(October 12, 2023)
„We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,“ Mr McCaul told reporters following a closed-door intelligence briefing on Wednesday for lawmakers about the Middle East crisis, according to AFP news agency.
„I don‘t want to get too much into classified, but a warning was given,“ the Texas Republican added. „I think the question was at what level.“
According to reports from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) radio, prior to the alleged UAE warning, Israel‘s internal security agency had received similar warnings from Egypt, which were communicated to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Egyptian intelligence services issued only a „general warning,“ without providing specific details, about the Palestinian movement‘s intention to „shake the ground in Gaza.“
(September 8, 2026)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was directly warned by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a major offensive just days before the militant group attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, according to an Israeli newspaper report.
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed spoke with Netanyahu 10 days before the attack and said Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza at the time, was planning an operation, the Haaretz daily said.
Neuere Medienberichte, insbesondere von Haaretz, stärken den Verdacht, dass der Angriff des 7. Oktobers 2023 von der israelischen Regierung bewusst zugelassen worden war, und möglicherweise durch die Hannibal-Doktrin mit vollem Wissen um die Vielzahl der dadurch entstehenden zivilen israelischen Opfer sogar verstärkt worden war, um daraus eine Rechtfertigung für Völkermord, ethnische Säuberung und sogar Krieg gegen den Iran zu ziehen.
According to reports, their advance is facing little resistance after government-aligned forces withdrew from their positions.
If that continues, it could pave the way for the Houthis to seize more territory along the coast and move closer to Bab al-Mandeb, while increasingly threatening shipping in the crucial Red Sea trade route.
They’ve been battling it out over the past nine days and we knew that the Houthis were trying to push west of Taiz because their main goal, their main prize, was the takeover of the city of al-Makha (Mocha) and also the Red Sea coastline.
It gives the Houthis full advantage to prevent ships from crossing Bab al-Mandeb and also, more importantly, the ability to cut off three main supply lines to the government in the south of the country.
An investigation published by ‚Haaretz‘ claims the Israeli prime minister was informed by UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, 10 days before the attack, that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an explicit warning about a major operation being planned by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar shortly before the October 7 attack, according to a new book by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. The account also alleges that Netanyahu received a separate warning from Egypt in the days before the massacre and later declined to authorize a renewed proposal to target senior Hamas leaders, including Sinwar.
Der Inhalt des Berichts hat es in sich: 45 Minuten lang soll der Präsident der Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate, Mohammed bin Zayed, Ende September 2023 mit Israels Premierminister Benjamin Netanjahu telefoniert haben. Eindringlich habe er in dem Gespräch vor einem bevorstehenden Großangriff der Hamas gewarnt – und das nur anderthalb Wochen vor dem 7. Oktober 2023. Also vor dem Tag, an dem die Hamas Israel überfiel, fast 1.200 Menschen tötete und etwa 250 als Geiseln nahm.
Beginning on Thursday, the Houthis launched an offensive aiming to cut off the government-held port city of Mokha, under fire for weeks, and advance towards areas bordering the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
A military official within the government told AFP that the Houthis had succeeded on Saturday evening in „cutting off the road linking Taiz to Mokha.“
According to three separate Yemeni military sources, 26 government troops and 31 Houthis have been killed over several hours of battles in the country’s southwest, AFP reported.
A Yemeni health source also told the French news agency that the death toll from a Houthi missile attack on a road in Yemen’s Taiz governorate earlier today now stands at six – an increase on the four reported by government-aligned sources earlier today.
The U.S. has described the dry and rugged mountains of northern Somalia as the main hub from which ISIS controls its global operations. Amid an increasing number of U.S. drone strikes and raids supporting the Somali government in the war against ISIS, the United States is now expanding its presence in the port city of Bosaso and effectively building a new military base, which will be used for combat and surveillance operations targeting “terror groups” in the region as well enhancing maritime security, according to Somali security officials in Puntland. The CIA will also expand its operations there, the officials said.
In the mid-1980s, Rezaei became involved in secret contacts with the United States during the Iran-Contra affair, in which Iran received American weapons while proceeds from the arms sales were diverted to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once told local media that his nephew, Ali Hashemi, a key intermediary in contacts with the administration of then-US President Ronald Reagan, had informed him and, subsequently, Rezaei about meetings with American officials.
It is worth recalling that the conflict did not begin over disputes about the Strait of Hormuz. As recently as February 28, commercial ships transited the waterway without restriction.
(…)
With the US maintaining the naval blockade during the ceasefire period, Iran responded by stopping and, in several cases, attacking vessels attempting to cross the Strait without its approval. Insurance rates spiked, shipping lines rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, and transit times increased by up to three weeks.
Wars of this nature benefit no party in the long term, and they rarely reach a logical conclusion. Their primary victims are innocent civilians who have no role in the conflict. Many civilians in Iran and Lebanon have lost their lives directly to strikes.
It was in this climate that a leaked video of Mohammad-Bagher Kharrazi, the brother-in-law of Masoud Khamenei, the younger brother of Iran’s supreme leader, emerged as part of what critics describe as a broader hard-line campaign.
In the video, Kharrazi claimed that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had “formally and publicly announced” that if Pezeshkian attempts to resign one more time, his resignation would be accepted.
(…)
Soon afterward, however, another audio file surfaced in which Ali Saeedi, a conservative senior figure close to the Khamenei‘s office, claimed that the supreme leader had expressed support for the negotiations and criticised hard-line opposition to diplomacy.
According to Saeedi, Khamenei told one of his brothers: “I have never opposed negotiations, and I still do not. I was the one who authorised the negotiations, and I am not satisfied with the hard-line positions adopted by some people.”
Saeedi also claimed that Khamenei supports Ghalibaf, saying: “He is like [the late Quds Force commander] Haj Qassem Soleimani.”
Khoshcheshm noted the appointments could also herald a major restructuring of Iran’s security and military apparatus, with a greater focus on pre-emptive strikes and more powerful responses to any US attack.
While he does not believe Iran would attack the US “offhand with no reason”, he says the new leadership is preparing Iran to develop its capabilities for pre-emptive strikes and stronger attacks on US military forces and positions in the region.
He described the appointments as creating a “more offensive-minded leadership for Iran’s security establishment across the board”.
Rezaei is a commander who holds some of the most closely guarded secrets of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the IRGC‘s founding years, and for just as long, he‘s been a favorite target of Iranian political satire. Now, at 71, he‘s back at the center of the Islamic republic‘s security decision-making.
Rezaei traded his uniform for politics in 1997 and ran for president four times, dropping out before the vote in 2005, then losing in 2009, 2013, and 2021, never pulling in more than about 3.9 million votes.
The appointments came one day after Khamenei named Major General Mohsen Rezaei as his representative to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and appointed outgoing SNSC secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr as his political adviser.
President Masoud Pezeshkian separately appointed Rezaei as secretary of the SNSC, replacing Zolghadr.
Strikes by Yemen‘s Houthis on Sunday killed at least 11 people, a medical source in the Yemeni port city of Mokha has told AFP, after an earlier drone salvo targeted a Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea coast.
A years-long truce in Yemen‘s civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government appeared to collapse last month.
Iraqi political leaders agreed on a mechanism for armed factions to hand over their weapons to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which would register and store the arms under state supervision, a source in the leading Shiite Coordination Framework told Shafaq News on Sunday.
Under the agreement, the PMF —a state security organization comprising mostly Shiite armed factions— would take custody of the weapons, document their types and storage locations, and oversee any subsequent movement of arms or personnel under orders from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
(July 19, 2026)
Irgendeine Gruppe oder Fraktion hat die Staatsführung des Iran übernommen, in deren Interesse nicht der Iran selbst, sondern die Fortführung des Krieges auf unabsehbare Zeit steht. Welche Rolle dabei der Sohn des in der ersten Angriffswelle auf den Iran am 28. Februar ermordeten „Obersten Führers“ („Supreme Leader“) Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei spielt, erscheint völlig unklar. Bisher ist er nicht in der Öffentlichkeit aufgetreten. Ausgerechnet über israelische Medien wird gestreut, dies werde so bleiben bis zum unabsehbaren Ende des Krieges. Die formal dem „Obersten Führer“ unterstellten Revolutionsgarden agieren gegen die iranischen Interessen. Gewinner des Krieges sind u.a. Ölmagnate, Kriegsproduzenten und der internationale geheimdienstliche Komplex, nicht zuletzt in der Russischen Föderation, sowie der zum Machterhalt auf Krieg und externe Bedrohung angewiesene Machthaber in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Dabei ist das Interesse der Kriegsgewinnler auf allen Seiten den Westasienkrieg insgesamt noch auszuweiten.
Houthis’ expansion of cross-border attacks on government forces means the threat of all-out war between the two sides is no longer far-fetched.
Iraq’s Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, has discussed efforts to enhance regional security cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s general intelligence chief, Khalid bin Ali Al Humaidan, according to the Iraqi PM’s office.
Al-Zaidi reiterated Iraq’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with Saudi Arabia and stressed Baghdad’s position that Iraq would not be used as a “launching pad” for activities harming any foreign state, his office statement said.
A senior Saudi official, speaking anonymously to Reuters late on Thursday, said intelligence gathered by Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries in the region indicated that civilian and economic sites could be targeted.
The potential targets include energy infrastructure, ports and airports.
Saudi Arabia had detected the movement of drones and missiles, according to the official, suggesting preparations for attacks from Iraq to the north and Yemen to the south.
“The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression” and stipulates that an armed attack against any of the three countries “would be regarded as an attack on all”, according to a joint statement cited by Reuters.
The pact brings together NATO member Turkiye, which has the alliance’s second-largest military, nuclear-armed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, one of the Gulf’s most powerful states and the world’s leading oil exporters.
(August 2, 2026)
In Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, pictures of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi are a frequent sight. He glowers from billboards, with a dagger tucked in his belt. Crowds watch his speeches on big screens. His followers wave banners showing his face. Mr Houthi is everywhere—and nowhere. The rebel leader, who has controlled most of north-west Yemen for more than a decade, never appears in public. He holds meetings by video from caves and safe-houses.
The sources added that the casualty numbers were expected to rise.
Fighting in Yemen between the pro-Iranian Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces has intensified in recent weeks, after four years of relative calm.
On one side, the ultra-hardliners who oppose any negotiations with the United States are pressing for total victory in the war. Known as the “Paydari” movement – Persian for “stability” – they are hard-core ideologues who want to enforce the Islamic Republic’s control over society.
On the other, those who support President Masoud Pezeshkian and powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — who doubles as Iran’s chief negotiator — see military pressure as a way to win a negotiated deal with the United States. This camp is also spurred by concern over the economic toll Iran is suffering from the war and the need to adapt to social change in the country.
(July 31, 2026)
The battle to restore the State institutions and eliminate the militias‘ coup isn‘t just the army‘s battle, but it is everybody‘s fight, al-Alimi stressed.
The President emphasized that the current stage requires political parties to reclaim their natural role as forces of enlightenment, mobilization and rallying against threats, to restore respect for the idea of the national state and to reinforce the isolation of militias and their destructive agenda.
The political parties need to make the battle to restore the State institutions a matter for the whole society, not only a government‘s task or issue, al-Alimi noted.
On August 1, 2026, a merchant vessel successfully navigated the Red Sea under the escort of the Italian frigate Bergamini, according to a statement from the European Union’s naval mission ASPIDES. The protective operation highlights ongoing maritime security efforts in a region currently experiencing significant geopolitical tensions.
Military spokesperson says maritime blockade has forced Saudi tankers to avoid Red Sea route
The warnings, posted online simultaneously by missions in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, came a day after President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran „very hard.“ The alerts advised citizens to check flight schedules and prepare for potential airspace closures and travel disruptions.
(July 30, 2026)
Riyadh has also asked the US and a group of European countries including Germany, France, the UK and Italy to join a Red Sea coalition.
The EU already has a naval protection mission, Aspides, operating in the Red Sea and it remains unclear if the Houthis are mounting a general blockade or one directed solely at Saudi Arabia.