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WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday announced the approval of a $5 billion sale of bombs, guidance kits and other equipment to Saudi Arabia, which has been repeatedly attacked during the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“The proposed sale will improve Saudi Arabia’s airborne defense capability to counter current and future regional threats, strengthen its homeland defense, and improve interoperability with systems operated by US forces and other Gulf region partners,” the US State Department said in a statement.
The sale will also “support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a Major non-NATO Ally,” the department said.
Saudi Arabia has been targeted with drone and missile strikes by Iranian forces and Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi rebels since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran earlier this year. The State Department has notified Congress of the proposed sale of the bombs to Riyadh, which still needs to be approved by US lawmakers.
Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department said on Friday it imposed new Iran-related sanctions on a small Turkish investment bank and two subsidiaries as part of the Trump administration’s effort to increase economic pressure on Iran.
The entities targeted are Instanbul-based investment bank Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi, asset manager Golden Global Portfoy Yonetimi Anonim Sirketi, and asset leasing company Golden Global Varlik Kiralama Anonim Sirketi, according to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The sanctions put all three entities on the Treasury’s OFAC Specially Designated Nationals list, cutting them off from the dollar-based financial system. Golden Global said it will take action and use legal means against the decision as per international and local regulations.
The US Treasury Department also issued a general license to allow the wind-down of transactions with the sanctioned entities.
In an interview with news outlet America’s Voice News, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the latest action “is code for you are out of business.”
“And we will probably sanction another bank next week, and we are telling the financial system bad actors: ‘We know who you are, you know who you are, it’s over, and our allies are helping with this,” he said.
Golden Global Yatrim Bankasi is the 35th-largest bank in Turkiye by total assets, according to database TheBanks.EU, with total assets of 25,024.68 million Turkish lira ($516.63 million) in 2025.
The Treasury said in a statement that Golden Global was established for the purpose of enabling Iran’s shadow banking network to transfer oil revenues from China to Turkiye, where it could then be converted to cash and gold by money exchangers.
The Treasury said that Golden Global has knowingly offered to provide correspondent banking services to Iranian financial institutions, enabling transactions through accounts controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force and its proxies.
Meanwhile, the United States, Britain, France and Germany are seeking a resolution by the UN nuclear watchdog’s board next week reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years, according to diplomats and the proposed text seen by Reuters.
If passed, the resolution would follow up on one adopted on June 12 of last year declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for not fully cooperating with an investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
Iran has not let International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors return to the bombed sites or verify what remains of its stocks of enriched uranium, some of which was enriched to up to 60 per cent purity, a short step from weapons grade.
A resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation board reporting Iran to the Security Council would also be the culmination of a standoff over IAEA access to those sites, since the board has passed two resolutions in the past year demanding Iran declare its enriched uranium stocks and grant the IAEA full access to verify them.
Concrete action by the Security Council against Iran is unlikely since Tehran’s allies Russia and China are permanent, veto-wielding members.
Two sailors from the US aircraft carrier making a port call to Thailand were sent back to the ship after a drunken altercation, Thai police said Friday.
Police were alerted to a “small scuffle” involving the sailors in the early hours of Thursday near Pattaya’s nightlife hotspot Walking Street, city police chief Colonel Anek Srathongyoo told AFP. The unidentified sailors were not charged as “they did not violate any Thai law”, Anek said. South Korea said Friday it was weighing “contributions” to US security efforts in the Strait of Hormuz provided its own military readiness was not compromised, but noted no decision had been made.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressured ally South Korea to provide help for the war in the Middle East, saying Seoul rejected his request for assistance securing the Strait of Hormuz.
“Contributions to the Strait of Hormuz could be managed within limits that do not compromise military readiness,” a South Korean presidential official told reporters.
“The references made during today’s briefing regarding military contributions—such as combat participation, non-combat roles, and search operations—were merely general descriptions of various options. Please be advised that nothing has been decided yet concerning actual contributions,” the president’s office said in a separate statement.
Fresh economic data on Friday brought US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party good and bad news ahead of midterm elections, with the labour market showing strong growth but record-high diesel prices likely to further fuel inflation.
Employment in the United States grew by 162,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1 percent, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) said.
The price of diesel—used for road hauling, agriculture and construction—hit a new record on Friday, however. The cost of a gallon of diesel is up 55 percent since the Iran war began in late February, according to the AAA motorists’ association.
Stock markets were down on the employment figures, with all eyes on the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate-setting meeting later this month.
Oil prices eased back after surging this week on renewed fighting between the warring sides, further dimming the prospects for a full opening of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic. At around 1530 GMT, Brent North Sea Crude was down 0.4 percent to $95.14 per barrel
Meanwhile, US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by US Senator Ron Wyden and statements given to Reuters, a development that follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East.
The Air Force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. U.S. Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The Army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year.
President Donald Trump said Friday that the Iran war was “small potatoes” for the United States, a day after Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn’t describe the conflict as a war.
“A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing. We did Venezuela, and we did this,” Trump told reporters when asked about Vance’s comments.
Trump told reporters that the United States may hit Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain very soon. Pickaxe Mountain, located near Iran’s heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is a heavily fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes.
A diplomatic source told Al Arabiya English that Pakistan, Qatar and Oman are still in contact with Iran and the US to de-escalate tension. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently held talks with Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, the source said.
Meanwhile, the US Department of State has offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Amir Yaryab, a senior official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command, Al Arabiya English reported.
