The Levant Files

Saudi Arabia's airports are under repeated attack, questions are mounting over Iran's role in the Houthi offensive, and commercial vessels are being struck in the waters around the Strait of Hormuz. Two Indian seafarers remain missing after a tanker attack off Oman, while Washington has acknowledged striking a separate commercial vessel as it enforces its blockade of Iranian ports. Across the region, the confrontation is moving through the skies, across contested territory and into the sea lanes on which much of the world's economy depends. By the Editorial Team of TLF TLF Breaking News graphic. AI-generated illustration, not documentary photography of the reported attacks. ● COVERAGE CLOSED | 11 OCTOBER 2026 Saudi Airports Under Fire, Iran–Houthi Links Scrutinised and Tankers Hit Near Hormuz The Levant Files follows the interconnected regional fronts, distinguishing independently established developments from government statements, military claims, int...

139 Dead Between Yemen and Djibouti — And a World That May Forget Them by Tomorrow At least 139 people drowned when a boat carrying 305 capsized off Djibouti. Another 84 are missing. Fifteen of the dead were children. For governments, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is a chokepoint. For the families still waiting for news, it is where their relatives disappeared. TLF SPECIAL REPORT | 11 OCTOBER 2026 By the Editorial Team of TLF The IOM announced the toll on Sunday 11 October. The boat had left Djibouti for Yemen with 305 people aboard and capsized near Guhere, north of Obock, during the night of 8–9 October. The first count was 109 dead. Thirty more bodies were then recovered. The current figures, reported by Reuters , The Guardian and Euronews , are 139 dead and 84 missing. More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals. Fifteen Children Among the first 109 bodies recovered were 52 men, 42 women and 15 children: nine girls and six boys. That breakdown comes fr...

Iran's Kurdish parties are no longer asking only for autonomy in Kurdistan. They want a different Iran: one where power, resources and the running of local life are not settled in Tehran. For most of them the goal is not a smaller Iran. It is a rebuilt one. By the Editorial Team of TLF TLF SPECIAL DISPATCH | 11 OCTOBER 2026 The Kurds Want to Redesign Iran — Not Simply Break Away From It A vision of a future-democratized Iran.  For decades the Kurdish question in Iran came in one frame: rebellion, repression, autonomy, secession. Tehran presents Kurdish movements as a threat to the country's territorial integrity. The movements answer that successive governments have simply refused to recognise their political and cultural rights. That frame no longer fits. Read the programmes of the main Kurdish opposition parties and the demand is bigger. Many are not just asking Tehran to loosen its grip on Kurdish areas. They are asking why political authority should sit i...

Yemen's southern separatists are now fighting in the regional war, and they want something for it. As Saudi Arabia battles the Houthis for the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and counts the dead from a missile strike on Riyadh's international airport, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) is making a political claim. Southern fighters, its leader says, are not dying merely to restore a united Yemeni state. Their victories should bring independence closer. By the Editorial Team of TLF What al-Zubaidi Said The most telling news from Yemen in the past two days is not a missile launch or a captured hill. It is the STC leader tying the fight against the Houthis to the demand for a southern state. South24 reported on 10 October that Aidarous al-Zubaidi has linked the sacrifices of southern fighters at Bab al-Mandeb to the independence struggle. After the deaths of southern personnel, including Colonel Muadh Ali Saleh of the 16th Giants Brigade, he said the reward for those deat...

A senior parliamentary official has reportedly said that support for reconsidering Iran's nuclear doctrine is growing, and a deputy foreign minister has warned that Tehran would answer another military attack differently from anything it has done so far. Neither remark is a formal policy change. Both come as the war with the United States enters another uncertain phase. By the Editorial Team of TLF Iranian media reported the latest remarks on Sunday, 11 October. They are attributed to Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. His exact wording has not been independently verified. Ghashghavi has been among the officials openly asking whether the war has changed the arguments over Iran's nuclear strategy. His position is documented in an earlier interview with Abdi Media , where he said a future religious ruling on nuclear weapons could differ from that of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The ...