Iran war news Highlights: Yemen's Houthis seize Red Sea island in new threat to global shipping

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Iran will not surrender to "bullying" and "arrogance" and will stand firm to protect its national interests, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday in a direct message to the US and Israel amid a sudden spike in West Asian hostilities.

A six-member bloc of Gulf states is weighing a meeting with Iranian officials next week to discuss the future of the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reported.

Israel carried out a new wave of air strikes on the town of Mansouri in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian discussed the need for continued efforts to promote lasting peace and stability in the region during their meeting, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen seized a key island Friday after capturing a Red Sea port, moves that threatened to further disrupt international shipping in the region. Iran called on Saudi Arabia to end its blockade of Yemen and immediately resume talks.

Separately, the AI company Anthropic said it identified and blocked users in northern Yemen attempting to develop advanced missiles, AP reported.

A group of men and children gathered Friday at a vantage point overlooking their village in southern Lebanon, watching from a distance as Israeli drones descended, carrying boxes laden with explosives to be dropped on houses.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought assistance from President Donald Trump on Thursday to help fight Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that pressure on his country from the United States had reached a critical and dangerous stage.

Speaking in India ahead of a BRICS summit, Pezeshkian suggested that "the world today is going through a period of unprecedented complexity", adding the use of economic levers of pressure only served to exacerbate that.

"Iran has been subjected to heavy sanctions in recent years; this pressure has reached a critical and dangerous stage in recent months following the military aggression by the United States and Israel," he said.

(AFP)

The Iran-backed Houthis reached the Yemeni town of Dhubab ⁠which ​sits directly on the ​Bab ​el-Mandeb Strait across ⁠from the island of ‌Perim, two Yemeni government sources told Reuters ⁠on ⁠Friday.

Control of Dhubab ⁠and ‌Perim ​is key ‌to gaining hold ‌of ​the strait, ​government ​sources told ​Reuters on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said maritime navigation remained safe for all shipping companies except Saudi vessels subject to a previously announced ban, the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Telegram on Friday.

"We will continue to enforce blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation until the aggression stops and the blockade on our people is lifted," he said.

Veteran commodities strategist Jeff Currie said average US gasoline prices will almost certainly hit $5 a gallon before the midterm elections, citing a toxic combination of scarcity and currency debasement.

Shortages that began in refined products are now spreading upstream into crude oil as the energy shock reaches a dangerous new phase, according to Currie, the founder and chief executive officer of Real Macro, who built his name on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Crude is the signal, and now we think about products — they are the noise,” Currie said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Surveillance.

Gasoline at $5 a gallon is an important psychological marker, especially with control of Congress hanging in the balance in the Nov. 3 midterm balloting. Prices at retail pumps haven’t topped that level since the jump in post-pandemic inflation in 2022, but the recent flare-up in the US-Iran war pushed the average to more than $4.29 a gallon as of Thursday. Diesel topped $6 a gallon for the first time.

A group in Yemen attempted to use Anthropic's Claude chatbot to build guided rockets and missiles, the US firm has revealed, as Iran-backed Houthi rebels are on the offensive in the country.

In a report published Thursday on how it had prevented illegal uses of Claude in several countries, Anthropic said it had "identified a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development programs".

Those were "a guided rocket that used a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance; a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated range goal above 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles); and a multi-variant missile... that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant".

The cell used Claude to develop guidance, navigation and control software for the airborne weapons that would have otherwise required a team of engineers.

"We do not have evidence the actors succeeded in fielding an operational device; but they did test-fire a guided rocket," Anthropic said.

"This field test appears to have failed: within hours, the actors returned to Claude to work out why it failed."

Houthi rebels capture strategic island while Saudi Arabia targets airport

Yemen ’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels captured a strategic island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the entrance of the Red Sea, two officials said Friday, in a swift advance that further threatens Saudi oil exports through one of the world’s key commercial lanes.

Saudi Arabia responded with airstrikes against the airport in the key port city of Mokha that the Houthis seized on Thursday, a Houthi broadcaster said. There was no immediate report of damage or deaths.

The capture of Mayun, a tiny, barren volcanic island in the strait, was confirmed by a senior military official with Yemen’s internationally recognised government and by a Houthi official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists.

A member of the Houthis' politburo on Friday sought to allay global fears for international shipping through the crucial Bab al-Mandab waterway after fighters from the Iran-backed group completed their takeover of the area.

"Freedom of navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab are safe and orderly," Hazem al-Assad told the Al-Araby al-Jadeed news outlet. "There is no cause for international concern, as they face no danger from the Yemeni side."

Iraq is holding a tender to hire two or more oil supertankers to perform transits through the Strait of Hormuz, the latest evidence that producers in the region are trying to take greater control of their exports through the chokepoint.

Iraqi Oil Tankers Co. is seeking the rental for 180 days of at least two very large crude carriers to deliver the nation’s oil through Hormuz, according to a notice on the oil ministry’s website. The tender process closes Thursday.

Oil producers across the Middle East are rushing to secure tankers to guarantee their ability to carry cargoes of crude and refined fuel through the strait. Iraqi owners also bought at least two supertankers, at least one of which was at a record price, according to people familiar with the deals. This week, a senior Kuwaiti official said that his country is actively trying to purchase vessels.

The spree is all the more noteworthy because the cost of buying the ships has seldom been higher. Oil tanker owners are currently enjoying one of the biggest earnings bonanzas in history, meaning they’re demanding sky-high fees to part with their prized assets.

The fleet-capacity building efforts follow moves from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s shipping arm, which has placed a large number of second-hand and newbuild orders. The producers’ efforts to secure tankers come as the Iran war brings global energy security into focus — both for consuming nations, and producers who need the freighters to get their barrels to the world.

UK homebuilder Berkeley Group Holdings Plc called for urgent stamp duty reforms to help achieve the government’s housing goals and warned that the impact of the ongoing Iran war has been longer than expected.

The Cobham, England-based company maintained its four-year pretax profit plan at £1.4 billion ($1.9 billion) but expected buyers to defer transactions to after the budget in October, according to a statement on Friday.

While the government recognises the importance of housing, the current stamp duty regime requires urgent reform, it said. “What was a manageable frictional cost when interest rates were at those unique and unsustainable levels, has become a binding constraint, now that interest rates have returned to more normal levels,” Berkeley said.

The Iran War has hit Britain’s housebuilders, adding to inflationary pressure and worsening the prospects for consumers trying to get on to the property ladder. With earlier hopes for interest-rate reductions dashed, traders are now betting on tightening by the Bank of England by the end of this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Shares of Berkeley, a firm that’s historically been London’s biggest homebuilder, declined as much as 2.3% in early London trading on Friday. They have dropped about 16% this year as the Middle East conflict dented medium-term earnings.

“The sentiment is bad, and housing really has to go on the sentiment,” Berkeley Chairman Rob Perrins said in a telephone interview. “If you really are open for business, open for growth, then you need to reduce stamp duty now.”

US President Donald Trump rejected a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for strikes against Houthi fighters in Yemen, news outlet Axios reported on Thursday.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who have for years controlled large parts of northern Yemen, launched a large-scale offensive last week against Saudi-backed government forces, killing hundreds.

Saudi Arabia has responded with dozens of airstrikes, with the latest two hitting an airport, Houthi media reported on Friday.

The Saudi crown prince called Trump on Thursday to tell him about the deteriorating military situation in Yemen as Houthi forces approached the coastal city of Mokha, Axios reported, citing two unidentified US officials.

The crown prince reportedly called Trump again a few hours later to request strikes on the Houthis, but the American president declined.

Washington will provide Saudi Arabia with intelligence on the Houthis and targeting data, and more than 200 US military personnel are already in Saudi Arabia providing "non-kinetic support," according to a US official cited by Axios.

Riyadh said in July that it could deal with the Houthis on its own despite the escalation of the conflict.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New Delhi on Friday for an 11-member BRICS summit where the Middle East conflict will be high on the agenda, Indian broadcasters showed.

Pezeshkian, on his first visit to India as leader, will hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the IRNA news agency said.

The two-day BRICS summit opens on Saturday.

"BRICS was established to counter unilateralism," Pezeshkian said, according to IRNA.

The grouping was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers.

It has since expanded and now includes Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- countries at odds over the conflict launched by the United States and Israel in February.

UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is also expected in New Delhi, as is Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, according to India's foreign ministry.

The Iran-backed Houthis reached the Yemeni town of Dhubab which sits directly on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait across from the island of Perim, two Yemeni government sources told Reuters on Friday.