At least 15 vessels struck in waterway in past 10 days, with rumours that they were carrying valuable goods
People have been scouring the strait of Hormuz for spilt cargo after Iran attacked at least 15 container ships passing through the crucial waterway in the past 10 days.
Some ships have been hit by drones, others by mines. On Sunday, a ship was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade launched from a small boat 75 miles (120km) north-east of the Saudi port of Jubail.
Continue reading...Capt Smit Machchhar said he screamed for help as he reached to open the cockpit door on flight FZ1073
The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot who intended to crash the plane has described blocking axe blows to his head and screaming for help as he reached to open the cockpit door.
Capt Smit Machchhar has been hailed as a hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE attorney general has said was an attempted suicide attack by the co-pilot who had intended to crash the plane into Ben Gurion airport.
Continue reading...United Arab Emirates will reportedly resume payments to Yemeni forces as gains by Iran-backed Houthi fighters alarm Gulf state rulers
The United Arab Emirates has agreed to re-enter the Yemen conflict by resuming payments to some government forces fighting Iran-aligned Houthis in the south, according to sources in Yemen. In return, Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide air cover for the anti-Houthi force.
The new cooperation agreement is the first tangible sign that the deep rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over Yemen’s future is starting to be healed – if only because the advance by Houthi forces across Yemen has alarmed all the rival Gulf state rulers.
Continue reading...Hammam al-Hammami is believed to have been targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv
The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a passenger jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week was planning to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel’s international airport, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates said on Friday.
Hammam al-Hammami attacked the plane’s Indian pilot with an emergency axe, but failed to prevent his badly injured colleague from opening the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower his assailant.
Continue reading...Operation supported by 100 fighter jets said to have secured ‘air protection’ of Bab al-Mandab strait and destroyed hundreds of targets
Leaders of a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen claimed a broad air campaign involving 100 jet aircraft was under way on Monday against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea coastline and farther north in the capital, Sana’a.
The Saudi coalition spokesperson, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, said the 100 fighter jets participating in Operation Dawn of Yemen were providing support to forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
Continue reading...Experts sceptical flydubai co-pilot’s only motivation was to end his own life and say key question is means of radicalisation
At about 9.30 on Wednesday morning local time, Tali Manes was taking her six-year-old daughter, Nina, to the toilet on the regular flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when she heard a series of heavy blows against the cockpit door.
Manes, an Israeli bank executive, immediately told a flight attendant seated nearby that something was wrong. When he did not react, she shouted at him: “Something is happening in there!” Seconds later, the man “simply went to the [cockpit] door and opened it”, Manes told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.
Continue reading...Smit Machchhar says in video call with Indian PM that he realised if he did not get up ‘passengers would lose their lives’
The Indian pilot who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv said his faith and his desire to save his passengers allowed him to make a “last push” to open the cockpit door as he fought for his life.
Capt Smit Machchhar, who was recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital, described to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, how he helped save the plane and its more than 170 passengers.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: When a passenger plane plunges 17,000ft amid claims of terrorism, hijacking and geopolitical intrigue, Guardian journalists have to try and separate fact from fiction in real time
Good morning. Shocking news of a cockpit stabbing. Graphic footage of bloodied crew members. Mid-air testimony from terrified passengers.
This was the tenor of the heart-in-mouth reporting as the horrifying events unfolded onboard flight FZ 1073 to Tel Aviv: the early morning budget flight that plummeted 17,000ft in under two minutes before the courageous intervention of passengers and crew averted an apparent hijacking, potentially saving the lives of not just the 170+ passengers and crew on board, but many more.
UK politics | Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work.
Northern Ireland | Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”.
US news | Tennessee’s governor has suspended all executions in the state and ordered an independent inquiry after a botched attempt to put a condemned inmate to death on Wednesday night.
AI | When prompted, AI chat bots will edit images to remove the hijabs from Muslim women, a violation of one of the world’s most common and visible expressions of faith.
Europe news | A fast-growing protest by high-school students over long hours, teacher shortages and decaying facilities has escalated into “urban violence”, the French government has warned.
Continue reading...Alternative ways being used to move fuel out of Gulf region, but flows of refined products such as diesel still constrained
Exports of crude from the strait of Hormuz have largely returned to levels seen before the outbreak of the Iran war, as oil producers and the shipping industry have found alternative ways of transporting crucial fuel out of the Middle East.
Pipeline exports and ship-to-ship transfers are among the methods being used, according to analysts tracking the situation, while the US military continues to escort some vessels. However, flows of refined products such as diesel remain constrained, pushing prices higher.
Continue reading...Relations between two countries soured in January when a UAE-backed force was defeated by Saudis
Saudi Arabia is being urged to reconcile with the United Arab Emirates over Yemen as the price Riyadh must pay to form a military alliance capable of driving the Houthis back.
Relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where both had backed anti-Houthi forces, plummeted in January this year when a force with which the UAE had been aligned – the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) – was attacked and defeated by Saudi Arabia in a move intended to squash its attempt to recreate a separate southern state. The UAE subsequently in effect quit Yemen.
Continue reading...Washington says it acted after observing Iran was planning to deploy fresh mines in strait of Hormuz
The US and Iran have exchanged fire for the first time in a month, with missiles and drones fired at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in response.
The US president, Donald Trump, on Monday threatened further action. The US is to trying to prise open Tehran’s grip on shipping going through the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply. Washington claimed that Iranian control over the waterway had been loosened by repeated US attacks on Iranian missile launchers and radars.
Continue reading...Tehran urges US to ‘correct its behaviour’ as UAE says one of its ships targeted by Iranian missile
Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the strategic waterway remained out of reach on Saturday.
Iran’s politburo-like body known as the supreme national security council said the strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour”, and its state broadcaster published a statement from the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Continue reading...Exclusive: Lack of funds left British museums unable pay eight-figure sum for collection, which went to Abu Dhabi institution
One of the most important collections of UK Jurassic fossils ever compiled has been sold to a museum in Abu Dhabi, the Guardian can reveal, in what British experts have described as a loss for the nation.
The collection, which was amassed by a private fossil collector, consisted of 318 specimens, including ichthyosaurs, fish and crustaceans among other creatures, some of which could be new species.
Continue reading...Residents eligible for dining and hotel packages if they can persuade family and friends to city spurned by visitors amid Iran war
Dubai is offering to pay residents who attract family and friends to visit the emirate in an effort to revive tourist numbers that have plummeted since the city was drawn into the US-Israel war on Iran.
The Dubai Invite scheme, an initiative of the department of economy and tourism, allows residents of the United Arab Emirates to nominate friends and relatives and then to receive benefits worth more than 3,000 UAE dirham (about £610) if they visit.
Continue reading...From Nevada to Manchester, developers are trialling innovative solutions to clean energy’s biggest challenge
In the deserts of the United Arab Emirates a sprawling clean energy project, stretching across an area roughly the size of 12,600 football fields, will play host to a breakthrough allowing solar energy to power the equivalent of half a million homes through the night.
The Gulf state has been steadily combining 5.2GW of solar power capacity with 19GWh of battery storage to create the largest battery scheme in the world.
Continue reading...US hits targets in port cities of Bushehr and Bandar Abbas while Iran targets Bahrain and Jordan in retaliation
Donald Trump has backed down from a threat that ships would have to pay a 20% fee to the US for “security” in the strait of Hormuz, replacing it with what he described as investment and trade deals with Gulf Arab states as US and Iranian airstrikes resumed for a third day.
The US president said he had decided to scrap the toll “based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership”, and touted “massive” investments, just five hours before the toll was due to come into effect. He said the US would continue to blockade Iranian ports.
Continue reading...Foreign Office failed to act on warnings of genocide due to ‘pressure’ from emirates, Yale human rights investigator will tell a parliamentary select committee
The British government had received intelligence that Ethiopia appeared to be supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan’s civil war as far back as 2024 but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a parliamentary committee will hear.
In May 2024, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, that “significant private pressure” from the UAE meant the UK would not publicly divulge information linking Ethiopia and the emirates to their support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Continue reading...As US lifts its blockade, Tehran says fees to cover cost of managing waterway will come into effect at end of 60-day negotiation period
Iran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months, after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding.
Tehran, claiming a historic victory over the US, said the strait was under its control and a European plan for a naval mission to escort ships though the strait would not be welcome. The US on Thursday lifted its blockade of Iran, and oil tankers began freely moving through the critical channel.
Continue reading...Sky News Arabia to retain name in brand licensing deal after criticism of its coverage of atrocities in Sudan
Sky is exiting its TV news joint venture with the United Arab Emirates, Sky News Arabia, which has been criticised for its coverage of the war in Sudan, with accusations of genocide denial.
Sky and its partner IMI – the investment vehicle controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the vice-president of the UAE and owner of Manchester City – have announced a new commercial deal in which the UK-based broadcaster will relinquish all strategic and operational ownership of the 24-hour Arabic language news and current affairs service.
Continue reading...Attack marks first time military action has forced a fully operating nuclear power plant to rely on backup generators
• Middle East crisis – live updates
A drone strike that cut off external power to a nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates this week has revived concerns over the safety of nuclear plants during wartime.
Reactor no 3 at the Barakah nuclear plant lost vital off-site power for about 24 hours after the attack on Sunday, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators.
Continue reading...