Bombs and Explosives

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      How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers

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      The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.The pagers began beeping just after 3:30 in the afternoon in Lebanon on Tuesday, alerting Hezbollah operatives to a message from their leadership in a chorus of chimes, melodies, and buzzes.But it wasn’t the militants’ leaders. The pages had been sent by Hezbollah’s archenemy, and within seconds the alerts were followed by the sounds of explosions and cries of pain and panic in streets, shops and homes across Lebanon.Powered by just a few ounces of an explosive compound concealed within the devices, the blasts sent grown men flying off motorcycles and slamming into walls, according to witnesses and video footage. People out shopping fell to the ground, writhing in agony, smoke snaking from their pockets.Mohammed Awada, 52, and his son were driving by one man whose pager exploded, he said. “My son went crazy and started to scream when he saw the man’s hand flying away from him,” he said.By the end of the day, at least a dozen people were dead and more than 2,700 were wounded, many of them maimed. And the following day, 20 more people were killed and hundreds wounded when walkie-talkies in Lebanon also began mysteriously exploding. Some of the dead and wounded were Hezbollah members, but others were not; four of the dead were children.Walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Wednesday, killing more than a dozen people and wounding hundreds, officials said. The Times verified footage from an explosion at a funeral that sent mourners fleeing for safety.Mohammad Zaatari/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Attacks Bridges in Russia’s Kursk Region, Aiming to Encircle Troops

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      The attacks look to destroy or damage crossings over a river in the Kursk region that are Russian forces’ only routes for resupply or retreat, military analysts say.Russian troops defending a pocket of territory wedged between a river and the border with Ukraine were at risk of becoming encircled, military analysts said Monday, after Ukraine bombed bridges that are the only routes for resupply or retreat.In their counterattack into Russia, which has been underway now for nearly two weeks, Ukrainian troops quickly broke through thinly manned border defenses, fanned out on highways and captured towns and villages, initially pushing deeper into Russian territory.The bombing of bridges, in contrast, takes aim at land between the Seym River, the border and an area inside Russia already controlled by Ukraine, with the potential to entrap the Russian forces positioned there. Three bridges span this stretch of river, all now destroyed or damaged, according to statements released by the Ukrainian Air Force and to social media posts by Russian officials and military commentators. More

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      Lawyer Who Tried to Set Off Bomb Outside of Chinese Embassy Pleads Guilty

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      Christopher Rodriguez tried to detonate a bag of explosives at the embassy in Washington, D.C., by firing a rifle at it but missed, prosecutors said.A Florida lawyer pleaded guilty on Friday to placing a bag of explosives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and trying to detonate it with a rifle, according to court records.This was not the first time the lawyer, Christopher Rodriguez, had attempted a detonation, prosecutors said. He had previously set off explosives in 2022 that caused “significant damage” to a statue of the Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in San Antonio, Texas, by shooting at canisters of explosives with a rifle, according to court records.But when Mr. Rodriguez, 45, of Panama City, Fla., employed a similar tactic by shooting at a 15-pound backpack of explosives that he dropped near the fence of the Chinese Embassy on Sept. 25, 2023, he missed, and the explosives did not detonate, according to court records.Federal authorities say a Florida lawyer tried to detonate a backpack with explosives outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington in September.U.S. District Court for the District of ColumbiaMr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to damaging property occupied by a foreign government, using explosive materials to cause malicious damage to federal property, and receipt or possession of an unregistered firearm.The charges cover his attack on the statue in San Antonio and his attempt to damage the Chinese Embassy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Maintains Punishing Pace of Deadly Strikes on Ukrainian Cities

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      A barrage on Vilniansk, a town in the south, killed seven, including three children, as attacks across Ukraine in the past few days have left dozens dead, according to local authorities.A Russian missile attack on a small town in southeastern Ukraine and the fiery inferno that followed killed at least seven civilians, including three children, the country’s authorities said as they surveyed on Sunday the deadly toll of two days of fierce Russian assaults.Yuriy Borzenko, chief doctor of Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Hospital, said in a phone interview that, aside from those killed, dozens of others, including a pregnant woman and five 14-year-old girls, were being treated for wounds after the attack on the southeastern town, Vilniansk, which took place on Saturday.The girls were out for a walk together in the afternoon sunshine, Dr. Borzenko said, when explosions from the projectiles tore through the center of the town, engulfing shops, cars and homes in flames. Shrapnel had embedded in the skull of one of the girls, who was left in a coma, he said, “still in between life and death.”“Her parents are in really bad shape, I just saw them,” he added.As the attacks have rained down, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has reiterated his plea to loosen restrictions on the use of long-range American missiles known as ATACMS so that Ukraine can target warplanes at Russian air bases before they take to the sky on bombing runs.“Long-range strikes and modern air defense are the foundation for stopping the daily Russian terror,” he said on Sunday in a statement accompanying videos said to show the aftermath of a number of the week’s worst attacks.The strike in Vilniansk was one of a series of attacks across Ukraine, which have killed at least 24 civilians since Friday evening, according to local officials and emergency workers, who said that scores more had been wounded.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russian Missiles Hit Kharkiv, Killing at Least 6

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      The latest assault on the eastern city killed at least six people, local authorities said. As Kyiv waits on American aid, Moscow has stepped up bombardments, including using modified “glide bombs.”Russian rockets slammed into residential buildings in Kharkiv before dawn on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least six people and injuring at least 11 more in the latest assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city.“Russian terror against Kharkiv continues,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a statement. “It’s crucial to strengthen the air defense for the Kharkiv region. And our partners can help us with this.”Ukraine’s air defenses have come increasingly under strain since American military support stopped flowing into the country more than six months ago, and future assistance remains uncertain amid Republican resistance in Congress to a $60 billion aid package.Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, has hinted that he would soon bring the issue of military aid for Ukraine to a vote in the House, but has also said that he might tie the issue to unrelated matters like domestic energy policies that could complicate its passage.At the same time, Russia has replenished and expanded its stockpile of missiles, guided bombs and attack drones and is stepping up its bombardments across the country.Mr. Zelensky said this past week that “in March alone, Russian terrorists used over 400 missiles of various types, 600 Shahed drones and over 3,000 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Oppenheimer’ Is the Origin Story. These Three Movies Reveal Our Nuclear Present.

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      The national security writer W. J. Hennigan has spent many years ringing the alarm about the world’s new nuclear era — the subject of At The Brink, a new series from New York Times Opinion — and the crisis on the horizon. For anyone whose interest was piqued by the origin story of nuclear weapons in “Oppenheimer,” Mr. Hennigan, who happens to be a movie buff, recommends three essential films that illuminate our new nuclear era.An edited transcript of the above audio essay by Mr. Hennigan follows:W.J. Hennigan: For many years, people haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about nuclear weapons, but that’s changed — both because of the war in Ukraine as well as the popularity of the recent Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer.”The idea that a biopic about a scientist and nuclear weapons would be so popular, the fact that it’s won so many awards and has sparked such an interest, is really quite surprising.For the past quarter-century, an entire generation has come of age without really having to worry about the bomb. This has not something that’s been front of mind.Nuclear weapons were the predominant national security concern for our country for a half-century, and that was reflected within culture and art. Throughout the Cold War, you could see the topic of nuclear weapons in movies, video games, television shows, cartoons, songs, comic books, board games. There were alcoholic drinks inspired by nuclear weapons.That kind of changed on a dime after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, but even though the concern and awareness over the nuclear peril faded, the danger hasn’t gone away. We’ve entered a new nuclear era, but that’s not being publicly discussed in the way that it has in the past.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel’s Destructive Bombs, and DeSantis’s Costly Ground Game

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about five minutes.A Times visual investigation reveals that one of Israel’s largest bombs was regularly used in areas designated safe for civilians.The New York Times, Source: Planet LabsOn Today’s Episode:A Times Investigation Tracked Israel’s Use of One of Its Most Destructive Bombs in South Gaza, by Robin Stein, Haley Willis, Ishaan Jhaveri, Danielle Miller, Aaron Byrd and Natalie ReneauAt Least 15 Dead in Czech Republic After Shooting at Prague University, by Andrew Higgins, Jenny Gross and Aric TolerHow DeSantis’s Ambitious, Costly Ground Game Has Sputtered, by Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Nicholas Nehamas and Kellen BrowningCan Ozempic and Weight-Loss Drugs Treat Other Diseases?, by Dani BlumMiniature Livestock Are a Hot-Ticket Item This Holiday Season, by Madison Malone KircherJessica Metzger and More