The Saudi authorities said they were fending off drone and missile attacks after a weekend of confrontation with the Houthi militia in Yemen, whose patrons Iran offered to mediate.

© Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Saudi authorities said they were fending off drone and missile attacks after a weekend of confrontation with the Houthi militia in Yemen, whose patrons Iran offered to mediate.

© Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia may prove to be more calamitous for the region than the world imagines

On Saturday, Houthi rebels launched a shocking and deadly attack on Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh. At the time of writing, the missile strike on King Khalid international airport has killed at least 13 people and left 300 injured, marking a significant turn in a regional conflagration that is only getting more intense. It was the single most deadly attack on any Gulf country since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February. In Saudi Arabia, a country that is unaccustomed to such fatalities, the death toll is bewilderingly high and likely to prompt a bloody response.

Over the past year, the Gulf has entered a new era of instability that is not temporary and cannot be reversed. This may feel like an overstatement – casualties have been relatively low, after all, compared with Gaza and Iran – but the gradual erosion of peace and security in places such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE has changed the region more dramatically than its leaders would like to acknowledge.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

A new letter from 74 lawmakers suggests that civilian casualties will become a focus of investigation if Democrats take control of Congress.

Three deadly attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on an airport in the Saudi capital underscored the asymmetrical nature of their conflict with the kingdom.

© Pool photo by Julie Sebadelha

This is no scoffing matter. The accelerating proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing ‘end times’ closer by the day

Humankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began. The Bible’s Book of Revelation speaks of “end times”, a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did. Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning. Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few – the righteous or the “elect” – will be saved while sinners burn. It’s a minority view. Matthew’s gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon. Peter, another of Jesus’s disciples, agreed: “In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.” Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely. It may make it more probable.

Donald Trump’s blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse, could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter’s prophecy. This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires. In Robert Harris’s 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end. They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity. Few heed the fictional scientist’s fears. In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash – a global digital and internet meltdown.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Continue reading...

© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images

The strike on Saturday was the deadliest attack in a Gulf Arab country since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February, and forced the airport to temporarily suspend operations.

© via Reuters

Inflation has hurt Americans at many levels: Farmers, truckers, consumers. It has also expanded the electoral map into what was safely Republican country just a few months ago.

© Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

It is odd for the US defense secretary to be laying the groundwork for an event that could be organized by Tehran

Pete Hegseth’s plans to stage a public execution resemble a grotesque Iran-imitation game.

Having failed over the past seven months to defeat the Tehran regime on the battlefield, the self-styled “secretary of war” now proposes to mirror its notorious practice of enforcing the death penalty as a grand public spectacle.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

© Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

The escalating violence has brought the conflict in Yemen to the doorstep of the Saudi capital, and the kingdom has no easy options to curtail the increasingly sophisticated and targeted strikes.

© Social Media, via Reuters

From cost of living to the Iran war, these are the issues that matter most to US voters across the political spectrum

US voters are about to deliver their first national verdict on the second presidency of Donald Trump. On 3 November, millions of Americans will vote in midterm elections to decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states. The results could have a huge impact on Trump’s final two years in office.

Today, the Guardian launches its 2026 midterm voter panel. Our reporters have interviewed nine voters across the country and the political spectrum about the issues that matter to them, from the cost of living, immigration and healthcare to the war in Iran and whether they trust their political leaders.

Continue reading...

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/Caleb Davis/David Ferrari/Sally Rasmussen/Patti Fucci/Justin Daniels/Sharon Anderson/Scott Akridge/Yajaira Martinez

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/Caleb Davis/David Ferrari/Sally Rasmussen/Patti Fucci/Justin Daniels/Sharon Anderson/Scott Akridge/Yajaira Martinez

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/Caleb Davis/David Ferrari/Sally Rasmussen/Patti Fucci/Justin Daniels/Sharon Anderson/Scott Akridge/Yajaira Martinez

Chris Murphy says Pentagon blocked him from military base in Qatar and Iran strike on US embassy in Riyadh far worse than public led to believe

Senator Chris Murphy said the Pentagon blocked him from a major US base in Qatar, yet saw enough damage on the US embassy in Saudi Arabia to conclude that an Iranian strike would have been deadly had it happened during the day.

The Connecticut Democrat, who sits on the Senate foreign relations and appropriations committees, described the destruction he witnessed in Riyadh as “extraordinary” and much more damaging than the public has been led to believe.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

© Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

The U.S. military has drafted options for three days of strikes, but in recent months the president has repeatedly vetoed plans to restart the war.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Statement outlines pause on protracted war US president has struggled to end after almost eight months

Donald Trump has promised not to attack Iran before November’s US midterm elections, outlining a pause on the protracted war he has struggled to end after almost eight months.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the US president said Washington was “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran”, which he claimed was “in very bad condition, both Economically and Militarily”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Deployment for nearly a year was marked by reports of supply shortages and deteriorating morale and mental health among crew

The USS Abraham Lincoln, the US aircraft carrier that has been deployed for nearly a year and has spent months supporting US military operations against Iran, is scheduled to dock in San Diego on Thursday afternoon.

It marks the end of a deployment that has been described as “one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era” and that became marked by a record-setting stretch at sea, repeated deployment extensions, and reports of supply shortages and deteriorating morale and mental health among some crew members.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP/Getty Images

Russia is concentrating missiles on a smaller, more specific set of targets, and its jet-powered attack drones are part of the reason, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. Its combined attack overnight on 7 October killed 22 people in Pryluky, the State Emergency Service (SES) said as of the morning of 8 October. Russian milbloggers noted the shift the same day.

Russia often uses concentrated drone and missile strikes to overwhelm localized Ukrainian air defenses and destroy urban centers, ISW noted. Pryluky, where the strike killed children, was one of the areas a Russian channel says drew a significant share of the Kh-101s that night. With winter close, ISW expects the same pattern against Ukraine's energy grid, with jet drones partly letting Russia keep its missiles for priority targets without firing many more.

Missile waves on a few areas, Russian channels claim

Russia launched 48 Kh-101, Iskander-K, and Kalibr cruise missiles overnight on 7 October, Ukraine's Air Force reported. It also fired ballistic missiles, Zircon and Oniks anti-ship missiles, and 130 strike and decoy drones, 46 of them jet-powered Shahed-type models.

Russian milbloggers claimed the same day that Moscow had grouped a large part of its missile salvo into repeated waves on a few areas, while other weapons kept stretching Ukraine's air defenses elsewhere. The pro-war Russian Telegram channel Dva Mayora described the change as a switch from striking with splayed fingers to a series of hits with missile "fists." Defenders must then absorb a sharply rising load around one chosen site as one wave follows another, the channel claimed.

Citing Ukrainian monitoring channels, it claimed that roughly 30 or more Kh-101 cruise missiles flew toward Pryluky, Kremenchuk, Svitlovodsk, and Oleksandriia in Chernihiv, Poltava, and Kirovohrad oblasts. It put the Kremenchuk group at up to 15 missiles, Kh-101s and Kalibrs among them, aimed at the area of Kremenchuk and its hydroelectric plant.

Jet drones take some of the load off Russia's missiles

ISW said the jet-powered versions penetrate Ukrainian air defenses deeper and more reliably than propeller models. In ISW's assessment, that partly lets Russia concentrate cruise and ballistic missiles on priority targets without significantly raising missile use. Russia builds about 3,000 Geran-4 and Geran-5 jet drones a month, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) told Militarnyi in August.

ISW expects Russia to apply the pattern in a likely brutal winter campaign against energy infrastructure. Russia likely intends to make city life untenable and force Ukraine to capitulate to its demands, ISW assessed. Such tactics have not worked before and are unlikely to work now, analysts added.

They called cheap countermeasures to jet drones and small cruise missiles vital, alongside Western air defense aid such as US-made Patriots, which can stop ballistic missiles. Ukraine has already paired a Soviet-era Kub launcher with American RIM-7 interceptors to catch jet drones.

Global bond market sell-off continues and stocks fall amid reports White House has asked to see options for more strikes against Iran

Oil prices have risen sharply amid fears about escalating tensions in the Middle East and a squeeze on production from the threat of a hurricane off the US coast.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose by 5% to $105.3 a barrel on Thursday, triggering a wave of selling in the global bond and stock markets.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty

As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran continues, it’s being felt in a wider region. Eric Schmitt, a national security correspondent at The New York Times, explains how the conflict is reaching U.S. bases and why the United States is pulling back its military presence in some locations.

A war that was intended to demonstrate the reach of American power has now done the opposite. It is a lesson in unintended consequences.

© @Craigyoungmedia, via Reuters

We appear to be entering a new era, in which political desperation at home leads to increasingly unhinged threats abroad

Donald Trump was in Nebraska on Monday, and though his long rally speech had elements of a performance, this was no Bruce Springsteen album. He offered another dark meditation on a world spiraling out of control, one in which the destruction of American cities is increasingly a possibility, unless Americans trust him to use the vast powers of the presidency to annihilate his foes.

The president drew fury when he suggested that Iran could launch a nuclear attack and “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego. California leaders reacted with scorn at Trump’s alarmism.

Ted Widmer, a former White House speechwriter, is the editor of American Speeches, and the recently published The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text, both published by the Library of America

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

The case of a small Malaysian shipping agency illustrates the challenges Washington faces in its effort to stanch the flow of Iranian oil.

© Ore Huiying for The New York Times

As Angelenos bemoan ‘sad situation’, those in San Diego say remark a ‘disservice’ to town with multiple naval bases

Donald Trump’s extraordinary implication that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego have sparked condemnation across the political spectrum. As residents of the two major west coast cities awoke on Tuesday to another sweltering day in a record-breaking heatwave, the president’s comments sent blood boiling even higher.

Jessica, a 28-year-old Los Angeles hair stylist, was scrolling through social media early on Tuesday morning and was shocked to see that Trump had just suggested Iran should decimate her home town.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: halbergman/Getty Images

© Photograph: halbergman/Getty Images

© Photograph: halbergman/Getty Images

President Trump’s comments caused an uproar from members of both parties. A White House official said he was taken out of context.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Gavin Newsom said state’s threat-assessment center would be on heightened alert after president’s remarks

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Tuesday directed the state’s emergency preparedness center to “actively monitor” possible threats to the state after Donald Trump suggested Iran could “take out” the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.

Trump has faced a chorus of condemnation from Democratic leaders in California after his comments at a rally in Nebraska on Monday night, which the White House has suggested were being taken out of context.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

A 22-year-old from London was the seventh person to be arrested by the counterterrorism police investigating an incident at R.A.F. Fairford last month.

© Toby Shepheard/Reuters

According to U.S. and British officials, 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from R.A.F. Fairford air base were withdrawn because of the risk of a drone attack ordered by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

© Craigyoungmedia/UGC, via Reuters

The findings come after warnings from tech leaders that AI placed in the wrong hands could trigger larger threats such as nuclear war or bioweaponry destruction

Misusing artificial intelligence (AI) is the top threat to companies’ reputations – more so than being accused of putting children in the way of mental, emotional or physical harm and issues exposed by the US-Israel war on Iran, among other brand risks, according to a new survey of more than 150 public affairs leaders.

Those findings in the new edition of the quarterly Reputation Risk Index, released on Tuesday, came on the heels of other perhaps more dire warnings from leading tech figures that AI in the wrong hands could precipitate existential threats on a mass scale such as nuclear war or destruction by bioweaponry.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

© Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

© Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

Gavin Newsom calls comments ‘deranged and dangerous’ after president tells Nebraska rally: ‘They can take out a city’

• The Iran war is unpopular, but will it cost Trump the midterms? Our reporters answer your questions

Leaders in California have denounced Donald Trump as “reckless” and “deranged” after the US president suggested Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego – two liberal cities in the blue state that has been a frequent target of his administration.

At a rally in ruby red Nebraska on Monday night, Trump told supporters that he hoped to see a “tremendous victory” in the fast-approaching November midterm elections. He then suggested high prices due to the war with Iran were a “small price to pay for keeping the world safe – keeping our country safe”.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

According to U.S. and British officials, 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from R.A.F. Fairford air base were withdrawn because of the risk of a drone attack ordered by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

© Craigyoungmedia/UGC, via Reuters

An incident at a British air base may demonstrate a new era of low-intensity conflict.

© Leon Neal/Getty Images

The US withdrew its bombers from RAF Fairford after an investigation into an alleged planned terrorist attack on the base. At least 10 B-1 bombers used by the US military in the Iran conflict flew out of Fairford on Sunday, suggesting US officials were taking the threat seriously. Last week, five men in three vans near the military base were arrested, followed by a sixth British-Iranian national. All were released on bail, drawing criticism from the Pentagon. Lucy Hough speaks to Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor – watch on YouTube

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

© Photograph: Guardian Design

A Saudi-led coalition launched a military campaign this week against the Iran-backed Houthi militia in the country, reviving memories of its previous effort.

© Reuters

A dozen B-1s stationed at Gloucestershire base redeployed over concerns about possible threat from Iran

Downing Street has insisted RAF Fairford is secure a day after the US air force suddenly withdrew a dozen B-1 bombers from the Gloucestershire base over security concerns about a possible threat from Iran.

The prime minister’s spokesperson, speaking during a scheduled briefing, said “yes” when asked if the military site was safe – contrasting with the concern the US military revealed during the hasty redeployment the day before.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: @CraigYoungMedia/Reuters

© Photograph: @CraigYoungMedia/Reuters

© Photograph: @CraigYoungMedia/Reuters

The offensive is an effort to wrest control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait from the Houthis, a militia in Yemen backed by Iran.

© Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Trump administration says all Iranian airlines are being “shut down.” So why is this jumbo jet still flying from Tehran to Southeast Asia?

© Reuters

The withdrawal came with unusual speed, following what U.S. officials said were threats of an Iran-based plot against the installation.

© David Bown/Getty Images

The withdrawal came with unusual speed, following what U.S. officials said were threats of an Iran-based plot against the installation.

© David Bown/Getty Images

The rare admission from Mohsen Rezaei, the security chief, came weeks after the U.S. tightened sanctions and its naval blockade.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

More than 200 U.S. intelligence and military analysts are in Saudi Arabia helping it provide assistance to its Yemeni allies, current and former U.S. officials say.

© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. war in Iran unleashed small-scale attacks by local criminals or disenfranchised young men hired anonymously to target Jewish and American sites in Europe and North America, experts say.

© Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Life onboard the aircraft carrier near the strait of Hormuz as it conducts military operations against Iranian targets

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Ed Ou/Reuters

© Photograph: Ed Ou/Reuters

© Photograph: Ed Ou/Reuters

A mysterious call last Sunday near a military base used by the U.S. set in motion a huge counterterrorism response and days of uncertainty in Britain.

© Toby Shepheard/Reuters

Flights between the neighboring countries had been halted after broad U.S. penalties on Iran’s aviation industry.

© Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters

Hamid Rasaei, a vocal opponent of a diplomatic deal with the United States to end the war, was convicted of publishing false information with the intent to harm the Parliament speaker.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, was bombarded overnight, after government forces reported some of the most intense clashes in years around Taiz, the country’s third largest city.

© Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Final jobs report before the midterm elections also shows the US unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2%

US employers added just 29,000 jobs in September, a sharp drop from last month’s gains, and unemployment rose slightly to 4.2%, a sign of a cooling labor market in the final jobs report before the midterm election.

The numbers were under half of economists’ expectations of just under 70,000 new jobs. Most job gains were concentrated in the healthcare industry, which added 17,000 new jobs, while the information, financial and professional industries saw losses, according to the latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

Iran has been launching drones and missiles at commercial ships in the waterway each week, though it has often failed to strike its targets, according to a Western security official.

© Tomas Munita for The New York Times

U.S. Central Command will hold a daylong conference at its Tampa headquarters after seven months of war in Iran.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Brett McGurk, who was the top Middle East adviser to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., offered the first inside-the-room account of American efforts to manage the Gaza war.

© Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

British police said a 25-year-old British-Iranian dual national was arrested Thursday. British officials have said they believe Iran played a part in planning the incident at R.A.F. Fairford.

© David Bown/Getty Images