Iran

• Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide attacks targeting a memorial event in Kerman for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassim Soleimani, a Shia who IS's Sunni ideologues consider a "hypocrite leader."
• IS's claim seems to have softened the hardline voices blaming the U.S. or Israel for the Kerman attacks, but Iranian officials are still seething at Israel for killing the deputy head of Hamas in Lebanon earlier this week.

• Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen defied vague U.S. threats of "consequences" and attempted another attack on ships in the Red Sea. This one used an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that came within a "couple of miles" of U.S. Navy and commercial vessels before detonating.
• The Houthis have used USVs against Saudi coalition forces before, but this is the first time they've targeted U.S. or commercial vessels with one.

• Analysts are guessing that Russia has captured the village of Marinka in eastern Ukraine after a fierce battle that some are comparing to the one for Bakhmut.
• Like Bakhmut, Marinka isn't strategically important, but its capture will be a symbolic victory for Russia - and a discouraging defeat for Ukraine.
• U.S. officials believe the ballistic missiles Russia recently lobbed into Ukraine came from North Korea in exchange for advanced technologies like fighter jets and armored vehicles that Russia will send Pyongyang in return (but hasn't yet). It would be the first known use of North Korean ballistic missiles in Ukraine.