A deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh’s main airport drew a Saudi vow of retaliation on Saturday, as President Donald Trump raised the possibility of joining strikes on the group and resuming attacks on Iran.
Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said 12 people were killed and 309 injured at King Khalid International Airport, making it the kingdom’s deadliest attack since a 2015 mosque bombing in the eastern city of Qatif. An American citizen was among those killed.
The Saudi-led military coalition blamed Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, called the attack a “war crime” and promised a decisive response, without specifying what action it would take. Hours later, it reported that a projectile had landed near King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia.
Trump initially said Washington could join Riyadh in striking the Houthis and resume attacks on Iran. Asked later whether Saudi Arabia could defend itself against the group, he praised the kingdom’s capabilities.
“They're able to defend. The Saudis are good fighters. But I think the attack was a terrible thing,” he said.
The United States, Britain, Germany and Spain warned their citizens to avoid the Riyadh airport. The dead included four Saudis, two Bangladeshis, one American, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian and one Sudanese, according to the Saudi aviation authority.
The prospect of renewed US attacks on Iran also featured in Trump’s remarks in Tennessee on Saturday, where he accused Iranian leaders of potentially seeking to damage him politically before the November 3 midterm elections.
“They'll probably do a little bit extra before the election thinking it's going to hurt us, but we could end it really quick. They don't know how nice I've been to them.”
Trump called Iran a “lunatic country” and mocked its leaders for repeatedly threatening to kill their enemies.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee more directly linked the Saudi attacks to Tehran, arguing that curbing Iranian support was essential to stopping the Houthis.
“Why are the Houthis even capable of doing these things? Because they're funded and they're empowered and they're trained by Iran,” Huckabee told Newsmax.
He described Washington’s confrontation with Tehran as an effort to constrain Iran-backed groups, including the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Getting the Iranian regime reined in is the only way to stop some of this aggression that we're seeing through the proxies,” he said.
Huckabee also argued that military and economic pressure under Trump had left Iran in its weakest position since 1979.
Calls to stand behind Saudi Arabia
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that an American had been killed in the Riyadh attack and demanded an immediate halt to Houthi strikes. He said Washington stood with Saudi Arabia and offered condolences to the victims’ families.
“These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now,” Rubio said.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif invoked his country’s joint defense pact with Riyadh in underscoring Islamabad’s commitment to Saudi security.
“In accordance with the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement and the enduring bonds of brotherhood between our two countries, we reaffirm our steadfast commitment to Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security.”
Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged Persian Gulf states to unite behind Saudi Arabia against threats he said originated in Yemen but were directed from abroad.
“It has now become clear that Iran is our main enemy,” he wrote on X, marking a sharp change from his advocacy in 2023 of negotiations with Tehran and opposition to confrontation.
Moscow would rather live with an Iranian nuclear weapon than with a change of regime in Tehran, senior Russia scholar Mark Katz told Iran International, arguing that a pro-Western Iran is the outcome Russia actually fears.
Western policy has long treated Iran’s nuclear program as the crisis and the government in Tehran as the address for a deal. Katz, a professor at George Mason University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Moscow has not shared that order of priorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Moscow’s support for Tehran during talks with President Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan on Thursday, offering to help end the war.
But during last year’s 12-day war, which focused mainly on Iranian nuclear facilities, “the Russians weren’t very helpful,” Katz said.
They would prefer that Iran not acquire a bomb, but they are “not hysterical about it” in the way Israel and some other states in the region are.
An Iran with nuclear weapons is the outcome US policy has spent years trying to block. Katz said Moscow does not put it in the same category.
“For them, the worst case is a pro-Western Iran.” Even an anti-Western Iran has pursued interests that clash with Russia’s. A government in Tehran aligned with the West, he said, “would have complete contempt for Russia.”
“But they want the regime to survive, that’s for sure.”
A nuclear partnership with limits
Moscow has nevertheless provided Tehran with diplomatic protection over its nuclear program.
On September 17, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution extending independent monitoring of sanctions on Iran. The veto blocked the monitoring mechanism, not the sanctions themselves.
Russia also took part in the Iranian nuclear negotiations, and some diplomats credited it with being useful in the 2000s and 2010s, when Moscow and Tehran still differed on the issue.
Katz said that gap has since closed. Russian pressure on the nuclear issue continued through the end of 2021. Once the war in Ukraine began, “the Russians are simply not focusing on the Iranian nuclear issue.”
“I don’t think that they would be that sad if Iran acquired nuclear weapons,” he added, because those weapons would be aimed at others, not at Russia.
Cooperation stops short of defense
The military relationship between Russia and Iran has deepened considerably since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drone technology. Western governments have also accused Tehran of supplying short-range ballistic missiles for use against Ukraine.
The two countries formalized their growing cooperation in a strategic partnership treaty signed in January 2025. But the agreement, despite provisions for closer military cooperation, contains no mutual defense obligation.
“Russia’s assistance is to help Iran target US facilities and, of course, the facilities in other Middle Eastern states,” Katz said. “They’re helping Iran make attacks. They’re not defending Iran from attack.”
With Russian forces tied down in Ukraine, a US and Israeli campaign serious enough to threaten the Iranian government would leave Moscow unsure it could help.
Katz said Russia appears to be betting that no such attack will come, drawing confidence from the lesson of earlier this year: strikes on military and nuclear sites do not, by themselves, change who rules in Tehran.
Why Putin will not trade Tehran away
Katz rejected the idea that Iran is expendable, or a gun for hire. Moscow does not control Tehran, and Iran has done things Russia has disliked. For the most part, though, Iran does what Russia wants because of its hostility to the West.
The outcomes Moscow does not want are the fall of the regime or a Trump visit to Tehran “like Nixon in China.” Iranian fears of being traded away, Katz said, misread Putin.
Saudi Arabia tried that bargain in 2015 and 2016, offering more business in the hope Russia would cut back on Iran. Moscow took the business and kept the Iranian relationship.
“I don’t think there’s anything that we could give him that he would be willing to give up relations with Iran for.”
The US-Iran conflict pulls Washington’s attention away from Ukraine and, if Persian Gulf oil shipments are interrupted, lifts the price at which Russia sells its own crude.
Katz said Putin believes he will prevail in Ukraine and feels no need, for now, to give the West anything.
But if Russia prevailed in Ukraine and the United States pulled back from Europe and the Middle East, a more ambitious Iran could clash with Russian interests in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
“The weaker America’s position in the Middle East, the more likely we’re going to see clashes of interests between Russia and Iran,” Katz argued.
For the first time in Iran’s history, revenue from crude oil and condensate exports could dry up entirely by mid-December if the US blockade remains in place, according to the head of crude oil analysis at Kpler.
“Revenues from crude and condensate will drop to zero for the first time ever,” Homayoun Falakshahi told Iran International's Eye for Iran, warning that Tehran could lose between $3 billion and $6 billion in monthly oil income.
That makes December the critical month as the last Iranian oil shipments already outside the blockade zone make their way to Chinese buyers.
According to Kpler, just eight million barrels of Iranian crude remain on the water outside the blockade, down from nearly 90 million barrels in mid-July. Falakshahi expects those remaining shipments to be discharged by around October 18.
With Chinese refiners typically taking another one to two months to settle payments, Tehran could receive its final proceeds from those shipments by mid-December.
The looming revenue shortfall follows a halt in Iranian oil shipments. Kpler data shows that Iran loaded no crude oil or condensate onto tankers throughout September, the first full month without loadings since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The last recorded loading took place around August 26 or 27.
Even during the 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and successive rounds of Western sanctions, Iranian crude continued reaching international buyers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, shipments fell as low as 300,000 barrels per day in some months, compared with typical volumes of around 1.7 million to 1.8 million, but never stopped entirely.
“This is a first in history,” Falakshahi said.
A financial lifeline under threat
Oil exports remain Iran’s largest source of foreign currency despite years of efforts to reduce the government’s dependence on petroleum income.
Falakshahi said much of Iran’s oil trade with China continues to be settled in dollars despite US sanctions, making the disappearance of those payments particularly consequential for an economy already struggling with currency depreciation.
He said expectations of dwindling oil income may have contributed to the rial’s recent decline. A prolonged loss of foreign exchange could put further pressure on the currency and government finances.
The squeeze could also affect Tehran’s ability to finance regional allies, although Falakshahi said the extent would depend on government priorities. Tehran could choose to preserve such support while cutting spending at home.
Sustained economic pressure could also affect Tehran’s negotiating calculus with Washington, he said, though he doubted the leadership was ready to make significant compromises over its nuclear program.
Why sanctions-evasion methods may not work
Iran has spent decades developing networks to circumvent Western sanctions and maintain oil exports, but Falakshahi said a physical blockade makes those methods far more difficult to replicate.
Unlike financial restrictions, which Tehran has historically navigated through intermediaries, disguised shipments and alternative trading arrangements, the current blockade prevents tankers from physically leaving Iranian waters.
One potential workaround has attracted attention as independent Chinese refiners increasingly turn to Iraqi crude to replace Iranian supplies: transporting Iranian oil through Iraq and disguising its origin before exporting it to China.
But moving even 50,000 to 70,000 barrels per day across the Iraqi border would require thousands of truck movements, Falakshahi said.
“You’d probably see videos of it on the internet,” he said.
He estimated that moving enough crude by truck to fill a single large tanker could take around 20 days, compared with roughly one large tanker Iran previously loaded each day.
Iraq continues to import Iranian natural gas, but payments owed to Tehran are held in a restricted account at Iraq’s central bank because of US sanctions. Falakshahi said Baghdad would be unlikely to facilitate large-scale Iranian oil shipments at the risk of further US sanctions.
Overland routes offer little relief
Rail offers limited alternatives. Falakshahi said the connection to China reaches Tehran, far from Iran’s main oil-producing regions, while the pipeline supplying the capital has capacity of only around 200,000 barrels per day.
Turkmenistan is also reportedly restricting rail transit through its territory over concerns about US sanctions.
Even if Tehran managed to move small quantities through neighboring countries, road and rail would be unlikely to replace the volumes previously exported by sea.
“Iran has a history of evading sanctions successfully to an extent,” Falakshahi said. “But this seems a lot more challenging.”
Pressure extends beyond oil
The blockade is also restricting Iran’s ability to import commodities as oil revenue approaches a potential halt.
Falakshahi said shipments of agricultural products, including corn and wheat, have declined sharply, while alternative supply routes through the Caspian Sea offer only a fraction of the capacity available through Persian Gulf ports.
For Tehran, the immediate question is whether the blockade will remain in place long enough to exhaust the final payments from oil already sold.
If it does, December could mark the first time in Iran’s modern oil-producing history that crude and condensate export revenue falls to zero, cutting off the Islamic Republic’s principal source of foreign exchange with no clear route to restoring exports while the blockade remains in place.
Iranian judicial authorities have detained a football coach in the western city of Divandarreh after five people filed complaints alleging sexual abuse connected to a youth football club.
Mohammad Jabbari, chief justice of Kordestan province, said the suspect was summoned to the judiciary in Divandarreh and remanded in custody after being formally accused of sexual abuse and producing obscene footage and other material, according to the judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency.
Jabbari said the case had been referred to Kordestan province’s Criminal Court One and that further investigations were underway. Authorities have not publicly identified the suspect.
Divandarreh prosecutor Afshar Amir-Ahmadi said the judiciary ordered the arrest after reports emerged that a local teacher and football coach had sexually abused children. He said reports circulating on social media and concerns raised by families prompted authorities to investigate.
The local football association confirmed that the detained man was a football coach in Divandarreh. Police chief Hossein Montazeri said authorities had been aware of the allegations for several weeks and that the coach had been suspended from sporting activities.
Reports point to possible wider case
Earlier reporting by local news outlets in western Iran said around 50 children and teenagers at the Setaregan Divandarreh football club may have been sexually abused, although judicial authorities have so far confirmed only five complaints.
The outlets reported that one student initially filed a complaint with Iran’s cyber police, after which other students also came forward. It also said some students reported being sexually exploited after being promised opportunities to advance in football or join better teams.
Previous cases involving young athletes
The case follows other reports of sexual abuse allegations involving minors in Iranian sports.
In Tehran, a football coach accused by the families of eight teenage boys was initially sentenced to death, but the Supreme Court overturned the sentence. After a retrial, he was sentenced to 99 lashes, two years in internal exile and a two-year ban from coaching and other sporting activities. Forensic authorities had not established rape under the legal definition used in the case.
In Mashhad, parents of 15 young footballers raised sexual abuse allegations against a coach in 2023. Other cases involving coaches and minors have also been reported in Isfahan, Shiraz and Tehran, though the final judicial outcome of some cases has not been made public.
Iran is seeking more electricity from Turkey and Turkmenistan as war damage and other outages leave thousands of megawatts of industrial and petrochemical power capacity offline, even as Washington presses neighboring countries to help restrict Tehran’s remaining economic routes.
Mohammad Allahdad, head of Iran’s electricity company Tavanir, told ILNA that about 4,700 megawatts of generation capacity belonging to industries and petrochemical companies had gone offline for various reasons.
He said the infrastructure was now in place for petrochemical plants to receive imported electricity from Turkey through Iran’s national grid. The companies have not yet signed contracts for the supply.
“If this does not happen, supplying electricity to these industries will face challenges,” Allahdad said.
War damage drives import push
Allahdad said serious damage during the war to utilities serving petrochemical complexes had sharply increased their dependence on the national grid. Iran supplied the sector with six times as much electricity this summer as in previous years, he said.
He added that Iran currently had no plans to export electricity and was instead focused on increasing imports, particularly during the winter.
Iran is also negotiating with Turkmenistan to extend an existing electricity import agreement and increase the volume of power exchanged between the two countries, according to a government statement.
Officials have also discussed additional cross-border power lines and the possible transit of electricity through Turkmenistan to third countries, though those proposals remain subject to technical and economic studies.
US seeks to close remaining economic routes
The push for additional electricity imports comes as the United States broadens its economic campaign against Iran beyond oil exports and financial sanctions.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week Washington was working with Turkey and Pakistan to restrict Iran’s overland commercial routes, while describing the United Arab Emirates and Oman as partners in the broader pressure campaign.
“We did have a maximum pressure campaign. Now we have an absolute isolation campaign and it’s working,” Bessent told Newsmax.
Bessent has also said Washington is targeting Iran-linked cryptocurrency and its remaining shipping network. Treasury on Thursday sanctioned 17 vessels and their owners, saying they were part of what remained of Iran’s shadow fleet, while Bessent said the US could seize about $1 billion in Iran-linked digital assets.
The overlap puts Turkey in an unusual position, with Tehran seeking greater electricity supplies from its western neighbor while Washington says Ankara is also cooperating in efforts to constrict Iran’s remaining overland economic links.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week outlined an expanding campaign of what he called “absolute isolation” against Iran, targeting its oil revenue, overseas financial access and transport routes as Washington seeks to strangle Tehran’s economy.
Speaking to Newsmax on Thursday, Bessent called the United Arab Emirates and Oman good partners in the economic campaign against Iran, adding that Washington was working with Pakistan and Turkey “to cut off all the land routes,” extending its efforts to isolate Tehran beyond oil exports and financial restrictions.
“We did have a maximum pressure campaign. Now we have an absolute isolation campaign and it’s working,” Bessent said.
Bessent said the United States would “probably” seize about $1 billion in Iran-linked cryptocurrency this week, asserting that officials knew where the funds were held.
He also described restrictions on the overseas privileges of Iranian officials, mocking the Revolutionary Guards' access to luxury services and offshore wealth.
“They can’t go see their plastic surgeon in London, their girlfriend in Paris, and their money in Geneva,” he told Newsmax, saying that travel bans and financial restrictions were tightening.
On Thursday, the US Treasury separately sanctioned 17 vessels and their owners in what it described as Iran's remaining shadow fleet. Treasury said the vessels had transported millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemicals to markets in South and East Asia, and claimed the action had effectively neutralized the vast majority of Iran's remaining shadow fleet network.
The department said the move targeted the vessels and their international support networks. Earlier measures had expanded sanctions against Iranian airlines, railways, automakers and financial intermediaries.
Earlier in the week, Bessent pointed to what he described as signs of the campaign's success. On Monday, he said Operation Economic Outcast was delivering results, citing the rial's record lows and asserting that Iran had loaded no crude oil onto tankers in September.
On Tuesday, he questioned the appointment of Hamid Bovard as Iran's acting oil minister, asking what he would oversee when, according to Bessent, Tehran had not loaded a single barrel of crude since August 25.
Still, Iran’s oil trade has not come to a complete halt. According to energy intelligence firm Kpler, the country continues to export about 250,000 barrels of oil a day overland and sell crude shipped before the blockade.
However, Kpler’s head of crude oil analysis warned that Iran’s revenue from crude oil and condensate exports could dry up entirely by mid-December, for the first time in its history, if the US blockade remains in place.
“Revenues from crude and condensate will drop to zero for the first time ever,” Homayoun Falakshahi told Iran International's Eye for Iran, warning that Tehran could lose between $3 billion and $6 billion in monthly oil income.
The rial traded near 2.7 million per dollar this week despite the central bank injecting up to $2 billion in cash into the Iranian economy. With oil revenue and foreign-currency access shrinking, further enforcement could deepen pressure on imports and the currency.
Operation Economic Outcast, launched on August 24, expanded US sanctions authority over foreign businesses operating in Iran's digital asset, technology, gold, aviation and shipping sectors. Washington also warned that foreign financial institutions facilitating sanctions evasion could lose access to the US financial system. The administration said countries would be given deadlines to terminate identified Iran-related activities.
Bessent described the ultimate objective as forcing Tehran to choose between reintegration into the global economy and what he called “complete global isolation and a subsistence economy.” The campaign is intended to deprive the Islamic Republic and the Revolutionary Guards of the financial resources sustaining their military operations, weapons programs and regional networks.