Middle East Watch

Middle East oil exports, excluding those from Iran, surpassed their pre-war levels last week, despite attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler.

For the first time since the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive against Iran at the end of February, the weekly average of shipments rose for several days above the pre-conflict average of 18 million barrels per day.

Crude oil exports reached pre-war levels in September, with at least 16.5 million barrels leaving the region excluding Iran, Kpler said.

“Forty percent now bypass Hormuz, and most crude crossing the strait changes tankers offshore,” Kpler said, adding that most of the oil flowed through Saudi and United Arab Emirates pipelines.

Those figures include flows via the Red Sea, a route increasingly used to bypass the blockade Iran is attempting to impose on the strait, through which around a fifth of the world’s petroleum supplies crossed before the conflict.

Iran still claims control over the strait, and ships without its authorization risk coming under attack, but more and more are making it out, and alternative routes meant to bypass the waterway are operating at full capacity.

Despite the rebound, experts stressed that the situation is far from normal, and Iran is still being deprived of a large share of its own exports by a U.S. counterblockade of Iranian ports.

With the significant Israeli and U.S. military attacks against Iran in 2025 and early 2026, analysts have discussed and debated Iran’s ability to replenish its missile and drone arsenal. Since 2024, Iran has burned through thousands of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones in its retaliatory attacks against Israel, U.S. military bases, and other targets in the region. In addition, air and missile strikes destroyed many more Iranian missiles and drones along with their launchers. Importantly, Israeli and U.S. attacks in 2024, 2025, and especially 2026 cumulatively caused severe damage to Iran’s missile and drone industry as well as its larger defense research-industrial base. Thus, Iran’s ability to replenish its arsenal of operational missiles and drones has become an important topic for policymakers, intelligence analysts, military planners, and outside experts.

Since the Israeli and U.S. militaries halted their attacks on Iran’s missile and drone industries in April 2026, there have been conflicting claims about the status of Iran’s ability to produce new systems. For instance, many American and Israeli officials have claimed that Iran can no longer produce missiles and drones. However, Iran’s rapid recovery after the spring 2026 war reportedly stunned some Israeli officials and raised concerns that Iran may return to producing hundreds of missiles per month. For their part, Iranian officials have claimed that, despite the attacks, Iran has continued to produce and improve missiles and drones. This is likely bluster for deterrence purposes and, if anything, reflects Iran’s assembly of missiles from finished parts, rather than the reconstitution of its industries and supply chains.

Iran has promoted a new system encouraging citizens to report information about Iranians living abroad, effectively crowdsourcing surveillance of the diaspora through a website and messaging platforms including Telegram, according to Iranian media reports and an Iranian official source who confirmed the program to Fox News Digital.

The platform, known as Alaj — Persian for “remedy” or “cure” — asks users to provide information on people overseas whom it accuses of acting against Iran’s national interests or security. Iran International reported that tips could be submitted through the Alaj website, a Telegram bot and Iran’s Bale messaging service. The outlet reported that Iranian state television and the Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars News Agency also promoted the initiative.

An Iranian official source confirmed to Fox News Digital that Alaj and the Telegram chatbot were established as a new system through which certain individuals could report information about Iranians living abroad. The source said the website was subsequently taken down after the project drew significant criticism inside Iran.