The USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group and the Makin Island force have left San Diego, a U.S. official told Al Jazeera, as the United States reportedly sends a third aircraft carrier strike group and an amphibious force carrying 2,000 Marines to the Middle East. President Donald Trump has signaled he expects to resume strikes on Iran after the November midterm elections. The military buildup continues as diplomatic efforts stall, with renewed bombing hanging over people in the region.
The military buildup
The Wall Street Journal reported that the full buildup is expected to be complete by November and that Trump recently told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran that month.
The election calendar hasn’t changed the reported plan. Trump has signaled strikes after the November midterm elections, while the military deployment is expected to be complete by November. The article reports no electoral or legislative measure that has resolved the conflict or altered the stated plans for military action.
The war is in its eighth month. Indirect talks have stalled. Washington rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade, keeping oil prices above pre-war levels. The blockade and stalled negotiations leave people beyond the negotiating rooms to bear the costs of government decisions, including higher oil prices.
Claims, sanctions and a tanker fire
On Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen accused the Iran-backed Houthis of carrying out a drone attack on a Medina power station supplying the Prophet’s Mosque. Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said the strike on the Taibah distribution station knocked one transformer out of service but left the wider grid intact.
A Houthi military staff member told the Saba news agency the accusation was a “lie” intended to cover up Saudi Arabia’s failure to substantiate an earlier claim that the Houthis targeted Mecca, the Muslim holy city. The account reports competing claims; it doesn’t independently establish who carried out the alleged attack.
The U.S. Treasury on Thursday sanctioned Iran’s auto and rail sectors, including state-owned rail firms and suppliers in the UAE, Hong Kong, Turkey and Indonesia. It also targeted the A7 network, a Russia-linked financial channel that Treasury says Iran uses to evade sanctions. The measures reach beyond state-owned companies, covering suppliers in several locations.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X on Thursday that Iran loaded “ZERO crude oil” onto tankers in September. That’s Bessent’s statement, not an independently attributed figure in the report.
United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said an unknown projectile struck a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, causing a fire. The crew was safe. The report doesn’t identify who fired the projectile.
Diplomacy without a breakthrough
Diplomatic efforts to end the war appeared deadlocked. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly ordered Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s delegation to leave New York earlier than planned after Qatari-mediated indirect talks failed to produce a breakthrough. The report described the move as an unusual diplomatic rebuke and said it underscored mistrust between the two countries.
The account reports military deployments, sanctions, stalled talks and accusations from armed and state-backed actors. It doesn’t describe a grassroots response, mutual-aid effort or community-led negotiation. Instead, the reported moves show governments and military coalitions making decisions whose consequences reach well beyond the officials issuing statements.