Iran

While Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been quick to use the Gulf’s escalating tensions to rattle sabres, analysts downplayed the likelihood that the exchange of threats would develop into full-scale conflict in the immediate future.

Britain took new steps on Monday to distance itself from the Trump administration’s escalating confrontation with Iran, even while pushing for the release of an oil tanker seized by Tehran three days earlier.

Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi says Iran is in possession of intercontinental drones and will definitely put them to use if the need for a long-haul mission arises.

Iranian Intelligence Ministry official said on Monday that 17 spies affiliated with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have been identified.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran has detained a foreign oil tanker it said had been smuggling fuel, Iranian news media reported on Thursday, days after a United Arab Emirates vessel with the same name disappeared in the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has released footage captured by an Iranian drone flying over the Strait of Hormuz and monitoring a United States Navy vessel, belying a claim by Washington that the unmanned aircraft was shot down by the American forces.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that it has captured a British oil tanker for breaching international maritime law while crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain has offered Iran a way out of the crisis over its seized oil tanker in Gibraltar, saying it will “facilitate release” of the Grace 1 if Tehran provides guarantees the vessel will not travel on to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that Iran appeared willing to negotiate over its missile program “for the first time,” in what he and President Trump presented as evidence that sanctions and military pressure were working, less than a month after the president halted a planned military strike …

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said that security forces recently came to the aid of a foreign oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, hours after reports that Iran might have seized a tanker from the United Arab Emirates in the area.