By Humaira Ahad | Press TV | September 25, 2026

US President Donald Trump took the UN General Assembly stage on Tuesday and made a sweeping series of claims about Iran, its nuclear program, the imposed war, and the Strait of Hormuz.

He presented Washington’s military aggression as a campaign to defeat an “Iranian threat,” while casting Tehran as the source of “decades of bloodshed across West Asia.”

Behind the worn-out rhetoric was a version of events riddled with falsehoods, omissions, and sweeping distortions.

For example, Trump claimed that Iran killed “72,000 of its own citizens,” described the country’s nuclear program as having been “obliterated” by the US, declared Tehran’s entire 159-ship navy destroyed, accused Iran of violating the ceasefire, and said US naval forces were moving tens of ships and billions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

US intelligence assessments found that Iran’s nuclear program was not destroyed; Pentagon investigators documented hundreds of damaged US structures across the region and depleted munitions, with the US war machine incurring tens of billions of dollars in expenses.

American casualties and aircraft losses mounted, while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed rather than returning to anything resembling normality following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

Here is a breakdown of Trump’s most glaringly false claims about Iran and what the documented record shows.

Claim: For 51 years, Iran (Islamic Republic) has “ruled by bloodshed and mass murder,” spreading “death, carnage and chaos” across the entire West Asia and beyond.

Fact: Other than the wrong claim about Iran spreading “death and chaos” in the region, his chronology also begins with a basic historical distortion.

The Islamic Republic was established in 1979 following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, meaning it has been in power for 47 years, not 51, as the megalomaniac US president claimed.

Trump’s portrayal of Iran as a force of “bloodshed and aggression” runs against the historical record.

For the past two centuries, Iran has fought to defend its territory and deter attacks rather than pursue wars of conquest or territorial expansion.

Even US government and policy institutions describe the Islamic Republic’s military doctrine as primarily defensive and deterrence-based, focused on protecting Iran’s territorial integrity.

One US Institute of Peace assessment says Iran “does not have territorial ambitions and does not seek to invade, conquer, or occupy other nations.”

That stands in stark contrast to Washington’s own modern record of invading countries, waging prolonged wars abroad, killing civilians, destroying infrastructure, and, in several cases, fundamentally altering entire states.

The scale of that record becomes clear when the major US-led invasions and military interventions of the past several decades are examined.

1986, Operation El Dorado Canyon: Libya

On April 15, 1986, the United States launched Operation El Dorado Canyon, bombing targets near Tripoli and Benghazi after Washington accused the Libyan government of supporting international terrorism. More than 100 US aircraft were involved, with 27 aircraft carrying out the main bombing missions and dropping about 150 tonnes of ordnance.

Contemporary casualty accounts record 45 Libyan soldiers and officials killed and 15 Libyan civilians killed.

1988, the USS Vincennes and Iran Air Flight 655

On July 3, 1988, the US Navy cruiser USS Vincennes fired a missile at an Iran Air Airbus A300 flying over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard, including 66 children and 16 crew members.

Washington claimed that the aircraft had been “mistakenly” shot down. There was no official US apology for the horrendous crime.

The episode is particularly relevant to Trump’s portrayal of Iran as the “source of regional bloodshed,” as one of the deadliest incidents involving Iranian civilians during the period came from a US warship operating near Iranian waters.

1995, Operation Deliberate Force: Bosnia

US and NATO launched the so-called Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb positions. It severely damaged the Serbs’ military capabilities and helped alter the balance of the Bosnian war.

The bombing campaign killed 152 civilians and injured nearly 300, according to the figures in the material. The operation was conducted without a specific UN Security Council authorization for the air campaign, a point that has remained central to debate over its legality.

1999, Operation Allied Force: Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the US, along with NATO, launched the so-called Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia. The campaign involved extensive bombing of residential areas, television and radio facilities, hospitals, factories, businesses and infrastructure.

Fourteen NATO member countries participated alongside the United States. The bombing destroyed or damaged 82 railroad and motor bridges, 48 hospitals, 25 post offices and telegraph stations, 70 schools, nine university buildings and four student dormitories, 18 kindergartens, 35 churches and 29 monasteries, including UNESCO-protected heritage sites.

The targets also included the television centre in Belgrade, a convoy of Albanian refugees and China’s embassy in Serbia.

According to the Serbian government’s figures cited in the material, the bombing killed around 2,500 people, including 89 children, and wounded 12,500.

Some 863,000 people, primarily Serbs living in Kosovo, left the region, while another 590,000 became refugees. Estimates of the economic damage ranged from $30 billion to $100 billion.

The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, established in August 1999 to examine the NATO intervention, concluded that the intervention was illegal. It also criticized the use of cluster munitions and the bombing of chemical factories and oil refineries because of their environmental consequences. In 2002, the UN confirmed radioactive pollution in Kosovo following the US bombing.

Post-9/11 toll: millions dead, tens of millions displaced

According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, US-led wars since 2001 have directly caused about 940,000 deaths across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other post-9/11 war zones.

The indirect death toll is estimated at another 3.6 to 3.8 million, bringing the overall number of deaths from post-9/11 wars to at least 4.5 to 4.7 million and counting.

The wars displaced an estimated 38 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines.

The financial cost has reached about $8 trillion. Brown’s Costs of War research has documented erosion of civil liberties and human rights in the US and abroad.

Claim: Iran“slaughtered” over 72,000 of its citizens this year. Recently, 10,000 were killed for “protesting.”

Fact: Trump’s extraordinary figure of casualties, which he keeps updating every few weeks, requires comparison with the available record.

On February 1, the Iranian government published the names of nearly 3,000 people killed during the foreign-backed riots of early January.

The Iranian Presidency released a list of 2,986 individuals killed, including their full names, their fathers’ names and the last six digits of their national identity numbers.

An Iranian government statement put the total number of fatalities at 3,117. A statement issued in late January said more than 600 of the deceased were rioters and terrorists, with the remainder civilians and security forces killed mostly by heavily armed rioters.

The foreign-backed riots were accompanied by widespread destruction, including systematic assaults on bazaars, shops, banks, mosques, hospitals, ambulances, fire stations, clinics and public infrastructure.

Evidence presented by the government showed that the systematic and coordinated riots involved foreign-backed spy networks.

Supporting the rioters, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo wrote on social media: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

Mossad separately issued a Farsi-language social-media message urging rioters to “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” and saying its agents were present “not only from a distance and verbally” but “in the field.”

Claim: I(Trump) will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Fact: Trump presented the ongoing US military aggression against Iran as the means of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Iran, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and remains under IAEA supervision.

The scale of international inspection has been substantial. In 2023 and 2024 alone, Iranian nuclear facilities underwent more than 427 inspections, an “unprecedented” level of scrutiny in the history of global nuclear oversight, as admitted even by UN officials.

In a recent interview, Major General Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) stated, “We remain committed to the fatwa (religious decree) of the martyred Leader of the Revolution and have not changed our nuclear doctrine, but we do not know what will happen in the future.”

In a religious decree, the martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, declared that not only nuclear weapons but also other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, pose a serious threat to humanity and ruled their use forbidden.

Trump’s claim that the US military “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program runs directly into the US intelligence assessment that followed the so-called Operation Midnight Hammer.

During the 12-day US-Israeli aggression against Iran in June last year, the United States struck three peaceful nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, using bunker-buster bombs capable of penetrating up to 18 meters of concrete or 61 meters of earth.

An early Pentagon intelligence assessment found that the strikes “probably set Iran’s nuclear program back by months rather than destroying it.”

The report said the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated, according to sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation.

According to various Western media reports, entrances to two nuclear facilities were sealed, but much of the deeply buried infrastructure remained safe from the US bombardment.

Claim: As a result of so-called Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of Iran’s navy are “now lying at the bottom of the sea.”

Fact: Trump’s claim that Iran’s entire navy was destroyed is flatly contradicted by the continued combat operations of Iranian naval forces deep into the war, including their ability to track, intercept and push back US naval assets in the strategic waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

In the early hours of September 8, 2026, at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) tracked, intercepted and recovered one of the United States Navy’s most advanced unmanned undersea platforms.

Media reports identified the vessel as an Anduril DIVE-LD, a large-diameter autonomous underwater vehicle delivered to the US Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One only a year earlier.

Iranian naval forces have also successfully intercepted and pushed back American naval assets, compelling them to retreat as far as 400 kilometres from the strategic chokepoint.

For the first time since the Second World War, the US has been ostensibly fighting a naval war against a peer adversary largely from a standoff position, unable to project power close to Iran.

Iranian naval forces have effectively denied the US military the freedom to operate close to Iran’s coastline, forcing it to fight from a distance rather than dominate the waters it entered.

The strain on US naval operations has been visible. The USS Gerald R. Ford fire in March, the suicide attempts by sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and repeated retaliatory attacks on American destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz have added further pressure on US naval forces operating in the region.

Claim: Iran’s air force is gone, their radar is gone, their antiaircraft equipment is gone, their missile and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone.

Fact: On September 16, the Pentagon’s own inspector general presented a different set of facts about the war’s consequences.

A report covering February 28 through June 30 said Iranian retaliatory strikes damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and equipment at US military bases across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

The report also acknowledged significant depletion of key US munitions stockpiles and destruction of critical military assets, including missile-defense radar installations.

The retaliatory Iranian strikes forced US Central Command to change how American forces operated across the region. CENTCOM “shifted personnel, assets and storage facilities” in response to attacks by Iran and allied forces.

Among the changes was the withdrawal of US Army medical evacuation helicopters from Iraq and Kuwait. As a result, “most medical evacuations have been carried out by ground … to local treatment facilities,” according to the report.

The destruction of the US Navy’s regional hub in Bahrain by Iranian strikes created “significant challenges” in establishing adequate naval bases and support ports.

The US military turned the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a sea logistics hub, extending resupply cycles to between 14 and 18 days.

Iran also brought down roughly 30 percent of the US military’s MQ-9 fleet over Iranian skies.

A recent Congressional report said the American military lost at least 42 aircraft during the 40 days of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, with estimated losses of approximately $2.6 billion.

The US Department of War also updated its casualty database, raising the total number of American forces killed or wounded during Washington’s war on Iran to 642 in figures published in July.

Claim: US has “more munitions” than it could ever possibly even think of using.

Truth: The war on Iran has severely depleted US munitions stockpiles, creating shortages and resupply bottlenecks that have begun to strain Washington’s ability to meet military commitments elsewhere, according to US government and congressional assessments.

The September report by Pentagon inspector general found that the war had produced “shortfalls” in key munitions and bottlenecks in resupply, directly contradicting Trump’s repeated claims about the abundance of US firepower.

A separate assessment by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the war on Iran had exhausted US supplies of key munitions, stretching the military’s ability to fulfill commitments in other parts of the world. The CBO estimated that rebuilding US stockpiles could take up to five years.

The scale of depletion is particularly stark in air-defense systems. A late July estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that stocks of several key interceptors, including the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, had been significantly depleted, in some cases by more than half.

The war on Iran also consumed more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, according to CSIS, with the institute estimating that the US stockpile may not return to pre-war levels until 2031.

The Patriot system, the US military’s principal ground-based air-defense missile, was among the most heavily used. CSIS estimated that as many as 1,430 Patriots were fired during the war on Iran, compared with an estimated pre-war stockpile of about 2,330, meaning roughly 61 percent of the inventory had been expended.

The depletion of THAAD interceptors is even more consequential because the system is more sophisticated and designed to intercept ballistic missiles at higher altitudes and over longer ranges than the Patriot. CSIS estimated that 190 to 290 THAAD interceptors were fired from an estimated pre-war stockpile of just 360.

That means Washington may have expended more than half, and potentially more than 80 percent, of its pre-war THAAD inventory.

With only nine THAAD batteries operational worldwide, sustained expenditure risks leaving US forces with fewer of a highly specialized system that Washington considers critical for defending against ballistic-missile threats from countries including Russia, China and North Korea.

Claim: Iran violated the ceasefire with “brazen acts of terrorism.”

Fact: Iran has formally submitted a detailed complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) stating that the US systematically violated the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Tehran cited repeated US military strikes against Iranian territory, the revocation of oil-sale licenses, the establishment of a illegal maritime route in the Strait of Hormuz, failure to remove the illegal naval blockade and continued US support for Israeli military aggression in Lebanon as “fundamental and unequivocal breaches” of the agreement.

The US violation centers heavily on Article 5. According to Article 5 of the MoU, Iran would make arrangements to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within one month, with safe passage of commercial vessels forming part of the agreement.

The US, meanwhile, directed ships away from the route designated by Iran as safe and encouraged them to use an alternative illegal route. The MoU subsequently collapsed.

The Washington Post and AP reporting on the memorandum confirmed that the document required the United States to begin removing its naval blockade immediately upon signing and to fully end it within 30 days. However, the US returned to continuing its illegal blockade on Iranian ports.

Washington’s subsequent military strikes and the re-imposition of economic pressure form part of the context in which ceasefire violations are examined.

Claim: The US Navy has recently escorted “more than 1 billion barrels of oil” out of the Strait of Hormuz and “more oil is flowing than at any point” since the start of the war.

Fact: The shipping data tells a markedly different story. Recent satellite imagery has shown traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continuing to fall.

The number of commodity vessels crossing the strait has been around 12 over the weekend, while the pre-war level was more than 100 vessels a day.

According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data, during the week before the war on Iran began, average crude-oil flows through Hormuz represented roughly 38 percent of the global total, LPG 29 percent and LNG 19 percent.

According to August figures, crude exports from the Persian Gulf region have dropped by nearly half, 47 percent, compared with before the war, falling from about 17 million barrels a day in 2025 to roughly nine million barrels per day as of August 2026.

Reuters has cited analyst estimates that five to seven million barrels of Persian Gulf oil a day are currently being disrupted.

Direct crude exports moving through the strait have fallen to an average of just 2.2 million barrels per day, according to Kpler.

From July 15 to August 23, an average of about five vessels a day passed through the waterway, an almost 95-percent decrease from pre-war traffic levels.

What little traffic remains consists of tankers operating under naval escort by Iran.

The impact is also being felt in global energy markets. In recent days, oil prices have climbed more than two percent amid uncertainty over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and continued security risks across West Asia.

Brent crude, the benchmark for two-thirds of global oil, has surged past $106 a barrel.

The US war on Iran has also pushed fuel costs higher in America. US gas prices have risen more than 40 percent since Washington and Israel launched their war on Iran. The national average in the US is more than four dollars per gallon.

In the European Union, diesel prices have hit a new record of 2.23 euros per liter, with 19 countries, including Germany, France and Italy, registering all-time highs.

Markets remain focused on the Strait of Hormuz, where US hostile and reckless attacks continue to threaten energy flows, as traders assess reported US discussions on a 90-day diesel-export ban.

The strategic waterway Trump described as carrying more oil than at any point since the start of the imposed war is experiencing a historic collapse in commercial traffic, with the disruption rippling through global oil prices and fuel markets.

US intelligence assessments, Pentagon reports, shipping data and the documented human cost of America’s wars all point to a widening gap between the picture Trump presented at the UN and the reality on the ground.

His portrayal of an unstoppable US military, a destroyed Iranian nuclear program, a decimated Iranian navy and an open Strait of Hormuz is increasingly at odds with facts, which is of depleted US munitions, military aggression that failed to achieve any objectives, Iran’s continued ability to retaliate and freely operate at sea, and a strategic waterway where shipping has fallen sharply rather than returned to normal amid continued US military adventurism.

Press TV – September 24, 2026

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s admission that some 5,000 sorties were flown from European bases in support of US military aggression against Iran proves that Europe formed part of the infrastructure of that aggression.

In a post on X on Thursday evening, Gharibabadi wrote that the NATO chief’s remarks demonstrated Europe’s role in enabling the illegal US campaign.

“Governments that placed their territory at the disposal of the United States cannot evade their responsibility,” he said. “This participation will not go unanswered.”

Rutte has repeatedly acknowledged that thousands of US military flights, between 4,000 and 5,000, departed from bases in Europe during the US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic, which began on 28 February.

He described Europe as a “platform of power projection” without which Washington could not have conducted the operation.

Countries including Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were cited in connection with the use of bases, airspace, tankers and logistics.

Iran has consistently described the US-Israeli assault as an unprovoked act of aggression in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Tehran has stressed that providing territory, bases or infrastructure to an aggressor state itself constitutes participation in the act of aggression, as recognized under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately warned European officials in New York of the severe and long-term consequences of facilitating and supporting US and Israeli war crimes, both in Gaza and against Iran. He noted that submitting to a bully never satisfies that bully.

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – September 25, 2026

The West may have pushed Russia out of its orbit, but it cannot push Russia out of the world.

Russia’s Diplomatic Blitz

Over the past two weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has staged a remarkable diplomatic blitz. Across three major gatherings in Bishkek, Vladivostok and New Delhi, as well as during Vietnamese leader To Lam’s state visit to Moscow, Putin met a succession of heads of state from across Asia and the wider Global South. Among them were the leaders of China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey.

The sheer intensity of this diplomacy is difficult to reconcile with the notion—aggressively propagated by Western political elites and the media—that Russia has been internationally isolated. Moscow may be estranged from Washington and most European capitals, but its diplomatic and economic relationships elsewhere have been expanding. More importantly, Russia is increasingly operating at the centre of a network of states that are seeking greater strategic autonomy from the Western-led international order.

That does not make these countries a Russian bloc per se. India continues to maintain close relations with the United States; China has its own global ambitions; Turkey is a NATO member; and the BRICS countries have yet to develop a common framework of global action. But it does demonstrate that Russia’s post-2022 so-called “isolation” exists only in the Western perspective. The reality outside of this perspective is totally different.

Moscow’s Reorientation

The Western strategy towards Russia after the start of the military conflict in Ukraine was built partly around economic and diplomatic isolation. The United States and European Union imposed extensive sanctions, restricted access to Western technology and finance, and dramatically reduced many forms of economic engagement with Moscow. Russia responded by accelerating a pivot that had already begun towards Asia and other non-Western regions.

The transformation is particularly visible in trade. Asia accounted for 73.4 percent of Russia’s trade turnover in 2025. China and India have become particularly important destinations for Russian energy exports, while Moscow has simultaneously expanded commercial and strategic relationships across the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

India is perhaps the clearest illustration of this adjustment. Despite its increasingly close strategic relationship with Washington, New Delhi has sharply expanded its economic engagement with Moscow. Reuters reported this month that India and Russia have developed payment arrangements using the rupee and rouble that facilitate the overwhelming majority of bilateral trade. Bilateral trade reached roughly $70 billion in 2024, with both sides targeting $100 billion by 2030. The significance lies not simply in the volume of trade. It is the development of mechanisms that allow countries to maintain economic relationships despite restrictions imposed by Western financial systems.

This is an important distinction. The Global South is not necessarily seeking to replace the West. Many of its governments remain deeply integrated into Western markets and institutions. What they increasingly seek is the ability to maintain alternative relationships when their interests diverge from those of Washington or Brussels. Russia has not only become one of the principal beneficiaries of that preference, but it’s actively cultivating ties on its own too—something clearly evident from the diplomatic blitz mentioned above.

BRICS And the Search for Strategic Autonomy

The most important arena for this transformation is BRICS. The grouping has expanded substantially from its original membership and now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Its members represent a substantial share of the world’s population and economic output. Although member countries apparently have different geopolitical and national interests, this diversity is not a weakness but BRICS’s defining characteristic.

The grouping provides a political space in which countries can discuss reforms to international institutions, alternative financial mechanisms, trade arrangements and greater representation for emerging economies without having to accept a common ideological position. This is different from Washington’s demands for conformity from its allies in Europe and North America. But BRICS agenda increasingly overlaps with Russia’s own interests.

At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, member states called for greater influence over international economic governance and raised concerns about unilateral trade and financial measures. India has also promoted mechanisms that could eventually facilitate greater use of alternative payment systems. New Delhi has proposed linking central-bank digital currencies among BRICS countries, although substantial technical and political obstacles remain.

For Moscow, these discussions have obvious significance. Western sanctions have made Russia deeply interested in payment mechanisms, financial arrangements and trading networks that are less vulnerable to Western restrictions. But Russia is not creating these demands by itself. It is benefiting from a broader transformation in the preferences of major non-Western states. The result is an unusual convergence. Russia wants alternatives because it has been subjected to Western restrictions. Other Global South governments want alternatives because they do not want their economic and diplomatic options constrained by decisions taken in Washington or Brussels. Therefore, even though the motivations are different, the direction of change is not.

The Geopolitics of a Networked World

This is why the most important consequence of Russia’s diplomatic reorientation may not be the survival of the Russian economy. It may be the emergence of a different geography of globalisation. Energy provides the clearest example. Russia has redirected large volumes of oil and gas towards Asian markets, while expanding nuclear-energy cooperation with countries beyond the West.

Transport infrastructure is developing alongside these commercial relationships. The International North-South Transport Corridor, linking Russia through Iran towards the Indian Ocean, is one example of efforts to create alternative routes between Eurasia and global markets. Russia’s expanding economic engagement with China, India, Iran and other Asian states is gradually creating overlapping networks of energy, transportation, finance and trade.

Vietnam illustrates the same pattern from another direction. During To Lam’s September visit to Moscow, Russia and Vietnam discussed cooperation in energy, science and technology, infrastructure and other sectors. Hanoi, like many Southeast Asian capitals, has little interest in choosing permanently between China, Russia, the United States, Japan, Europe and other partners. Its preference is diversification. That may ultimately prove to be the defining characteristic of the emerging international system.

Russia’s current diplomatic activism should therefore be understood in this larger context. Moscow is not simply looking for countries willing to circumvent sanctions or purchase its commodities. It is building relationships that can survive the political distance between Russia and the West.

The more the West defines its relationship with Russia through separation, sanctions and exclusion, the greater the incentive for Moscow to invest in a world beyond Western institutions, and the greater the incentive for other countries to make sure that such a world remains available. The irony is that the attempt to isolate Russia may therefore be contributing to something larger than Russia’s own diplomatic resilience: a global system in which isolation itself becomes increasingly difficult to impose.

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Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

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France is sending military assistance to Saudi Arabia to protect the Yanbu oil facilities as the Kingdom battles the Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen. The move comes amid growing concerns about the remaining flow of oil from the region, which France, as well as the rest of Europe, relies upon heavily.

In a live television interview Thursday night Paris time, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sending an unspecified number of troops and equipment to Saudi Arabia to protect the Yanbu energy hub, located on the Red Sea.

“This is the agreement we have finalized ​with ⁠the Saudis,” Macron explained. “We are going to send ⁠military resources, that is to ​say, soldiers, radar systems and defense ⁠systems, to protect this site — ⁠not ​to get us involved in any conflicts, but to ⁠protect this site.”

The French leader did not elaborate on the exact equipment he would send, how many troops, or when they would arrive. Nor did he address what would happen if French personnel were killed or injured or equipment damaged or destroyed. We have reached out to the French Embassy for further details. Based on his mention of radars and seeing that the threat to Saudi oil infrastructure is almost entirely from aerial attacks from drones and missiles, these will likely be air defense forces.

Nous agissons pour protéger nos compatriotes des conséquences de la crise au Moyen-Orient. Objectifs : sécuriser les approvisionnements et faire baisser les prix à la pompe. pic.twitter.com/kvrgHcV4E4

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 24, 2026

The decision was prompted by repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks as well as suspected strikes from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. Yanbu in particular is a key installation. As we have explained in the past, Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities around the Persian Gulf.

Before Macron’s announcement on Thursday, the Houthis claimed they had carried out two more waves of attacks on Saudi targets, including one on the Saudi Aramco facility in Yanbu, “using a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones.”

In addition, the Houthis claimed they struck Riyadh.

There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of an attack on the Saudi capital. Saudi civil defense did not issue an emergency alert for Riyadh on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the Houthis said they struck “enemy command and control centers, operations rooms, weapon depots, missile launch platforms, and military sites belonging to Saudi-led enemy formations in Jizan,” a Red Sea port city.

“The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that it had shot down six ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, in what appeared to be one of the largest cross-border attacks by the group since its conflict with Saudi Arabia [flared back up],” The New York Times reported.

The missiles were aimed at the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, claimed on X. “Escalations and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly,” he stated, without specifying where the missiles were intercepted.

TWZ cannot independently verify any of these claims.

Today’s attacks are the latest in the escalating conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, the Houthis imposed a blockade on the Bab al-Mandab Strait (BAM) and began striking Saudi ships in the southern part of the Red Sea as well as critical energy terminals on that body of water and Saudi refineries. Iranian proxies have also struck the vital East-West pipeline that carries oil to the Red Sea to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran vastly curtailed shipping after the launch of Operation Epic Fury. The East-West pipeline reportedly reopened after being shut down following a long-range drone attack.

The stark reality facing Macron is that if Saudi oil infrastructure and transport nodes near the Red Sea are destroyed or the pipeline that feeds it is shut down for months, the last major oil lifeline from the region — and especially to Europe — will be closed off, sparking a deeper energy crisis.

Iran has already severely curtailed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. The movement of oil has been further impeded by a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. However, transits have been increasing as of late, thanks in large measure to U.S. military escorts that U.S. Central Command claims have allowed more than a billion barrels of crude to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Still, the traffic is far below what it was before the war broke out.

Update from CENTCOM Commander: pic.twitter.com/PTX6n9fn56

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 19, 2026

Having both the Strait of Hormuz largely closed and energy exports out of the Red Sea shut down simultaneously is a nightmare scenario. By Thursday evening Eastern time, the per-barrel price of Brent crude oil shot up to nearly $107, according to OilPrice.com. It had fallen below $100 per barrel just two days earlier.

Given all this, the French president sought to offer reassurance about oil supplies, according to France 24.

“He said he had carried out ‘intense diplomatic activity,’ meeting in recent weeks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria, all hydrocarbon suppliers, to ensure France keeps receiving the same volumes,” the publication noted.

“We have replenished gas stocks and also oil stocks” for the months ahead, the French president also said.

Macron’s decision follows one by the U.K.’s  Royal Air Force (RAF) on Tuesday to deploy one of its Voyager aerial refueling jets to help Saudi Arabia defend against Houthi attacks. As with the French move, it is a response to concerns about the flow of oil.

“Escalating tensions in the Gulf could have negative consequences here in the UK—such as rising prices, disruptions to energy supplies, and increased costs for British businesses,” the U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) explained in announcing the deployment. “The Houthis pose a threat to stability in the Middle East; therefore, it is in the UK’s national interest—economically and in terms of security—that they do not succeed in their aims.”

“We unequivocally condemn Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, and our position is clear: both Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government have the right to self-defense,” the ministry added. 

The jet will operate from a U.K. air base in Cyprus and will begin air-to-air refueling operations in the coming days, the BBC reported.

The French and British deployments contrast decisions by the U.S. and other nations not to get involved with the Saudi-Houthi fight.

Last week, Trump turned down a direct plea from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom’s de facto leader, to attack the Houthis. Meanwhile, Pakistan and Turkey, which signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Saudi Arabia, have yet to provide any direct military aid. The pact holds that an attack on one is considered an attack on all; however, it doesn’t stipulate exactly what actions should be taken.

The security situation in Yemen has drastically deteriorated since the launch of Epic Fury after the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter.

The Houthis have been directly attacking Saudi Arabia over claims that the kingdom has imposed a blockade on them. Beyond that, the mostly dormant civil war between the Houthis and internationally recognized Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, reignited in the wake of Operation Epic Fury. The Houthis have made large territorial gains in the renewed conflict, including capturing the port city of Mokha and two key islands in the Red Sea. This has strengthened the Houthi hold on the BAM. You can read more about that in our story here.

3. The Houthis have reportedly attempted to seize ROYG-controlled islands in the Red Sea from which Houthi fighters could launch attacks on international shipping. Houthi forces reportedly landed on the Hanish Islands in the southern Red Sea on the morning of September 10 after… pic.twitter.com/tiFPgNDOHZ

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 11, 2026

The civil war in Yemen erupted in 2014 and expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis. The fighting between Saudi-led forces and the Houthis largely abated after a tenuous ceasefire took hold in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict, which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. The United Kingdom was another significant player in that air campaign.

Meanwhile, exacerbating concerns about the flow of oil from the Red Sea, “a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned Thursday that Iranian forces and their Houthi allies in Yemen could respond to any new U.S. attacks by opening ‘a new front’ in its war with the U.S. by targeting energy supplies in the Red Sea,” CBS News reported.

The statements came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again threatened Iran.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Trump added that he believed he would make a peace deal with Iran after the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, which will decide the control of Congress.

Trump to the UN: "Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly? Do I drive them into hell?" pic.twitter.com/cIYBO1Mp3w

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2026

As we noted yesterday, with gasoline and diesel price increases damaging the economy, the war and Trump’s handling of it have been unpopular with voters.

The fact that France is sending forces to Saudi Arabia is an ominous development and another indication that the current spate of unrest that began with Epic Fury does not appear to show any signs of ending anytime soon.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post France Sending Forces To Help Defend Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Oil Facilities appeared first on TWZ.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in an interview with NPR, published on Thursday, that in the days before the US and Israel launched the war with Iran, President Trump dismissed Carlson’s concerns about the conflict by saying, “We all die anyway.” Carlson said that he told Trump that the war was not about […]