JEDDAH — More than 48,000 foreign pilgrims had arrived in Saudi Arabia by April 24 for Hajj 2026, according to aggregated figures
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NICOSIA — Saudi Arabia was not in the room when the European Union convened Arab leaders at Cyprus’s Filoxenia Conference Centre on
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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon told the House Armed Services Committee on April 22 that clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz
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DUBAI — A US-sanctioned supertanker loaded with two million barrels of Iranian crude halted near Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz
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LONDON — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps did not seize a random container ship on April 22. By targeting MSC Francesca —
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ISLAMABAD — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in Islamabad late Friday with what IRNA described as a “small delegation” — his
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JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia engineered the three-week Lebanon ceasefire extension announced on April 23 without appearing in the room where it was
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump faces a May 1 deadline under the War Powers Resolution to either obtain congressional authorization for the
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Contents Three Ships in Five Days What Is the Dark Fleet — and Why Can’t a Ceasefire Touch It? The Tifani and
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MANAMA — The Gulf Cooperation Council’s military coordination apparatus met in Bahrain on April 24 — not as a six-nation summit but
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WASHINGTON — The United States has deployed Ukrainian-built counter-drone technology and Ukrainian military trainers at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia,
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RIYADH — South Korea dispatched Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik as a special envoy to Riyadh between April 7 and 14,
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JEDDAH — The most dangerous outcome for Saudi Arabia is not a failed negotiation over the Strait of Hormuz. It is a
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TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday and asked him directly for more
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RIYADH — Donald Trump’s April 23 order for the US Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in the Strait
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Table of Contents What Is the STEP Quartet? How Did Four States With No Treaty Broker a Ceasefire? The Architecture of Failure
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RIYADH — A classified Pentagon briefing to the House Armed Services Committee on April 22 confirmed what shipping insurers and Saudi fiscal
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RIYADH — China did not volunteer to become the mediator of the Hormuz crisis. The structural geometry of the war — Beijing’s
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TEHRAN — Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen alive on camera in 45 days. A US-Israeli intelligence memo shared with Gulf allies
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NEW DELHI — India became the first state actor to suffer a documented legal injury from Iran’s authorization ceiling on April 18,
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TEHRAN — Iran’s hardline establishment responded to President Trump’s open-ended ceasefire extension on April 22, 2026, not with diplomacy but with a
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RIYADH — The ceasefire extension that Donald Trump announced on April 21 does not contain a single clause requiring Iran to restore
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Table of Contents Pioneer and Chief Head West The Mine Clearance Gap Since September 2025 Why Do Wooden-Hulled Ships From 1992 Matter
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TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on April 20 formally labelled the United States naval blockade of Iranian ports an “act
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JEDDAH — Ahmad Al Shara landed at King Abdulaziz International Airport on April 21, one day after Donald Trump extended the Iran-Saudi
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