Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, early on Sunday, just days after the country’s Iran-backed rebels fired cluster munitions toward Israel, according to a local media report.The rebel Houthi-run al-Masirah channel reported the strikes, the first to hit the rebel-held Sanaa since Aug. 17, when Israel said it targeted energy infrastructure it believed was used by the rebels. Israel has not confirmed Sunday’s attack.The Iran-backed Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea for more than 22 months. They say they are carrying out the attacks in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in the Gaza Strip.They are usually intercepted before landing in Israel.An Israeli Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said the projectile fired from Yemen towards Israel on Friday night marked a new threat. The missile was a cluster munition — a projectile that is supposed to detonate into multiple explosives.It was the first time the Houthis had launched a cluster bomb at Israel since the militant group began launching rockets towards Israel in 2023, the official said. The use of cluster bombs makes it harder for Israel to intercept and also represents additional technology provided to the Houthis by Iran, the official said.The Houthi attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passes each year.From November 2023 to December 2024, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones. The rebels stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war and later became the target of an intense, weekslong airstrike campaign ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.In May, the United States announced a deal with the Houthis to end the airstrikes in return for an end to shipping attacks, although the rebel group said the agreement did not include halting attacks on targets it believed were aligned with Israel.
CAIRO —
Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, early on Sunday, just days after the country’s Iran-backed rebels fired cluster munitions toward Israel, according to a local media report.
The rebel Houthi-run al-Masirah channel reported the strikes, the first to hit the rebel-held Sanaa since Aug. 17, when Israel said it targeted energy infrastructure it believed was used by the rebels. Israel has not confirmed Sunday’s attack.
The Iran-backed Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea for more than 22 months. They say they are carrying out the attacks in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in the Gaza Strip.
They are usually intercepted before landing in Israel.
An Israeli Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said the projectile fired from Yemen towards Israel on Friday night marked a new threat. The missile was a cluster munition — a projectile that is supposed to detonate into multiple explosives.
It was the first time the Houthis had launched a cluster bomb at Israel since the militant group began launching rockets towards Israel in 2023, the official said. The use of cluster bombs makes it harder for Israel to intercept and also represents additional technology provided to the Houthis by Iran, the official said.
The Houthi attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passes each year.
From November 2023 to December 2024, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones. The rebels stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war and later became the target of an intense, weekslong airstrike campaign ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In May, the United States announced a deal with the Houthis to end the airstrikes in return for an end to shipping attacks, although the rebel group said the agreement did not include halting attacks on targets it believed were aligned with Israel.
A weekly selection of opinions and analyses from the Arab media around the world.
The new elite in Egypt
Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt, August 14
Until the early 1990s, the upper echelon of Egyptian society largely emerged from the public school system. Ministers, doctors, engineers, diplomats, and countless other professionals began their journeys in village and small-town schools before moving on to public universities.
Today, however, the equation has shifted dramatically. Although precise studies and accurate statistics remain scarce, it is clear that graduates of private institutions – especially international schools – have risen to form Egypt’s new elite. The mere mention of such a school on a résumé can tip the balance in a young person’s favor, providing them with a decisive edge over their peers.
Many jobs now demand proficiency in a foreign language, a requirement that leaves the majority of public school graduates – even those with advanced degrees from public universities – shut out from these opportunities. English, in particular, has become the gatekeeper of opportunity.
If one’s English reflects the colloquial version taught in government schools, career prospects are stunted, no matter the strength of one’s university credentials. Conversely, fluency in polished English opens doors that remain closed to the majority.
This phenomenon is not unique to Egypt. Across the globe, private schools have entrenched themselves in education systems. Roughly 17% of primary school students worldwide are enrolled in private schools, a figure that climbs to 26% at the secondary level.
An illustrative image of private school students. (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)
Yet in Britain, the percentages tell a different story. As Alastair Campbell, former communications director under prime minister Tony Blair, recently noted, 93% of Britons attend state schools. Still, the 7% who receive private schooling disproportionately dominate positions of power across government, the judiciary, the media, finance, and beyond.
Even though most ministers in the current Labour government hail from state schools, this does not automatically signal that Britain has achieved true meritocracy, or that social mobility ensures that anyone with talent, determination, and resilience can climb to the top.
Campbell argues that private education confers an enduring advantage, positioning its graduates to occupy senior government offices and claim the lion’s share of society’s wealthiest and most prestigious roles. The so-called 7% club continues to wield vast political, cultural, and economic influence.
Workplaces, by extension, favor private school graduates. While public school and university alumni strive to adapt, they often encounter a professional environment that feels alien, marked by subtle cues of exclusion. Accents, dress, hobbies, dining habits, and even conversational styles set them apart, reinforcing a sense of division between the world they come from and the world they now inhabit.
Is this not precisely what we see in Egypt today? Increasingly, workplaces operate in English, even when serving a consumer base that is overwhelmingly Arabic-speaking.
Sectors ranging from real estate to telecommunications, banking, and even hospitality package themselves as extensions of international firms, though their foundations remain deeply Egyptian. The cultural and social norms of these environments diverge sharply from those of the communities surrounding them.
If Egypt is to achieve genuine social mobility, the graduates of its public schools – those scattered across its countless towns and villages – must be granted real access to elite positions. It should never be enough for someone to simply wave the credential of a private or foreign school as a passport to privilege. Equity demands more. The path to true mobility begins when opportunity is earned, not through background or accent but through merit, commitment, and ability. – Abdullah Abdul Salam
Where did Iran’s Arab masses disappear to?
Asharq al-Awsat, London, August 15
A grave-like silence hangs over the Arab public, untouched by the seismic events shaking the region. No demonstrations, no protests, no sit-ins can be found across Arab capitals – an unprecedented absence, perhaps for the first time in seven decades or more.
Iran, meanwhile, has endured devastating blows. Its military setbacks and the damage to its nuclear infrastructure are immense, representing the loss of billions of dollars and countless lives, and years of labor. Beyond its ballistic and nuclear ambitions, Tehran has also seen the erosion of its vast network of influence – a popular movement painstakingly cultivated across the Arab world from Iraq toMorocco.
When theLebanese government made the audacious decision to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons, the reaction amounted to little more than a few dozen motorcycles roaming the streets of Beirut in protest. So where are the millions once summoned by the party’s leader or by Tehran itself?
The collapse of Iranian influence across the Arab sphere echoes the unraveling of Nasserism after the crushing defeat of 1967. Stripped of its ability to ignite the street, Nasser’s regime fell back on choreographed displays – pressing Socialist Party loyalists and labor unions into filling venues – after spontaneous, fervent crowds that had once surged into public squares in response to the magnetic pull of radio broadcasts dwindled away.
What remained was a collective sense of shock and despair in a region that had long pinned its hopes on the liberation of Palestine.
Iran, too, once commanded a similar popular reach. It defied attempts to ban its ideas, molding generations of Arabs through ideology and outreach. Tehran embraced Sunni extremists – including al-Qaeda figures – despite their anti-Shi’ite dogma, and threw support behind Sunni opposition movements challenging their regimes.
It forged organic ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, held semiannual conferences for Arab nationalists and Communists, and invested heavily in cultivating intellectuals and artists. Poems, books, and speeches extolling the virtues of the imam’s regime poured forth, while Tehran’s reach extended across Shi’ite, Sunni, and Christian circles, drawing in voices from the Gulf, Egypt, the Levant, North Africa, Sudan, Yemen, and Western Arab diasporas. Many Arab media outlets echoed Khamenei’s messaging.
Somehow, Tehran managed to reconcile contradictions that seemed irreconcilable. In Tripoli, a city marked by historic tension with the Shi’ites of Beirut, Sunni factions remained loyal to Tehran since the 1980s. In Jordan, elements of the Muslim Brotherhood pledged allegiance to Tehran’s leadership. Publications appeared across the region defending its policies, while conferences in the Gulf celebrated sectarian “rapprochement” under historical banners.
Yet none of this was undertaken in the name of God or to genuinely heal sectarian rifts; it was always part of a calculated political project aimed at domination. For decades, Tehran orchestrated both elite circles and street movements across Arab cities, mobilizing protests not only against regimes but against films, novels, and peace negotiations.
But since the wars following the October 7, 2023 attacks, that once-unshakable dynamism has evaporated. The reasons are clear: People turn away from the defeated, and the agencies that fueled these movements have seen their lines of communication severed and their resources dry up. The Arab street venerates victors and abandons them when they fall, only to embrace the next rising force.
Iran’s followers have been stunned by repeated defeats, just as Nasser’s admirers were traumatized by the failures of the 1960s. Today, the central challenge is whether Tehran can retain even its Shi’ite base, which has borne the greatest burden and remains in shock.
Sooner or later, Lebanon’s Shi’ites will confront a painful realization: They are victims of Hezbollah and Iran, not beneficiaries. For four decades, they have carried the weight of this alliance, suffering economic collapse, the destruction of their neighborhoods, and punitive sanctions targeting their livelihoods and remittances from Africa, Latin America, and North America. What they have endured is not the empowerment of a community, but the crushing cost of serving as Tehran’s front line. – Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Bombing civilians without a clear strategy
Al-Ittihad, UAE, August 15
On August 8, while commenting on the deaths of civilians in Gaza caused by Israeli airstrikes, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sought to justify the attacks by invoking the Allied firebombing of Dresden in February 1945. His remarks, provocative as they are, raise a broader issue worth examining: the long and deeply contested history of aerial bombardment against civilians.
The use of air power against noncombatants dates back to World War I, when German Zeppelins dropped bombs on British cities. Though casualties were relatively limited compared to the slaughter inflicted by artillery on the European front lines, the psychological impact was immense, signaling a new era of warfare.
In the interwar period, air raids were deployed in colonial campaigns across the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, the most notorious case was the German bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Though only a few hundred people were killed, the attack targeted a market day and became immortalized through Pablo Picasso’s iconic mural, which conveyed the horror of modern mechanized destruction.
The Sino-Japanese War which erupted that same year marked an even more brutal expansion of this tactic. Japanese forces unleashed devastating air raids on Chinese cities, killing tens of thousands in Chongqing and contributing to mass civilian deaths in Nanjing.
World War II cemented the role of air power in civilian carnage, with estimates of one to one and a half million people killed across multiple fronts. The German bombing of Warsaw in 1939, the flattening of Rotterdam, and the Blitz against Britain in 1940 foreshadowed the sheer scale of devastation yet to come.
As the war intensified, the Allies responded with massive bombing campaigns across Germany, creating “firestorms” that consumed cities such as Hamburg, Kassel, and Dresden, while others – Cologne, Berlin, Hanover, Stuttgart, and Magdeburg – were left in ruins.
In the Pacific theater, American raids on Japan culminated in the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, which incinerated more than 100,000 civilians, and later in the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The use of air power against civilians did not end with World War II. In Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands perished in bombing campaigns, and the region suffered the ecological and human toll of Agent Orange, a chemical weapon aimed at destroying crops and forests.
In later decades, wars in the Middle East and South Asia saw comparatively fewer deaths from airstrikes, yet the protracted bombing campaigns in Gaza have triggered some of the fiercest debates in recent memory.
The ubiquity of raw, daily video footage – images of families digging through rubble, children starved and displaced, and entire neighborhoods flattened – has amplified global accusations that Israel is committing war crimes, even genocide.
This moral quandary is not new. At the end of World War II, the destruction of Dresden was criticized by British officials, church leaders, and ordinary citizens alike, though it was not classified as a war crime, largely because the revelation of Nazi atrocities overshadowed such debates.
Likewise, the moral reckoning over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was muted by the widespread belief that the atomic bombs spared millions of lives by forcing Japan’s surrender and avoiding a ground invasion.
Today, Gaza presents its own moral labyrinth. While Hamas bears responsibility for embedding its operations among civilians, Israel faces mounting criticism for what increasingly appears to be a war without a clear exit strategy. The grim lesson of history is that aerial bombardment of civilians invariably raises doubts about both morality and strategy, doubts that reverberate long after the bombs have fallen. – Geoffrey Kemp
Hezbollah’s weapons never intended to safeguard Lebanon
An-Nahar, Lebanon, August 15
The Islamic Republic says one thing and its opposite when it comes to Lebanon. Before Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, arrived in Beirut, Iranian officials – including Larijani himself – dismissed outright the Lebanese government’s stance on Hezbollah’s weapons. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi even proclaimed that the Lebanese government would “fail” in any attempt to disarm the party.
Yet as Larijani’s visit approached, the rhetoric shifted. Suddenly, Iranian officials were speaking of “Iran’s support for the Lebanese people,” not merely for Hezbollah.
This change in tone appears to have been one of the conditions set by the Lebanese side to grant Larijani meetings with President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who insisted during a cabinet session on fixing a deadline – by year’s end – for dismantling Hezbollah’s arsenal. The president raised no objection, underscoring that the Lebanese authorities have but one option: to adopt a definitive position on the illegal weapons of a party that is Lebanese in name only.
The difference between mounting a hostile campaign against the Lebanese government and claiming to “support the Lebanese people” is stark.
Those who defend Hezbollah’s arms are, in truth, standing against the Lebanese themselves, given the devastation those weapons – extensions of Iran’s arsenal – have inflicted on the nation, including on its Shi’ite citizens. Hezbollah’s weapons have never been intended to safeguard Lebanon; their purpose has always been to transform it into a state orbiting within Tehran’s sphere of influence.
Larijani could not maintain even a veneer of moderation. At a press conference following his meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, he reverted to reiterating Iran’s opposition to any timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament – in essence, resisting the dismantling of the Islamic Republic’s weapons stationed throughout Lebanon.
He urged the Lebanese to “preserve the resistance,” ignoring that the primary cause of Lebanon’s misery is precisely this so-called resistance, which has impoverished the south and dragged the entire country into becoming little more than a battleground for Iran’s messages to Israel, and previously for the exchanges between the Assad regimes in Syria and Israel.
There is a reality in Lebanon that Iranian officials like Larijani refuse to acknowledge: The “resistance” was never more than an Iranian instrument, advancing Tehran’s agenda under the guise of Lebanese struggle. Iran seized on the US-led war in Iraq in 2003 to push its expansionist project further across the region.
What, after all, explains the assassination of Rafik Hariri and his companions, and the long chain of killings that followed – including the assassination of Lokman Slim – if not Iran’s determination to dominate Lebanon and suffocate any effort to revive its national life, especially in Beirut?
Who can forget Hezbollah’s paralyzing sit-in in downtown Beirut, or the bloody events of May 7, 2008?
Nor is there any need to revisit in detail the 2006 summer war, which preceded Hezbollah’s incursion into Beirut and Mount Lebanon. That conflict, with its devastating aftermath, exposed the depth of collusion between Iran and Israel, culminating years later in the election of Michel Aoun as president in 2016 and, before the close of his term, in the maritime border demarcation agreement with Israel that served Israeli interests.
Iran acts solely for its own benefit. Every Lebanese child knows this.
Every Lebanese child understands that the Islamic Republic has done nothing but dismantle Lebanon and displace its people. Iran has no allies in Lebanon – only tools it wields in the hope of striking a grand bargain with its “Great Satan,” the US, to cement its regional dominance.
Larijani came to Beirut after first stopping in Baghdad, where he signed a security pact with Iraq aimed at salvaging what remains of Iran’s expansionist vision. At this moment, the Islamic Republic seeks nothing more than to prove it still has leverage in the region, Lebanon included.
To that end, Larijani falls back on tired, hollow language that glorifies the “resistance” while deliberately ignoring the calamities it has unleashed, including the “Gaza Support War.”
That war devastated Lebanese villages, most of them Shi’ite, and drove their people into displacement. It effectively reimposed the Israeli occupation, and Hezbollah’s insistence on clinging to its weapons now stands as the surest guarantee of its indefinite continuation.
Larijani has no shortage of rhetoric and “advice” for the Lebanese, but he offers no answers to the obvious questions: Why did Hezbollah open a front in southern Lebanon? Who will bear the cost of the party’s crushing defeat? Who will rebuild the villages of the south? Who will return the displaced to their homes? Who will remove the Israeli occupation – an occupation Iran itself, through its proxy, has all but restored?
Finally, the Iranian envoy, who claims to know the region well, seems to have forgotten Iran’s own most painful wound: the loss of Syria. Syria matters to Tehran as the indispensable corridor to Lebanon, and thus to Hezbollah.
Until Iranian officials confront this new reality – that their wars can no longer be waged by proxy militias in Arab lands but must be faced within Iran itself – they will continue to repeat the same hollow script, even as the region around them moves on. – Khairallah Khairallah
Translated by Asaf Zilberfarb/The Media Line.All assertions, opinions, facts, and information presented in these articles are the sole responsibility of their respective authors and not necessarily those of The Media Line, which assumes no responsibility for their content.
President Donald Trump has projected himself as a peacemaker since returning to the White House in January, touting his efforts to end global conflicts.
In meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders Monday, Trump repeated that he has been instrumental in stopping multiple wars but didn’t specify which.
“I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars, Trump said in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. He later added: “If you look at the six deals I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires.”
He raised that figure Tuesday, telling “Fox & Friends” that “we ended seven wars.”
But although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.
Here’s a closer look at the conflicts.
People take pictures of smoke rising from an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. (AP Photo, File)
People take pictures of smoke rising from an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. (AP Photo, File)
Israel and Iran
Trump is credited with ending the 12-day war.
Israel launched attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership in June, saying it wanted to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon — which Tehran has denied it was trying to do.
Trump negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Iran just after directing American warplanes to strike Iran’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. He publicly harangued both countries into maintaining the ceasefire.
Evelyn Farkas, executive director of Arizona State University’s McCain Institute, said Trump should get credit for ending the war.
“There’s always a chance it could flare up again if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program, but nonetheless, they were engaged in a hot war with one another,” she said. “And it didn’t have any real end in sight before President Trump got involved and gave them an ultimatum.”
Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council who is an expert on Israel-Iran tensions, agreed the U.S. was instrumental in securing the ceasefire. But he characterized it as a “temporary respite” from the ongoing “day-to-day cold war” between the two foes that often involves flare-ups.
Egypt and Ethiopia
This could be described as tensions at best, and peace efforts — which don’t directly involve the U.S. — have stalled.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River has caused friction between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan since the power-generating project was announced more than a decade ago. In July, Ethiopia declared the project complete, with an inauguration set for September.
Egypt and Sudan oppose the dam. Although the vast majority of the water that flows down the Nile originates in Ethiopia, Egyptian agriculture relies on the river almost entirely. Sudan, meanwhile, fears flooding and wants to protect its own power-generating dams.
During his first term, Trump tried to broker a deal between Ethiopia and Egypt but couldn’t get them to agree. He suspended aid to Ethiopia over the dispute. In July, he posted on Truth Social that he helped the “fight over the massive dam (and) there is peace at least for now.” However, the disagreement persists, and negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have stalled.
“It would be a gross overstatement to say that these countries are at war,” said Haas. “I mean, they’re just not.”
Indian security officers patrol in armored vehicles in Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, after assailants indiscriminately opened fired at tourists. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
Indian security officers patrol in armored vehicles in Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, after assailants indiscriminately opened fired at tourists. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)
Trump has claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire, which he said came about in part because he offered trade concessions. Pakistan thanked Trump, recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize. But India has denied Trump’s claims, saying there was no conversation between the U.S. and India on trade in regards to the ceasefire.
Although India has downplayed the Trump administration’s role in the ceasefire, Haas and Farkas believe the U.S. deserves some credit for helping stop the fighting.
“I think that President Trump played a constructive role from all accounts, but it may not have been decisive. And again, I’m not sure whether you would define that as a full-blown war,” Farkas said.
Serbia and Kosovo
The White House lists the conflict between these countries as one Trump resolved, but there has been no threat of a war between the two neighbors during Trump’s second term, nor any significant contribution from Trump this year to improve their relations.
Kosovo is a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Tensions have persisted ever since, but never to the point of war, mostly because NATO-led peacekeepers have been deployed in Kosovo, which has been recognized by more than 100 countries.
During his first term, Trump negotiated a wide-ranging deal between Serbia and Kosovo, but much of what was agreed on was never carried out.
People protest in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, against the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels’ advances into eastern Congo’s capital, Goma, on Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)
People protest in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, against the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels’ advances into eastern Congo’s capital, Goma, on Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Trump has played a key role in peace efforts between the African neighbors, but he’s hardly alone and the conflict is far from over.
Eastern Congo, rich in minerals, has been battered by fighting with more than 100 armed groups. The most potent is the M23 rebel group backed by neighboring Rwanda, which claims it is protecting its territorial interests and that some of those who participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled to Congo and are working with the Congolese army.
The Trump administration’s efforts paid off in June, when the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers signed a peace deal at the White House. The M23, however, wasn’t directly involved in the U.S.-facilitated negotiations and said it couldn’t abide by the terms of an agreement that didn’t involve it.
The final step to peace was meant to be a separate Qatar-facilitated deal between Congo and M23 that would bring about a permanent ceasefire. But with the fighting still raging, Monday’s deadline for the Qatar-led deal was missed and there have been no public signs of major talks between Congo and M23 on the final terms.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Trump this month hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House, where they signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict between the two nations. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the signed document a “significant milestone,” and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed Trump for performing “a miracle.”
The two countries signed agreements intended to reopen key transportation routes and reaffirm Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s commitment to signing a peace treaty. The treaty’s text was initialed by the countries’ foreign ministers at that meeting, which indicates preliminary approval. But the two countries have yet to sign and ratify the deal.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter conflict over territory since the early 1990s, when ethnic Armenian forces took control of the Karabakh province, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and nearby territories. In 2020, Azerbaijan’s military recaptured broad swaths of territory. Russia brokered a truce and deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region.
In September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lightning blitz to retake remaining portions. The two countries have worked toward normalizing ties and signing a peace treaty ever since.
This photo released by the Royal Thai Army shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine, being airlifted to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, July 23, 2025. (The Royal Thai Army via AP, File)
This photo released by the Royal Thai Army shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine, being airlifted to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, July 23, 2025. (The Royal Thai Army via AP, File)
Cambodia and Thailand
Officials from Thailand and Cambodia credit Trump with pushing the Asian neighbors to agree to a ceasefire in this summer’s brief border conflict.
Cambodia and Thailand have clashed in the past over their shared border. The latest fighting began in July after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Tensions had been growing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a confrontation that created a diplomatic rift and roiled Thai politics.
Both countries agreed in late July to an unconditional ceasefire during a meeting in Malaysia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pressed for the pact, but there was little headway until Trump intervened. Trump said on social media that he warned the Thai and Cambodian leaders that the U.S. would not move forward with trade agreements if the hostilities continued. Both countries faced economic difficulties and neither had reached tariff deals with the U.S., though most of their Southeast Asian neighbors had.
According to Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and University of Michigan doctoral candidate, “President Trump’s decision to condition a successful conclusion to these talks on a ceasefire likely played a significant role in ensuring that both sides came to the negotiating table when they did.” ___ Associated Press reporters Jon Gambrell, Grant Peck, Dasha Litvinova, Fay Abuelgasim, Rajesh Roy, and Dusan Stojanovic contributed.
Seventy-six people were killed in a collision between a bus carrying Afghan migrants and two other vehicles in western Afghanistan, a provincial official said Wednesday.
“Seventy-six citizens of the country … lost their lives in the incident, and three others were seriously injured,” Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, Herat provincial government spokesman, said in a statement.
Map shows city of Herat, in western Afghanistan.
Google Maps
The dead included at least 17 children, provincial government spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi told the Reuters news agency.
Police in the Guzara district outside Herat city, where the accident occurred Tuesday night, said the bus collided with a motorcycle and a truck carrying fuel, sparking a fire.
The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned by Iran to the Afghan capital of Kabul, Saeedi told AFP on Tuesday. Muttaqi also said they’d been deported by Tehran.
At least 1.5 million people have returned to Afghanistan since the start of this year from Iran and Pakistan, both of which have sought to force migrants out after decades of hosting them, according to the U.N. migration agency.
The state-run Bakhtar News Agency said Tuesday’s accident was one of Afghanistan’s deadliest in recent years.
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving on highways and a lack of regulation.
In December, two bus accidents involving a fuel tanker and a truck on a highway through central Afghanistan killed at least 52.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would be coming to the region to deter Iran and its militant allies.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting with school and university students, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Iran has launched two major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.
But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack faltered as satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.
Iran’s allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to back them militarily.
Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After Khamenei’s speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, near an all-time low. It had been 32,000 rials to the dollar when Tehran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars news agency just before Khamenei’s remarks were released. In it, he warned Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”
“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned. Israeli air force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the Oct. 26 attack.
Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing up would “return in coffins” horizontally.
Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.
Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would be coming to the region to deter Iran and its militant allies.
The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Iran has launched two major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.
But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack faltered as satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.
Iran’s allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to back them militarily.
Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After Khamenei’s speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, near an all-time low. It had been 32,000 rials to the dollar when Tehran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars news agency just before Khamenei’s remarks were released. In it, he warned Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”
“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned. Israeli air force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the Oct. 26 attack.
Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing up would “return in coffins” horizontally.
Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.
Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.
Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates on bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would be coming to the region to deter Iran and its militant allies.
The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Iran has launched two major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.
But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack faltered as satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.
Iran’s allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to back them militarily.
Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After Khamenei’s speech, the Iranian rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, near an all-time low. It had been 32,000 rials to the dollar when Tehran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars news agency just before Khamenei’s remarks were released. In it, he warned Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”
“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned. Israeli air force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the Oct. 26 attack.
“Obviously, Iran has gone way out of — I mean, is way off court,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday. “And there’s going to be some sanctions imposed on Iran.”
Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing up would “return in coffins” horizontally.
Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said dozens of civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike. CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams reports on the U.S. response and de-escalation efforts in the Middle East.
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Narges Mohammadi has dedicated much of her life to advocating for the rights of the people of Iran, including those languishing in the country’s prisons without access to proper medical care. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is now in a similarly precarious position, as her health deteriorates within the confines of Iran’s notorious prison system. Mohammadi’s family tells TIME that her worsening health in is directly tied to the Iranian prison authorities’ withholding of vital medical care—which they describe as intentional effort to “eliminate” her.
Mohammadi was finally hospitalized this week, after more than two months of requests, but her family and others advocating on her behalf say it won’t be enough to save her. “A mere transfer to the hospital will not address the severe issues caused by months of neglect and deprivation,” Mohammadi’s family tells TIME. “She must be granted medical furlough to receive comprehensive treatment for multiple conditions.”
Mohammadi’s most severe health issue involves complications with a major cardiac artery, which was stented in 2022 due to a 75% blockage. Her family said that repeated requests for medical intervention were repeatedly denied by officials at Tehran’s Evin prison as recently as Oct. 1. No one knows how long Mohammadi will be permitted to remain in the hospital before being returned to Evin which holds hundreds of political prisoners and dissidents. It is there that Mohammadi is currently serving a more than 13-year sentence, which last week was extended by six months after she protested the August execution of another prisoner.
Her family and allies fear that in her current condition, that kind of prison time amounts to a death sentence. “They cannot just kill her openly in the prison, and so denying medical treatment is a kind of subtle way of pushing her to death without accepting the responsibility of her dying,” her brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, tells TIME from Oslo, “because if she dies from a heart attack, they will say it was just a heart attack.”
This isn’t the first time Iranian authorities have denied Mohammadi medical care. The 52-year-old activist has been in and out of prison since at least 2010, when she was arrested for her involvement with the Defenders of Human Rights Center, an organization founded by fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Mohammadi was held in solitary confinement for a month, during which time her brother says she was tortured. “She got sick, and then they had to take her to the hospital,” he says. “They didn’t want to release her, but she was in a terrible condition. She was almost paralyzed. She couldn’t walk.”
During a subsequent stint in prison, in 2018, Mohammadi suffered weeks of intense illness and muscle spasms before ultimately being transferred to a hospital for treatment, requests for which her family says were previously refused. Perhaps the most significant threat to her health came in 2022, when she suffered multiple heart attacks before ultimately being transferred to hospital for emergency heart surgery. Three days later, against medical advice and before she had fully recuperated, she was returned to prison, where she remained for three days before being released on medical furlough. One month later, she was rearrested and returned to prison, where she has remained since.
“Narges had planned to return to prison voluntarily at the end of her medical leave, and even announced it publicly on Instagram the night before,” her husband, the Iranian journalist and activist Taghi Rahmani, tells TIME from Paris, where he resides in exile with their teenage twins. “But that same day, just three hours before she was due to leave, authorities and security agents stormed our home, violently arresting her and taking her away.”
Withholding lifesaving healthcare is a feature, not a bug, of Iran’s prison system. According to a 2022 report by Amnesty International, the deliberate denial and delaying of care has resulted in the deaths of at least 96 people in Iranian custody since 2010. The vast majority were under the age of 59, raising concerns that lives are being cut short by the denial of healthcare. Amnesty attributes the trend to prison officials operating “amid a culture of impunity for torture and other ill-treatment,” and concluded the practice “is an intentional act of cruelty intended to break [prisoners and their families] spirit of resistance, punish them for their dissent, or even bring about or hasten their demise.”
Mohammadi’s spirit of resistance apparently remains strong. From the confines of the women’s ward of Evin prison, she has organized sit-ins, workshops, and protests against the Iranian government’s human rights violations, some of which were met with violence by prison guards. She boldly documented the suspicious fire that erupted in Evin Prison in 2022 during the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. Mohammadi was still incarcerated when the Nobel committee announced her award a year later. Her children attended the ceremony in her stead, reading her letter vowing, “The Iranian people will dismantle obstruction and despotism through their persistence. Have no doubt – this is certain.”
For human rights activists, a Nobel prize can act as a shield. It may not work that way in Iran. Ebadi, who won 20 years earlier, wrote of Iranian agents plotting to disgrace her marriage. Mohammadi’s brother says that, after the ceremony in Oslo, prison authorities cut off the new laureate from all contact with her family.
“The regime is just angry that a woman in Iran is recognized for her activism,” he says. “It’s also pretending or showing to the world that they don’t care if she’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner or not. They will do whatever they want.”
Israel’s attack on Iran likely damaged a base run by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that builds ballistic missiles and launches rockets as part of its own space program, satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday showed.The damage at the base in Shahroud raises new questions about Israel’s attack early Saturday, particularly as it took place in an area previously unacknowledged by Tehran and involved the Guard, a powerful force within Iran’s theocracy that so far has remained silent about any possible damage it suffered from the assault. Iran only has identified Israeli attacks as taking place in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces — not in rural Semnan province where the base is located.It also potentially further restrains the Guard’s ability to manufacture the solid-fuel ballistic missiles it needs to stockpile as a deterrent against Israel. Tehran long has relied on that arsenal as it cannot purchase the advanced Western weapons that Israel and Tehran’s Gulf Arab neighbors have armed themselves with over the years, particularly from the United States.Satellite photos earlier analyzed by the AP of two military bases near Tehran also targeted by Israel shows sites there Iran uses in its ballistic missile manufacturing have been destroyed, further squeezing its program.”We don’t know if Iranian production has been crippled as some people are saying or just damaged,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Iran. “We’ve seen enough imagery to show there’s an impact.”Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Israeli military.Images show major building at Shahroud base destroyedHigh-resolution satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken for and analyzed by the AP showed the damage at the Guard’s Shahroud Space Center in Semnan, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Semnan also hosts the Imam Khomeini Space Center, which is used by Iran’s civilian space program.The images showed a central, major building at the Shahroud Space Center had been destroyed, the shadow of its still-standing frame seen in the image taken Tuesday morning. Vehicles could be seen gathered around the site, likely from officials inspecting the damage, with more cars than normal parked at the site’s main gate nearby.Three small buildings just to the south of the main structure also appeared to be damaged. Iran has been constructing new buildings at the base in recent months. Another hangar to the northeast of the main building also appeared to have been damaged.Iran has not acknowledged any attack at Shahroud. However, given the damage done to multiple structures, it suggested the Israeli attack included pinpoint strikes on the base. Low-resolution images since the attack showed signs of damage at the site not seen before the assault — further pointing to Israeli missile strikes as being the culprit.”We can’t 100% exclude the possibility it’s something else, but it’s almost certain this building got damaged because of an Israeli attack,” Hinz said.Given that the large building had been surrounded by earthen berms, that suggests it handled high explosives, said Hinz, who long has studied the site. That central site likely deals with solid propellant mixing and casting operations, he added.Large boxes next to the building likely are missile motor crates as well, Hinz said. Their sizes suggest they could be used for Iran’s Kheibar Shekan ballistic missile and the Fattah 1, a missile that Iran has claimed is able to reach Mach 15 — which is 15 times the speed of sound. Both have been used in Iran’s attacks on Israel during the Israel-Hamas war and the later ground invasion of Lebanon.The strike at Shahroud, coupled with others across the country, likely have put more pressure on Iran’s theocracy, particularly as it assesses the damage to its main weapon arsenal and tries to downplay the attack.”Due to preparedness and vigilance of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces, and timely reaction by the country’s air defense, limited damage was caused to some of the points hit,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed in a meeting with foreign diplomats Tuesday in Tehran. “Necessary measures were taken immediately to restore the damaged equipment to operational state.”US worries Guard’s space program a cover for missile researchA short distance from the destroyed buildings sits a concrete launch pad used by the Guard, which has conducted a series of successful missions putting satellites into space using mobile launchers. The Guard, which answers only to 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revealed its secret space program back in 2020.The U.S. intelligence community’s 2024 worldwide threat assessment said Iran’s continued development of satellite launch vehicles “would shorten the timeline to produce” an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, if it chooses to produce them, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly has warned.Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003. Parchin, one of the two military bases near Tehran targeted by Israel, saw a building linked to that program destroyed.”Like with Iran’s nuclear program, you don’t build the system itself, you build all the technology under cover of a civilian program,” Hinz said.Then, Iran could make the decision to pursue the weapon — or use its knowledge as a bargaining chip with the West over international sanctions.But for now, the satellite photos suggest Iran is still trying to assess the aftermath of Israel’s attack.”The picture that is emerging is one of significant damage to Iranian air defenses as well as missile launch facilities, both of which would be intended to show the Iranians that they are vulnerable to further strikes if they attempt retaliation,” an analysis published Monday by two experts at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —
Israel’s attack on Iran likely damaged a base run by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that builds ballistic missiles and launches rockets as part of its own space program, satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday showed.
The damage at the base in Shahroud raises new questions about Israel’s attack early Saturday, particularly as it took place in an area previously unacknowledged by Tehran and involved the Guard, a powerful force within Iran’s theocracy that so far has remained silent about any possible damage it suffered from the assault. Iran only has identified Israeli attacks as taking place in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces — not in rural Semnan province where the base is located.
It also potentially further restrains the Guard’s ability to manufacture the solid-fuel ballistic missiles it needs to stockpile as a deterrent against Israel. Tehran long has relied on that arsenal as it cannot purchase the advanced Western weapons that Israel and Tehran’s Gulf Arab neighbors have armed themselves with over the years, particularly from the United States.
Satellite photos earlier analyzed by the AP of two military bases near Tehran also targeted by Israel shows sites there Iran uses in its ballistic missile manufacturing have been destroyed, further squeezing its program.
“We don’t know if Iranian production has been crippled as some people are saying or just damaged,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Iran. “We’ve seen enough imagery to show there’s an impact.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Israeli military.
Images show major building at Shahroud base destroyed
High-resolution satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken for and analyzed by the AP showed the damage at the Guard’s Shahroud Space Center in Semnan, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Semnan also hosts the Imam Khomeini Space Center, which is used by Iran’s civilian space program.
The images showed a central, major building at the Shahroud Space Center had been destroyed, the shadow of its still-standing frame seen in the image taken Tuesday morning. Vehicles could be seen gathered around the site, likely from officials inspecting the damage, with more cars than normal parked at the site’s main gate nearby.
Three small buildings just to the south of the main structure also appeared to be damaged. Iran has been constructing new buildings at the base in recent months. Another hangar to the northeast of the main building also appeared to have been damaged.
Iran has not acknowledged any attack at Shahroud. However, given the damage done to multiple structures, it suggested the Israeli attack included pinpoint strikes on the base. Low-resolution images since the attack showed signs of damage at the site not seen before the assault — further pointing to Israeli missile strikes as being the culprit.
“We can’t 100% exclude the possibility it’s something else, but it’s almost certain this building got damaged because of an Israeli attack,” Hinz said.
Given that the large building had been surrounded by earthen berms, that suggests it handled high explosives, said Hinz, who long has studied the site. That central site likely deals with solid propellant mixing and casting operations, he added.
Planet Labs PBC
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at the Revolutionary Guard’s Shahroud Space Center in Semnan province, Iran, on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024.(Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Large boxes next to the building likely are missile motor crates as well, Hinz said. Their sizes suggest they could be used for Iran’s Kheibar Shekan ballistic missile and the Fattah 1, a missile that Iran has claimed is able to reach Mach 15 — which is 15 times the speed of sound. Both have been used in Iran’s attacks on Israel during the Israel-Hamas war and the later ground invasion of Lebanon.
The strike at Shahroud, coupled with others across the country, likely have put more pressure on Iran’s theocracy, particularly as it assesses the damage to its main weapon arsenal and tries to downplay the attack.
“Due to preparedness and vigilance of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces, and timely reaction by the country’s air defense, limited damage was caused to some of the points hit,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed in a meeting with foreign diplomats Tuesday in Tehran. “Necessary measures were taken immediately to restore the damaged equipment to operational state.”
US worries Guard’s space program a cover for missile research
A short distance from the destroyed buildings sits a concrete launch pad used by the Guard, which has conducted a series of successful missions putting satellites into space using mobile launchers. The Guard, which answers only to 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revealed its secret space program back in 2020.
The U.S. intelligence community’s 2024 worldwide threat assessment said Iran’s continued development of satellite launch vehicles “would shorten the timeline to produce” an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, if it chooses to produce them, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly has warned.
Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003. Parchin, one of the two military bases near Tehran targeted by Israel, saw a building linked to that program destroyed.
“Like with Iran’s nuclear program, you don’t build the system itself, you build all the technology under cover of a civilian program,” Hinz said.
Then, Iran could make the decision to pursue the weapon — or use its knowledge as a bargaining chip with the West over international sanctions.
But for now, the satellite photos suggest Iran is still trying to assess the aftermath of Israel’s attack.
“The picture that is emerging is one of significant damage to Iranian air defenses as well as missile launch facilities, both of which would be intended to show the Iranians that they are vulnerable to further strikes if they attempt retaliation,” an analysis published Monday by two experts at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute said.
After military-on-military attacks, will Israel and Iran be able to contain their conflict? Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The New York Times, looks at an unprecedented new chapter in the Middle East.
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Maria Abi-Habib, Christina Shaman, Nikolay Nikolov and Laura Salaberry
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel attacked military targets in Iran with a series of pre-dawn airstrikes Saturday in retaliation for the barrage of ballistic missiles the Islamic Republic fired upon Israel earlier in the month.
The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted facilities that Iran used to make the missiles fired at Israel as well as surface-to-air missile sites. There was no immediate indication that oil or missile sites were hit – strikes that would have marked a much more serious escalation – and Israel offered no immediate damage assessment.
Explosions could be heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though the Islamic Republic insisted they caused only “limited damage” and Iranian state-run media downplayed the attacks. Iran’s army said two of its troops had been killed in the attack, Iran’s Al-Alam television reported.
Still, the strikes risk pushing the archenemies closer to all-out war at a time of spiraling violence across the Middle East, where militant groups backed by Iran – including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – are already at war with Israel.
Following the airstrikes, Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it had a right to self-defense, and “considers itself entitled and obligated to defend against foreign acta of aggression.”
The first open Israeli attack on Iran
“Iran attacked Israel twice, including in locations that endangered civilians, and has paid the price for it,” said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
“We are focused on our war objectives in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. It is Iran that continues to push for a wider regional escalation.”
Photos and video released by Israel showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wearing a black casual jacket, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meeting with military advisers and others in a conference room at a military command and control center in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.
The strikes filled the air for hours until sunrise in Iran. They marked the first time Israel’s military has openly attacked Iran, which hasn’t faced a sustained barrage of fire from a foreign enemy since its 1980s war with Iraq.
Israel is also widely thought to have been behind a limited airstrike in April near a major air base in Iran in which the radar system for a Russian-made air defense battery was hit.
Saturday’s attack came as part of Israel’s “duty to respond” to attacks on it from “Iran and its proxies in the region,” Hagari said.
“The Israel Defense Forces has fulfilled its mission,” Hagari said. “If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond.”
Israel’s attack effectively sent the message to Iran that it would not remain silent, while not taking out highly visible or symbolic facilities that could prompt an significant response from Iran, said Yoel Guzansky, a researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies who formerly worked for Israel’s National Security Council.
At the same time, it also gives Israel room for further escalation if needed, and the targeting of air defense systems weakens Iran’s capabilities to defend against future attacks, he said, adding that if there is Iranian retaliation, he expects it to be limited.
“There’s more chances of Iranian restraint because of their interests, because of pressure from the outside, and because of the nature of the Israeli attack … that allows them to save face,” he said.
Mixed reactions at home and abroad
I
srael’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, criticized the decision to avoid “strategic and economic targets” in the attack.
“We could and should have exacted a much heavier price from Iran,” Lapid wrote on X.
The United States warned against further retaliation, indicating that the overnight strikes should end the direct exchange of fire between Israel and Iran, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “Iran should not respond.”
“We need to avoid further regional escalation and urge all sides to show restraint,” he said while attending a summit in Samoa.
Saudi Arabia was one of multiple countries in the region condemning the strike, calling it a violation of Iran’s “sovereignty and a violation of international laws and norms.”
The kingdom’s foreign ministry said it rejected the escalation in the region and “the expansion of the conflict that threatens the security and stability of the countries and people of the region.”
Iran-backed Hamas called the attack “an escalation targeting the region’s security and its people’s safety.”
Nuclear facilities and oil installations were all seen as possible targets for Israel’s response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, before U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration won assurances from Israel in mid-October that it would not hit such targets, which would be a more severe escalation.
Iran’s military said the strikes targeted military bases in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces, without elaborating.
It closed its airspace during the attack but Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said flights were resuming at 9 a.m., Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.
Iran’s state-run media acknowledged blasts that could be heard in Tehran and said some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city. But beyond a brief reference, Iranian state television for hours offered no other details.
Iran may be trying to bring an end to the escalating tit-for-tat attacks
Iran’s move to quickly downplay the attack may offer an avenue for it not to respond, averting further escalation.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel in April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimal damage, and Israel – under pressure from Western countries to show restraint – responded with a limited strike it didn’t openly claim.
In Lebanon, dozens were killed and thousands wounded in September when pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded in two days of attacks attributed to Israel. A massive Israel airstrike the following week outside Beirut killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.
On Oct. 1, Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel in retaliation, sending Israelis scrambling into bomb shelters but causing only minimal damage and a few injuries.
Netanyahu immediately said Iran had “made a big mistake.”
Israel then ratcheted up the pressure on Hezbollah by launching a ground invasion into southern Lebanon. More than a million Lebanese people have been displaced, and the death toll has risen sharply as airstrikes hit in and around Beirut.
Antipathy between the two countries goes back decades
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
During their yearslong shadow war, a suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists and Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
The shadow war has increasingly moved into the light since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel. They killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostages into Gaza. In response, Israel launched a devastating air and ground offensive against Hamas, and Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting until all of the hostages are freed. Some 100 remain, of whom roughly a third are believed to be dead.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials, who don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but say more than half of the dead have been women and children.
___
Gambrell reported from Dubai, and Schreck from Jerusalem. United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Lolita C. Baldor, Farnoush Amiri and Zeke Miller in Washington; David Rising in Bangkok; and Aamer Madhani in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault Oct. 1, officials said. There was no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.
Israel’s military described the attack as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military statement said. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
In Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, state media in Syria described its air defenses as targeting “hostile targets” there as well.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.
The strike happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.
Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel – under pressure from Western countries to show restraint – responded with a limited strike.
But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault Oct. 1, officials said. There was no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.
Israel’s military described the attack as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military statement said. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
In Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, state media in Syria described its air defenses as targeting “hostile targets” there as well.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.
The strike happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.
Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel – under pressure from Western countries to show restraint – responded with a limited strike.
But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
A defense official told CBS News that the U.S. was given a heads-up in advance of Israel’s retaliatory attack against Iran. The U.S. is not involved in the strikes, but President Biden has been briefed on the situation. Ed O’Keefe, CBS News senior White House and political correspondent, and Sam Vinograd, CBS News national security contributor, have more.
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In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said its retaliatory attack on Iran was limited to “precise strikes on military targets.” CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd CBS News and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan join to break down what it means.
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Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault Oct. 1, officials said. There was no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.Video above: Israeli officials refuse to commit to US efforts to end war in GazaIsrael’s military described the attack as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military statement said. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”In Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.Meanwhile, state media in Syria described its air defenses as targeting “hostile targets” there as well.Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.The strike happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel — under pressure from Western countries to show restraint — responded with a limited strike.But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault Oct. 1, officials said. There was no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.
Video above: Israeli officials refuse to commit to US efforts to end war in Gaza
Israel’s military described the attack as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military statement said. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
In Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
A Tehran resident told The Associated Press that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Meanwhile, state media in Syria described its air defenses as targeting “hostile targets” there as well.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel also has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon.
The strike happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials had warned Israel to tender a response that would not further escalate the conflict in the region and exclude nuclear sites in Iran.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that “we understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran” and referred reporters to the Israeli government for more details on their operation.
Israel had vowed to hit Iran hard following a massive Iranian missile barrage on Oct. 1. Iran said its barrage was in response to deadly Israeli attacks against its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and it has promised to respond to any retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country’s nuclear program.
Israel and Iran have been locked in a yearslong shadow war. A suspected Israeli assassination campaign has killed top Iranian nuclear scientists. Iranian nuclear installations have been hacked or sabotaged, all in mysterious attacks blamed on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on shipping in the Middle East in recent years, which later grew into the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping through the Red Sea corridor.
But since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the battle has increasingly moved into the open. Israel has recently turned its attention to Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began. Throughout the year, a number of top Iranian military figures have been killed in Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimum damage, and Israel — under pressure from Western countries to show restraint — responded with a limited strike.
But after Iran’s early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response.
NEW YORK (AP) — Foreign adversaries have shown continued determination to influence the U.S. election –- and there are signs their activity will intensify as Election Day nears, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.
Russian operatives are doubling down on fake videos to smear Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, while Chinese-linked social media campaigns are maligning down-ballot Republicans who are critical of China, the company’s threat intelligence arm said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Iranian actors who allegedly sent emails aimed at intimidating U.S. voters in 2020 have been surveying election-related websites and major media outlets, raising concerns they could be preparing for another scheme this year, the tech giant said.
The report serves as a warning – building on others from U.S. intelligence officials – that as the nation enters this critical final stretch and begins counting ballots, the worst influence efforts may be yet to come. U.S. officials say they remain confident that election infrastructure is secure enough to withstand any attacks from American adversaries. Still, in a tight election, foreign efforts to influence voters are raising concern.
Microsoft noted that some of the disinformation campaigns it tracks received little authentic engagement from U.S. audiences, but others have been amplified by unwitting Americans, exposing thousands to foreign propaganda in the final weeks of voting.
Russia, China and Iran have all rejected claims that they are seeking to meddle with the U.S. election.
“The presidential elections are the United States’ domestic affairs. China has no intention and will not interfere in the US election,” the Chinese Embassy said in a statement.
“Having already unequivocally and repeatedly announced, Iran neither has any motive nor intent to interfere in the U.S. election; and, it therefore categorically repudiates such accusations,” read a statement from Iran’s mission to the United Nations.
A message left with the Russian Embassy was not immediately returned on Wednesday.
The report reveals an expanding landscape of coordinated campaigns to advance adversaries’ priorities as global wars and economic concerns raise the stakes for the U.S. election around the world. It details a trend also seen in the 2016 and 2020 elections of foreign actors covertly fomenting discord among American voters, furthering a divide in the electorate that has left the nation almost evenly split just 13 days before voting concludes.
“History has shown that the ability of foreign actors to rapidly distribute deceptive content can significantly impact public perception and electoral outcomes,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said in a news release. “With a particular focus on the 48 hours before and after Election Day, voters, government institutions, candidates and parties must remain vigilant to deceptive and suspicious activity online.”
Russian actors have spent recent months churning out both AI-generated content and more rudimentary spoofs and staged videos spreading disinformation about Harris, Microsoft’s analysts found.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Among the fake videos were a staged clip of a park ranger impersonator claiming Harris killed an endangered rhinoceros in Zambia, as well as a video sharing baseless allegations about her running mate Tim Walz, which U.S. intelligence officials also attributed to Russia this week. Morgan Finkelstein, national security spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, condemned Russia’s efforts.
Another Russian influence actor has been producing fake election-related videos spoofing American organizations from Fox News to the FBI and Wired magazine, according to the report.
China over the last several months has focused on down-ballot races, and on general efforts to sow distrust and democratic dissatisfaction. A Chinese influence actor widely known as Spamouflage has been using fake social media users to attack down-ballot Republicans who have publicly denounced China, according to Microsoft’s analysts.
Candidates targeted have included Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama, Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, all of whom are running for reelection, the report said. The group also has attacked Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
All four politicians sent emailed statements condemning China’s aggression against American political candidates and its efforts to weaken democracy.
In its statement, the Chinese embassy said U.S. officials, politicians and media “have accused China of using news websites and social media accounts to spread so-called disinformation in the US. Such allegations are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”
Iran, which has spent the 2024 campaign going after Trump with disinformation as well as hacking into the former president’s campaign, hasn’t been stymied by ongoing tension in the Middle East, according to the Microsoft report.
Quite the opposite, groups linked to Iran have weaponized divided opinions on the Israel-Hamas War to influence American voters, the analysts found. For example, an Iranian operated persona took to Telegram and X to call on Americans to sit out the elections due to the candidates’ support for Israel.
Microsoft’s report also said it observed an Iranian group compromising an account of a notable Republican politician who had a different account targeted in June. The company would not name the individual but said it was the same person who it had referenced in August as a “former presidential candidate.”
The report also warned that the same Iranian group that allegedly posed as members of the far-right Proud Boys in intimidating emails to voters in 2020 has been scouting swing-state election-related websites and media outlets in recent months. The behavior could “suggest preparations for more direct influence operations as Election Day nears,” Watts said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement that the allegations in the report “are fundamentally unfounded, and wholly inadmissible.”
Even as Russia, China and Iran try to influence voters, intelligence officials said Tuesday there is still no indication they are plotting significant attacks on election infrastructure as a way to disrupt the outcome.
If they tried, improvements to election security means there is no way they could alter the results, Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told The Associated Press earlier this month.
Intelligence officials on Tuesday also warned that Russia and Iran may try to encourage violent protests in the U.S. after next month’s election, setting the stage for potential complications in the post-election period.
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