U.S., Iran resume strikes for first time in a month; China, Russian leaders among those meeting to counter U.S. global influence; and infectious disease screening resumes for first time since pandemic for U.S. troops arriving in South Korea.
1. The United Arab Emirates’ air force intercepted an Iranian drone over its territorial waters Monday, the Defense Ministry said, an attack that comes after the United States and Iran exchanged fire on the weekend, the first significant military action in a month. During the lull in fighting, the U.S. has been ratcheting up economic pressure on Iran with the hope of forcing concessions out of Tehran, including reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz to shipping. After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Iran established a chokehold on the strait, though which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passed in peacetime, slowing ship traffic to a trickle. As the fighting resumed, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed above $90, up about 25% from the start of the war. The incident came after U.S. forces on Sunday struck Iranian rocket launchers on an Iranian island, breaking a lull in fighting in the war that has lasted more than six months.
2. The leaders of China, Russia and India are among the heads of state gathering in Kyrgyzstan this week for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group billed as a counterweight to U.S. global influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are scheduled to attend the events in Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian nation. Multiple one-on-one meetings are scheduled on the sidelines, including one between Putin and Xi on Monday, as well as talks between the Russian leader and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday, the day of the official SCO sessions. Russia, now 4½ years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Iran, six months into a war with the United States and Israel, see the summit as an important platform to strengthen their relations with non-Western partners.
3. The death toll from a Russian strike on a warehouse west of Kyiv, the war’s deadliest attack this year, rose to 38 with four people still missing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday. The Friday night strike on the warehouse, which Ukrainian officials said was storing ammunition, sparked massive explosions and fires that swept through dozens of nearby homes and buildings in the village of Myla. The attack came as Russia has sharply intensified its air campaign recently in the 4 1/2-year-old war, with air raid sirens wailing repeatedly and explosions and the rumble of air defenses resounding across Kyiv throughout the day. Emergency workers continued to extinguish fires and identify and neutralize explosives at the site, Zelenskyy said on social media. At least 52 people were injured, said Tymur Tkachenko, who heads the local regional military administration.
4. Infectious-disease screening is returning for U.S. troops arriving on the Korean Peninsula, reviving a system suspended after the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. Forces Korea and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency signed an agreement Aug. 13 to resume screenings at seven U.S. military-related locations and provide testing, isolation and quarantine when necessary, USFK announced in a news release that day. The agreement applies to passengers arriving aboard U.S. military and military-contracted aircraft but not Defense Department personnel traveling on commercial flights. “There wasn’t a specific event that prompted this,” KDCA spokesman Jae-young Ko told Stars and Stripes in a text message Thursday. “The cooperation had been suspended since COVID-19 and we are now resuming it. This will strengthen information sharing and our joint response to infectious disease threats.”
5. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday launching the process of establishing a U.S. Space Academy, a new federal institution that could educate future Space Force Guardians alongside NASA engineers, scientists and other federal space professionals. Trump announced the academy Aug. 28 during a visit to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, comparing it with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy in Annapolis and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. But Trump did not create another military service academy outright. His order establishes a presidential commission with 120 days to recommend how the academy would operate, where it could be located, what obligations graduates would have and what action Congress would need to take.
- Security