Yemen

• Ansarallah seizes Yemen’s Red Sea coast to Bab al-Mandab: Ansarallah (also known as Houthi) forces swept through the remaining stretch of Yemen’s Red Sea coast in an 18-hour offensive, securing the coastline from Mocha south to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Al Jazeera.

  • Saudi-backed Yemeni forces completely withdrew from the area following the battle of Al-Waziyah, west of Taiz, and the Ansarallah capture of the Khalid ibn al-Walid military base. With government forces abandoning Mocha, Ansarallah fighters encountered little resistance as they advanced south, taking Dhubab and then Murad, the last coastal town held by government forces.

  • Ansarallah naval forces subsequently moved offshore, seizing Mayyun Island (also known as Perim) in the Bab al-Mandab Strait two miles off Yemen’s west coast and advancing into Zuqar Island, where fighting is ongoing.

• Saudi forces launch two airstrikes on Yemen’s Mocha airport: Saudi military forces carried out two airstrikes on Mocha airport in western Yemen, the Ansarallah-affiliated Al-Masirah reported, following the Ansarallah takeover of Mocha. Six missiles also targeted the port in Mocha, according to AFP.

• Pumping station on Saudi’s critical East-West oil pipeline reportedly struck: Satellite imagery showed plumes of smoke near Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West oil pipeline early Friday, while NASA’s fire-monitoring system detected fires in the area, amid reports that Yemen’s Ansarallah targeted a pumping station along the pipeline. Saudi authorities have not yet announced an incident at the site.

  • The East-West Pipeline has become increasingly important since the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war, allowing Saudi Aramco to move crude from the kingdom’s eastern oil fields to the Red Sea and bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

• Axios: Trump declined Saudi requests to strike Ansarallah as they advanced: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called U.S. President Donald Trump twice on Thursday, urging him to launch strikes against Yemen’s Ansarallah as they advanced along the Red Sea coast toward Bab al-Mandab, two U.S. officials told Axios. Trump declined, with Washington saying it has no plans to intervene directly for now.

  • A senior Trump administration official said Washington was focused on ensuring “freedom of navigation in the Red Sea” while “empowering our regional partners to take the lead.”

  • More than 100 U.S. military advisers are providing intelligence and targeting support to Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Ansarallah through a newly established joint forces command, according to a new report from CNN, with one official putting the total closer to 200 troops.

• Six districts captured in operation against Saudi-backed forces in western Yemen, Ansarallah says: Ansarallah said Friday that the group had taken control of six districts across Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, covering some 5,400 square kilometers, during a large-scale military operation launched on September 3 to expel Saudi-backed forces from parts of Yemen’s western coast.

  • Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the operation came amid a 12-year Saudi assault and blockade on Yemen, aimed at pressuring the country over its demands and its support for the Palestinian people, with attacks intensifying in recent months.

  • “The armed forces affirm that maritime navigation is safe for all companies, with the exception of Saudi ships,” Saree said, adding that operations would continue under an equation of “siege for siege” and “escalation for escalation” until “the aggression is stopped and the blockade on our people is lifted.”

• IOM: At least 46,000 displaced in Yemen as fighting escalates: At least 46,000 people have been displaced across Yemen’s West Coast and Taiz governorate since fighting escalated last week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday, warning that the number is “alarmingly rising by the hour.” On Tuesday, the UN agency had put the number at around 18,500.

  • Entire villages have reportedly emptied in Maqbanah, Jabal Habashi, and al-Ma’afer as fighting moved closer to populated areas, while large numbers fled Mocha overnight. Displaced people are arriving in Lahj and Aden, with others moving north toward Ibb. The key Mocha–Taiz road has also reportedly been cut.

  • IOM said it temporarily suspended all operational movements on Friday because of the deteriorating security situation, while emergency stocks have already been depleted following the recent flood response.

  • For Drop Site, Carolina Pedrazzi and a reporter in Yemen spoke to families in the Jabal Zaid displaced persons camp—some of whom were facing their second or third displacement. Read the piece here.

• Iranian officials praise Ansarallah advances along Yemen’s Red Sea coast: Senior Iranian officials praised Ansarallah’s rapid advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline.

  • Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref hailed the “victories of the heroic nation of Yemen.” Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated Ansarallah on what he called a “resounding victory.” “Iran’s might in the Strait of Hormuz and the homegrown resolve of the resistance have driven the US and its allies into a tactical and strategic impasse,” Mokhber said.

  • Iran’s Foreign Ministry called for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen and an immediate return to negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Ansarallah.

Iran

• IRGC says it destroyed U.S. unmanned vessel at entrance to Strait of Hormuz: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said Thursday that it struck and destroyed a U.S. unmanned surface vessel, a “Saildrone Explorer-type,” at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported.

  • In its statement, the IRGC Navy said it targeted the vessel and “foiled its aggressive mission,” claiming the U.S. military had recently deployed unmanned vessels to the Strait to avoid directly confronting Iranian forces.

  • Since March 2025, Saildrone and Palantir have partnered on AI-powered autonomous maritime surveillance.

• Oil climbs above $108 as U.S. diesel prices hit record high: Oil prices continued to climb on Friday, with Brent crude futures rising $1.05, or 1%, to $108.68 a barrel, after surging more than 6% on Thursday.

  • In the U.S., the average price of diesel reached a record $6.06 a gallon on Friday, surpassing $6 for the first time, according to AAA data cited by AFP. The rise comes in the wake of increasing attacks along key shipping routes in the Middle East.

• South Korea, Iran discuss Strait of Hormuz: South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed developments and navigation through the Strait of Hormuz in a phone call on Friday, according to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.

  • Cho expressed concern over the regional situation and reiterated South Korea’s support for free and safe navigation through the strait. The two agreed to maintain communication.

  • The call came after Seoul dispatched an inspection team to assess a potential deployment of South Korean troops to the region at the behest of the U.S.

• Satellite images indicate likely oil slicks near Strait of Hormuz after U.S. attack on tankers: Satellite images from the European Copernicus programme show what experts say are likely oil slicks off Iran’s coast, east of the Strait of Hormuz, following U.S. attacks that sank oil tankers in the area, AFP reported.

  • Images taken Wednesday and Thursday show long brownish streaks on the water around 20 kilometers off the Iranian coast, near coral reefs designated as wetlands of international importance.

  • Two of the tracks begin at locations where the tankers Kylo and Riesco transmitted their last signals before being sunk on September 5 and 8, respectively. The U.S. military said Tuesday that it had destroyed five tankers in the Gulf of Oman in response to Iranian ballistic missile attacks on a U.S. warship.

• Vance secretly called military commanders directly for unfiltered Iran war assessments: Vice President JD Vance made an unusual effort over the spring and summer to call U.S. military commanders across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia directly, seeking unvarnished assessments of the Iran war, according to a Thursday report from The New York Times.

  • Commanders told Vance their stockpiles of Patriot interceptors, Army Tactical Missile Systems, and Precision Strike Missiles were at their lowest levels ever, with one theater down to fewer than 100 Patriots by late spring, prompting Vance to develop deep private concerns about the war’s strategy that contrasted sharply with Trump’s continued public claims that the U.S. had “already won the war” and faces no supply problems.

Palestine

• Israeli drone strike kills Palestinian, wounds nine in southern Gaza: A Palestinian was killed and nine others, including children, were wounded on Friday when an Israeli drone struck a group of people in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, according to WAFA.

• Nine Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Thursday: An Israeli drone struck a vehicle north of Khan Younis, killing one Palestinian. Another drone strike targeted a group of Palestinians in the Al-Qubba area of Al-Mawasi, killing three and wounding five.

  • Another Israeli strike killed a Palestinian family, including two children, as they slept in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza: Momen Ahmad, his wife, Haneen Saleh, and their two daughters, sisters Lana, 12, and Bana, 8.

  • The family had repaired two rooms in the middle of their partially destroyed home and were living there when it was struck. No one survived.

  • Residents spent hours trying to recover the family from beneath the rubble as Israeli forces continued firing toward the area. “We managed to recover three bodies. There is also a little girl—we managed to recover part of her body, but the rest is still under the rubble,” a relative, Zuhair Al-Haisami, told Drop Site’s Mohamed Ahmed.

  • Watch the dispatch from Mohamed Ahmed here.

  • A ninth Palestinian died from wounds sustained in an Israeli strike on Al-Mawasi, north of Khan Younis, earlier in the day.

• Israel kills Hamas’s Qassam Brigades Khan Younis commander: Hamas’s armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed Friday that Israel killed Mohammed Al-Yazouri, a member of its General Military Council and commander of its Khan Younis brigade, in a strike Thursday, describing it as a “cowardly Israeli assassination operation.”

  • The Israeli military claimed the strike killed a company commander and another member of the Khan Younis brigade.

  • Israel signed a ceasefire agreement with Hamas on October 9, 2025, and has since killed 1,359 Palestinians and wounded more than 4,570 in Gaza.

• Israeli forces, settlers carry out attacks and arrests across occupied West Bank: Israeli forces detained around 30 Palestinians on Thursday, including two journalists and a former prisoner, during raids in several areas of the occupied West Bank.

  • Nablus: Israeli settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, attacked Palestinian homes in the Al-Dhahra and Al-Hara Al-Tahta areas of Beita on Friday morning and stole a number of sheep, according to WAFA.

  • Tubas: Settlers attacked a thyme crop belonging to a Palestinian farmer in the northern Yarza community, east of Tubas, on Thursday, removing and stealing a fence and destroying irrigation networks supplying the crop.

• Somaliland offers to deploy 2,000 troops for Gaza stabilization force: Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi said Wednesday the breakaway Somali region—recently recognized by Israel—is willing to deploy 2,000 troops for the planned U.S.-led International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, but is waiting for a formal request from Washington or Israel, according to The New Arab.

  • Speaking at the MEAD conference in Washington, Abdullahi said his forces, which include an army of about 25,000 soldiers and a 1,500-person coast guard, are “ready” to contribute to the unit, which under Trump’s Gaza plan would secure areas following an Israeli withdrawal, train Palestinian police, and support aid delivery.

  • Last month, Uganda became the first African state to join the ISF, a move that sparked domestic debate over whether Kampala acted without African Union consultation.

• Israeli soldiers detail “calculated mass killing” of Palestinians in new documentary: A new documentary by Israeli co-directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor which premiered at the Venice Film Festival features interviews with 24 Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers about “Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” according to the film’s synopsis. The film is titled “NAZA,” a reference to an Israeli military acronym for civilian casualties, including men, women and children.

  • “Interviewees describe hacking little girls’ phones to see when their fathers came home and then bombing their houses, listening while the people on the line screamed and pleaded for help, while mothers cried over their burning daughters,” Vulture reported. Another officer recalls blowing up a building with 500 people in it to go after one target. All of the soldiers spoke on condition of anonymity and their appearance and voices were digitally altered.

  • The film builds on previous reporting published by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian. At a press conference following the premiere, Szor also reminded everyone that Palestinian journalists have reported on these facts.

Lebanon

• Israel detonates 1,100 tons of explosives at Ali Al-Taher ridge, blast registers like 4.2-magnitude earthquake: The Israeli military detonated 1,100 tons of explosives beneath the Ali Taher Ridge on the outskirts of Nabatieh Al-Fawqa in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon on Thursday night, claiming to have destroyed an underground complex belonging to Hezbollah, The Times of Israel reported.

  • Seismic waves from the explosion recorded at 9:08 p.m. were comparable to a magnitude-4.2 earthquake, Lebanon’s National Center for Geophysics said.

  • The Israeli military said it would “reorganize” its deployment but continue to occupy the Ali Al-Taher Ridge through surveillance and firepower. The Israeli Army Radio reported Friday that Israeli forces have withdrawn from the Ridge to rear lines in the Shaqif area.

  • The force of the explosion sent rocks and debris onto the Khiam–Marjayoun road, leaving it completely blocked on Friday, according to NNA. Residents of several villages in the Marjayoun district also appealed for water supplies after dust and debris from the blast covered homes, roads, and vehicles.

• Israel continues attacks across other districts in southern Lebanon:

  • Tyre (Sour): Israeli forces carried out airstrikes, artillery shelling, and large-scale demolitions in Mansouri, including blowing up most of the town’s public school. Two consecutive airstrikes targeted infrastructure and residential neighborhoods, according to NNA.

  • Marjayoun: Israeli forces moved into the Wadi Al-Jamal area on the northern outskirts of Meiss Al-Jabal, accompanied by artillery shelling that targeted a house and machine-gun fire in the area.

U.S. News

• Republicans blindsided by Trump’s $5,000 check pledge, sources say: Key congressional Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, were not briefed before President Donald Trump’s Wednesday pledge to send $5,000 checks to every American adult if Republicans hold Congress, according to more than a dozen lawmakers and aides cited by NOTUS.

  • GOP Rep. Chip Roy criticized the plan on social media, saying “dependency is evil & soul-sucking in all its forms,” and a senior Senate Republican aide told the outlet flatly “it’s not going to happen,” citing inflation concerns and the estimated $1.2 trillion cost, or 3.5% of GDP.

• GOP election officials from seven states urge Supreme Court to block Trump’s mail voting rule: Republican chief election officials from seven states, including Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger and Kansas’s Scott Schwab, filed a brief Wednesday urging the Supreme Court not to let Trump’s mail-in ballot order take effect before the November midterms, saying it’s too late to implement it responsibly.

  • The officials, alongside numerous current and former local election authorities, said: “attempting to implement the rule now will almost certainly lead to mistakes, delays and confusion for both voters and election officials.”

  • Trump signed the order in March, and it was formalized in an August U.S. Postal Service rule allowing the service to withhold ballot delivery from states that don’t submit voter eligibility lists.

  • A preliminary injunction from a Boston federal judge currently blocks the order from taking effect before November. On Thursday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to lift this injunction, ruling in a nine-page opinion that the administration failed to show the rule wouldn’t cause “chaos and widespread voter disenfranchisement.”

• Supreme Court blocks Trump-backed Missouri congressional map for November: The U.S. Supreme Court once again prevented Missouri from using its Republican-redrawn congressional map for the November election, marking the second time this week the justices have weighed in on the state’s chaotic redistricting fight.

  • Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins said his office would direct local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map, which would position Democrats to retain their Kansas City-area seat.

  • The reversal followed a whiplash sequence in which Justice Brett Kavanaugh initially deferred to Missouri’s Supreme Court favoring the old map, only for federal Judge Stephen R. Clark to rule hours later that the new GOP-drawn map should be used to avoid “wreaking havoc” on election fairness, prompting state officials to briefly follow Clark’s ruling, before it was appealed back to the Supreme Court.

  • It remains unresolved how officials will reconcile using a different map in the general election than the GOP-redrawn map used to nominate candidates in August’s primary.

• Appeals court deals ICE ninth straight loss on mass detention policy: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Thursday against ICE’s policy of detaining immigrants living inside the U.S. for years without bond, ICE’s ninth straight loss at the federal appellate court level, with Judge Nicole Berner comparing the approach to the “historical stain” of Japanese internment during World War II.

  • Nine of the 11 appellate circuits to consider the issue have now found the administration misread a 1996 immigration law that established deportation and detention policies, and which prior administrations interpreted as making detention mandatory only for people who had recently crossed the border.

  • ICE abandoned this interpretation in July 2025 in favor of treating even longtime U.S. residents as “seeking admission” and subject to detention without bond.

• Former EPA officials warn data center boom poses growing public health threat: A group representing more than 800 former EPA employees released a report warning that Trump administration policies weakening pollution safeguards and speeding data center approvals threaten to worsen health risks.

  • The report, from the Environmental Protection Network, cites academic modeling which projects that data center air pollution could contribute to roughly 600,000 asthma cases, 1,300 premature deaths, and more than $20 billion in annual public health costs by 2028.

  • It also lists 30 federal actions it says will increase pollution risks, including easing restrictions on diesel generators and off-grid gas plants and proposing to let developers begin construction before air pollution permits are approved.

  • Former EPA enforcement official Larry Starfield noted the agency’s staffing is at a four-decade low, leaving it ill-equipped to monitor or enforce pollution limits at the scale of the data center buildout, and UC Riverside professor Shaolei Ren, who led the report’s underlying analysis, warned “the actual impact could be worse than we modeled” given the administration’s explicit push toward increasing the use of fossil fuels.

Other International News

• Putin, Xi, Pezeshkian arrive in New Delhi for BRICS summit: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi Friday ahead of an 11-member BRICS summit expected to be dominated by the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, joined by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for his first visit to India as president and Chinese President Xi Jinping for his first India visit since 2019.

  • The ongoing war in Iran and the Gulf is expected to be the central fault line in the meeting, given the recent addition of several Gulf monarchies to the bloc, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the body’s recent failure to agree on a joint statement concerning the war in May.

  • India, which maintains ties with both Iran and Israel while balancing relations with Washington, has turned increasingly to Russian oil amid the Iran-driven energy crisis, even as its foreign minister recently visited Kyiv and Zelenskyy thanked India for its “commitment to ending this unjust war.”

• Peru joins U.S. Shield of the Americas anti-cartel coalition: President Keiko Fujimori announced that Peru will join the U.S.-led “Shield of the Americas” coalition against drug cartels during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit on Thursday.

  • Fujimori said Peru’s participation would speed intelligence-sharing and joint action against transnational criminal groups, citing her country’s experience fighting the Shining Path insurgency.

  • Rubio’s visit, part of a three-country Latin American tour also covering Ecuador and Colombia, built on existing defense ties between the countries, including Peru’s January designation as a major non-NATO ally and a possible $1.5 billion U.S. military sale approved by Rubio, which would upgrade Peru’s Callao Naval Base.

  • Peru is also seeking relief from 12.5% U.S. tariffs imposed in July that have hit its blueberry, grape, and avocado exports. China continues to outpace the U.S. in bilateral trade with Peru, with Peru-China trade up 35% in the first half of the year compared to a 20% rise with the U.S. Rubio’s Thursday visit prompted China’s embassy in Lima to preemptively declare that “the Western Hemisphere is not anyone’s ‘backyard.’”

• Fire kills at least 29 people, mostly students, in DRC’s rebel-held Bukavu: A fire that broke out in the Chimpunda neighborhood of Bukavu, capital of the eastern DRC’s South Kivu province, killed at least 29 people, including 19 girls and five boys, after spreading to two local schools and about 300 wooden homes, according to an AFC/M23 rebel spokesperson.

  • Another local official said the fire was “followed by a violent stampede that forced students to trample over one another or look for a dangerous way out,” with many fainting or losing consciousness during the chaos.

  • Bukavu has been controlled since February 2025 by the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 movement. Thursday’s fire is one of several that have recently blazed through the city, including one last Sunday that destroyed more than 45 houses.

• Ukrainian drone attacks kill two, wound seven in Russia’s Belgorod region: Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Belgorod border region killed two people and wounded seven Thursday, according to regional authorities.

  • One man was killed when a drone detonated at an unnamed facility in Novy Oskol, injuring five others in various locations, while a second man was killed and a woman injured when a drone struck their car in Shebekino, near the Ukrainian border.

• International Energy Agency cuts forecast on Russian oil production after Ukraine attacks: The International Energy Agency has lowered its forecast for Russian oil production as Ukrainian drone strikes continue to damage refineries and other energy infrastructure.

  • The agency cut its 2026 forecast by 125,000 barrels per day to 8.7 million bpd and reduced its 2027 projection by 235,000 bpd to 8.6 million bpd.

  • The decline comes as Moscow itself has downgraded its 2026 production forecast to a 17-year low and lowered its fuel-export projections for both 2026 and 2027 because of the war which has increasingly seen Ukraine targeting refineries and other energy production facilities inside Russia.

📖 READ “All I Want Is for the War to End”: Displacement Behind the Front Lines in Yemen

📖 READ Many Iranians Forced to Take Out Loans to Pay for Daily Essentials

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