War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Commander-in-Chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Ahmad Vahidi, says that no threats or sanctions will stop Iran from improving its missile and defence capabilities, state broadcaster Press TV reports.

“The enemy should know that the path of Martyr Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam is the one that cannot be halted by threats or sanctions. This path continues through blood and faith,” he said, referring to one of the key architects of Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Two Iranian men have been found guilty of spying on dissident journalists in the UK on behalf of Iranian intelligence, a case police says reflects increasing activity by Iran in Britain, Reuters reports.

Saudi Arabia plans to hold the next edition of its flagship FII investment conference in October 2027, state television said, Reuters reports.

The Future Investment Initiative, dubbed “Davos in the Desert”, had been scheduled for October 26 to 29 in Riyadh this year but was postponed after repeated Houthi strikes on the Saudi capital’s airport killed more than a dozen people.

The conference, which was set to mark its 10th edition this year, has become a fixture on the calendar for some of the world’s leading financiers and executives.

Organisers now plan to hold the event from October 25 to 28 next year, state television announced.

Oil prices moved slightly lower after recovering from earlier losses, as persistent geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Russia offset pressure from rising crude output, Reuters reports.

Brent futures were down 37 cents or 0.4 per cent at $92.39 a barrel at 0946 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 37 cents or 0.43pc to $86.16; both contracts fell more than $1 per barrel in early Asian trading. They were also headed for a weekly fall.

“Market players are vacillating between tentative truces in Ukraine and the Middle East and the ongoing atrocities against energy infrastructure and ships,” said Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM Associates.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said diplomacy should resume “without further delay” to end the US-Iran war after talks with his Iranian counterpart, AFP reports.

Erdogan met Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of UN climate conference in the Turkish province of Antalya, his office said.

During their discussion, Erdogan underscored “the importance of getting to the negotiating table without further delay” and said Turkiye would continue to support efforts aimed at securing peace.

Most Gulf stock markets opened lower as rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis weighed on investor sentiment, although, signs of easing friction between Iran and the United States helped limit downside pressure, according to Reuters.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index .TASI eased 0.2 per cent, with Al Rajhi Bank losing 0.7pc and the country’s biggest lender by assets, Saudi National Bank, down 0.6pc.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said it had intercepted a drone in the Riyadh region and another in Saudi Arabia’s east, amid a surge in attacks by the group, reports AFP.

The coalition, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthis, also said Wednesday night that it had destroyed two ballistic missiles targeting western Saudi Arabia.

Two oil supertankers were disabled by massive explosions after they ignored warnings against using an “unauthorised route” in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday night, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei has warned that military bases involved in any renewed US attack on Iran, including those in Europe, would be targets for retaliation, Al Jazeera reports.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates’ Ras Al Khaimah emirate say they have reopened several beaches following closures prompted by an oil spill from a tanker damaged in a suspected attack in the Gulf last month, reports Reuters.

The current ‘no war, no peace’ situation in the US-Iran conflict is unsustainable. While the immediate fear of a new US-Israeli strike on Iran — and a greater regional conflagration — may have passed, thanks mainly to the drubbing the Republicans received in the American midterm elections, the Gulf will not return to normal unless there is stable long-term peace.

True to form, President Donald Trump has been oscillating between claiming that more attacks are not needed and issuing new threats. After talking to the Qatari prime minister, he said that the US would maintain the “status quo” vis-à-vis Iran, while his secretary of state has asserted that economic pressure on Tehran will continue. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, has slammed America’s “diplomacy through threats”.

The fact is that the US and Israel have failed to subdue Iran on the battlefield, and while the economic sanctions are hurting the Iranians, there are few signs that the pressure will make them yield to America. If anything, the feeling in Tehran is that if Iran is made to endure economic pain, the entire region, and in fact the wider international community, will feel it as well, as the over eight-month blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has shown.

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Oil prices drop more than $1 as hopes for progress in peace talks over the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine wars pressure the market, Reuters reports.

Brent futures have lost $1.14, or 1.2 per cent, to $91.62 a barrel by 0141 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures have fallen $1.04, or 1.2pc, to $85.49. Brent rose about 1.4pc and WTI 0.6pc on Wednesday after hitting two-month lows the previous day.

“Markets are falling on expectations that behind-the-scenes efforts are underway to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and that it is unlikely the Iran war will escalate ahead of the US-China summit next week,” says Hiroyuki Kikukawa, chief strategist of Nissan Securities Investment, a unit of Nissan Securities.

“However, given the uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the markets are unlikely to suffer a significant collapse,” Kikukawa says.

Saudi Arabia says debris from two ballistic missiles intercepted by its air defences fell in the Makkah region on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

Saudi state television identified the locations as Sabuhah village, about 35 km (22 miles) northeast of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, and Wadi al-Maghmas, about 21 km east of the mosque.

The missiles were launched towards the region and intercepted and destroyed, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence said in a statement.

“This hostile targeting of civilian objects constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and reflects the dangerous hostile approach pursued by the Houthi militia,” Saudi Arabia’s civil defence said early on Thursday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed an attack on an oil pumping station in Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu area.

The group’s spokesperson, Yahya Saree, says the facility was attacked by drones and the “operation achieved its objective”.

In his statement, he also denies claims by Saudi Arabia that the group attacked the Makkah region, writing, “The Saudi enemy’s claim that a drone was intercepted over Makkah is yet another fabrication and a continuation of its moral decline. No one in this world still believes these slanders and lies.”

Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree claims that the group launched a successful attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid Airport with cruise missiles, according to a post on X.

Iran has attacked ship navigation systems on the Omani island of Didamar in the Strait of Hormuz, three sources with knowledge of the matter confirm to Reuters, showing Tehran’s ability to target infrastructure used to restore Gulf oil flows.

The three sources have not provided a damage assessment and Reuters has been unable to independently determine if any navigation systems were destroyed in the attacks that Tehran claimed on Tuesday.

Gulf exporters have been increasingly using workarounds to increase oil flows via Hormuz, such as ship-to-ship transfers (STS) off the coast of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The attacks on Didamar Island will likely have limited impact on commercial shipping in the Strait, two other shipping sources and an additional maritime security source say.

One says that is because other systems were in place elsewhere.

Oil prices have risen about two per cent after Iran’s security chief said Tehran would not allow any enriched nuclear material to leave the country, feeding supply worries that have lifted prices off two-month lows hit the previous session, Reuters reports.

Washington says nuclear issues must be part of any initial negotiations with Tehran aimed at ending the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Brent futures are up $2.15, or 2.35pc, at $93.64 a barrel as of 1704 GMT (10:04pm PKT). US West Texas Intermediate crude has gained $1.69, or 1.96pc, to $87.73.

US President Donald Trump says Iran has been waging a war against America since 1979, and that Washington did not start a war with Tehran, according to Al Jazeera.

Addressing a Veterans’ Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, he says that it is time for the US to secure victory in Iran, adding that it “should have been taken care of a long time ago”.

“We want to make sure we have a total victory. Not a 93 per cent victory. It’s going to be total,” Trump vows. “It’ll take them 25 years to rebuild what we have destroyed, and hopefully, we won’t have to destroy any more of that country.”

The Strait of Hormuz will not return to its pre-war status, the speaker of Iran’s parliament says, adding that its future will be determined within a seven-point framework proposed by Tehran, Reuters reports citing Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s interview with Al Jazeera.

Ghalibaf adds that Iran’s priority is peace, provided its terms are accepted, and that it dioes not want the war to continue.

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says that Tehran has provided Washington with a “clear and transparent response … that outlines our demands”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he says Iran is determined to move beyond the uncertainty of “no peace, no war”, not necessarily through negotiations, but through sustained deterrence.

“What prevents an agreement from being reached is our lack of trust in Washington, combined with its attempt to impose excessive demands,” Ghalibaf says.

“An agreement with Washington is possible, provided it adheres to what was previously agreed upon and refrains from actions that undermine trust,” he adds. “The ball is now in the US’s court; they must make a decision and announce it. As of now, Washington has not provided a formal or specific response to our message.”

Continuing his speech at the COP31 climate conference, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says US and Israeli attacks on fuel facilities in Iran released 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing extensive environmental damage, Anadolu reports.

Pezeshkian outlines that attacks on fuel facilities in Asaluyeh released 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. In comparison, strikes on fuel storage tanks near Tehran produced another 1 million tonnes.

Israeli strikes targeted oil storage facilities in Tehran on March 7, while gas processing facilities in Asaluyeh in southern Iran were hit on March 18.

The Saudi-led coalition says it has intercepted two Houthi drones targeting the kingdom’s Makkah and Southern regions.

Addressing the COP31 climate conference in Turkiye, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that the environment is a “silent victim of war”, saying that the US and Israel’s military operations on Iran have caused significant environmental damage.

“We cannot speak about the future of the Earth while turning a blind eye to wars that target natural resources and human life,” he says, according to state news agency IRNA.

Noting the environmental damage of the US-Israeli war alongside the human toll, Pezeshkian calls for “stronger mechanisms to document the actions of aggressors, prevent such actions, and hold those responsible accountable”.

He adds that despite sanctions, Tehran has pursued clean energy solutions and that the country’s clean power generation capacity has risen to 6,150 megawatts, up from 1,250 two years ago.

Iranian national security chief Mohsen Rezaei has threatened to strike US bases beyond the Middle East, including in Europe, if they are used for attacks against the country, AFP reports.

“If American aircraft take off from an American military base, even one located in a European country or some other distant region, to bomb Iran, we will strike those bases as well,” Rezaei says in an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV.