Trump's Russian diesel deal, Houthi missiles at Riyadh's airport, and five geopolitical signals for October 10, 2026

Middle East: the IRGC says its tanker campaign now reaches past the Strait of Hormuz

• Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility on Friday for setting an oil tanker ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz and warned that vessels using routes it has not approved will be pursued and "punished" anywhere in the region, not only inside the strait. The Guard's navy said it targeted the engine room and propulsion system of the MV Sun Shine, a tanker belonging to the company Natwit, after the vessel used an unauthorised route through the strait's southern section, causing a fire on board. Tehran's Friday prayer leader, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Javad Ali-Akbari, told his weekly sermon that the strait stays closed until Iran's conditions are met 1.
• Two further commercial ships were hit in the Gulf. The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre reported that an LPG carrier was struck by unknown projectiles on Friday morning 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazira in the United Arab Emirates, starting a fire that was later brought under control, and that an oil tanker north of Qatari waters took several projectiles the previous day, causing casualties in the first such attack in six months 1. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Iran most likely struck a tanker about 51 nautical miles off Qatar's northern coast on October 8, and that the Guard's threat is designed to keep shipping companies following Iranian transit procedures after a vessel has already left the strait 2.
• The International Maritime Organization counted nine ships, mostly crude tankers, struck in the strait or off Oman between October 1 and October 6, and UKMTO logged two more after that. Lloyd's List put the run at 12 attacks between September 28 and October 7, the highest weekly figure since the war began on February 28 3. US Central Command said on Friday that it had cleared the strait's main shipping lanes, removed naval mines from the principal transit routes and declared them open to vessels not in violation of US maritime sanctions on Iran, as President Donald Trump described talks with Tehran as "productive" and said no attack was planned before the November 3 midterm elections 14.

Middle East: Houthi missiles hit Riyadh's airport as Yemen's war widens

• Two Houthi ballistic missile attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on October 8 killed three Saudi civilians, among them a Saudia pilot, Captain Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, wounded dozens more and damaged an aircraft, the General Authority of Civil Aviation said. Airport operations resumed and air traffic returned to normal, Saudi media reported. Earlier in the week the authority said attacks killed three civilians and injured 36 at Abha and King Khalid airports, and Jazan and Najran airports near the Yemeni border were also hit 5.
• The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on October 9 that only airlines it approves will be allowed to land in Riyadh for "humanitarian" purposes, after the group warned aviation companies to avoid Saudi airspace except over Mecca and Medina. Houthi spokesman Omar al-Buakhiti repeated a warning from the day before telling employees of the Saudi oil industry to leave oil sites, and the group's stated terms include an end to Saudi support for the Yemeni government's counteroffensive, the lifting of Saudi controls on Houthi-held ports and airports, war reparations, civil-service salaries and control of Yemen's oil and gas 25. Saudi-led coalition aircraft destroyed three Houthi rocket launchers on Friday, and Houthi media reported Saudi strikes on communications infrastructure in Saada and Sanaa governorates on October 9 25.
• Yemeni government-aligned forces captured Perim Island and recaptured ground around the Bab al-Mandab Strait on October 9, a day after seizing the Jabal Kahbub heights overlooking the waterway, according to the Institute for the Study of War. That removes Houthi artillery and tactical-drone positions within range of the strait, though the group keeps other positions along the Red Sea coast from which it can still reach shipping. Houthi forces have effectively encircled Taiz City and are fighting for Jabal Habashi, 15 kilometres to its south 2. Pakistan's foreign ministry said it now has a "substantial number of forces" in Riyadh under the Mecca mutual-defence pact, Turkey is also deploying, and Saudi Arabia and Yemen's government asked the UN Security Council on Friday to act against the Houthi campaign 5.

Russia-Ukraine: Trump buys Russian diesel as Ukraine's drones reach 2,500 kilometres

• Trump said on Friday that Russia will supply more than 4 million tons of diesel to the United States and world markets after a phone call with President Vladimir Putin: over 300,000 tons immediately, 500,000 tons in November, one million tons "immediately thereafter", and a further three million tons once Russia's refineries allow it. He called lower prices for "our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers" his greatest priority 6.
• The Treasury issued a general licence the same day suspending sanctions on Russian diesel loaded onto tankers as of Friday, running to April 2027 — the first such waiver longer than the standard 30-day window since the Ukraine war began. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia was starting to lift its diesel export restrictions ahead of schedule and could begin shipments to the United States in October. Russia has banned diesel exports since July because Ukrainian strikes on its refineries left it short at home; the International Energy Agency puts the fall in Russian diesel output at about 30% 67.
• Ukraine kept hitting the plants that made the shortage. Its General Staff confirmed a strike on the Omsk refinery, Russia's largest, with capacity of more than 21 million metric tons a year and some 2,500 kilometres from Ukraine's border; President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed a second strike on the Lukoil-owned Ukhta refinery in the Komi Republic, 1,900 kilometres away, hit by An-196 RS drones with a range of about 2,500 kilometres. The Omsk plant has now been struck twice since July 8. On the other side of the exchange, Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia on Saturday morning, killing at least seven people including three children and wounding at least 10, the regional military administration head, Mykhailo Semikin, said; the Associated Press counts more than 55 civilians killed across Ukraine in four days 69.

US-China: a Super Micro contractor pleads guilty over diverted AI servers

• Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, a contractor linked to Super Micro Computer, pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan to four counts, including conspiracies to violate US export controls, to smuggle goods from the United States, to defraud the country and to obstruct justice, in a scheme to export computer servers containing advanced Nvidia AI chips to China, a court filing showed on Friday 10.
• Prosecutors charged Sun in March alongside two others associated with Super Micro, among them co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, a sales manager in the company's Taiwan office, with conspiring to divert about $2.5 billion of American AI technology to China. The indictment dates the scheme from around October 2023 and describes Sun as a broker and fixer who staged "dummy" servers in December 2025 and made false statements to a Commerce Department officer inspecting servers that had already been diverted 10.
• The indictment says Nvidia's B200, H100 and H200 graphics processing units, and the servers carrying them, were subject to the restrictions Washington has placed on advanced AI chip sales to China on national security grounds. Super Micro, which is not named as a defendant, referred to its earlier statements that the case has no effect on its operations and said it had terminated Sun and cut ties with the other defendants this year 10.

Taiwan Strait: Lai marks National Day as PLA sorties jump to 21

• President Lai Ching-te told the National Day ceremony outside the Presidential Office on October 10, the 115th anniversary of the 1911 uprising, that "we are open to exchanges but will not accept subordination" and that "our aim by increasing investment in national defence is not to provoke; rather, it is to deter war". In an address titled "Taiwan's Future: A City upon a Hill, the Salt and Light of the World", he said China presses the island through military and grey-zone activity to change the status quo, welcomed US-China dialogue, and added that there "must be respect for the right of the people of Taiwan to exist" 1112.
• Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense reported 21 PLA aircraft in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on October 10 Taipei time, 13 of them crossing the median line into northern, central and south-western airspace, along with seven PLA Navy ships and two official Chinese ships. The previous window, to 6 a.m. on October 9, recorded two aircraft, five naval ships and two official ships; the window to October 8 recorded three aircraft, six naval ships and one official ship 131415.
• The US State Department called China's maritime actions off Taiwan's east coast "deeply destabilising" and said they only worsen tension, after Reuters reported the first known sighting of a Chinese maritime militia boat in those waters in August. The department urged Beijing to stop pressuring Taiwan and to engage in "meaningful dialogue with Taiwan's democratically elected authorities"; China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has yet to approve a new $14 billion arms package for the island, and Lai's government has set aside a record NT$1.1 trillion, about $34.5 billion, for defence in 2027, more than 3% of gross domestic product 1216.