Egyptian officials said Thursday a drone attack one day earlier caused a fire aboard two vessels — a U.S.-owned storage facility and a Greek tanker — at the Mediterranean port of Damietta, confirming that the war between the U.S. and Iran has reached the one Arab state that had managed to stay on the sidelines.

Mr. Trump said Wednesday the incident in Egypt was “Iran-related.” Iranian officials are denying responsibility, saying the attack was a potential “false-flag” operation. Special Correspondents Jacob Wirtschafter and Waseem Abu Mahadi examine the situation in a dispatch from the region, where analysts remain unsure whether Tehran was behind the attack.

It’s notable that Egypt and Iran had agreed in February to restore full diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors. “I rule out that Iran itself was the executor of the operation,” says Hany El-Aasar, executive director of the National Center for Studies, a Cairo think tank. Tehran, he said, has no interest in widening “the circle of its enemies” or in spending “the positive development it has reached in its bilateral relations with Cairo.”

New U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Michelle Steel will have a crowded schedule as she takes on the role of representing Washington in Seoul, the capital of one of America’s most important military and economic allies on China’s periphery and in direct proximity to the North Korean nuclear threat.

Ms. Steel, 71, is a former Republican member of Congress from California. But she was born in South Korea, where her original name was Park Eun-joo. She lived with her parents in Japan before moving to the U.S. at age 19 and becoming a naturalized citizen. Her fluency in Korean and Japanese could be priceless in navigating the complexities of a country central to a region that lies in the shadow of China, North Korea and Russia.

Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from Seoul on several contentious diplomatic issues on the immediate horizon. One is a regulatory brouhaha over a major 2025 data breach involving Coupang, a U.S.-listed company that does the bulk of its business in South Korea. Others include slow movements on both a U.S. promise to enable South Korean nuclear submarine construction and a South Korean pledge to invest $350 billion in the United States.  

The National Nuclear Security Administration is upgrading sensors on GPS satellites that will better monitor nuclear blasts around the world, according to the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons agency.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz reports that the agency sent the fifth, next-generation Global Burst Detector sensor system to the U.S. Space Force this month for future launch on new GPS satellites.

The nuclear agency said the new blast monitoring systems will be deployed as Russia issues nuclear threats in its war against Ukraine, and China rapidly expands its nuclear forces beyond those normally needed for deterrence. North Korea also is expanding its nuclear stockpile and missile systems that are capable of striking the United States.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Olga Stefanishyna says her country faces a critical missile shortage as its push to drive out Russian invaders churns through a fifth violent year — and that Washington needs to stay focused on helping Kyiv reverse the shortage.

“This winter we need missiles,” Ms. Stefanishyna told reporters at a Thursday breakfast briefing in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “So many people will die over the winter” without them, she said.

Pentagon Correspondent Mike Glenn was at the breakfast, during which Ms. Stefanishyna acknowledged that Mr. Trump has given Ukraine the green light to manufacture its own interceptors for the Patriot missile system. The catch, she said, is that the program will only bear fruit somewhere from a year to five years from now.

Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler asks the question: “Why are U.S. strikes always just a response to Iranian aggression?

“The U.S. needs to finish the job with Iran, end these tit-for-tat strikes and start targeting what is left of the Iranian leadership, as they will never enter good faith negotiations,” writes Ms. Sadler, who adds that while the U.S. military has achieved “major tactical successes,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has taken advantage of every U.S. pause in military action and “is clearly not backing down.”

The “Shiite Islamist fundamentalism” of the Iranian regime means “absolute political and religious subordination to Iran’s supreme leader, with a mission to protect and spread Islamic revolutionary ideals beyond Iran’s borders to ultimately dominate the world,” she writes in her column. “There is no negotiating with this ideology.”

• Aug. 4 — Navigating the Strait of Hormuz Energy Crisis: Global Policy Responses, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Aug. 4 — Taiwan’s Ever-Changing Security Environment, Hudson Institute

• Aug. 4-5 — 2026 Air Force & Space Force Procurement Conference, American Defense Alliance

• Aug. 5-6 — Border Security & Intelligence Summit, Defense Strategies Institute

• Aug. 9-12 — DoDIIS Worldwide Conference 2026, Defense Intelligence Agency

• Aug. 11-13 — Space & Missile Defense Symposium, Huntsville, Alabama

• Aug. 25-26 — Counter UAS Summit, Institute for Defense and Government Advancement