Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
YEMEN. SAUDI ARABIA. The Houthis vibe-code an attack on Aramco.
ISRAEL. IRAN. Speculation of a pre-midterms strike returns.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Kyiv hits refineries as Washington halts support.
THE BALKANS. Greece isn’t the only place for shady Americans.
KOREAN PENINSULA. Trump’s obsession with Kim has Seoul searching.
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YEMEN. SAUDI ARABIA. Khat and mouse-click
The Houthis vibe-code an attack on Aramco.
A Saudi Aramco operations centre was struck with a ballistic missile late Tuesday after Saudi-backed forces hit a Houthi oil depot in Yemen. Anthropic said “threat actors based in northern Yemen” had used Claude to develop guided weapons.
INTELLIGENCE. Whether the Houthis used AI to improve their missiles, the fact that a sanctioned militia has now evaded US-provided air defences on several occasions has outweighed the news that Riyadh raised its oil output by 2 million barrels a day last month from August. Brent oil is back above $106, and even recent gains by Saudi-aligned forces in retaking the Bab-el-Mandeb strait – plus reports of another Iran-Oman deal – have failed to calm nerves.
FOR BUSINESS. The role of AI is likely secondary to the evident gaps in Western missile defence systems. The Houthis could have just as easily obtained Russian or Chinese radar-evading technology via Iran. And though Donald Trump denies such a link, similar systems were used to take out invaluable US positions across the Gulf in the early days of the war. It suggests that even if more Patriot interceptors could be produced, they may soon be obsolete.
ISRAEL. IRAN. The Pickaxe of Damocles
Speculation of a pre-midterms strike returns.
Iran had recently built fortifications around its alleged nuclear storage sites at Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz, the Wall Street Journal said. Axios claimed Trump had discussed a launching a "large-scale" operation with Benjamin Netanyahu.
INTELLIGENCE. Trump said Tuesday he was losing patience with Iran, but he