What’s happened: Following a “lightning offensive”, the Houthis have captured much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast giving them effective control of the strategic Bab el Mandeb Strait which separates the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa.

• The cities of Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jizan, and Najran were all targeted, along with local infrastructure and Aramco-owned energy facilities wounding at least 73.
• The Houthis’ lightning offensive follows the breakdown of a ceasefire brokered between them and Saudi Arabia in 2022. Apart from seizing the Yemeni Red Sea coast, the Houthis have also launched dozens of drone and missile attacks against southern Saudi Arabia.
• Troops from the internationally recognised government of Yemen failed to defend the western Yemeni coastline from the Houthis with their positions collapsing shortly after the offensive began.
• Saudi Arabia has conducted hundreds of air strikes on Houthi positions, yet not succeeded in dislodging its fighters. The Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, reportedly requested military assistance from the US in the form of air support while the Houthis advanced on the city of Mocha. These requests are said to have been denied.
• Initial assessments suggest that the rapid collapse of Yemeni forces stemmed from a lack of preparedness and widespread corruption. Around 80 per cent of personnel were allegedly “ghost” soldiers, existing only on paper to allow their salaries to be claimed.
• Yemeni government forces are reportedly seeking to reverse their losses by launching a counter-offensive aimed at retaking the port city of Mocha.
• In a limited success for the Yemeni government, its forces claimed a victory further north in Al-Jawf province, where dozens of Houthi fighters reportedly surrendered.
• The Houthi offensive was supported by drones launched from Iraq by Iran-aligned militias against Saudi oil infrastructure, damaging the East-West oil pipeline and injuring several people. Saudi authorities subsequently shut down the pipeline, which normally carries millions of barrels of oil a day.
• Oil prices rose by 3 per cent on global markets in response to the Houthi advances, with Brent crude reaching $108 per barrel before stabilising at around $107.
• These developments represent the most significant escalation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia since the 2022 ceasefire, as well as greatest strategic shift in Yemen since the fall of Sanaa in 2015.
• In a further escalation, the Houthis claimed this morning that they had struck King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, targeting hangars, radar systems, runways and ammunition depots.

Context: The Bab el Mandeb is estimated to handle approximately 12% global trade including 11% maritime oil, and 8% liquified natural gas.

• As the Bab el Mandeb is narrower than the Strait of Hormuz, it will likely be easier for the Houthis to control and disrupt global shipping from their new positions.
• This now means that Iran and its proxies control two of the most strategically important waterways for global trade and oil, along with the Strait of Hormuz separating the east of the Arabian Peninsula from the Iranian mainland.
• Around two weeks after the October 7, 2023 massacre, the Houthis launched their first attack toward Israel, that was intercepted by the US Navy over the Red Sea. On October 31, 2023, the Houthis first explicitly claimed responsibility for attacking Israel, including a missile launches toward Eilat.
• The missile was targeted by the Arrow 3 anti-missile defence system and thought to be the first operational exo-atmospheric interception in history.
• This also marked the first time that the Yemeni group had become directly involved in the Israeli-Arab Conflict, targeting ships it claimed were linked to Israel with drone and missile attacks, as well as attempted boardings and seizures. Some of the attacks were thought to have been coordinated with Hezbollah, to simultaneously attack Israel from the north and south.
• Overall, it is estimated that the Houthis launched over 500 missiles and drones towards Israel from the end of October 2023, though to February 2026.
• The Houthis were also responsible for attacking around 100 commercial vessels.
• While these attacks were of limited success and lethality, they functionally prevented insurers from approving policies for ships sailing west of the Yemeni coast, forcing them to take the much longer route of circumnavigating Africa. This significantly increased associated costs which were subsequently passed onto global consumers.
• While the vast majority of Houthis missiles and drones were intercepted, a small number of projectiles were able to reach their intended targets. Two Israelis were killed, one by a drone in Tel Aviv in July 2024 and a second drone attack in Eilat in 2025 that also injured around 20 people.
• The southern port city of Eilat was forced to close because of these attacks in the summer of 2025 after its revenues fell to zero.
• The Houthis refer to themselves as “Ansar Allah”, and are a Zaydi Shia separatist group which emerged in opposition to the former president, Ali Abdallah Saleh and growing Saudi influence in Yemen in the 1990s. They conquered significant parts of Yemen during the Arab Spring between 2011 and 2015 which they have retained control of.
• The Houthis are closely aligned with Iran and have greatly benefited from training and support from the IRGC-Quds Force, but retained a higher degree of independence than proxies and clients in Lebanon and Iraq, i.e. Hezbollah or Khomeinist Shia militias.
• Before 2023, the Houthis used the territory it controls in Yemen to launch missile and drone attacks against both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
• The Houthis are sanctioned by the UK, and designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.

Looking ahead: While the Houthis have assured freedom of navigation for all non-Saudi vessels in the Bab el Mandeb, whether they will honour this promise remains to be seen given their prior targeting of ships even tangentially linked to Israel.

• It is likely that if any countries support Saudi Arabia’s anti-Houthi campaign their shipping will also be targeted.

What’s happened: The US has responded to what CENTCOM called a “surprise” wave of missile attacks against military bases in Jordan yesterday with its own “powerful” retaliatory airstrikes on IRGC targets in the southwest of the country.

• American targets include command centres, missile and drone facilities, and coastal surveillance infrastructure.
• Ahead of the strikes, President Trump asserted that Iran was “going to get a beating” and that the US would be “hitting hard.”
• Saudi and US jets also launched waves of airstrikes against Iranian proxy Shia militias in Iraq late on Tuesday night. These strikes followed what the US has described as “over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks” on oil facilities in the Saudi Eastern and Riyadh regions on Monday and Tuesday emanating from Iraq.
• The American-Saudi attacks killed approximately 20 Iranian proxy militiamen who were also members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces.
• Commenting on the strikes, Major General Turki al-Maliki of the Saudi Ministry of Defence said that the Kingdom “reiterates that it does not seek escalation but will respond decisively to any aggression directed against it”, referring to the originators as “Iran-backed terrorist militias.”
• Iraq’s recently appointed Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, responded by cancelling a scheduled meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Its President, Nizar Amidi, was similarly condemnatory, branding the attacks “as an unacceptable act, a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and entirely contrary to international law and the United Nations Charter.”
• The Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella formation of predominantly Iranian-sponsored Shia militias established after the Islamic State’s invasion of Iraq in 2014, responded with a statement condemning “the treacherous terrorist attacks”, branding them “an extremely serious escalation and a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, targeting its official security institutions.”
• A drone also struck a US liquid natural gas storage tanker at the northern Egyptian port of Damietta, causing an explosion and fire. No group or country has claimed responsibility yet. To date, Egypt has not been attacked by any Iranian or proxy projectiles since Israel and the US launched the current war with Iran on 28th February.
• The IRGC also fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at American bases in Jordan on Wednesday morning, with the US confirming that it had intercepted what was described as a “surprise attack.”

Context: The American geographically limited targeting of Iran likely indicates a prioritisation of weakening Iran’s military assets around the Strait of Hormuz rather than escalating and causing damage elsewhere in the country.

• This is the first time that Saudi Arabia has acknowledged participating in strikes against Iran or its proxies despite being extensively targeted up until now. The UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait are all reported to have launched direct airstrikes on Iran, but covertly and have never released statements admitting to doing so.
• Since 28th February 2026, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have launched a significant number of drone attacks against US bases in the Middle East and energy infrastructure in the Gulf, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
• While mostly ineffective, three US troops were killed when an IRI-launched drone struck a military base in Jordan in February 2024. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed by a drone launched from Iraq which impacted their Golan Heights base in October 2024.
• The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is understood to primarily be an exercise in branding providing some deniability for the more Iran-aligned factions operating in the Popular Mobilisation Forces, especially Kataib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.
• In March and May, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan issued joint statements condemning “the attacks carried out by armed factions loyal to Iran from the Republic of Iraq against a number of countries in the region, as well as their facilities and infrastructure.”
• These statements also reiterated how the signatories valued their “fraternal relations with the Republic of Iraq”, while calling on Baghdad to “take the necessary measures to immediately halt the attacks launched by factions, militias, and armed groups from Iraqi territory toward neighbouring countries, in order to preserve brotherly relations and avoid further escalation” as well as their right to self-defence.
• Iraqi Shia militias are Iran’s most enduring proxies in the Arab world, pre-dating Hezbollah’s official manifesto proclamation and establishment in 1985. Its oldest proxy militia, the Badr Group, was founded in 1982 and fought against Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War.
• In the aftermath of the US-led invasion of 2003, pre-existing groups returned to Iraq while new ones were established with Iranian patronage. Broadly referred to as “Special Groups” and supported by the IRGC-Quds Force and Hezbollah, they would go on to spawn factions including Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Promised Day Brigades, and Mahdi Army.
• After the Islamic State invasion of Iraq in the summer of 2014, these groups reconstituted as the Popular Mobilisation Forces and formally integrated into the government’s structures, arguably playing a more decisive role in combat operations than the Iraqi Armed Forces. Post-Islamic State, the Popular Mobilisation Forces remained an important part of the Iraqi state’s security apparatus and never disbanded. They were also subject to occasional US air strikes, with their then Chief of Staff, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis of Kataib Hezbollah, being assassinated alongside the IRGC-QF’s commander, Major General Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020.
• Shortly after Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on 7th October 2023, a new grouping of Iraqi Shia militias emerged on Telegram branding themselves as the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, claiming missile and drone attacks against Israel and US bases in the Middle East. Some of these were branded as “joint operations” with the Houthis.

Looking ahead: Despite overnight strikes on IRGC targets, President Trump appears to remain open to negotiating a diplomatic solution with Iran, telling reporters: “We’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point.”

• Pakistan has confirmed that negotiations between the US and Iran are “ongoing”, and that it is doing all it can “to bring all parties back to the Islamabad MOU.”
• Negotiations are understood to be focusing on a broader de-escalation and the Strait of Hormuz.

What’s happened: The Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated their attacks in the last 24 hours, firing on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea for the first time in the present crisis. Two Saudi oil tankers were hit, with confirmed reports of fire and damage on one and no credible reporting on the condition of the other.

• The Houthi attack comes three days after they declared a naval blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. A gradual shift in Saudi shipping from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea since the Iranian blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which began in March of this year, had been seen as a major long-term shift that would weaken the impact of both the current Iranian blockade and any future threatened one.
• It was unclear how and whether the Houthi attack on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea was coordinated with Iran. The Houthis have, notably, not attacked Israeli or American targets at all in the current crisis. They stopped their missile attacks on Israel entirely when the Gaza ceasefire went into effect in October 2025, with the exception of a one-week period beginning on March 28 of this year at the very end of the Israeli-American war with Iran.
• The Houthi attacks on Saudi shipping came hours before the US conducted its twelfth night of air strikes on Iranian targets. According to CENTCOM, last night’s attacks focused on missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance systems, maritime capabilities, and air-defence sites.
• The US air strikes did not follow through on Trump’s explicit threat, made yesterday on social media, to strike Iranian civil infrastructure on a one-to-one basis in response to attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. “For every ship that Iran shoots at,” the President wrote, “the United States will immediately take out one Iranian bridge or one Iranian power plant, including those in or around Tehran.” The US has largely refrained from striking targets near Tehran in the last twelve days, aiming most of its fire at military facilities directly implicated in Iranian attacks on shipping.
• Yesterday morning, Iran fired six ballistic missiles at the Aqaba area in southern Jordan. The Iranians claimed they were aimed at US targets, including what they claimed were US aircraft at Aqaba airport, a claim that was not independently verified.
• This was a smaller attack than the one carried out last week on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in eastern Jordan, which killed three US military personnel. Aqaba, on the other hand, sits directly on the border with the Israeli city of Eilat, where the missiles and interceptions were loudly heard.
• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it attacked US forces in multiple bases and airfields in Kuwait. There were no reports of casualties. The IRGC further stated that its navy “emphasises that the strait of Hormuz is under our control.”

Context: As expected, the US Energy Secretary and his Saudi counterpart signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement in Washington yesterday.

• Fallout from the agreement roiled the Israeli security establishment and became a topic of debate in the Israeli electoral campaign as well.
• Israeli commentators linked the Saudi agreement to other Trump administration initiatives in the region, especially including diplomatic efforts in Lebanon and the proposed sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. Taken together, the moves are seen as the emergence of a US-backed Sunni bloc to counter Iranian influence — and, more subtly, as signs of Israel’s declining influence in Washington. None would have been realistically possible without the collapse of the Iranian-backed Assad regime in Syria in December 2024.
• Israel has not publicly responded to the Saudi-American nuclear deal. Israel’s immediate principal concerns regard the possibly of domestic nuclear enrichment in Saudi Arabia. The US deal does not promise enrichment in Saudi Arabia, but rather posits a two-year  study to be conducted by both countries into the feasibility of such an option.
• Should it be deemed feasible, a “blackbox” facility, that would keep the technology and know-how in American hands, could be constructed. This is contrast to the 2009 nuclear agreement reached with another US ally in the Gulf, the UAE, which stipulated that no enrichment could take place on Emirati soil.
• Israel’s other concerns are that a change in the Saudi regime could leave nuclear capabilities in more dangerous and radical hands, and that the new deal will open the door to other middle powers in the region, including Egypt and Turkey, to begin pursuing enrichment capabilities of their own.
• There is great disappointment, too, that the US changed its position from insisting that any nuclear deal would require the Saudis to normalise relations with Israel. It remains to be seen if this condition will come up again at the end of the two-years study on the feasibility of domestic enrichment.
• Former Prime Minister and current Opposition Leader Yair Lapid cast the Saudi nuclear deal as a personal failure of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Speaking on a podcast yesterday, he revealed that during the so-called “Change Government” which he and Naftali Bennet headed in 2021-22, the US, then under President Biden, was also interested in pursuing a separate nuclear deal with the Saudis, but that he and Bennett, despite their overall good relations with the administration, threatened to go to Congress and do whatever it took to scuttle the deal. He alleged that Netanyahu does not have the ability to challenge Trump because of a lack of good relations with Congressional leaders, and further hinted that Trump’s interference in Netanyahu’s legal troubles (the President has openly called for the Prime Minister to be pardoned in his ongoing trial) meant that he couldn’t openly challenge the President, even on an issue of vital national security.

Looking ahead: The Saudi nuclear deal will likely be challenged in Congress, but it does not need ratification as a treaty. Similar to the situation which obtained with Iran deal from 2015, it would require an act of Congress to block it, which would be vetoed by the President. A veto can only be overridden with two-thirds of the votes of both Houses of Congress, a very unlikely outcome for this issue.

• Greece is expected to conclude a $4 billion air defence deal with Israel today. The Greek missile and air defence program, dubbed “Achilles Shield” will rely on technology from the Israeli defence firms Rafael and the Israel Aircraft Industries. It is just one of several anticipated purchases from NATO countries and other Western allies of Israeli defence technology in the global military buildup underway in recent years.

What’s happened: The ceasefire between the US and Iran continues to unravel, with mutual blockades both now in effect and a series of low-intensity strikes from both sides over the last six nights.

• Overnight, US forces launched their biggest air operation since the ceasefire went into effect, hitting targets not just on the coastline but also deep in Iran and inside the Tehran metropolitan area, a region avoided entirely in this week’s escalation until now. Notably, official CENTCOM statements about the operation used the term “shaping operation,” rather than “self-defence operation.” The latter term had been consistently used by the Americans to indicate that they were not intending to depart from the ceasefire framework; the former would seem to indicate that they are taking out targets that could get in the way of a future planned operation.
• The ceasefire began unravelling on July 7. By July 10 both sides were openly trading blows. This exchange of fire has gradually escalated over the ensuing week.
• On July 7, against a backdrop of stalled negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme, sanctions relief, and shipping rights in the Straits of Hormuz, three attacks on neutral shipping in the Strait were carried out, apparently by Iranian drones. One of the ships was carrying Qatari liquified natural gas. The attacks took place as NATO leaders were gathered in Ankara for the alliance’s summit.
• The following day, on July 8, the US revoked the licence that had temporarily allowed Iran to sell oil while negotiations were underway and conducted a very modest air operation on Iranian targets associated with the attacks on shipping.
• Meanwhile, negotiations continued with the US demanding a public Iranian commitment that the Strait would remain open while the larger deal was being negotiated without any attacks on commercial vessels. The Iranians refused to make such a commitment, as for them this would be conceding their biggest asset going into the nuclear negotiations before those were really underway.
• On July 10, with President Trump back in Washington from Ankara, three days of quiet diplomacy and low-level air strikes turned into a higher level crisis, with the President declaring that “in no uncertain terms the ceasefire is over.” That night the US began hitting real Iranian military targets, rather than just carrying symbolic strikes against drone facilities implicated in the attacks on oil tankers.
• The US continued hitting Iranian naval bases and radar facilities through July 13, including an audacious strike against a submarine base by a one-way US attack drone. There were conflicting reports on the damage caused by the US attack, with some reports indicating that an Iranian submarine was damaged or even destroyed. On that day, the US announced a full resumption of its naval blockade of Iran, which had been lifted with the MOU signed in June.
• As the US expanded the range of targets struck in Iran, the Iranians too started launching missiles at US and allied facilities in neighbouring countries on night of July 13-14, including Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. All three of these countries reported intercepting Iranian missiles.
• Last night, the range of attacks expanded even further, with targets in the Tehran region being hit by US fire for the first time since the ceasefire went into effect. The US operation was also unusually long in duration, lasting seven hours.
• Neither side has as of yet called for a halt to negotiations, and in fact all indications are that some kind of mediation via Qatar, Pakistan, and Oman is still underway. The White House has, for its part, stuck to a message of “talks will continue but the ceasefire is over,” and the Iranians too have publicly taken a similar approach.
• The Iranians report 35 killed from this week’s US strikes. There are no reported losses from the US or its allies. Iranian retaliatory strikes have studiously avoided Israel; nor has the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon initiated any escalation for now.

Context: As tensions ratchet up, Israeli and global media have been full of speculation about possible targets in renewed military action, as well as astonishing revelations about the early days of the previous round.

• Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has come to a virtual halt in the last week, after a few weeks of a very partial recovery that was still far from pre-war levels.
• An earlier US pilot programme of escorting some commercial vessels through the Strait, closer to the Omani coast, had some limited success in May and June, before the MOU was signed, and there are indications that the US my consider pursuing a larger version of that should the current talks fail.
• Alternatively, the Americans are considering a full-scale land invasion of the Iranian coastline near the Strait. This would likely take months to accomplish and come at a heavy cost.
• Another option which has been publicly broached by the President himself is a wave of air strikes against strategic targets in Iran, notably including bridges and power plants, as a means of pressure on the regime to lift its blockade.
• Two other potential military operations have been the subject of public speculation — and often of explicit public statements by administration and CENTCOM officials.
  • One is the so-called Pickaxe Mountain, near the Natanz nuclear facility. Natanz was one of three nuclear facilities, along with Isfahan and Fordow, that were struck by US bombings in Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025. Pickaxe Mountain is a facility less than 2km from the Natanz facility which  is buried more than 100 metres deep into a mountain. It has never been seen by international inspectors, and was still under construction during the June 2025 war. Satellite imagery has shown accelerated excavation and construction there since then. Trump has fanned speculation about a US special forces operation there by both publicly threatening the site and, on a radio interview earlier this week, pointing out that America’s bunker-buster bombs alone would not be able to damage it.
  • Trump has also publicly discussed an attack on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub (a facility he called on the US to strike decades ago when he was an opinionated real estate magnate in New York). Administration officials have leaked to friendly media outlets over the past week speculation that an attack on Kharg Island would be impractical, costly, and not yield the desired outcome — something that can be read as trying to dissuade the President from approving such an attack or part of a deception operation.
• On the backdrop of speculation about a future operation, new revelations in both the Israeli and US media were published regarding the Mossad’s ambitious plans for deposing the Iranian regime at the outset of the war which began on February 28. Plans called for an invasion of Kurdish forces from northern Iraq (which the US apparently vetoed) and even the possible installation of former President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad to head a replacement regime.
• Long investigative articles in both the New York Times and Haaretz detailed contacts that Ahmedinijad, famous for aggressive remarks during his presidency about eliminating Israel and denying the Holocaust, had with Mossad in recent years in Hungary and Central America. An Israeli air strike against IRGC guards who had effectively been holding him in house arrest in the first days of the war had been reported as a failed assassination attempt, but is now believed to have been intended to free him to assume power. The reported plot ran aground shortly after that for reasons that are still unknown.

Looking ahead: There are two sixty-day deadlines at play here, both of which are frequently referenced by US officials often without clarity as to which one.

• The MOU calls for a sixty-day period, renewable by mutual consent, for concluding an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, as well as sanctions relief and freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement was signed in Islamabad on June 18, so that sixty-day period ends on August 17.
• The administration informed Congress of a renewal of hostiles with Iran on July 7, which allowed it to reset the sixty-day deadline for Congressional authorisation under the War Powers Act. Without another ceasefire, this would mean it would need to get some kind of Congressional authorisation to continue fighting past September 5, something that would place the unpopular war in Iran directly on the public agenda only weeks before the midterm elections in the US.
• In Israel, the placement of US refuelling aricraft at Ben Gurion Airport has been a source of growing public dissatisfaction, as it leads to cancellations of flights from Israel’s only functional international airport. Growing public pressure led the Government to accelerate the departure of the US aircraft from the airport as the summer holiday got underway, but this week, that process was frozen, and it was quietly announced that the US planes still there would be staying for the time being.

According to CENTCOM, the US engaged 90 targets last night in Iranian territory.

• For the second consecutive night, the US strikes focused on the port in Bandar Abbas, which is near the Strait of Hormuz, Bushehr, Kharg Island and large swaths of southeastern Iran. The targets  included air defence systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities and military logistics infrastructure.
• It is understood the US informed Israel in advance about its plans to attack Iran.
• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it struck two US bases in Kuwait and two in Bahrain in retaliation for the American strikes.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Katz held a security consultation last night. The current assessment is that the escalation in hostilities will remain confined to the Gulf. However, Israel is closely monitoring events and is preparing for the possibility of rapid escalation in hostilities that might also  broaden Iranian attacks to include Israel.  
• The IDF is on high alert, both defensively and offensively, equipped with operational plans, armed aircraft on standby, a target bank provided by the IDF Intelligence and close coordination with the US.

What’s happened: Millions of mourners have taken to the streets of Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the multi-day funeral procession and ceremony of its former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

• Ali Khamenei’s funeral began on 3rd July, moving from Tehran to the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, before crossing into Iraq for stops in Najaf and Karbala.
• Delayed by four months since his elimination by Israel on 28th February 2026, his son and successor as Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was notably absent, which added to rumours about his poor state of health.
• Mojtaba’s three brothers, Masoud, Meysam and Mostafa were all present along with other dignitaries including former President Ahmedinejad, and General Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the IRGC as were many senior foreign dignitaries.
• Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent condolences which were conveyed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian by the Kingdom’s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Elkhereiji.
• Other notable attendees included Lebanon’s Defence Minister, Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Turkey’s Vice President – the only NATO member state to send a representative – India’s Deputy Foreign Minister, the Russian Security Council’s Deputy Chairman.
• The President of Tajikistan, Prime Minister of Armenia, President of Georgia, and Afghan Taliban’s Foreign Minister were also in attendance.
• Four other members of the Khamenei family killed on 28th February have also been buried in the past week including Mojtaba’s wife, son, and daughter.

Context: Ali Khamenei was eliminated by an Israeli air strike during the opening salvos of the US and Israel’s war against Iran which broke out on 28th February.

• The Iranian regime appears to be using the funeral as an opportunity to showcase an impression of a strengthened post-war self to the world post-ceasefire and MOU signing.According to the dissident news site, Iran Wire, the regime has invited and hosted 400 foreign influencers to cover the funeral, and present a more positive image of the country to global audiences, including from the UK.
• Mojtaba Khamenei was reported to have been severely injured in the air strike which eliminated his father, although no definitive proof of life has emerged or been provided. He has not been seen in public since before the war begun, and has only communicated externally in writing.
• In his absence, Iran is understood to have effectively fallen under the IRGC’s control reinforcing the relative impotence of the President, currently Masoud Pezeshkian. Negotiations with the US were led by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament.
• Proceedings have been significantly more controlled and dignified than during the previous Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini’s funeral which took place in 1989 where the casket was damaged because of crowds of mourners attempting to touch it. Dozens were also reportedly crushed to death.
• The fact that Lebanon sent a senior government representative, Defence Minister Michel Menassa, suggests the continued influence of Iran on Lebanon. A Lebanese political source suggested this reflects no policy shift on Iran’s interference, only a desire to lower tensions and avoid burning bridges.
• Beirut wants to keep Iran from sabotaging its framework agreement with Israel. President Aoun defended the government’s decision saying, “Our diplomatic relations with Iran are ongoing and unbroken. How did other Arab and non-Arab countries participate in expressing condolences? Was it expected that Lebanon would officially be absent from this funeral?”
• The most recent round of indirect “technical” talks in Doha, between Iran and the US were described by President Trump as having been “very good” but remain inconclusive. Israel has a highly sceptical view of these talks, particularly as they fail to address the two issues of most immediate concern to Jerusalem: ballistic missiles and regional proxies such as the Houthis and Hezbollah. However, at this point, Israel appears unable to influence proceedings.
• Meanwhile, Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, yesterday claimed that the trilateral framework signed with Lebanon had superseded the first clause of last month’s US-Iranian MOU. The US is yet to respond to these comments.
• President Trump has also said that ⁠the United ⁠States will ‌either ‌make a ‌deal with Iran or “finish the ‌job”, while reiterating the former was his preference.

Looking ahead: Khamenei is due to be buried in Mashhad on 9th July.

• US-Iran negotiations are due to resume two days later on 11th July. These talks are expected to address a range of issues including sanctions relief, unfreezing funds, and nuclear enrichment.