Weekly review
12 September 2026
The weekly research review re-read the reporting on the entries on the board and reassessed them. Threat levels run from 1 (low) to 5 (severe); a review moves a level at most one step unless a war starts or ends, a ceasefire takes hold, a coup succeeds or a state collapses. How the board works.
Executive summary
- Yemen, Houthis & Red Sea goes to 5 / Active war (from 4 / Escalating). The Houthis completed the seizure of Yemen's Red Sea coast — Mocha on Sept 10, then Dhubab, Perim and the Hanish islands by Sept 11 — and declared Saudi vessels banned from Bab el-Mandeb, putting Iran-aligned forces on both maritime approaches to the Arabian Peninsula while Saudi Arabia entered direct combat.
- Nuclear weapons & arms control: trend Stable -> Escalating, threat held at 4. The IAEA Board voted 23-3 with eight abstentions on Sept 9 to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, the first referral in 20 years. Threat stayed at 4 because the escalation is institutional and Council follow-through faces Russian and Chinese vetoes.
- Afghanistan drops to 3 / Tense/Stable (from 4 / Active war). The Security Council Report September forecast records large-scale Afghanistan-Pakistan hostilities decreasing since late June and early July, leaving cross-border militancy rather than sustained interstate fighting. This is the week's weakest call — see gaps.
- India–Pakistan & China–India: trend Escalating -> Stable, threat held at 3. Xi arrived in New Delhi Sept 12-13 for BRICS with a Modi bilateral, his first India visit since 2019, moving the China-India leg toward easing while Pakistan-internal violence stayed high but did not worsen.
- Biggest development without a level change: the Gulf energy corridor came under attack from a second direction. Drones launched from Iraq struck Saudi pumping stations south of Medina around Sept 10 and Saudi Arabia shut the East-West pipeline on Sept 11, putting 3-4 mb/d of Hormuz-bypass capacity at risk with Brent above 100 dollars. Offsetting it, Oman announced on Sept 11 that GCC, Iraqi and Iranian foreign ministers would meet in Salalah on Sept 14 on a temporary Hormuz arrangement — the first such channel since the war began.
- Ukraine's deep-strike reach, not the front line, is where the war moved. On Sept 9 Ukraine hit the Novorossiysk naval base (nine oil tanks, an S-300, the frigate Admiral Essen) and reached the Purovsky gas plant 3,200 km inside Russia, a record; ISW assessed no confirmed ground gains by either side on Sept 11. Putin met Witkoff and Kushner on Sept 5 and took a Trump call on Sept 8 with a reciprocal pause on capital strikes, but no ceasefire and no dated round followed.
- Europe's sabotage campaign drew its first collective industry response. On Sept 11 the defence-industry association ASD publicly urged firms, governments and agencies to co-ordinate against sabotage after a run of fires and explosions at defence sites, and Defense News detailed on Sept 10 how Russian GUGI submersibles rehearsed a traceless subsea-cable cut near Svalbard before being confronted by UK, Norwegian and US forces.
- Sudan's arms embargo was rolled over for only one month on Sept 11 and kept Darfur-only, with Russia blocking the nationwide version, making the October vote the region's main diplomatic pressure point; Libya was the clearest easing track, with the Security Council endorsing the Aug 30 election deal on Sept 9 and the rival speakers reported on Sept 11 to have agreed to revive the 6+6 electoral-law committee.
- The Americas: Colombia formally closed the negotiating track — De la Espriella revoked the government's delegations to the ELN and all other dialogue tables on Sept 11 (reported), ending "paz total" — while Rubio said on Sept 9 that cartels control "vast territories" of Mexico and hinted at unilateral US action, with Sheinbaum answering on Sept 10 that "Mexico is nobody's piñata".
- Main gaps: the Afghanistan downgrade rests chiefly on one source with no Afghanistan-specific in-window item and should be re-checked next week; twelve entries had no verified in-window development and kept their previous events (somalia, coup-belt, jnim, al-shabaab, m23, hamas, china-cyber, africa-corps, dprk-cyber, viv-ansanm, cjng, sinaloa, tren-de-aragua); ISW's Sept 12 assessments were not yet published and Crisis Group CrisisWatch, CNN, Colombia One and several regional outlets refused fetching.
- Reported, not established: the Houthi ban on Saudi vessels and the Salalah meeting rest on single accounts or snippets; Brent's Sept 11 level is reported variously between 100 and 108; the Colombia dialogue-table revocation and the Libya 6+6 revival are snippet-only; Peskov's Sept 11 nuclear threat to Lithuania appears only in Russian state media; the Zelensky aircraft near-miss is disputed between Norway's PM and Moldova and Kyiv. Two previous entries were corrected rather than carried: the "UNSC renews CTED for three years" item was wrong (that renewal was in December 2025), and the Ocaña attack is recorded as a Sept 4 assault killing two soldiers rather than the previous Sept 3 drone attack killing three.
Changes in threat, status or trend
| Entry | Region | Before | After |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yemen, Houthis & Red Sea | Middle East | 4 / Escalating / Escalating | 5 / Active war / Escalating |
| Nuclear weapons & arms control | Transnational & Hybrid | 4 / Tense/Stable / Stable | 4 / Tense/Stable / Escalating |
| Afghanistan and the Afghanistan–Pakistan war | Indo-Pacific & South Asia | 4 / Active war / Stable | 3 / Tense/Stable / Stable |
| India–Pakistan & China–India | Indo-Pacific & South Asia | 3 / Tense/Stable / Escalating | 3 / Tense/Stable / Stable |
Threat ladder on 12 September 2026
| Level | Flashpoints (status, trend) |
|---|---|
| 5 | Russia–Ukraine war (Active war, escalating); Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) (Active war, escalating); Sudan civil war (Active war, escalating); US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war) (Active war, escalating); Yemen, Houthis & Red Sea (Active war, escalating) |
| 4 | Colombia (Escalating, escalating); Eastern DRC & Rwanda (Active war, stable); Ethiopia & Eritrea (Escalating, escalating); Haiti (Active war, escalating); Infrastructure & domain sabotage (Escalating, escalating); Iran internal stability (Escalating, escalating); Iran nuclear program (Escalating, escalating); Lebanon & Hezbollah (Active war, stable); Myanmar civil war (Active war, escalating); Nigeria & Lake Chad (Escalating, escalating); Nuclear weapons & arms control (Tense/Stable, escalating); Russian hybrid operations in Europe (Escalating, escalating); Russia–NATO frontier (Escalating, escalating); Somalia (Escalating, escalating); South Sudan (Active war, stable); State cyber operations (Escalating, escalating) |
| 3 | Afghanistan and the Afghanistan–Pakistan war (Tense/Stable, stable); Belarus (Watch, escalating); Cuba, Nicaragua and Central America (Escalating, stable); Disinformation & election interference (Escalating, escalating); Ecuador, Peru & Bolivia (Escalating, escalating); Global institutions & diplomacy (Watch, stable); Gulf states & Turkey (Tense/Stable, escalating); India–Pakistan & China–India (Tense/Stable, stable); Iraq (Tense/Stable, escalating); Israel–Gaza (Tense/Stable, stable); Libya (Tense/Stable, easing); Mexico & cartels (Escalating, escalating); Moldova & Transnistria (Tense/Stable, escalating); Mozambique, Cameroon & Central Africa (Escalating, escalating); North Korea (Tense/Stable, stable); Private military companies & proxies (Escalating, escalating); Sanctions & evasion (Escalating, escalating); South & East China Sea (Escalating, escalating); Syria transition (Tense/Stable, easing); Taiwan Strait (Tense/Stable, stable); Terrorism (Tense/Stable, stable); US posture in the hemisphere (Escalating, escalating); Venezuela (Tense/Stable, stable); West Bank (Escalating, escalating) |
| 2 | Brazil & Southern Cone (Watch, escalating); Coup-belt transitions and coastal West Africa (Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Togo, Madagascar) (Watch, stable); Japan, South Korea & Pacific (Watch, stable); Kenya, Uganda & Tanzania (Watch, escalating); South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) (Tense/Stable, stable); Thailand–Cambodia & Southeast Asia (Watch, stable); US–China relations (De-escalating, easing); Western Balkans (Tense/Stable, escalating) |
Dates in the next 30 days
- 2026-09-13: BRICS leaders' declaration expected, New Delhi (Global institutions & diplomacy)
- 2026-09-13: BRICS summit in New Delhi ends (India–Pakistan & China–India)
- 2026-09-13: Sweden general election (Disinformation & election interference)
- 2026-09-13: Sweden general election (Infrastructure & domain sabotage)
- 2026-09-14: GCC, Iraqi and Iranian foreign ministers meet in Salalah, Oman on Hormuz (US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war))
- 2026-09-14: Salalah meeting of GCC, Iraqi and Iranian foreign ministers (Gulf states & Turkey)
- 2026-09-14: Week the US House may take up the Graham sanctions bill (contested; reported stalled to November) (Russia–Ukraine war)
- 2026-09-15: Armenian Constitutional Court ruling on the peace treaty (unconfirmed) (South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia))
- 2026-09-15: Belarusian House of Representatives session opens (Belarus)
- 2026-09-15: US drug-certification determination (approximate) (Colombia)
- 2026-09-15: US drug-certification memo (approximate) (Mexico & cartels)
- 2026-09-17: US sanctions on ICC officials take effect (Sanctions & evasion)
- 2026-09-18: IRGC mobilisation exercises (US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war))
- 2026-09-18: Russia State Duma election, three days of voting (Disinformation & election interference)
- 2026-09-18: Russian State Duma election begins (three days of voting) (State cyber operations)
- 2026-09-18: Russian State Duma election, voting through Sept 20 (Russia–Ukraine war)
- 2026-09-20: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, Germany (Disinformation & election interference)
- 2026-09-20: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, Germany (Infrastructure & domain sabotage)
- 2026-09-22: UNGA General Debate opens (Global institutions & diplomacy)
- 2026-09-22: UNGA General Debate: Trump and Pezeshkian speak (US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war))
- 2026-09-22: UNGA high-level week (Gulf states & Turkey)
- 2026-09-24: Trump-Xi summit (Global institutions & diplomacy)
- 2026-09-24: Trump-Xi summit in Washington (North Korea)
- 2026-09-24: Trump-Xi summit in Washington (South & East China Sea)
- 2026-09-24: Trump-Xi summit in Washington (Taiwan Strait)
- 2026-09-24: Trump-Xi summit, Washington (US–China relations)
- 2026-09-27: French Senate election (Russia–NATO frontier)
- 2026-09-27: Panel of Experts expiry and 90-day 1737 Committee briefing (Iran nuclear program)
- 2026-09-27: UN Iran Panel of Experts mandate lapses (US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war))
- 2026-09-29: International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear weapons & arms control)
- 2026-09-29: US bans on Canadian dairy, motorcycles and alcohol take effect (US posture in the hemisphere)
- 2026-09-30: Approval window for the election deal closes (approximate) (Libya)
- 2026-09-30: Coalition exit and militia disarmament deadline (Iraq)
- 2026-09-30: Date Iraqi militias have framed as a test of US and coalition commitments on disarmament (Private military companies & proxies)
- 2026-09-30: Tulkarm and Nur Shams camp closure orders lapse or renew (West Bank)
- 2026-09-30: UN Security Council vote on re-authorising the Gang Suppression Force (Haiti)
- 2026-09-30: UNSC monthly Syria meeting (approximate) (Syria transition)
- 2026-10-01: PKK camp disarmament deadline (Gulf states & Turkey)
- 2026-10-01: PKK camp disarmament deadline under the Iraq-KRG-Turkey mechanism (Iraq)
- 2026-10-04: Bosnia and Herzegovina general election (Russian hybrid operations in Europe)
- 2026-10-04: Bosnia and Herzegovina general election (Western Balkans)
- 2026-10-04: Brazil first round (Disinformation & election interference)
- 2026-10-04: Brazil first-round presidential election (Brazil & Southern Cone)
- 2026-10-09: Darfur sanctions rollover expires (approximately Oct 9-12) (Sudan civil war)