Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
IRAN. US bombers are redeployed as a casus belli forms.
YEMEN. SAUDI ARABIA. The Houthis claim another hit.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Attempts to leverage oil prices multiply.
SPAIN. His housing law failed, Sanchez evicts parliament.
BRAZIL. Flavio Bolsonaro surges into the presidential runoff.
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IRAN. Airstripped B-1s
US bombers are redeployed as a casus belli forms.
The US removed its bombers from RAF Fairford. Israeli media said more US troops would soon arrive and that a Flydubai copilot planned to fly a jet into Tel Aviv's business district. The Pentagon raised hazard pay for the first time since 2002.
INTELLIGENCE. RAF Fairford has hosted US strategic bombers since the Cold War. They’ve since returned to the US, from where the bombing runs of Iran were conducted in June 2025. The release of UK terror suspects may have been behind the shift, but any assumed transatlantic rift will be refuted if the bombers end up instead in Diego Garcia, still British territory for now. Reports of an increase in US deployments to Israel accord with news of a third aircraft carrier.
FOR BUSINESS. The US is unlikely to base bombers in Israel or Jordan for the same reason it’s vacated Qatar and Kuwait. Diego Garcia is out of Iranian range and, unlike the UK proper, it’s harder to spot a jet over the Indian Ocean with its transponders off. Donald Trump has pushed out the timetable for escalation, should he choose it, until after the midterms. But in June last year he also gave Iran a two-week timeframe before striking within two days ahead.
YEMEN. SAUDI ARABIA. East-West, drone test
The Houthis claim another hit.
The Houthis claimed to have hit a pumping station on the East-West pipeline and to have captured a key Taiz-Aden road. Yemen’s government claimed to have killed 1,747 Houthi fighters. A meeting of the Mecca Defence Pact was scheduled.
INTELLIGENCE. Both the Houthis and the Saudi-backed administration in Aden could