US President Donald Trump said Monday he does not believe China and Russia are helping Iran, saying any assistance would be “at a very low level” if it were happening.
“If they are, it’s at a very low level, but I don’t believe they are at all. They have too much to lose, and we would know about it, and know about it very fast!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Twelve attacks on commercial vessels were reported in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf between October 5 and 11, according to UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) warnings.
The attacks culminated on October 11, when six commercial vessels — five tankers and a container ship — were reported struck in the Strait of Hormuz and near Oman’s Sohar anchorage.
Several incidents were reported only after they occurred, meaning initial assessments did not capture the full number of attacks. The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) listed three confirmed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz during the preceding 72 hours and another in the Persian Gulf in its October 11 advisory.
A crude oil tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on October 6. The incident was reported to UKMTO two days later. No casualties were reported.
A tanker was struck by multiple projectiles about 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, on October 7. UKMTO reported casualties.
A tanker at anchor off the UAE coast was attacked on October 9, while an outbound tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz on October 10, causing a fire. The crew of the October 10 vessel was reported safe.
Another outbound tanker was hit in the strait on October 11, damaging its steering gear room and a water tank. Five additional attacks from that day were subsequently disclosed in UKMTO warnings, bringing the October 11 total to six.
Hormuz threat remains severe
JMIC maintained the threat level for the Strait of Hormuz at SEVERE, its second-highest classification, saying deliberate hostile action was highly likely.
It cited recent Iran attacks and continuing navigation interference, as well as Revolutionary Guards attacks, hailing and routing pressure.
JMIC also said attacks were spreading beyond the Hormuz transit lanes to vessels at anchor in the Persian Gulf. It warned that further projectile or drone attacks could affect tankers at UAE anchorages and outbound vessels in the southern Omani corridor.
Hormuz traffic remains far below normal
Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains below historical levels.
US Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping data showed about 29 US-facilitated vessel transits per day over the preceding 72 hours, compared with a historical average of roughly 138 daily transits, according to JMIC. Independent tracking indicated substantially fewer vessels passing through the strait.
JMIC maintained the Strait of Hormuz security threat at SEVERE, its second-highest classification.
Washington could support the Saudi campaign against the Houthis at little direct cost by lifting political objections to its operations, but deeper military involvement risks appearing to widen the Iran war, senior Middle East analyst Ryan Bohl told Iran International.
Recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport, have sharpened questions about how far Washington and other governments are prepared to go in supporting the kingdom.
Bohl, a senior analyst at the risk intelligence firm RANE, said the least costly US option would be to drop objections similar to those Washington raised over Saudi-led military operations before the 2022 truce. Those concerns included civilian casualties from airstrikes and the humanitarian consequences of an offensive on the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.
Washington helped push for a halt to the offensive on Hudaydah in 2018. The UN-brokered Stockholm Agreement established a ceasefire there later that year.
“That will cost the United States virtually nothing,” Bohl said of lifting political objections, referring to munitions, troops and additional spending.
Greater intelligence support, assistance in targeting Houthi forces or direct American airstrikes would carry military, economic and especially political costs, he said.
“It will look like President Trump is now expanding the war that he seems to be trapped in with the Iranians.”
Air power has limits
Air power alone is unlikely to defeat the Houthis, Bohl said, but could help capable ground forces advance and hold territory.
He pointed to Yemeni units backed by the Saudi-led coalition, including the Giants Brigades, whose ability to capture and retain territory could depend heavily on tactical air support.
The question is whether those forces have recovered sufficiently from recent Houthi advances to mount a sustained counteroffensive.
Bohl said forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government had appeared disorganized after a Houthi advance toward the southern end of the Red Sea coast. Some units were now regrouping and resuming offensive operations, he said, but their ability to coordinate remained uncertain.
“The big question is, will they gain enough coherence in order to push back the Houthi advances around Taiz, and more importantly, push up the Red Sea coast towards Hudaydah.”
More support for defense than offense
Foreign governments are more willing to help defend Saudi Arabia than to support a campaign to recapture Houthi-held territory, Bohl said.
He cited Pakistani military support and Turkish preparations to provide defensive assistance as examples of efforts to protect the kingdom. Such support, he said, was primarily aimed at defending Saudi airspace and preventing further attacks.
An offensive inside Yemen would be a harder commitment to secure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking Saudi consent through US mediation for Israel to join the campaign against the Houthis, Haaretz reported on Monday.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman opposes Israeli participation over concerns about a public backlash, the newspaper said. Netanyahu reportedly hopes cooperation would strengthen ties with Riyadh and help advance normalization.
Many governments see the country as “a geopolitical black hole that their forces will disappear into and that they’ll never achieve victory,” Bohl said.
They also look to Washington to provide military capabilities they cannot deploy at comparable scale. Turkey could influence events in its neighborhood, he said, but would face greater constraints in sustaining an extensive campaign as far away as Yemen.
Whether an effective offensive coalition emerges will depend heavily on Washington’s objectives, Bohl said. Those could range from reversing recent Houthi gains to supporting a broader effort to recapture territory, potentially including Sanaa.
The United States’ 2025 air campaign ended with an Oman-brokered ceasefire with the Houthis in May that year. A campaign supporting territorial advances would raise a different question: how far Washington was prepared to help allied ground forces go.
“America’s role in it will be instrumental in us understanding whether or not a coherent offensive coalition can actually be put together and have an impact on conditions on the ground.”
Iranian hardliners have backed security chief Mohsen Rezaei’s threat to strike data centers, undersea internet cables and artificial intelligence facilities in the Persian Gulf if the United States and Israel resume hostilities.
Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told state-owned Press TV on Sunday night that Tehran was prepared for renewed conflict and could target critical technology infrastructure across the Middle East.
He said valuable American assets in the United Arab Emirates and around the Strait of Hormuz had not yet been included among Iran’s targets, but Tehran was prepared to demonstrate new capabilities to strike them. He claimed those assets and the region’s digital infrastructure were worth more than $2 trillion.
“Every miscalculation by the enemy against Iran has resulted in a heavy defeat for them; the next mistake will bring new fronts and greater surprises,” Rezaei wrote on X on Monday.
Hardliners urge pressure on US technology interests
Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, argued in an article titled “Why Is Artificial Intelligence on the Target List?” that attacks on AI centers could undermine US technological competition with China, deter investment and put pressure on US stock markets.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper and the supreme leader’s representative at the publication, welcomed Rezaei’s threat in an article titled “Well Done, Brother Mohsen!”
He called for using fiber-optic cables running through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to pressure Washington and its allies. He claimed that nearly seven major international cable systems pass through the region and that damage to them could disrupt more than 80 percent of commercial, banking, military and AI-related communications.
Kayhan also accused what it called “Western-oriented” political factions of double standards over internet access. It quoted Shariatmadari as predicting that politicians and parties “not fully aligned with the revolution” would oppose Rezaei’s threat and portray it as fueling war.
“The reformists had previously described internet shutdowns [in Iran] as a cause of deep dissatisfaction and called for stable, free and secure internet access for the public. But now that this same internet has become a strategic weapon for Iran against the United States, they have either remained silent or opposed it in the language of peace,” the article said.
Political analyst Ruhollah Rahimpour, however, told Iran International that while Iran could technically and operationally damage data centers and communications infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, the impact would primarily fall on regional networks rather than seriously affect the global internet.
Such attacks could raise the cost of war for other countries, he said, but also widen the conflict and impose greater security and economic costs on Iran.
Mohsen Zanganeh, a member of parliament’s knowledge-based companies and technology faction, endorsed Rezaei’s warning in an interview with ANA news agency, saying it reflected technological realities.
He said many data centers operated by major technology companies, most of them American, and the main communications routes connecting them were located in countries along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf.
Attacks could damage equipment, cloud networks and processing systems while disrupting US military operations, Zanganeh argued. Because Arab countries host both US bases and American technology infrastructure, he said, the consequences could spread to other countries and increase the global economic cost of war, as had happened in the energy sector.
WANA News described Rezaei’s remarks as an attempt to deter military action by raising its potential cost, saying a declaration of readiness did not necessarily signal a decision to launch operations.
Warnings amid strained diplomacy
Rezaei’s threats came alongside indications of continued differences between Tehran and Washington.
In a separate post on X on Sunday, he said the United States had accepted some of Iran’s seven conditions, but Tehran considered its response insufficient.
“Iran’s diplomacy has changed, and we will not return to the previous situation,” he wrote.
Mostafa Najafi, a commentator supportive of Rezaei, interpreted the remarks as a sign that the two sides remained far from an agreement.
“This position by the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council means that negotiations between Iran and the United States are a long way from an agreement and much closer to tensions,” he wrote on X.
The infrastructure threats also drew criticism on social media.
One user, Mohammad Nikbakht, questioned why Rezaei was announcing potential targets and argued that attacks would encourage Arab countries to unite against Iran.
Another commenter warned that threats without the capability to carry them out could backfire, drawing a comparison with Iran’s efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz, which the commenter said had resulted in a naval blockade of Iran.
“We are much more worried about miscalculations by our country’s executive officials than about miscalculations by the enemy,” a different user wrote.
Meta and Google removed Iran’s “Adam and Eve” matchmaking app and related promotional accounts after an investigation found girls as young as 13 were being listed as prospective spouses, US-based rights group HRANA said Monday.
“The exploitation of children is a horrific crime and we work aggressively to fight it on and off our platforms,” a Meta spokesperson told HRANA. “We investigated the information provided by HRANA and identified external links to underage marriage services. We have removed these entities from Meta platforms.”
Google separately told the group: “The app was removed from Google Play on October 9 for violating our policies.”
HRANA said the action followed an Oct. 8 investigation and a joint appeal by 24 civil society groups urging the companies to remove the app and strengthen protections against services facilitating underage marriage.
The platform had previously drawn scrutiny after Iran’s reformist Shargh newspaper reported in November 2025 that parents could register children as young as 13 as marriage candidates. Reporters were able to create a full profile for a girl born in 2012 without encountering an age restriction or identity barrier.
Shargh said profiles of users under 18 were concentrated in poorer regions where early marriage is more common, with girls most frequently listed between the ages of 13 and 16 and boys between 16 and 18.
The platform’s executive manager, Mohammad-Hossein Asghari, defended the policy at the time, saying Iranian law obliged the service to accept users who fell within the statutory marriage ages.
“Article 1041 of the Civil Code sets the marriage age at 13 for women and 15 for men,” Asghari said. “From a legal standpoint we are obliged to accept membership and cannot block someone who falls within the age range set by law.”
Around 300,000 people had attempted to register with the platform and about 70,000 profiles were active following identity checks and psychological screening, according to Asghari. Minors under 15, he said, were required to have a parent complete the registration form and staff would speak directly with the child before approval.
Child-rights advocates quoted by Shargh warned that formalizing marriage involving minors through a widely promoted digital platform risked further normalizing the practice.
Iran’s Statistical Center recorded about 25,900 marriages involving girls under 15 in 2022, down from roughly 32,000 a year earlier.
A man accused of plotting an attack on Iran International journalists in Britain discussed an “embassy” visit with one contact and told another he had been promised £150,000 and help resolving his criminal case in Iran, a London court heard.
Messages presented at Woolwich Crown Court showed Mostafa Sepahvand seeking a meeting with a man saved in his phone as “Navid Embassy Bro,” while separate exchanges detailed his demands for money and assurances relayed by contacts in Iran.
Sepahvand, 41, is on trial alongside Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57. All three deny charges under Britain’s National Security Act.
Prosecutors allege they gathered information for Iranian intelligence in preparation for serious violence against at least one target, with Sepahvand expected to carry out an attack and the other two helping to prepare it. The alleged targets included Iran International journalists Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini.
In a message to Navid dated March 28, 2025, Sepahvand wrote: “hello bro, are you well [w]ill come to see you at the embassy”.
Navid replied that something was troubling him and that he would explain that evening.
The contact was saved under the Persian name “Navid Barar Sefarat,” rendered in court as “Embassy Bro,” and associated with a UK telephone number. The exchanges presented did not establish his role or whether he worked for an embassy. The quoted message did not identify which embassy Sepahvand meant.
A day later, Sepahvand sent Navid a link to an auction listing for a 2024 Mercedes-Benz GLE 450.
On April 2, he wrote: “Brother I am waiting for you call me [w]ill send this friend of mine there”.
Further exchanges followed on April 3. When Sepahvand asked Navid to answer, Navid replied that he was on the phone. An April 30 message asking why Navid had not responded went unanswered.
The purpose of the proposed meeting and any connection between those exchanges and the alleged surveillance operation were not established in the messages described in court.
In separate communications with Mostafa Ghorbani, Sepahvand discussed the financial costs of locating individuals and promises to resolve his legal difficulties in Iran.
In a March 20 voice recording, previously aired during the trial, Sepahvand said he had been promised £150,000 as well as help with his court case if he completed the task.
“They have sent me £3,500, and they keep sending me fifty addresses,” he said, complaining about the money he had spent visiting locations.
Ghorbani also relayed assurances that Sepahvand’s case would be resolved once the work was done, that he would be provided with a house and that people would meet him at the airport.
Sepahvand repeatedly complained that the addresses supplied to him proved incorrect and that the work exposed him to arrest. In a March 20 voice message, he described it as “very seriously illegal” and demanded money to cover expenses.
He said locating the individuals required people to attend addresses and keep watch, and that others would be unwilling to take those risks without payment.
The hearing also examined Sepahvand’s communications with Vahid Malmir, whom he repeatedly questioned about a possible role in criminal investigations.
“I knew from very first day that you were with the criminal investigation department, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it,” Sepahvand wrote on March 28.
In another message, he asked: “Tell me the truth are you an officer with the criminal investigation”.
Malmir responded with assurances that he was at Sepahvand’s service, without explicitly confirming such a role.
Later exchanges returned to Sepahvand’s demands for a formal resolution of his Iranian case.
On April 25, he complained that he had repeatedly been told the matter was resolved even though no court ruling had been issued. He said he would stand at the previously discussed addresses if the ruling came through.
The following day, he claimed that a contact named Amin was threatening him and had said his case would not be resolved until he took action.
In earlier sessions, jurors heard evidence about photographs of locations associated with the journalists, information about Hosseini’s social media accounts and communications concerning Iran International’s offices.
Prosecutors have said Sepahvand’s wish to resolve his Iranian criminal conviction was relevant to his motivation. Jurors were previously told not to treat the conviction itself as evidence against him.
According to the prosecution’s account of his defense, Sepahvand accepts conducting surveillance for Iran but says he feared the consequences of refusing and deliberately did a poor job. Prosecutors reject that explanation.
Javadi Manesh and Noori accept visiting locations and taking photographs and videos but say they did not know they were assisting Iranian intelligence.
