
As US cities heighten security, Iran's history of reprisal points to murder-for-hire plots
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security is warning of a 'heightened threat environment' following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and the deputy FBI director says the bureau's 'assets are fully engaged' to prevent retaliatory violence, while local law enforcement agencies in major cities like New York say they're on high alert.
No credible threats to the homeland have surfaced publicly in the days since the stealth American attack. It's also unclear what bearing a potential ceasefire announced Monday by the U.S. between Israel and Iran might have on potential threats or how lasting such an arrangement might be.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Israeli forces fire on people waiting for aid in Gaza, killing 25, witnesses and hospitals say
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces and drones opened fire toward hundreds of people waiting for aid trucks in central Gaza early Tuesday, killing at least 25 people, Palestinian witnesses and hospitals said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment. The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, which received the victims, said the Palestinians were waiting for the trucks on the Salah al-Din Road south of Wadi Gaza. Witnesses told The Associated Press that Israeli forces opened fire as people were advancing eastward to be close to the approaching trucks. 'It was a massacre,' said Ahmed Halawa. He said tanks and drones fired at people, 'even as we were fleeing. Many people were either martyred or wounded.' Hossam Abu Shahada, another eyewitness, said drones were flying over the area, watching the crowds first, then there was gunfire from tanks and drones as people were moving eastward. He described a 'chaotic and bloody' scene as people were attempting to escape. He said he saw at least three people lying on the ground motionless and many others wounded as he fled the site. The Awda hospital said another 146 Palestinians were wounded. Among them were 62 in critical condition, who were transferred to other hospitals in central Gaza, it said. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. In the central town of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the same incident. The deaths were the latest in Israel-Hamas war in Gaza which killed about 56,000 Palestinians, according to the strip's health ministry. The ministry doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants but say more than a half of the dead were women and children. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostages. Most of the hostages were released by ceasefire agreements.


Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Donald Trump and the next forever war
Opinion He didn't take two weeks to make up his mind whether or not to bomb Iran; only two days. Donald Trump is not a patient man. But he has just started another American 'forever war' in the Middle East, so he will have plenty of time to work on his self-control. Let's start with the immediate issue. Assume for a moment that Iran was really working to build nuclear weapons, allegedly to destroy Israel. Did the U.S. bombing of the Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan nuclear enrichment sites really blast down through 90 metres of rock and permanently eliminate any skulduggery the Iranians were up to there? Wrong question. If there really was a large stock of highly enriched uranium stored under all that rock, the Iranians have had a week to divide it up into dozens or hundreds of packets and hide it at safe sites all over the country. What would you do if you knew somebody was coming to bomb you in a few days? Then there's this business about how highly enriched Iran's uranium is. Ninety per cent is 'weapons-grade,' and Iran had already enriched a lot of uranium to 60per cent, so the American B-2s have to start bombing right now. No time to lose. No time even to think. Nonsense. The 'gun-type' atomic bomb just fires one chunk of enriched uranium at another chunk and so long as the two chunks add up to a 'critical mass' the bomb explodes. That critical mass can be quite small if the uranium is highly enriched, but it will still work at 60 per cent although the package will be heavier and bulkier. There was no deadline. That type of nuclear weapon is so simple and fool-proof that there is no real need to 'test' it, but how was Iran going to deliver it? A ballistic missile, presumably, because drones and cruise missiles can't handle the weight or the range, but very few of Iran's ballistic missiles get through Israel's missile defences. However, just for the sake of argument imagine that one of Iran's putative nine or ten nuclear missiles does make it through and destroys an Israeli town or city. We are piling improbable on top of implausible here, but what would Israel do then? Israel would probably respond by leveling Iran, which it is more than capable of doing. It has the full 'triad' of nuclear weapons, at least 100 of them but up to 400, of all sizes up to the thermonuclear. Israel can sterilize the whole of Iran if it chooses (although the fallout and the climatic effects would be a major inconvenience for everybody). None of these stories we are told makes much sense, so let's try a different approach. What did the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies tell the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, about Iran's nuclear weapons last March? They told her that Iran was not building nuclear weapons. Indeed, they explained that Tehran only created a nuclear weapons programme (which never got very far) after Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Iran with U.S. help in the 1980s. After Saddam was overthrown in 2003, it became clear that there had never been any Iraqi nuclear weapons: it was all a bluff. Thereupon Iran closed its own nuclear weapons programme down and has never resumed it since. Why did Iran start enriching uranium past the 3.5 per cent limit that it accepted in the 2015-2030 deal negotiated by Barack Obama? Because Donald Trump tore up that deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, which had observed the agreement faithfully up to that point. Tehran waited two years, then started gradually raising the level of enrichment — and did not hide it. It was trying to exert some pressure on the other signatories to drop the sanctions and restore the 2015 deal. Iran had no other leverage and those who try to use this as proof that it was seeking nuclear weapons are deliberately ignoring the history of the affair. It's all just history now. Trump has fallen for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just as hard as he fell for Russia's President Vladimir Putin (both strong men with criminal tendencies), and the die is cast. It is likely to be a long, ugly war, conducted mostly by aircraft and missiles at first, but there will be 'boots on the ground' if it goes on long enough. An anti-clerical revolution in Iran could take the country down another road (though not necessarily a smoother one), but if the regime survives, the war could last for many years. 'Persia' was the rival superpower in Roman times and a thousand years later it was the other superpower in Ottoman times. It's not a superpower any more, but then neither is the United States. Gwynne Dyer's new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World's Climate Engineers. The previous book, The Shortest History of War, is also still available.


Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
China plans to show off new equipment at parade marking 80th anniversary of Japan's WWII surrender
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