CENTCOM struck dozens of IRGC targets inside Iran on Wednesday night, ending a four-day bombing pause that Washington had blamed on munitions stocks rather than on Iran. The trigger was an IRGC ballistic-missile attack on Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, the fourth in seven weeks. Within eighteen hours Saudi jets had struck inside Iraq and a drone had hit an American-owned gas vessel on Egypt's Mediterranean coast.
The war widened to four countries in eighteen hours while the only live negotiation narrowed to two.
CENTCOM struck dozens of IRGC targets inside Iran between 20:00 and 22:00 EDT on 29 July, ending a four-day pause the Pentagon had justified on munitions stockpiles.
CENTCOM struck dozens of IRGC targets inside Iran between 20:00 and 22:00 EDT on Wednesday 29 July, ending a four-day American bombing pause, after IRGC ballistic missiles hit US forces at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan earlier the same day.
The pause held four days against a stated materiel constraint and collapsed within eighteen hours of a single Iranian strike, which shows what actually governs the tempo of this war.
Riyadh sent aircraft over a neighbouring state for the first time in this war, invoking self-defence against drones that were all intercepted before they landed.
Qatar×2Saudi jets struck militia targets inside Iraq at 05:00 GMT on Wednesday 29 July "in coordination with" CENTCOM, citing self-defence under Article 51.
A US ally has widened the war on its own initiative, on attribution it has not published, against attacks that caused no damage.
Ali al-Zaidi convened Iraq's ruling bloc at the government palace, then scrapped his first official trip to Saudi Arabia, due the following morning.
United StatesIraq's PM Ali al-Zaidi convened the Coordination Framework and cancelled his first official visit to Saudi Arabia, scheduled for 30 July, after the Saudi strike.
A cancelled first state visit is a small instrument, but it is the one Baghdad reached for, and it lands on the relationship Riyadh has spent five years building.
A drone struck the starboard side of the American-owned Energos Winter in an Egyptian port, and fire spread to an LNG carrier moored alongside. Nobody has claimed it.
United StatesFranceA drone struck the American-owned FSRU Energos Winter at Damietta port on Egypt's Mediterranean coast at about 15:20 CET on 29 July, and fire spread to the LNG carrier GasLog Salem; nobody was hurt and no group claimed the attack.
The war reached Egyptian soil for the first time, at the Mediterranean end of the corridor that carries the cargo Hormuz can no longer move.
OFAC designated the two bodies selling IRGC-approved transit cover in the Strait of Hormuz, payable in Bitcoin, alongside four shadow-fleet tankers and a front that crowdsourced targeting tips.
QatarOFAC designated Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority on 29 July under Executive Order 13902, plus eight shadow-fleet tankers; a separate Executive Order 13224 action on 30 July named DadeNegar Startup Studio.
Tehran has found a way to collect a Hormuz toll through commercial liability rather than gunboats, and it works whether or not any diplomatic version of the same demand ever succeeds.
Saudi Arabia announced a maritime defence coalition for the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden, with thirteen founding signatories, no start date and no named headquarters site.
United Arab EmiratesUnited StatesSaudi Arabia announced a 43-nation maritime defence coalition on 30 July, covering the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden, with thirteen founding member states and no start date.
The waterway that is open acquired an enforcer this week; the one that is closed still has none.
Kazem Gharibabadi answered Muscat's voluntary-fee proposal by asking that Iran control its own territorial lane and part of the opposite one.
Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi countered Oman's voluntary-fee Hormuz proposal by demanding Iran control its own territorial lane plus part of the opposite one.
The two proposals on the table rest on incompatible premises about what the strait of Hormuz legally is.
Crude rose as the strikes resumed and surrendered the move inside two sessions, following the Riyadh announcement rather than anything happening in Hormuz.
United StatesUnited KingdomBrent Crude traded around $90 on 29 July as strikes resumed, then closed at $89.03 on 30 July and $85.53 on 31 July; WTI settled at $83.59 and $82.03 on the same two days.
Two escalations and two de-escalations have been priced inside nine days on evidence that nothing structural has moved.
Iran's currency traded near 1,933,000 to the dollar on 30 July while Tehran quietly re-tiered its petrol subsidy, resetting the private-vehicle allowance on smart fuel cards.
IranUnited StatesIran's rial traded near 1,933,000 to the dollar on 30 July, down roughly 33% since the start of 2026, as Iran re-tiered its petrol subsidy, resetting the private-vehicle allowance to 60 litres on smart fuel cards.
Tehran is adjusting the quota rather than the pump price, because the 2019 precedent showed what happens when the number is one people can chant.
The Pentagon's casualty system now records 4 dead and 207 wounded under a category whose start date matches the War Powers notification, with no breakdown by incident.
The Defense Casualty Analysis System backdated its new Overseas Operations casualty category to 7 July, the War Powers notification date, recording 4 dead and 207 wounded with no incident breakdown.
A start date tied to a notification rather than an operational milestone gives the administration's legal position a documentary spine.
Direction: widening geographically, narrowing diplomatically, as of 30 July 2026. The mechanism to watch is the Islamic Resistance in Iraq's stated intent to answer the 29 July Saudi-CENTCOM strikes with a response against American targets, potentially reaching US assets based in Saudi Arabia itself; a strike there would test whether Riyadh's 43-nation coalition, built for the Red Sea, has any bearing on a threat originating from Iraq.
