Sanaa, 9 August

Yemen's Houthis said they attacked an oil facility Sunday in southwestern Saudi Arabia, the latest attack by the Iranian-backed rebels on the kingdom.

Meanwhile, Iran has made new demands about the restart of negotiations and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Pentagon is pressing the US defence industry to accelerate production of weapons.

Here's a look at developments across the Middle East on Sunday. Full coverage can be found here.

Houthis target Aramco refinery

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Yahya Saree, a military spokesperson for the Houthis, said they targeted an Aramco refinery in the city of Jazan with a drone. The attack was in response to Saudi drones' breaching Yemen's airspace over the provinces of Hajjah and Saada, he said.

Early on Sunday, the Saudi Energy Ministry reported a fire at a facility belonging to the Aramco refinery without casualties. The ministry said the fire was extinguished but it didn't describe its cause.

Sunday's Houthi attack is the latest in a series of missile and drone attacks that targeted Saudi Arabia and its shipping in the Red Sea.

A Yemeni government official said Sunday that the Houthis also attacked a crucial port on the Red Sea.

Fayed al-Noman, assistant undersecretary of the information ministry, said the Houthis fired missiles and drones on the Mocha port. It's one of the main ports under Yemen's internationally recognised government, renovated in recent years to handle shipping that avoids the Houthi-held ports in Hodeida.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

The escalation threatens to reignite Yemen's civil war more than four years after a 2022 truce stopped major fighting in the impoverished Arab country.

Iran: Negotiations with US “cannot resume” until conditions met

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Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said an “exchange of messages through intermediaries” is continuing with the United States, but that doesn't constitute negotiations.

“From our perspective, negotiations cannot resume until the violations of the memorandum of understanding have ended and the United States has remedied the provisions of the memorandum that it violated,” he said.

He added that negotiations with Oman about “new maritime routes” through the Strait of Hormuz were “in the final stages.”

“This, however, does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen," Araghchi said. "An agreement on the routes may be reached, but reopening the strait is subject to a number of other conditions, which have been conveyed through intermediaries.”

Iran says the strait won't open until the US corrects' its behaviour

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Similarly, Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council has said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour,” issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway.

Iran's state broadcaster published the statement by the council's secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

The United States must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The US must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.

The US, which has wanted an acceptable deal first on the strait before ending the blockade, had no immediate comment. According to the interim deal signed in June, a schedule to end sanctions and plan on compensation would be part of the final deal, and negotiations would address frozen assets.

According to the US Central Command, the blockade has redirected 53 commercial vessels, disabled two, and boarded two through Saturday.

Pentagon pushes boost in weapons production

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Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Saturday that the department was actively focused on boosting munitions acquisitions to provide “the weapons our warfighters need at the pace the threat demands.”

The war with Iran has used up more of the US military's already diminished stockpiles of advanced missile interceptors, says a new analysis from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Parnell said the push for speedier delivery was part of a broader modernisation effort that predated the five-month-old conflict.

Details emerge about potential Iran-Oman deal

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The Strait of Hormuz, crucial to global supplies of oil and natural gas, was considered an international waterway before the war.

But Iran and Oman are working to finalise a temporary deal that would reopen the strait with ships entering the strait through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman, according to two people familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.

Ships would cross the strait without paying fees or tolls during the interim period.

The agreement is designed to restore an earlier, separate agreement between the US and Iran and restart a 60-day clock for the two countries to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program.

According to the two people who spoke about the talks, the deal is endorsed by members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and expected when finalized to be jointly announced by Iran, Oman, the US, and the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations. But the people stressed the terms could still change before the deal is final.