United Arab Emirates

Tehran, Iran – Iranian authorities have signalled they intend to disrupt an Arab-operated and United States-assisted shuttle system that has enabled more energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz during the US-Israel war on Iran.

With the US naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports in place and sanctions tightening, Tehran has said it will pursue military and diplomatic efforts to put pressure on Washington to submit to its demands regarding reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

This strategic waterway, through which roughly a fifth of global oil and gas flowed before the war, has been largely closed to shipping following Iranian attacks since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28.

But the US Navy has reportedly opened up a route so Gulf states can export oil and other commodities amid an energy crisis.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei responded on Sunday night, saying the shuttle system is now an explicit target for Tehran.

Rezaei claimed that the US Central Command, with the assistance of the United Arab Emirates military, was using smaller vessels to transfer oil to larger tankers. He claimed Iran had been striking five or six participating vessels nightly for weeks.

“You are smuggling, but the strait is under Iran’s control, and we manage it,” he asserted.

This appeared to be a taunt aimed at US President Donald Trump, who has hailed energy exports at times reaching pre-war levels over recent weeks.

Rezaei appeared to give the impression that Iran wants to have lasting authority over Hormuz, and promised a harsh response if Iran’s energy and civilian infrastructure were attacked again.

His threats appeared aimed at Arab regional states, with a warning that digital infrastructure could be targeted. Rezaei threatened US-linked cables, data centres and artificial intelligence facilities in the UAE and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Rezaei also accused Saudi Arabia of helping the US move oil around Iran’s restrictions. But he did not threaten a direct attack against Riyadh – which is currently being targeted by Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthis.

In early September, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened tankers at ports and anchorages in Kuwait and Bahrain, citing US attacks on Iranian tankers. It accused both countries of complicity through hosting US armed forces.

Iran has claimed the US accepted some of Tehran’s seven conditions for the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and ending the war. But Tehran insists that a deal will only materialise when all its demands are met.

Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, said this reflects Tehran’s apparent assessment that it is under no immediate pressure to reach an agreement with the US since its pressure in the Hormuz has a global impact.

“The question, however, is whether Tehran is overestimating its ability to sustain this pressure, given the growing economic costs of the confrontation for Iran itself,” Azizi wrote on X.

Transfer system

The system involves very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and smaller vessels coordinating with the US military to load crude oil at Arab ports and use southern corridors near the coast of Oman to exit the strait.

Vessels often switch off their transponders and travel at night to minimise the risk of being targeted by the Iranians. After ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, some of the shuttles come back to load more.

Multiple vessels were targeted overnight Sunday to Monday, including two outbound tankers and one in anchorage near Oman’s port city of Sohar, where ship-to-ship transfers are allegedly being conducted.

Other vessels were targeted by projectiles last week, indicating that attacks have extended beyond the Strait of Hormuz to target the shuttle system.

The IRGC has also increasingly driven a narrative that naval mines, believed to have been planted across the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war, pose a serious threat to vessels attempting to navigate the waterway without coordinating with Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority.

The IRGC said three tankers suffered major damage over the weekend after being struck by mines. It also released footage of one ship ablaze that is said to have been struck by a mine, although the footage did not appear to show a mine going off.

‘Cascading impact’

The shuttle system has provided Arab national oil companies with a way out of Hormuz via the southern corridor near Oman.

Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a London-based senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward, said this system has proven highly effective.

“Under international maritime law, which underpins 11 billion tonnes of seaborne trade annually, vessels have what’s called the right of transit passage,” Bockmann told Al Jazeera. “So, what Oman has done is allow vessels to go through under international maritime law, but they have had US military assistance.”

Tehran says shipping will be disrupted so long as the US continues its choking naval blockade against Iran, which has also stepped up its efforts to counter efforts by Arab states to export oil. At least 15 ships are believed to have been targeted in October so far, according to Winward.

“The more effective the route has become in facilitating the transport of oil and gas, the less leverage Iran has over Hormuz, and more attacks we are seeing on vessels that are using that southern corridor,” Bockmann said.

Windward’s data shows 31 ships transited the Strait of Hormuz daily in the final week of September. This was considerably lower than the 138 before the war.

Eighty-seven percent of the 45 ships targeted by Iran during the third quarter of 2026 were tankers.

Around 47 percent belonged to Gulf Arab energy companies’ national shipping fleets, Windward noted, and 93 percent of the strikes took place in the Strait of Hormuz. Most attacks targeted vessels transiting the southern corridor with their transponders turned off.

These attacks have contributed to a massive increase in freight costs. Freight represented 25-30 percent of Gulf crude’s cost, versus just 1 to 3 percent before the war, according to Windward. National oil companies have resorted to offering discounts of up to $35 per barrel below official selling prices.

The main reason for the rise is a shortage of tankers willing to make the dangerous crossing. Between 15 and 20 percent of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) are tied up with an inefficient logistics system that relies on shuttle transfers, complicated by escalating attacks and exposure at loading ports and anchorages.

“This is having cascading impacts for all vessel classes on freight and values across the world,” Bockmann said.

Australian police and intelligence join the list of those probing the incident.

Authorities have said they are investigating the links of the co-pilot of the Israel-bound Flydubai flight with Australia.

A multi-agency Australian police and intelligence team – the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team – is carrying out the probe, a spokesperson said on Sunday.

Mystery surrounds the co-pilot, who is accused of attacking the captain with an axe and attempting to seize control of Flight FZ1073 from Dubai as it approached Israel, and how he was able to acquire his seat in the plane’s cockpit.

He has been identified in media reports as Omani national Hamam al-Hammami.

He had been barred from flying in his own country because of concerns that he had adopted “extremist” views, The Associated Press news agency cited sources as saying.

While al-Hammami reportedly spent part of his life in the United Arab Emirates, the Reuters news agency, citing sources briefed on the Australian investigation, reported that he studied at a university in the Australian city of Melbourne.

A third unnamed source told the agency that he studied at RMIT University, a public research university in Melbourne, about a decade ago.

The Financial Times also reported al-Hammami’s links to Australia. Citing two sources familiar with the Australian investigation, the FT said al-Hammami had allegedly visited what it described as “radical mosques and extremist websites” while in the country.

Disaster was averted after passengers and crew subdued the co-pilot and a reserve pilot took over its controls and completed an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

However, the case has raised questions about security in Israel, which has some of the world’s strictest aviation security measures.

The prosecutor general of the UAE, Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, has labelled the attack an attempted “terrorist act”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel has longstanding arrangements with foreign airlines aimed at preventing pilots who are nationals of countries without diplomatic relations with Israel from flying there.

Netanyahu said a “loophole” appears to have allowed the Omani pilot to take part in the Flydubai flight, and that Israel would now strengthen its checks.

The UAE has not yet publicly established a motive or announced whether investigators believe al-Hammami acted alone.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said on Saturday that the latest “terrorist” attack is a new warning that the region’s fight against “extremism” is not over.

An attack by the copilot on the pilot during a Flydubai flight has raised many questions regarding aviation security, and some of the official versions of the incident have come under scrutiny from online commentators and aviation enthusiasts.

About two and a half hours after Flight FZ1073 departed from Dubai International Airport on Wednesday, it went into a sharp descent before eventually making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

Media reports said the copilot attacked Captain Smit Machchhar. Passengers were able to overpower the copilot, identified by media as Hamam al-Hammami, after Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door during the attack, which the prosecutor general of the United Arab Emirates said was carried out with the cockpit’s crash axe.

While investigators continue working to establish a motive for the attack, several questions have arisen about the incident more generally across social media.

Here are five questions that are being asked:

Why was al-Hammami allowed to fly despite being flagged over security concerns?

Al-Hammami has been identified as an Omani national, according to media reports.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources as saying that Omani authorities previously blocked the suspect from flying in the country due to concerns over his ideological views.

On Saturday, CNN reported, quoting a regional diplomatic source, that the copilot had also been removed from flight training over similar concerns and was later reassigned to another position.

It added, quoting two sources familiar with the matter, that the pilot was removed from a job at Oman’s national airline last year over concerns about his views.

It remains unclear how al-Hammami managed to get the Flydubai route despite these security concerns.

The possibility of a plumber stabilising plane before reserve pilots stepped in

Reports have emerged that Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door while covered in blood, allowing passengers to subdue the copilot.

One of those who subdued al-Hammami was Yaniv Hayoun, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a plumber.

In a video with Netanyahu, who met him at the airport, Hayoun, 50, was asked how he knew what to do at the plane’s controls before another pilot took control. He said: “I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister.”

“I jumped back, grabbed the controls and started pulling back the handles” the way he had seen in the Canadian investigation show, in which experts analyse plane crashes.

People on social media have questioned how a plumber could have handled an aircraft in the air.

No report of mass injuries despite fall of 5,180 metres

According to the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the Flydubai flight rapidly descended about two and a half hours after takeoff, dropping more than 5,180 metres (17,000ft) in less than two minutes.

While the midair drop caused mass panic among passengers, no one was reportedly harmed, according to the publicly available information about the incident. An Air India flight that dropped 90 metres (300ft) during turbulence in August injured at least 17 passengers.

A flight instructor, who recreated the Flydubai jet’s near-vertical dive in a simulator, said the plane would have exceeded its maximum structural speed and anything unsecured would have flown all over the cabin during the recovery’s negative G-forces.

Why was the copilot allowed to fly despite being an Omani national?

Israel does not have official diplomatic relations with Oman, and Netanyahu has previously said such countries were not generally allowed to operate flights to Israel.

On Friday, Netanyahu said Israel was looking into whether the copilot had acted under anyone’s direction, warning that anyone involved would pay a “heavy price”.

On Saturday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that government officials had received in advance the list of crew members and passengers who were on the flight, including the Omani copilot.

Security sources told Haaretz that the government bodies responsible for monitoring and checking foreign flight crews landing in Israel are the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety’s Security Department and the security agency Mossad.

Copilot prayed before attack

According to The Times of Israel, Machchhar spoke to Netanyahu on Saturday. He told the prime minister that al-Hammami had asked to pray before the attack. Four or five minutes later, Machchhar was hit with “a big blow” to the back of his head, he said.

The flight departed from the UAE at 7:05am (03:05 GMT). The attack reportedly took place about two and a half hours later (05:35 GMT).

The predawn prayer time in the Emirates on Wednesday was 04:51am (12:51 GMT), which would mean al-Hammami’s prayer did not align with Islamic prayer times.

However, al-Hammami could also have been performing a different personal prayer before the attack.

A Flydubai co-pilot accused of attacking the captain of a flight bound for Israel has been identified as an Omani national previously barred from flying in his home country over concerns about alleged extremist views, according to media reports.

There has been no official confirmation of the pilot’s identity or his beliefs.

The United Arab Emirates on Saturday described Wednesday’s incident on board Flight FZ1073 as an attempted “terrorist operation”, saying the co-pilot attacked Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, with an emergency axe and attempted to take control of the aircraft.

But investigators are still working to establish the motive and whether anyone else was connected to the attack, which has raised concerns about pilot vetting and aviation security.

Here is what we know:

What do we know about the accused pilot?

The co-pilot suspected of attacking the captain of the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight carrying 174 people has been identified as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, three people with knowledge of the situation, including a Gulf diplomat and a Western diplomat, told AP news agency.

All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. The Gulf diplomat said investigations are under way to establish whether he acted as a “lone wolf or had any connection with any extremist groups”.

US media outlet CNN, quoting a source and an Israeli official, reported that al-Hammami is an Omani citizen who was born in the UAE to a Syrian mother and spent several years in the Emirates.

Questions have emerged about his previous aviation career and whether warning signs had been raised before he joined the Dubai-based low-cost carrier.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed sources, reported on Friday that Omani authorities had previously barred the accused co-pilot from flying in the country because of concerns that he had held extremist views.

Nevertheless, it remains unclear what those alleged views were or whether Oman informed other countries or airlines about its concerns.

CNN separately quoted a regional diplomatic source as saying that al-Hammami had been removed from flight training over similar concerns and was subsequently reassigned to another position.

The US-based network also reported that a LinkedIn profile bearing al-Hammami’s name said he had spent seven years at Oman Air before leaving in February 2025. The profile said he joined Royal Air Maroc in June 2025 and left in January 2026.

What happened on flight FZ1073?

At 7:05am (03:05 GMT) on Wednesday, Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai for Tel Aviv, climbing to 34,000ft (more than 10,000 metres), according to Flightradar24. A little more than two hours later, it suddenly began to descend, plunging before rising and then descending again.

Flight-tracking data showed the plane plunging more than 17,000 feet in about two minutes, before climbing and descending again.

Meanwhile, a fight had begun in the cockpit between the two pilots. The co-pilot had attacked the Indian captain of the plane, Smit Machchhar, by stabbing him.

Machchhar later described finding himself seriously wounded on the cockpit floor as the aircraft descended.

“When I was down, I could feel that the aircraft was plummeting, and I knew this is the last chance to do something,” he told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from a hospital in Abu Dhabi.

“I knew that the aircraft was going down … I had fallen to the ground. I told myself that the door is right there, just open it. I managed to do it and people entered,” he said.

Passengers and crew members entered the cabin and overpowered the co-pilot. The aircraft eventually levelled out at about 15,000 feet. Its transponder was subsequently switched to code 7500, signalling unlawful interference.

Two reserve pilots who were on board took control of the jet and landed it in Tabuk, northwestern Saudi Arabia. The plane landed safely at 9:45am (06:45 GMT) local time. Saudi authorities said both pilots were taken to hospital. They were later transferred to Abu Dhabi after being medically cleared.

What has the UAE said about the attack?

UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said on Saturday that investigators had determined that the co-pilot had begun carrying out what he described as a “terrorist act”.

According to al-Shamsi, the co-pilot attacked the captain inside the cockpit using the aircraft’s emergency crash axe and “attempted to take control of the aircraft’s controls”.

A crash axe is a tool kept in a cockpit to help pilots cut through the plane in emergencies.

On Thursday, al-Shamsi had ordered investigators to determine whether the incident was connected to “terrorist activity or intent” or involved prior planning or direction.

The UAE has not yet publicly established a motive or announced whether investigators believe al-Hammami acted alone.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash on Saturday said that the latest ‘terrorist’ attack is new warning that region’s fight against extremism is not over.

“This underscores the importance of the UAE’s early and firm stance: no tolerance for extremism and no leniency towards its rhetoric. Security begins with confronting hatred and drying up the sources of extremism,” he posted on X

What is the latest in the investigation?

Abu Dhabi is now leading the investigation, with prosecutors examining the circumstances of the attack, its motive and any possible connections to others.

Previously, al-Shamsi said UAE judicial authorities have jurisdiction over the incident because the aircraft is registered in the UAE and flies under its flag, adding that UAE law applies to crimes committed on board “even if they occur outside the country’s territory”.

On Saturday, al-Shamsi said investigators are working “to uncover all the circumstances of the incident, its motives, and related connections, in addition to completing technical examinations and examining physical and digital evidence”.

The final results will be announced as soon as the necessary procedures are completed, he said.

Meanwhile, Flydubai flights to Israel remain ⁠suspended amid the investigations.

Smit Machchhar recalls mid-air disaster after co-pilot’s attack on flydubai flight to Tel Aviv.

Indian pilot Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed by his co-pilot in an alleged attempt to crash a Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, has shared a public account of how he managed to open the cockpit door and let passengers take control of the plane despite his injuries.

Speaking on Friday from a hospital bed in Abu Dhabi via video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Machchhar said that he knew the aircraft was going down as he lay bleeding on the floor.

“I had suffered so many injuries that I had collapsed. At that time, I could feel that the aircraft was going down. I knew this was the last push, that the door was right there,” he said in a nearly 10-minute video released on the prime minister’s social media channels.

He added: “I was being hit even then, but I just opened the door and everyone came in.”

Machchhar, who has 17 years of aviation experience, including 11 as a captain, said that experience helped him grasp what was happening even while wounded.

He told Modi he had recited a Hindu devotional prayer during the ordeal.

“I know God himself saved me,” he said, in an emotional exchange with Modi, who is from the same home state of Gujarat.

Modi praised Machchhar’s bravery, saying his presence of mind had saved lives and the reputation of Indian pilots.

Machchhar said he allowed passengers and crew to overpower the co-pilot and let a second pair of Flydubai pilots take control and land the plane in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

The Flydubai flight was carrying 174 people as it briefly plunged around 17,000 feet (5,180 metres) before it was brought back under control.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash has called the incident a “terrorist act”, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination” and appeared “suicidal”.

US President Donald Trump has warned that Iran would be “hit very hard” if found to be linked to the attack.

The United Arab Emirates has said it will launch an investigation into the incident.

Leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are set to meet United States President Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, as the US-Israel war on Iran nears seven months.

The meeting, to be held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), brings together countries that have borne much of the fallout from a war they did not start.

Since the war began on February 28, Iran has repeatedly struck US bases across the Middle East as well as airports, energy facilities and hotels. The war has particularly hit the Gulf nations hard, as their oil and gas exports – the mainstay of their economies – have been disrupted, causing a global energy crisis.

A June memorandum of understanding (MoU) briefly raised hopes of an end to the war, but it collapsed last month amid disputes over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed.

These talks come as Trump says he faces a “big decision” on the war, and as Iran’s president and foreign minister are also in New York for the UNGA.

So what is on the table and what might come out of the talks? Here is all you need to know:

What do we know about the GCC-Trump meeting?

Trump is set to meet the leaders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which form the GCC, on the sidelines of the UNGA.

Trump told US media outlet Axios on Thursday that he wanted to meet the GCC leaders as he faced a “big decision” on the war and wanted to speak with them directly.

Experts say there are two interconnected issues – the US-Israel war on Iran and the conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen.

What do the GCC countries want from the meeting?

Broadly, experts say, the GCC nations share a common goal for the meeting.

The GCC has “shared positions on the main principles of regional security and de-escalation”, Luciano Zaccara, a researcher with the New Ground Research think tank in Doha, Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

“With Trump recently threatening to ‘wipe out’ Iran, I expect the six GCC states, or at least most of them, to convey to the US president their grave concerns about the likely consequences of another round of intense US military strikes on Iran,” Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, told Al Jazeera.

“They will probably seek to underscore their own vulnerabilities to a renewed cycle of all-out fighting between the United States and Iran,” he said, adding that they will try to persuade Trump into making certain concessions to Tehran.

Cafiero said they will look to develop an arrangement that builds on the MoU and which “offers the most viable path toward winding down the crisis”.

Chief among their common concerns is freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, according to Ahmed Helal, managing director for the Gulf region at The Asia Group.

‘Divergent’ goals

Despite common goals, the Gulf states have still experienced “divergent” outcomes from the war and will also look to persuade Trump to address their particular predicaments, Helal said.

The UAE, he explained, has been able to keep exporting oil by pipeline to its port of Fujairah, which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, although not at the volumes it would like.

But fellow GCC member Qatar, whose gas exports depend on the strait, has seen its LNG shipments severely curtailed and wants to avoid any renewed escalation that could see its energy infrastructure targeted again, Helal said.

Speaking at an event in New York, US, on Sunday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani described the economic fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran as an “earthquake”.

Saudi Arabia has another problem, as it is now under “enormous pressure” as the Houthis gain ground in Yemen, and has been “intensifying their lobbying” for US strikes on the group, he said.

What does Trump want from the meeting?

Predicting what the US president plans has been difficult since the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran, experts say.

“It could be possible that the US is expecting a more direct GCC engagement against Iran in exchange for a direct US intervention to stop the Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, but without the GCC leaving the main role in defending themselves”, Zaccara told Al Jazeera.

“Regarding Iran, Trump has not ruled out another major military escalation. At the same time, the administration seems to be open to exploring diplomatic options,” he said, adding there are rumours of a possible indirect US-Iran meeting on the sidelines before Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s speech on Wednesday.

Helal said the administration’s focus is domestic, with the midterm elections weeks away and Trump’s approval ratings at a record low; there is “immense pressure” to lower petrol prices.

While Trump has threatened further military action, he remains politically sensitive to an “escalatory ladder” that could spike oil prices, Helal said.

The talks are unlikely to produce a breakthrough, he added, with the best-case scenario an agreement to return to negotiations potentially brokered by Qatar or Pakistan.