemeni military has repeatedly said it will maintain pressure on Saudi Arabia in response to attacks against Yemen.
Yemeni forces escalate operations against Saudi targets
Earlier on Sunday, Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced a military operation targeting weapons depots and command-and-control rooms at a Saudi military base in the Sharurah area.
Saree warned that Saudi Arabia would face “more severe and larger” operations if the aggression against Yemen continued.
He also warned that continued attacks would carry “grave consequences,” reiterating Sana’a’s position that escalation would be met with further escalation.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have stated that this policy rests on maintaining an equation of “blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation” until the aggression ends and the blockade on Yemen is lifted.
The Israeli enemy continued on Sunday its attacks on the various towns and areas in South Lebanon.
In this regard, Al-Manar reporter indicated that Israeli warplanes raided Ali Al-Taher area as well as the two towns of Kfartebnit and Nabatiyeh Al-Fawqa.
The Zionist artillery also targeted Kfar Roumman town. Moreover, the Israeli enemy carried out a bombing in Al-Qantara town.
Israeli occupation forces start fires among the houses of the civilians in Beit Yahoun, South Lebanon pic.twitter.com/juXUFEh2O0
Yemen’s Military Media released footage from a wide-scale military operation, showing the recapture of positions and an ambush on 10 military vehicles.
Yemen’s Military Media on Saturday released footage from the large-scale military operation “Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” showing Yemeni Armed Forces advancing along multiple fronts simultaneously.
Yemeni soldiers shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
The footage showed Yemeni forces regaining control of several areas, while one fighter said the forces were “now driving the enemy out of its positions” and preparing to liberate the remaining areas.
#WATCH | Footage published by Yemeni Military Media from the large-scale, multi-pronged military operation "And Allah God, Mightier in Power and More Severe in Punishment". pic.twitter.com/BBo75V1oOU
The operation, according to the footage, involved coordinated movements across several axes.
Yemeni forces ambush military convoy
The Yemeni Military Media‘s footage also showed a carefully planned ambush targeting a force consisting of 10 military vehicles as they attempted to flee.
Yemeni soldiers shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
During the ambush, one fighter was heard saying, “Behold the enemy armored vehicles burning.”
The footage also showed the downing of a drone belonging to the Saudi regime during the operation.
A Saudi UAV flying in Yememi’s airspace in the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
Other scenes showed Yemeni fighters saying that the enemy had used a school as a military barracks.
A Yemeni soldiers is shown on the footage shared by the Yemeni Military Media on September 12, 2026 (Screengrab)
The Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Friday that the operation, “Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was launched on September 3.
Footage shows Yemeni advances, operations
Among the feats shown in the footage are the following:
Fighters advance through the mountainous Jebel Habashi area and deploy heavy weapons and drones.
Yemeni Armed Forces ambush retreating Saudi-led coalition-aligned forces, destroying several vehicles and capturing personnel.
Fighters storm and clear fortified positions inside Khalid bin Walid School, seizing weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, and other military gear.
Destroyed and burned military vehicles following several ambushes on fleeing forces.
Fighters inspect captured personnel and equipment and secure the surrounding wreckage.
The capture of Jebel Tariq military camp, including armored vehicles, radar systems, and other military hardware left behind.
Fighters clear remaining positions and uncover ammunition caches, barracks, and intelligence material.
The operation concludes with fighters and commanders celebrating the complete capture and clearance of the area.
Al Mayadeen dissects Yemeni military operation
Al Mayadeen’s bureau chief in Yemen said the footage released from the operation was preliminary, with further footage still in the possession of the Yemeni Armed Forces.
He said the Yemeni military had been preparing for the battle for an extended period and had extensive knowledge of the region’s terrain.
The correspondent described the reported liberation of 5,400 square kilometers within a week as a remarkable development, saying the Yemeni Armed Forces had employed a direct military tactic despite the potential losses involved.
He also said the Yemeni military leadership had issued binding instructions to treat prisoners and residents of recaptured villages humanely and ethically.
5,400 km² retrieved: YAF detail western coast gains
Yesterday, the Yemeni Armed Forces said a large-scale operation launched on September 3 along Yemen’s western coast expelled Saudi-backed forces from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, covering 5,400 square kilometers.
The operation, carried out with support from local tribes, resulted in hundreds of Saudi-backed personnel being killed, wounded, or captured, while several Yemeni detainees held for years were also freed.
YAF spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation followed years of attacks on local communities and was aimed at driving out Saudi-backed forces and preventing attempts to impose Saudi control over Yemeni territory. He said Yemeni forces struck seven military divisions comprising 38 brigades and secured the retaken areas.
The YAF said their ground operations continued despite intensive Saudi air support, while their air defenses carried out 32 operations and reportedly downed nine aircraft.
They also reaffirmed that maritime navigation remains safe for all vessels except Saudi ships covered by its announced ban, pledging to maintain its “blockade for blockade” policy and respond to escalation with escalation until the aggression and blockade on Yemen end.
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Special Coverage | Sana’a confirms the continuation of its military operations and heavy losses among forces allied with Saudi Arabia. تغطية خاصة | صنعاء تؤكد مواصلة عملياتها العسكرية وخسائر فادحة في صفوف القوى المتحالفة مع السعودية
Iran launches newly acquired precision missiles towards US warships in the Persian Gulf as the Trump administration’s ‘Economic D-Day’ backfires tremendously. In this Monday’s episode of The Target Stream Mint Press News’ Robert Inlakesh takes a look at the latest developments reshaping the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic.
Tel Aviv has raised its level of alert anticipating a potential surprise attack during the Jewish holiday period of Yom Kippur, fearing that Tehran may have in store a major multi-front offensive in the coming month. Whether the fears of a large-scale missile attack are based upon dependable intelligence or not, the Israelis have decided to escalate the war on neighbouring Lebanon regardless.
The Israeli army recently claimed that it had secured full “operational control” over the strategically important Ali Al-Taher Hills area in southern Lebanon, without providing any proof that such control has in fact been established. Seemingly contradicting their claims, they have continued to launch hundreds of strikes against the Ali Al-Taher hills and its surrounding area, which is of military value due to its position overlooking southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate. An advance of this magnitude, which includes an attempt to dismantle a known missile base there, constitutes yet another flagrant violation of the shaky Lebanon ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has occasionally launched drone operations against Israeli soldiers and military vehicles, while holding itself back from reviving its daily operations against the occupying army.
On this edition of the stream we also look at the decision taken by the Ansarallah-led Yemeni government to launch new offensive actions to capture strategic locations towards the south of the country. The offensive led to major breakthroughs, including the encircling of the city of Taiz. In reaction, Saudi-proxy forces unsuccessfully launched their own counter-offensives in a bid to capture new territory in the province of al-Jawf and towards the city of Bayda.
Inlakesh also analyses the latest battle footage from Yemen, including new video documentation of the Yemeni Armed Forces using anti-personnel munitions dropped from Quadcopter drones and precision missile strikes, one of which eliminated an entire convoy of trucks carrying munitions.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also released footage of its missile strikes against US targets and for the first time drone strike documentation against tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. All of this contributes to the continued spike in oil prices, which US President Donald Trump has continually stated will begin falling.
Another issue addressed at length in the newest edition of The Target is the viral debate ongoing with Streamer Sneako, on whose show a number of guests have argued that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for more civilian deaths than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We look at what the figures actually show and why so many people are engaged in spreading disinformation that works to undermine the Gaza genocide.
As Riyadh fights 9/11 families in US courts, buried intelligence testimony points beyond the kingdom to a far more protected hand.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg Kit Klarenberg is a British investigative journalist whose work explores the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
On the eve of 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported that a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Yet evidence alleging that Saudi intelligence managed two future hijackers as potential assets and did so through a “liaison relationship” with the CIA has lain largely unexamined in plain sight. As scrutiny of Riyadh grows, the agency’s shadow remains almost entirely outside the frame.
Bayoumi has long been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival in the US in January 2000.
A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, concluded there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi (and the House of Saud by extension) had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.
Far less attention followed a year later, when a bombshell filing lodged in the Office of Military Commissions – the military court system overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – surfaced publicly.
The document summarizes classified government discovery disclosures and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents set out confidential-source allegations that the CIA sought to recruit at least Hazmi and Mihdhar, if not others who later participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate.
The declaration also alleges that the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavored “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington, D.C., embassy. According to the filing’s sources, probing those connections risked exposing the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) as a CIA “cutout” in its clandestine dealings with the future hijackers.
High-ranking FBI officials quoted in the filing discuss how the GID was a longstanding CIA “proxy,” exploited by the agency whenever it was “unwise or not practical … to undertake an operation directly.”
This need was particularly pronounced in the context of cloak-and-dagger CIA connivances conducted “on US soil.” After 25 years, it appears Riyadh could finally take the fall for a dastardly CIA operation that one way or another resulted in 9/11. As planned, there is little chance of the agency itself landing in the dock.
‘CIA team’
Among the court filing’smost dynamite excerpts is the insider testimony of an FBI special agent, who was posted to Alec Station – the CIA’s Al-Qaeda tracking unit, ultimately responsible for recruiting Hazmi and Mihdhar as assets.
When, in January 2000, the special agent learned the pair – known Al-Qaeda operatives under intensive CIA and NSA surveillance – had multi-entry visas to the US, they produced a report warning Bureau headquarters. Its dispatch was blocked by an unnamed CIA analyst.
According to the agent’s account, the same analyst directed the GID to make contact with Hazmi and Mihdhar upon their arrival, then falsely told subsequent US government inquiries that the FBI had been informed of the pair’s presence in the US.
The agent also alleged having witnessed CIA director George Tenet and operations director James Pavitt boast about how they “conspired to obstruct the 9/11 Commission” by concealing the analyst’s activities and identity from investigators.
In the process, an extraordinary, hitherto unreported component of Riyadh’s relationship with the hijackers remained determinedly unexplored. The FBI special agent alleged Hazmi and Mihdhar were explicitly provided US visas by the American consulate in Jeddah, “to facilitate the operation run by the Saudis’ GID and the CIA team.”
This disclosure is all the more tantalizing given that 15 of the 19 hijackers obtained a total of 18 visas in Saudi Arabia. Fourteen were issued at the US consulate in Jeddah, 11 of them by a single consular officer, Shayna Steinger. Many of the applications were incomplete or contained details that should have invited far greater scrutiny.
Steinger arrived at the Jeddah consulate in July 2000, fresh out of Columbia University, and went on to approve visa applications for 11 future hijackers. At the time, consular officers in Jeddah were divided over how rigorously Saudi applicants should be screened. Some argued that young Saudi men should be interviewed and required to demonstrate a clear purpose for travel, but the consulate generally followed a more permissive approach.
However, Steinger personally took it upon herself to reverse this policy. Moreover, she issued visas to future 9/11 hijackers despite their applications frequently being incomplete or error-strewn, based on forged documents, and their contents giving ample grounds for suspicion.
Steinger nonetheless interviewed Hani Hanjour, who purportedly piloted Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Afterward, she rejected his application for a three-year US visa, due to apparent doubts over his stated purposes in the country. Nonetheless, Steinger approved Hanjour’s renewed application two weeks later.
In ensuing official investigations, she offered wildly contradictory accounts of why the hijackers’ visas were granted. In Hanjour’s case, Steinger initially claimed he provided requested supporting documentation.
She subsequently admitted he actually hadn’t, but Hanjour’s “middle-class” background purportedly led her to conclude he was trustworthy.
If the court filing’s account is accurate, future 9/11 hijackers were granted entry to the US so the CIA could recruit them upon arrival, raising the troubling possibility that Steinger was acting on Agency instructions.
A network hidden in plain sight
Once Hazmi and Mihdhar touched down in Los Angeles in January 2000, almost immediately they crossed paths with Omar Bayoumi at an airport restaurant. FBI reports cited in the court filing indicate a witness who observed their meeting saw Bayoumi “dropping a piece of paper” near the pair’s table, “then striking up a conversation with them” in a manner that appeared “unnatural.” The witness relayed this account to the Bureau in 2002, but it was never publicized.
In interviews with Operation Encore investigators years later, Bayoumi maintained that his meeting with Hazmi and Mihdhar was pure happenstance. The extraordinary assistance he gave them immediately thereafter – including finding them an apartment, co-signing their lease, setting up bank accounts for them, and gifting them substantial sums toward their rent – was simply charity for fellow Muslims who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with western culture, Bayoumi asserted. But the filing offers numerous striking insights into the dark reality of his contact with the future hijackers.
For example, it appears Bayoumi was secretly instructed to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles by extremist cleric and Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs official Fahad Thumairy.
The filing cites evidence indicating Bayoumi was himself in California “to spy on local dissidents” of Saudi extraction. He was seen with the two 9/11 hijackers “on numerous occasions,” going to the extent of organizing “a social gathering for the hijackers.” We can only guess who may also have been in attendance.
Another stunning exposure in the filing concerns Hazmi and Mihdhar lodging with long-time FBI informant and asset Abdussattar Shaikh from September 2000 onwards. Shaikh failing to provide their surnames to his handler despite being asked has been known for many years.
The joint congressional and Senate intelligence committee probe into 9/11 ruled the pair’s stay with Shaikh was “the [US] intelligence community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.” Insulating Hazmi and Midhar from Bureau scrutiny may have been his explicit objective.
The filing indicates he himself “was receiving funds” from Riyadh, while simultaneously serving as an FBI informant. “Prominent” Saudis “would stay at Shaikh’s boarding house while visiting California,” it states.
His mission was “to monitor the activities of [Saudi] citizens while they were abroad.” Hani Hanjour also stayed with Shaikh alongside Hazmi, after Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia in late 2000. It appears that at every stage Stateside, the hijackers were in intimate proximity with figures connected to Saudi intelligence.
If the filing’s account that the GID was acting on the CIA’s behalf is accurate, this contact raises the obvious prospect that the agency – via its Riyadh “proxy” – was directly monitoring the movements of Hazmi, Mihdhar, and Hanjour – if not other Saudi-born hijackers – from the moment they entered the US at the agency’s direction, until 9/11 itself.
How far the CIA could have tracked or influenced their actions and movements remains unknown. The proximity described in the filing nevertheless demands an explanation.
The files Langley kept from the FBI
The established record shows that Alec Station repeatedly withheld the presence of Hazmi and Mihdhar in the US from the FBI until it was too late. The filing records how in June 2001 Station representatives showed senior Bureau officials photographs of three Al-Qaeda operatives, including Hazmi and Mihdhar.
However, the CIA refused to answer questions about the individuals in the photos, or provide identifying information. Had it done so, the FBI could have readily found Hazmi and Mihdhar’s names and addresses listed in San Diego’s local phone directory.
This was a flagrant dangle, obviously intended to gauge the Bureau’s knowledge of the identities of the individuals pictured, and their presence in the US. The filing also indicates the FBI conducted a dedicated counterintelligence investigation into Bayoumi prior to 9/11, due to suspicions that “he was operating as an intelligence officer.” Yet, when the Bureau contacted the CIA for information on Bayoumi, they were told the agency “held no files” on him at all – a “falsehood.”
In reality, the CIA maintained plentiful “operational” records on Bayoumi, which were “never passed to the FBI.” Such brazen stonewalling persisted long after 9/11. Upon learning tens of thousands of dollars had been sent from Haifa bin Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan, to Bayoumi’s wife, the Bureau attempted to subpoena their financial records from Washington, D.C.’s Riggs Bank. Per the filing, “officials at Riggs thwarted the FBI’s efforts to obtain the records for a year.”
Riggs Bank, which counted US presidents and CIA-installed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as clients, collapsed amid major money laundering scandals in 2005. Post-9/11 investigations identified financial improprieties in accounts held by several wealthy Saudis – including a lack of required background checks and consistent failure to alert regulators over large transactions violating federal banking laws.
Riggs’s downfall precisely mirrors the unceremonious end of many confirmed CIA front banks past, such as Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which assisted criminal cloak-and-dagger connivances including Iran/Contra.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the filing records how “diplomatic pressure” was exerted on the FBI not to investigate Riyad’s myriad connections to 9/11. Bureau agents testifying to the joint inquiry into the attacks were moreover “instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.”
Senior officials at FBI headquarters knew “of both Bayoumi’s affiliation with Saudi intelligence and … the existence of the CIA’s operation to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar,” but “suppressed investigations” into these burning matters.
The filing concludes by noting Bayoumi was subsequently arrested in Britain on immigration charges immediately after 9/11, with authorities finding “extremist literature in his apartment.” The significance of this disclosure has gone entirely unnoticed since 2022.
Only now, as a result of the New York court case, has the media acknowledged how, within days of the attacks, “game-changing” evidence directly implicating Bayoumi in 9/11 was seized from his British home by counterterror police, then shared with the FBI, which British investigators say failed to provide crucial information in return.
The evidence Britain could not pursue
The seized material reportedly included a phonebook listing over two dozen Saudi government officials in the US and Saudi Arabia; flight simulator software; tickets and travel documents; and a notepad featuring a sketch of an aircraft.
An accompanying note from a British counterterrorism officer stated of the latter: “contains handwritten notes mathematical calculations re height of planes.” A member of the 9/11 families’ legal team behind the court action told BBC, “it’s the mathematical calculation of the [Pentagon] crash.”
By 22 September 2001, this seemingly incontrovertible windfall was in the Bureau’s possession. So too were highly illuminating home video tapes of Bayoumi roaming around Washington, D.C. in 1999, highlighting security measures in place at the Capitol building, openly discussing nearby Reagan National Airport, and referencing an unspecified “plan” on camera. Other tapes feature Bayoumi in close quarters with senior Al-Qaeda figures such as US-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, assassinated in a September 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.
While British detectives apparently believed the evidence could support an extradition request, the FBI did not supply the material needed to sustain one. Bayoumi was released after seven days without charge and later returned to Saudi Arabia.
The US response takes on darker significance alongside allegations that the CIA used its Saudi liaison to approach Hazmi and Mihdhar while withholding their presence from the FBI.
It does, however, strengthen the case for investigating whether an aborted recruitment operation was concealed after ending in catastrophe. Media reluctance to examine the filing’s “proxy” allegations ensures that question remains safely outside the courtroom.
We must ask ourselves whether the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which permitted the families of 9/11 victims to sue Riyadh in US courts, was purposefully passed to keep the House of Saud in line.
Successive Saudi governments have fought tooth and nail to overturn the legislation, while released correspondence indicates that Saudi representatives sought help from convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to lobby for its repeal behind closed doors.
JASTA proved controversial in some quarters, with some critics warning it could trigger reciprocal legislation in foreign countries, given criminal US activities abroad. Legal experts argued it undercut the principle of sovereign immunity.
The plaintiffs’ evidence may yet establish that Saudi officials provided material support to the hijackers. The military filing raises a separate and more dangerous question: whether some of those officials were acting as a CIA cutout in their dealings with future 9/11 hijackers.
But the CIA is not a defendant in the civil action, and Bayoumi is not personally on trial. The state-secrets privilege has repeatedly shielded the agency’s clandestine operations from meaningful judicial scrutiny.
Unless the alleged liaison channel is examined, the Saudi case may expose one layer of the 9/11 support network while leaving the most protected layer untouched.
Arab states have spent billions on US weapons, only to discover that the decisive layer of military power was never included in the sale.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Kamran Yeganegi @DYeganegi Dr. Kamran Yeganegi is an Iranian academic and researcher specializing in energy diplomacy, geopolitics, AI governance, and public policy. He is an assistant professor, university adviser, board member of the Iranian Industrial Engineering Association, and contributor to MEM and IRNA.
Arab governments may hold legal title to some of the world’s most advanced weapons, yet ownership does not confer operational sovereignty. A fighter aircraft without approved munitions, spare parts, software updates, mission data, or specialist maintenance is an expensive object on a runway.
Washington does not need a secret button to switch off an ally’s arsenal. Control over the system surrounding the weapon can produce the same result gradually, selectively, and under the cover of contracts, export rules, and routine technical support.
The arsenal behind the umbrella
According to SIPRI’s 2021–25 data, the US supplied 54 percent of all major arms imported by states in the “Middle East.” Saudi Arabia alone accounted for 6.8 percent of global arms imports, while Qatar took 6.4 percent and Kuwait 2.8 percent.
These purchases include combat aircraft, air and missile defenses, precision weapons, sensors, and command systems. Each platform also binds the buyer to the supplier’s technical ecosystem for years to come.
These systems are designed to function together through radar coverage, secure communications, identification systems, training, and US-compatible doctrine. Dependence therefore extends beyond individual weapons. Disrupting one support layer can reduce the effectiveness of several connected capabilities.
The dependency is visible in Washington’s own rules. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency calls major Foreign Military Sales a “Total Package Approach,” covering not only the platform but training, technical assistance, software, ammunition, follow-on support, and intelligence mission data.
Each element is also a potential point of control. A buyer can own the airframe while relying on the US for the data that defines threats, the software that integrates sensors, the missiles that arm it, and the expertise that returns it to service. This is the institutional foundation beneath the so-called American protection umbrella.
No magic button required
Public debate often reduces this relationship to a literal remote “kill switch.” The Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office denied in 2025 that such a switch exists, and that there is no verified public evidence that Washington can transmit a command that instantly grounds every exported US aircraft or disables every missile.
That denial addresses the narrowest version of the claim. It does not remove the deeper dependency. Modern weapons are sustained by software releases, cryptographic material, threat libraries, proprietary test equipment, source-controlled components, and supply chains that remain beyond the buyer’s sovereign control.
The F-35 makes this structure unusually visible. Its Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is being replaced by the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN. The program office describes ALIS as the system that turns aircraft maintenance data into decisions that keep jets flying, while the US Government Accountability Office has documented the difficulties surrounding its replacement.
Foreign operators do not receive unrestricted control over the aircraft’s core software. The US decided to withhold the F-35 source code even from partner countries. That does not mean a jet requires Washington’s permission before every takeoff, but it places long-term modernization, fault diagnosis, mission-data support, and much of the sustainment chain inside a US-led system.
The limits of GPS control
The same distinction applies to satellite-guided weapons. JDAM kits, Excalibur artillery rounds, and other precision munitions use GPS alongside inertial navigation. Their reliance on a US-operated constellation creates an obvious strategic vulnerability, particularly where access to encrypted military signals, updates, or compatible mission-planning equipment is restricted.
But the claim that Washington can revive “Selective Availability” to degrade civilian or export GPS over one chosen country is inaccurate. The US government ended Selective Availability in May 2000 and later removed the feature from new GPS satellites. The old mechanism also affected the constellation globally rather than creating a neat, country-sized exclusion zone.
The loss or denial of GPS would not necessarily turn every guided weapon into an unguided one. Systems combining satellite and inertial navigation can retain some capability, usually with degraded accuracy. Nor is there credible public evidence that Excalibur rounds or modern anti-tank missiles contain a remotely activated US software lock that makes a launcher reject them as “unverified.”
Washington’s real leverage lies elsewhere. It controls which munitions are exported, in what quantities, which upgrades and encryption standards are released, and whether depleted stocks are replenished during wartime. An arsenal can be neutralized without an invisible signal ever crossing the sky.
Saudi Arabia: The aircraft stays, the mission changes
Saudi Arabia’s F-15 fleet illustrates the distinction between possessing a platform and controlling its full combat potential. In February 2026, the US approved a possible $3-billion F-15 sustainment package covering spare and repair parts, classified and unclassified software, technical documentation, training, and US government and contractor support.
The package contains no new fighter fleet. Its value lies in keeping the existing one operational, exposing how a combat aircraft remains tied to decisions made long after the original sale.
This dependence became political leverage during the Yemen war. In February 2021, former US president Joe Biden declared: “We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”
The White House statement simultaneously promised continued support for Saudi territorial defense. Riyadh retained its aircraft and air defense systems, but Washington drew a line between the missions it would continue to enable and those it would restrict.
Iraq purchased 36 F-16s from the US, but the fleet’s readiness remained heavily dependent on American technical personnel. In May 2021, Lockheed Martin withdrew its maintenance team from Balad Air Base after repeated attacks by resistance factions.
The decision was taken for security reasons, not as punishment by Washington. Its military effect was nevertheless revealing. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that the withdrawal was likely to limit fleet operations.
The episode exposed the extent of Iraq’s dependence. If the departure of contractors could restrict fleet operations, Washington could exert similar pressure by suspending export licenses, contracts, or technical support. Iraq owned the jets but not the full chain needed to keep them flying.
The UAE negotiates the limits of sovereignty
The Emirati case shows that leverage can be exercised before a platform arrives. A proposed $23 billion package included 50 F-35 fighters, up to 18 MQ-9 armed drones, and advanced munitions. Negotiations stalled amid US concerns about China’s technological presence in the UAE and the conditions attached to operating the aircraft. Explaining Abu Dhabi’s suspension of the talks in 2021, an Emirati official cited “technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and cost/benefit analysis.”
Those “sovereign operational restrictions” exposed the limits of the deal. Washington had no Emirati aircraft to disable; it used its grip over the technology to dictate the terms of access before a single jet was delivered. The kill switch came with the sale itself.
Washington pulls the plug on Turkiye
Turkiye provides the clearest regional case. It was not merely an F-35 customer but a NATO ally and manufacturing partner producing hundreds of components. Turkish firms had invested in the program, Ankara had paid roughly $1.4 billion, and Turkish pilots had already begun training in the US.
After Ankara accepted Russia’s S-400 air defense system, the Pentagon removed it from the F-35 program. A senior US defense official stated: “Turkey can choose to acquire the S-400 or the F-35. It cannot have both.” The Pentagon then began unwinding Turkiye’s participation, despite Ankara’s investment, industrial role, and alliance status.
The episode is more concrete than claims that US software would stop a Turkish F-35 from targeting Greek forces. No credible public evidence shows that NATO identification-friend-or-foe coding automatically prevents weapons from locking onto allied aircraft and ships, or that Washington can remotely freeze a Turkish mission computer once a target is selected.
Washington’s power was exercised long before the aircraft could take flight. It blocked delivery, expelled Turkish firms from the production chain, ended pilot training, and withheld access to software and maintenance. The aircraft did not have to be remotely grounded because the US ensured that Turkiye never received it.
Ankara’s response has been to place greater weight on the domestically developed KAAN fighter and to seek alternative procurement routes. Yet Turkiye has also continued to pursue a return to the F-35 program, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying in 2025 that technical-level talks had resumed.
An architecture of permission
None of these cases proves that Washington possesses a hidden code capable of remotely disabling every exported weapon. Nor does it need one. The real kill switch runs through ammunition approvals, spare parts, software, technical data, contractors, training, mission files, and upgrades.
Each pressure point can be presented as an ordinary administrative, legal, or contractual decision. Together, they define the boundaries of military autonomy and allow Washington to impose costs selectively without announcing that an ally’s arsenal has been switched off.
Washington’s leverage has limits. Arab states can turn to European or Chinese suppliers or develop weapons at home, while US pressure does not always force a change in policy. But replacing an established military system takes years, and combat readiness cannot wait.
Arab states own the hardware, while Washington retains considerable influence over the readiness of those weapons, the missions they can sustain, and the strategic choices they can support.
Israeli massive bombing operation of Ali Al-Taher in southern Lebanon (Thursday, September 11, 2026).
The Israeli army withdrew its forces from Ali Al-Taher Heights in southern Lebanon following a massive bombing operation, positioning occupation troops in rear lines in the Shaqif area, Israeli army radio reported on Friday.
The broadcaster said Israeli forces would seek to exercise fire control over the strategic heights and confront any attempt by Hezbollah to return to the area.
According to Israeli army radio, the operation to seize Ali Al-Taher Hill lasted three months and involved fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. It claimed Israeli forces offered the fighters the option of surrendering and raising a white flag, but they refused and continued fighting.
The Hebrew newspaper Maariv similarly reported that Israeli forces gave Hezbollah fighters on the hill a choice between surrender and death.
“Israeli army gave Hezbollah fighters stationed in Ali Al-Taher the choice between surrender and death. The fighters refused to surrender and engaged Israeli forces in clashes, some at point-blank range,” the Israeli daily’s Avi Ashkenazi wrote.
He likened Hezbollah fighters’ battle in Ali Al-Taher to the Battle of Karbala.
Channel 12 cited estimations within the Israeli army that Hezbollah fighters could have withdrawn and surrendered but chose to remain. It added that the occupation army said Hezbollah repeatedly sought to reinforce the entrenched fighters, evacuate the wounded and deliver supplies throughout the operation.
The massive Israeli bombardment of the Ali Al-Taher Heights on Thursday also triggered a 4.1-magnitude earthquake detected in southern Lebanon, according to the US Geological Survey. Lebanese reports said the strikes involved more than 1,000 tons of explosives.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the explosions completely blocked the Al-Khardali road after falling rocks and debris made the route impassable. The road had already been restricted to military traffic, with army buses using it to travel toward Marjayoun and Hasbaya. The army was forced to use the Bekaa road as an alternative route after the latest debris blocked the passage.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon continued at dawn, with Israeli forces detonating explosives on a hill in Baraashit and shelling Wadi Al-Hujayr. Israeli aircraft also raided Al-Mansouri amid a heavy demolition campaign, while the National News Agency reported that Israeli forces destroyed most of the town’s public school, leaving only a small section standing.
Sanaa now holds a command position on the Yemeni side of Bab al-Mandab, a corridor carrying global trade, energy supplies and some of the world’s most important subsea cables (Illustrated by Batoul Chamas for Al- Mayadeen English)
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced Friday that a large-scale operation launched earlier this month had expelled Saudi-backed formations from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, culminating in the capture of the historic Red Sea port of al-Mokha and the advance to Dhubab and Mayyun Island, which sits at the narrowest point of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
In a statement issued Thursday, YAF spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation, codenamed “And Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was launched September 3 and covered 5,400 square kilometers, striking seven military divisions comprising 38 brigades and downing nine Saudi aircraft.
The Saudi-backed government confirmed to AFP that the YAF had completed its takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island, while officials told Reuters that their own forces had withdrawn from the island.
The YAF released a statement on Friday detailing the operation they carried out on September 9 along Yemen's western coast, saying it was conducted along several fronts with the participation and support of the Yemeni people and their tribes.
What changed hands this week was a stretch of coastline that sits astride one of the world’s most important maritime choke points, a position that took a Saudi-Emirati coalition close to three years to build the first time around and that Sanaa has now retaken in a matter of days.
Why Bab al-Mandab, al-Mokha matter
Bab al-Mandab, Arabic for the Gate of Tears, connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, making it one of the world’s most critical maritime choke points. Roughly 10 to 15 percent of global maritime trade and millions of barrels of crude oil and fuel daily transit through this narrow channel toward the Suez Canal. Whoever commands the coastlines of Bab al-Mandab holds decisive leverage over the trade routes linking Asia, the Arab world, and Europe.
In the past few days, headlines were flooded with reports about the Yemeni city of al-Mokha as Sanaa reclaimed it from Saudi-backed forces.
The coastal city overlooks the significant Bab al-Mandab Strait, positioning yet another maritime chokehold as a major piece in the grand… pic.twitter.com/0kXBk7dpgH
Commanding those coastlines starts with commanding the port that sits closest to them. That is what makes al-Mokha, rather than any other point on Yemen’s western coast, the city worth fighting over.
Long before it was a military prize, al-Mokha was the reason the word “mocha” exists at all. From the 16th to the early 18th century, the port was the dominant hub of the world’s coffee trade, exporting beans grown in Yemen’s cooler highlands and carried down to the coast by caravan.
Located on Yemen’s southwestern coast, the city and port of al-Mokha sit roughly 75 kilometers north of the narrowest passage of Bab al-Mandab. Consolidating control over al-Mokha and the surrounding coastal districts gives Sanaa solid territorial depth along the western coast, extending its reach south from Hodeidah and removing what had been the principal base of forces aligned with the Saudi-backed government.
Territorial depth is only the first layer of what changed on September 10. The second is what that depth actually gives the YAF control of.
What control of al-Mokha means
Control of al-Mokha and the coastal districts around it grants the YAF immediate coastal radar oversight, launch positions, and monitoring vantage points over the shipping lanes running through Bab al-Mandab.
It strengthens the YAF’s ability to enforce its declared restrictions on Israeli-linked shipping and hostile vessels, and it tightens the pressure on the occupied port of Eilat by further constraining its already crippled southern maritime access.
What the YAF took control of on the ground was not empty coastline. Al-Mokha’s port was rehabilitated by the UAE, and its airport runway, along with military camps including Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, the command headquarters for forces on the western coast, had served for years as the operational backbone of a Saudi-Emirati-backed military presence.
Beyond the obvious: What else transits Bab al-Mandab
Oil tankers are the most visible traffic through Bab al-Mandab, but they are far from the only cargo that makes the strait matter. Beneath the surface, roughly 15 to 17 subsea fiber-optic cable systems carry a substantial share of the data traffic connecting Europe, East Africa, West Asia, and South Asia, making the strait a crucial node for global digital communications as much as for shipping.
Wheat, rice, sugar, and fertilizer move through this corridor alongside crude and LNG, a category of food security and agricultural trade that US officials have repeatedly flagged when assessing the risks of a Bab al-Mandab disruption.
As news broke of the YAF’s control over the coast overlooking Bab al-Mandab, the US national average diesel price crossed $6 a gallon for the first time in history, reaching roughly $6.06 on September 11. The rise came as markets absorbed a widening set of pressures, from the US war on Iran and the subsequent disruption of Gulf energy flows to tight inventories and refinery constraints, with Yemen’s advance compounding the sense that Washington now faces mounting risk at two chokepoints instead of one.
Bab al-Mandab, Hormuz together
With Bab al-Mandab now in the hands of Sanaa and the Strait of Hormuz under Tehran’s control, the Axis of Resistance gains more leverage in facing Western imperialist agendas in the region.
The two chokepoints do not hand Iran and Yemen a single, unified command over the flow of West Asian energy, but they give aligned forces complementary pressure points on both maritime gateways serving the Arabian Peninsula, at a moment when Saudi Arabia has increasingly rerouted its own crude exports through the Red Sea to avoid the risks at Hormuz.
Years to build, days to lose
The coastline Sanaa now holds took the Saudi-UAE coalition nearly three years to secure the first time, and it never captured the whole of it. Coalition-backed forces took Bab al-Mandab and Mayyun Island in October 2015, seven months after the Saudi-led aggression began.
Al-Mokha did not fall until January 2017, some 22 months later, in an operation known as “Golden Spear”, while coalition forces did not reach the outskirts of Hodeidah until June 2018, more than three years into the war, and the push stalled there after the Stockholm Agreement froze the front in December 2018. Sanaa retained Hodeidah and the northern Red Sea coast throughout.
The UAE turned al-Mokha into the principal base of Tareq Saleh’s “National Resistance Forces,” growing the force from an initial nucleus of roughly 3,000 fighters to about 20,000, while stationing its own officers there, paying salaries, supplying weapons and vehicles, and rehabilitating the port itself.
On Mayyun Island, construction on a military runway began in late 2016, was abandoned, then resumed years later. By 2021, satellite imagery showed a completed 1.85-kilometer runway with three hangars, and the UAE sought a 20-year lease over the island.
Saudi Arabia picked up much of the financing after the UAE’s drawdown, continuing to pay the “National Resistance Forces” and fund reconstruction projects in the area.
Why the collapse happened so fast
Until shortly before al-Mokha fell, reports from the western coast had pointed to government advances, not retreat, after a week of fighting that saw Saudi-backed forces briefly recapture some of the ground they had lost. Their lines then collapsed within hours on September 10.
Ansar Allah’s explanation for that collapse centers on command structure. Political Bureau member Hizam al-Assad told Al Mayadeen the entry of the YAF into the western coastal areas was widely welcomed by local residents and that the operation was an internal one aimed at restoring Yemeni sovereignty over Yemeni territory.
Retired Brigadier General Ali Abi Raad, a strategic military expert, told Al Mayadeen the coalition’s defeat was the product of a fundamentally divided force, describing the roughly 30,000 fighters aligned with Tareq Saleh, a member of the Saudi-backed presidential council, and the “Giants Brigades” as a patchwork of Salafist, jihadist, and mercenary elements with Arab and Western nationalities among them, and no single unified command.
The YAF, by contrast, is described as having built its campaign under one command structure over two full years since the start of its operations in solidarity with Gaza, developing domestically manufactured missiles and drones that gave it a decisive edge.
The “National Resistance Forces” and the “Giants Brigades” had been marketed for years as an elite, specially trained counterweight to the Yemeni Armed Forces, equipped and funded by Saudi Arabia. Whatever the precise mix of factors behind their sudden withdrawal, the result was a collapse that undid in days what had taken the coalition the better part of three years to build the first time around.
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced major military gains against Saudi-backed forces along Yemen’s western coast, revealing that a large-scale operation launched earlier this month resulted in the expulsion of Saudi-backed formations from six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates and the capture, killing, and wounding of hundreds of their personnel.
In a statement issued on September 11, the YAF spokesperson, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said the operation, launched on September 3 and codenamed “And Allah Is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment,” was carried out across multiple axes with extensive participation from Yemeni forces and local tribes.
The operation was launched following years of escalating attacks by Saudi-backed formations against residents, villages, and local communities along the western coast. Residents of the affected areas had repeatedly appealed to the Yemeni Armed Forces to intervene, prompting the military operation aimed at driving out enemy forces and preventing attempts to impose Saudi control over Yemeni territory, the Saree said in the statement.
#WATCH | Videos circulating on social media showed YAF driving down the tarmac of al-Mokha airport following the liberation of the coastal city.
The western Yemeni city, overlooking Bab al-Mandab, was captured by Yemeni forces on Thursday after Saudi-backed forces fled the city.… pic.twitter.com/Md9yXrcNGZ
The forces said the areas had subsequently become “secure and stable,” marking a significant territorial gain along Yemen’s western coast.
The statement also said Yemeni forces struck seven military divisions belonging to the Saudi-backed formations, which together comprised 38 military brigades.
Hundreds of personnel from those formations were killed, captured, or wounded during the operation, the Yemeni Armed Forces revealed.
The military also announced the liberation of several Yemeni detainees who had been held for years by Saudi-backed forces along the western coast, hailing their liberation as another major outcome of the offensive.
#WATCH | Footage circulating on social media captures the joy of Yemeni prisoners held by forces backed by the Saudi enemy along the country's West Coast, following the liberation of these areas by the Yemeni Armed Forces.#Yemen#SaudiArabia#AlMayadeenpic.twitter.com/6QeFeDKx2B
Saree said the YAF ground operation continued despite intensive Saudi air support provided to the formations targeted by the operation. “Despite the heavy air cover from the Saudi enemy in support of its forces, the enemy failed, by God’s grace, to influence the operation,” the statement said.
The Yemeni forces further reported that its air defenses carried out 32 operations to repel Saudi warplanes, resulting in the downing of nine aircraft.
The statement saluted Yemeni fighters and the people and tribes for their role in the operation, commending the “high level of awareness” demonstrated by the Yemeni public in confronting Saudi-backed media campaigns, enemy propaganda, and disinformation.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that maritime navigation is safe for all companies except Saudi vessels that were previously subject to the announced ban,” the statement said.
The forces vowed to continue enforcing its broader deterrence policy, declaring that it would maintain the “blockade for blockade” equation, strike Saudi-backed military formations, and respond to escalation with escalation.
Concluding the statement, Saree reaffirmed the YAF’s commitment to the struggle for liberation, independence, and the restoration of national sovereignty, while praising the Yemeni people and tribes for their continued support.
“Long live Yemen, free, dignified, and independent,” he said, concluding with a declaration of victory for Yemen and “all the free people of the nation.”
Strategic Bab al-Mandab secured as Yemen emerges in triumph
Earlier today, the Yemeni Armed Forces advanced along Yemen’s western coast, reaching Dhubab and the area overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait after taking control of al-Mokha and other key Red Sea positions.
In the past few days, headlines were flooded with reports about the Yemeni city of al-Mokha as Sanaa reclaimed it from Saudi-backed forces.
The coastal city overlooks the significant Bab al-Mandab Strait, positioning yet another maritime chokehold as a major piece in the grand… pic.twitter.com/0kXBk7dpgH
The Saudi-backed government confirmed the YAF had taken control of Bab al-Mandab and strategic Mayyun Island, while Saudi-backed officials told Reuters that their forces had withdrawn from Perim Island.
The advance has also placed Saudi-backed forces on the Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands under siege, with sources saying more than 2,000 personnel were trapped there and appealing for food, water, rescue, and air support.
The YAF have additionally taken al-Khokha, Hays, and al-Wazi’iyah, while seizing key military positions around al-Mokha, including Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, the command headquarters for forces deployed along the western coast.
The rapid gains have been described by The Guardian as a “strategic disaster” for Washington and Riyadh, while Israeli Channel 14 called the capture of al-Mokha a strategic development with potentially far-reaching repercussions.
Yemenis hold posters of martyr leader Ali Khanenei next to giant Iranian flag asthey protest the US aggresion against Iran in Sanaa, March 6, 2026 (AP)
Iran has called for the immediate resumption of dialogue over Yemen, saying the country’s issues cannot be resolved through a continued blockade or military confrontation.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Tehran’s position that Yemen’s independence, national sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected and that the “illegal and inhumane blockade” imposed on the country must end.
The ministry said security and stability in West Asia and the Red Sea region could not be achieved without respecting the legitimate rights and dignity of the Yemeni people.
The statement added that the current developments in Yemen must be understood in the context of events unfolding over more than a decade.
Iran urges dialogue as West Asia faces escalating aggression
It stressed that the Yemeni people, as heirs to a “brilliant civilization and history,” have the right to live in dignity, free from pressure, intimidation and an unjust blockade, with their national sovereignty and territorial integrity fully respected.
Iran also emphasized the need to consider the interests of the Islamic Ummah, particularly as West Asia faces “unprecedented aggression, oppression, and expansionism” by the Zionist entity, with the complicity of the United States.
Furthermore, the statement called for the immediate resumption of dialogue under the agreed-upon roadmap and urged the implementation of its provisions, adding that Tehran was prepared to offer “any good offices” to help advance the process.
US seeks Red Sea control while outsourcing regional security role
In a related development, a senior US official, speaking to Al Mayadeen, said Washington was focused on protecting its core national security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, while enabling regional partners to take the lead in addressing regional security challenges.
“The United States is focused on protecting our core national security interests — such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea — while empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges. We are in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Yemen Government regarding regional stability,” the senior US official said in remarks to Al Mayadeen.
YAF take control of key areas, military sites in Mokha, west of Taiz
The Yemeni forces have taken control of key areas and military positions in the coastal district of al-Mokha, west of Taiz Governorate, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported on Thursday.
In detail, our correspondent revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, which serves as the command headquarters for military forces on the western coast.
This development comes as the YAF made advances in several areas, taking control of al-Wazi’iyah, al-Khokha, and Hays, before reaching the outskirts of the city of al-Mokha.
It is worth noting that the area of the districts of Hays and al-Khokha to the south of the coastal Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea exceeds 1,050 square kilometers, local sources told Al Mayadeen.
The YAF advances come as the Saudi aggression across Yemen continues, with the aim of supporting and reinforcing Saudi military mobilizations on the ground.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported on Thursday that Saudi aircraft had carried out around 40 airstrikes over the previous several hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeidah, al-Jawf, and Marib.
Continued Saudi aggression warrants a response until it stops: Sanaa
The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sanaa said on Thursday that continued Saudi aggression and violations of Yemen’s sovereignty warrant a response until the attacks stop.
In a statement, the Ministry said the Saudi regime’s continued airstrikes targeting Yemeni provinces and its violations of Yemen’s sovereignty necessitate a response until the aggression ends.
It asserted that the Yemeni Armed Forces are responsible for defending the country’s sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and responding to the sources of fire, adding that such actions are carried out in a manner that does not conflict with international law.
Saudi military build-up necessitated YAF response
The Ministry also said Saido Arabia’s recent military build-up on Yemeni territory has necessitated a Yemeni Armed Forces’ response.
It further accused Riyadh of using continued “wailing and outcry” to cover up ongoing crimes against the Yemeni people. It said the latest aggression included hundreds of airstrikes on several Yemeni provinces.
The Ministry also said Yemen “has not and will not pose a threat,” arguing that the country seeks to build relations based on mutual respect. It noted that Yemen was prepared to participate in a regional security system, particularly in protecting navigation, in partnership with coastal states.
The Ministry called on the international community to assess the course of events objectively and compel Saudi Arabia to stop targeting Yemen, violating its sovereignty, and tampering with its resources.
What you need to know
The accelerating developments follow the Yemeni Armed Forces’ announcement in July that the 2022 truce with Saudi Arabia had collapsed following Saudi Arabia’s aggression on Sanaa International Airport.
In response, the Yemeni forces targeted several Saudi economic facilities, including oil refineries operated by Aramco and Abha Airport.
They also imposed a maritime ban on vessels arriving in or departing from Saudi Arabia, as part of the “airport for airport and siege for siege” equation.
Recently, the Yemeni Armed Forces have been engaging in confrontations with Saudi-backed forces across several provinces, after launching preemptive strikes against their military mobilizations.
Ansar Allah fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in Gaza Strip and against the US aggresionon Yemen outside Snaa January 22, 2044 (AP)
Sanaa’s Foreign Ministry says Yemen’s Armed Forces are tasked with defending national sovereignty and protecting citizens as Saudi aggression continues across several provinces.
The Yemeni forces have taken control of key areas and military positions in the coastal district of al-Mokha, west of Taiz Governorate, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported.
In detail, our correspondent revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of Khalid Camp Base and Jabal al-Nar Camp, which serves as the command headquarters for military forces on the western coast
This development comes as the YAF made advances in several areas, capturing al-Wazi’iyah, al-Khokha, and Hays, before reaching the outskirts of the city of al-Mokha.
It is worth noting that the area of the districts of Hays and al-Khokha to the south of the coastal Hodeidah governorate on the Red Sea exceeds 1,050 square kilometers, local sources told Al Mayadeen.
The YAF advances come as the Saudi aggression across Yemen continues, with the aim of supporting and reinforcing Saudi military mobilizations on the ground.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported that Saudi aircraft had carried out around 40 airstrikes over the previous several hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeidah, al-Jawf, and Marib.
Continued Saudi aggression warrants a response until it stops: Sanaa
The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sanaa said continued Saudi aggression and violations of Yemen’s sovereignty warrant a response until the attacks stop.
In a statement, the Ministry said the Saudi regime’s continued airstrikes targeting Yemeni provinces and its violations of Yemen’s sovereignty necessitate a response until the aggression ends.
It asserted that the Yemeni Armed Forces are responsible for defending the country’s sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and responding to the sources of fire, adding that such actions are carried out in a manner that does not conflict with international law.
Saudi military build-up necessitated YAF response
The Ministry also said the Saudi regime’s recent military build-up on Yemeni territory has necessitated a Yemeni Armed Forces’ response.
It further accused the Saudi regime of using continued “wailing and outcry” to cover up ongoing crimes against the Yemeni people. It said the latest aggression included hundreds of airstrikes on several Yemeni provinces.
The Ministry also said Yemen “has not and will not pose a threat,” arguing that the country seeks to build relations based on mutual respect. It noted that Yemen was prepared to participate in a regional security system, particularly in protecting navigation, in partnership with coastal states.
The Ministry called on the international community to assess the course of events objectively and compel the Saudi regime, as it put it, to stop targeting Yemen, violating its sovereignty, and tampering with its resources.
Saleh orders establishment of an alternative command center
Vice Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council Lieutenant General Tariq Saleh, meanwhile, instructed the Saudi-backed forces on the western coast to reorganize their ranks.
“We ordered the establishment of an alternative command center in a safe location to regroup the forces in consultation with the leadership of the Arab coalition and the Presidential Leadership Council,” he said.
What you need to know
The accelerating developments follow the Yemeni Armed Forces’ announcement in July that the 2022 truce with Saudi Arabia had collapsed following Saudi Arabia’s aggression on Sanaa International Airport.
In response, the Yemeni forces targeted several Saudi economic facilities, including oil refineries operated by Aramco and Abha Airport.
They also imposed a maritime ban on vessels arriving in or departing from Saudi Arabia, as part of the “airport for airport and siege for siege” equation.
Recently, the Yemeni Armed Forces have been engaging in confrontations with Saudi-backed forces across several provinces, after launching preemptive strikes against their military mobilizations.
Professor Mohammad Marandi n Al Mayadeen’sthe Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, September 8, 2026 (Screen)
Iran’s reported capture of a US unmanned underwater vessel in the Strait of Hormuz demonstrates the country’s growing electronic warfare capabilities and could mark a new and more intense phase of the war, Iranian academic and political analyst Dr. Mohammad Marandi revealed.
Speaking on Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, Marandi described the seizure of the vessel as a “major achievement”, arguing that its capture intact showed Iran’s ability to penetrate highly advanced US technology and could use the equipment to further develop its own capabilities.
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy announced on Tuesday that its forces captured a US unmanned underwater vehicle at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, in a “complex intelligence and military effort” carried out at dawn.
“The very fact that the Iranians were able to capture it intact shows that US technology is not as good as it is presented to us as being,” Marandi stressed.
“The Americans obviously were trying to better understand what was going on underneath the surface of the waters in the Strait of Hormuz. And the Iranians effectively discovered that and not only prevented it from happening, but they took the underground vessel and the underwater vessel.”
The importance of this, according to Marandi, “is not only that this will be able to help the Iranians develop their own technology further, but Iran can also share this with countries like China and Russia, who have very friendly relations with Iran.”
He further noted that the technology could also prove valuable to Iran’s partners, particularly China and Russia, by providing them with greater insight into US military systems.
Iran moving toward new phase of war
The Iranian academic said the capture was particularly significant because, in his assessment, Iran had used electronic warfare to take control of the unmanned underwater vessel.
He compared the development with Iran’s ability to capture US drones during the US occupation of Afghanistan, saying those operations had helped Tehran advance its drone program.
“One of the reasons why, or one element that helped Iran develop its drone program was its ability to safely and effectively hijack US drones that flew from Afghanistan to Iran during the US occupation in Afghanistan,” he said.
Marandi argued that the latest incident could similarly accelerate Iran’s underwater and electronic-warfare capabilities.
“This attempt to downplay the importance of what Iran has done is going to have no effect. And the United States’ escalation against Iran is also going to lead to very, very severe punishment on behalf of Iran. But this escalation is obviously linked to the fact that Iran has scored this huge achievement by capturing this underwater vehicle,” he stated.
Marandi also linked the reported capture to an increasingly dangerous escalation in the war.
“I think we are moving towards a major escalation and we are moving into a new phase of the war and possibly the final phase,” he emphasized, noting that it could be a very long one.
Iran’s capabilities remain partly unknown
According to Marandi, any further US escalation against Iran would trigger a forceful Iranian response. He said Tehran would become “relentless and unforgiving on the battlefield” if Washington continued its pressure.
Marandi maintained that Iran still had military capabilities that had not yet been publicly demonstrated.
“Obviously a lot of Iran’s capabilities will remain unknown until we find out when they’ve been deployed and when they’ve been used to the detriment of Iran’s enemies,” he said.
He pointed to previous Iranian missile attacks that had forced US naval vessels to move further away, arguing that Tehran had deliberately avoided sinking the ships at that stage.
‘Iran will sink US ships’
Marandi said Iran had instead sought to deter US forces by demonstrating that they were vulnerable.
“The Iranians first wanted to put fear into their hearts to make them back off,” he said, adding that if the conflict escalated further, “Iran will sink those ships.”
He argued that the reported underwater-vessel seizure reinforced his broader assessment that Iran had advanced capabilities across multiple areas of warfare.
“If the United States had an understanding of Iran’s missile capabilities that could sink naval ships, they would have been much more careful,” Marandi stressed. “And if they had any idea that Iran through electronic warfare could take their most advanced underground underwater unmanned submarine, they would have not used it in the first place.”
US has underestimated Iran
In Marandi’s view, Washington had repeatedly underestimated Iran’s military capacity throughout the war.
He recalled early US assessments that Iran would quickly exhaust its supply of missiles and drones, saying those assessments demonstrated a lack of understanding of Tehran’s capabilities.
“It clearly shows that they had no understanding of Iran’s capabilities and no real intelligence about the enormous capabilities that Iran had,” the Iranian professor stressed.
‘US will ultimately lose the war ‘
Marandi predicted that further surprises could emerge in the coming weeks and argued that the United States would ultimately lose the war.
“Ultimately this is a war that the United States is going to lose,” he said.
The top Iranian professor compared the US position to someone caught in quicksand, arguing that continued military pressure would deepen Washington’s difficulties rather than resolve them.
“Every day that the United States continues this war, it is like a person who’s fallen into quicksand: the more the Trump regime struggles, the more it sinks, and the more it sinks, the more desperate it becomes, and the process continues,” he said.
US regional presence faces challenge
Marandi told Al Mayadeen that Iran’s long-standing objective of ending the US military presence in West Asia was now becoming more achievable.
“The United States is going to lose its foothold in West Asia, and that is irreversible,” he said.
He argued that Tehran would no longer accept a US military presence in the region that could threaten Iran, adding that the conflict was not over.
‘This war is not over’
The top Iranian figure further stressed that Iran intended to impose such a high cost on the United States that future US presidents would be deterred from launching military action against Tehran.
“Iran is not finished with the United States. This war is not over, and therefore the devastation that Iran will be imposing on the United States and its proxies … have no doubt its proxies are facilitating this war and its proxies will pay a very, very heavy price, and if this continues for long, their proxies will pay the ultimate price, but in any case, Iran is determined to make sure that the United States is no longer a threat to Iran. It will destroy all their bases,” he stressed.
“It will impose a cost on the United States that is so heavy that no American president again will even think about aggression against Iran. Iran is determined to bring the threat from the United States to bring it to an end, to a permanent end, and that is something that will benefit everyone in the region. It will benefit Lebanon,” Marandi added.
Marandi also argued that such a shift would weaken “Israel”, which relies on US military power in the region, stressing that it will also “benefit Yemen. It will benefit Iraq. It will benefit everyone, and it will weaken the Israeli regime.”
Gulf states could face growing pressure
Marandi warned that continued escalation could have severe consequences for US-aligned governments in the Gulf, naming Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain.
He argued that these governments were particularly vulnerable because of their economic dependence on oil and gas and their close ties with Washington.
“These regimes are terribly vulnerable. They have nothing but oil and gas. They have huge deficits now, and businesses have left, and I think that the way things stand now, the pain is just beginning,” the top Iranian figure went on to say.
US influence in region weakening
Marandi argued that the United States is rapidly losing influence in West Asia, making it increasingly difficult for governments aligned with Washington to contain domestic discontent.
“The United States is rapidly declining in power, and its ability to maintain its hold over the region is declining,” he said, arguing that governments dependent on Washington would face growing pressure from populations angered by their governments’ cooperation with “Israel” and the United States.
He pointed to the ongoing destruction in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the policies of these governments were increasingly at odds with public sentiment across the region.
US understanding of the region shaped by ‘Israel’
Marandi also accused Washington of misreading regional developments, arguing that its understanding of West Asia is heavily shaped by “Israel and unpopular governments.”
“Its grasp of the region, its understanding of the region is also deeply problematic because its understanding of the region is largely influenced by the Israeli regime and unpopular regimes,” he said.
He argued that this disconnect was already producing consequences for US policy.
Iran rejects compromise
Marandi said Iran was unwilling to compromise over the implementation of the MOU, which he said must be fully honored.
“The MOU must be fully implemented,” he said, adding that Article 1 includes provisions concerning Lebanon and Gaza. He described an end to Israeli “death and destruction” in Gaza as among Iran’s preconditions.
Marandi argued that US pressure on Iran would not force Tehran to change course but would instead deepen the economic and political consequences of the war.
He warned that continued escalation could further destabilize governments allied with Washington, potentially creating repercussions well beyond the region.
“If these regimes become unstable, which I think is going to happen if this process continues, then I think that will be disastrous for the global economy,” he said.
“And then we are going to see a crash, an economic crash, which is global.”
Marandi warns of consequences for Netanyahu
Marandi also suggested that political considerations could be influencing the US approach to Iran, saying an assault on Tehran would carry a hefty political price.
He concluded with a warning directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing remarks by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chairman.
“The chair of the Supreme National Security Council has said, sooner or later, Iran will send Netanyahu to hell,” Marandi said.
He then argued that Netanyahu should be more concerned about his own future, saying he faces possible imprisonment and warning that he could potentially lose his life sooner than expected.
Member of Hezbollah politburo, Hajj Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, commented on the insolent remarks of the US ambassador to Lebanon, stressing that they are aimed at justifying the Israeli crimes against the innocent civilians in South Lebanon.
What follows is the full text of the statement of Abu Zeinab:
The US Ambassador to Lebanon made brazen statements today, speaking with a Zionist voice and attempting to justify the brutal, systematic killing committed by the Israeli enemy against peaceful Lebanese men, women, and children in their homes across southern villages and towns. With total insolence, he deliberately blames the victim for the crimes committed by the executioner.
It is ironic that this ambassador speaks of the interests of the people of the South, trying to sell them illusions of concern for their well-being and their return to their villages, towns, and livelihoods. In reality, the administration he represents covers up the systematic destruction of infrastructure taking place in the South, justifies the crimes of murder and occupation, and supplies the Israeli enemy with weapons and political support. It is a full partner, giving the green light to carry out aggression and terror in Lebanon and the region. Therefore, his statements represent nothing short of a detachment from reality and a hideous attempt to whitewash the aggression and cover it up with flimsy pretexts.
These statements expose once again the true nature of anti-humanitarian US conduct in Lebanon and across our Arab and Islamic nations. They lay bare its bloody arrogance and complete alignment with the butcher Netanyahu, making both two sides of the same coin and joint partners responsible for the blood of our people and children.
We are confident that our people fully understand who stands by them and who conspires against them. They are well aware that someone whose hands and face are stained with the blood of innocents—and who remains a full partner in the crimes and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy against Lebanon—can never be expected to bring any good.ource: Al-Manar English Website
Damage at US’ Ali Al-Salem air base after Iranian retaliatory strike (September 2026).
The US military and intelligence community are quietly considering a smaller US footprint in the Middle East after months of Iranian attacks exposed vulnerabilities at American bases and killed 18 US service members, the CNN reported on Tuesday.
The discussions include reducing troops and facilities across the region and potentially declining to rebuild some bases and assets severely damaged or destroyed by Iranian strikes, the CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen reported, citing six sources.
Officials are also examining whether sensitive military and intelligence missions can be conducted without permanent US basing.
“But the recent fighting with Iran has laid bare deep vulnerabilities in the American infrastructure in the Middle East as many of those sites have become targets of repeated Iranian attacks in an unpopular war that has killed 18 American service members,” the report read.
In offices across the military and in the intelligence community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in the Middle East if the Trump administration succeeds in ending the Iran conflict, six sources say.… pic.twitter.com/646YGZZIEi
The scale of the damage has raised fresh concerns about the viability of Washington’s post-9/11 military infrastructure.
US installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, with US officials acknowledging significant damage.
“The damage has been substantial, US officials say: The CIA’s outpost in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for example, was effectively destroyed by an Iranian attack, according to one US official and a former intelligence officer. Although Pentagon officials have sought to downplay the impact, American military installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have all been struck by Iranian drones and missiles, and sources say the damage has been significant,” according to the CNN.
Damage recorded at US base in Kuwait. Satellite imagery shows “destruction of two housing accommodations” at Ali Al Salem. https://t.co/zXe9QWOvAu
An Iranian strike reportedly effectively destroyed the CIA’s outpost in Riyadh, according to a US official and a former intelligence officer cited by CNN.
The military is also considering moving some installations underground to protect remaining forces from missile and drone attacks. “The vulnerabilities were always known, but the US never acted on it with urgency,” one US official told CNN.
The discussions come as roughly 50,000 US troops and major military assets, including two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers, remain deployed across the Middle East.
Senior Pentagon officials are privately considering reducing the US military presence in several Gulf states and shifting more of the security burden onto regional partners, according to three sources cited by CNN.
Some officials are also weighing a model in which personnel and equipment remain in the US and are deployed to the region only for specific missions.
The possibility of a broader pullback has gained urgency as the Pentagon faces the cost of repairing heavily damaged installations.
At the same time, US forces remain exposed to further Iranian attacks, with Iran continuing to target American military positions in the region. The US Navy’s top admiral said last week that American personnel would not return to Bahrain, home of the 5th Fleet, “anytime soon.”
“We’re not getting back in there anytime soon,” Adm. Daryl Caudle said. “I just want to be completely honest with that.”
Car bursts into flame after an Israeli drone hit it in Kfar Rumman in southern Lebanon (September 6, 2026).
‘Israel’ launched a renewed wave of wide-scale airstrikes across southern Lebanon early Monday, hitting residential areas and towns across the Nabatieh region and commiting a massacre in the village of Kfar Rumman.
Israeli warplanes, carried out a series of airstrikes on Kfar Rumman, Arab Salim and Nabatieh Al-Fawqa, while an Israeli drone targeted an ambulance belonging to the Al-Risala Association, according to Al-Manar correspondent.
Lebanese Health Ministry said nine people were martyred and thirteen others were injured in the Israeli strike on Kfar Rumman, including paramedics, women and children.
The aerial attacks were accompanied by heavy Israeli artillery shelling targeting the outskirts of Nabatieh, Kfar Rumman, Jabal Al-Rafie and Al-Dabsha height, our correspondent reported.
The renewed assault follows a series of Israeli attacks on the Nabatieh region, including an airstrike on the city on Sunday evening that left Al-Manar TV reporter Ali Shbeib with minor injuries.
مشاهد من الاع.تداء الأخير على مدينة النبطية _ شارع محمود فقيه _ داخل موقف فخر الدين .. pic.twitter.com/EUGgL7EF3w
The latest attacks come amid a broader intensification of Israeli military aggression across southern Lebanon, especially in Nabatieh region, with residential areas and civilian infrastructure repeatedly coming under fire.
The Yemeni Armed Forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation, a senior Yemeni military source stated, warning that Sanaa maintains multiple strategic options should Saudi Arabia choose to enter an all-out war.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen, the source said the Yemeni Armed Forces possess an integrated and highly efficient weapons system capable of dealing with different forms of warfare and military engagements.
The senior military source stressed that the Yemeni Armed Forces would confront any escalation with a proportional escalation, adding that their options remain open and varied should Saudi Arabia decide to engage in a comprehensive war.
Reiterating that all Saudi-affiliated mobilizations are considered legitimate military targets, the source said recent Yemeni strikes have focused on the leadership of these forces.
The targets, the source said, are selected according to precise intelligence and carefully assessed operational information and data.
According to the source, the Yemeni strikes against Saudi-affiliated commanders have succeeded in thwarting a major portion of their preparations for a ground battle.
Additionally, Sanaa renewed its call to those who have allied with external forces against their own people to abandon their positions and return to the fold of their homeland.
The source particularly addressed those who had “mortgaged their lives,” betrayed their country, and stood against their people.
YAF strike Saudi military chiefs
The Yemeni Military Media released footage on Sunday of a major operation targeting a meeting of several Saudi military leaders with a ballistic missile.
The Yemeni Armed Forces also announced the downing of a Saudi Wing Loong II armed reconnaissance drone while it was carrying out hostile missions on Sunday morning.
According to spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the drone was shot down northwest of Maqbanah district in the Taiz governorate using an appropriate weapon without specifying it.
The Yemeni Armed Forces had previously carried out several military operations as part of their decision to ban maritime navigation to Saudi Arabia and establish the “blockade for blockade” equation, which was adopted following broad popular support expressed during mass Friday demonstrations in Sanaa and several other provinces.
Battle no longer defensive, shifted to preemptive action: Yemen
Earlier on August 26, Sanaa government Defense Minister Major General Mohammed al-Atifi and Chief of the General Staff Major General Youssef al-Madani announced that Yemen’s military operations have moved beyond defensive measures and entered a phase of preemptive offensives.
The two officials said the tighter the noose Yemen’s enemies attempt to place around the country, the broader its military options grow and the faster it develops advanced capabilities.
On August 24, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they struck the Saudi oil tanker Amzan in the northern Red Sea off Yanbu with a ballistic missile, sparking a fire on the vessel and prompting other ships in the area to flee. Spokesperson Yahya Saree said the strike is part of enforcing Sanaa’s maritime ban and blockade against Saudi Arabia.
Saree revealed that the Yemeni Armed Forces also struck a Saudi military convoy in al-Ubra and al-Wadi’a, destroying over ten trucks loaded with weapons, and hit Saudi forces in al-Kanais, killing and injuring dozens, including officers and commanders, and destroying several weapons depots.
Lebanese MP Ali Ammar, Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, in a local ceremony in Beirut’s Dahiyeh (September 6, 2026),
Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar said the language of resistance remains the only effective means of confronting the Israeli enemy, stressing that the group remains committed to its path despite mounting political, regional and international pressures.
“The language of resistance is the only language that is effective against the Israeli enemy amid major transformations in the region and the world that continue to affect Lebanon,” MP Ammar said, during a memorial ceremony for martyr Jaafar Mohammad Diab Al-Harakeh in Beirut’s southern suburb (Dahiyeh).
At least four people were martyred and twenty others were injured as Israeli warplanes unleashed widespread assault across Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
The strikes hit Nabatieh Al-Fawqa and Nabatieh Al-Tahta, as well as Arab Salim and Kfar Rumman.
The member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, meanwhile, warned that Lebanon is facing a “complex and multifaceted crisis encompassing political, economic, social and existential challenges.”
MP Ammar also criticized Lebanese powers that oppose the resistance while placing their hopes in the United States, arguing that past experience had demonstrated the failure of such a strategy.
He called for greater solidarity and national unity in confronting the challenges facing Lebanon.
“We need to recognize the gravity of the current situation and the challenges confronting us,” Ammar said, stressing the need for unity rather than reliance on external powers.
Exploiting academic institutions as a cover, between 2017 – 2021 the German government surreptitiously funnelled millions into a highly discriminatory project facilitating expansion of Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under its auspices, public money and knowledge production were committed to an inherently unlawful, immoral enterprise in flagrant breach of Berlin’s international legal obligations, and domestic restrictions on academic research efforts. The unknown scandal is just one component of how, in plain sight, Germany covertly assists Zionist settlement expansion and Palestine’s total erasure.
These are the shocking findings of a collaborative investigationby a triumvirate of German student Palestine solidarity organisations, including Not In Our Name, Academic Opposition, and Academic Boycott Campaign Germany. Their report is a groundbreaking effort, critically examining German state-sponsored water research in conjunction with Zionist entity academic institutions. It’s a silent conspiracy vast in scope, involving multiple state and quasi-state entities in Berlin and Tel Aviv financing academic research in seemingly innocuous fields, which directly abets Zionist ethnic cleansing and land seizure throughout Palestine.
The investigation focuses on a single project to emerge from the dark alliance between German and Israeli academia, known as MedWater. For four years, Berlin funded a consortium coordinated by the Technical University of Berlin, alongside Göttingen and Würzburg universities, to the tune of €1,818,348. Their successfully fulfilled objective was to develop a tool modelling the impact of adding or removing water wells. That feature was defined in direct conjunction with Israel’s water authorities, the tool transferred to Tel Aviv’s national water company.
Zionists eye an ancient water reservoir in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley
Specifically, the tool identifies ideal areas for construction of new wells, in a territory where Palestinian water sources are systematically demolished, and Palestinians are refused permits to drill new ones. Known as the Western Mountain Aquifer, it’s the largest and most productive groundwater body shared between Israel and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians were completely absent from working sessions convened in Jerusalem related to MedWater, and there is no apparent way in which Palestinians will, or even can, benefit from the effort in any way.
This is despite the consortium openly stating in submissions to German state ministries their tool sought to advance the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal: “By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.” The completed MedWater system was unveiled in October 2020, at a Berlin conference. Its public demonstration included calculating the impact of adding four new wells to the West Bank’s Hebron Governorate. Only Zionist settlers could realise that vision on-the-ground, of which the consortium was well-aware.
Even more damningly, at the project’s end the tool was contracted to Israel’s national water company Mekorot, which manages wells in Zionist settlements throughout the West Bank. By contrast, the Palestinian Water Authority, initially named as a MedWater partner, was not provided a subcontract and is not publicly listed among its beneficiaries today. Unreported at the time, and tacitly concealed from view ever since, it’s just one way Germany has been unaccountably supporting a genocidal Zionist enterprise begun back in 1967.
‘Near Impossible’
In its July 2024 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled unambiguously all states are obliged “to distinguish, in their dealings with Israel, between Israeli territory and the territory occupied since 1967, and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation.” A decade earlier, Berlin seemingly enshrined a codified commitment to this principle in its dealings with Zionist entity academic institutions. Under the Territorial Clause, Germany won’t fund, and Tel Aviv won’t solicit, research projects outside the entity’s pre-1967 borders – theoretically.
However, when asked how Mekorot’s MedWater contract was remotely compatible with the Clause, Berlin’s ministry of research argued its terms merely limit where research partners may be headquartered. As Mekorot is based in Tel Aviv, there was in fact no legal, regulatory or apparent ethical impediment to the project’s German government funding, despite the company’s well-documented criminal conduct in the West Bank since 1982. Then, Zionist Occupation Forces handed management of all local water infrastructure it controlled in the territory to Mekorot.
The Territorial Clause is evidently replete with gaping loopholes, which have been shamelessly exploited to provide arm’s length German state sponsorship to completely illegal Zionist settlement expansion all along. Strikingly, this ambiguity is in itself in contravention of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. The Court specifically honed in on the Zionist entity’s life-threatening restriction of Palestinian water access within the Occupied Territories, as inconsistent with Tel Aviv’s obligations under international law. This may explain why MedWater, while formally undisguised, remained effectively secret for so long.
To get to the bottom of the project, investigators drew on a diverse corpus of information. This included MedWater reports filed with Germany’s research ministry – some not intended for public view, and released in redacted form – presentation materials from numerous project conferences throughout its development, since-memoryholed websites, and peer-reviewed publications by German and Israeli participants. No mainstream outlet has hitherto reported not merely on MedWater, but any illegal German state investment in academic research projects expediting Zionist settlement expansion.
An initiative to better manage water resources may seem benign, anywhere in the world. But MedWater was born in a context of methodical, longstanding Zionist denial of Palestinian access to water, and a segregationist legal apparatus directly assisting Jewish settlement, particularly in regard to vital natural resources. In August 1967, two months after the West Bank’s occupation began, Zionist Occupation Forces issued Military Order 92, seizing total control of water resources in territory they illegally controlled.
Three months later, Military Order 158 further prohibited Palestinians throughout the West Bank from constructing new water installations and/or associated infrastructure, without first securing a permit from the ZOF. Amnesty Internationaljudges suchpermissions “near impossible to obtain.” Deliberately intended to deprive Palestinians of water, Zionists are of course not subject to equivalent constraints. Meanwhile, Mekorot has over the past four-and-a-half decades deliberately sabotaged Palestinian wells while tapping occupied West Bank springs to supply the entity, and illegal settlers, with water.
This in itself produces an apartheid in daily water consumption. Zionists, including settlers, use an average of 247 litres of water a day per person – three times that of Palestinians in the West Bank, at 82.4 litres. Palestinian water consumption collapses to just 26 litres per capita on average daily, in communities unconnected to the territory’s water grid. Such consumption is comparable to active disaster zones. Mekorot also routinely shuts off supply to Palestinian communities when reserves run low, such as during summer.
‘European DNA’
The Zionist strategy is gruesomely simple – neutralise Palestinian control over the West Bank’s water resources and progressively diminish their access, creating an environment in which the territory is literally uninhabitable and they’re forced to leave. Research jointly published by the UN and Germany’s federal institute for geosciences and natural resources indicates 212 million cubic metres of water flows from the West Bank to Israel annually. The report also records how since 1967, Palestinians “have not been authorised to drill a single well” locally.
All along, discriminatory laws and ratcheting settler land grabs have increasingly deprived Palestinians of access to other basic fundamentals of existence too. An ever-expanding network of ZOF checkpoints and roadblocks, combined with prejudicial, arbitrary restrictions on movement, vandalism and demolition of farming machinery, greenhouses, and roads, and savage Occupation Force and settler violence makes it progressively dangerous if not impossible for farmers to tend crops or rear livestock. Palestine’s agricultural industry is all but decimated, with Zionistsliterally harvesting the pestilential spoils.
ZOF soldiers lurk behind a Jewish settler hurling stones at Palestinians gathering for olive harvest season, West Bank, October 2025
That these genocidal machinations have persisted untrammelled over decades is a testament to the total impunity with which Israel is permitted to act by its international proxy sponsors – Germany being a particularly perverse example. Proudly, it is the only country to make public remembrance of its criminal past the cornerstone of its collective national identity. But Berlin’s much-vaunted “memory culture” invariably entails atoning for historic sins by encouraging and undergirding comparable contemporary crimes, as long as they’re committed by the Zionist entity.
WaterMed is a minor fragment within a much wider, unspoken framework of German state-supported repression and erasure of Palestinians, sustained via little-known partnerships and joint research efforts with Zionist entity-based universities and institutions. A new initiative, Academic Complicity, exposes how dozens of German higher education facilities have over many years conducted deeply dubious projects large and small one way or another justifying and aiding neverending settlement expansion. One might hope this would trigger accountability and consequences for Berlin, given her unambiguous domestic and international legal obligations.
However, the bonds between Germany and the Zionist entity are so deep and cohering, they transcend trivial considerations of law, or ethicality. In October 2025, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo made a number of highly revealing disclosures on how his personal and professional experience has convinced him “Germans are committed to Israel.” After all, “our DNA is much closer to the European DNA than the American one,” as “most of the Jews who settled in Israel came from Europe…not North America”:
“European history is part of our identity in terms of family connections, culture, even politics. Europe’s borders resulting from wars were constantly shifting and Europeans wandered throughout the continent, settling in one place before moving on to the next. In that sense, and in terms of depth, discourse, and history, this is all very familiar to us, and is something that manifests itself in every interaction I have with German partners.”
Washington’s allies built their prosperity around the promise of US protection. The cost of that promise is becoming harder to bear.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Suleyman Karan After graduating from Galatasaray High School, he completed his higher education at Istanbul University, Faculty of Political Sciences. He worked as the Editor-in-Chief of Pazar Postası and Posta Daily. He worked as the Editor-in-Chief of Hürriyet BusinessWeek and Platin magazines, and also as the Editorial Coordinator of Yurt Daily. He is an economics writer at Gazeteduvar.
The Israeli-US war against the Islamic Republic of Iran is developing into a conflict in which the aggressors’ calculations have failed, and Washington’s allies are suffering serious economic losses. The failure of a “superpower” to secure victory over a regional power suggests that the global balance cannot simply return to what it was before the war.
Another implication is that the rules of the global economy, trade, and finance cannot be dictated by western powers alone. The Strait of Hormuz crisis offers a stark illustration of how hegemony can become trapped in a narrow passage.
Across Europe and Asia, Washington’s allies are confronting crises for which they were poorly prepared, particularly in energy supplies. The damage also extends to countries outside the US alliance system, whose factories, farms, and households depend on the same trade routes.
Europe pays another war bill
The crisis and blockade in the Strait of Hormuz have driven up energy costs, forcing the EU to lower its economic growth forecasts for 2026 and creating intense cost pressures across the continent. This new burden follows the energy disruption and public spending commitments associated with the Ukraine war.
The sudden surge in energy costs has raised expenses across industrial production and transportation. The interruption of traffic through the strait has exposed Europe to a serious risk of jet fuel and other refined fuel shortages. Higher energy bills and increased business expenses are squeezing household purchasing power and damaging consumer confidence.
European governments have introduced tax cuts and direct support packages, although their responses differ. The blockade has created a shared energy and supply chain shock, but its effects depend on each country’s industrial structure, import dependence, and capacity to absorb higher costs.
The European Commission’s May forecast lowered projected EU growth to 1.1 percent and eurozone growth to 0.9 percent. The World Bank’s June assessment likewise cut the global growth outlook, while the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) July update raised its forecast for global inflation.
The figures come from different institutions and forecast rounds, but point to the same pressure: more expensive energy is weakening growth and complicating efforts to bring inflation down.
Growth weakens as energy costs rise
Region / indicator
Previous forecast or comparison
2026 forecast
Basis and date
EU growth
1.4%
1.1%
European Commission, May; energy shock weakens activity
Eurozone growth
1.2%
0.9%
European Commission, May; revised down from its autumn forecast
Brent crude, annual average
2025 annual average
$94 per barrel
World Bank, June; 36% above 2025, assuming the worst disruption eased in July
Global headline inflation
4.1% in 2025
4.7%
IMF, July; forecast annual rate, not a current monthly reading
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, faces renewed pressure on manufacturing. The chemical, automotive, and heavy industrial sectors are vulnerable to high energy costs. More expensive crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) feed into production costs, while disruption to Gulf supplies threatens the delivery of petrochemical feedstocks, packaging materials, and other industrial inputs.
France obtains about 70 percent of its electricity from 57 operable nuclear reactors, providing some protection against the shock. Its transportation sector and household spending remain exposed, however. Most cars, commercial vehicles, and ships still rely on petroleum fuels, and higher freight costs feed into the prices of finished goods, from food to furniture.
The threat of a jet fuel shortage is among aviation’s most serious concerns. Airlines have faced higher costs and flight reductions, even where physical fuel supplies have remained available. In May, the EU energy commissioner warned of longer-term supply risks, while saying there was no immediate shortage.
Paris has faced pressure to shield consumers, but fiscal constraints have limited its response. The French finance minister argued against broad tax reductions and favored temporary, targeted assistance. Yet the political problem remains as households expect protection while the government is trying to contain its deficit.
Italy, already burdened by high public debt, faces a similar dilemma. Supporting households and businesses costs money at a time when borrowing is becoming more expensive. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pressed for greater flexibility in EU fiscal rules, bringing the clash between energy relief and budget discipline into the open.
Britain’s island exposure
The blockade and the Iran war have delivered a twin shock to the UK economy through energy and trade. Although the UK obtains substantial oil and gas supplies domestically and from Norway, its costs remain tied to international markets. Buying from a different producer does not insulate a country from a global price increase.
London’s concern is the risk of renewed inflation alongside weak growth. The latest available ONS figures put annual consumer price inflation at 2.9 percent in July, up from 2.6 percent in June. Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation stood at 1.3 percent. The increase in headline inflation adds to pressure on households already facing high living costs.
The Bank of England’s July policy statement warned that inflation was expected to rise “as the effects of higher energy prices continue to pass through.” Bringing it under control risks putting further pressure on an already weak economy.
Higher oil prices have also increased the pressure on aviation. Major hubs such as Heathrow and Gatwick depend on reliable fuel supplies, leaving them exposed to prolonged disruption in the Gulf. The UK government’s published guidance said airlines were not experiencing a jet fuel shortage when it issued its assessment, while contingency measures sought to reduce the risk of last-minute cancellations.
As an island country, Britain is heavily dependent on maritime transportation for consumer goods and industrial inputs. Where Asia–Europe services avoid the Red Sea and sail around the Cape of Good Hope, longer journeys add freight costs and delay deliveries. These diversions compound the Hormuz shock, although they concern a separate passage and do not provide an escape route for vessels trapped inside the Persian Gulf.
Britain’s military commitments create additional demands. London and Paris have led multinational planning for a mission to protect navigation through Hormuz once conditions permit. Protecting trade routes requires ships, personnel, and sustained funding, adding to the obligations of a state already trying to reconcile defense spending with pressure on public services.
Asia bears the supply shock
That is the situation in the west. In the east, the dependence on Gulf energy is even more direct. East and South Asia are among the regions most exposed to the crisis, and hopes that diplomacy would quickly restore normal traffic have repeatedly run ahead of events.
The effective closure of the strait has struck at a supply route serving the industrial centers of Asia. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that 84 percent of the crude oil and condensate, and 83 percent of the LNG, passing through Hormuz in 2024 went to Asian markets.
China, India, Japan, and South Korea are major buyers, although they enter the crisis with different reserves, domestic energy resources, and options for replacing interrupted supplies. Their exposure cannot be measured by import volumes alone. The ability to pay for alternatives and move them to consumers also matters.
Indian farmers face a mounting bill
India imports about 60 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) needs, with Gulf cargoes central to that supply. The disruption has created price pressure from cooking gas cylinders to industrial fuel. According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), India’s LPG import bill for March–August was approximately $4.7 billion, including an estimated $1.1 billion in additional crisis-related costs.
Total LPG imports fell 49 percent in March compared with the average of the corresponding month in the previous two years. The US share of imports rose to 32 percent in April, replacing part of the lost Gulf supply. The six-month cost estimate combines reported trade data with estimates for later months.
New Delhi also turned back toward Russian oil as Gulf supplies became less reliable. Energy security has forced India to weigh western pressure against the immediate needs of its refineries, businesses, and households.
Fertilizer has delivered another blow. The World Bank’s April commodity forecast projected a 60 percent rise in urea prices for 2026. In a country where agriculture supports a large share of the population, costlier fertilizer and disrupted feedstock supplies increase pressure before the planting season and raise the cost of shielding farmers.
Agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing grew by 3.6 percent in April–June 2026, down from 4.4 percent a year earlier.
While rainfall, harvest conditions, and domestic demand also shape agricultural growth, disrupted supplies and higher fertilizer costs add to farmers’ difficulties. Shielding them from those costs through subsidies puts further strain on the government’s budget.
CREA estimates India’s net additional fossil fuel cost at $14.4 billion, equivalent to 0.38 percent of GDP. An additional bill of that size draws resources away from other spending, even before the wider costs of interrupted production are counted.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India expected growth of 6.9 percent in 2026–27, against an estimated 7.6 percent in the preceding financial year. The projected slowdown leaves New Delhi facing weaker momentum while it tries to contain the cost of supporting consumers and producers.
Dependence carries a freight premium
High dependence on Gulf oil has made insurance another source of pressure. Early in the conflict, reported war-risk premiums rose from about 0.25 percent of a vessel’s value to 1–1.5 percent, a four- to sixfold increase. Rates have fluctuated with the fighting and ceasefires rather than remaining at one fixed crisis level.
Replacing Gulf cargoes with supplies from more distant producers increases shipping distances, fuel consumption, and demand for tankers. Rerouting around Africa can avoid the Red Sea, but neither the Cape nor Suez bypasses Hormuz for cargo still inside the Persian Gulf. Export pipelines leading to terminals outside the strait offer a limited alternative.
Uneven exposure across East Asia
Country
Oil exposure before the disruption
Main economic pressure
Available cushion or response
Japan
About 93% of crude imports passed through Hormuz in 2025
Higher import costs and pressure on household purchasing power
Oil reserves, supplier diversification, and investment in alternative routes
South Korea
About 70% of crude imports pass through Hormuz
Petrochemical feedstock shortages and industrial cost increases
Alternative cargoes, public support, and greater use of other power sources
China
IEA estimated Hormuz-linked crude supplies at more than 5.2 million barrels a day in 2025
Costlier imports and disruption to refinery supplies
Large inventories, domestic energy production, and access to alternative suppliers
Japan entered the crisis with an aging population, labor shortages, a very large public debt burden, and the legacy of decades of weak demand and deflation. The Hormuz shock has added an external, supply-side increase in costs at a time when inflation has already replaced deflation as an immediate policy concern.
For a country obtaining more than 90 percent of its crude imports through this route before the war, the disruption directly raises the cost of key production inputs and threatens purchasing power. A weak yen compounds the problem as importers must find more yen to pay bills denominated in dollars, even before any increase in the dollar price of oil.
To address inflationary pressures, the Bank of Japan raised its policy rate by 25 basis points in June, bringing it to one percent. The increase extended its tightening cycle, raising borrowing costs as households and businesses were also confronting more expensive imports.
Japan and the US subsequently launched a rare joint currency intervention to prop up the yen, but the relief was short-lived. The currency resumed its slide as higher US interest rates continued to favor the dollar.
Alarm bells continue to ring across the Japanese economy. A further rate increase was under discussion ahead of the September meeting, while Tokyo has sought to diversify oil supplies and support routes that bypass Hormuz. The need for alternatives has become more urgent, even though building them will take time.
South Korean industry cuts back
South Korea obtains about 70 percent of its oil and 20 percent of its LNG from West Asia. The crisis has therefore struck directly at manufacturing and chemicals, where energy and petroleum-derived feedstocks are essential to production.
Petrochemicals, plastics, and other energy-intensive industries face higher costs and pressure to reduce capacity. Naphtha shortages are especially serious because the material is used to make products that feed into automotive manufacturing, electronics, packaging, and construction. A shortage at this stage can spread through industries far removed from oil extraction.
The government has sought to cushion the shock through public support and measures to secure supplies. In late March, it proposed a 26.2 trillion won supplementary budget to assist households and businesses. Such intervention shifts part of the immediate burden to the public finances, even when it prevents larger losses elsewhere.
Southeast Asia’s energy paradox
Southeast Asian industry also depends on Gulf crude oil, LNG, and petrochemical inputs. Higher energy costs and interrupted supplies place factories and employment at risk across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), although the severity varies substantially between countries and industries.
The Philippines faces an additional exposure through approximately 2.4 million Filipinos working in West Asia. Their safety, employment, and ability to send money home are all vulnerable to a prolonged conflict.
Malaysia and Indonesia, two major Southeast Asian economies, face an energy paradox. Both produce oil and gas and can benefit from higher commodity prices, yet domestic production does not eliminate dependence on imported fuels, international prices, or costly consumer subsidies.
Both governments have maintained subsidized fuel prices while introducing purchase limits. Higher export earnings can provide a cushion, but the cost of protecting households rises too. The balance depends on the fuels each country produces, imports, and subsidizes. Gains for an exporter or a state energy company can coexist with growing pressure on the households and industries buying its fuel.
The Gulf’s protection bargain comes under fire
Then there is West Asia itself, where the war began. The US-Israeli assault on Iran in late February and the subsequent disruption of Hormuz have exposed Washington’s Gulf allies to crises on several fronts. Attacks on energy facilities and civilian infrastructure have brought the economic consequences of war directly into states that host US military forces.
Forecasts have deteriorated sharply, but the damage is uneven. The IMF’s April projections put Qatar’s contraction at 8.6 percent, Kuwait’s at 0.6 percent, and Bahrain’s at 0.5 percent. The disruption has continued well beyond those April forecasts.
Qatar faces particularly severe damage to its LNG-dependent economy. By late August, Oxford Economics was warning of a contraction approaching 30 percent, given damage at Ras Laffan. The deterioration since the spring outlook reflects the scale of the damage to facilities on which Qatar’s export earnings depend.
Kuwait’s lack of a maritime outlet outside Hormuz leaves its exports acutely exposed. Bahrain, already heavily indebted, faces additional financing pressure; its credit default swap prices had risen almost 40 percent by late August. The cost of insuring government debt offers another measure of the uncertainty now surrounding the region.
Riyadh cushions its losses, Dubai loses ground
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have more scope to soften the shock, although neither has escaped it. The IMF’s April forecast still projected 3.1 percent growth for each, despite cutting Saudi Arabia’s outlook by 1.4 percentage points and the UAE’s by 1.9 points. Their alternative export routes provide some protection, but leave much of the wider economy exposed.
Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline has allowed it to export some oil through the Red Sea, bypassing Hormuz. Higher oil prices have also partly offset lower volumes. The kingdom’s experience shows why damage to production and changes in revenue do not always move together.
Even so, the economic losses are substantial. Saudi oil activity fell 24.7 percent in the second quarter, while overall GDP contracted 4.8 percent year on year. Its budget deficit was approximately $9.1 billion, despite the benefit of higher petroleum revenues.
The UAE, particularly Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has suffered through its role as a global logistics, tourism, and financial center. According to JPMorgan estimates reported in late August, Dubai property sales had fallen 70–80 percent, while UAE stocks were down around 14 percent during the conflict.
Regional airspace closures initially forced major airlines to suspend or sharply reduce operations. Emirates reported restoring 96 percent of its global network by 4 May. Reopening routes nevertheless leaves airlines exposed to higher fuel costs and renewed security interruptions.
Abu Dhabi has also used the Habshan–Fujairah Pipeline to maintain some oil exports through the Gulf of Oman. Like the Saudi route, it provides a valuable outlet, but cannot replace every shipment or restore the confidence on which the wider economy depends.
The cost reaches the household
The crisis extends beyond oil revenues and financial markets into everyday life. The vulnerability of desalination plants is especially serious in states where drinking water depends overwhelmingly on energy-intensive coastal facilities. An attack on a plant, its power supply, or its distribution network threatens an essential service with few immediate substitutes.
Supply chain interruptions also raise the cost of importing food and other necessities. Even where government intervention or existing stocks prevent shortages, replacing cargoes and maintaining supplies carries an additional expense. Those costs must be absorbed by importers, households, or the state.
Repairing the damage across Iran and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf could cost $34–58 billion, according to Rystad Energy’s April assessment. Beyond oil and gas facilities, the bill extends to factories, power stations, and the desalination plants on which much of the region depends for drinking water.
Arms spending presses on development
The Hormuz blockade and damage to oil facilities, water systems, and civilian infrastructure are forcing Washington’s Gulf allies to reassess their security arrangements. Hosting US forces has not insulated them from the war’s economic consequences, while repairing essential infrastructure creates obligations that will outlast any ceasefire.
Defense spending now competes with reconstruction, public support, and long-term development. Infrastructure investment has not stopped: Gulf states are also accelerating plans for ports and pipelines that reduce dependence on Hormuz. But the need to finance alternative routes is itself part of the price of the war.
Billions that could improve public services and living standards risk being absorbed by arms purchases and the repair of what has been destroyed. The longer this continues, the more Washington’s allies will be required to spend simply to preserve the security and prosperity that their alliance was supposed to guarantee.
Israeli intelligence recruits through money, ideology, coercion, and years of calculated grooming – only to discard its agents once their usefulness expires.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Israel’s intelligence community is closely associated with advanced technology, secretive agencies, and the rivalries that intensified after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Behind this apparatus, however, agent recruitment remains a patient human enterprise, built on vulnerability, access, and dependence on an Israeli handler.
In its early years, Israeli intelligence relied heavily on Jewish operatives for both routine and sensitive missions. As its reach expanded into hostile environments, more collection work was entrusted to recruited agents inside Arab and Palestinian societies, while Jewish operatives continued to provide logistical and operational support abroad.
Technological expansion later shifted the balance, with Israel investing heavily in cyber capabilities, signals intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced surveillance.
Daniel Gold, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development and one of the architects of Iron Dome, embodies this technological turn. Yet the failures surrounding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood renewed scrutiny of Israel’s dependence on technology and the erosion of human intelligence inside Gaza.
Possessing a source, however, is only one part of intelligence work. Information must reach the right officials and be assessed outside the assumptions already shaping their judgment. In both 1973 and 2023, Israel had obtained warnings but failed to interpret or act on them in time.
Former Israeli national security advisor Yaakov Amidror makes the same point in his Hebrew-language book “Intelligence: Theory and Practice.” The difficulty of developing human collection capabilities, he writes, pushed services toward electronic and technological means, but they eventually recognized that modern systems could not compensate for the absence of human sources.
Amidror spent 36 years in the Israeli military, serving as head of the Research Department in Military Intelligence, intelligence chief of Northern Command, commander of the military colleges, and military secretary to the defense minister. He later chaired Israel’s National Security Council. His account divides agent recruitment into three broad methods:
1. Sending an operative from the home country
An operative dispatched from the home country can be trained and briefed before deployment. His loyalty is considered more dependable, and handlers can assess the information on his return without the same fear that he has inflated it for money or personal protection.
His weakness is precisely that he comes from outside. He must build a credible identity, avoid attracting attention, and keep enough distance from local society to protect his cover. Those restrictions often leave him reporting what he can see or hear rather than obtaining original documents, physical evidence, or access to the target’s inner circle.
2. Recruiting an agent inside the target country
A local recruit already belongs to the social environment being penetrated. If positioned in the armed forces, security services, government, business, or a resistance organization, he can enter sensitive spaces without appearing out of place. His handler can direct him toward particular offices, people, or facilities, allowing him to obtain maps, photographs, files, and other original material.
For the recruiting service, however, a local agent’s loyalty remains open to doubt. He may embellish reports to prove his worth or increase his payment. He cannot readily change his home, occupation, or daily routine at his handler’s request without drawing suspicion, leaving him useful but constrained.
Amidror regards ideological or religious conviction as the strongest basis for recruiting an agent inside the target country. Israeli literature celebrates Mossad’s record in Arab states and Shin Bet’s penetration of Palestinian organizations, but also concedes the labor involved. A handler must master the recruit’s language and culture, understand his pressures and ambitions, and invest the time needed to turn vulnerability into dependence.
3. Building a local identity for a trained operative
The third method sends a trained operative into the target country under a manufactured local identity. In theory, this combines the discipline of a home-country officer with the access of a native recruit. Israeli intelligence history treats such deep-cover operations as capable of producing exceptional results.
Exposure carries a heavier price. If extraction fails, the operative may be executed, held for an exchange, or denied even the return of his body. Israel’s most famous example is Eli Cohen, the Mossad operative who penetrated the Syrian political and military elite before his arrest and execution in Damascus in 1965.
Contact without fingerprints
Israeli doctrine also distinguishes among methods of contact. Some agents remain in place and transmit information through codes, concealed communications, postal channels, or periodic meetings with a handler inside the same country. Each contact is designed to appear ordinary, but repetition creates patterns that counterintelligence can detect.
High-value agents may be taken to Israel via several other countries to conceal their destination. Once there, they can face polygraph examinations, intensive debriefing, professional training, and further measures intended to deepen their involvement.
Emergency channels are kept for information that cannot wait. Many networks are nevertheless uncovered through weak communications, reused methods, duplicated contacts, logistical mistakes, or chance. The tradecraft may be patient, but it remains vulnerable to routine human error.
Frequency itself depends on the value and sensitivity of the source. A low-level agent may transmit limited observations through an indirect channel, while a source carrying urgent military information may be instructed to break routine and use an emergency line. Every exception protects the information at the cost of exposing another fragment of the network.
The hierarchy of betrayal
Israeli literature ranks agents by both access and function. A well-placed agent occupies a sensitive post and helps the recruiting service understand, disrupt, or pre-empt the adversary’s plans. A mobile agent lacks such access but can be moved or tasked to observe a recent development.
A “research agent” may pose as a merchant, traveler, or professional and collect military information, weapons movements, personnel deployments, or assessments of morale. Such work may fall short of strategic penetration, but it can be valuable in preparing an operation, mapping a network, or supporting a military campaign.
An “insider” draws on a broad web of relationships. He may never handle the most sensitive material himself, yet can reach people who do, collect documents indirectly, and shift into new fields when his handler’s priorities change. His value lies in the network around him as much as in his formal position.
These categories are neither fixed nor mutually exclusive. A trader who begins by observing movements can become an intermediary to a more valuable source; an employee with modest access can be encouraged to seek promotion or transfer. Recruitment therefore continues after the first agreement, with handlers repeatedly trying to reposition the agent closer to the information they want.
A decade spent cultivating cover
A Turkish counterintelligence operation announced in February 2026 revealed the years Israel can devote to cultivating an agent. Turkish authorities alleged that Mehmet Budak Derya and Veysel Kerimoglu supplied Mossad with information for more than a decade. Derya, a mining engineer who entered the marble trade, was said to have met Israeli handlers in several European countries under shifting code names.
According to Turkish reporting, the pair used commercial activity to build ties across the region, collect information on Palestinians critical of Israel, and enter the drone-component trade. A legitimate business can provide travel, money, contacts, and a pretext for approaching targets while concealing the intelligence operation behind it.
Commercial cover can also become a burden. The agent may appear prosperous while his business, travel, and capital remain tied to the service directing him. Years of cultivation can bring influence and access, but also bind the recruit to a life that may collapse once his handlers withdraw their protection.
A service may improve the recruit’s financial position, establish a credible business front, and wait for his social standing to grow. What appears to be ordinary professional advancement may therefore conceal an intelligence operation years in the making.
The occupation spends its assets
Israeli intelligence may invest considerable time and resources in an agent while he remains useful. This treatment rarely survives the loss of his access or operational value. To his handlers, the collaborator remains an expendable intelligence asset.
There have been exceptions. In Operation Diamond, Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa flew an MiG-21 to Israel on 16 August 1966 after Mossad arranged the extraction of members of his family. Israel obtained one of the Soviet Union’s most advanced aircraft, studied it, and later shared it with the US. The aircraft was subsequently numbered 007.
Such treatment generally follows the value or danger of the mission and may form part of the recruitment bargain itself. Better pay and protection can also be extended to agents who perform unusually important tasks or who convert to Judaism. The secrecy surrounding these cases makes any credible percentage impossible to establish.
Redfa received exceptional protection because Israel wanted the aircraft intact and needed his cooperation. Moving his family was part of the deal. Better treatment may also be extended to agents who undertake unusually important or dangerous missions, but few remain so valuable once their work is over.
The broader record is harsher. When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, its proxy South Lebanon Army (SLA) collapsed, and thousands of its members and relatives crossed the border amid scenes of panic.
Former commander Antoine Lahad later accused Israel of abandoning the force it had armed, financed, and trained. Their experience remains one of the clearest warnings to those who wager their fate on occupation promises.
Palestinian collaborators who fled to Israel have likewise faced displacement, isolation, and uncertain legal and economic lives. The same pattern now shadows Israel-backed armed groups in Gaza, whose utility depends on the occupation’s immediate military needs rather than any lasting obligation to the men it recruits.
An agent who tries to walk away may discover that retirement is not an option. His handler can threaten to expose him, demand further work, or press him to recruit a more valuable replacement. Every payment, meeting, and assignment becomes another means of control.
Despite Israel’s technological reach, its human intelligence operations still depend on patient recruitment, money, ideology, coercion, and personal vulnerability. Once an agent has exhausted his usefulness, the occupation has little incentive to protect him.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced that its Aerospace Force and Navy have carried out attacks on US warships and vessels in response to American attacks on Iranian oil tankers and a naval blockade of Iran.
The IRGC Aerospace Force said it targeted, with several ballistic missiles, a US aircraft carrier and a destroyer that had harassed Iranian ships and participated in the naval blockade.
“The two warships, after sustaining damage and fearing another attack, were forced to flee the area of engagement,” the force said.
It added that the enemy, which had for years “roamed the region with false pride and hollow claims,” is now forced to officially acknowledge that two US Navy warships had come under attack.
“CENTCOM’s acknowledgment confirming this operation is living evidence of the enemy’s strategic defeat and proof of the offensive power of the IRGC,” the statement said.
The IRGC Aerospace Force warned that if hostile and aggressive actions continue, “the US regime must expect devastating responses from the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Meanwhile, the IRGC Navy said in a statement on Saturday night that the US “terrorist and aggressor army”, in a brutal act carried out “out of desperation” over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, had attacked three oil tankers belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran earlier that morning, causing damage.
The IRGC Navy said its forces subsequently targeted three oil tankers traveling along an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz as well as three vessels affiliated with the US in other areas.
The IRGC Navy issued a “firm warning” to all vessels present in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz, urging them not to fall for deception by the US military and to avoid any suspicious movement aimed at passing through unauthorized waterways.
“Otherwise, you will be targeted,” the statement warned.
Also, the spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of Iran warned the US military that if its acts of “mischief, insecurity and harassment of Iranian ships” and the naval blockade of Iran continue, the Iranian Armed Forces will deliver “more severe strikes than before” against US military vessels in the region.
An Iranian oil tanker came under a missile attack by US forces six nautical miles off Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf on Saturday morning.
Several explosions were heard from the direction of the Persian Gulf in the vicinity of Kharg Island hours ago.
According to a Tasnim correspondent on Kharg Island, a small Iranian oil tanker was targeted by a US military missile attack six nautical miles from the island on Saturday morning.
The tanker, which was in the anchorage area off Kharg Island, was hit by four projectiles fired by US forces.
Local sources said, fortunately, the incident caused no casualties and that the tanker’s crew members were in the process of evacuating the vessel.
Relevant authorities are investigating the extent of the damage and the precise circumstances surrounding the incident. Further details will be released later.
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio – Gospa News founder and director
FIRST POSTED ON GOSPA NEWS AT 7,28 AM GMT + 2 (Italy) -UPDATED AT 9,42 PM GMT + 2
A US-made AGM-84H cruise missile among the wreckage after American strike on a wedding
A US-made AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missile has been identified among the wreckage following the American strike on a wedding ceremony in Sirik, southern Iran, late Tuesday, adding further evidence of the US military’s role in the attack that killed and wounded civilians.
Weapons analyst Trevor Ball identified the remnants as belonging to the SLAM-ER, a precision-guided, air-launched cruise missile manufactured by Boeing, according OsintWarfare which posted on X the first video of wreckage and was quoted by Al Mayaeedn English Lebanese TV.
Boeing describes the SLAM-ER as being the most accurate air-launched munition in the US Navy’s arsenal;
Enlargement of the piece of a U.S. AGM-84H SLAM-ER among the wreckage in the wedding massacre in Sirik posted on X by @OsintWarfare
Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician who now works as a weapons technical analyst for Armament Research Services, was among the experts asked by Reuters to examine the photographs and video.
“The damage seen appears to be from a munition which detonated on contact with the roof, or just above the roof,”he said, adding it was apparently a direct hit.
The strike in the small town of Kuhestak on Tuesday killed five people and injured at least 70 others.
The Exclusive Video of the Wreckage
VIDEO LEGEND:
1st footage – The US-made AGM-84H SLAM-ER cruise missile has among the wreckage following the American strike on the wedding cerimony
2nd footage – Children’s slippers lie scattered in the aftermath of the US aggression at a wedding in Sirik, where civilians, including children, were killed and dozens more were injured. Footage from the scene shows slippers belonging to women and children amid the destruction.
After this initial analysis, both Iranian and international sources tried to identify the weapon, with some ballistics experts even launching the bizarre hypothesis that it was a ricochet shot, a hypothesis considered unlikely by most, however.
Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.
His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…
Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.
For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.
With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.
In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.
In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates
His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others
He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.
VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel
$280+ BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation 150B direct “aid” and $ 130B in “Offense” contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.
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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu talks to US President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on April 7, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Israeli analyst Ran Adelist said it was “interesting to see how the United States and the Israeli occupation entity, despite being tens of thousands of kilometers apart, are today undergoing similar processes in their internal conflicts,” with political and social disputes forming the backdrop and “just one step away” from escalating into violence.
In an article published in Maariv, Adelist added, “Relations between the United States and ‘Israel’ are intertwined across a variety of fields, to the point that, despite the difference in scale, it is unclear which side influences the other, even as both need to preserve their operational independence. In particular, it is unclear which of the two will prevail internally in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship.”
“On the surface, because of the quantitative disparity, no comparison can be made. But in reality, Israel is a miniature version of America, and Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu share a personal, national, and social agenda that is anything but democratic. The prevailing claim is that we are dealing with two democracies, one the largest in the world and the other the only one in the Middle East. That is not true. They are conditional democracies. The condition is that the deep messianic, sectarian, economic, and nationalist currents do not fall into the hands of dictatorial leaders and a mindless public that blindly follows them—and that is precisely what has happened to both,” the Zionist analyst continued.
Activists hold signs during a protest near the White House as U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 2026. (Photo by Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In fact, the United States and Israel have never truly been democracies,” he wrote. “The United States acted after World War II as an emerging empire, while Israel, after the ‘War of Liberation,’ acted as a ‘state’ under siege, requiring the suppression of the hostile Arab sector. Thus, until Trump and Netanyahu came along and exposed the truth, we were dealing with a conditional democracy. What is ours is ours, and what is yours is ours as well. At the same time, in both countries, intractable identity problems came to the surface involving sectors that are not merely different but in conflict with one another, and both fell into constitutional crises with similar characteristics.”
Adelist drew a sharp contrast between Trump and Netanyahu while arguing that, despite their differences, both leaders share a highly personalized approach to power and political survival.
“There are no two people more different from each other than Trump and Bibi,” he wrote, describing Trump as a “childish megalomaniac” and “pathological narcissist” who clings to fragments of reality and frequently veers into embarrassing territory despite efforts by his aides to prepare him for public appearances.
Adelist portrayed Netanyahu as similarly focused above all on his political survival. He argued that, while Netanyahu remains “razor-sharp” when it comes to preserving his position, he treats everything else as secondary.
The analyst also pointed to what he described as a parallel media environment surrounding the two leaders. He cited the Israeli Channel 14 and Fox in the United States, accusing both outlets of promoting “wild conspiracy theories” and broadly defending their respective leaders.
According to Adelist, Trump and Netanyahu operate within political “bubbles” that filter out information that challenges their worldview. “When something bad happens,” he wrote, “it is, for both of them, collateral damage.”
Adelist argued that the concentration of political power around both leaders has also shaped their handling of foreign and security policy. In his view, when leaders exercise near-total control domestically, they are likely to approach international affairs with the same highly personalized style of decision-making.
He described this as “a surefire recipe for losing on every external front,” arguing that domestic political protection can allow leaders to absorb military and diplomatic setbacks without facing immediate political consequences.
The Zionist analyst cited what he characterized as the war in Iran under Trump and the conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as more recently Turkey, under Netanyahu. He argued that both leaders can continue pursuing policies that bring them closer to catastrophe because of the political protection they retain at home.
He concluded that the two so-called leaders’ eventual decline could follow a similarly short trajectory, describing the parallels between their political fortunes as “striking.”
Mouners carry a coffin duringa mass funeral for people killed when U.S missile struk a home wherea weddind was being heldin Kuhestak, Southern Iran, Tursday, Sept. 3, 2026 (Razief Poudat/SNA via AP)
A four-year-old child was among four people laid to rest in the southern Iranian city of Kuhestak on Thursday, as grieving families and residents gathered to bid farewell to loved ones killed in a US attack on the area.
The funeral ceremonies in Kuhestak, in Sirik County of Hormozgan Province, began at 4 pm from a street at the city’s entrance, with mourners walking together toward the city’s Martyrs’ Cemetery, where the victims were laid to rest.
Families mourn victims of US massacre
The authorities identified the four victims as four-year-old Amirali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Mollahi, 43-year-old Kolthoum Mollahi Nezhadnia, and 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri.
According to the announced figures, the US aggression left 68 people injured, several of whom remain under medical treatment.
The funeral brought together the victims’ relatives, military and civilian officials, and large numbers of residents from across Hormozgan Province. The four victims were buried at the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Kuhestak.
Larijani condemns killing of women and children
Speaking about the attack, Head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council Sheikh Amoli Larijani said, “The crime in Sirik and the killing of unarmed women and children embody the savage nature and deceptive self of the United States, and expose the falsehood and audacity of those who trade in human rights.”
Larijani added that “The war crime in Sirik proved that what they call civilization is nothing but savagery that has been embellished and beautified,” and said, “The shame of this massacre will forever weigh heavily on the shoulders of all those who committed and supported it.”
Iran reports mounting toll from attacks
Meanwhile, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour announced the latest figures for those killed and wounded in the recent attacks targeting Iran.
He said 61 of those injured were women and 44 were under the age of 18, while the list of those killed included two women and one child.
“Behind every number is a human being and a family,” Kermanpour said, a reminder that the casualty figures represent lives lost, families shattered, and communities left to mourn in the aftermath of the attacks.
A night meant to celebrate love turned into one of the darkest and most painful nights in Sirik when a US missile struck a wedding celebration, killing five people and injuring 63 others, including women and children.
MP Hasan Ezzeddine, Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc (image from archive)
“Loyalty to Resistance” parliamentary bloc issued on Thursday a statement after its periodic meeting, stressing that the bets of the Lebanese authorities on making concessions in the context of the “Framework Agreement” have fallen.
What follows is the full text of the statement:
The Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc held its periodic meeting with all its members in attendance, and issued the following statement:
The United States continues to escalate its aggression against the region, especially against the Islamic Republic of Iran, through bombing and destruction. Meanwhile, the Zionist enemy continues to escalate its crimes against South Lebanon: bulldozing, demolition, uprooting trees, and stealing water — amid complete international silence, full American complicity, and official Lebanese neglect of even the minimum responsibility to defend the country and its people.
As for our people in Palestine, especially in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they are subjected to an organized and escalating savage aggression. The West Bank is now at the heart of an expanding settlement onslaught, while Al-Aqsa Mosque is not spared from the frenzied attacks by the enemy’s leaders.
Amid all of this, our people and the people of the Resistance, from Palestine to Lebanon, embody a model of steadfastness and patience. In their legendary march of resilience before the enemy, they rely on God, believe in their cause, and are determined to confront. They are fully confident that victory will ultimately be their ally.
None of these major and dangerous developments could ever obscure the 48th anniversary of the enforced disappearance of the Imam of the nation and the Resistance, His Eminence Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr and his two companions. Rather, it has made the memory burn brighter, because all of what is happening in terms of aggression and occupation is precisely what Imam al-Sadr warned against and called to resist.
At its periodic meeting, the Loyalty Bloc paused before this occasion and once again expressed its condemnation and denunciation of the injustice inflicted upon our people, our homeland, and our cause, when the tyrant Gaddafi and his criminal regime committed the crime of the enforced disappearance of Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr and his two brothers, Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine. It was never hidden from anyone that the goal of that crime was to silence the voice defending our human right to reject injustice, to resist the enemy, and to live in security, sovereignty, and dignity — in a sovereign, liberated, proud, and protected homeland, and in a region where the honorable stand with Palestine, its people, and its just and legitimate cause of liberation.
The Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc renews its pledge to Imam al-Sadr, who laid the foundations and pillars of the approach of resistance to the Zionist enemy: that his sons in Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain steadfast in upholding the path of resistance to defend the homeland and its people and to liberate its land, and they will never hesitate to make sacrifices, no matter how great, for this cause.
In light of the developments, the Bloc recorded the following:
1- The bet of the Lebanese authority has failed and its illusions have vanished after the failure of its concessionary option in the shameful and ominous “framework agreement” — illegal and unconstitutional — with the enemy. It has become clear that the enemy is using it as cover to continue the crime of annihilation against everything related to life in the occupied areas, and to continue its attacks on the southern villages. This authority no longer has any pretext to continue down this destructive path for the state and the homeland, except to please the American administration. Its justificatory rhetoric has been worn out and convinces no one. Instead of persisting in stubbornness and denial of reality, it must abandon this approach that deepens the national crisis and entrenches the occupation and its criminal practices. 2- The Bloc affirms that the absence of the political authority from shouldering its national responsibilities in confronting the Zionist aggression against Lebanon and its consequences, and its “clinical death” toward its people on living issues — especially regarding the affairs of the displaced and the suffering of those affected, and its disavowal of its known obligations — has led to a worsening electricity crisis, the spread of corruption and favoritism in appointments, the absence of oversight over rising prices, and leaving the citizen in daily suffering with no one to hold accountable.
3- The Bloc affirms that hostility toward Israel is a charter-based stance enshrined in the Taif Agreement, and a body of legal texts that have accumulated since the establishment of the Zionist entity and its ongoing daily crimes against our people and its occupation of our land. The insistence of the President of the Republic on his repeated statement about seeking to end the state of hostility with Israel is a deliberate disregard of the Charter, the laws, and the pains of our people. Hostility toward Israel is a condition imposed by the enemy’s continued occupation of others’ lands by force, and by its inherent racist and exclusionary nature. No one, whatever their position, will be able to abolish it or strike it from the Charter, the law, and from the culture of the Lebanese and the authenticity of their national belonging.
4- The Bloc strongly condemns the renewed American aggression and economic siege on the Islamic Republic, and the targeting of civilians. It affirms Iran’s legitimate right to self-defense and to confront aggression by appropriate means, and it salutes the heroism of the Iranian Armed Forces and Iranian national solidarity in defeating the objectives of arrogance and hegemonic bullying.
Iran has been preparing for an extended and decisive phase of the war with the United States, Professor Mohammad Marandi said Tuesday, arguing that Tehran anticipated the escalation and has positioned its military and strategic capabilities accordingly.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen on The Great Standoff: Iran and the World, Marandi said Iran had undertaken extensive preparations in recent weeks, including preparations concerning the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Strait of Hormuz is extensively mined, and the United States cannot remove those or dismantle the mines”, Marandi said, adding that the mines had been prepared as part of Iran’s broader military posture.
“The mines in the Strait of Hormuz are very much prepared, and anyone who wants to try to see if they’re non-existent, they can do so and pay the price”, he said.
Marandi argued that Iran had been preparing for “an extensive war, a long war, and a decisive war”, while warning that countries in the region aligned with Washington could face serious consequences as the conflict develops.
US using regional airspace in attacks on Iran
According to Marandi, the United States is extensively using the airspace of regional countries to conduct operations against Iran, with Saudi airspace among those being used.
He also stated that a US strike had hit a wedding celebration in Sirik, saying further information was expected to emerge. Marandi later said that two Iranians had been confirmed martyred in the attack, assigning direct responsibility to both Washington and the regional governments supporting it.
The United States, he asserted, would be unable to eliminate Iran’s military capabilities, pointing to the country’s extensive underground military infrastructure and the dispersal of its assets.
“Iran’s military capabilities are underground”, he said. “They’re spread out. Iran has decoys, tens of thousands of decoys planted across the country”. Iran also moves its surface-based assets regularly, making it difficult for the United States to establish a precise picture of its military capabilities, he said.
Iran has ‘the advantage’, Marandi says
Marandi said the United States had “fallen into the Iranian trap” by entering into a direct military confrontation with Tehran, arguing that Iran holds several advantages at this stage of the war.
He pointed to the timing of the confrontation, including the approaching US midterm elections, as well as favorable conditions inside Iran. “The Americans have basically fallen into the Iranian trap because a military war now between Iran and the Trump regime. Iran has the advantage for a host of reasons,” he said.
Marandi also argued that Iran had spent the past six months moving decoys and military assets in an effort to complicate US targeting efforts. “Iran constantly moves around its decoys. It constantly moves around its own assets that are on the surface. It’s very confusing for the Americans”, he said.
He stated further that the United States was less capable militarily than it portrays itself to be, saying, “They are not nearly as capable as they present themselves to be in Hollywood movies”.
Depressing US air defense stocks
Regarding Washington’s military capabilities, Marandi said the United States and Jordan had expended a significant number of surface-to-air missiles during recent Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Jordan.
According to his assessment, approximately 100 surface-to-air missiles were used by the United States and Jordan during the strikes “the night before last”. He said Iran was using older missiles to encourage the expenditure of US air-defense interceptors while reserving more advanced missiles for attacks against selected targets.
“It is believed that within a short period of time, if this war is sustained, that the United States will effectively run out of missiles”, Marandi said.
He drew a parallel with Ukraine, arguing that US military stocks were already under pressure and that Washington was increasingly unable to provide Kiev with additional air-defense systems. “The shortages are real, and the shortages are growing as we speak,” he said.
Marandi predicted heavy fighting in the coming days, describing the current period as a potentially decisive phase in the confrontation between Iran and the United States.
Where did US' air defense shield go? Following emergency transfers to West Asia, US Patriot missile stockpiles in Europe have dropped past a critical threshold.
An AP report reveals that out of 2,330 available Patriot interceptors, around 1,500 were consumed in the war on Iran. pic.twitter.com/lZOL0XHoVo
He specifically named Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, accusing their governments of assisting the United States in its aggression against Iran.
“These regimes which, as we speak, are assisting the United States in carrying out airstrikes, they will be severely punished,” he said.
Marandi added that Iran could target US assets in those countries and assets linked to the US economy if Washington escalates its campaign against Iran’s infrastructure or economy. “I think that, again, like I said months ago, the very existence of these regimes is now a question”, he said.
Threats from the Trump administration, he said, would not alter Iran’s position, saying the Iranian leadership and armed forces remained committed to continuing the fight. “The Iranians are not going to back down at all”, Marandi said.
Iran has upgraded military capabilities
Marandi also revealed that Iran’s armed forces have introduced new weapons systems that have yet to be publicly unveiled. “The Iranian armed forces, whether it’s the regular army or the revolutionary guards, they have new weapon systems that they have not unveiled yet”, he said.
According to Marandi, Iran has used the past six months of US attacks to identify weaknesses and improve its military capabilities, including its missile and drone systems.
“Iran has learned a lot from the assaults carried out by the United States on the country over the last six months,” he said. “And it is using that wealth of knowledge to upgrade its weapon systems and to be more capable in defending the country against US aggression.”
He said Iran’s military-industrial and research and development capabilities are largely located underground and suggested that Tehran is also drawing on the capabilities of friendly countries. Marandi pointed to the reported downing of a US drone as evidence that Iran’s military capabilities have improved.
“So this downing of a US drone is just an indication that while Iran has downed many drones in the past, but it is an indication that Iran’s enhanced capabilities are going to make things more difficult for the United States in the coming days and weeks”, he said.
Iran’s military posture has shifted to offensive
Marandi urged supporters of the resistance not to be concerned about the escalation, arguing that Iran has prepared militarily, psychologically and materially for the coming phase. “The Iranian armed forces have escalation dominance. They are very well entrenched”, he said, adding that Iranian soldiers have high morale and that the country is prepared for what he described as decisive days and weeks ahead.
He also said Iran was not intimidated by threats issued by US President Donald Trump, arguing that Tehran had already begun retaliatory operations despite warnings from Washington. “The Iranian retaliation will be heavy-handed. It is heavy-handed. It will be even more heavy-handed”, Marandi said, stressing that Iran’s military posture had shifted from defensive to offensive following the appointment of General Mohsen Rezaei as chair of the Supreme National Security Council.
“With the appointment of the new chair of the Supreme National Security Council, General Mohsen Rezaei, it is clear that a decision has been made at the highest level,” Marandi said.
He further attributed the strategic shift to a decision by Sayyed Ali Khamenei, saying Iran would remain on the offensive in the coming battle. “And so, just as we saw the night before last, the Iranians hit the United States very hard in response to its assault. Iran is going to hit even harder in the coming hours”, he said.
Concluding his statement, Professor Marandi warned that Iran was closely monitoring the actions of regional governments supporting the United States and argued that those governments could no longer claim neutrality. “None of these countries can pretend that they are neutral”, he said. “All of them have blood on their hands, the regimes, whether it’s Jordan or the regimes that neighbor Iran”.
Speaking on Monday’s episode of Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff: Iran and the World, Professor Mohammad Marandi said messages conveyed by the United States through Oman, Qatar, and Pakistan have failed to meet Iran’s expectations.
Missile strike by the Islamic Republic of Iran (image from archive).
Iran retaliated for the US aggression on its soil by targeting US bases across Kuwait, Bahrain and UAE in operations carried out on Wednesday by both the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
The (IRGC) said its forces have struck the command compound and living quarters of the US commander at Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem Air Base, setting fire to a drone hangar and deployment ramp and destroying a number of drones.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the IRGC’s Public Relations Department said the operation was carried out in response to a US attack on civilians in Iran.
The retaliation came after US forces turned a wedding in Sirik, southern Iran, into a mourning ceremony by bombing a residential house, it said.
Nearly 70 civilians were affected in the attack, with five people, including a child, martyred.
“In response to this crime, at dawn today, the brave fighters of the IRGC Ground Force, simultaneously with attacks on US bases in Jordan, Bahrain and Erbil, carried out a combined missile-and-drone strike on the command center and living quarters of the US commander at Ali Al-Salem base,” the statement said.
The IRGC added that the attack killed a number of US personnel and was followed by strikes on a drone hangar and the ramp used to deploy drones involved in attacks against Iran. It said several drones were destroyed and the hangar was set ablaze.
Iran’s IRGC says targeted 5 US bases across the region:
– Camp Titin & Prince Hassan Base (Jordan): ballistic attack. – Erbil Bases (Iraq): Combined missile/drone – Ali Al Salem (Kuwait): HQs & drone ramps hit. – US Naval Base (Bahrain): Casualties & destroyed aircraft reported. pic.twitter.com/HZlCFW6wJA
Addressing the Kuwaiti people, the IRGC said, “You know well about our affection and affinity with you. What pains and concerns us is the occupation of Islamic lands by the child-killing and terrorist US military.”
The statement added that the attacks were intended to help “cleanse the pure land and generous homeland of Kuwait from the presence of American infidels.”
The IRGC expressed hope for “the destruction of US domination and the Zionist regime and the freedom and independence of the noble people of Kuwait from the occupying aggressors.”
Iranian Army Retaliation
For its part, the Iranian Army announced a fresh wave of drone attacks against US military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, saying dozens of ‘Arash’ loitering munitions targeted radar systems and US troop positions in response to attacks on innocent Iranian civilians.
The Army said the attacks were carried out from the early hours of Wednesday as the 30th stage of Operation Thunderbolt.
“Dozens of the Army’s loitering munitions targeted radar systems and the locations of US forces at the Al Dhafra and Al Minhad bases in the UAE,” the Army said in a statement.
The Iranian Army says it has launched drone attacks on US bases in Bahrain and the UAE in response to the latest US aggression including its attack on a wedding in southern Iran.https://t.co/DBauABVfdhpic.twitter.com/aJ9TdjmIKV
It added that radar installations and gathering points of US forces at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain were once again subjected to heavy attacks by Arash loitering munitions.
The Army described Al Dhafra as one of the “important operational centers” of the US in the region, saying the base is used for air operations, reconnaissance, surveillance and support missions.
The statement stressed that the Army’s response to US attacks on civilians would continue.
“The enemy’s attack on residential areas and its targeting of a wedding ceremony is a clear instance of a war crime and exposes the evil nature of ‘American human rights,’” the Army said.
The Iranian retaliation followed a fresh series of US acts of aggression, which hit the counties of Chabahar and Konarak in Sistan and Baluchestan, among other areas.
The terrorist US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed in a statement that it launched airstrikes in retaliation for what it termed attempts by Iran’s IRGC to deploy sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz and a missile barrage directed at a US military base in Jordan – a claim rejected by Iran’s military sources.
This latest flare-up comes just days after the US conducted strikes on the Iranian island of Larak in the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington claimed was aimed at preventing Tehran from planting mines.
In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks targeting US forces stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
The Iranian Armed Forces launched a massive response to the US aggression on the Islamic Republic on Tuesday, firing a large number of ballistic missiles on US Marines barracks in Jordan, killing a large number of American soldiers.
IRGC issued a statement affirming that the attack came in response to the US massacre against the civilians in Sirik area, stressing that the Iranian response will continue.
What follows is the full text of the IRGC statement:
The terrorist and defeated American army, incapable of direct confrontation with the fighters of Islam, launched a brutal attack on a residential home in Sirik that was hosting the wedding ceremony of two pure young people, turning it into a scene of bloodshed. By causing the martyrdom and injury of nearly fifty of our beloved people, it rekindled the memory of the atrocities committed at the Minab school and the Lamerd stadium.
In this criminal attack, the child-killing American regime has once again revealed the depth of its hatred and enmity toward the Iranian people through the martyrdom of several individuals, including a child.
In response to this brutal act, the brave fighters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, in the second wave of Operation ‘Punishing the Aggressor’ under the sacred code ‘O Messenger of Allah (PBUH)’, launched a dense ballistic missile attack on the U.S. Marines’ barracks in Jordan, known as ‘Camp Titin’ located on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. This resulted in the death of a large number of American forces and the destruction of several key facilities and enemy attack helicopters.
The retaliatory operation by the forces of Islam continues.”
IRGC had announced shooting down the 50th advanced MQ-9 drone belonging to the attacking U.S. military using a modern air and space defense system.
Posted on September 1, 2026 by uprootedpalestinians
لا يحسم أي وسيط في المفاوضات الأميركية – الإيرانية وجهة الأمور بصورة واضحة. ميزان التفاؤل والتشاؤم بات رهن حسابات من نوع مختلف. والتعب الذي يبدو واضحاً على جميع المتحاربين، ينعكس قلة حماسة في الحديث عن عودة الحرب.
لا يحسم أي وسيط في المفاوضات الأميركية – الإيرانية وجهة الأمور بصورة واضحة. ميزان التفاؤل والتشاؤم بات رهن حسابات من نوع مختلف. والتعب الذي يبدو واضحاً على جميع المتحاربين، ينعكس قلة حماسة في الحديث عن عودة الحرب. حتى بنيامين نتنياهو، لا يملك ما يحفّز أحداً على مشاركته جنونه الدموي. وفي الأثناء، تتحوّل لعبة «عضّ الأصابع» بين واشنطن وطهران إلى معضلة من شأنها أن تستمر طويلاً ما لم يحصل خرق كبير في المحاولة القطرية الجادّة التي يُعمل عليها الآن.
في حسابات الكلفة، كل العالم بات على يقين بأن الولايات المتحدة غير قادرة على الذهاب بعيداً في مغامرات عسكرية كبيرة. لكنّ الجميع يقول إن دونالد ترامب، لن يقدر على تقديم تنازلات تتيح إحياء مذكّرة التفاهم مع إيران من دون تعديلات. وهو يعلم مُسبقاً، أن طهران، وإن كانت تضرّرت كثيراً بفعل الحرب، وتتضرّر بفعل الحصار القائم، إلا أنها لا تجد نفسها مضطرة إلى العودة إلى اتفاق من دون تحصيل ضمانات من نوع مختلف، وجبي المزيد من الأثمان.
وسط كل الضجيج، بات الجميع يتصرف على أساس أن هناك عناصر أساسية قد تكون مدخل أي حلّ أو تعثّر. وهي المتصلة بالانتخابات المُرتقبة في إسرائيل (نهاية تشرين الأول المقبل) وفي الولايات المتحدة (مطلع تشرين الثاني المقبل)، علماً أن نتائج هذه الانتخابات، تحتاج بدورها إلى شهور حتى تتحوّل إلى وقائع يُبنى عليها في المرحلة المقبلة. ذلك أن إدارة الرئيس الأميركي، قد لا تنتظر موعد منتصف كانون الثاني المقبل، حيث يجري تثبيت نتائج الانتخابات النصفية، وقد تكون محتاجة إلى حل سريع للأزمة الناجمة عن تعثّر الاتفاق مع إيران.
أمّا في كيان العدو، فإن التقديرات حيال نتائج الانتخابات المقبلة، تفتح الباب أمام احتمال بروز صعوبة في تشكّل ائتلاف قوي يقدر على إقامة حكومة مستقرة، علماً أن الخلافات التي تعصف باليمين الذي يقوده نتنياهو، تشير إلى احتمال أن يلجأ في اللحظة الصعبة إلى طرح فكرة حكومة وحدة وطنية، وهو لن ينجح في فرضها من دون برنامج عمل جديد. وهنا مربط الفرس، ذلك أن التنافس يقوم حالياً ليس على من يفوز بعدد المقاعد الأكبر، بل حول أي برنامج عمل مختلف عن القائم منذ 3 سنوات، حيث تحوّلت إسرائيل إلى كتلة من نار تحرق كل شيء من حولها. وهو مسار لا يمكن لأي دولة في العالم أن تستمر فيه، حتى ولو كان كل أهلها على موقف واحد، علماً أن خصوم نتنياهو، يعملون على جذب الكتل التي تعاني من أزمة جدّية نتيجة التحوّلات في المزاج العام العالمي تجاه إسرائيل. وكل الحديث عن أن كيان الاحتلال يمكنه أن يعمل بمعزل عمّا يجري في العالم، لا معنى له في حالة كيان لا يمكن له الاستمرار من دون رعاية غربية.
في أميركا، يعيش العالم على تسريبات وتصريحات ترامب وفريقه بأن استراتيجيتهما لن تتأثّر بنتائج الانتخابات النصفية، لكنّ الأمور ليست على هذا النحو. فهناك تيار قوي في أميركا يريد دفع الإدارة إلى تسويات كبرى، كما أن الإدارة نفسها لم تعد تضمن نتائج مناسبة من أي مغامرات جديدة.
هل يتحمّل العام المزيد من الاحتقان بسبب تعطّل إمدادات الطاقة، وهل ينجو لبنان من جنون إسرائيلي جديد؟
وإذا كان الإعلام يغرق في تغطية تصريحات عن السيطرة الكاملة على مضيق هرمز وعلى موجة العقوبات ضد إيران وخلافها من الدعايات، فإن أهل منطقة الخليج العربي أولاً، وجماعة الأسواق المالية من جهة ثانية، والحكومات المتأثّرة بأزمة الطاقة من جهة ثالثة، كل هؤلاء يعرفون أن حقيقة الوضع لا تبشّر بالخير، وأن تراجع إمدادات الطاقة كبير جداً، وأن أميركا ليست مسيطرة على حركة التجارة في المضيق، وأن النتائج الأصعب، سوف تظهر تباعاً في الخريف المقبل، ولن يكون بمقدور أحد تجاهل ذلك، وأن العقوبات على إيران استعراضية أكثر منها حقيقية. ما يعني دفع الأمور صوب خيارات حاسمة: إمّا حرب واسعة وقاسية ومجنونة، وإمّا تسوية تجبر الكل على النزول عن الشجرة، والذهاب نحو تطبيع يقود إلى متغيّرات، ستظهر نتائجها تباعاً، وأهمّها سيكون في إسرائيل.
وإذا كان محمد بن سلمان يقود أكبر عملية «تحوّط» في تاريخ بلاده ربطاً بنتائج الحرب، فإن دولة مثل الإمارات العربية لا تعرف أن تستقر على خيار، وهي تقترب من التورّط في أمور قد تنعكس دماراً كبيراً على مستقبلها السياسي والاقتصادي والأمني، بينما يقف الآخرون في مربّع الانتظار، والعاقل منهم، يتسلّح بالصمت، بينما الغبي منهم، يُخرِج رغباته وترّهاته على شكل تقديرات سياسية، كما هو حال أركان سلطة الوصاية عندنا من جوزيف عون ونواف سلام إلى القوى الأخرى التي ترفع لواء إخراج فكرة المقاومة وقدراتها من لبنان بصورة نهائية.
وبمعزل عما يعتقده أركان هذه السلطة حيال مستقبل المفاوضات مع العدو، فإن الأميركيين أنفسهم، الذين يفضّلون مسار واشنطن، ويريدون إبعاد لبنان عن مسار المفاوضات مع إيران، صاروا يتحدّثون بلغة مختلفة، لكنهم يقولون في كل الأوقات، إنهم لا يقدرون على ممارسة الضغط على إسرائيل قبل انتهاء الانتخابات فيها، ما يدفع إلى الاعتقاد بقوة، أن لعبة المماطلة، من قبل إسرائيل أولاً، والولايات المتحدة ثانياً، سوف تعطّل أي نتائج لمسار واشنطن، وبالتالي فإن الحيلة الوحيدة بيدهم، هي إعادة رمي المسؤولية على حزب الله، وهو ما يتولاه عون وسلام وبقية جوقة الوصاية.
وكأنّ هؤلاء يعتقدون بأنهم في حال رفعوا مستوى التهويل والضغط، سوف يدفعون المقاومة إلى التنازل عن مواقفها، وهو ما حرص الأمين العام لحزب الله الشيخ نعيم قاسم على تكراره في خطبه الأخيرة، علماً أنه كان يجدر بفريق الوصاية التعامل بطريقة مختلفة مع قرار المقاومة عدم الدخول في مواجهة تكسر الهدوء النسبي القائم حالياً، رغم أنه يوجد ألف سبب وسبب لأن تستأنف المقاومة عملياتها العسكرية ضد قوات الاحتلال وأن تقود برنامجاً داخلياً يهدف إلى إسقاط هذا الحكم المجنون.
وإذا كان الجميع مضطراً إلى أن ينتظر نتائج انتخابات تشارين، سواء في كيان الاحتلال أو في الولايات المتحدة، فإن ذلك لا يعفي هذه السلطة المريضة، من تحمّل المسؤولية عن أحوال الناس، وها قد مرّت سنتان إلا بضعة أشهر على وجود هذه السلطة من رئاسة وحكومة، فيما تنهار البلاد ومؤسساتها يوماً بعد يوم، ولم يبقَ منها واقفاً على قدم واحدة، سوى الجيش، الذي لا يتوقّف عملاء أميركا وإسرائيل عن التحريض ضده، من أجل دفعه إلى مواجهة لا يريدها ولا يقدر عليها، وهو العارف بأن نتيجتها الوحيدة، هي إغراق لبنان في متاهة حرب أهلية جديدة!
Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei calls for greater solidarity among Muslim nations, urging their leaders to recognize shared threats and strengthen cooperation in defense of the Islamic world.
The Zionists and Americans are enemies of all Muslims around the world, the leader of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei said, stressing that the lesson missing today is the need to confront enemies and defend ourselves and one another.
In a message marking Unity Week, Sayyed Khamenei called on Muslims to reflect deeply on the developments unfolding around them, saying that what happened to the Palestinians would not have occurred had Muslims stood united.
“We must deeply reflect on what is happening around us; had Muslims stood united, what happened to the Palestinians would not have occurred,” he emphasized.
He also urged the rulers of Islamic countries, particularly those in West Asia and the Gulf, to accurately identify the enemies’ plans and cooperate on the path of righteousness.
Islamic unity as a bulwark against division
Iran’s leader stressed that unity is a fundamental prerequisite for confronting the enemies of the Islamic Ummah and the Islamic message, warning against those who sow division among Muslims.
“Those who sow division among Muslims are aiding the enemies,” he stressed.
He noted that the Islamic message has endured difficult circumstances from the early days of Islam to the present, emphasizing that Muslims have played significant roles throughout history. The Iranian leader added that “we are witnessing with our own eyes” the prospects for Muslims’ victory over their enemies.
Sayyed Khomeini’s call for unity and Iran’s role
Sayyed Khamenei recalled the origins of the call for Islamic unity, noting that the late Iranian leader Imam Khomeini began advocating for unity while in exile. He said Imam Khomeini’s launch of “Islamic Unity Week” had angered the enemies of Islam.
Sayyed Khamenei concluded by stressing that Iran has consistently sought to unite the Islamic nation, pledging, “As a servant of the people, I will not allow any divisions among the members of the nation.”
His message was delivered during the closing session of the International Islamic Unity Conference, hosted by the Islamic Republic of Iran for its 40th edition. The conference was held this year under the theme “Islamic Unity in the Thought of the Martyred Imam,” with around 600 participants from inside and outside Iran representing 40 countries, including Iraq, Pakistan, Türkiye, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and the Gulf states.
The conference was held amid the ongoing war on Iran, with speakers emphasizing Islamic solidarity, cooperation, sovereignty, and the need for greater coordination among Muslim countries in the face of regional and global challenges.
The most damaging intelligence failures are often understood only after an operation collapses, a network disappears, or years of trust are exposed as an enemy asset.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Every resistance movement has sensitive files it cannot open to the public. Palestinian and Lebanese archives are filled with accounts of agents, failed operations, and breaches whose full circumstances may never be disclosed. Other secrets died with the people who carried them, leaving black boxes scattered across Syria, Iraq, and beyond.
Some details are withheld to spare organizations embarrassment, while others could compromise methods, expose surviving networks, or show the enemy how a breach was uncovered. Public disclosure also risks turning an isolated case of collaboration into evidence of wider decay within the resistance.
Secrets the resistance cannot publish
Facing fewer restraints, retired Israeli officials publish memoirs, former operatives brief journalists, and the details of old assassinations become material for books and television. Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen’s 2025 memoir, “The Sword of Freedom,” is one recent example. Ronen Bergman’s “Rise and Kill First” drew on roughly a thousand interviews and thousands of documents to reconstruct Israel’s long assassination campaign.
Personal ambition, political rivalry, and institutional score-settling shape these accounts as much as the historical record. One former Mossad chief reportedly supplied analysts and writers with extensive details of past operations to settle political scores with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with some of that material finding its way into Bergman’s book. Israel’s freedom to publish also reflects a deeper confidence that its enemies may learn the method yet still lack the reach to answer it.
Other books in this field have a more overtly propagandistic purpose. Some appear designed to lead the resistance toward a particular version of events and close a sensitive file before the full picture emerges, especially when the operation is recent.
Yet these accounts can still yield useful fragments. The index to Bergman’s book, for example, names Noam Erez as the Israeli operational official responsible for Imad Mughniyeh’s assassination. Elsewhere, it claims that Yahya Ayyash met Hezbollah leaders in Marj al-Zuhur, despite Ayyash never having been among the Palestinians deported there in 1992.
Such discrepancies may result from poor sourcing or deliberate misdirection, but either way they show why Israeli accounts must be read for what they reveal inadvertently as much as for what they claim outright.
The resistance therefore needs its own record, even if names and countries must be withheld, to understand what each penetration changed, how it survived, and which defensive measures worked. Such protection and prevention belong to the practice of resistance as surely as the operations conducted in public view.
Recruitment without a handler
Israel’s recruitment methods have changed over more than eight decades. Agents were cultivated before the occupation of Palestine, but the communications revolution of the past thirty years has widened the number of possible entry points.
A recruiter no longer needs repeated face-to-face meetings. Financial distress, private correspondence, medical records, travel histories, and intimate relationships can be mapped from a distance before the target realizes that an approach has begun.
Recent wars have added harsher forms of coercion. In Gaza, Israel has sought to turn entire families into local auxiliaries by tying survival, aid, or permission to remain in place to cooperation. In September 2025, The Cradle reported that members of the Dughmush and Bakr families were killed after rejecting approaches from the Shin Bet.
Arabic reporting, citing the EuroMed Human Rights Monitor and family representatives, described offers of money, weapons, and protection in return for forming armed groups modeled on Yasser Abu Shabab’s militia.
Marwan Bakr, the family’s ‘mukhtar,’ said the occupation army offered to let them remain in exchange for cooperation, but they refused: “We will not be tools in the hands of those who kill us.” Nizar Doghmush, head of his family council, likewise believed that “death is easier than the stigma of betrayal.” These individual positions form the nucleus of collective steadfastness, but every refusal has a price.
The approaches to the two families form part of Israel’s wider effort to construct armed Palestinian alternatives to Hamas and place aid routes under their control. Its proxy strategy in Gaza turns existing clan disputes, criminal networks, and political rivalries into instruments of occupation. Elsewhere, the same logic allows Tel Aviv to encourage a local killing without exposing the outside hand that selected the target.
In Iran, access was pursued through a different route. On 26 June 2025, an X account identifying itself as Mossad Farsi advertised a telemedicine service for Iranians through WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal.
The post offered Persian-speaking specialists in cardiology, diabetes, infectious disease, oncology, gynecology, and psychology, and advised prospective users to connect through a VPN. Israeli media treated the service as a Mossad initiative, although the agency declined to confirm the account when asked by Israel Hayom.
A screenshot of the Israeli advertisement for Iranians posted on X at the time.
Whether the account was officially run by Mossad matters less than the opening it created. A medical consultation can yield names, locations, family ties, health records, personal vulnerabilities, and a private line of communication.
The offer also served Israeli propaganda by presenting an enemy intelligence service as more attentive to Iranian citizens than their own government, while quietly probing loyalties and building access.
Scholarships, exchange programs, professional conferences, cafes, and diaspora associations can serve the same purpose. Students in sensitive technical fields are especially valuable because recruitment abroad is harder to detect once they return home. The method need not begin with an explicit request to spy. Access is built gradually through favors, status, travel opportunities, and proximity to people with money or influence.
Protocols written after the breach
Speaking to The Cradle, a Lebanese security source describes the problem bluntly:
“Someone recruited abroad is far more difficult to detect. The resistance therefore has strict protocols. For example, entering the embassies of certain countries, or even passing through those countries in transit, is sufficient grounds for suspension or dismissal.”
The source adds:
“If a cadre travels without permission, even to a country that is neither hostile nor suspicious, the minimum decision is to suspend that person for years. That is enough time for the handler to lose any hope of benefiting from the cadre if he has been recruited.”
Not every organization adopted such rules early enough. A Palestinian source points to the abduction of a mid-ranking cadre in an Asian country. Local authorities freed him before he was killed, but not before he surrendered the information he held. The source reveals:
“As a result of this incident, a decision was taken to prevent even those who had resigned from their duties from traveling until three years after the date of resignation. During this period, the direct superior must ensure that all relevant arrangements are changed immediately if any cadre travels or suddenly disappears.”
Beyond money, blackmail, or ideology, some captured agents have described a need to feel important, a desire for foreign citizenship, or the attraction of access to influential people. Recruitment often succeeds when an intelligence service identifies the private story a target wants to believe about himself, long before it assigns him a mission.
The scale of the danger is visible in Lebanon, where the Internal Security Forces and Hezbollah have repeatedly uncovered Israeli networks spanning sects and nationalities. In 2022, authorities announced the dismantling of what was described as the largest Israeli spy network discovered in the country.
Iran’s arrests after the June 2025 war likewise showed how recruitment can spread across logistics, transport, communications, and ordinary civilian work rather than remain confined to officials with obvious access.
Medical travel creates a particularly difficult exposure because patients and relatives must surrender documents, diagnoses, contact details, and travel plans to hospitals, charities, insurers, visa offices, and intermediaries.
Although most of those bodies are legitimate, a hostile service needs to compromise only one link in the chain to identify a vulnerable person or begin an approach that appears unrelated to politics. The danger grows when urgent treatment abroad leaves the patient dependent on whoever can accelerate an appointment, secure a visa, or cover the bill.
The 2024 Israeli war on Lebanon and Israel’s 2025 attack on Iran exposed security failures that public rhetoric could no longer cover. A resistance movement can compensate for weaknesses while the enemy remains uncertain about its capabilities.
Once Israel has mapped both, speeches carry little weight. By then, the battlefield has already been shaped by what was surrendered behind the lines.
When one agent ruins an operation
The most destructive agent does more than pass names or coordinates. Advance warning can allow Israel to abort an operation, redirect a target, or let the plan proceed far enough to turn it into a trap. The result is not measured only in casualties. A failed operation can provoke paralysis, internal accusations, and years of fear among cadres who no longer know which part of the chain was compromised.
Israeli officials and aligned journalists claim in their own defense that for many years they had no significant agent within Hamas’s senior military leadership. This, they say, is why Operation Al-Aqsa Flood proceeded without warning from “golden information” or a “high-level agent.”
Israel’s search for such sources is as old as the organizations it targeted. From the first operations of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), agents reached positions of consequence and, according to Palestinian accounts, sometimes entered command rooms.
Egypt and Syria faced the same effort. The conflicting literature surrounding the October 1973 war still shows how difficult it can be to separate a genuine human source from an ignored warning, a political cover story, or retrospective mythmaking.
Hamas may still have been penetrated despite Israel’s failure to obtain strategic warning. The Cradlehas documented a case involving access to the movement before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, while the surprise achieved on 7 October suggests that any source was too low, excluded from the operation, or unable to transmit what mattered. Israel’s later success in Lebanon and Iran only sharpens the contrast.
Resistance sources in Lebanon and Palestine attribute several failed or compromised operations to internal breaches, including the 2005 Ghajar operation and the first Zikim naval assault in 2014. The Zikim raid itself is established, and footage later showed Qassam fighters reaching an Israeli military position. The claim that an agent sabotaged its first phase, however, is not supported by a public record and should remain attributed to the source.
Similar caution is needed over a source’s claim that more than 30 attempts to retaliate for the 2008 assassination of Mughniyeh were disrupted, and over accounts of an agent known only as ‘N.N.’ who allegedly remained inside a Gaza armed wing for 25 years.
Another Palestinian account involves a former female prisoner who had been sent on a bombing mission more than 15 years before her release. Days before she left prison, she says, Israel assassinated the commander who had dispatched her.
His killing ensured that the two could never compare what they knew or identify the suspected agent between them. Whether by design or consequence, the episode reflects a familiar intelligence method in which the only people capable of assembling the full picture are prevented from meeting.
A retired security source offers a more verifiable pattern from the occupied West Bank. Between 2017 and 2019, he says, Israel allowed a developing armed structure to expand while monitoring meetings abroad.
Arrests came only after members returned to their cities and the financing and weapons-transfer chains had been exposed. “One rotten tomato can spoil many others,” the source says.
At the time, the Israelis allowed the structure to develop and monitored every meeting held abroad. They waited until everyone returned to and settled in their cities, then waited further until the financing and weapons-transfer cells still operating inside the territories were exposed, before carrying out a major arrest operation.
The same source concludes:
“A shock of this kind causes organizational paralysis and mutual recriminations, and an organization cannot recover from it easily or quickly. It also creates frustration and fear among cadres on the ground, a reality that may take years of effort or a generational change to overcome. A masterstroke is worth a thousand ordinary blows. This explains why the West Bank did not rise up in the opening days of Al-Aqsa Flood and has not done so to this day.”
An Israeli penetration can survive the arrest of the agent who enabled it, leaving commanders to question compromised plans, exposed routes, and even one another. By then, the occupation has already planted suspicion where trust once held the organization together.
Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech during the central Prophetic festival marking the birth of Prophet Mohammad and Islamic Unity Week in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, on August 28, 2026.
Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said Friday that the group had broken the “Greater Israel” project and would remain steadfast, declaring: “We will hold our heads high and will not surrender.”
Sheikh Qassem made the remarks during a central religious festival organized by Hezbollah at the Ashoura Square in Beirut’s southern suburbs (Dahiyeh) to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi) and his grandson, Imam Jaafar Al-Sadiq, as well as Islamic Unity Week.
His Eminence said an aggressive US-Israeli project seeks to control and fragment the region and is being confronted by Iran and resistance forces. “The adversaries had left no opportunity for aggression but had failed and would continue to fail to achieve their objectives.”
“The major sacrifices made in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Iraq had halted the Zionist-American project targeting the region. We have sacrificed much and will not lose. Loss comes when we surrender and hand them everything with our own hands,” His Eminence declared.
Sheikh Qassem: We broke the “Greater Israel” project, preventing it from reaching Beirut and stripping Lebanon of its strength; today, "Israel" dares not establish a settlement in the south or draw borders beyond occupied territory for fear of the resistance and its supporters pic.twitter.com/cWpmjEQAyq
Sheikh Qassem said the Lebanese authorities had chosen a course that did not honor Lebanon by abandoning the November 27, 2024, agreement and entering direct negotiations with the enemy. “Honorable people, resistance fighters, those who had sacrificed, and their supporters from all sects rejected the authorities’ concessions. Who authorized you to surrender Greater Israe?”
His Eminence said the Lebanese authorities’ negotiations had not stopped the war but had instead legitimized it, describing them as “a humiliating surrender to the enemy with nothing in return.”
“You are paying the price for the country in negotiations to remain on your thrones and appease America, which is complicit with Israel.”
The Hezbollah secretary general stressed that the group did not want war, pointing to its acceptance of and commitment to the November 27, 2024, agreement. What is happening today, he said, “is not a mutual war but a defined Israeli aggression that ebbs and flows,” adding that it would not have eased without the 1701 of understanding.
Sheikh Qassem affirmed the Israeli occupation’s project was “Greater Israel,” citing developments in Syria as evidence. He stressed that Hezbollah would remain in the field and reject the projects being proposed.
Hezbollah’s Sheikh Qassem: – Lebanon’s authorities dishonored Lebanon by abandoning the Nov. 27, 2024 agreement and entering direct talks with Israel.
– The talks failed to stop the war and instead legitimized it, amounting to a humiliating surrender with nothing in return pic.twitter.com/dHNau8sfbk
“We broke the ‘Greater Israel’ project and prevented it from reaching Beirut and stripping Lebanon of its strength so that the enemy could not take control and settlements could begin,” he said.
His Eminence added that “Israel” now dared not establish a settlement in southern Lebanon because the area remained unstable in the presence of the resistance. He also asserted that the Israeli occupation forces were afraid to draw borders beyond the territory it had occupied because it feared the resistance, its people, and those standing with it.
Sheikh Qassem said Hezbollah was “in a state of confrontation” and would remain steadfast, accepting only the implementation of the October 27, 2024, agreement under the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
“We oppose the framework agreement and call for its rejection,” he said, describing it as illegitimate, unlawful, and humiliating, and saying it undermined Lebanese sovereignty and failed to restore rights.
Sheikh Qassem said that those who possessed such resistance, such as young people and a people willing to sacrifice for their country, could not be defeated.
“Israel cannot achieve gains in the presence of the resistance, its people, the honorable, the martyrs, and the sacrifices. We are Karbala-inspired in achieving our goals.”
“The sacrifices of our people are immense, and we will work together for their dignity, continue social assistance, and support reconstruction and restoration,” Qassem said. “We will hold our heads high and will not surrender. Let them do whatever they want.”
#Hezbollah Sec. Gen. Sheikh Naim Qassem, speaking at the central prophetic festival in #Beirut: – Islamic unity must strengthen Muslims and promote cooperation among states and peoples -Islamic unity is needed to confront #US and Israeli projects aimed at fragmenting our region pic.twitter.com/ahKzI34sHy
Addressing Islamic unity, Qassem said the unity sought was one that would strengthen Muslims and foster integration and cooperation among them, particularly among states and peoples.
He said Islamic unity was intended to free the nation from dependency and subjugation, confront sectarian, religious, and political divisions, and counter US and Israeli projects aimed at fragmenting the region. Unity, he said, meant turning toward the nation’s real enemy and moving beyond internal conflicts.
Sheikh Qassem said Islamic unity had two outcomes: first, remaining united to prevent strife and extend that unity to the national and humanitarian levels; and second, uniting around the central cause of Palestine, which he said represented the future of the entire region.
“It is time for our region to become secure through understanding among its states and to put an end to arrogance,” he said.
On the anniversary of the disappearance of Imam Mous Sadr, Qassem said the imam had been “an icon, a leader, a role model, and a man of great vision,” adding that he had disappeared because he represented justice and humanity.
Sheikh Qassem affirmed that Hezbollah would continue along the path of “the Imam of the Resistance,” Sayyed Mous Sadr, and that of Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, whom he described as the “Master of the Nation’s Martyrs.”
Iran will ultimately outlast the United States in the ongoing six-month war, according to Professor Mohammad Marandi, who described the sanctions imposed on Tehran as unprecedented in human history. Former Pentagon Senior Security Policy Analyst Michael Maloof, meanwhile, characterized the conflict as the most catastrophic outcome of a longstanding US policy shaped by flawed Israeli intelligence.
On Al Mayadeen‘s The Great Standoff: Iran and the World, Marandi stated that “The United States has been engaged in a type of warfare for well over a year now, since the 12-Day War, or a bit before that”, noting that “this war in particular, the Ramadan War, it has been ongoing for six months”.
Marandi said the current phase of the war is siege warfare, which he emphasized is a war crime. “Instead of bombing the Minab school and slaughtering 168 little girls, or instead of bombing the sports complex in Lomert and killing large numbers of teenage girls who are practicing volleyball, they’re targeting all teenagers and all elementary school children across the country through siege warfare”, he said.
Iran has outlasted US in previous phases and will do so again
Marandi stated that current sanctions are unprecedented in their severity. “These sanctions today are sanctions that have never existed, the likes of which have never existed in human history,” Marandi said. “But the Iranians continue to remain steadfast, and they will punish the aggressor”.
He argued that Iran has consistently outlasted the United States in previous phases of the war, citing the 40-day war, the siege warfare period, and the 13 days of fighting after the United States undermined a memorandum of understanding. “Each phase was an attempt by one side to overcome the other, to outlast the other,” he said. “And so far, we’ve seen that both during the 40 days, siege warfare, the 13 days, it was the Iranians who outlasted the United States”.
For 40 days, the central question of the #US war on Iran was simple: Who could outlast the other?
Marandi acknowledged that the current siege warfare will harm Iranians and make life more difficult, but maintained that Iran will prevail. “The Iranians know that this is a war for survival,” he said, adding that “the Iranians have a resilience, along with its partners and allies across the axis of resistance, that is, to be very blunt, unique in the world that we live in today.”
Chance of renewed war significant, substantial: Marandi
Regarding the possibility of renewed military war, Marandi said the chances are “significant and substantial.” He said Iran has warned the United States that if it tries to crush the Iranian economy and if regional governments cooperate, “the Iranian response will be swift and decisive,” which he said would include the use of Iran’s military capabilities.
He noted that the United States may also launch a strike on Iran, and that renewed war could occur after the elections. “But we are in such a situation,” he said.
Marandi also addressed the link between the war in Ukraine and the war in West Asia, stating that Russia and Iran have benefited from each other’s resistance to the United States and Europe. “The Russians benefit enormously from the fact that Iran has defeated the United States,” he said. “And the Iranians have benefited enormously from the fact that the Russians have severely weakened the United States and the Europeans as well.”
War reveals limitations of US power and flawed Israeli intelligence
For his part, former Pentagon Senior Security Policy Analyst Michael Maloof offered a broader critique of US policy, describing the war as “the most tragic and volatile consequence so far to date” of what he said was a longstanding US approach to West Asia.
“Every time the United States has followed the intelligence of the Israelis, and it’s turned out to be wrong,” Maloof said, adding, “And so consequently, this is just the latest iteration. It’s the most catastrophic so far.”
He said the war has revealed the limitations of US power. “It has shown that a country such as Iran, which is far less capable militarily, can stand up to a superpower, and did so successfully, to the point that it’s at a stalemate,” he said. “Economically, it has withstood years and years of sanctions. It has withstood them.”
Iran has learned to live with sanctions, reshaping Middle East dynamics
Maloof argued that Iran, like Russia and China, has learned to live with sanctions and reduce its reliance on the US dollar. “They’ve learned to no longer rely solely upon the US dollar,” he said. “They have learned ways now to get out under the dependency on the dollar and its weaponization.”
“As a consequence, it has shown the world that a power such as Iran can stand up to a superpower,” Maloof said. “And I think this has created a whole new perspective and outlook now throughout the Middle East, even with the GCC countries on new security arrangements.”
He said Gulf Arab countries are now having to reevaluate whether they want US bases to remain, noting that those bases, which were meant to be a deterrent, “turned out to be a detriment to the United States in particular, and to those countries, because they were involved in a preemptive strike on Iran.” He added that “the Middle East of old is no longer going to return to what it was.”
US military readiness diminishing, Trump leadership criticized
Maloof was critical of US President Donald Trump’s leadership, describing his statements as “bluster”. “He likes to paint a good picture when it’s all falling apart,” Maloof said. “And he’s not to be believed. He lies. He even lies to the American people.”
Regarding the US military posture, Maloof said readiness is suffering. “As each day goes by, it is diminishing, and it’s diminishing tremendously, especially in this climate in the Middle East,” he said. He also noted that the United States is “critically short on the ability to rearm” and cannot keep its naval flotilla in place indefinitely without replacement.
Maloof said he does not believe a military approach can succeed. “I don’t see that anything would be worthwhile pursuing a military approach, once again, knowing that it has failed once,” he said. “And there is a limitation on everything across the board.”
War on Iran part of struggle between unipolar, multipolar world orders
Maloof also addressed the broader geopolitical context, describing the war as part of a larger struggle between a US-led unipolar world order and a rising multipolar order. “Trump is seeing the rise of this,” Maloof said. “The sanctions that he’s trying to impose and get everybody else involved, including China, isn’t going to work because they’ve been sanctioned to death.”
He said the multipolar world order is now developing its own financial system, which Trump views as a threat to the dollar and the Western financial system overall. “This is what he’s really fighting against,” Maloof said. “And Iran is just an instrument of that fight, even though he uses nuclear weapons as an excuse.”
Maloof said the wars in Ukraine and Iran are becoming intertwined. “It all has to do with sanctions and with hegemony and with influence in order to challenge the rise of the multipolar world order,” he said. “And Trump realizes now that he cannot stop it.”
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem rejects Lebanon’s negotiations with the Israeli occupation, opposes the Framework Agreement, and reaffirms resistance.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem rejected the Lebanese authorities’ decision to enter direct negotiations with the Israeli occupation, arguing that the talks had failed to stop the war and amounted to concessions that yielded nothing for Lebanon.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Beirut’s southern suburb, Sheikh Qassem also addressed Islamic unity, the Palestinian cause and the American-Israeli project seeking to control and fragment the region.
On Islamic unity and support for Palestine
Islamic unity, according to Sheikh Qassem, requires turning toward the nation’s true enemy while overcoming internal divisions. Such unity should also extend to national and humanitarian solidarity, he added.
Palestine remains the central cause around which Arabs and Muslims should unite, the Hezbollah chief stressed, describing it as an Islamic, national, Arab, and humanitarian cause rather than a sectarian one.
He urged Arab and Islamic states and their peoples not to remain spectators as enemies enter the region while their fellow peoples suffer.
The speech also recalled Imam Sayyed Musa Al-Sadr, who was kidnapped and disappeared on August 31 along with his two companions. Sheikh Qassem highlighted Al-Sadr’s early warnings about the Zionist entity and his focus on southern Lebanon, recalling his words: “Lebanon cannot smile while its South is suffering and in pain.”
Tribute was also paid to the martyred Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whom Sheikh Qassem said had repeatedly highlighted Al-Sadr’s qualities and championed Islamic unity. He pledged to continue along the path of both figures.
Sheikh Qassem warns of US-Israeli plans for the region
A broader American-Israeli project aimed at controlling and fragmenting the region was also a central theme of the speech. Iran and Resistance forces, Sheikh Qassem maintained, are confronting this project.
Washington, he argued, is laying the groundwork for “Greater Israel,” taking advantage of its military capabilities and what he characterized as prevailing submission in the region.
The sacrifices made in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Iraq have halted the project, according to Sheikh Qassem, who insisted that the resistance has not been defeated despite the scale of the losses.
“We have made great sacrifices, and we will not lose. Loss comes when we surrender and hand everything over to them with our own hands, allowing them to take everything,” he said.
Developments in Syria were cited as further evidence of the “Greater Israel” project. Resistance forces, he declared, will remain in the field and reject attempts to impose such projects on the region.
Rather than stopping the war, he argued, the negotiations have granted legitimacy to the fighting without securing anything in return for Lebanon.
“The Lebanese authorities’ negotiations did not stop the war; rather, they granted it legitimacy and amounted to a humiliating surrender to the enemy without receiving anything in return,” he said.
Sheikh Qassem directly challenged Lebanese officials over their authority to make concessions affecting the country’s sovereignty, accusing them of placing Lebanon’s interests at risk to remain in power and satisfy the United States, which he said is complicit with the Israeli occupation.
“Who authorized you to relinquish sovereignty?” Sheikh Qassem asked.
At the same time, he rejected claims that Hezbollah seeks war, pointing to its acceptance of the October 27, 2024 Agreement and its commitment to the deal.
The current situation, he argued, is not a mutual war but continued Israeli aggression that periodically escalates and subsides. Sheikh Qassem attributed the easing of the fighting to Iran and the memorandum of understanding.
Sheikh Qassem opposes Framework Agreement
Implementation of the October 27, 2024 Agreement within the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 remains acceptable to Hezbollah, Sheikh Qassem said, while any alternative arrangement is rejected.
“We are in a state of confrontation and will remain steadfast. We accept the implementation of the 27 October 2024 Agreement under the framework of Resolution 1701, and nothing else,” he said.
The Framework Agreement should be annulled, he declared, describing it as illegitimate, unlawful and humiliating while arguing that it undermines Lebanese sovereignty and fails to restore rights.
Negotiations, Sheikh Qassem added, cannot be presented as an alternative to resistance while fighting continues.
“Negotiations are taking place under war and grant legitimacy to the war,” he said.
10hResistance, he maintained, has prevented the “Greater Israel” project from reaching Beirut and stripping Lebanon of its strength. The Israeli occupation, he added, also does not dare establish a settlement in southern Lebanon or redraw borders beyond occupied territory because of the resistance.
Concluding his speech, Sheikh Qassem reaffirmed that Hezbollah and its supporters would remain steadfast, while pledging continued assistance, reconstruction and restoration for communities affected by the war.
“We will remain proud and hold our heads high. We will not surrender, and let them do whatever they want.”
Special Coverage | Iranian Government: Diplomacy and Defense Are Inseparable, and We Will Confront US Sanctions | … تغطية خاصة | الحكومة الإيرانية: الدبلوماسية والدفاع لا ينفصلان وسنتصدى للعقوبات الأميركية | …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JsEhBekKAk
Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Major General Mohsen Rezaei speaks in an exclusive interview with Al-Manar TV (August 27, 2026).
Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Major General Mohsen Rezaei said Tehran views Lebanon’s security as an integral part of the security of the entire West Asian region, calling for an end to wars and military operations in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria and stressing that continued tension in one arena has political, economic, and security repercussions across the region.
In an exclusive interview with Al-Manar TV on Thursday evening, Major General Rezaei discussed developments in the confrontation in Lebanon and the wider region. He paid tribute to the Lebanese people across all sects and segments of society, commemorated the martyrs of Lebanon and Hezbollah, and praised Lebanese unity in confronting “Israel.” He also expressed particular appreciation for Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, saying he had successfully led the resistance during the current phase, and for Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, praising his role in Lebanon’s political arena.
Major General Rezaei said Iran’s conditions for any understanding with the United States include an end to the war across the various arenas of West Asia, particularly Lebanon, the withdrawal of “Israel” from Lebanese territory it has seized, an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, and a halt to Israeli attacks on Syria. He said the region had become “an interconnected chain,” in which any deterioration in one country’s security raises investment costs and undermines development prospects elsewhere.
He described Iran’s relationship with Lebanon as “historic and deeply rooted,” pointing to ties forged centuries ago between scholars from Jabal Amel and Iran, and said Tehran would continue supporting Lebanon with all the capabilities at its disposal.
On the military situation, Rezaei said “Israel” was no longer capable of advancing toward Beirut or its southern suburbs, citing the losses Hezbollah had inflicted on “Israel” over the past three or four months, as well as the full impact of the “Iranian threat.” He said the southern suburbs and Beirut constituted a “red line” for Iran, stressing that Tehran was monitoring developments “with the utmost seriousness” and that “Israel” would ultimately be forced to withdraw from the Lebanese territory it had entered.
Rezaei attributed this assessment to the fact that “Lebanon’s terrain is resistant to control and occupation.” He argued that controlling Lebanese territory and besieging the resistance forces operating there was not possible, comparing the situation with Gaza, where he said “Israel,” despite its blockade, had failed to achieve its objectives decisively.
On Syria, Rezaei ruled out the possibility of Damascus entering the confrontation in Lebanon, saying the Syrian government faced multiple challenges. He pointed to continued Israeli attacks on Damascus and its surrounding areas as having diminished the prospects for such an alignment, and said the Syrian government had reached the conclusion that “Israel has trampled on all agreements.”
Rezaei also stressed that Iran does not interfere in Hezbollah’s military structure or battlefield decisions, saying the group now has military cadres capable of managing its affairs and making its own decisions, particularly with the emergence of two new generations of young leaders.
Iran Faces the United States and “Israel”
Rezaei issued a series of firm positions on the United States and “Israel,” saying Iran does not seek war but is preparing for a new phase should the confrontation resume, stressing that any future war would be “different” from previous ones.
He said Iran had approached the various stages of the war incrementally, initially refraining from targeting US bases in Gulf states before subsequently expanding the scope of its responses to include US sites and bases in other countries. He said this gradual approach was intended to increasingly take humanitarian considerations into account, ensure that Iran’s victories had supporters across the region and the world, and give those victories a higher degree of legitimacy.
Rezaei said the shift by the United States toward economic pressure reflected, in his view, the limited effectiveness of military force alone, warning that Tehran would respond to any economic escalation with countermeasures targeting US economic interests in the region.
Strait of Hormuz
On the Strait of Hormuz, Rezaei linked its full reopening to Washington’s implementation of Iranian conditions, foremost among them working to end the wars in West Asia, particularly in Lebanon and Gaza. He said Iran had prepared a list of conditions to present to the Americans and had, for the time being, allowed a temporary and limited corridor for ships to pass through the center of the strait, with the future of maritime traffic to depend on developments in understandings with Washington.
He stressed that the Hormuz issue could not be separated from the broader regional conflict, saying the United States must “prove its seriousness” in implementing the required commitments before any new trust could be established, amid a “deep chasm of mistrust” between the two sides.
Rezaei also addressed relations with Türkiye, emphasizing the depth of trade ties between the two countries and ruling out the possibility of Ankara imposing economic pressure on Tehran. He recalled Türkiye’s role as a trade corridor for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Rezaei also issued a direct threat against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: “We will send him to hell, and we will prove that his grave mistakes have brought the end of the Israeli entity closer.” He said a “great and sacred anger” was building across the Muslim world against the entity, which he said would one day emerge and translate into action, adding that “it will be different from before.”
Islamic Unity and Lebanon’s Reconstruction
Concluding the interview, Rezaei said Iran supports any project aimed at Islamic unity, provided it is “inclusive” and gives the region’s principal states an equal role. He said Iran and Egypt should be founding members of any comprehensive framework, rather than merely two states joining arrangements prepared in advance.
Rezaei also conveyed his greetings to the Lebanese people, saying they were “present deep in our hearts” and that the Iranian people “recognize no borders or distance between themselves and the Lebanese people.” He affirmed that the Islamic Republic, in cooperation with Muslim countries, would seek to compensate for the damage and rebuild destroyed homes, concluding: “They will be rebuilt, God willing.”
Israeli occupation forces block a street and fire tear gas during an Israeli raid on the UNRWA Vocational Training Center, located between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood and the Qalandia refugee camp, south of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on August 25, 2026. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP via Getty Images)
The Israel Hayom Hebrew newspaper reported that political officials are concerned about a scenario in which the guns in the West Bank are turned against the Israeli occupation forces, with Palestinian Authority forces using their weapons against them. It can now be revealed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and War Minister Israel Katz requested, during a meeting held two days ago at the Central Command headquarters, a briefing on the command’s readiness for such a scenario. The occupation army, meanwhile, requested a discussion of settler violence.
According to sources who attended the meeting, Netanyahu asked to see the war plan in the event of such a shift in the guns’ direction. He was told that the Central Command chief and the IOF chief of staff would present their plan at the next meeting, as they had attended this meeting primarily to discuss other issues on the agenda.
The data presented to Netanyahu at the Central Command meeting apparently point to one of the quietest periods in the West Bank. The concern, however, is that this calm may be a harbinger of a coming storm.
Security establishment data obtained by Israel Hayom show that in the first half of 2024, from January through June, the West Bank saw 35 attacks and 301 attempted attacks. In the second half, from July through December, there were 40 attacks and 13 attempted attacks.
In 2025, the figures declined: 15 attacks and 41 attempted attacks in the first half, followed by 12 attacks and 31 attempted attacks in the second half. While in 2026, the decline became dramatic: two attacks and five attempted attacks in the first half, followed by four attacks and two attempted attacks from July to date.
Israeli occupation forces detain a Palestinian man during a raid on the UNRWA Vocational Training Centre, located between the Kafr Aqab neighbourhood and the Qalandia refugee camp, south of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on August 25, 2026. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP via Getty Images)
Israel Hayom learned that a senior political official warned during recent discussions on the issue: “If the guns are turned, there will not be another intifada; there will be an all-out war.” The implication is that if the Palestinian Authority or its armed personnel in the West Bank attack the Israeli enemy, the Israeli military is preparing for a war involving the air force alongside tanks, similar to wars on more distant fronts, rather than a limited confrontation.
According to the newspaper, Israeli security research institutes that examined the possibility throughout the past year presented dire scenarios involving the trained forces maintained by the Palestinian Authority for “policing” duties, which could instead turn against “Israel.”
Israel Hayom also noted that the reference scenario for which “Israel” is preparing this time is not a limited round of violence resembling previous intifadas but a war scenario. The reason is that Palestinian Authority forces possess substantial manpower, training, and capabilities that, under the Oslo Accords, were not supposed to be available to them, as Palestinian police forces were restricted to carrying light weapons.
According to information compiled by the Regavim movement and the “OCAINT Behind the Scenes” cell, the Palestinian Authority also possesses anti-armor weapons, RPG-7 launchers, which have been widely documented in training exercises in Jericho and during displays of force, as well as PKM heavy machine guns. The PKM is a belt-fed 7.62 mm machine gun used by national security forces and provides sustained and substantial firepower.
There have also been documented cases of assault rifles, including M16, M4, and AK-47 rifles, being converted into sniper rifles using long-range telescopic sights, enabling accurate fire over considerable distances. In addition, Palestinian forces possess armored vehicles, explosives, and a large number of improvised explosive devices, despite the Oslo Accords prohibiting Palestinian Authority forces from possessing or manufacturing offensive explosives.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement of the so-called “Operation Economic Outcast” on Monday marks another reckless – and ultimately doomed – escalation in Washington’s long-running campaign of economic warfare against Iran.
Like every similar campaign before it, this latest gambit is also bound to fail.
Beginning August 24, the Treasury and other US agencies are expected to pursue what Bessent described as a “zero leakage” policy, seeking to close every channel through which Iran can generate revenue. The stated objective is to deprive Iran of resources.
Countries that do business with Iran could face exclusion from the US dollar-based financial system, with Bessent warning that even major powers such as China could be targeted.
Yet the strategy begs a fundamental question: how many times can Washington recycle the same failed policy before its bankruptcy becomes undeniable?
The new measures are little more than ‘maximum pressure’ repackaged – the same gambit that once promised to bring Iran to its knees, only to watch Tehran successfully adapt, diversify its economic partnerships, and fortify its strategic defenses.
This renewed sanctions push follows a US military aggression that, rather than delivering the outcome Washington so desperately wanted, only laid bare the limits of American coercion.
Doubling down on economic warfare now is an admission of defeat, a desperate attempt to weaponize sanctions. After nearly five decades of the similarly harshest sanctions, multiple forms of economic warfare, and two full-scale wars imposed on Iran in less than a year, the empirical record shows economic strangulation has never broken Iran, and it never will.
The United States should instead abandon its failed economic warfare, lift illegal sanctions as outlined in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in the aftermath of the 4-day Ramadan War, and pursue diplomacy rather than coercion.
A chronicle of escalation without success
The history of American sanctions against Iran is a chronicle of foolhardy escalation without a semblance of success. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the US-backed regime in Tehran was overthrown, successive administrations in Washington have imposed harsh sanctions on Iran with the stated goal of toppling the Islamic Republic or forcing it into submission.
Each campaign has been heralded as the most crippling in history, and each has ultimately failed. The pattern is remarkably consistent and reveals a profound strategic blindness that has cost the United States dearly in terms of credibility, resources, and global standing.
In 2012, the Obama administration described its measures as the most crippling sanctions ever imposed. They failed to bring Iran to its knees. In 2018, President Trump launched the maximum pressure campaign after unilaterally and illegally withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.
That too failed to produce the desired results. Biden continued the same hard-nosed approach with no better results. Now, the Trump administration, in its second innings, has vowed the most crushing economic campaign ever taken against any country.
Yet the pattern is clear and the outcome predictable. The United States has exhausted its economic arsenal without achieving its political or military objectives, yet continues to cling to the illusion that just one more round of pressure will produce a different outcome.
This is the very definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. The Iranian leadership has weathered these storms for decades and has developed sophisticated mechanisms to survive and even thrive under duress.
Each new round of sanctions is met with greater ingenuity, deeper regional integration, and a more diversified economy. The Iranian people have not risen against their government in the way Washington had hoped. The resilience of the Islamic Republic has confounded every prediction and every model that American policymakers have relied upon.
'Bullying won't work': Pezeshkian warns US as he meets Pakistan's army chiefhttps://t.co/sEKeH8tIbX
The failure of US sanctions against Iran is not accidental but structural, embedded in the very logic of coercion. For decades, experts and veteran Iran watchers have cautioned that neither economic strangulation nor military threats can force Tehran’s surrender.
American rulers have already lost whatever was left of their credibility. They pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018 despite Iran’s verified compliance and imposed two wars of aggression in the middle of diplomacy. This credibility deficit is the fatal artery of America’s coercive strategy.
Over successive sanction cycles, Tehran has demonstrated that it can not only neutralize the sanctions but make them redundant. While the Islamic Republic has learned to adapt, the Americans have not. American consumers are also paying a heavy price for this failed policy. International oil prices surged following the announcement of new sanctions. US gasoline prices have increased approximately twenty-nine percent over the past year, putting a significant strain on American households already struggling with inflation.
If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for even a quarter, reports suggest oil prices could drive a significant increase in US inflation. The paradox is clear and growing more acute: sanctions against Iran are increasingly becoming sanctions against the American consumer and the global economy. The economic war is having a significant cost backlash on the US itself.
The question is no longer whether Iran can endure the pressure, but whether the United States can afford to continue a policy that punishes its own citizens while failing to achieve its objectives. The American people are not well served by a strategy that raises their fuel costs, disrupts global supply chains, and inflames regional tensions without producing any results.
The cost-benefit analysis of sanctions has become increasingly unfavorable, yet Washington seems unable or unwilling to change course, which is a sign of strategic inertia, a reflexive adherence to failed policies because the alternatives appear politically difficult.
The military option has been tested and found wanting
The recent two wars of aggression against Iran represent perhaps the most dramatic illustration of Washington’s strategic bankruptcy. After years of economic warfare failed to produce the desired results, the US war machine resorted to direct military action against Iran, imposing two unprovoked wars in June of last year and February of this year.
Both wars failed catastrophically, and none of the United States military objectives were realized. The financial cost of these wars runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars for US taxpayers, which produced nothing but the killing of innocent Iranians, from scientists and athletes in Tehran to schoolchildren in Minab. This is how the US taxpayers’ money is used.
The military option was supposed to be the ultimate guarantor of American dominance, the final arbiter when all other tools had failed. Yet it too proved incapable of achieving any of Washington’s stated goals. The Iranian military and the Iranian people demonstrated a capacity for resistance that surprised American war planners.
Rather than bringing Iran to heel, the wars only strengthened Iranian resolve and deepened its regional alliances. The failure of the military option should have been a wake-up call, a moment of reckoning that forced a fundamental reassessment of United States strategy. Instead, Washington has simply reverted to the same old economic warfare that had already failed.
This pattern of escalation and failure reveals a profound inability to learn from experience. The United States has exhausted both its economic and military tools without achieving its objectives, yet it continues to cycle through the same failed approaches. The Iranian leadership has watched this pattern unfold and has drawn the logical conclusion that Washington has no real strategy, only a series of reflexive responses that are ultimately self-defeating.
The new round of sanctions planned by the Trump administration faces the same fundamental obstacles that have defeated every previous round. The Iranian economy has already adapted to the maximum pressure campaign. The networks and mechanisms that have been developed to circumvent sanctions are already in place and are continually being refined.
Each new round of illegal and draconian sanctions faces diminishing returns because the most effective measures have already been deployed. The additional sanctions are unlikely to impose significant new pain on Iran while carrying significant risks for the global economy.
Moreover, the context for sanctions is fundamentally different now than it was even a few years ago. The geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically. China and Russia have deepened their economic and strategic relationships with Iran, providing alternative markets, financing, and diplomatic support. The US no longer enjoys the unquestioned economic dominance it once did, and its ability to enforce sanctions unilaterally is more limited than ever.
The global economy has become more multipolar, and countries are increasingly reluctant to align themselves with US sanctions policies that damage their own economic interests.
The Iranian leadership has also developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to weather sanctions. The economy has been restructured to reduce dependence on oil exports, non-oil exports have been expanded, and domestic production has been incentivized through various policies.
While these measures have not eliminated the pain of sanctions, they have made the Iranian economy more resilient than it was during earlier rounds of pressure. The leadership has also developed a more nuanced diplomatic strategy, engaging with regional powers and building coalitions that make it harder for the US war machine to isolate Iran internationally.
The framework for a sustainable solution
The current stalemate demands a fundamental shift in approach. The MoU signed between Tehran and Washington following the 40-day Ramadan War provides a clear framework, explicitly requiring the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions imposed against Iran over the decades to definitively end the ongoing war.
This is a precondition for any sustainable deal. The document deserves to be taken seriously as a foundation for negotiations. Its provisions were carefully calibrated to address the legitimate concerns of both sides while providing a path toward long-term regional peace and stability.
For a deal to have any chance of success, Iranian demands must be fulfilled in letter and spirit. Sanctions relief must be genuine, comprehensive, and durable. Partial or reversible measures will only reinforce Iranian skepticism and incentivize continued resistance.
The United States must demonstrate that it is willing to honor its commitments and that diplomacy is not merely a prelude to renewed war or sanctions. This requires a fundamental shift in how Washington approaches negotiations, moving away from the take-it-or-leave-it ultimatums that have characterized previous attempts and toward genuine give-and-take diplomacy.
The Strait of Hormuz will only be reopened when legitimate Iranian demands are fulfilled – not one, but all of them. The reopening of the strait would benefit the global economy but the dynamics have changed and the administration of the waterway will now be decided by Iran.
The United States faces a critical strategic choice: continue down a path of proven failure or embrace a new approach rooted in ground realities and the new world order. The current policy has achieved none of its stated goals. American credibility has been eroded, alliances have been strained, and the global economy has been disrupted.
The so-called “maximum pressure” campaign has been attempted in various forms for over a decade, and each time it has failed. The military option has been tested and proven catastrophic for the US war machine. The only remaining path is diplomacy and a clear-eyed understanding and acknowledgement of Iranian red lines.
The fundamental flaw in United States strategy is the absence of an exit ramp. Economic pressure does not produce capitulation but only fuels resistance and sharpens the incentive to find workarounds. The United States has created a situation where the people of Iran have no incentive to negotiate because they have no confidence that any agreement would be honored. Restoring that confidence requires more than just promises; it requires concrete actions that demonstrate a genuine commitment to diplomacy over coercion.
The time has come to acknowledge that the US war machine has exhausted all its options – military and economic. The path forward is clear: lift all primary and secondary sanctions as called for in the MoU and allow Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States must understand that it cannot force Iran to its knees through military aggression or economic pressure. It must accept the reality that Iran is a new regional superpower. The US must also recognize that its current approach is not merely failing to achieve its objectives but is actively undermining its own interests.
The sanctions imposed over decades are not only illegal but manifestly inhumane. Their continuation serves no American interest other than perpetuating a failed policy. For the American people, it only results in diminished global standing and frayed alliances.
The only coherent course is the full and irrevocable removal of all sanctions, coupled with a binding guarantee on any future imposition as recognition that a policy devoid of legal foundation, moral justification, and strategic viability has no rightful place in today’s multipolar world.
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Then Iran’s Ambassador to International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Kazem Charibadi, waits for the start of the IAEA board of governnors meeting at the international Center in Viena, Austria on November, 21, 2019 (AP)
ran’s Deputy FM Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran alone knows the location of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, contradicting Trump’s claim that the waterway is now clear.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tuesday that Iran remains the only party that knows the precise locations of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, warning that any US naval minesweepers entering the waterway would become very good targets for Iranian forces.
He said statements by US President Donald Trump about removing the mines were aimed only at calming markets. The claim runs directly counter to a separate statement from Trump, who said Tuesday that the US Navy had removed or detonated all mines in the strait’s international waters, warning Iran of a “zero tolerance” policy toward the placement of any new ones.
Gharibabadi said Iran remains in a state of war and that the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed, with passage limited to commercial vessels under the terms of the existing memorandum of understanding.
He said a full reopening of the strait would only come in exchange for ending the war on all fronts, lifting the blockade on Iran, and determining Yemen’s fate. He added that Iran would reveal new capabilities if American measures continue, warning Washington against assuming it is the only side capable of inflicting economic damage.
A new corridor with Oman, but no military ships
Gharibabadi said negotiations between Iran and Oman would begin to replace the previous maritime traffic arrangement with a new transit corridor. In remarks to state television, he said the arrangement with Oman would allow only commercial vessels through the strait.
“No military vessel will be allowed to pass,” he said, adding that the route would be temporary while Iran and Oman negotiate a permanent one within 30 to 60 days.
“We had expected to close the southern route in the Strait of Hormuz with the help of our Omani friends, but US pressure prevented that and we were forced into a military confrontation,” Gharibabadi said, adding that the arrangement does not mean the strait will reopen immediately and that Washington must fully meet commitments it has previously failed to uphold before any move to reopen it.
A joint Iranian-Omani statement said the two countries’ foreign ministers had discussed a phased framework for managing the situation in the strait, including an agreement to establish a temporary, jointly run navigation corridor alongside a joint project to clear naval mines.
The statement said technical negotiations would continue toward a permanent navigation corridor and a future management arrangement for the strait, including a mechanism for information-sharing, traffic coordination, and maritime and security services, with both sides stressing the importance of opening dialogue with other Gulf states.
Iran had previously stressed that any agreement with Oman on navigation arrangements does not mean the Strait of Hormuz is reopening, insisting a full reopening requires Washington’s compliance with the terms of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding.
Escalating economic pressure in the background
The statements come as Washington escalates economic pressure on Iran. Trump announced what he called an “unprecedented economic war” against Tehran last week, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that countries continuing business with Iran past a set deadline could face penalties under an expanding sanctions campaign.
Gharibabadi has repeatedly rejected US claims of control over the strait; earlier this month, responding to Trump’s suggestion that he would declare Hormuz US territory, he said the strait “cannot be seized with a tweet, an aircraft carrier, an executive order, or a campaign speech,” adding that Iran “neither fears threats nor is intimidated by displays of force.”
Al-Moussawi surprises everyone with a shocking statement… leaving the presenter and guest in a state of stunned silence! 🔥😱الموسوي يفاجئ الجميع بتصريح صـ.ـادم… ويترك المذيع والضيف في حالة ذهول! 🔥😱
Trump’s plan, according to Washington insiders, is to go ahead with a massive bombing campaign of Iran immediately after the midterm elections.
Photo Credit: Strategic Culture Foundation
Trump has a plan – oh yes he does – for a new strike on Iran. That is, of course, if the Iranians don’t get wind of it and go ahead with theirs. Oops.
In recent days, a number of mainstream media outlets in the U.S. have revealed that Trump has signed off a massive arms deal with Israel, sparking fears that the U.S. president has lost all contact with reality as he prepares for a third round to the so-called Iran War.
According to a number of reports, the Trump administration is preparing to sell Israel a $2.8bn package of 907kg (2,000-pound) bombs, the largest single sale of the munition in recent years, according to reports by The Washington Post and other agencies.
The deal, considered to be a first of its kind ever, is funded through Foreign Military Financing – a mechanism in which Washington provides the money Israel then uses to buy U.S. weapons – and is believed to be 40,000 bombs: 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated variant of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, along with I-2000 Penetrator warheads built to strike hardened, underground structures.
The news has apparently alarmed a number of pundits who follow the Middle East and are sceptical about Trump rescuing himself from further humiliation as he heads towards the midterms with his own ratings at a record low.
“How big is this shipment?” Tucker Carlson wrote on X in a lengthy post. “It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel.”
Although not a military expert, Carlson said that these bombs would kill many innocent civilians.
“An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile,” Carlson said. “It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapour. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the U.S. military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.”
Trump’s plan, according to Washington insiders, is to go ahead with a massive bombing campaign of Iran immediately after the midterm elections, where he is expected to at least lose one of the two parliamentary houses in the U.S. political system, weakening his ability to go ahead with mercurial foreign policy forays. His thinking is that such a huge amount of destruction will make a difference in what so far experts are calling the ‘Iran War’, which all agree he has spectacularly lost – with gasoline prices in most U.S. states now well over $4 USD and a domestic economy in the doldrums, all due to the U.S. attacks on February 28th spectacularly backfiring.
Yet there are at least two worrying issues about the plan. The first one is pretty obvious. The lack of surprise about the attack should, of course, be a major worry for military planners in the Pentagon, who are concerned that the ‘all or nothing’ last-resort tactic now that Trump is looking at – sending in ground forces at the same time as the big attack – is going to result in hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans dying, if such a plan goes ahead. If the secret is no longer a secret – and perhaps we should assume it was leaked, as too many Americans are worried about Trump’s sanity and don’t want to be part of his insane ideas about going to war with Iran – then Tehran must be planning not only to stop those missiles getting off the ground, but to do much, much more harm to U.S. forces and Israel before the midterms. There is a growing group of pundits in D.C. and in Beirut who believe that Iran is planning a major strike on Israel and U.S. forces just before the midterms kick off, having maximum impact on Trump at the polls. Tehran’s goal, they say, is that Trump loses both houses, which would mean an inevitable impeachment process having immediate effect.
The other issue which D.C. insiders are fretting over is the low number of interceptors which are in the region, and the response from those who support Trump. The response goes something along the lines of: “Well, sure we’re low on them, but we wouldn’t need them in the first place if we don’t go in hard and take out Iran’s ability to launch their own missiles in the first place.” And so the assumption is clear. In Trump’s latest hare-brained idea, he believes that these ‘super bombs’ that the U.S. have will strike so hard at Iran’s military infrastructure, but even its electricity grid, that it will neutralise its army and its strike capability.
There can only be one conclusion that can be drawn by this latest thinking, which is that Israel has struck again and hit the jackpot the second time around, and convinced Trump that this ‘massive attack’ strike is a winner. It is possible they have also convinced him that Iran is in the process of making a nuclear bomb – something that they can present with no evidence whatsoever, as the only single institution which could verify this, the IAEA, cannot of course enter Iran now. One has to wonder about the mindset of GCC countries’ elites, given that in recent days Trump refused to bomb the Houthis on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince’s pleas to his old friend, Donald. We are at the stage now that regional experts are speculating that such regional leaders are hoping for a massive U.S. defeat so the air can be cleared and a new regional world order can begin, while the Saudis rebuild their economy, which is in shatters and has reached a point of desperation where its leaders are looking at emergency IMF loans just to pay government salaries.
Saudi’s daily oil export via its own pipeline which crosses the peninsula from east to west pumped out 7 million barrels a day when operating, which represents 44 percent of the country’s GDP. With that gone, GCC leaders are realising that the future has to be without the U.S., which was always a massive liability and has cost them dearly. We underestimated the Houthis, yes. But we also underestimated how juvenile and immature Trump is, and how far he can go to nurture his own insecurities and foibles.
He has pushed the Iranians to their limits, and the rumours are that they see no point whatsoever wasting any time talking deals with someone so dishonest and duplicitous, and are considering one fatal blow. This could be Israel and its entire military infrastructure, or it could be a U.S. carrier. Such a move redefines the word ‘game changer’ and would certainly wake up the American people that Trump is destroying their empire at a speed no one thought possible. It will be their Suez moment.
On September 12th 2001, chaos reigned supreme. Yet, as governments the world over struggled to make sense of the previous day’s catastrophe, and before a motive was established, any perpetrators identified, or other basic facts ascertained, the US Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into potential insider trading by unknown figures with apparently precise foreknowledge of 9/11. The evidence seemed overwhelming. Mainstream reporters openly mocked the implausibility of numerous deeply abnormal stock market trades immediately prior to the attacks being pure coincidence.
For one, several companies prominently impacted by the event were abruptly ‘shorted’ at inexplicable levels over the preceding weeks. In other words, investors bet certain stocks would perform poorly in the near future, and sought to profit accordingly. Just five days before 9/11 over 2,000 shorts were placed against United Airlines – 90 times more in a single day than over the entirety of August. The company’s share price collapsed following the attacks, turning $180,000 in shorts into $2.4 million.
Meanwhile, substantial investments were serendipitously made in private security, intelligence and defence firms that benefited enormously from the 9/11 attacks and ensuing ‘War on Terror’. On September 10th, purchase of shares in major US defence contractor Raytheon surged sixfold. Just one week later, as the Pentagon began bulk purchasing Raytheon’s flagship Patriot and Tomahawk missiles in preparation for invading Afghanistan, the firm’s shares rocketed 37%. Other major defence stocks, including Boeing and Lockheed, also experienced abnormal trading pre-9/11.
Purchase and shorts of dozens of stocks in almost every conceivable industry that one way or another profited, or was harmed, as a result of 9/11 incongruously spiked in the weeks before the fateful day. The evidentiary trail was literally globespanning, with major financial authorities in several Western countries launching their own investigations. Numerous officials in European capitals alleged the trading was definitively indicative of 9/11 foreknowledge, and “terrorists” were responsible.
For example, commenting on Italian securities regulator CONSOB’s investigation into the suspicious market activity on September 17th 2001, Italian foreign minister Antonio Martino boldly declared “terrorist states and organizations [were] behind speculation on the international markets.” One week later, German central bank president Ernst Welteke asserted his researchers had uncovered “irrefutable proof of insider trading.” He and his team were certain “people connected to the terrorists must have been trying to profit from this tragedy”:
“You look at the movements in markets before and after the attacks, it really makes your brow furrow…we are confident we will be able to pinpoint the source.”
Welteke declined to release further information, pending consultation with European and US regulators. However, the 9/11 insider trading scandal quickly faded from public consciousness thereafter. In July 2004, the SEC announced the end of its grand investigation – conducted in conjunction with the Department of Justice and FBI – having “not [developed] any evidence suggesting that anyone who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information.” Which, rather than closing the case, begs the obvious question of who did.
Declassified records of one suspicious pre-9/11 trade probed by the FBI sheds potential light on why US and other authorities may have decided to leave the entire issue alone. From September 6th – 10th 2001, a total of 56,000 Stratesec shares were purchased by a single investor. The company provided security systems to several airports, including Wasington DC’s Dulles from where one of the hijacked planes departed, and the World Trade Center. Its share price almost doubled in the attacks’ wake.
The shady trades were traced back to Wirt D. Walker III – a distant relative of the Bush family and business partner of Marvin Bush, then-President George W. Bush’s brother. The FBI reportedly uncovered “no ties to terrorism or other negative information” regarding Walker, so didn’t even interview him before concluding his lucrative transactions were innocent happenstance then closing the investigation. Apparently, the evident possibility Walker III possessed foreknowledge of 9/11 via other means than “ties to terrorism” wasn’t worth exploring.
Still, this sleight of hand granted the Bureau, Department of Justice and SEC an extremely effective “out”. The 9/11 Commission likewise summarily dismissed any suggestion of “unusual pre-9/11 trading activity” on the basis investors involved “had no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda.” Such specious reasoning was sufficient to kill the scandal dead in the mainstream. Nonetheless, ever since numerous peer reviewed academic papers have contrarily concluded insider trading did occur, and was motivated by 9/11 foreknowledge.
In 2006, University of Illinois professor Allen Poteshman authored a well-cited study focusing on suspicious pre-9/11 trading activity in airline stocks. He concluded this shorting was “unusually high”, and “terrorists or their associates traded…on the basis of foreknowledge of the impending attacks.” Similar findings were reached by a 2011 Multinational Finance Journal paper, which identified highly abnormal market movements in numerous key industries, including insurance and reinsurance stocks directly impacted by 9/11. This was “consistent with insiders anticipating” the attacks.
While the media failed to report on these studies, they were academically impactful, and cited as precedents in a December 2023 paper tracking peculiar Israeli stock market activity in the days preceding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th that year. Authored by two US scholars, they found a “significant spike” in the shorting of publicly listed Israeli companies days prior to that world-changing strike on the Zionist entity. This activity was “consistent with informed traders anticipating and profiting from the Hamas attack.”
An abrupt spike in shorting of Israeli stocks, September/October 2023
The authors found shorting of Israeli companies listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange “increased dramatically” before October 7th. Israeli stocks on major US exchanges also experienced a “sharp and unusual increase” during the same period. Shorting of publicly traded Zionist entity firms on October 2nd “far exceeded” levels of shorting witnessed at the start of COVID19 pandemic, which triggered a temporary global stock market collapse. No wonder the paper concludes it was “extremely unlikely the volume of short selling…occurred by random chance.”
“Random chance” seems an even less plausible explanation when one considers “similar patterns” of shorting Israeli stocks were also identified in early April 2023, right when Hamas was planning to conduct a comparable attack to Al-Aqsa Flood during Passover. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th too, a flurry of mainstream media reports exposed how Zionist Occupation Forces had numerous advance warnings of an impending Hamas attack for months prior. This included a detailed “point by point” battle plan, outlining Al-Aqsa Flood.
Fast forward to today, and Haaretzreveals UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed personally warned Benjamin Netanyahu 10 days prior to October 7th Hamas intended to wage a major offensive, but Israel’s premier failed to act. This disclosure comes at a time the mainstream media finally acknowledges the need for a critical reevaluation of what happened on 9/11. Any objective investigation must focus on the insider trading angle – ascertaining who knew what, when, and why, could unravel the entire conspiracy.
Ansarallah-led government forces have liberated the entire west coast of Yemen from Saudi-backed forces, triggering an Israeli media meltdown. Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have taken out a series of US assets and began firing new-generation electro-optical missiles at American warships.
In this episode of the Target Stream, Mint Press News’ Robert Inlakesh breaks down the latest developments in West Asia’s regional war, walking the audience through battle footage and evidence of major strategic breakthroughs for the Iranian led-Axis of Resistance. Major blows are being dealt to the US-led imperialist power structure, undermining the decades old illusion of US military invincibility.
Earlier this week, in a period of just over twenty-four hours, the Yemeni Armed Forces managed to capture the towns of Hays and al-Khawkhah, before marching on the strategic port city of Mokha. The forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, having pledged just days earlier to advance upon the Yemeni Capital of Sana’a, experienced a dramatic collapse of their frontlines.
The successful advance, which ended up resulting in the liberation of the entire coastline and key islands, including Mayoun Island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, now places the Ansarallah-led government forces in control of territory that grants them authority over an important international trade passage. In reaction to this, the Israeli media have threatened that the consequences of the ground progress made by Yemen’s Army may prove more devastating to them than Iran’s authority of the Strait of Hormuz.
On Tuesday night, the US decided to carry out strikes that disabled five Iranian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Almost immediately, the IRGC began carrying out retaliatory missile strikes from its ballistic missile bases across Iranian territory. At least 40 missiles appear to have been fired towards US military bases in Jordan.
The Jordanian military announced that it had shot down 18 of 20 missiles fired towards its territory, with the two other missiles having landed in “open areas”. As we show on this Thursday’s edition of The Target, the video evidence reveals this to be patently false. Furthermore, evidence emerged to suggest at least 5 US Blackhawk Helicopters were damaged and evacuated from the Muwaffaq al-Salti Base.
Later came a report from CBS, citing unnamed officials, who revealed that the Iranian strikes had damaged at least 8 F-15 fighter jets and one A-10 Thunderbolt II, with no mention of the helicopters in the article.
As we look into on the show, the US media have admitted that Iran’s IRGC have also started to use their advanced Qassem Bassir missiles to strike American warships, a munition that uses cameras and thermal sensors to accurately locate its target. Tehran claimed to have damaged two US Destroyers this way, a charge that US Central Command has since denied. What has become undeniable is the Iranian capture of the Dive LD unmanned submarine, which Washington fears is now being reverse engineered.
Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi says the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen is conducted under US supervision and defends Yemen’s military response.
The Saudi-led military aggression on Yemen is being conducted under United States supervision, Sayyed Abdul-Malik Badreddine al-Houthi said, noting that the Yemeni Armed Forces are acting in self-defense.
“The unjust Saudi aggression against our country and people is being carried out under US supervision,” he said, adding that his movement is in “a position of necessary defense and did not initiate the aggression with the Saudis.”
The Ansar Allah leader asserted that the military campaign began in 2015 and has continued since, saying, “The aggression that began in 2015 was an attack on our people without right, and the aggressors continued in that aggressive campaign.”
He noted that the latest escalation began with the Saudi bombardment of Sanaa airport, which he called an act of aggression “at all stages without any legitimate justification.” According to Sayyed Al-Houthi, “Our dear people did not open the problem with the Saudis and are not in the position of being the aggressor against them.”
De-escalation period did not produce peace: Sayyed al-Houthi
He further said that “the Israeli enemy sought to bring our country to collapse on all levels” during that time. The Saudi regime, he continued, “refused to establish relations with our country based on mutual respect and shared interests” and instead “insists that they be based on humiliation and control over the affairs of our people.”
The leader of the Ansar Allah movement asserted that “the Saudi enemy believes that its strength lies in keeping our people weak, enslaved, oppressed, divided, and fragmented.”
Sayyed Al-Houthi congratulates Yemeni people for their victories
Sayyed al-Houthi said his movement has achieved victories and congratulated the people of Yemen, stating, “The victories achieved have come, by God’s grace, within the framework of our people’s just cause.”
He extended his “congratulations to our people on these victories” and prayed that God “grants success and guidance and rewards the freedom fighters in the Armed Forces, backed by the general mobilization.”
He also said that “during 12 years, and with a simple comparison between our armed forces and the Saudi aggression, it becomes clear who is committed to moral and religious controls.”
Saudi coalition targeting civilians, religious sites: Sayyed al-Houthi
The Ansar Allah leader accused the Saudi-led coalition of targeting civilians and religious sites across Yemen, saying, “The Saudi aggressor targeted everything in our country and did not respect any sanctity at all.”
He stressed that the coalition “killed thousands of women, targeted civilians in their homes, and bombed cities, neighborhoods, and markets,” and that it “targeted more than two thousand mosques in our country, including historic mosques in deep areas, not on front lines.”
He added that “the Saudi aggressor even targeted a center for sheltering the blind in Sanaa and targeted cemeteries and archaeological sites.”
He said “Saudi crimes in our country were not just individual cases or limited positions or rare incidents, but a fixed policy,” and asserted, “We possess evidence and documents of Saudi crimes in our country, with acknowledgment by the United Nations and international organizations.”
Sayyed al-Houthi rejects accusation of targeting Mecca
Sayyed al-Houthi rejected accusations that the Yemeni Armed Forces targeted Mecca, calling the claim “a deception, a great lie, a fabrication, and a gross falsehood.”
He said, “The land of faith cannot target Mecca, and our Yemeni people do not accept aggression against sanctities,” further stating that “the aggression with false propaganda and terrible and horrific fabrications is a fundamental part of the Saudi aggression against our people, aimed at distorting its image.”
The Ansar Allah leader asserted that “the Saudi enemy employs all its media and propaganda capabilities to justify its crimes against the Yemeni people.”
He also said the Saudi enemy “seeks to bring others to share in its criminality against our people,” while calling the accusation “a great, ugly, and extremely heinous lie and a great, exposed falsehood.”
“No Muslim in the world can accept such a Saudi falsehood against a people whom the Messenger of God testified are the faith of Yemen,” he stated, emphasizing that the Saudi enemy is “trying, through its great falsehood, to compensate for its failure and setbacks on the ground,” calling the accusation “the lie of the age.”
US, Israeli, and British experts direct Saudi operations
Sayyed Al-Houthi said foreign experts are involved in directing Saudi-led military operations, stating, “The American announced that with it is a joint force numbering 200 military experts managing the aggressive operations in Saudi Arabia.”
He said, “The Saudi enemy fights us with American aircraft and bombs that it buys from America,” and that “those managing the Saudi enemy’s operations are American, Israeli, and British experts, and the foreign role is clear.”
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 