A Qatari national arrested in Yemen on suspicions of working with the Iran-aligned Houthis has been released after more than a year in detention in Saudi Arabia, Qatar's National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) said.

Iran will secure the Strait of Hormuz and not allow any disturbance in shipping in the key oil transport waterway, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Tuesday during a visit to Paris, the state new agency IRNA reported.

The Swedish-based operator of the British-flagged tanker seized last week by Iran said on Tuesday it was still awaiting permission to visit the ship's 23 crew members.

Gibraltar was granted the power on Friday to detain Iran's Grace 1 oil tanker for another month, keeping the vessel at the center of a big-power quarrel between Iran and the United States and its allies.

U.S. President Donald Trump met on Thursday with the chief executives of major American airlines to discuss their accusations that subsidies by Qatar and United Arab Emirates are costing jobs in the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that the United States needed Iran to "come to the table" for negotiations, amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran in the Gulf that have impacted global oil markets.

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $1.48 billion contract to build the THAAD missile defense system for Saudi Arabia, bringing the total value of the deal to $5.36 billion, the Pentagon said on Friday.

ran said it had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday but denied Washington’s assertion that the U.S. Navy had downed an Iranian drone nearby this week, as tensions in the Gulf region rose again.

The acting U.S. defense secretary has authorized the deployment of U.S. military personnel and resources to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said on Friday, adding the move would provide “an additional deterrent” in the face of “emergent, credible threats.”

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman approved hosting U.S. forces in the country to boost regional security and stability, the state news agency (SPA) reported on Friday.

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday urged Saudi Arabia to free Raif Badawi, a blogger jailed and publicly whipped for insulting Islam, in a rare criticism of the US ally as he vowed to champion religious freedom worldwide.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Thursday they had detained a "foreign tanker" and its 12 crew for allegedly smuggling fuel, the latest incident in a tense standoff in the Gulf.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Thursday announced that he had met his Bahrain counterpart publicly during a visit to Washington, the first meeting between the two countries that do not have diplomatic relations.

United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock called out Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday for only paying a "modest proportion" of the hundreds of millions of dollars they pledged five months ago to a humanitarian appeal for Yemen.

Iran is determined to "leave all doors open" to save its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, Iranian state TV quoted President Hassan Rouhani as saying in a telephone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.

The Pentagon said on Thursday that the USS Boxer took defensive action against a drone after it came within a "threatening range" in the Strait of Hormuz.

The increased use of drones by Iran and its allies for surveillance and attacks across the Middle East is raising alarms in Washington.

Britain is sending its HMS Kent warship to the Gulf to protect its interests and ensure freedom of navigation after tensions with Iran, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Wednesday, after earlier saying that the mission was routine.

The U.S. House of Representatives backed resolutions on Wednesday to block the sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, sending them to the White House, where President Donald Trump has promised a veto.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday that tight U.S. travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats and their families living in New York are "basically inhuman."