WarFronts Weekly 5.15.2026: Friday Blitz.

15.05.2026

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Saudi, Emirati Secret Strikes on Iran Revealed:

This week, the Wall Street Journal published a report revealing alleged airstrikes against Iran by the United Arab Emirates, including at least one attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island. While the initial report confirmed Emirati activity that analysts had suspected for weeks, it also opened the floodgates to a series of other revelations that may help to reshape the balance of power in and around the Persian Gulf.

According to WSJ, Emirati strikes on Iran began in mid-March, and continued until just prior to the US announcement of a ceasefire with Tehran. Per one source interviewed for the report, “The U.S. wasn’t upset by the attack, as the cease-fire hadn’t yet settled into place, and it has quietly of the U.A.E. and any other Gulf states that want to join in the fight”. After the report’s release, the Emirates declined to comment, but current and former US officials confirmed the strikes to the New York Times.

One day after the WSJreport, Reuters published its own exclusive report, citing Western and Iranian officials, that alleged that Saudi Arabia had launched “numerous, unpublicized strikes on Iranin retaliation for attacks carried out in the kingdom during the Middle East war”. Reuters detailed a series of strikes against unknown targets in late March, in direct, proportional response to Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia. Like the UAE, Saudi officials did not comment on the report when asked, but again, US sources confirmed the strikes.

According to Reuters, Saudi strikes extended beyond Iranian soil, with a separate sequence of attacks targeting Iraq-based, Iran-linked militias during the war. Those attacks focused on militia targets near the Saudi-Iraqi border, after those militias launched missiles and drones against Saudi targets and installations. The outlet also indicated that rocket attacks were launched via Kuwaiti territory at least twice, also against Iran-linked militias, although the attacks could have been launched by Kuwait or the US military.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he had personally traveled to the Emirates during the war, for a secret meeting with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. The UAE denied the visit, although Israel and the Emirates have enjoyed deepening security and intelligence ties for years. On Tuesday, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed that Israel also provided Iron Dome batteries to the UAE.

Taken together, the new revelations underscore an ongoing security re-orientation across the Persian Gulf. After decades building high-tech, but inexperienced and inefficient boutique militaries via foreign imports, regional leaders are exploring a return to practical military preparedness and expansion, and diversifying weapons imports to increase utility and reduce dependence on Washington.

At the same time, the Emirates’ growing partnership with Israel underscores a widening divide between the UAE and most other Gulf states, with some experts suggesting that the region may be moving to a new cold war. For more information, WarFronts has been tracking and detailing these changes for months prior to the Iran conflict; see here and here.

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Around the World:

Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping issued a warning to the United States during a bilateral summit with US President Donald Trump on Thursday, stating that China and the US could enter open conflict over Taiwan if the island’s status is not managed properly by the two global superpowers. The comments represent an unusually stark position for China to stake out during a key summit, and reflect Xi’s willingness to openly challenge US security commitments to Taipei. In contrast to Xi’s position, US readouts largely avoided mentioning Taiwan, in what some Taiwanese figures are likely to interpret as a tacit concession to Beijing. WarFronts covered China’s Taiwan posture in depth on Wednesday, here.

Russia launched a large-scale daytime drone attack targeting western Ukraine on Wednesday evening, with drones impacting critical infrastructure and killing at least six. Earlier in the evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Russia had already launched at least eight hundred drones since midnight that day; Zelenskyy later indicated that Russia also utilized missiles in its later attack. In total, Russia launched over 1,500 drones by late Thursday along with fifty-six missiles, killing at least eleven civilians. Among other targets, Ukraine’s railway infrastructure was hit dozens of times and Kyiv was damaged in over twenty locations, in strikes shortly after US President Donald Trump arrived for a visit to China—as Zelenskyy pointed out online.

In Mali, soldiers and their paramilitary allies from Russia’s Africa Corps recaptured several contested zones, including a key border base, after that territory was lost in the midst of a wider offensive by al-Qaeda-linked JNIM insurgents and Tuareg separatists. The territory that Mali has recaptured, however, was taken by the Islamic State in the Sahel, in peripheral land grabs that exploited the nationwide chaos of late April. Territory occupied by JNIM and Tuareg forces remains in their possession, and JNIM continues to carry out attacks and raids in support of a slowly strengthening blockade of the capital city, Bamako.

Israel killed twelve people, including a woman and two children, in airstrikes just south of the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on Wednesday. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, Israel struck seven vehicles, including some on a highway leading to and from Beirut; the strikes are the latest expansion of an anti-Hezbollah offensive that Israel has been unwilling to constrain to the group’s strongholds in southern Lebanon.

Pakistan’s separatist Baloch Liberation Army clashed with security forces in a shootout in the nation’s southwest on Wednesday. Seven Baloch insurgents and five soldiers, including an army major, were killed in the clash. In its official statement on the incident, the Pakistani military accused the insurgents of receiving Indian support. Meanwhile in Pakistan’s northwest, gunmen overnight and killed at least eight Pakistani soldiers, wounding thirty-five, in the fourth insurgent attack of the last several days.

Iran resumed activity in the Strait of Hormuz, boarding a ship anchored off the Emirati coast and steering it toward Iran, while sinking an Indian cargo vessel off the Omani coast in a suspected drone attack. The ship hijacking took place near the Emirati port of Fujairah, the UAE’s only oil export terminal outside the Persian Gulf and a consistent area of Iranian interest. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard indicated that thirty ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz from Wednesday into Thursday, as more nations and companies strike deals with the Iranian government.

The Islamic State claimed credit for an attack in eastern Syria that killed two Syrian Army soldiers, in the group’s first acknowledged, fatal attack on a Syrian government target since February. The attack took place in the province of Hasakeh, where several other soldiers were wounded in an ambush against a bus.

A report by CNN claimed that American CIA operatives have directly participated in several targeted assassinations and other covert attacks on Mexican soil this year, targeting senior and mid-level cartel members. Both the CIA and the Mexican government denied the report, while CNN defended the strength of its claims—including that US operatives orchestrated a car bombing that killed a Sinaloa Cartel operative in late March.

On Wednesday, Nigeria’s military denied claims that it killed at least one hundred civilians during an airstrike on a crowded village market, in the nation’s Zamfara State. Abuja claims that there is no evidence of civilian casualties from the strike, despite detailed accusations by Amnesty International that were corroborated by local media outlets.

Cuba’s nationwide power grid again on Thursday, cutting off the supply of energy to its eastern provinces and keeping Havana in the dark for more than a day. The nation’s government announced that it has now run out of oil reserves, raising pressure to accept a US bailout offer that will clear the way for a wide range of reforms that Washington demands.

Authorities fired gunshots during a session of the Senate of the Philippines during the arrest of Senator Ronald dela Rosa, the chief enforcer to ex-president Rodrigo Duterte during a years-long crackdown against drug dealers and users. Like Duterte, who is on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity, dela Rosa was wanted by international investigators; nobody was hurt at the scene, and dela Rosa fled officers to take refuge in the Senate chamber, where he cannot legally be arrested. He later left the Senate floor without arrest, according to messages sent by his wife; his whereabouts have not been disclosed.

Russia will establish a “full-fledged partnership” with Afghanistan’s Taliban government, after it became the first nation to formally recognize Taliban rule in 2025, according to Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu. The arrangement will include trade, security, humanitarian, and other support from the Russian government.

The United States to temporarily deploy four thousand troops to Poland, widening the scope of American deployment cuts after Donald Trump chose to withdraw troops and critical equipment from Germany. While Trump had previously been engaged in a war of words with Germany’s leader, Poland is a rapidly remilitarizing nation that has met and exceeded Trump’s demands for Europe to take on an increased self-defense burden.

Austria scrambled Eurofighter jets on two consecutive days this week to intercept US military aircraft in Austrian airspace, after Vienna closed its airspace to war-related US overflights during the active phase of the ongoing Iran conflict. On both occasions, the US aircraft in question were U-28 turboprops, a utility plane primarily used by special operations units. Austria is not a NATO member, and demands that all foreign military overflights be approved—typically denying overflights that are judged to be war-related.

Kyrgyzstan has charged the nation’s former security chief, Kamchybek Tashiev, and seven associates with plotting a coup against the nation’s president, Sadyr Japarov. Once such a close Japarov ally that the two were said to rule side-by-side, Tashiev was removed from his post in January, in an apparent attempt by Japarov to tighten his personal grip on power. The Kyrgyz government did not present evidence of a coup plot, and has not yet named Tashiev’s alleged co-conspirators.

The British government has descended into political crisis, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces open revolt from his own Labour Party ministers. Starmer’s internal political pressures are motivated by recent electoral losses, and Labour’s sinking stock among the British public; his likely challenger, Wes Streeting, has advocated expansion of Britain’s defense budget and deeper collective-security commitments to NATO in the face of American threats of expansion or annexation. Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has emerged as a possible alternative challenger.

Latvia’s government lost its ruling majority in the nation’s parliament, two days after its Minister of Defense resigned following impacts by stray Ukrainian drones on Latvian soil. Ukraine has claimed that its drones were targeted with Russian jamming; Latvian air defenses were unable to stop the drones from impacting fuel storage tanks.

After weeks of vote-counting, Peru’s first-round election results have not yet been announced, but already, one of the likely second-round candidates has been implicated in a corruption scandal. A Peruvian prosecutor accused leftist candidate Roberto Sanchez of campaign finance fraud, and requested that Sanchez be imprisoned and disqualified as a candidate.

Political crackdowns continue in the African nation of Chad, where eight opposition leaders were each sentenced to eight-year prison terms at the conclusion of a recent trial. The opposition figures had led the coalition Political Actors Consultation Group, and were arrested in April on charges of insurrection and disturbing public order.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia will deploy its new Sarmat strategic nuclear missile by the end of 2026, finally introducing a relatively modern replacement for many of Russia’s long-range ICBMs. In announcing the forthcoming deployment, Putin made several questionable claims on the missile’s capabilities: a range exceeding 35,000 kilometers, a yield over four times greater than any Western nuclear weapon, and “the ability to penetrate all existing and future anti-missile defense systems”.

Costs for US President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense program are rising sharply, and are now projected to demand $1.2 trillion over a twenty-year period, according to analysis by Washington’s Congressional Budget Office. The sum is a dramatic increase in cost from the estimate of $175 billion that Trump provided to the US Congress in 2025.

The United States Coast Guard signed a $3.5 billion contract to construct five new Arctic Security Cutters, substantially increasing the size of Washington’s Arctic fleet over the next decade. The cutters are the first of a program that is expected to produce a total of eleven ships, with some built in Finland, and others in the US state of Texas.

Peace & Progress:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels and its internationally recognized government will exchange over 1,600 prisoners in an upcoming release, in the largest single prisoner swap since the outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War over a decade ago. The Yemeni government will release 1,100 Houthi prisoners; the Houthis will release 580, including seven Saudi and twenty Sudanese nationals. The two rival governments agreed to allow mutual visits to each other’s detention facilities, and will pursue further exchanges.

Diplomat Nickolay Mladenov signaled a potential shift in the position of Donald Trump’s International Board of Peace in Gaza, suggesting that Hamas may have a political future in post-war Gaza if the group disarms. While Mladenov stressed that Hamas disarmament is of paramount importance, the concession is the first real sign of a political offramp for Hamas members to back down from their current, anti-disarmament negotiating position.

Political reforms continue in Hungary under new Prime Minister Peter Magyar, more than a month after the electoral defeat of autocratic leader Viktor Orban. On Tuesday, Magyar took the unconventional step of granting veto power over legislation to four of his top ministers, in what will be a deliberately imposed check on Magyar’s own power.