War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Naqvi has arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency reports.

Local Iranian media, citing diplomatic sources, said Naqvi departed Islamabad for the Iranian capital earlier today for talks on bilateral ties and issues of mutual interest.

The visit comes a month after Iran’s Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni travelled to Islamabad for talks with Naqvi.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran has won on both the battlefield and the diplomatic front during the recent US-Israeli aggression and last year’s 12-day war, stressing that Iranian resistance ultimately forced the enemy to seek negotiations, state-run IRNA reports.

“Iran rendered the world’s largest conventional army incapable and defeated it. This is not a slogan; it is a reality,” Araghchi said.

He noted that the same enemy that called for “unconditional surrender” on the first day of the war was seeking negotiations about 20 days later.

He added that Iran also demonstrated during the diplomatic process that it knew how to defend its interests.

The United States and Iran are close to “some sort of an arrangement”, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has told Bloomberg News in an interview published today, according to Reuters.

“Things are shaping up again in favour of a peace arrangement or a deal,” Asif told Bloomberg News.

“The signals in the last two three days are that we are close to some sort of an arrangement,” he added.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun says negotiations with Israel are “making progress”, but insists that his country will not accept any continued Israeli presence on its territory, Al Jazeera reports.

“There is no disagreement among the Lebanese on the goals, from the Israeli withdrawal and the return of the prisoners, to the reconstruction of what has been destroyed,” Aoun said, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency following a meeting with a delegation from the Maronite Institution for Propagation.

“In the end, we will not allow Israel to remain, not even on a single inch of our land, nor a single soldier of its army to stay on our soil,” he added.

Aoun said negotiations remained preferable to “the outcomes of the destructive war waged against us”, adding that Israeli attacks had been reduced since the signing of the framework for talks.

The chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces has congratulated Major General Ahmad Vahidi on his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), stressing the armed forces’ readiness to provide strategic support to the IRGC, state-run IRNA reports.

In a message congratulating Vahidi on his appointment and promotion, Major General Ali Abdollahi said “greater unity, coordination, and strategic cooperation among the Armed Forces would help reinforce Iran’s deterrent power and strengthen its ability to confront threats and hostile plots”, according to IRNA.

He said the General Staff would mobilise its capacities to strengthen the IRGC’s defence and security capabilities in response to “emerging regional and extra-regional threats”.

An attack on a small cargo ship by Yemen’s Houthis in the Bab el-Mandeb strait has killed three crew members, two Yemeni coast guard sources and two military officials in the government say according to Reuters.

If confirmed, the fatalities on the Tanzania-flagged Tihamah would be the first deaths in a Houthi strike on a ship since the Middle East conflict was triggered.

A cargo vessel in the southern Red Sea has been struck by an unknown projectile off the coast of al-Makha, Yemen, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) on X, Al Jazeera reports.

UKMTO says it had been informed that the vessel “has been hit by an unknown projectile resulting in casualties… Authorities are investigating”.

“Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO,” it has added.

Majed al-Ansari, the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, says negotiations between Oman and Iran have reached an advanced stage, Al Jazeera reports.

The negotiations are at a critical juncture, he says, adding that Doha supports all efforts for deescalation in the region.

“As mediators, we want the Strait of Hormuz reopened as soon as possible,” the official has added.

Israeli military vehicles have pushed from the village of Haddatha towards the eastern edge of Aita al-Jabal village in south Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district, Al Jazeera cites Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

The advance on Tuesday is accompanied by machine gun fire sweeping Aita al-Jabal’s eastern outskirts, NNA has said.

The vehicles then pulled back to Haddatha, where they took up a position on a hill overlooking the village.

The incursion is the latest in a series of Israeli movements around Bint Jbeil, a border district that has seen repeated ground activity and shelling despite a fragile ceasefire.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) says it has received a report of an incident “involving a container ship and military forces in the Gulf of Oman”.

The UKMTO has not given any further details of the incident but says authorities are aware and relevant investigations remain ongoing.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence says its personnel were targeted by an Israeli drone while responding to a fire in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon, as more details emerge about a series of attacks there earlier today, Al Jazeera reports.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the Lebanese General Directorate of the Civil Defence has condemned the “targeting of Civil Defence personnel while performing their humanitarian duty”.

“While personnel from the General Directorate of the Civil Defence were extinguishing a grass fire in the Nabatieh area, they were targeted by a drone,” it says.

The attack forced the firefighting teams to withdraw to a safe location, the statement adds. No members of the team were injured.

The Middle East cannot remain indefinitely in a state of neither war nor peace, Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, has said, adding that the region’s stability and the future of its peoples “require clarity in vision and direction”, Al Jazeera reports.

In a post on X, Gargash says the coming phase cannot be built on “shaky foundations or arrangements detached from international law”.

“The goal is to transition to sustainable stability governed by clear and shared rules,” he writes.

Gargash has also stressed the principles of “peaceful coexistence, respect for sovereignty, and the logic of peace” as essential pillars for any durable settlement.

Gold prices fall after hitting a more than two-month high earlier in the session, as fading hopes for a US-Iran peace deal have lifted oil prices and fuelled concerns that inflation and interest rates could remain elevated, Reuters reports.

Spot gold was down 0.4pc to $4,371.92 per ounce by 0855 GMT, after hitting its highest level since June 5 earlier at $4,434.84.

US gold futures rose 0.3pc to $4,430.80.

Yields on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note have risen to an over one-week high, increasing the opportunity cost of holding bullion.

Three crew members were killed after Yemen’s Houthi group attacked a commercial vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Anadolu agency reported, citing a government-affiliated Yemeni broadcaster.

Al-Jumhuriya TV said two Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian were killed according to preliminary information.

The broadcaster did not identify the vessel or its owner.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

The price of Brent North Sea crude, the main international oil contract, climbed above $90 as hopes that the United States and Iran reach a deal to end the war fade, Reuters reports.

Brent reached $90.02 a barrel, a gain of more than 2.5 perc ent from Monday, while the main US contract, West Texas Intermediate, jumped 2.7pc to $84.32 a barrel.

Lebanon’s health ministry said that an Israeli drone strike in the city of Nabatieh wounded two civilians, Reuters reports.

The ministry added that a second strike targeted a rescue team from the Al-Risala Association, damaging an ambulance.

Iran will bring back 95 million cubic metres of gas to its production cycle by the end of September, Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad says according to the oil ministry’s news outlet, as Tehran conducts repairs on energy infrastructure targeted during the war against Israel and the US, Reuters reports.

In July, a senior government official said Iran expects to restore around 100 million cubic metres per day of natural gas production capacity “within the coming months,” after strikes removed about 230 million cubic metres from output since the war started in late February.

The Iranian foreign minister, speaking in a televised news conference broadcast by Iranian state television, has said that the US “begged” Iran for negotiations, Al Jazeera reports.

He recalled that US President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” from Iran at the beginning of the war.

“The US President wrote two words [on social media] at the beginning of the war: ‘Unconditional surrender’,” he said.

“That was what they wanted from us and, 20 days later, the same enemy was begging for negotiations,” the top diplomat added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says his country showed the world that it is “a tough and invincible power,” Al Jazeera reports.

Speaking at a televised press conference, he said: “I have heard this many times from foreign ministers and officials from other countries: ‘You Iranians created a miracle; you surprised the whole world.’”

“No one thought that Iran could resist America like this,” Araghchi said, adding that the US had the backing of Israel, the Western world and some other countries.

Israeli forces continue intermittent artillery shelling on the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah in southern Lebanon, accompanied by heavy machinegun fire towards several neighbourhoods, Al Jazeera reports, citing Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The attack came as UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, reported that Israel fired 455 projectiles into southern Lebanon and breached Lebanese airspace 97 times from Friday to Sunday, marking the heaviest fire seen in months.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has “strongly condemned the brutal attacks” by Israel on southern Lebanon over the past few days, which have resulted in deaths and injuries among civilians as well as the destruction of infrastructure and homes, Al Jazeera reports, citing Iranian media.

Israeli forces fired 455 projectiles into southern Lebanon and breached Lebanese airspace 97 times between Friday and Sunday, the heaviest fire seen in months, according to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Al Jazeera reports.

Unifil said Saturday alone accounted for 229 of those projectiles, “the highest single-day total since 21 June”.

The UN secretary-general’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said that “most of the airspace violations came from drones, though helicopters and fighter jets were also involved”.

The UN says Israel’s activities violate Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted as the internationally agreed framework for peace and stability in southern Lebanon following the 2006 conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his German counterpart Johann Wadephul have held a phone conversation, discussing bilateral relations as well as regional and international developments, IRNA reports.

Araghchi briefed Wadephul on ongoing consultations with Oman aimed at establishing a safe route for maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian foreign minister said the insecurity in the strategic waterway was solely the result of military aggression by the United States and Israel against Iran.

He called on the international community to hold the US administration accountable for the security and economic consequences of the Strait of Hormuz’s closure.

Araghchi emphasised that restoring security in Hormuz requires an end to US aggressive actions and unlawful interference, including a maritime blockade and other violations of US commitments under the Islamabad MoU.

Oil prices have risen as negotiations between the United States and Iran over a peace deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz hit an impasse, while Asian shares drifted on protracted uncertainty over the global inflation outlook, Reuters reports.

Brent crude futures edged up to $88.09 per barrel and US crude futures rose to $82.52, both the highest levels since July 31, after the contracts rallied roughly 5pc yesterday.

“We’re now in a bit of a Mexican standoff, if you’d like, in terms of who blinks first,” said Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG.

“This is going to be almost a war of attrition now,” he said.