The US president has faced several plots on his life both at home and abroad, Maira Butt reports

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has warned that the US military has enough assets to maintain a naval blockade of Iran “indefinitely”, as talks with Tehran hit an impasse over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as ​we have, and we’ll continue to,” Hegseth said, adding that he is advising president Donald Trump to keep applying economic pressure on Iran.

His statement comes as Iran said it could deliberately prolong the war with the US until Trump leaves office, in order to send a message that attacking the country has lasting consequences.

Mohammad Reza Naghdi, senior adviser to the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said dragging out the war would show any future US administration that “there is a cost” to hostile endeavours against Iran.”We have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security,” he told PBS NewsHour.

An extraordinary operation to transport Trump onto a military plane in Ankara in a catering truck was prompted by a warning from Israel of a potential Iranian assassination attempt. But with the CIA saying they had ‘low confidence’ in the intel, experts tell Maira Butt that the relationship between the allies is under increasing strain

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, reported in a post on X that gas prices have never gone above $4 per gallon after August 12 in any year.

On Wednesday morning, the average fuel price was just over $4 per gallon. The last time fuel cost nearly that much around mid-August was in 2022 when the national average gas price was $3.98 per gallon.

Egypt and Bahrain have condemned an alleged Iranian attack on two United Arab Emirates ships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz.

Egypt this morning said the attack threatened security and freedom of navigation. It expressed solidarity with the UAE and called for restraint, de-escalation and respect for international law to maintain security.

Bahrain’s foreign ministry this morning called the strike an “Iranian terrorist attack” that violated international law and rules governing freedom of navigation.

Desperate sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump overboard during an extended deployment in the Middle East, their families say.

The aircraft carrier, crewed by around 5,000 sailors and Marines, has been deployed since November 21 but more lately has been supporting U.S. military operations in the war with Iran. The deployment had been expected to end in May but has been extended with no current return date, families told The Military Times.

At least one government soldier was killed and another critically wounded in clashes with the Houthis in the mountainous province of Taiz, Yemeni military officials said.

The fighting came as part of a spate of recent Houthi attacks on government-held areas across the country. Dozens of government troops have been killed since last week, the Yemeni military said.

The Houthis also said they launched another drone attack on an Aramco oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials did not immediately comment on the reported attack in the city of Jazan.

Last weekend, the Houthis fired drones at the refinery, where the Saudi energy ministry reported a fire but no casualties.

An extraordinary operation to transport Trump onto a military plane in Ankara in a catering truck was prompted by a warning from Israel of a potential Iranian assassination attempt. But with the CIA saying they had ‘low confidence’ in the intel, experts tell Maira Butt that the relationship between the allies is under increasing strain.

Shipping traffic at the Strait of ​Hormuz fell below the monthly average towards the end of the week due to volatile sentiment between the United States and Iran, with both ⁠countries making competing claims over its control.

The Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management”, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit said. Meanwhile, the US said it ​could ⁠maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely and would ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran as ⁠ceasefire talks have floundered.

Commodity vessel transits at Hormuz picked ​up ⁠slightly yesterday with nine ships crossing, but ‌remained lower than the month’s daily average of 12, based on Kpler data in August so far.

Iran has been mocking Donald Trump on social media after it was revealed that he secretly switched aircraft while returning from Turkey over an alleged assassination threat from Tehran.

Iran’s embassy in South Africa, in a post on X, said Trump “will be hidden in a trash can before long”.