Iran says Strait of Hormuz will reopen if U.S. leaves region

Iraq has lost around $60 billion during the U.S.-Iran war, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Thursday, as the fighting has blocked or severely impeded a waterway crucial to its oil exports.

OPEC member Iraq was producing about four million barrels of oil per day (bpd) before the conflict, and exporting about 3.5 million bpd – mostly carried by tankers out of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's ongoing threat to vessels that fail to seek its permission to transit the strait has forced Iraq, which lacks sufficient storage capacity, to halt most production and fall back on limited exports via Syria and Turkey, by truck and pipeline respectively. Syria is set to expand overland provision of overland oil routes to bypass the strait , the head of Syrian Petroleum Co. said last week.

"Iraq has suffered losses estimated at around $60 billion during the recent war between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran," Hussein told his Italian counterpart in Rome, according to a statement from the Iraqi foreign ministry.

After a heavy drop in production, Iraqi oil exports, which provide about 90% of the country's revenues, recovered modestly last month, reaching 2.6 million barrels per day between Sept. 1 and 21, according to the oil ministry. But at the same time, Iraq's foreign currency reserves have shrunk by $20 billion and consumer prices have risen sharply, plunging it into economic crisis.

A Norwegian teenager convicted of traveling to Britain to carry out a contract killing on behalf of an international crime gang linked to Iran was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison.

Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, was found guilty in July of conspiracy to murder for agreeing to shoot someone unknown to him for $28,000 last year. He was arrested at a hotel in Huddersfield, in northern England, with two guns and ammunition two days after arriving in the U.K.

In bodycam video released by police from the early hours of March 19, 2025, Natland emerges topless from his room and mimes a shooting gesture at a firearms officer before being slammed against a wall.

Natland, who was working part time at a pizza restaurant at the time of his arrest, was recruited by a Swedish organized crime group known as the Foxtrot Network while he was playing a game online. The group has links to the Iranian government, according to London's counterterrorism police unit.

Natland was hired by a 17-year-old known as "Generalen." A court in Norway last year convicted the teenager of attempting to "contribute to murder" and sentenced him to 14 years in custody.