Welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the conflict in the Middle East.
Iran and the US held their fire today, handing Gulf shipping and the oil industry a respite from missile strikes as Donald Trump’s UN envoy said the president was “giving talks some space”.
Iran said it had halted retaliatory attacks against Washington’s allies in the Middle East, and US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News that, while forces remained “locked and loaded”, Mr Trump would give negotiations “a little bit of room”.
It comes after two tankers were disabled by US military forces while allegedly attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, the widening war spilt into another flashpoint as Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi terrorists traded air strikes on Saturday, raising fears that fighting is spreading into another critical shipping corridor.
The latest escalation comes just days after the Iran-backed Houthis attacked several Saudi commercial vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — a waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden that carries roughly 5 per cent of global maritime trade.