The United Nations human rights office called on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to release all peaceful activists, including women held for campaigning against a ban on driving even as it was being lifted.

President Trump said Monday that he would meet Iran's leaders “without preconditions” and “anytime they want”, one week after tensions escalated between Washington and Tehran.

The Trump administration is quietly pushing ahead with a bid to create a new security and political alliance with six Gulf Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, in part to counter Iran’s expansion in the region, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The United States has not instituted a policy of regime change or collapse in Iran, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday, saying the goal was still to curb what Washington sees as Iran’s threatening behavior in the Middle East.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for a government to be formed as soon as possible to tackle corruption and poor services as further protests took place in the south of the country on Friday.

A Saudi-led coalition launched heavy air strikes on Yemen’s main port city of Hodeidah on Friday, in an apparent resumption of military operations on the city after the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement attacked two Saudi oil tankers, residents said.

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it was suspending oil shipments through the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandeb strait, one of the world’s most important tanker routes, after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked two ships in the waterway.

The Al Masirah TV said that Houthi movement attacked on Thursday (July 26, 2018) Abu Dhabi airport with a drone.

The Houthis’ Al Masirah TV had said on Twitter that they had targeted a warship named the Dammam off the western coast of Yemen in what the group later said was a missile attack.

The United States is looking to "build some momentum" towards resolving the Gulf crisis ahead of a possible summit in the autumn, a US diplomat said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Iran of consequences "the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered," if it threatens the United States.

The United Arab Emirates was ordered by the highest U.N. court on Monday to immediately allow Qatari families affected by a dispute between the countries to reunite, imposing the measure before it hears the full case filed by Qatar at a later date.

Russia and Qatar have been in discussions about a possible sale of S-400 missile systems to Doha, TASS news agency cited the Russian envoy to Qatar as saying on Saturday.

At least 14 people have been killed in Iraq in two weeks of protests over corruption and lack of public services, a member of the state human rights commission said Monday.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) signed an agreement with Spain’s Navantia to set up a joint venture in the kingdom to build five warships, the state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia expects its crude exports to drop by roughly 100,000 barrels per day in August as the world’s top oil exporter works to ensure it does not push oil into the market beyond its customers’ needs, the kingdom’s OPEC governor said on Thursday.

The Iranian-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen said it had attacked a Saudi Aramco refinery in Riyadh on Wednesday using a drone, but the oil company said a limited fire at the plant was due to “an operational incident”.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday executed seven death row inmates who had been convicted of murder and drug trafficking, state media reported.

Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticized Saudi Arabia over its management of the haj pilgrimage and called for a fresh investigation into a 2015 crush that killed hundreds, Iranian state TV reported on Monday.

About 200 protesters gathered at the main entrance to Iraq’s Siba natural gas field on Monday, police sources said, following more than a week of unrest over poor services sweeping southern cities amid political uncertainty.