US Air Force colonel shot down over Iran recounts 'modern-day miracle'

The Treasury Department targeted Russia’s VTB Bank under Operation Economic Outcast on Monday, accusing the financial institution of providing crucial support to help sustain the Iranian regime.

VTB, which was previously sanctioned in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now faces expanded restrictions designed to cut off its global networks.

In a statement the Treasury said that over the past three years, VTB had established correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions and moved to expand its Tehran presence in January 2025.

The bank has also taken steps to move billions in frozen Iranian assets and created a ruble-rial settlement system aimed at increasing trade between Russia and Iran.

“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Hezbollah is trying to establish a presence in areas that Israeli forces have not entered beyond the Yellow Line in southern Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post reported Monday.

Citing Israel Defense Forces Northern Command sources, the outlet said some pockets had not previously been entered by Israeli forces because they were either surrounded by secured zones or did not pose an immediate threat.

Hezbollah views these areas as easier targets for strategic expansion.

The Hezbollah push comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stern warning Monday: "If you haven't learned the lesson by now, and you choose to attack us again, you will suffer even heavier blows." 

The Saudi Arabian East-West oil pipeline, which was struck and closed last week amid an escalation in regional hostilities, will be back online “soon,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg Television on Monday.

“I think you’ll see that pipeline running back soon,” Wright said.

“They’ve been very carefully assessing what the damage was and what needs to be done, and I think more clarity on that will come out very soon,” he added.

The pipeline was shut down following a drone attack launched from Iraq. The closure cut off a vital artery that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting roughly 4% to 5% of global oil supply.

The pipeline was built during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Tehran's Persian Gulf Straits Authority (PGSA) updated its transit blacklist Monday to include 77 ships it accused of defying Iranian-imposed protocols in the Strait of Hormuz.

To enforce the restrictions, the PGSA warned marine insurers, protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs and classification societies to immediately sever all support for designated ships, according to maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List.

Noncompliant vessels face interception and physical seizure by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval forces.

The escalation followed a weekend attack on a Panama-flagged product tanker. EL Gaia was hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving one seafarer missing.

The change, Lloyd’s List said, raises concerns that Tehran is seeking to “increase pressure on ships defying its transit regime."

Oil prices pared earlier gains Monday after President Donald Trump said Iran wants to reach a deal, easing some of the market’s concern over a prolonged conflict.

U.S. crude and Brent crude were each up about 1% after earlier rising roughly 4% as markets weighed the latest developments in the Iran war.

Trump teased on Truth Social that Iran was seeking a quick agreement with the United States, but he questioned whether he was ready to re-engage.

“The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” Trump wrote Monday. “I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to."

U.S. Central Command highlighted the U.S. Army's Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck as a cargo hauler and a missile launcher in an X post Monday.

The Trump administration has faced criticism for having a weapons arsenal shortage amid the conflict with Iran, but President Donald Trump suggested Monday that he has a report to the contrary.

"I’ve just received a Report that the United States is producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "They are being delivered on a daily basis to our Forces in the Middle East, and beyond.

"Our Defense Company Factories are moving 24/7, while at the same time building, on average, 4 to 5 largescale brand new Plants, each! A primary focus of this production has been Patriots, THAAD Systems, Tomahawks, and other Standard Missile Systems, of which we already have large numbers in stock."

President Donald Trump is vowing to force "countries of the world" to "reimburse" the U.S. for its guarding of the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian aggression on commercial vessels.

"Oil is flowing through the Hormuz Strait," Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. "The Countries of the World, which have been no help to us whatsoever, should, and will, reimburse the United States of America when this SCAM Confligration is all over.

"We are doing it much more for others, than we are for ourselves, and we have been for Generations!"

Molavi Yusef Gorgij, a senior Sunni Muslim cleric, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in southeastern Iran on Monday, Iranian state media outlet IRNA reported.

Gorgij "was active in the fight against divisive elements and Zionism," a local governor told IRNA.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is pressing for more refined fuel exports from the Middle East as disruptions in Russia and tighter refinery capacity add pressure to global gasoline and diesel markets, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

“We want to see even more come out of the Middle East,” Wright said in a Bloomberg interview, adding that exports from the region are already increasing and should continue to rise.

Wright said Russia, once a significant diesel exporter, is currently exporting none and has shifted from being a small gasoline exporter to a meaningful importer.

He also pointed to refinery closures in California, blaming Democratic climate policies for tightening U.S. capacity.

Wright said the administration remains focused on expanding energy production and predicted further progress on both output and prices despite the ongoing disruptions.

U.S. forces have redirected 101 commercial vessels as part of the American blockade against Iran, U.S. Central Command said in a post highlighting continued naval enforcement operations.

CENTCOM released an image showing a U.S. sailor signaling to the pilot of an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, which is continuing operations tied to enforcement of the blockade.

The Pentagon announced a $450 million investment Monday in The Elmet Group to expand U.S. tungsten processing capacity, a move aimed at strengthening the defense industrial base as the Iran war puts added pressure on military supply chains.

"This investment reflects the Department's commitment to rebuilding critical industrial capacity in the United States," assistant Secretary of War for industrial base policy Mike Cadenazzi wrote in a statement. "Expanding domestic tungsten processing will strengthen supply chain resilience, support high-quality manufacturing jobs, and reinforce the production base behind essential defense systems."

The investment will support production of tungsten and molybdenum, materials used across missiles, munitions, submarines, aircraft and other weapons systems.

Elmet supports more than 100 defense programs, including the F-35, Patriot PAC-3, Trident D5, Precision Strike Missile and Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines.

"The Economic Defense Unit was created to identify critical industrial chokepoints before adversaries can exploit them and before they become battlefield risk," Economic Defense Unit Director George K. Kollitides II said.

"Tungsten is essential to the systems that protect American warfighters and sustain deterrence, and this investment helps secure a domestic processing capability the United States cannot afford to leave exposed. By pairing targeted Department support with a disciplined preferred equity structure, we are strengthening the supply chain behind more than 100 defense programs while protecting taxpayers and delivering for the joint force."

The funding will also establish what the department said will be the only independent ammonium paratungstate facility in North America, addressing a major processing bottleneck.

U.S. officials said China currently dominates global supply of both materials, accounting for an estimated 85% of tungsten and 40% of molybdenum.

Oil prices surged more than 3% on Monday as attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and shipping routes intensified fears the Iran war could further disrupt global crude supplies.

Brent crude rose $3 to $107.61 a barrel after touching $108.65, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate climbed $2.48 to $102.53.

The latest jump followed a drone attack that temporarily shut Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, a critical route used to move crude from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea while bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

The outage could threaten up to 4% of global oil supply if it persists, with inventories at the Red Sea port of Yanbu sufficient to cover only about five to seven days of exports.

The pressure comes after Brent gained roughly 9% last week as attacks escalated across the region, pushing the global benchmark above $100 a barrel for the first time since July.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The United States blocked Iran’s nuclear chief from attending this week’s U.N. atomic watchdog conference in Vienna by opposing a sanctions exemption that would have allowed him to travel, drawing protests from Tehran and Moscow.

"The cancellation and so-called legal justification advanced for it are a stark indication of a political act and advanced formal politicization of this organization," Iran's ambassador to the IAEA told the conference.

Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, had been expected to attend the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, but Austria revoked his visa after a U.N. sanctions committee denied a travel exemption.

U.S. Ambassador Preston Wells Griffith III said his country had objected in New York to an exemption being granted, and that was why the application was denied.

"The United States objected to the exemption request, which per the rules of the U.N. sanctions committee resulted in the U.N. Security Council denying the request," he said.

"His [Eslami's] participation would have only resulted in Iran exploiting IAEA proceedings as a stage for propaganda while sidestepping substantive cooperation, undermining the credibility of the very body charged with verifying its nuclear commitments."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are continuing to rise despite the war with Iran, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, offering a fresh sign that Washington is making progress restoring traffic through the critical energy chokepoint.

"The trend in that seven-day rolling average has been going up and will continue to go up," Wright said at a news conference at a meeting for the U.N. nuclear watchdog Monday, adding that a peak of 17 million barrels in one day he cited Sept. 1 was in fact higher: "There was one ship not counted. It turned out it was almost spot on 18 million barrels that day."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Iran has identified 77 vessels it says violated its rules for navigating the Strait of Hormuz, threatening them with fines, detention or confiscation as shipping through the key oil chokepoint remains severely disrupted by the war.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority published the updated list Monday and warned insurers, P&I clubs and classification societies against providing services to the vessels, Reuters reported.

The authority said ships that cooperate with its requirements would be removed from the list.

The warning comes as concerns over global energy supplies deepen following attacks around major oil transit routes in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Commodity vessel traffic through Hormuz fell to single digits per day over the weekend, according to preliminary ship-tracking data cited by Reuters, below a 10-day average of 14 transits.

Those figures do not include ships that have crossed with their Automatic Identification System transponders switched off to avoid detection, which U.S. Central Command and the Trump administration have long contended is the case.

Reuters contributed to this report.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday there are no plans for uranium enrichment in Saudi Arabia, a notable clarification as nuclear cooperation and regional security remain under scrutiny during the Iran war.

The comment in Vienna comes as concerns over nuclear proliferation have sharpened amid the conflict with Iran and renewed focus on civilian nuclear programs across the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has pursued plans to develop nuclear energy, but domestic uranium enrichment has long been one of the most sensitive issues in any potential nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington.

Reuters contributed to this report.

An Air Force colonel shot down over Iran survived a terrifying fall, three broken bones and a two-day enemy manhunt after turning to God as his damaged parachute sent him plunging toward the desert.

The colonel, identified only by his mission call sign "Bravo," revealed in a new interview with CBS News’ "60 Minutes" how a desperate prayer began an extraordinary 50-hour fight to make it home alive.

"At one point when I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen," Bravo said in his first public account of the April ordeal. "So I paused, right then, and I prayed, ‘Lord, your will be done. But if I’m getting through this, I need help.’

The colonel was the weapons systems officer seated behind the pilot of an F-15E Strike Eagle operating under the call sign Dude 44 when an Iranian shoulder-fired missile struck the aircraft April 2, according to CBS News.

The two-man crew had been assigned to attack industrial facilities tied to Iran’s drone and missile program near a mountainous region south of Isfahan, U.S. Central Command leader Adm. Brad Cooper told the outlet.

"We had air superiority, but clearly we weren’t flying over Kansas," Cooper said.