US Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf allies urge President Trump to continue war on Iran,
The US allies privately warned President Trump that Tehran has not been weakened enough.
The US Allies say four weeks of bombings has not been enough to destroy the barbaric Iranian regime.
Earlier this month, Elbridge Colby, a senior official in the US Department of War, held a call with Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, who is also the brother and top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran’s attacks on US bases in the Gulf were heating up, and the US needed expanded access and overflight permissions. Saudi Arabia agreed to open King Fahd Air Base in Taif, in Western Saudi Arabia, to the Americans, multiple US and western officials familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.
The base is important because it is farther from Iranian Shahed drones than Prince Sultan Air Base, which has come under repeated Iranian attacks. Taif is also close to Jeddah, the Red Sea port that has become a critical logistics hub since Iran effectively took control of the Strait of Hormuz. Current and former US officials tell MEE that if the Trump administration is preparing for a longer war on Iran, Jeddah may be critical for sustaining US armed forces. Thousands of US ground troops are en route to the region from East Asia.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to expand base access, current and former officials say, underscores a shift in how the kingdom and some other Gulf states are responding to the US-Israeli war on Iran. “The attitude in Riyadh has shifted towards supporting the US war as a way to punish Iran for strikes,” a western official in the Gulf told MEE.
Iran struck a military base housing British, US and Australian troops in the United Arab Emirates during overnight strikes across the Gulf.
A missile hit the Al Minhad Air Base where the UK maintains a permanent military facility, at 9.15am AEDT on Wednesday morning.
Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said the projectile caused ‘minor damage’ to an accommodation block and a medical facility due to a small blaze that was created as a result of the missile hitting on a road leading up to the base.
More than 100 Australian military personnel are deployed at Al Minhad.
Albanese confirmed that all Australian staff were ‘absolutely safe’ following the attack at the base, which is operated by the UAE and functions as Australia’s military headquarters for the Middle East.
He could not confirm if Tehran directly targeted the site, however, while maintaining Australia was not at war.
‘The Iranian regime is engaging in random attacks right across the region. We know that is the case,’ the prime minister said.
In 2014, the UK launched a permanent headquarters at the base to support British operations in the region.
The Ministry of Defence has yet to comment on the attack.
Upon the overnight major US attack on Iran’s key oil hub of Kharg island, here’s what Iran’s military is threatening to do by way of response and escalation – which was also entirely predictable:
“If Iran’s oil, economic, or energy infrastructure is attacked, we will immediately destroy energy and economic infrastructure across the region belonging to companies with American shareholders or ties to the U.S.” –IRGC spox
Iran continues launching widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf Arab states and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has vowed that any US site or any country hosting it will feel pain. “This war proved one thing quite clearly: American bases in our region do not protect anyone – they are a threat,” he wrote on X. “America sacrifices everyone for Israel and does not care about anyone but Israel.”
He added, “Anyone clothed by the US is literally NAKED!” And in fact this retaliation is already in progress on Saturday.
A missile struck a helipad inside the US Embassy compound in Baghdad, and debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hit an oil facility in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has informed the United Arab Emirates that US “hideouts” are “legitimate targets” after the US struck Iran’s Kharg island. —Al Jazeera
Associated Press images meanwhile showed a column of smoke rising over the embassy compound in the Iraqi capital and a fire at the Fujairah port, offering confirmation.
The year before Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious death in a Manhattan jail, the financier was working to broker an infrastructure deal for Emirati logistics conglomerate DP World in Nigeria, according to a massive trove of emails released by the Justice Department last month.
In an email exchange from the summer of 2018, Epstein facilitated talks between then-chair of Nigeria’s sovereign investment fund, Jide Zeitlin, and DP World’s ex-chairman, Sultan Ahmad bin Sulayem, on possible shipping terminals in Lagos and Badagry. Sulayem resigned from DP World on February 13, 2026 amid fallout from the revelation of his intimate friendship with Epstein.
DP World’s leadership was reluctant to invest in an industrial zone in Nigeria unless they could own the surrounding port outright, and talks with previous Nigerian presidents, since 2005, had led nowhere. Zeitlin informed Sulayem that he was close to then-President Muhammadu Buhari and billionaire shipping magnate Gabriele Volpi—the owner of Intels, Nigeria’s largest logistics company, which services the country’s massive oil & gas sector. Epstein, in turn, offered to involve Kathryn Ruemmler, former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Ruemmler recently announced her resignation as chief legal officer of Goldman Sachs.
Sulayem and Epstein worked together for more than a decade, cultivating a friendship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates long before the Abraham Accords agreement in 2020. Zeitlin wrote to Epstein in September 2018, after Djibouti nationalized DP World’s main hub in East Africa, “I hope your pal’s sojourn in Tel Aviv … was more effective than his efforts on the African continent.” After Epstein’s death, DP World acquired a controlling stake in a Nigerian logistics provider in 2022 and began expanding its footprint in Lagos as of last year.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) wants officials to look abroad regarding Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) husband, Tim Mynett, and his failed business ventures.
Comer wants the House Ethics Committee investigation to look at countries such as Somalia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the New York Post reported Saturday.
The news comes after Omar’s net worth increased from $51,000 to $30 million in one year with the surge of wealth linked to two of Mynett’s businesses. However, Omar has said people were falsely claiming she was worth millions and pointed the finger at conservatives who she said were unfairly targeting her, per Breitbart News.
According to the Post, “Mynett’s investment firm Rose Lake Capital wanted to build solar panels in Africa and his main business partner received a $10,699 air ticket to Dubai after talks about a deal there.”
The outlet continued:
Comer’s committee initially spearheaded the probe and in a Feb. 5 letter to Mynett, demanded he turn over “all documents and communications” by anyone affiliated with either Rose Lake Capital LLC or his failed California winery eStCru LLC related to travel “to the United Arab Emirates, Somalia or Kenya, or travel undertaken to solicit business connected to those countries. This includes the dates of travel, the individuals who traveled, and the stated purpose of each trip.”
The deadline for Mynett to respond is Thursday.
Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie named the Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the individual Jeffrey Epstein had emailed about a “torture video”.
Sulayem is chairman and CEO of DP World, a major global logistics firm based in the UAE. Newsweek has contacted DP World’s media office via email for comment.
The emails were released by the Department of Justice in the Epstein files, but one sender’s name was redacted. Lawmakers have been able to view the unredacted files.
Epstein sent an email on April 24, 2009, that said: “where are you? are you ok , I loved the torture video”
The recipient’s email address and name were redacted.
But Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the recipient was identified in the file EFTA00666117, which names “Sultan Bin Sulayem” while redacting the email address.
The nature of the “torture video” is not known.
They replied a day later to say: “I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may”
Did Rodríguez betray Maduro?
Now that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has been captured by US forces and taken to the US to answer for the alleged crimes he is charged with, many are keeping an eye on the ‘day after’ in the South American country.
Many are surprised that Caracas will not be led by Venezuela’s opposition leader and Nobel Prize Winner María Corina Machado, but rather by Maduro’s Vice-President, Delcy Rodríguez.
But reports have arisen that may solve this apparent puzzle.
Secret meetings are said to have been held in Doha, UAE, involving Rodríguez, a senior member of the UAE royal family serving as a mediator, and members of the Donald J. Trump administration.
The Telegraph reported:
“Ms. Rodríguez had reached out to Washington to present herself as a ‘more acceptable’ alternative to the Maduro regime. She now rules Venezuela with the approval of Mr. Trump.
Details of the meeting have fueled suspicions that the removal of Mr. Maduro was an inside job, planned to leave a president in power who can manage a transition without dismantling the state completely and causing turmoil and riots.”
The World Economic Forum (WEF), long known for promoting centralized influence over global governance, is now stepping into the heart of emerging technology regulation.
In partnership with the United Arab Emirates, the WEF has launched the Global Regulatory Innovation Platform (GRIP), a two-year initiative aimed at shaping how artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies will be governed worldwide.
While framed as an effort to help governments keep pace with fast-moving innovation, GRIP positions the WEF to exert significant pressure over national regulatory demands. The project’s stated deliverables include a Global Regulatory Playbook, a Regulatory Future Readiness Index, and a Global Regulatory Innovation Hub, all of which are designed to influence how states craft their policies around new technologies.
“Innovation moves fast. Regulation must too,” said Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum. “GRIP enables governments to co-create policy frameworks that are agile, anticipatory, and ready for the technologies shaping our future.”
But behind the rhetoric of agility and inclusivity lies a deeper concern: the WEF’s expanding role in pushing specific regulatory frameworks that mirror its long-standing agenda of tightening control over digital speech.
This is not a neutral facilitator stepping in to help governments. It is a well-connected body with a record of advocating for top-down approaches to information governance, particularly in the world of online content.
In recent years, the WEF has frequently called for greater regulation of the internet, framing free expression concerns as secondary to the need to combat misinformation and “harmful content.”
These calls have often aligned with proposals to give tech companies and governments more authority to define and suppress disfavored narratives. GRIP now offers the WEF another vehicle to embed those priorities into the very structures governing AI development and deployment.
According to reports out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), biometrics are gaining an ever more prominent place in local law enforcement’s activities, and the type of technology involved is also getting ever more fine-grained.
Accuracy aside – but apparently, the way you walk – as interpreted by mass surveillance technology – can now be used as an incriminating piece of evidence against you in this country.
As always with these stories, one wonders how in the world the police ever managed to do their job for centuries (as they have done) without relying on invasive and controversial technologies like this – but that is not the question most media outlets are willing to “bother” with just now.
Instead, we’re hearing from one of the Emirates, Dubai, that the thing with biometric surveillance of the population – handily justified as something positive, when there’s a criminal case that can be attached to the practice – has now gone well beyond fingerprinting, facial recognition, and such.
Hellbound and Down 