Sunday, November 15, 2026

Iran war: Coalition downs 2 Houthi drones; 5 ships hit mines in Hormuz

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen says it intercepted and destroyed two drones launched by the Houthis towards Saudi Arabia’s capital and the southern regions.
Iran’s navy says a tanker hit a naval mine and caught fire in the eastern Strait of Hormuz, marking the fifth such incident over the past 24 hours. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it intercepted and destroyed a US MQ-1 Predator drone over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign ministers from 18 Muslim-majority nations, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye and Pakistan, have condemned the Israeli air strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, which killed at least six Palestinians, including a surgeon and a child.
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese and Russian counterparts will discuss the Iran war next week at the APEC summit in China’s Shenzhen, a senior US official told reporters.

17m ago
(21:51 GMT)
IRGC says two tankers caught fire in Hormuz Strait
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy says two oil tankers attempting to “secretly” transit the Strait of Hormuz collided with naval mines.
The vessels had turned off their navigation and tracking systems and were using an “unauthorised” route to pass through the waterway, the navy said in a statement carried by Iran’s official news agency IRNA.
“Following the explosions of these two tankers, two other tankers that were attempting to transit secretly complied with the warnings from the Naval Force’s traffic control centre in the Strait of Hormuz and returned towards the waters of the Persian Gulf,” the IRGC said.
41m ago
(21:27 GMT)
Muslim World League condemns Israeli strike on Nasser hospital
The Muslim World League (MWL) has strongly condemned Israel’s strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza on Wednesday.
The strike killed six people, including a surgeon, and wounded dozens.
In a statement, the MWL condemned Israel’s targeting of tents and restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid.
The MWL General Secretariat, led by Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, also denounced the “unacceptable and condemnable Israeli violations that exacerbate humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip” and undermine all peace efforts.
1h ago
(21:00 GMT)
US claims that Iran started the war ‘deceptive’, aimed at evading responsibility, says senior Iranian official
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has hit back at US officials for claiming that Washington did not start the war with Tehran.
In a long post on X, Baghaei said US officials have come up with a “new deceptive narrative to evade responsibility for the catastrophic human, economic, and geopolitical consequences of their unlawful aggression against Iran”.
“No matter how desperately American officials try to evade the issue, they cannot erase from the minds of the American people or the world the fact that it was the United States that twice, in less than nine months, launched unprovoked aggression against Iran in the midst of diplomatic negotiations,” he said.
Baghaei added that the US assassinated Iran’s supreme leader and senior Iranian officials, killed and wounded our women and children, and destroyed vital infrastructure.
“Now that the US administration has run into a military and political dead end, it is trying both to deny responsibility for starting the war and to conceal its failure to achieve its objectives behind a narrative of victory,” he said.
1h ago
(20:45 GMT)
Yemeni government forces intercept Houthi drones over Marib
Yemen’s government forces say air defences are intercepting several Houthi drones launched towards the city of Marib.
Earlier, a spokesman said government forces were continuing to engage the Houthis in Marib governorate.
1h ago
(20:20 GMT)
Netanyahu may fall, but his far-right legacy in Israel is going nowhere
As Israel’s opposition looks to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speculation has centred on the possible fate of the current government’s more hardline, right-wing elements, including the parties led by the unapologetically pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, convicted of inciting terrorism.
While all members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, with the unflinching backing of the opposition politicians hoping to supplant them, have supported Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and attacks on regional states, it is Smotrich and Ben-Gvir who have been the focus of international attention and lightning rods for criticism by Western governments.
With talk of Netanyahu looking to form a unity government with Eisenkot, both ministers have publicly opposed a government led by the former chief of staff.
In the run-up to the vote, Ben-Gvir took the unusual step of claiming that Netanyahu now has a choice of selecting himself to “save Israel” or Eisenkot.
Smotrich has warned his ultra-Orthodox political allies against entering negotiations with Eisenkot, saying he will “dump them” once he uses their votes to oust Netanyahu.
Read the rest of our article here.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and Bezalel Smotrich in the Israeli parliament, December 29, 2022 [Amir Levy/Getty Images]
2h ago
(20:00 GMT)
IRGC warns France against falling into Israel’s ‘false flag’ trap, again denying involvement in cyberattacks
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has warned France against falling into the misinformation trap of Israel, denying claims of Tehran’s involvement in recent cyberattacks targeting refrigeration units in French supermarkets.
On October 11 and 12 , attackers heated units at about 700 French stores to as high as 50C (122F). France has since blamed the attack on Shahid Kaveh, a cyberunit affiliated with the IRGC, calling it the first large-scale sabotage cyberattack on French soil.
“Paris should beware the Zionist regime’s false flag trap,” IRGC spokesman Sardar Mohebi said on X.
“Unlike the US and the Zionist regime, civilians have no place on the target list of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” he said, adding that the “ridiculous claim” is the “Zionists’ tired old playbook for stoking fear of Iran and winning allies in Europe”.
2h ago
(19:45 GMT)
Arab League condemns Israeli attack on Nasser hospital in Khan Younis
The Arab League has strongly condemned Israel’s attack on Nasser Hospital in Gaza on Wednesday.
It said the attack constituted a “serious escalation” and warned that continued Israeli violations of the “ceasefire”, along with restrictions on aid, threatened to “plunge the Strip into a cycle of sustained violence”.
Wednesday’s attack in Khan Younis killed at least six Palestinians, including a surgeon, and injured dozens.
Mourners carry the body of Dr Rezik Abushira who was killed in the Israeli attack at Nasser Hospital in Gaza on Wednesday [Ramadan Abed/Reuters]
2h ago
(19:30 GMT)
Netanyahu says unity government could ‘eliminate the Iranian threat’
Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has reiterated his calls for a national unity government with his opponent Gadi Eisenkot, saying it could help eliminate the threat from Iran.
A meeting with Eisenkot on Thursday “only strengthened the conviction that it is essential to form a national unity government” to guarantee Israel’s security, Netanyahu said in a video statement, adding that such a government could “eliminate the Iranian threat once and for all”.
He said that this government would be made up of parties that recognise Israel “as a state for the Jewish people”.
It would address security challenges, he added, most notably Iran, which he claimed would “not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against us”.
Eisenkot, however, said Netanyahu knows he lost, and denounced unity talk as a “trick”.
2h ago
(19:15 GMT)
Iran blames tanker owners for incidents in Strait of Hormuz
By Mohamed Vall
Reporting from Tehran, Iran
Iranians do not deny that they lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz in order to control it, and also in order to force the countries and companies using it to coordinate with the Iranian side – something they have been insisting on, saying that this waterway is under the full control of Iran at the moment.
They say only Iran and Oman – the two countries that are adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz – have the right to control it. This is something that is very controversial and very much refuted by the American side and it is at the centre of the conflict between the two sides.
There was also another incident earlier today involving a plastic container, as they described it, which was smuggling diesel fuel and trying to transfer it to a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. It also caught fire and exploded.
These incidents are described by Iran as a result of the failure on the part of the tankers’ owners and the countries behind them to comply with the regulations that are imposed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.