Iran says it has agreed Hormuz route coordinates with Oman. Its own foreign ministry describes a brand new corridor under Iranian management; Western wires describe a two-lane split of the existing route. No government has published a text, yet Brent fell below $80 on the news. The day before the president promised a reopening, CENTCOM tightened the blockade it actually runs.
Trump's reopening promise runs ahead of a Hormuz text neither government has published, while CENTCOM enforcement and a weaker sanctions statute both point the other way.
Iran says it agreed Hormuz route coordinates with Oman on 5 August. Its own spokesman describes a brand new corridor; Western wires describe the old lanes split in two.
QatarUnited StatesIran and Oman announced on 5 August that they had agreed new coordinates for ships passing through the strait of Hormuz. Iran's foreign ministry described a corridor under its own management; Western reporting described a split of the existing route.
Neither government has published a map or text, so the two versions cannot yet be checked against each other. Until one does, insurers and shipping lines have nothing to act on.
CENTCOM redirected 44 commercial vessels off Iranian ports and disclosed its first boardings on 3 August. The next day Donald Trump promised the strait would reopen soon.
United States×2United KingdomUS Central Command said on 3 August it had redirected 44 vessels near Iran, up from 35 the day before. It also disclosed its first boardings of the blockade. The next day, Donald Trump said the strait of Hormuz would reopen soon and warned Iran it would be hit hard otherwise.
The new boarding numbers give Washington a public enforcement record just as it promises an opening, leaving a gap between the pledge and events at sea.
Iran's currency strengthened to 1,877,500 to the dollar on 6 August, about 2.5 per cent up on the week, after months of one-way decline through the war.
Iran's rial strengthened to about 1,877,500 to the dollar on 6 August, roughly 2.5% stronger over the week and its first weekly gain in weeks. The currency had been sliding for most of the war.
One week's gain does not confirm a turnaround. It fell in the same window as reporting of an agreed Hormuz corridor with no signed text behind it. Traders appear to be pricing in that expectation rather than any confirmed economic change.
The State Department named 21 foreign persons under a nonproliferation statute on 4 August. Two are Iranian; most are Russian; none of them ships oil for a living.
The State Department published Public Notice 13090 on 4 August, placing INKSNA nonproliferation sanctions on 21 people. Most of them are part of a Russian network accused of supplying Iran. The measures actually took effect on 24 July, eleven days before publication.
INKSNA is a narrower, older law than the oil sanctions Washington has used elsewhere in the war, aimed at weapons-related technology transfers rather than shipping or tankers.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed strikes on two tankers on 5 August, off Yanbu and in the Gulf of Aden. Only the Gulf of Aden explosion reached the incident log.
United States×2A Houthi military spokesman said on 5 August the group had struck two oil tankers, the Wafaa off Yanbu and the Daisy in the Gulf. The UK's maritime monitoring body, UKMTO, logged only one explosion and has not confirmed which vessel was hit.
The gap between the claimed toll and the confirmed log is typical of Houthi strike claims. These have often run ahead of independent verification.
Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat were executed at dawn on 3 August on charges of spying for Mossad, according to the Kurdish rights monitor Hengaw. Iran's judiciary has published nothing.
IranIran executed Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat at dawn on 3 August, reportedly at Urmia Central Prison, on wartime charges of spying for Israel's Mossad. The report comes from Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights monitor. Iranian judiciary media has not yet confirmed it independently.
The case fits a wartime pattern of espionage executions Hengaw has tracked since January. The single sourcing means the underlying evidence remains unverified.
Iranian state media says eight rounds of Hormuz talks have finished and Abbas Araghchi has given the draft preliminary approval. Two higher authorities have not.
IranIranian state media reported that negotiators completed eight rounds of talks on a Hormuz maritime corridor, and that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has given his preliminary approval. Iran's Supreme Leader and top security council still have to sign off.
Until that higher sign-off happens, the deal stays unfinished and unenforceable, whatever the ministerial-level approval suggests.
Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam gave the Pentagon until 18 August to produce every change made to its public register of American war dead.
House Oversight Committee members Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam sent the Pentagon a letter demanding its full casualty change log, giving officials until 18 August to respond. The Pentagon's Iran-war death toll has moved between 18 and 14 more than once without explanation.
Missing the deadline would hand Congress grounds to escalate the records fight, turning an administrative gap into a formal confrontation.
Sideways in the near term: CENTCOM's interdiction tally reaching 44 vessels and Iran's provisional Hormuz approval, both dated this first week of August 2026, move in opposite directions but neither has crossed a line that forces the other's hand. The mechanism that would tip it is Supreme Leader and SNSC sign-off on the Hormuz text; a rejection at that stage, after Araghchi has already called the talks final-stage, would be a domestic Iranian rebuke with more escalatory force than any single CENTCOM boarding, because it would confirm the foreign ministry does not speak for the state on this file. The Pentagon's 18 August deadline on the DCAS change log is the other near-term marker: a missed deadline invites a subpoena fight that would run alongside, not instead of, the Hormuz track.
