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Russia's FSB Detains Suspected Ukraine Agent Planning Attack

Servicemen of the 18th Sloviansk Brigade of the Donbas battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard attend their training on a shooting range near a frontline in the Donetsk area, Ukraine, 15 March 2924 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/YAKIV LIASHENKO
Servicemen of the 18th Sloviansk Brigade of the Donbas battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard attend their training on a shooting range near a frontline in the Donetsk area, Ukraine, 15 March 2924 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/YAKIV LIASHENKO
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Russia's FSB Detains Suspected Ukraine Agent Planning Attack

Servicemen of the 18th Sloviansk Brigade of the Donbas battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard attend their training on a shooting range near a frontline in the Donetsk area, Ukraine, 15 March 2924 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/YAKIV LIASHENKO
Servicemen of the 18th Sloviansk Brigade of the Donbas battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard attend their training on a shooting range near a frontline in the Donetsk area, Ukraine, 15 March 2924 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/YAKIV LIASHENKO

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Saturday it had detained a 61-year-old Russian man for planning what it called a terrorist attack on Ukraine's behalf on a Trans-Siberian railway junction in the Ural mountains' Sverdlovsk region, state news agency TASS reported.
TASS quoted the FSB as saying the man had been recruited by Kyiv's intelligence services in the Ukrainian city of Lviv and sent to Russia. The agency said he had confessed to the charges and was cooperating with the investigation.
In recent months Ukraine has stepped up attacks on economic targets inside Russia, using long-range drones to hit a series of oil refineries in the western part of the country.
Kyiv has previously said it is targeting the Trans-Siberian railway, a key route for Russian freight traversing the country.

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World

Pentagon Seeks $200 billion in Additional Funds for the Iran War

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
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Pentagon Seeks $200 billion in Additional Funds for the Iran War

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., US, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says.

The department sent the request to the White House, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information.

It’s an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defense Department already received last year in President Donald Trump’s big tax cuts bill, The AP news reported.

Congress is bracing for a new spending request but it is not clear the White House has transmitted the request for consideration. It is unclear the spending request would have support.

The new funding request was first reported by The Washington Post. Asked about the figure at a press conference Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not directly confirm the figure, saying it could change. But he said “we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to to ensure that we’re properly funded.”

“It takes money to kill bad guys,” Hegseth said.

World

What Cargo Ships are Passing Hormuz Strait?

Commercial vessels offshore in Dubai last week © - / AFP/File
Commercial vessels offshore in Dubai last week © - / AFP/File
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What Cargo Ships are Passing Hormuz Strait?

Commercial vessels offshore in Dubai last week © - / AFP/File
Commercial vessels offshore in Dubai last week © - / AFP/File

Just a trickle of cargo ships and tankers -- most of them Iranian -- have made it through the Strait of Hormuz since Iranian forces blocked the crucial trade route in the Middle East war.

Here are facts and figures about vessels that have passed through the 167-kilometre (104-mile) long strait since the war broke out with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, according to AFP.

- 95% shipping drop -

From March 1 to 19, commodities carriers made just 114 crossings, according to analytics firm Kpler -- a decrease of 95 percent from peacetime.

Of these, 69 crossings were by oil tankers and more than half were loaded, Kpler data showed, with most travelling east out of the strait.

Traffic "is being led mostly by bulk carriers, tankers and container ships," said Richard Meade, editor of leading shipping intelligence journal Lloyd's List, in a briefing on Thursday.

"But we have seen a bit of an uptick in gas carriers moving over the last week."

- Iranian, Greek, Chinese ships -

Most of the ships passing the strait are owned or flagged in Iran, said Bridget Diakun, an analyst at data company Lloyd's List Intelligence.

After that, Greek ships accounted for 18 percent of crossings and Chinese ones 10 percent in recent days, she said.

"Although Iran is continuing to control the Strait and exit its own oil, everything else is largely still at a standstill," said Meade.

- 35 sanctioned ships -

Overall since the war started, around a third of the ships transiting the strait were under US, EU or UK sanctions, according to an AFP analysis of passage data.

Of the oil and gas tankers, more than half were under sanctions.

Since March 16 "anything heading westbound has been shadow fleet, gas carriers or tankers... they absolutely dominate the traffic going through," Diakun told the Lloyds briefing.

- Oil to China -

Commodities analysts at JPMorgan bank said in a report released Monday that most of the oil passing through the strait was headed for Asia, principally China.

Data in the report indicated it was receiving more than a million barrels day from Hormuz -- far below the pre-war level of nearly five million.

Cichen Shen, Asia Pacific editor at Lloyd's List, said there were indications online that Chinese authorities were working on "some sort of exit plan" for their big tankers stuck in the region.

- 1.3 mn barrels of Iran oil -

The JPMorgan analysts said overall 98 percent of the observable oil traffic through the strait was Iranian, averaging 1.3 million barrels a day "in early March".

A fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait in peacetime.

- Indian, Pakistani ships -

"There are indications that some ships are transiting under Iranian 'approval', with some vessels following a route through the Strait closer to the Iranian coastline than normal," including Indian and Pakistani vessels, marine consultancy Clarksons said in a note.

Meade of Lloyds List added: "Several governments, including China, but (also) India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia, they're all in direct talks with Tehran, coordinating vessel transits" with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

- Alternative routes surge -

Shipping companies are carving out other ways to get their cargos through the region. Major shipping firm CMA CGM said it was moving freight across Gulf countries by rail and road to avoid the strait.

"Gulf maritime traffic patterns indicate early signs of global rebalancing," said marine intelligence group Windward in a report.

In recent days transit volumes through the Bab el-Mandeb strait off east Africa surged 280 percent, and 70 percent through the Suez Canal, it said, indicating that "shipping is adapting through alternative corridors."

World

Iran Reportedly Arrests 97 People Accused of Working with Israel

People walk in Tehran Bazaar, ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 18, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People walk in Tehran Bazaar, ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 18, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Iran Reportedly Arrests 97 People Accused of Working with Israel

People walk in Tehran Bazaar, ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 18, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People walk in Tehran Bazaar, ahead of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 18, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran's intelligence ministry has arrested 97 people for being "soldiers of Israel", state media reported on Thursday, in the latest round ⁠of a security sweep ⁠that has seen hundreds detained over alleged linked ⁠to Israel and the US since the start of the war.

Earlier on Thursday, state media quoted the police commander of Alborz province ⁠as ⁠saying that 41 people were arrested for sending videos to foreign-based opposition media channels.

More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the US-Israeli war.

In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire, including a Thai agricultural worker who died overnight after getting hit with shrapnel.

Three people were also killed in the occupied West Bank overnight by an Iranian missile strike, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

At least 13 US military members have been killed.