Emails Suggest Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon Had Foreknowledge of 2019 Gulf Tanker Attacks

Ref: AD-2903

Summary: newly surfaced correspondence reveals the disgraced financier and the former Trump strategist discussing maritime security incidents “on schedule,” raising alarming questions about insider knowledge and potential geopolitical manipulation.

In the summer of 2019, the world’s attention was fixed on the Strait of Hormuz. Two separate incidents – in May and June – saw commercial oil tankers mysteriously attacked, sending global energy markets into turmoil and bringing the United States and Iran to the brink of war. The United States, under the Trump administration, swiftly and unequivocally blamed Iran. Iran denied involvement, calling the events a “false flag.”

While the incidents were never conclusively resolved, a standard narrative took hold: Iran was the rogue actor. However, a cache of email correspondence from the inbox of the late pederast and suspected Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, reviewed by Arab Digest, introduces a startling and complex new dimension to the story. The emails suggest that Epstein and his associate, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, may have had prior knowledge that the attacks would occur.

The correspondence paints a portrait of two men intimately tracking – and perhaps anticipating – a destabilising international crisis.

The sequence begins on May 10, 2019. At 7:51 PM, Epstein emails Bannon a Reuters article headlined “U.S. warns merchant ships of possible Iranian attacks in Middle East.” The article details a U.S. Maritime Administration advisory and the deployment of B-52 bombers to the region, which Iran dismissed as “fake intelligence.”

Later that night, at 11:42 PM, Epstein sends a cryptic follow-up: “Are your meetings set.”

Bannon replies hours later: “Yes –  Terje before and afterward and with them Sunday afternoon.”

The following morning, May 11, Epstein sends another article: “U.S. sending Patriot missile system and another warship to Middle East amid Iran tensions.” Bannon replies, “Got it.” Epstein then instructs, “You can give him insight into pompeo and bolton,” referencing the hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Bannon’s response is a single, confident word: “Easy.”

The context of “Sunday afternoon” is critical. On Sunday, May 12, 2019, four commercial ships, including a Norwegian-flagged tanker, were damaged by explosive charges in UAE territorial waters off Fujairah – an event immediately labeled a “sabotage attack.”

That Sunday, at 3:49 AM, Epstein emails Bannon: “Norway fun?” Bannon’s reply is telling: “Incredible, very bizarre how I was greatest by the right – pretty amazing.”

Later, at 9:56 AM, Epstein asks again: “Fun?” Bannon’s response connects the dots to his Norwegian rendezvous: “Smart guy— he was one of the guys who pulled Riyadh off.”

The “Terje” in Bannon’s schedule is almost certainly Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian sociologist, former diplomat, and key architect of the Oslo Accords. At the time, he was president of the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York, a think-tank known for its deep, opaque ties to Gulf state funders and intelligence communities. IPI publications and events have a long history of hyping up the “Iranian threat” in line with UAE, Saudi and Israeli concerns, particularly during the Trump administration. Rød-Larsen has since resigned from IPI following scandal over securing donations from foundations related to Epstein, as well as securing his own personal loan from Epstein in 2013 “neither of which the board was aware of.”

Bannon’s meeting with Rød-Larsen “before and afterward” the attack on the Norwegian tanker is a glaring coincidence. His comment that Rød-Larsen “pulled Riyadh off” suggests involvement in a significant, likely covert, operation.

The emails become even more explicit a month later. On June 13, 2019, two more tankers, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair and the Japanese Kokuka Courageous, were attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The head of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company stated that Kokuka Courageous was struck twice, with the crew reporting a “flying object” just before the second blast. This account directly contradicts the U.S. version of events, which attributed the damage to mines. The U.S. again instantly blamed Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the timing of the apparent attacks was “beyond suspicious” because Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At 2:43 AM, minutes after news broke, Epstein sends Bannon an article: “Explosions on two oil tankers near Iran send oil prices 2% higher.” Then, at 5:47 AM, Epstein sends the crucial line: “straits of hormuz right on schedule.”

Bannon replies two minutes later: “Torpedoed!”

Epstein clarifies: “i said mid june I two days early.”

The language is unambiguous. It frames the attacks not as a shocking act of aggression, but as a predictable event occurring on a known timeline.

The correspondence does not prove Epstein and Bannon planned or executed the attacks. Instead, it strongly suggests they were recipients of insider intelligence.

Their communication reveals a pattern. They were actively monitoring and focused on the specific geopolitical tinderbox – U.S. force deployment, Iranian threats – in the precise days before an incident. Bannon’s meetings with Terje Rød-Larsen placed him in direct contact with a figure at the crossroads of Norwegian intelligence, Gulf finance, and back-channel Israeli diplomacy at the exact moment a Norwegian asset was targeted. Phrases like “on schedule” and “two days early” are the language of someone briefed on an operation’s timetable, not a bystander observing random events.

This foreknowledge aligns with longstanding, though often dismissed, allegations about the child sex predator’s apparent ties to Israeli intelligence, an inconvenient fact that continues to be systematically ignored by Pravda-like mainstream western media. Investigative journalists like Whitney Webb and Julie K. Brown have documented Epstein’s deep ties to figures like Robert Maxwell – Ghislaine Maxwell’s father and a known Mossad asset. Former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe has claimed Epstein and Ghislaine were “working with Israeli intelligence” in the 1980s.

Why would this network have advance knowledge? The likely motives form a disturbing nexus.

Hawkish elements within the Trump administration (Bolton, Pompeo), the Saudi royal court, and the Israeli government all shared a goal of escalating maximum pressure on Iran. A false-flag attack blamed on Iran would justify military escalation or harsher sanctions.

Epstein, a money manager, and his wealthy clients could have profited immensely from predictable spikes in oil prices following such incidents. Foreknowledge of covert actions is the ultimate blackmail currency and a tool for building influence within powerful networks.

The implications are profound. If a private network involving a convicted sex trafficker and a Zionist political operative had foreknowledge of acts that nearly triggered a war, what does that say about the true drivers of the 2019 crisis?

The emails force a re-examination of the official narrative. They suggest the attacks may have been the work of a “state actor,” as the UAE-led investigation concluded, but not necessarily the one publicly accused. They raise the possibility that the events were designed to be attributed to Iran.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has vehemently denied any Epstein-Israel link, calling such claims “categorically and totally false.” However, the circumstantial evidence – from Epstein’s decades-long Maxwell connection to these emails discussing scheduled attacks in a region central to Israeli security concerns – persists.

The final, haunting question comes from investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, who broke the Epstein sex trafficking story: “Why would Epstein give up before he even got to court?” Perhaps the answer lies not just in the secrets he held about the powerful individuals who visited his island, but in the geopolitical operations he knew about – operations that shaped world events from the shadows of his Manhattan townhouse and his inbox.

The 2019 Gulf of Oman incidents remain officially unresolved. These emails suggest the full story has yet to be told, and it may be far darker and more manipulated than the world has been led to believe.