US Air Force colonel shot down over Iran recounts 'modern-day miracle'

Oil prices rose in early morning trading Tuesday amid concerns over supply disruptions following attacks on Saudi Arabian energy infrastructure and contonued tension across the Gulf, Reuters repprted.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose $1.24, or 1.18%, to $106.93 a barrel at 0026 GMT, after climbing 1% previously, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate CLc1 futures were up $1.29, or 1.24%, at $102.65 a barrel, after gaining 1.3% in the previous session.

"Oil traders are treating every fresh attack or infrastructure hit as incremental supply risk, while staying highly sensitive to any sign that the East-West pipeline or Hormuz flows could normalize," Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade told the outlet.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Monday that 13 civilians were injured in attacks by the Houthis on three Saudi cities.

"The Terrorist Houthi Militia continues its heinous and deliberate attacks on civilian objects and civilians in the Kingdom,” the official spokesperson for the coalition said in a statement shared on X.

“The continuation of these deliberate and repeated attacks proves the Terrorist Houthi Militia's approach and extremist ideology of escalation and targeting civilian objects and civilians,” the statement said.

On Monday, the militia launched attacks on civilian objects in the cities of Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif with a number of ballistic missiles and drones, resulting in minor to moderate injuries to 13 civilians and damage to seven houses and two vehicles, the statement said.

“The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will also take all necessary operational measures to deter this Terrorist Militia and confront its hostile and extremist approach,” it added.

President Donald Trump nominated Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia on Monday.

“It is the honor of a lifetime to accept President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Hunt said in a post shared on X.

Hunt said he has served in the region both in combat as an Army officer and for two years as a diplomatic liaison in the kingdom.

“I understand the strategic importance of the partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia and the profound responsibility of this position,” he added.

Saudi Arabia is progressing with its domestic nuclear program while commited to nonproliferation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said Monday.

“Saudi Arabia is moving forward with its nuclear power programme and research reactor, with a strong commitment to non-proliferation,” Rafael Grossi said in a post on X.

The IAEA stands ready to support every step of the way, he added.

This came after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement on civil nuclear power cooperation in July that would let Riyadh enrich uranium and build nuclear reactors using U.S. technology.

Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman also said at the 70th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on Monday that the program is completely transparent and peaceful.

Norway is weighing legislation that would ban trade with Israeli settlements and impose penalties of up to three years in prison for violations, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Monday, according to The Times of Israel.

“The arguments [in support of the bill] have only become stronger because the situation in the West Bank has become even worse. In addition, so many other countries are now doing the same thing the government has already proposed through this bill,” Eide told state broadcaster NRK.

The proposed law follows the recently announced British sanctions package.

A new Pentagon inspector general report released Monday detailed extensive damage to U.S. military and diplomatic facilities across the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury and warned that the conflict exposed weapons-production bottlenecks.

The report estimates the operation had cost $33.4 billion as of June 29, including $22.3 billion in expended munitions and $3.7 billion in equipment losses.

The report also said Iranian strikes damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

Dozens of U.S. aircraft also were damaged or destroyed, including four F-15Es, seven KC-135 refueling aircraft, an F-35A, an A-10 and as many as 30 MQ-9 surveillance drones.

The Pentagon’s acquisition office said the munitions expenditure created “strategic inventory shortfalls” and exposed bottlenecks involving solid rocket motors, explosives, propellants and skilled labor.

U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sustained an estimated $184 million in damage, including $157.35 million in Iraq.

Construction delays tied to evacuations and travel restrictions cost an additional $24.5 million per month.

The Houthis’ rapid advance toward one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints is putting fresh scrutiny on the sprawling financial network that has helped transform the Iran-backed group from a Yemeni insurgency into a heavily armed regional power capable of threatening global trade.

The group has seized new territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including the strategic port city of Mocha, and expanded toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The waterway connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries a significant share of global maritime trade and energy shipments.

For the Trump administration, the Houthi advance is becoming as much a financial challenge as a military one.

Washington is intensifying efforts to choke off the money sustaining Iran and its proxies, but the Houthis have built a sprawling sanctions-evasion network while controlling ports, trade routes and millions of Yemenis — raising a difficult question for Treasury: how do you cut off the cash fueling the group without cutting off food, fuel and other lifelines to civilians?

The Houthis operate a financial network that extends far beyond Yemen, according to Adam Rousselle, founder of Between the Lines Research.

"We’re dealing with a very well-capitalized group," Rousselle told Fox News Digital.

In a 2025 investigation for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, Rousselle traced a financing system spanning Houthi-controlled ports, tariffs, Iranian oil, informal hawala networks, cryptocurrency exchanges and foreign facilitators across Russia, Turkey and Southeast Asia.

Control of ports has historically been central to Houthi revenue because Yemen depends heavily on imports.

Rousselle’s GNET report said the Houthis have imposed steep fees at ports they control and tariffs on goods brought into their territory from rival Yemeni ports.

This is an excerpt from a report by Fox News Digital's Efrat Lachter.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Monday denied a claim by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that a Panama-flagged oil tanker struck a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz.

"CLAIM: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims a Panama-flagged oil tanker recently struck a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz. This is FALSE, "CENTCOM said on X.

"FACT: The Panama-flagged oil tanker El Gaia was struck by an Iranian missile last month and rendered inoperable,”

“This weekend, Iran struck the tanker again with a drone while the ship sat in waters off the coast of Oman,” the command added.

The tanker is currently being towed by a regional partner, CENTCOM said, calling the IRGC’s claim “yet another example of their lies and intimidation attempts while they try to impede commercial vessels in the strait.”

The Druze community in the Golan Heights is undergoing an identity shift, rejecting ties to Syria in favor of Israeli citizenship, The Times of Israel reported Monday.

For decades following Israel's 1981 annexation of the strategic plateau, most residents maintained loyalty to Damascus and opted only for permanent resident status.

The change was triggered by the July 2024 Hezbollah rocket attack on Majdal Shams that killed 12 Druze children and by a July 2025 massacre of more than 2,000 Druze in Sweida, Syria, carried out by forces allied with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the outlet reported.

Disillusioned by Damascus and the current Islamist government, many residents now view Israel as the community's reliable protector.

This ideological turn has translated into a dramatic rise in naturalization, with Israeli citizenship applications spiking to unprecedented levels.

By early 2026, roughly 40% of Golan Druze had become naturalized Israeli citizens, with younger generations increasingly volunteering for national service and participating in local civic life, the outlet reported.

The Treasury Department targeted Russia’s VTB Bank under Operation Economic Outcast on Monday, accusing the financial institution of providing crucial support to help sustain the Iranian regime.

VTB, which was previously sanctioned in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now faces expanded restrictions designed to cut off its global networks.

In a statement the Treasury said that over the past three years, VTB had established correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions and moved to expand its Tehran presence in January 2025.

The bank has also taken steps to move billions in frozen Iranian assets and created a ruble-rial settlement system aimed at increasing trade between Russia and Iran.

“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Hezbollah is trying to establish a presence in areas that Israeli forces have not entered beyond the Yellow Line in southern Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post reported Monday.

Citing Israel Defense Forces Northern Command sources, the outlet said some pockets had not previously been entered by Israeli forces because they were either surrounded by secured zones or did not pose an immediate threat.

Hezbollah views these areas as easier targets for strategic expansion.

The Hezbollah push comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stern warning Monday: "If you haven't learned the lesson by now, and you choose to attack us again, you will suffer even heavier blows." 

The Saudi Arabian East-West oil pipeline, which was struck and closed last week amid an escalation in regional hostilities, will be back online “soon,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg Television on Monday.

“I think you’ll see that pipeline running back soon,” Wright said.

“They’ve been very carefully assessing what the damage was and what needs to be done, and I think more clarity on that will come out very soon,” he added.

The pipeline was shut down following a drone attack launched from Iraq. The closure cut off a vital artery that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting roughly 4% to 5% of global oil supply.

The pipeline was built during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Tehran's Persian Gulf Straits Authority (PGSA) updated its transit blacklist Monday to include 77 ships it accused of defying Iranian-imposed protocols in the Strait of Hormuz.

To enforce the restrictions, the PGSA warned marine insurers, protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs and classification societies to immediately sever all support for designated ships, according to maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List.

Noncompliant vessels face interception and physical seizure by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval forces.

The escalation followed a weekend attack on a Panama-flagged product tanker. EL Gaia was hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving one seafarer missing.

The change, Lloyd’s List said, raises concerns that Tehran is seeking to “increase pressure on ships defying its transit regime."

Oil prices pared earlier gains Monday after President Donald Trump said Iran wants to reach a deal, easing some of the market’s concern over a prolonged conflict.

U.S. crude and Brent crude were each up about 1% after earlier rising roughly 4% as markets weighed the latest developments in the Iran war.

Trump teased on Truth Social that Iran was seeking a quick agreement with the United States, but he questioned whether he was ready to re-engage.

“The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” Trump wrote Monday. “I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to."

U.S. Central Command highlighted the U.S. Army's Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck as a cargo hauler and a missile launcher in an X post Monday.

The Trump administration has faced criticism for having a weapons arsenal shortage amid the conflict with Iran, but President Donald Trump suggested Monday that he has a report to the contrary.

"I’ve just received a Report that the United States is producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "They are being delivered on a daily basis to our Forces in the Middle East, and beyond.

"Our Defense Company Factories are moving 24/7, while at the same time building, on average, 4 to 5 largescale brand new Plants, each! A primary focus of this production has been Patriots, THAAD Systems, Tomahawks, and other Standard Missile Systems, of which we already have large numbers in stock."

President Donald Trump is vowing to force "countries of the world" to "reimburse" the U.S. for its guarding of the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian aggression on commercial vessels.

"Oil is flowing through the Hormuz Strait," Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. "The Countries of the World, which have been no help to us whatsoever, should, and will, reimburse the United States of America when this SCAM Confligration is all over.

"We are doing it much more for others, than we are for ourselves, and we have been for Generations!"

President Donald Trump is pointing back to inflationary pressures left over from former President Joe Biden's administration as Democrats are seizing on their narratives of "affordability."

"I hope everyone realizes that price increases throughout America were caused by Sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden Administration, not by 'TRUMP,'" Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. "Even Oil was higher under Biden than it is right now, and we prevented Iran from having a Nuclear Weapon!

"With the temporary exception of Oil, prices are coming down sharply, and Oil will drop like a rock as soon as the Military Conflict with Iran is over, and that will not be long."