ISLAMABAD — The seizure of the M/V Touska in the Gulf of Oman on April 19 did not collapse the Islamabad Round 2 framework. It exposed that there was no framework to
More
JEDDAH — Mohammed bin Salman called Donald Trump the day before the April 16 ceasefire announcement and told him a Lebanon truce
More
Table of Contents Saudi Arabia Told Washington to End the Blockade The Yanbu Bottleneck Can the Houthis Actually Close Bab el-Mandeb? Iran’s
More
TEHRAN — Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf did not make a threat on Saturday night. He published a precondition. In a one-hour address on
More
ISLAMABAD — President Donald Trump told Fox News on April 19 that Iran will get “blown up” if it refuses to sign
More
TEHRAN — On April 18, the captain of the Indian-flagged tanker Sanmar Herald did something no maritime officer had done in the
More
JEDDAH — The first international pilgrims for Hajj 2026 landed in Makkah and Madinah on April 18-19 under the Makkah Route Initiative,
More
ANTALYA — Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan spent April 18 in two conversations that, taken together, amount to a diplomatic architecture:
More
CENTCOM Deploys A-10 Warthogs and Apaches Over Hormuz, Turns Back 23 Vessels Before Ceasefire Expiry
Table of Contents Why Is CENTCOM Flying A-10 Warthogs Over the Strait of Hormuz? What Does the A-10 Deployment Signal to IRGC
More
JEDDAH — Iran’s response to the ceasefire framework arrived in Saudi Arabia on April 16 — hand-delivered by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz
More
JEDDAH — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah on April 15-16 for a two-hour
More
DHAHRAN — The physical crude oil market has detached from its financial derivative by $35–49 per barrel, and every major fiscal assessment
More
WASHINGTON — The White House declared negotiations with Iran “productive and ongoing” this week even as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reversed
More
JEDDAH — Pakistan’s 119,000 Hajj pilgrims are now inside Saudi Arabia’s wartime Makkah cordon, and their physical presence has done what no
More
TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader praised his navy on Telegram on April 18 while IRGC gunboats fired on two Indian-flagged tankers in
More
The IRGC Just Declared the Entire Persian Gulf a Kill Zone — and Markets Shrugged DHAHRAN — The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
More
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir is heading to Washington carrying Iran’s in-principle agreement to a four-country nuclear monitoring framework —
More
DHAHRAN — Brent crude closed at $99.36 on April 18 after IRGC gunboats fired on two Indian-flagged vessels in the Strait of
More
DUBAI — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on at least two vessels that had received prior IRGC clearance to transit the
More
ANTALYA — Turkey closed the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 19 without a signed security agreement, a joint communique, or even a
More
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran — the civilian diplomatic institution whose negotiating team was recalled from Islamabad by Zolghadr’s “deviation
More
DHAHRAN — South Korea announced it had secured 273 million barrels of crude oil outside the Strait of Hormuz, and every headline
More
A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber departs Diego Garcia — the Indian Ocean staging base used for the June 2025 strikes on Fordow,
More
NEOM — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has reclassified NEOM as an “independent ecosystem” — a designation that severs the $500 billion
More
RIYADH — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on April 18, a day in
More
Washington Wants to Pay $20 Billion to Make Iran’s Uranium Disappear — Then Ask Saudi Arabia to Give Up the Same Right
More