Latest news with #militarystrike
The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Israeli army strikes Houthi targets at Yemen's Hodeidah port
Israel struck Houthis military targets in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Monday. The Israeli army said it 'struck and dismantled' infrastructure belonging to the rebel group. 'Among the military infrastructure struck were engineering vehicles used to re-establish the port's infrastructure, fuel containers, naval vessels used for military activities and force against the state of Israel and vessels in the maritime zone adjacent to the port,' the army said. 'Due to the military use of the port of Hodeidah by the Houthi terror regime, the port has been attacked multiple times in the past.' Defence Minister Israel Katz said the 'fate of Yemen will be the same as Tehran'. Israel launched an unprecedented surprise bombing campaign against Iran last month, prompting Tehran to respond with drone and missile attacks. Israel's strikes dealt a significant blow to Tehran's air defences, which were repeatedly activated in the capital and across the country. 'The Houthis will pay a heavy price for launching missiles at the state of Israel,' Mr Katz said. 'We will continue to act at any time and in any place to defend the state of Israel.' Houthi media reported 'a series of Israeli air raids on the port of Hodeidah'. The Iran-aligned Houthis have been firing at Israel and attacking shipping lanes. Traffic through the Red Sea, a critical waterway for the world's oil and commodities, has dropped since the militia began attacking ships in November 2023 in what the group said was solidarity with Palestinians against Israel in the Gaza war. Israel has responded with several strikes on Yemen, including attacks on the port city of Hodeidah earlier this month. The group said late on Friday they had attacked Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, while the Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted after air raid sirens were triggered in several parts of the country. Most of the dozens of missiles and drones the Houthis have launched at Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. On July 6, the Houthis attacked and sunk the Greek-owned, Liberian-flagged Magic Seas – their first such assault this year. On July 7, the group carried out a two-day attack on another cargo ship, the Eternity C, sinking it and forcing the crew to abandon ship. Operation Aspides – the EU naval task force in the Red Sea – said three people died, 10 were rescued and others remain missing. The rebels said they 'rescued' an unspecified number of people aboard the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, with the US accusing them of kidnap. Israel launched retaliatory strikes involving about 20 aircraft against Houthi-controlled ports, a power station and a ship that the group captured in 2023. Israel dropped more than 50 bombs in the attack, its military said.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Insider Reveals ‘Nobody' Is Talking to Hegseth as Iran Crisis Spirals
Donald Trump is sidestepping his own defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, while seeking advice on whether to launch a military strike against Iran, according to a report. An unnamed U.S. official told The Washington Post that the president is instead turning to a couple of four-star generals for guidance on whether to join Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, with the head of the Pentagon being largely left out. 'Nobody is talking to Hegseth,' the official said. 'There is no interface operationally between Hegseth and the White House at all.' Speculation is mounting that Trump may be willing to start a war with Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Trump has already signed off on attack plans but has not yet given the final go-ahead to execute them, CBS News reported. When asked if the U.S. was getting closer to striking Iran's nuclear facilities at the White House on Wednesday, Trump less than helpfully replied: 'I may do it. I may not do it.' Hegseth, a former Fox News host whose lack of military experience raised eyebrows when he was picked to lead the Pentagon, does not appear to be convincing Trump to make a decision one way or the other. Instead, the president is leaning more heavily on top military brass like four-star General Erik Kurilla, nicknamed 'The Gorilla,' who leads U.S. Central Command and oversees operations in the Middle East, according to the Post. Also advising Trump is General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation's highest-ranking military officer. Both generals are said to be providing Trump their input on Iran, while Hegseth and his team remain largely out of the loop. White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said the claims that Hegseth has been frozen out are 'totally false.' 'Secretary Hegseth and the entire national security team are doing a great job advancing the President's foreign policy goals, and they are consistently keeping him apprised on updates in the Middle East,' Kelly told The Daily Beast. A source also told the Daily Beast that Hegseth has been present for every national security briefing surrounding Iran, and that Trump 'cares deeply about his point of view.' A similar denial was issued by Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell. 'The Secretary is speaking with the President multiple times a day and has been with the President in the Situation Room this week,' Parnell told The Washington Post. 'Secretary Hegseth is providing the leadership the Department of Defense and our Armed Forces need, and he will continue to work diligently in support of President Trump's peace-through-strength agenda.' Hegseth isn't the only senior official reported to have been snubbed by Trump during the Iran crisis. Trump has taken issue with Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, over several controversies relating to her and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to the Post. A video she posted on social media on June 10, in which she spoke out against 'political elite warmongers,' was said to have angered Trump, with him later confronting her in front of others at the White House by saying: 'I saw the video, and I didn't like it,' a source told the Post. A spokesperson disputed that she is not fully engaged in advising Trump, with an ODNI press secretary telling the Post that Gabbard 'remains focused on her mission: providing accurate and actionable intelligence to the President, cleaning up the Deep State, and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Syria: Israel strikes Damascus as fighting between government forces and Druze rages
The Israeli military struck the Syrian defence ministry and government forces in southern Syria, as deadly sectarian fighting in the predominantly Druze province of Suweida continued for a fourth Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its forces were "working to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the regime's gangs". The Syrian foreign ministry condemned Israel's "treacherous aggression".The Syrian interior ministry and one Druze leader said a ceasefire had been agreed on Wednesday night. But another Druze leader rejected than 300 people are reported to have been killed in Suweida since Sunday, when clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes erupted. The Israeli military began striking Syrian security forces and their weapons on Monday, after they were deployed to the city of Suweida for the first time since Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in groups including the Druze - whose religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs - are suspicious of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his government despite his pledges to protect fears have been heightened by several outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence over the past eight months, including one in May in which dozens of people were reportedly killed in clashes between Druze, security forces and allied Islamist fighters in Damascus and the wake of that fighting, the government reached an agreement with Druze militias to hire local security forces in Suweida province from their has said he is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria because of their deep ties to those living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon that "the warnings in Damascus" had ended and that the Israeli military would "continue to operate vigorously in Suweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until they withdraw completely".He later posted that "the painful blows have begun" above a video clip showing a TV presenter being forced to dive under a desk live on air as an Israeli missile hit the nearby entrance to the Syrian defence ministry in Umayyad Square, in central Israeli military said it struck the Syrian government's military headquarters in the capital as well as a "military target in the area" of the presidential also said strikes hit armoured vehicles loaded with heavy machine guns and weapons on their way to Suweida, as well as firing posts and weapons storage facilities in southern foreign ministry said the strikes targeted government institutions and civilian facilities in Damascus and Suweida and killed "several innocent civilians"."This flagrant assault, which forms part of a deliberate policy pursued by the Israeli entity to inflame tensions, spread chaos and undermine security and stability in Syria, constitutes a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law," it Syrian interior ministry announced on Wednesday evening that it had reached a ceasefire agreement with Druze leaders "as part of efforts to restore security and stability". It said military operations would end immediately, police would set up checkpoints in Suweida city, and that the province would be "fully integrated" into the Syrian Druze leader, Sheikh Yousef Jarbou, confirmed the agreement. But another who supports Israel's intervention, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, called for Druze fighters to continue fighting until the "total liberation of our province from gangs".US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was "very worried" about the violence in the south, and that he was talking to Israel and Syria to calm the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, meanwhile reported that the humanitarian situation in Suweida city had rapidly cited sources as saying there were clashes in several area of the city and that tanks had attacked the national hospital, causing panic among the scores of casualties from the fighting being treated there. They also said there were acute shortages of water and medical SOHR says more than 300 people have been killed since Sunday in Suweida include 69 Druze fighters and 40 civilians, 27 of whom were summarily killed by interior ministry and defence ministry forces, according to the group. At least 165 members of the government forces and 18 Bedouin tribal fighters have also been killed in the clashes, while 10 members of government forces have been killed in Israeli strikes, it BBC is not able to verify the SOHR's casualty figures. The fighting between Bedouin tribes and Druze militias in Suweida is said to have been sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant on the highway to Damascus last Sunday, armed Druze fighters reportedly encircled and later seized a neighbourhood of Suweida city that is inhabited by Bedouin. The clashes soon spread into other parts of Suweida province, with tribesmen reportedly launching attacks on nearby Druze towns and interior ministry later announced that its forces and those of the defence ministry would intervene and impose order, saying the "dangerous escalation comes in light of the absence of relevant official institutions".There was a brief period of calm on Sunday night before the fighting resumed, with local activists reporting that Druze villages west of the city had been attacked with drones and mortars as government forces deployed afternoon, the Israeli military said it had stuck several Syrian government tanks in Suweida, saying it aimed to prevent forces advancing towards Suweida Tuesday morning, Druze spiritual leaders said they had agreed to allow government forces to enter Suweida province in order to end the bloodshed. But Sheikh Hajri urged Druze to resist, accusing the government of violating a ceasefire by bombarding Suweida fighting continued as government forces entered the city. The defence minister declared a ceasefire and said they would only open fire if attacked, but witnesses reported that they joined the Bedouin fighters in attacking Druze fighters and afternoon, Netanyahu and Katz ordered the Israeli military to once again attack government forces and weaponry in Suweida. They said they were working to prevent them from harming the Druze and to "ensure the demilitarisation" of areas near Israel's this year, Israel's prime minister demanded the complete demilitarisation of Suweida and two other southern provinces. He said Israel saw President Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as a threat. HTS is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and UK, but no longer by the Israeli military has already carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria to destroy the country's military assets since the fall of the Assad it has sent troops into the UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as well as several adjoining areas and the summit of Mount Hermon.
CNN
7 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Waltz defends use of Signal as he says he can make ‘UN great again' if confirmed to ambassador role
Former national security adviser Mike Waltz defended his use of the messaging app Signal during a Tuesday confirmation hearing where lawmakers largely avoided the topic. The 'Signalgate' scandal, in which top Trump administration officials discussed sensitive details of a US military strike in a chat to which Waltz had inadvertently added a journalist, dominated headlines and led to his ouster as national security adviser in May. Waltz was instead nominated as US ambassador to the United Nations. However, during Waltz's confirmation hearing for the ambassador role Tuesday, only a few Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raised the matter, and only one explicitly said he would not support Waltz's nomination. Instead, the hearing was largely dominated by questions about how Waltz plans to approach the international organization. The Trump administration has vilified the UN as ineffective, accused it of being anti-Israel and proposed cutting billions of dollars in US funding for its operations, including for peacekeeping. On the matter of Signalgate, Waltz maintained that none of the sensitive details shared in the chat were classified. 'We followed the recommendation, almost the demand, to use end-to-end encryption, but there was no classified information shared,' Waltz said during an exchange with Democratic Sen. Chris Coons. Waltz, a former Florida lawmaker, said the White House had investigated the matter and there was no resulting disciplinary action. The Pentagon's probes are ongoing, he said. Asked by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine whether the Pentagon investigations had concluded the information was not classified, Waltz said he couldn't comment on an ongoing investigation. 'I can echo Secretary Hegseth's testimony that no names, targets, locations, units, routes, sources, methods, classified information was shared,' he said, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker told Waltz that he was 'really disappointed' and troubled by 'your failure to just stand up and take accountability for mistakes that you made and that all Americans know that you've made.' 'I cannot support your nomination. I think you've shown failure of leadership at a time that America especially needs people of honor to stand up and show what leadership actually is,' Booker said. Waltz is the administration's second nominee for the UN role, after New York Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination was pulled by the White House amid concerns over slim GOP margins in the House. Waltz told lawmakers he believes the UN is in need of reform but also has potential. 'We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk, and where China, Russia, Europe, the developing world, can come together and resolve conflicts, but after 80 years, it's drifted from its core mission of peacemaking,' he said. 'I'm confident we can make the UN great again,' he said.
The Independent
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
As Waltz faces UN post hearings, an update on the Signal situation that led to his initial ousting
As Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday for his confirmation hearing, focus returns to his ousting as national security adviser over what some referred to as ' Signalgate.' The former Florida Republican congressman served mere weeks in Trump's administration before revelations that he mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic to a private Signal chat that was used to discuss sensitive military plans, including planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Calls came quickly for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be removed from office, accompanied by criticism of the Trump administration for failing to take action against the top national security officials who discussed plans for the military strike in Signal. After weeks of scrutiny, Waltz left his security post but was swiftly nominated to the U.N. position. Months after the chat was disclosed, questions remain over the controversy, including if federal laws were violated, if classified information was exposed on the commercial messaging app and if anyone else will face consequences. Here's what we know and don't know: ___ KNOWN: Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak to the press and spoke on the condition of anonymity. One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, if they have access to a person's phone, can link their own device to the user's Signal — and monitor messages remotely. NOT KNOWN: How frequently the administration and the Defense Department use Signal for sensitive government communications, and whether those on the chat were using unauthorized personal devices to transmit or receive those messages. The department put out an instruction in 2023 restricting what information could be posted on unauthorized and unclassified systems. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not say whether she was accessing the information on her personal phone or government-issued phone, citing an ongoing investigation by the National Security Council. ___ KNOWN: The government has a requirement under the Presidential Records Act to archive all of those planning discussions. NOT KNOWN: Whether anyone in the group archived the messages as required by law to a government server. The images of the text chain posted by The Atlantic show that the messages were set to disappear in one week. ___ KNOWN: Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols — known in the IT industry as a 'dirty' internet line — set up in his office to use Signal on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line have told The Associated Press. Other Pentagon offices have used them, particularly if there's a need to monitor information or websites that would otherwise be blocked. The biggest advantage of using such a line is that the user would not show up as an IP address assigned to the Defense Department — essentially the user is masked, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with military network security. NOT KNOWN: If use of the line left any Defense-related materials more vulnerable than they would have been on a Pentagon secure line. ___ KNOWN: The chat group included 18 members, including Jeffrey Goldberg, top editor of The Atlantic. The group, called 'Houthi PC Small Group,' likely for Houthi 'principals committee' — was comprised of Trump's senior-most advisers on national security, including Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The National Security Council said the text chain 'appears to be authentic.' NOT KNOWN: How Goldberg got added. Waltz said he built the message chain and didn't know how Goldberg ended up on the chat. He called it a mistake. ___ KNOWN: Just hours before the attack on the Houthis in Yemen began, Hegseth shared details on the timing, targets, weapons and sequence of strikes that would take place. NOT KNOWN: Whether the information was classified. Gabbard, Ratcliffe and the White House have all said it was not classified, and Hegseth said the same in a post on social media. Democrats said that strains credulity. ___ KNOWN: Hegseth has adamantly denied that 'war plans' were texted on Signal, something current and former U.S. officials called 'semantics.' War plans carry a specific meaning. They often refer to the numbered and highly classified planning documents — sometimes thousands of pages long — that would inform U.S. decisions in case of a major conflict. But the information Hegseth did post — specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets — was a subset of those plans and was likely informed by the same classified intelligence. Posting those details to an unclassified app risked tipping off adversaries of the pending attack and could have put U.S. service members at risk, multiple U.S. officials said. Sharing that information on a commercial app like Signal in advance of a strike 'would be a violation of everything that we're about,' said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who served under Democratic President Barack Obama. NOT KNOWN: If anyone outside the messaging group got access to the Signal texts. ___ KNOWN: Hegseth began cracking down on unauthorized leaks of information inside the Defense Department, and his chief of staff issued a memo on March 21 saying the Pentagon would use polygraph tests to determine the sources of recent leaks and prosecute them. NOT KNOWN: Whether Hegseth will take responsibility for the unauthorized release of national defense information regarding the attack plans on the Houthis. Trump in March bristled at a suggestion that Hegseth should step down, saying 'He's doing a great job. He had nothing to do with it.' ___ KNOWN: In April, Dan Caldwell, a senior Hegseth adviser who in the Signal chat had been designated as the secretary's point person, was placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the Pentagon by security. Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters told The AP that the former Marine's sudden downfall was tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of department information. NOT KNOWN: If any others affiliated with the Signal situation will face reprisals. ___ KNOWN: Also in April, Hegseth was forced to defend himself against a second assertion that he shared classified material through an unapproved and unsecured network, this time taking airstrike information from a military communications channel and sharing it in a Signal chat with his wife, his brother and others. A person familiar with the chat confirmed to The AP that Hegseth pulled the information — such as launch times and bomb drop times of U.S. warplanes about to strike Houthi targets in Yemen — he posted in the chat from a secure communications channel used by U.S. Central Command. NOT KNOWN: If that's the extent of Hegseth's Signal usage. ___ KNOWN: The Pentagon's watchdog has begun looking into Hegseth's use of Signal, and also whether any of Hegseth's aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter. NOT KNOWN: What the inspector general will find, or what will be done as a result of those findings. ___ Kinnard can be reached at
