House speaker declares Iran nuclear issue "taken care of"

Follow updates on the war in the Middle East for Thursday, Sept. 17, here. See earlier developments below.

Saudi strikes in Yemen killed one person and targeted three telecommunications towers on Thursday, Houthi media said, in the latest attacks since the Iran-backed rebel group seized control of the entire Red Sea coast.

"Saudi enemy warplanes targeted three telecommunications towers" in Taiz province, while one civilian was killed and another injured in strikes on the town of Abs, Almasirah television said.

On Wednesday, Riyadh accused the Houthis of launching a "cowardly" attack targeting Islam's holy city of Mecca, a claim they denied.

The Houthis have been reporting dozens of daily Saudi strikes since they seized control of strategic coastal areas overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait from Saudi-backed government forces.

Their latest territorial gains cement the hold of Iran and its allies on the two waterways that the wider Gulf, including top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, relies on to ship its oil.

In July, a fragile 2022 truce between the Houthis and the government fell apart after the group welcomed an Iranian plane to Sanaa in defiance of Riyadh's control over Yemeni airspace, setting off a spate of attacks.

They later announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships and territory.

The conflict in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country has forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

The heads of state of Lebanon, France and Jordan will meet Thursday in Paris as part of an effort to drum up support for the struggling Lebanese military.

A donor conference for Lebanon's cash-strapped army was initially set to take place in February, led by France, Saudi Arabia and the United States. However, it was postponed following the eruption of the Iran war and the latest round of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

The Lebanese army has now found itself caught between the Israeli military - now occupying much of southern Lebanon - and Hezbollah. The militant group has refused calls to give up its weapons.

In June, the Lebanese and Israeli governments announced a framework agreement under which Israel would withdraw gradually from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army would assume control, while Hezbollah would be disarmed. Implementation of the deal has stalled.

Thursday's meeting in Paris will center on preparing the ground for a donor conference. It will also focus on the situation in southern Lebanon and plans for an international presence there after the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL expires at the end of the year, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's office said in a statement.

Hezbollah was severely weakened in the last war that ended in November 2024, and Lebanon subsequently elected Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who committed to disarming Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups in the country.

Lebanon has been criticized by Israel and the United States for not taking direct military action to force the militant group to disarm.

Lebanese officials are wary of a confrontation between the army and Hezbollah, fearing it could spiral into a civil war. The government has also insisted it needs a larger and better-equipped military to deploy across Lebanon and win over Hezbollah's supporters who question the army's ability to protect them.

During a midterm campaign appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday night, President Trump again claimed Iran wants to make a deal.

"Hopefully we're toward the end of the war. They want to make a deal. We'll see how that works out," Mr. Trump told the crowd at Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley's rally in the city of Gastonia, a 30-minute drive east of Charlotte.

Mr. Trump has frequently insisted that Iran is looking to make a deal, though negotiations between the U.S. and Iran in recent months have not resulted in a durable deal.

Growing voter concerns over rising prices, tariffs and the cost of fuel, triggered by the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, have presented a challenge for many Republican candidates ahead of the elections in November.

For his part, Whatley showed support for the president's policies, including the current war with Iran. He told CBS News he will always support North Carolinians over his support for Mr. Trump, who said last week that the war with Iran will end "immediately after" the midterms.

"We're going to work every day to try and bring [diesel fuel prices] down there," Whatley told CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes.

When asked Wednesday ahead of his rally whether prices can be brought down quickly without ending the war, Whatley said: "We needed to make sure that Iran did not have nuclear weapons. We've got to make sure that they cannot develop and deploy nuclear weapons. That was what the president has acted on."

Amid the United States' war with Iran, an Iran-linked adversary used American-developed artificial intelligence to try to target U.S. naval forces, according to a report released by Anthropic last week.

The group, which Anthropic did not identify but labeled a "threat actor," used Claude AI to compile open-source information to identify U.S. naval positions and develop targeting recommendations, according to the company. The account was banned and Anthropic shared the information with the U.S. government to disrupt the threat, it said.

Scenarios like this could become increasingly common, experts said, as America's adversaries turn to AI to boost military operations.

Anthropic's findings are consistent with how Iran has been using technology to support its strategic objectives, including in its conflict with the U.S. and Israel, experts said. But, the report sheds light on how increasingly capable AI models can expedite the once-tedious task of aggregating and analyzing large volumes of publicly available data.

Brent crude, the international standard for oil prices, dropped on Wednesday as some fears eased over the cost of oil.

The cost of a barrel of Brent crude fell to about $105 on Wednesday afternoon, down from $108 on Tuesday.

The prices fell at least in part due to a reassuring outlook from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia. The pipeline, a critical workaround to the Strait of Hormuz being effectively blocked by Iranian strikes, was attacked last week. The strikes were apparently launched by Iranian proxies in neighboring Iraq.

The pipeline carries several million barrels of oil per day from eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea in the west, where it can then be taken out through the Suez Canal.

"The damage assessments are still going on," Wright told Fox Business. "Three pumping stations were hit. Two, maybe not so bad. One, one more significant. So I think we'll know more in the next few days, but it should be up relatively soon."

Regardless, Wright said 18 million barrels of oil and oil products were taken out through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday with assistance from the U.S. military.

"We are pushing now to get more refined products to come out of the Strait of Hormuz," Wright told Fox Business. "So, all my numbers are the combination of the two. The seven-day running average that's always reported — that's the most important number — is today at about 11 million barrels a day between crude and refined products. But that will continue to go up."

A total of 18 million barrels of oil per day would be near prewar levels.

The U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network had convened a meeting of global financial institutions to advance Operation Economic Outcast, its recent push to isolate Tehran and limit its ability to fund the war in the Middle East.

"The event armed financial institutions with the information they need to shut down revenue streams and procurement networks tied to the Iranian regime," Treasury said in a statement.

The Treasury said the event was done to give insight into the facilitators that provide Iran with access to banking relationships.

"Treasury continues to sever every economic lifeline Tehran has left," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "Financial institutions are in lockstep with the U.S. government in support of Operation Economic Outcast, and we will continue to work closely with the private sector in the fight against the murderous Iranian regime."

Following the meeting, the U.S. said that soon "there will be no space for the Iranian regime to rebuild its capacity to inflict terror against America and the world."

The Houthi attacks on critical oil infrastructure are the first test of a new defense pact among Saudi Arabia, NATO member Turkey and nuclear power Pakistan. But officials from Turkey and Pakistan told The Associated Press they have not received a Saudi request for support in response to the Houthis' escalation.

The Turkish official said efforts to "institutionalize" the alliance need to be completed before the pact becomes operational. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

Amid the condemnation of the attempted attack on Mecca, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country and the Saudis stand "unwaveringly, shoulder to shoulder." Turkey's foreign minister expressed solidarity and said no country can "remain indifferent," state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Criticism also came from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, representing over 57 Muslim states, which said the attempt violates the "sanctity of holy sites."

The Houthis immediately denied the claims of targeting Mecca.

"The false claims of the Saudi regime regarding Yemen targeting Mecca are a desperate attempt to rally the peoples," Houthi leader Mehdi Al-Mashat told Al-Masirah TV, which is owned by the Houthis.

This was the second attempted attack by the Houthis against Mecca after the rebels fired a ballistic missile toward the city in 2017, according to Col. Turki al-Maliki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the rebels.

Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, clashed with Houthi fighters near the Saudi border, with AFP footage showing soldiers in armored vehicles and trucks pushing across desert terrain under the crackle of machine gun fire.

The Houthis also released footage on Wednesday of the fighting in the northwestern Al-Jawf area, as well as a video purporting to show the downing of a fighter jet belonging to Saudi Arabia, the group's longtime foe and the Yemeni government's main backer.

The group has recently made major gains in a lightning offensive that Saudi airstrikes have failed to roll back, leaving the Yemeni government scrambling to respond.

"The First Division Emergency Forces are advancing on the Al-Labanat front and, God willing, will reach Houthi positions," Waleed Al-Mahajeri, operations commander of the government's Fifth Brigade, told an embedded AFP journalist on Tuesday.

AFP footage showed the soldiers firing heavy machine guns, artillery and RPGs at distant targets, as well as the bodies of Houthi fighters and entrenchments the government forces said the group had abandoned as they fell back.

"Al-Masariya Hill has been liberated, as has Al-Labanat camp, and the advance is continuing," said soldier Abu Mithaq.

Mahan Air, Iran's largest airliner, has canceled flights to Ankara, Turkey, and vice versa beginning Sept. 21, while flights from Tehran to Muscat, Oman, are canceled starting Sept. 17, according to state-owned ISNA News Agency.

The flights were canceled indefinitely, though ISNA said other airlines were flying those routes as normal.

Mahan Air was hit by devastating sanctions as part of the so-called Operation Economic Outcast program launched by the U.S. The sanctions were announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in July.

"Those who provide financial services, logistics, or commercial support to the IRGC or Mahan Air are helping sustain a terrorist enterprise," Bessent said in a statement at the time. "Treasury will continue to identify them, expose them, and cut them off from the U.S. financial system."

The U.S. announced sanctions on all of the remaining Iranian airlines last week.

Vice President JD Vance said the world would be plunged into an energy crisis if the U.S. decides to end its involvement with the war in Iran and leave the region.

"What I would say to anybody who's frustrated right now is the alternative here, which is the United States effectively says to the Middle East, 'You're on your own,' would mean necessarily a worldwide energy crisis, so long as the Iranians keep on shooting at shipping, which we know that's exactly what they would do," Vance said when calling in Wednesday morning to the All-In Summit, a convention for "thinkers, investors, founders and leaders," according to the group.

Iran began targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz only after the U.S. and Israel began their bombing campaign on Feb. 28. The strait was free to transit up until that point with the Iranian government retaliating against the strikes by effectively closing traffic through the chokepoint for 20% of the world's oil and gas.

"I think the president is taking the responsible course of action," Vance said. "He's protecting America's assets in the region while also ensuring that world energy markets continue to get a supply of oil and natural gas."

Oil and natural gas prices have spiked since the U.S. war with Iran began. Brent crude, the international standard for oil, reached $107 a barrel on Wednesday after falling to $87 on Aug. 25. The price for a barrel had risen to $120 in the early weeks of the war.

The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said Wednesday the issue of Iran getting a nuclear weapon is "taken care of" and now they need to get gas prices down. He also simultaneously blamed Democrats and former President Biden for the high prices.

"Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. That was an important objective of American foreign policy for the last half-century," he said during a press conference where he announced the House would go home until the midterm elections after today. "That's taken care of, and now we got to get gas prices down. But I want to remind you as well: There's another big factor of why gas prices are high. This is the result of bad Democrat policy."

The price for a gallon of regular gas currently costs $4.37, about 30 cents more than a month ago and well over the $3.19 a gallon from a year ago, according to AAA.

"[The Democrats] want to squeeze production of U.S. oil and gas, and that is a disaster for the American people," Johnson said. "And so you have to keep the right people in charge to make sure that your fuel prices come down."

The average price for gas in January 2025, Biden's last month in office, was $3.08, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Sweden expelled an Iranian official Wednesday, the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper reported, after summoning Iranian Ambassador Hojatollah Faghani.

The official was expelled because of activities that were deemed "not compatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," the paper quoted the Swedish government as saying in a press release.

According to the newspaper, Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said Iran had, for a long period, conducted security-threatening activities in and against Sweden, including targeting dissidents, as well as various Jewish and Israeli interests in the country.

Neither the identity nor the role of the expelled individual was revealed by the report.

Videos posted online appear to show debris from a Chinese-made Dongfeng DF-15A short-range ballistic missile found in Yemen for the first time, raising questions over the possible use of Chinese weapons in the war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Yemen's Saudi-backed government forces.

Videos circulating on social media Wednesday show debris with "DF-15A" markings purportedly found in Raghwan district, in Marib province - inside Houthi-controlled territory about 105 miles from Yemen's Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa.

The DF-15A is an advanced version of China's DF-15 short-range ballistic missile, which has a range of up to 500 miles. There have been no confirmed previous reports of the system being exported to any specific Middle Eastern nation.

There was no comment Monday by authorities in Saudi Arabia, China or Yemen about the videos or any use of the Chinese missile in the region.

Saudi Arabia has a history of acquiring Chinese ballistic missiles, but not the DF-15A.

CBS News could not independently verify the videos, which, if confirmed, could reveal a previously undisclosed element of Saudi Arabia's missile arsenal, and mark the first known combat use of a Dongfeng missile in the Middle East.

Borrowing is likely to get more expensive for Americans, and soon, according to economists. The Federal Reserve was expected to raise its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for the first time in more than three years, as the central bank battles stubborn inflation fueled by the Iran war pushing energy prices up.

Some Wall Street forecasters also pencil in one or two additional rate hikes over the next several months.

Despite President Trump's repeated calls for lower interest rates, many economists predict that Fed officials will raise the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points at its Wednesday meeting.

With little progress toward ending the Iran war, some economists predict high energy prices will linger for months, which could push the Fed to further tighten monetary policy as it seeks to curb inflation.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said Wednesday that the group had carried out two military operations against Saudi Arabia targeting a facility belonging to the Saudi state energy giant Aramco in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu, and an air base in the southwest city of Khamis Mushait.

Saree said the operations were carried out in response to what he described as a Saudi escalation against the Houthis. He claimed Saudi forces had conducted more than 450 airstrikes across Yemen in the past week alone.

In a video statement, Saree claimed the strikes on Yanbu - a vital export terminal for Saudi energy products - were "accurate and direct" and caused "large fires and extensive destruction."

He said the second operation "targeted Khamis Mushait air base with a number of ballistic missiles," adding, "the strike was accurate."

Saudi Arabia and the Arab League both condemned an alleged attempted attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Wednesday targeting the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi foreign affairs ministry called it a "cowardly terrorist attack toward the Holy Land," saying it was the second time the Houthis had targeted the city, the first being in July 2017.

"Compromising the security of Mecca and the sanctity of Islamic holy sites is a matter of extreme gravity," Arab League Secretary General Nabil Fahmy said in a statement, applauding the Saudi air force's thwarting of the purported attack.