Two oil tankers have been significantly damaged in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman.

The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous with 23 crew members aboard and Norway's Front Altair with 23 people were abandoned after the blasts. Iran and the US say they evacuated the crew.

It is unclear what caused the blasts coming amid high US-Iran tensions.

A senior Iranian official told the BBC: "Iran has no connection with the incident."

The suspected attack in one of the world's busiest oil routes comes a month after four oil tankers were attacked off the United Arab Emirates.

The United Arab Emirates-backed paramilitary forces in Yemen have long been criticized for their abusive behavior toward civilians, particularly civilians in contested regions. This weekend, that recurring problem centered on Dhale Province.

On Friday, a mosque in Dhale same under attack by the UAE-backed forces, who forced their way in, killed six worshipers, and kidnapped another four. The identities of the captured people have not been confirmed.

The UAE forces, however, issued a statement saying that everyone that they killed were “Houthi rebels who refused to surrender.” None of them have been identified conclusively.

In Yemen’s southwest, Dhale had been under the control of Saudi and UAE-backed forces throughout much of the war, but in recent months, the Houthis have returned to the area and carved out an area which has resisted a number of offensives.

President Trump’s hope to circumvent Senate oversight with an emergency declaration on arms sales to Saudi Arabia appears to have backfired. If anything, this effort seems to have drawn even more attention to the planned sales, and fueled even more Senate objections.

Now, in addition to 22 resolutions objecting to the sales, the Senate is introducing a new bill on Monday aimed to force a vote on all security aid to Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, and conditioning them on a Congressional review of Saudi human rights issues.

Trump aimed to bypass oversight on $8.1 billion in sales, knowing they would face objections, by claiming an “emergency” that meant it couldn’t wait for Congress to vote. Since the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government, there has been discomfort with arms sales to the Saudis. Trump has objected to this additional resistance, arguing that the sales are worth a lot of money.

At the end of May, almost 500 million citizens across the European Union voted for Members of the European Parliament to represent them over the next five years, shaping the political orientation of the EU for the immediate future. While the results reflect voters’ desire for some real change, they brought no change for the Middle East.

The results triggered mixed reactions and interpretations, but it is obvious that European voters turned their backs on parties which have dominated EU institutions for a decade. Instead, they supported smaller candidates from Green, Liberal and Nationalist parties.

Europe has been largely absent from the Middle East for years, as it has been preoccupied with its own problems, from the 2008 financial crisis through migrant issues and now Brexit. The outcome of the elections is a divisive parliament, suggesting that one can expect a sense of déjà vu with Europe fighting internal battles and largely neglecting issues affecting its near neighbours.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA

When US President Donald Trump bypassed Congress last month to approve a multibillion-dollar arms deal to Saudi Arabia, he also allowed the kingdom to develop complex precision-bomb parts, according to the New York Times.

Trump's emergency declaration allows American arms firm Raytheon to share technology with Riyadh that could allow Saudi Arabia to develop its own laser-guided bombs, the newspaper reported on Friday.

Among the components which the Saudis are now allowed to work on with the firm are the control systems and vital electronics for Raytheon's Paveway series of smart bombs. That technology was previously closely guarded by Washington.

The technology sharing is just one part of a sweeping arms package Trump bypassed Congress to push through by declaring a national emergency, citing tensions with Iran.

Outrage on Capitol Hill

At least 100 artifacts from Yemen have been successfully sold at auction for an estimated $1 million in the U.S., Europe and the United Arab Emirates since 2011, according to a Live Science investigation into the country's so-called "blood antiquities."

The artifacts include ancient inscriptions, statues, coins and manuscripts from the Middle Ages, Live Science found after analyzing auction records.

Some of the artifacts have detailed provenance information that suggests they were taken out of the country decades ago, while others have little or no provenance information, raising the question of whether they were recently stolen or looted.

The war in Yemen is still raging on with no end in sight and the Saudis are beginning to see the war come home to them. The Houthi regime has been increasing drone strikes inside of Saudi Arabia, hitting an oil pipeline and an arms depot in recent weeks. While the Saudis are beginning to see blowback from their brutal military campaign in the country, we must not forget that this war would not be possible without US intelligence and weapons. President Trump recently bypassed congress by declaring a state of emergency to sell more weapons to the Saudis, using the "Iranian threat" as the excuse.

The public enthusiasm for the trade war by elites within the Trump Administration cabinet, including Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross, Council On Foreign Relations member Robert E. Lighthizer, Goldman Sachs member Steve Mnuchin, and Bilderberg attendee Mike Pompeo showcases a desire based on globalization to perpetuate an escalation in tensions.

Whether or not you agree with the rationalizations behind the trade war, the point is, the only people who will ultimately benefit from it are those striving for globalization.

The Kurdish separatist militia SDF and its affiliates from PYD and Asayish are burning wheat fields in the territories under their occupation northeast of Syria.

Some of the most fertile lands as well as territories rich with oil are under the occupation of the US-sponsored separatist SDF militia. The US and its illegal International Coalition of evil states are preventing the Syrian state from restoring the country from terrorists and separatists.

A video widely spread on social media shows a vehicle of the Kurdish Asayish thugs, the security arm of the PYD and SDF Kurdish militia, driving through a wheat field in the city of Qamishli northeast of the country with strong flames of fire coming from it to burn out the entire field.

Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi has condemned Israeli plans to build new settlement units in occupied Jerusalem. In a series of tweets published on Tuesday, Safadi denounced the move as “a violation of international law” and called on the world to “act against Israeli illegal measures”.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
France’s weapons sales to Saudi Arabia rose 50 per cent in 2018 despite the government calling for an end to the “dirty war” in Yemen, figures released on Tuesday showed, Reuters reports.
An annual government report showed that total arms sales rose 30 per cent to 9.1 billion euros in 2018, driven by a sharp increase in sales to European allies.

France sold about 1 billion euros worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, with the main item being patrol boats. A partial naval blockade of ports controlled by the Houthi movement is one of the tactics used by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that has been criticised by campaigners for worsening a humanitarian crisis.

On the international level, the U.S. government plays an even more dreadful role. According to the current U.S. foreign policy; China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and the major European countries are considered as adversary regimes that needs to be dealt with in one way or another. Both Democrats and Republicans believe that a major war gives them a chance to rally their national and international forces. Both parties see a major military conflict as a catalyzing factor to tilt the power for a fundamental change in their benefit. President Trump plays a unique role in flaming the trade and military wars. Since 2016, Mr. Trump’s contradictory positions on many issues have discredited his Administration and the role of the U.S. in the world.

For one, the Middle East already has a regional hegemon – the United States. Even the wildest accusations against Iran regarding state sponsored terrorism pale in comparison to Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) whose terrorism spans the globe, including standing armies operating in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan – several of which Iran itself is specifically fighting.

The US also supports terrorist organizations within Iran including the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). MEK enjoys the support of National Security Adviser John Bolton – who lobbied for them for years while they were listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department itself.

Thus, Iran finds itself involved in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon precisely to stave off openly declared intentions by the US to include Iran next under its already expansive hegemony over the Middle East.

Nearly 400 hospitals and medical facilities in Yemen were destroyed during the four-year war period as a result of the Saudi-led coalition air strikes, Health Ministry spokesman Youssef Hadiri said in an interview with Sputnik News, on Thursday.

“More than 375 hospitals and medical facilities were destroyed because they were hit directly or indirectly by bombs and missiles launched by the coalition,” Hadiri said.

The spokesman added that the Yemeni medical sector is in critical condition due to the war that is exacerbated by Saudi-led aggression.

Hadiri also said that more than 5,000 people in Yemen need to undergo dialysis or kidney transplants and that in the war period at least 1,200 people died from not receiving the treatment or medication needed for kidney disease. In addition, the spokesman said that the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has led to the death of more than 700,000 people.

Secretary of State Pompeo was in Sochi on 14 May for talks with his counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. And in his opening address, Lavrov observed: “I believe it’s time to start building a new, more responsible and constructive matrix of how we see each other. We are ready to do so, of course, if our US partners are interested in doing so as well … The fact that we are meeting for the second time in the past two weeks inspires certain optimism. Let’s give it a try and see what happens”.

President Putin subsequently hosted Pompeo for a short discussion, noting: “I got the impression that the President [Trump] is in favour of restoring Russia-US ties and contacts – and of resolving issues of mutual interest. For our part, we have said many times, that we would also like to restore relations on a full scale”.

Bahrain is gearing up to host the economic version of the so-called Deal of the Century. A two-day conference, co-hosted by the United States, is scheduled to be held in the capital, Manama June 25-26.

The Palestinian leadership has rightly refused to take part in the latest US-Arab charade, which aims at normalizing Arab-Israeli ties at the expense of Palestinian rights.

Despite the fact that some have tried to present the Bahrain ‘workshop’ as a purely ‘economic effort,’ White House officials have been clear that this is the first stage in their supposed peace plan.

For the Trump administration, the Manama meeting serves as the first step in a larger strategy that aims to undermine international law regarding Palestine and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

The Israeli military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft position after an Israeli warplane came under fire. Syrian TV earlier stated that Israel had carried out a missile strike in Syria’s Quneitra province.
According to SANA, one officer was killed and two others were injured in the attack on a military site east of Khan Arnabeh in the Quneitra countryside. It added that the Syrian Air Defense attacked an unmanned aerial vehicle that entered Syrian airspace near the southern suburb.

Israeli Defense Forces claimed that it was their jet making a routine flight in northern Israel that came under fire. The Syrian anti-aircraft missile missed the warplane and it was able to complete its mission successfully.

SOURCE: BREAKINGDEFENSE.COM

TEL AVIV: The Israeli government just awarded the initial, $125 million contract of a planned 12-year, $280 million program to replace its tank-like M109 howitzers with Elbit’s wheeled ATMOS. About half the work will be done by Elbit’s subsidiaries and partners in the United States, a sign of how Israeli defense spending has shifted since Washington restricted its ally’s ability to spend US aid on non-US products.

The investment also shows how good old-fashioned 155 mm shells still play a vital role in a Mideast roiled by Hezbollah rockets and Iranian missile tests. Even in an age of smart weapons, when you need to bombard a target, it turns out that quantity still has a quality of its own.

American foreign policy can be so retro, not to mention absurd. Despite being bogged down in more military interventions than it can reasonably handle, the Trump team recently picked a new fight -- in Latin America. That’s right! Uncle Sam kicked off a sequel to the Cold War with some of our southern neighbors, while resuscitating the boogeyman of socialism. In the process, National Security Advisor John Bolton treated us all to a new phrase, no less laughable than Bush the younger’s 2002 "axis of evil” (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea). He labeled Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua a "troika of tyranny."

Is Saudi Arabia losing its military campaign in Yemen despite being the stronger party enjoying the support of its many allies? The Saudi-led coalition includes countries like Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Jordan and Morocco, as well as Qatar before it fell out with Riyadh. Major countries like France and Italy help by providing arms while the US supplies arms, intelligence and technical assistance such as in-flight refuelling, although this was suspended recently.

The coalition is fighting a loose cluster of groups headed by the disciplined and battle-hardened Houthi rebels who are, allegedly, supported by Iran. It is a very asymmetrical conflict.

White House adviser Kushner, the chief architect of the ‘deal of the century,’ embarks on a tour in the region in order to rally support for a US-engineered conference in Bahrain next month, where the initial stage of the peace proposal is said to be unveiled

rench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday renewed calls for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the conflict in Yemen.

In media statements, Le Drian described the six-year conflict in Yemen as a “dirty war.”

The conflict in Yemen erupted in September 2014, when the Ansar Allah “Houthi” group, backed by Iran, seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Following the Houthi action, Saudi Arabia, the closest regional power to Yemen, announced in March 2015, forming the coalition for supporting legitimacy in Yemen.

Besides Saudi Arabia, the coalition includes the UAE; Jordan; Bahrain; Pakistan; Djibouti; Sudan; Senegal; Kuwait; Morocco; Malaysia, and Egypt, as well as the internationally recognised government of Yemen.

Qatar was also part of the coalition until the breakdown of the Gulf crisis in May 2017.

A delegation of Sudanese opposition representatives was recently in Washington, seeking to convince administration officials that they should declare US backing for the opposition.

That, the Sudanese claimed, would improve greatly the chances of their nation making a successful transition to democracy. In a private discussion with a small group of Middle East analysts, including this writer, members of the delegation would not be convinced that the Trump administration has demonstrated much more support for strongmen in power than for their opponents, and that there was no chance it would back opposition forces, except in the vaguest of rhetorical statements.

The belief that this US administration might come to their aid endured.

Houthi militants reportedly launched a drone attack on Saudi Arabia's Jizan Airport in the vicinity of the border with Yemen earlier today.

Saudi Air Defence Forces have intercepted a drone launched by Houthi militants targeting military hangars in Saudi Arabia's Jizan Airport near the border with Yemen, Reuters reports, citing the Saudi State news agency.

Not long after he reportedly agreed to send another 1,500-2,000 troops to the Middle East in yet another show of strength to combat an increasingly belligerent Iran, President Trump steamrolled Congress on Friday to approve $8 billion in arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia and expedite delivery, WSJ reports.

The administration invoked a rarely used provision of American arms control laws to bypass Congress and approve the weapons sales, citing the escalating tensions with Iran as justification. WSJ's sources said the $8 billion figure encapsulates a package of 22 separate deals.

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have reportedly launched an airstrike against an MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system stationed at an airport in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Najran.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the local Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni soldiers and their allies attacked the US-built system on Thursday, using a domestically-designed and -manufactured Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) combat drone.

The source added that the aerial attack was carried out following close surveillance by Yemeni forces.

According to Yemeni sources, this is the third consecutive attack by Yemeni forces' drones on the Saudi airport.

The U.S. Air Force has deployed at least 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Iran with high-power microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless without causing any fatalities, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing's Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and tested successfully in 2012. They have not been operation until now.

The microwave weapons are fitted into an air-launched cruise missile and delivered from B-52 bombers. With a range of 700 miles, they can fly into enemy airspace at low altitude and emit sharp pulses of high power microwave (HPM) energy that fry computer chips, disabling any electronic devices targeted by the missiles with causing any collateral damage.

Under President Barack Obama’s administration and, now, President Donald Trump’s, the United States has put its military might behind the Saudi-led coalition, waging a war without congressional authorization. That war has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, destroyed or damaged more than half of Yemen’s health facilities, killed more than 8,350 civilians, injured another 9,500 civilians, displaced 3.3 million people, and created a humanitarian disaster that threatens the lives of millions as cholera and famine spread through the country.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has released a dozen photographs, which it has described as a harrowing depiction of the current state of nature in war-torn Yemen.

To get its hands on the pictures, the humanitarian body enlisted the services of six young Yemeni photographers from six different regions across the country, which has turned into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis over five successive years of a Saudi Arabia-led war.

Some reports have put the death toll from the war at tens of thousands. The whole country itself is teetering at the edge of outright famine, while al-Hudaydah, its lifeline western port is under the strict control of the invading Saudi-led coalition.

Yemeni forces have warned of more retaliatory attacks as the Saudi war continues to claim civilian lives. Yemen’s Ansarullah also rejected Saudi allegations about the movement’s plan to attack holy sites as big lies, and part of new plots.

Yemen's Joint Operations Command Center has released footage verifying a retaliatory attack on the Abu Dhabi International Airport carried out last year, which had been denied by officials of the United Arab Emirates.

The video shows a Sammad-3 (Invincible-3) unmanned aerial vehicle flying at low altitude before it fires a missile, setting two trucks parked at the airport ablaze.

The attack took place on July 26, 2018 when Yemeni army soldiers, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, launched an airstrike against the airport using a domestically-built long-endurance Sammad-3 (Invincible-3) unmanned aerial vehicle.

Abdullah al-Jafri, a spokesman for Yemeni air force and air defense, said at the time that the drone attack on Abu Dhabi International Airport had halted flights to and from the airport, adding that this was the first time that Yemeni forces used a drone to attack the airport.

Palestinian officials are doubling down on their plans to boycott a US-led conference in Bahrain next month aimed at garnering regional support for President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

The White House announced Sunday that it will be co-hosting what it described as an “economic workshop” with the Gulf country, aimed at encouraging Arab economic investments in the Palestinian Territories, as part of the US strategy in the region.

The US administration will use the conference, which is set to take place June 25-26, to unveil the first part of Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century,” which emphasizes “economic opportunities” for Palestinians over core political issues like the status of Jerusalem, control of borders, and the fate of refugees.

The United States may consider sending thousands more American troops to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, CNN reported, citing three US officials familiar with the matter.

Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan has affirmed that the Pentagon was considering sending more US troops to the Middle East as one of the ways to strengthen protection for American forces there amid tensions with Iran.

"What we're looking at is: are there things that we can do to enhance force protection in the Middle East? It may involve sending additional troops", Shanahan told reporters outside the Pentagon.

Reports that three prominent and moderate Saudi Arabian Sunni scholars held on multiple charges of “terrorism” will be executed shortly after Ramadan are startling, not because the charges are false, but more so because of US complacency towards egregious human rights abuses, along with Washington’s continued support for regimes responsible for such things. Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, the relationship between America’s Jared Kushner, the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Zayed, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman has solidified, establishing an even stronger alliance between the three countries.

Yemeni Minister of Public Health and Population Taha Al-Mutwakel recently confirmed that at least 425 medical centers have been targeted by the Saudi-led coalition since the civil war began in Yemen in 2015.

"During the four years of war on Yemen, hospitals have been repeatedly targeted and destroyed by the Saudi-led coalition which does not value human life, and does not observe humanitarian principles, and all Yemeni people including women and children have been attacked in this war," Al-Mutwakel recently told Iran Press.

Saudi Arabia launched a deadly campaign against Yemen in 2015. Since then it’s killed thousands civilians. And yet Riyadh describes retaliatory attacks by Yemeni forces as “act of terrorism”.

War is looming over the region more than ever before. While it is unlikely, at least for now, that the current tension will reach a level of a direct military confrontation in the Gulf, in the event that a war does break out, it will mean that the Gulf region, even the entire Arab region will be in for major strategic changes.

Although the war is still not likely, there are a number of motives and reasons that may lead to it. First and foremost, the United States and Israel want an environment conducive to the “deal of the century” and they are trying to force the Arabs to accept it, just as in the early 1990s, when Iraq’s defeat in the war was the prelude to signing the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the Wadi Araba agreement in 1994.

France has threatened three French journalists with potential jail time for using secret documents to reveal the country's involvement in the Yemen civil war.

In a series of reports published in April, investigative journalists from Disclose and Radio France revealed the number of French arms sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Italian unions have refused to load cargo onto a Saudi ship carrying weapons, in protest against Riyadh’s war on Yemen. The dock workers have gone on strike, refusing to work until the ship leaves port in Genoa.

While the Saudi Arabian ship, the Bahri-Yanbu, was expected to leave for Jeddah by the end end of the day, it seems the delivery might end up being rather late. After unsuccessful attempts to have the ship barred from docking in Italy altogether, it was greeted by banners and a protests as it arrived in port Monday.

The Saudi-led coalition has resumed airstrikes on the rebel-held Yemeni capital Sanaa on Thursday in apparent retaliation for a drone attack on an oil pipeline. Russian nationals have reportedly been hurt in the bombings.
A senior health official of the Houthi rebels, who control Sanaa, said Saudi strikes left six civilians dead, including four children, and injured 52 others, two of whom were Russian women working in the healthcare sector.

One of the strikes wiped out an entire family after a building they lived in collapsed on them, killing both spouses and a child, AP reported. The incident happened in the densely populated al-Raqas neighborhood of the Yemeni capital.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT

JOURNALISTS IN FRANCE are facing potential jail sentences in an unprecedented case over their handling of secret documents detailing the country’s involvement in the Yemen conflict.

Earlier this week, a reporter from Radio France and the co-founders of Paris-based investigative news organization Disclose were called in for questioning at the offices of the General Directorate for Internal Security, known as the DGSI, an organization that is tasked with fighting terrorism, espionage, and other domestic threats, similar in function to the FBI in the United States.

The two news organizations published stories in April – together with The Intercept, Mediapart, ARTE Info, and Konbini News – that revealed the vast amount of French, British, and American military equipment sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and subsequently used by those nations to wage war in Yemen.

Once again deadly bombardment of civilian areas in Yemen. Saudi fighter jets targeted the capital Sana’a. At least seven civilians, most of them women and children, have lost their lives in the strikes. The air raids also left more than 50 others wounded.

Outbreak of cholera has killed 21 illegal African immigrants and asylum-seekers, and infected over 450 others in the Southern province of Lahj.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday blamed Iran for ordering an attack early this week on two Aramco pipeline booster stations, a strike that was intended as part of a broader sabotage campaign to disrupt world oil supplies, according to Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih.

The drone attacks came one day after a string of attacks on two Saudi oil tankers and two other vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and caused the temporary closure of a vital east-west pipeline traversing the kingdom, since reopened.

Prince Khalid Bin Salman, the vice minister for defense and brother of the crown prince MbS, described Yemen's Houthis - which were believed to have launched the drone attack - of being used as an "Iranian" tool advancing Tehran's aggression and hegemony in the region.

In a tweet, he said the Houthi militias “are merely a tool that Iran’s regime uses to implement its expansionist agenda in the region, and not to protect the people of Yemen as the Houthis falsely claim”.

Saudi Arabia submitted on Wednesday a letter to the United Nations Security Council, in which it held Iran and the Yemeni Houthi group responsible for targeting their oil facilities on Tuesday.

The letter was handed over by the Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, according to Saudi TV channel Al Arabiya.

The letter included “Saudi Arabia’s holding of Iran and the Houthi militias it supports fully responsible for Tuesday’s attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities.”

Saudi Arabia submitted on Wednesday a letter to the United Nations Security Council, in which it held Iran and the Yemeni Houthi group responsible for targeting their oil facilities on Tuesday.

The letter was handed over by the Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, according to Saudi TV channel Al Arabiya.

The letter included “Saudi Arabia’s holding of Iran and the Houthi militias it supports fully responsible for Tuesday’s attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities.”

According to the same source, a joint message was sent from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on the attack and sabotage operation that occurred last Sunday against four ships in the international sea off the UAE’s territorial sea and coasts.

The sabotage attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Gulf of Yemen were carried out using limpet mines, experts believe.

The mysterious 'sabotage' has sent tensions spiralling in the Middle East as the U.S. blamed Iran and its allies for the attack - which divers said appeared to be the work of magnetic explosives.

Amid a furious exchange of words, a key adviser to Iranian president Rouhani warned of a looming conflict and mocked Trump ally John Bolton, saying: 'That's what happens when you listen to the mustache.'

Tensions had heightened further today after two pumping stations on a major Saudi oil pipeline were attacked by explosive-laden drones, halting the flow of crude along it.

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah on Monday evening called on the country’s armed forces to take the highest level of caution amid the “dangerous developments” taking place in the region.

During a visit to the General Presidency of the Kuwaiti National Guard Forces, Al Sabah said: “You are well aware of the serious developments around us in the region that require you to take the highest level of caution while carrying out your duties.”

For his part, Army Chief of Staff Mohammad Al Khader said: “We are always ready to deter all threats and dangers that affect the security and territorial integrity of Kuwait.”

Tensions in the Middle East appear to be pushing up the price of oil, with a barrel of Brent crude now costing $71.75, an increase of 1.9 per cent. The cost of a barrel of US crude, meanwhile, is now $62.48, up 2.6 per cent.

The increases came after Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Khaled Al-Falih, announced that a terrorist attack targeted two installations on Tuesday morning which pump oil through a pipeline from oil fields in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province to Yanbu Port on the west coast. The official added that Saudi Aramco will assess the damage and repair the plants. He stressed that Saudi oil production and exports will continue without interruption.

A high-ranking Houthi military official speaking on condition of anonymity has confirmed to MintPress that Houthi forces successfully launched a major operation against a strategic economic target in Saudi Arabia. The operation, which saw seven unmanned drones carry out an attack on two oil pumping stations, came in retaliation for Saudi attacks on civilians as well as renewed Saudi-led Coalition attacks on Hodeida following a recent Houthi withdrawal.

This week at least 13 civilians, including women and children, were killed and more than 10 others sustained injuries after Saudi-led warplanes carried out airstrikes on a truck loaded with fruit in Sada`a and a separate spate of airstrikes hit heavily populated areas in Dhale.

On May 14, Saudi Arabia halted pumping on its 1,200km-long East-West pipeline after it had been targeted by suicide unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The kingdom’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid al-Falih confirmed the attack on the pipeline, which carries crude oil from the country’s main eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the western part of the country. He described the attack as “an act of terrorism” and said that it “proves the importance of confronting all terrorist organizations.”

The targeted facilities were located in the towns of al-Duwadimi and Afif. No casualties were reported.

The energy minister stressed that Saudi oil production and exports will still continue uninterrupted. Despite this, global oil prices rose after the incident.

An American military team assessing blasts that damaged four commercial ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sunday has blamed Iran or Iranian-backed proxies using explosive charges, a source told Fox News on Monday evening.

Each ship had a 5-to-10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. A Norwegian-flagged vessel, two Saudi oil tankers and a bunkering tanker flagged in Shariah, one of the UAE's seven emirates, all suffered similar damage Sunday.

The UAE asked the U.S. to help investigate the damage, which Gulf officials have characterized as sabotage. UAE's state media said Sunday there had been "no injuries or fatalities on board the vessels" and "no spillage of harmful chemicals or fuel."

The U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and America has moved additional ships and aircraft into the region.

Egypt strongly condemned the attack on four ships near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, which was described as an act of sabotage. Egypt also condemned all illegal acts that would harm the national security of the UAE and safety of its land and sea borders.

In a statement, Egypt’s ministry of foreign affairs stressed its solidarity with the government and people of the UAE in facing all the challenges they might face, and confronting all attempts to destabilise the UAE.

The US has already increased its military presence in the region amid growing tensions with Iran, sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. However, a recent New York Times report suggested that the military presence could expand to the level at the time of the Iraq invasion.

US President Donald Trump slammed the report about a possible deployment of 120,000 troops to the Middle East in order to counter Iran as "fake news" and expressed hope that such a plan won't be needed. At the same time, he said that he would "absolutely" send 120,000 troops more to the Middle East, or even more, if necessary.

"Would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that", Trump said.

The bizarre and mysterious explosions that rocked the UAE port of Fujairah on Sunday just got even more strange after Saudi Arabia admitted overnight that two of its oil tankers were attacked while sailing toward the Persian Gulf possibly as part of the incident.

Crude prices quickly jumped as much as 2% on the news. Throughout Sunday as what was being reported in international press as multiple oil tankers exploding at port, local UAE officials had vehemently denied any explosion, much less that any sabotage incident, took place.

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that two of its oil tankers were among those attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran.

The UAE said on Sunday that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz. It did not describe the nature of the attack or say who was behind it.

The UAE had not given the nationalities or other details about the ownership of the four vessels. Riyadh identified two of them as Saudi and a Norwegian company said it owned another. Reuters images showed the fourth vessel was the UAE-flagged A. Michel, a fuel bunker barge.

TWO Saudi oil tankers were hit by a "sabotage attack" off the United Arab Emirates, it was announced this morning - as tensions flare between the US and Iran.

The ships were struck off the coast of the port of Fujairah - with one of the tankers due to be loaded with Saudi crude oil bound for the United States.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has confirmed, after initial denial, that a number of commercial ships have been targeted by "sabotage" attack near its territorial waters.

the Foreign Ministry of the United Arab Emirates issued a statement, saying that four commercial vessels have been targeted by "sabotage operations" near its territorial waters.

Several heavy explosions occurred early on Sunday in the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, a number of media reports say. The reports, citing eyewitnesses, further suggested that American and French warplanes have been seen flying over the port at the time of the incident.

The government of Fujairah denied on Sunday media reports about several heavy explosions taking place at the emirate's port, insisting that the port is functioning as usual.

"The press service of the Fujairah government denied media reports about powerful explosions in the emirate's port earlier this day and confirmed that ship traffic is as usual," the state-run WAM news agency reports.

On May 9, the Houthis launched a new military operation to capture remaining positions of the Saudi-led coalition in the district of al-Zahir in the central Yemeni province of al-Bayda.

The Yemeni group’s media wing released a 2-minute video showing Houthi fighters capturing a series of hilltops and roads leading to the coalition’s positions. The fighters were met with little to nonresistance from Saudi-backed Yemeni fighters.

The commander overseeing U.S. naval forces in the Middle East told Reuters on Thursday that American intelligence showing a threat from Iran will not prevent him from sending an aircraft carrier through the vital Strait of Hormuz, if needed.

An U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship and a Marine expeditionary unit transited the Strait of Hormuz this week after the Pentagon already dispatched a carrier strike group and an Air Force B-52 bomber task force to the region amid tensions with Iran.

The amphibious assault ship Kearsarge transited the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, bringing with it the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. The sailors and Marines were “outbound,” a U.S. defense official said on background.

Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is now in the Red Sea earlier than planned at the direction of the White House, USNI News has learned.

The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group left the Mediterranean and transited the Suez Canal on Thursday, officially entering U.S. 5th Fleet and U.S. Central Command.

Almost 16 months ago, then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis initiated a course correction for the Pentagon. After 17 years of war in the Middle East, great power competition with Russia and China, not terrorism, would be the priority.

But this week, the White House ordered an aircraft carrier strike group operating in the Mediterranean Sea and bomber task force to move to the U.S. Central Command region, in a striking show of force designed to counter what acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan called “a credible threat” from Iran to attack U.S. forces. Days later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled a planned trip to Germany to make an unscheduled stop in Iraq to discuss the tensions with Tehran. Now, the United States is reportedly considering sending additional bomber aircraft and moving some Patriot missile batteries back to the region.

President Donald Trump’s veto of a resolution aimed at ending US support for Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen means that, in Washington, business interests outweigh humanitarian concerns, political analyst Colin Cavell told RT.

WHEN ERIK PRINCE arrived at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles in January 2017 for his now-famous meetings with a Russian banker and UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, he was in the middle of an unexpected comeback. The election of Donald Trump had given the disgraced Blackwater founder a new opportunity to prove himself. After years of trying and failing to peddle a sweeping vision of mercenary warfare around the world, Erik Prince was back in the game.

Jordanian King Abdullah II fired several senior officials, including the general intelligence chief over the past week following reports of a plot to destabilise the kingdom.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, citing anonymous sources, reported that several senior and influential Jordanian figures had conspired to hold a mass protest outside the royal palace in Amman to demonstrate a lack of public confidence in Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz and thereby create instability in the kingdom.

The Jordanian King replaced the director of the General Intelligence Department, General Adnan al-Jundi, who held one of the most influential positions in the country. The palace issued a statement stating that the king had decided to retire Jundi, replacing him with General Ahmed Husni, who has served in several senior intelligence posts.

The US Senate has failed to override US President Donald Trump’s veto of a resolution which would have ended Washington’s military support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which has been bombing Yemen for four years.

The vote to uphold the veto is a victory for the Trump administration which has said it will continue backing Riyadh in the military operation which has led to thousands of deaths and brought millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine.

The Senate passed the Yemen War Powers resolution in March with a vote of 54-46, but the Thursday vote fell short of the two-thirds majority (67) that was needed to override Trump’s veto and force a change in US policy.

Authored by Jon Hall via FMShooter.com

According to officials in Stockholm, Swedish residents have nothing to fear from Islamic State fighters returning from the Middle East to live peaceful, crime-free lives in Sweden.

Christina Kiernan, Stockholm’s anti-violent extremism coordinator, claimed that jihadists who returned from Syria and Iraq were living “orderly lives” following public outcry regarding the government’s decision not to strip people who fought in radical Islamic terror organizations of their Swedish passports.

Kiernan said on a television interview this week:

The IS returnees we have talked to so far have no known current crime, they have a job and an orderly life to the extent that we do not have knowledge of activities that can in any way scare anyone…

The television interviewer fired back:

So they are returning from this type of business and becoming caring, well-behaved citizens?

With the Senate planning this week to “process” President Trump’s veto of the War Powers Act challenge to the Yemen War, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the reins to try to defend US involvement in Yemen as in America’s best interest.

Pompeo’s argument centered on the idea that the US was obliged to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from retaliatory fights, now that the Saudis had launched a war and provoked that retaliation.

On top of that poor argument for an obligation, Pompeo relied on what the administration seems to believe is the most compelling argument, even if it is wholly based on a lie. He argued that the whole war was Iran’s fault, and not intervening would make Iran happy.

By the end of 2019, fighting in Yemen will have claimed about 102,000 lives, according to new figures from the United Nations that indicate the war has killed far more people than previously reported.

A UN-commissioned report by University of Denver also revealed that more Yemenis were dying of hunger, disease and the lack of health clinics and other infrastructure than from fighting.

About 131,000 Yemenis will have died from these side effects of the conflict between the beginning in 2015 and the end of 2019, according to the 68-page study, called Assessing the Impact of War on Development in Yemen.

The combined death toll from fighting and disease is 233,000, or 0.8 percent of Yemen's 30 million-strong population.

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New York Times Opinion

We apologize for the anti-Semitic cartoon we published. Here’s our statement.

"We are deeply sorry for the publication of an anti-Semitic political cartoon last Thursday in the print edition of The New York Times that circulates outside of the United States, and we are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again," the opinion section tweeted Sunday.

"Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it's all the more unacceptable," continued the apology, which was widely shared on Twitter.

The Senate is set to take up President Trump's veto of legislation cutting off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen next week, though any override attempt is expected to fall short.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office said Thursday that the chamber would "process the president’s veto message on the Yemen resolution by the end of the week."

Trump vetoed the measure earlier this month, the second veto of his presidency. The resolution requires him to withdraw any U.S. troops in or "affecting" Yemen within 30 days unless they are fighting al Qaeda.