Tanker war between Iran and US expands, reports of strikes on Sirik and Qeshm Island

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Iran's Revolutionary Guards say they hit a US unmanned vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian media.

Iran has resumed producing ballistic missiles from existing components while working in underground facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing officials from the United States and the Middle East.

The missiles are being assembled in more limited quantities than before the war, the report added.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on Thursday accused Saudi Arabia of launching strikes on the southwestern province of Taiz, after they seized the key Red Sea city of Mocha.

"The Saudi enemy launched 10 strikes on the Dhubab district in western Taiz," the Houthis' Al-Masirah TV channel said.

The Houthi military spokesman added that Saudi Arabia launched 64 strikes on Yemen in 24 hours.

The leader of Yemen's internationally recognised governing council on Thursday urged Arab and other nations to help protect the country's coasts, after the Iran-backed Houthis seized control of the key Red Sea city of Mocha.

"The protection of Yemen's coasts and the restoration of state control over its territory, ports and waters is a joint Yemeni, Egyptian, Arab and international interest," said Rashad al-Alimi, who heads Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, during a meeting with Egypt's ambassador.

Houthis take over port city in Yemen vital to control of Red Sea shipping, two officials have said.

Iranian strikes damaged multiple American military aircraft this week on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, a U.S. official told Reuters.

The U.S. military suffered material damage even before Iran's strikes on Tuesday. This includes the destruction of more than two dozen drones, Iran striking fighter jets, and aircraft being lost to accidents.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Iran's attack hit one A-10 Thunderbolt II, known as the Warthog, leaving it with a missing wing, while roughly eight F-15s sustained light damage and were returned to service.

Iran's strike on the U.S. base in Jordan came after U.S. forces said they destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers. The U.S. said its strikes were in response to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeting a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic ​missiles twice over the previous two days.

A spokesperson for Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis said freedom of navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait remain safe and uninterrupted.

The spokesperson also said the group’s current operations are limited to specified targets and are defensive in nature.

The US-led  coalition has begun withdrawing from Iraq's Kurdistan region ahead of a deadline to end their mission in the country, a Kurdish official said Thursday.

They had already completed their withdrawal from other bases in Iraq in January and are now only present in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region.

They are scheduled to complete their withdrawal by September 30, having concluded their mission against the Islamic State group (IS) in Iraq, according to a 2024 agreement between Baghdad and Washington.

"Under the existing agreement, these forces must leave by the end of September, and they have in fact already begun doing so," Kurdistan's interior minister Rebar Ahmed told journalists.

"The process has started also in the Kurdistan region, with those forces transferring daily to other locations outside Iraq," he added.

A senior Iraqi official confirmed to AFP that coalition forces had begun withdrawing from Kurdistan, and were now only deployed at Erbil international airport.

The coalition forces exited Syria earlier this year.

Two people have been arrested in London as part of an investigation into suspected National Security Act offences linked to Iran, British police said on Thursday.

London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement: "The investigation is not connected to any of the incidents or attacks earlier this year that have been targeted at various venues and buildings linked to Jewish and Iranian communities across London."

Western media's coverage of Israel's invasion of Lebanon echoed many of the same patterns seen in Gaza, writes Assal Rad. 

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A vessel reported being approached by an unidentified skiff 98 nautical miles southwest of Yemen's Al-Mocha on Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said.

The incident comes as fighting intensifies in Yemen between the Iran-aligned Houthis and forces affiliated with the Saudi-backed government.

Iran has temporarily suspended a 10% charge on freight fees for foreign vessels carrying imported or exported oil, gas and liquid petroleum products to and from Iran, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Thursday.

A US naval blockade has sharply disrupted the country's seaborne oil exports.

The presidential legal deputy ordered the collection to stop until the government approves and publishes a list of products subject to the charge, Fars said.

Fars said the charge had increased the cost of transporting oil, gas and liquid products, and suspending the levy could reduce transportation costs and encourage foreign fleets to carry goods to or from Iran.

The Houthis have seized the strategic Yemeni port city of Mocha on the Red Sea coast, according to government sources.

The capture marks a major advance for the group after weeks of escalating attacks across western Yemen and brings it closer to the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world's most important shipping routes.

Local sources told The New Arab that large numbers of residents were fleeing Mocha towards the southern city of Aden.

The development comes as fighting intensifies across Yemen's western coast, with government-aligned forces suffering heavy losses and regrouping following Houthi breakthroughs on several fronts.

The European Central Bank looks set to raise interest rates on Thursday for the second time this year, seeking to head off an energy-driven surge in inflation triggered by the Iran war.

Attacks by both sides since the end of August have shattered a month of relative calm, with the U.S. and Iran hitting military, shipping and energy assets. That has sent oil prices above $100 a barrel again and revived fears about a wave of price hikes in the fuel-importing euro zone.

Economists expect the ECB to respond by raising its policy rate to 2.50% from 2.25% and signal it is ready to tighten further if the inflation outlook does not improve.

"A September hike looks all but locked in," Alessia Berardi, head of global macroeconomics at the Amundi Investment Institute, said. "Inflation remains elevated and should stay sticky over the next few months before easing toward the second half of next year."

Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed Ishaq Dar has spoken over the phone with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on bilateral relations and regional developments.

In a statement posted on X, The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that both sides affirmed their position on Palestine and their support for the joint statement by the eight Arab-Islamic countries on the UK’s decision to ban illegal Israeli settlement imports.

Both countries also "emphasised the importance of maintaining close consultation on regional matters" including the Regional Four (R4) framework they’ve done with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Britain's new measures against illegal Israeli settlements mark a significant shift, but questions remain over how far Europe will follow, Sam Hamad.

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The Iran-backed Houthi militants have taken control of the Yemeni Red Sea city of Mocha, closing in on the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, three Yemeni government sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Multiple American military aircraft suffered damage in strikes overnight on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, CBS reporter Jennifer Jacobs said on Wednesday on X.

One A-10 Thunderbolt, known as the Warthog, was struck and left with a missing wing, while roughly eight F-15s sustained light damage and were placed back into service, she added.

he Mecca agreement, signed between Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia last month, is a "defensive alliance" and there are no plans to expand it at the moment, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

The statement came in response to a question at a weekly briefing on how Pakistan plans to fulfill its obligations under the accord after Saudi Arabia was attacked by the Houthis.

Yemen's Houthi rebels reported about 40 airstrikes launched by Saudi forces on Thursday in a fresh salvo following attacks by the Iran-backed group against the kingdom.

"The Saudi enemy's air force conducted around 40 strikes in recent hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeida, Al-Jawf and Marib," Houthi news agency Saba said.

An Israeli strike in Gaza on Thursday killed a family of four including two children, Palestinian hospital and security sources report.

"The bodies of four members of the Ahmad family were recovered in pieces after an Israeli strike hit a house in the Beit Lahia Project area in the northern Gaza Strip," an official at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said, identifying the children as aged 12 and eight.

A Palestinian security source in Gaza said that Israeli warplanes struck after midnight in Beit Lahia and separately in the heart of the Jabalia refugee camp, with Israeli forces also firing on tents of displaced people and ambulances.

"Israel continues its violations in the Gaza Strip," the security source said.

Israel in October last year agreed to a ceasefire brokered by the United States but since then has advanced further into Gaza and continued to kill Palestinians in near-daily strikes.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States may hit Iran's Pickaxe ​Mountain, urging Tehran to be cautious.

"We notice there's a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard," Trump said in a speech at the midterm Republican convention.

Pickaxe Mountain, located near Iran's heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is a fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes.

Trump has been threatening strikes on Pickaxe Mountain since at least mid-July.

The rise in oil and gas prices due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which began in February, has become a major issue for Trump and his Republican Party in the lead-up to the midterm U.S. elections in November.

Preliminary data tracking ship movement showed a decline in the number of ships that crossed the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, Wednesday, to 7 ships, compared to 12 ships the previous day, and below the average of the past ten days of 14 ships.

According to the data, 4 ships left the strait and 3 entered it, while the statistics do not include ships sailing through the waterway after turning off their transmitters and receivers.