US-Saudi joint strikes, OpenAI's rogue agent and Japan quake
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Hi, I'm Elena Casas in London. It's Wednesday, July 29th. Today, a new escalation in the war as the US and Saudi Arabia launch strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq. Japan's emergency services race against time to find earthquake survivors.
What triggered the US-Saudi strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq?
And we reveal the open AI agent that went rogue compromised more companies. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Saudi Arabia has waded into the Iran conflict, carrying out strikes alongside the US against Iran-backed militias in Iraq. It's the first time Iran-backed groups in Iraq have been targeted. Saudi says its strikes were in response to drone attacks on its oil facilities. To understand what that all means, here's Reuters foreign policy correspondent Don Durfee in Washington DC.
Well, Iran has really expanded this conflict, and it still has militia around the region that are aligned with it. Most notably the Houthis, but also some militia in Iraq. The Houthis, of course, have been striking Saudi oil facilities, but there have also been strikes from the Iranian-aligned militia in Iraq. And they've been sending drones over, and they've been hitting Saudi oil facilities as well. So Saudi had previously been striking back against the Houthis, And now they're striking the Iraqis. And it's notable that the U.S. didn't participate in the strikes against the Houthis, but they are joining these retaliatory strikes against the Iraqi militia. It's not entirely clear why that is, but it is worth remembering that during the Gaza conflict, Trump had secured essentially a separate peace with the Houthis, got them to agree not to attack U.S.
forces. So it's not out of the question that perhaps the U.S. are still hoping to maintain that sort of arm's length relationship with the Houthis, but are more willing to strike the Iranians, which is, of course, a show of good faith for the Saudis, who are a close U.S. ally.
Don says the escalation underlines a dilemma for Washington.
Well, clearly the Trump administration would like to find an exit from this conflict as soon as they possibly can. And the question is, do you basically just stop fighting and go home? Or do you try to escalate in such a way that you can have a decisive blow against Iran and kind of force them back to the table? And it seems like the administration hasn't fully made up its mind what it's going to do.
The escalation comes as a Reuters exclusive can reveal that within weeks Iran is expected to receive a first shipment of hundreds of Chinese-made shoulder-fired air defence missile launchers. That purchase is one of Tehran's largest known efforts to strengthen its short-range air defences since the outbreak of the war. Well, the Iran war was at the top of the agenda over in Washington as Trump sat down with Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in town for the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly earlier this month. In life, he was a prominent supporter of both Israel and Ukraine. But there wasn't a warm welcome for Netanyahu from everyone in D.C. Protesters gathered outside for the visit.
This is Rabbi Yisrael David Weiss.
There's an imposter coming to the White House. There is somebody...
who is using the holy star of David. Our State Department reporter Simon Lewis says that Trump wasn't waiting with open arms either.
So ahead of the meeting today, Trump seemed to be pretty irritated by Netanyahu. He was asked about some reporting that had come out on Netanyahu's kind of planned talking points in the meeting and Trump kind of dismissing this and seemingly annoyed that this had come out in the press rather than Bibi just telling him in the meeting. Trump seems to feel that Netanyahu has been, you know, trying to pull him more into the Iran war. Initially, it seems Netanyahu was the one who was at least involved in convincing him to launch the war in Iran. And the relationship has been particularly fraught since then as, you know, it doesn't seem like the war has gone as Trump wanted
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