Russian and Ukrainian envoys meeting in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday agreed to exchange prisoners of war, but no other breakthroughs were reported after two days of U.S.-mediated talks.
Steve Witkoff announced “working-level” talks between Russia and Ukraine scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi.
U.S. intelligence has warned that Iranian plots to kill Americans abroad have reached “advanced stages,” as Washington reduces diplomatic staffing across the Middle East amid mounting threats and the prospect of renewed military strikes against Tehran.
Data centers are increasingly under attack in the Ukraine-Russia war, as well as Iran’s wanton drone and missile attacks on neighboring states like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a study revealed this weekend.
President Donald Trump said Friday that Israel has been assisting Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and suggested the kingdom may be closer than ever to joining the Abraham Accords, amid an escalating offensive against the kingdom.
Two ships sank in, or near, the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after suffering attacks from as-yet unidentified “projectiles.”
A Melbourne, Australia, Islamic community center leader on Sunday waved away “false” accusations allegedly linking the center with the co-pilot behind the September 30 attempted hijacking of Flydubai Flight FZ1073.
The United Arab Emirates revealed Friday that the co-pilot behind the September 30 attempted hijacking of an Israel-bound passenger jet had spent years preparing to carry out a September 11-inspired suicide attack on Ben Gurion Airport, intending to crash the aircraft into a passenger terminal and kill as many people as possible.
The captain of the Flydubai jet targeted in Wednesday’s attempted hijacking said his co-pilot asked to pray just minutes before striking him from behind with a cockpit crash axe, as new evidence revealed the suspect’s apparent affinity for al-Qaeda and pro-al-Qaeda propaganda calling for further attacks on aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis.
A senior United Arab Emirates official on Friday publicly described the attempted crashing of a Flydubai passenger jet as a “terrorist act” for the first time, as Israel investigates if the Omani co-pilot accused of trying to bring down the aircraft was acting on behalf of another party.
The Omani co-pilot accused of trying to crash a Flydubai passenger jet carrying more than 170 people, nearly all of them Israeli, had previously been barred from flying over concerns about extremist views and identified as a security risk — and has indicated to investigators that he intended to crash the aircraft in Israel, according to reports Friday.
Captain Smit Machchhar, the copilot of Flydubai Flight FZ1073, appeared on camera for the first time since the dramatic incident.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the Omani co-pilot accused of trying to bring down an Israel-bound Flydubai jet had “undergone Islamist radical indoctrination,” as investigators probe whether he acted alone or received outside direction.
Dr. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, attorney general of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced Thursday that a team of public prosecutors will investigate the averted crisis aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 on Wednesday morning as a possible organized terrorist attack.
Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Narendra Modi of India celebrated flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar on Wednesday after the details of how Flydubai Flight FZ1073 appeared to have thwarted a potential hijacking came to light.
Saudi Arabia allegedly declined a request from Israel to allow some of its military planes to bring back the stranded passengers of Flydubai Flight FZ1073 following Wednesday’s foiled hijack attempt, according to a report published by Reuters.
President Donald Trump hailed the extraordinary Flydubai rescue as “the most amazing story” Wednesday after speaking “at length” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while saying the co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and attempting to crash the Israel-bound jet was “perhaps a terrorist.”
An Israeli passenger who helped overpower the co-pilot accused of trying to crash a Tel Aviv-bound Flydubai jet recounted how he put the attacker in a chokehold before grabbing the controls of the plunging aircraft himself — an extraordinary intervention Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later hailed as heroic.
Israeli officials quickly announced that the bloody “brawl” aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday was in fact a thwarted hijacking attempt, in which the copilot of the plane tried to knife the captain and then crash the aircraft.
Khalifa Shaheen al-Marar, Minister of State for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), touted his country’s efforts at diplomacy and mediation during his address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Monday.
President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, saying Tehran is “losing so badly” after the U.S. turned its attempt to close the waterway against it with what he called the “greatest blockade ever in military history” — while making clear he remains willing to reach an agreement on terms he considers acceptable.
President Donald Trump said Thursday he is approaching a “big decision” over whether to resume large-scale U.S. strikes against Iran in an effort to bring the nearly seven-month conflict to an end, ahead of talks with Gulf leaders that could help shape Washington’s next move.
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen scrambled to deny on Wednesday that they launched a drone at the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia the day before amid growing condemnation from Muslim nations and organizations.
Israel and Morocco agreed Wednesday to elevate their diplomatic missions to full embassies and exchange ambassadors at a U.S.-backed summit in New York, reaffirming the “spirit of the Abraham Accords” as Washington pushes to deepen and expand the landmark normalization agreements six years after President Donald Trump first brokered them.
The BRICS economic and security coalition, bonded by their mutual desire to eradicate American global dominance and little else, held its sixth high-level summit this weekend during the administration of President Donald Trump – and its novel-length “joint declaration” did little to hide how much its influence and unity has eroded in the Trump years.
Iran’s top security official warned President Donald Trump on Monday that the strategic balance around the region’s critical waterways has changed, ruling out negotiations until Tehran’s sweeping conditions are met and declaring that American “damage control won’t stop what’s coming.”
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen on Friday declared they have taken control of Perim, a small volcanic island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The capture came one day after the Houthis took control of the port city of Mokha with assistance from Iran.
Intense fighting between the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents and the internationally recognized government of Yemen continued on Wednesday.
Iran is down to roughly two months of gasoline as the U.S. blockade and President Donald Trump’s escalating economic offensive choke off the regime’s oil exports and remaining financial lifelines — a rapidly worsening crisis that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday branded the “Jaws of Death for the Iranian Economy.”
Mojtaba Khamenei, the alleged “supreme leader” of Iran who has yet to be seen in public since being proclaimed the head of his country’s government, took the opportunity of the anniversary of the birthday of Muhammad to complain that “West Asian” Muslim states had shown insufficient “unity” against America and Israel.
Ship tracking firms reported that two supertankers carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night.
President Donald Trump on Sunday posted a ten-second A.I.-generated video of Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal being “blown to smithereens,” as he put it, shortly after the first U.S. airstrikes against Iran in a month. None of the actual strikes was confirmed to have targeted Kharg Island.
Iranian “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei called on Gulf states to unite against the United States and Israel as their “real enemy” in a written message Sunday, an overture to neighbors Tehran has spent months attacking and threatening as the Islamic Republic faces mounting military and economic pressure.
Iran threatened neighboring countries Saturday against joining President Donald Trump’s escalating “economic war” against the Islamic Republic, warning those cooperating with Washington will be considered “enemies.” The totalitarian regime further cautioned any U.S. supporters will have their interests targeted while threatening “earthquake-like” retaliation as the United States prepares to unleash what it has billed as the toughest sanctions campaign in history.
President Donald Trump declared all-out economic warfare against the Iranian regime in a social media post on Wednesday, comparing his strategy to the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II and threatening “tremendous economic consequences” for any country that does business with Iran.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday suspended all trade with Iran, after suffering the latest wanton missile attack from Iranian forces.
Iranian officials fired back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday, calling him “delusional” and declaring a “post-American order” in the Persian Gulf after the president posted a map labeling the Strait of Hormuz “New U.S. Territory” and insisted the strategic waterway is “open and operating.”
Chinese state-run shipping companies COSCO and CMES hare reportedly stopped trying to send their oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trade industry sources said on Tuesday that Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, has resumed loading tankers with product at its Juaymah and Ras Tanura oil terminals, which lie within the contested waters of the Strait of Hormuz.
Six years after President Donald Trump launched the Abraham Accords, Jared Kushner marked the anniversary declaring the Middle East is once again at an “inflection point” and arguing that the region has an opportunity to build on the historic agreements and “do it again.”
