Iranian officials have mocked the US military after claiming they captured a cutting-edge sea drone and “picked it up like a plastic bottle”.
Taking to X, Iran’s embassy in Ghana said it had caught “the most advanced ghosts sub ever” deployed by US forces in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It came in cocky, like a tourist who doesn't read signs. Our guys picked it up like a plastic bottle in a fishing net. Fully intact. Still blinking like an idiot,” the embassy added.
The capture gives Tehran an opportunity to possible reverse engineer the vessel, delivering a setback for the Pentagon and drone maker Anduril - although the US military and Anduril have downplayed the significance of the drone falling into Iranian hands.
But the loss of advanced drones has previously been treated by Washington as a serious matter.
The vessel in question, a Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle, is among a new generation of military drones intended to operate without human intervention for days. It is designed largely for long-range surveillance.
It comes as Donald Trump has said he believes the war with Iran will continue until after the US midterms, suggesting Tehran will sue for peace "immediately" once the election is over.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency is reporting that an unidentified skiff has approached a large vessel near Yemen’s Al Mukalla on Thursday.
The incident comes as fighting intensifies in Yemen between the Iran-aligned Houthis and forces affiliated with the Saudi-backed government.
Top White House advisers, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned President Donald Trump that the conflict with Iran could extend through the remainder of his presidency, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials.
The private warnings were delivered during internal strategy discussions held in the Oval Office and the Situation Room. During these confidential meetings, senior officials informed the president that Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, potentially prolonging the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029.
According to details reported by the Journal, the assessment from key aides highlights concerns within the administration that Iranian resistance may not be easily broken, suggesting military engagement could become a defining foreign policy issue for Trump's entire term in office.
Iran has suspended a 10 per cent charge on foreign vessels carrying oil, gas and liquid petroleum products to and from Iran, the semi-official Fars news agency is reporting according to the Reuters news agency.
The country's seaborne oil exports have been significantly disrupted by a US naval blockade.
The presidential legal deputy ordered the collection to stop until the government approves and publishes a list of products subject to the charge, Fars said.
Fars said the charge had increased the cost of transporting oil, gas and liquid products, and suspending the levy could reduce transportation costs and encourage foreign fleets to carry goods to or from Iran.
The UN atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at various undeclared sites in Iran.
Twenty-three countries on the IAEA’s 35-member board of governors voted for the resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
China, Russia and Niger opposed it, while eight countries abstained and one didn’t vote as it was in arrears, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-door vote.
The resolution was put forward by the United States, Britain, France and Germany.
The diplomatic move has been under consideration since June 2025, when the IAEA board found Iran officially in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations because of Tehran’s lack of cooperation in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at various undeclared sites in Iran.
The escalation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has continued into Thursday. The Houthis said that Saudi strikes hit the bordering Yemeni provinces of Jawaf, Marib and Saada, bordering the kingdom, as well as the provinces of Taiz in the south and al-Hodeidah along the Red Sea coast, a Houthi stronghold from which it launches attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Saudi civil defence authorities issued an emergency alert declared in the southwestern province of Khamis Mushait for the fourth time in 24 hours. The alert has now been lifted.
At least 73 people were wounded in four southern Saudi cities, including Khamis Mushait, in recent Houthi attacks on the world's largest oil exporter, the Saudi-led coalition said on Tuesday.
The Houthis said they attacked an airbase in Khamis Mushait and oil infrastructure in nearby cities in one of the biggest attacks on Saudi Arabia since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in February.
The coalition said the Houthis continued their attacks on national assets and infrastructure on Wednesday.
The Houthis were nearing complete control of coastal cities on the Bab el-Mandeb strait including the port of Mocha and Dhubab that sit directly along the strait, sources told Reuters.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States may hit Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, urging Tehran to be cautious.
"We notice there's a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard," Trump said in a speech at the midterm Republican convention.
Pickaxe Mountain, located near Iran's heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is a fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes.
Trump has been threatening strikes on Pickaxe Mountain since at least mid-July.
The rise in oil and gas prices due to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began in February, has become a major issue for Trump and his Republican Party in the lead-up to the midterm US elections in November.
Donald Trump made an off-color reference to the father of Princess Diana’s boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, during his remarks Wednesday at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas as he joked about his war in Iran.
The president delivered the keynote address on night one of the two-day convention in Texas, where Republicans are trying to rally support for flagging candidates nationwide in the face of a resurgent Democratic opposition. As he spoke about the war in Iran, he made an unexplained reference to Mohamed Al-Fayed and mocked his Arabic name in the process.
Speaking about a potential attack on Pickaxe Mountain, an alleged Iranian nuclear site, Trump told a whooping crowd that the U.S. Space Force could “see everything” taking place at secure Iranian facilities: “We can see everything. We can see the tag on their coat. ‘Mohamed Al-Fayed.’
Pakistan has urged Iran to rein in its Houthi allies in Yemen after they stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia, Pakistani and Iranian sources have told Reuters.
The warning suggests the country’s defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey is kicking into action.
While officials in Islamabad stressed any military role would be confined to defending Saudi territory, Pakistani defence minister Khawaja Asif said attacks spilling into the kingdom could trigger a joint security arrangement involving Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad.
"An aggression on one country will be considered an aggression on all three countries," Asif said on Pakistani TV.
"There is no ambiguity or doubt... Unprovoked aggression or spillover... into Saudi Arabia will definitely make this agreement operational."
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Wednesday that Saudi warplanes carried out 54 airstrikes across various Yemeni provinces over the past 12 hours.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they would sharply escalate their response to any further attacks, and said Iran would soon release maps of a new, enlarged off-limits zone at sea that would extend as far as Chabahar on the coast near Pakistan.
Iran also said it fired on two US ships and eight tankers in response to the US action.
One seafarer was killed aboard the oil products tanker Hercules Star while at anchorage off Dubai, the vessel's charterer, Peninsula, said.
The British maritime security agency UKMTO described a vessel in the vicinity that was listing after being struck by a projectile.
