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      Some Migrants Sent by Trump to Guantánamo Are Being Held by Military Guards

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      Dozens of Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are being guarded by troops rather than civilian immigration officers, according to people familiar with the operation.While the Trump administration has portrayed the detainees as legally in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, military guards and medics are doing the work, the people said.The Trump administration has not released the migrants’ names, although at least two have been identified by their relatives through pictures released of the first flight.By not disclosing the migrants’ identities, the government has prevented their relatives from learning where they are being held and complicated lawyers’ efforts to challenge their detention.Spokespeople for the Homeland Security and Defense Departments have been unwilling or unable to answer detailed questions about what is happening to the migrants at the base.But The New York Times has obtained the names of 53 men who are being held in Camp 6, a prison building where until recently the military held Al Qaeda suspects. The Times has published the list.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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      Dozens of Maoist Guerrillas Killed in Central India, Officials Say

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      Rebels known as Naxalites have waged an insurgency that has ebbed and flowed over decades, but government operations have given them less space to maneuver.Dozens of Maoist guerrillas were killed in central India by government forces on Sunday, one of the deadliest operations in recent years against leftist rebels who have waged an insurgency that has ebbed and flowed over several decades.The operation, in the forested Bijapur area in the state of Chhattisgarh, was carried out against the so-called Naxalite movement, and left 31 rebels dead, along with two members of the police forces, according to the area’s police chief, Jitendra Kumar Yadav.Chief Yadav said the authorities had also recovered a number of AK-47 assault weapons and several other automatic rifles after the clashes.“We will completely eradicate Naxalism from the country, so that no citizen of the country has to lose his life because of it,” said Amit Shah, India’s home minister, referring to the left-wing insurgency.The Maoist insurgency began in eastern India in the 1960s and spread widely in central and southern parts of the country.The violence peaked in 2010, when more than 600 civilians and over 250 security forces were killed in the conflict.In recent years, civilian deaths have dwindled, after government operations shrunk the space for the insurgents to operate. The insurgency’s leadership has also struggled, analysts say, in the face of targeted operations, old age and illness.The Home Ministry told Parliament last year that the threat of leftist extremism had dropped significantly in recent years, in terms of the number of deaths as well as the amount of affected territory.Deaths of civilians and security forces related to the insurgency in 2023 were 86 percent lower than at their peak in 2010, the ministry said, adding that the number of districts affected by the violence had shrunk to 38 from 126.Niranjan Sahoo, who studies left-wing extremism at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank, said the Maoists were struggling to recruit members, among other problems.He also said they were concentrating their activities in several districts around the Abujhmad forest, including Bijapur, after suffering losses over the years.“The Maoists are at their weakest point, largely because they have lost a lot of their territory,” he said. More

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      Justice Dept. Charges 2 Men in Deadly Drone Attack on U.S. Soldiers

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      The men are accused of supplying key parts in Iranian drones that killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens of others at an American military base in Jordan.The Justice Department has charged two men with illegally supplying parts used in an Iranian-backed militia’s drone attack in January that killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 others at an American military base in Jordan, federal prosecutors in Boston announced on Monday.Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, 42, a dual U.S.-Iranian national of Natick, Mass., and Mohammad Abedini, 38, of Tehran, were charged with conspiring to export sophisticated electronic components to Iran, violating American export control and sanctions laws.Mr. Abedini was also charged with providing material support, resulting in death, to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military that the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization.Mr. Sadeghi was arrested on Monday and made an initial appearance in the federal court in Boston. Mr. Abedini was arrested, also on Monday, in Italy by Italian authorities at the request of the United States.Iran has made serious advances in the design and production of military drones in recent years, and has stepped up its transfer to terrorist groups across the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah.Iran has used its drone program to build its global importance and increase weapons sales but has suffered setbacks in its confrontation with Israel. In April, Iran launched an attack on Israel that largely failed. Israel intercepted most of the roughly 200 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.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 Carries Out Heavy Strikes on Syria’s Coast, Monitor Says

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      Israel carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes overnight on Syria’s coastal region, a war monitor said early on Monday, as the Israeli military continued to pound Syria in a bid to destroy the country’s military assets after rebels seized power.The overnight strikes targeted former Syrian Army positions including air defense sites and missile warehouses, according to the war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization based in Britain that has long tracked the conflict in Syria. Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike also targeted radars in Deir al-Zour’s military airport in the country’s east, the Observatory said.The “successive strikes” along the Syrian coast — home to Russian naval bases — amounted to “the most violent strikes in the area” since 2012, according to the Observatory. It said there were 18 airstrikes, which were particularly powerful because they were consecutive and detonated missiles in warehouses, leading to secondary explosions.The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes. Israeli officials have previously said that the campaign in Syria is an effort to keep military equipment out of the hands of “extremists,” after an alliance of rebel groups ousted the Assad regime earlier this month. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the latest strikes, the Observatory said.Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since the collapse of the Assad government, according to the Observatory, destroying Syria’s navy and dozens of air bases, ammunition depots and other military equipment.Israel’s military has also seized and occupied an expanse of territory in Syria over the de facto border between the two countries, including on the Syrian side of the strategic Mt. Hermon. Israel has given no timeline for its departure, apart from saying that it would stay until its security demands were met.On Sunday, the Israeli government unanimously approved plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expand settlements in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, part of an $11 million scheme to double the population in the area. The move was necessary, the prime minister’s office said, because a “new front” had opened up on Israel’s border with Syria after the fall of the Assad government.Israel seized the Golan Heights during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 and it is considered illegally occupied under international law.The head of the group leading the rebel coalition that now governs Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, said in an interview on Saturday with Syria TV, a pro-opposition channel, that Israel was using pretexts to justify “unwarranted” territorial seizures in Syria.Still, he said, Syria could not afford any further conflict and was instead focused on diplomatic solutions.“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” Mr. al-Shara said. “The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”Gabby Sobelman More

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      How Might the Rebels Govern Syria? Their Ruling History in Idlib Offers Clues

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      The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.Every fall, when farmers across the rolling, red dirt hills of Idlib Province in northern Syria harvest their olive crops, they routinely find at least one representative of the local tax authority stationed at any oil press.The tax collector takes at least 5 percent of the oil, and farmers grouse that there are no exceptions, even in lean harvest years.The collectors work for the civilian government established under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel movement that just spearheaded the swift overthrow of the 54-year Assad dynasty. The Islamist group has administered much of opposition-held Idlib Province since 2017.Measures like the olive oil tax, introduced in 2019, have prompted protests and even occasional armed clashes and arrests.Yet the Syrian Salvation Government, as the Idlib administration was known, persisted. It taxed goods entering its territory and generated revenue by selling fuel and running a telecom company. It also controlled the local economy through licensing regulation programs that looked a lot like a conventional government’s and proved that it was fairly adept at managing those finances to build up its military operations and provide civil services.The portrait of the rebel group detailed in this article was gleaned from interviews with experts, representatives of humanitarian or other organizations working in the territory under its control, local residents and reports by the United Nations or think tanks.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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      Hezbollah Loses Supply Route Through Syria, in Blow to It and Iran

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      The militant group’s leader admits that the toppling of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, cut off an important land route from Iran.The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah acknowledged on Saturday that its supply route through Syria had been cut off by rebels who toppled the government last weekend, dealing another blow to Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.Before its collapse, the Syrian government had provided a land corridor for Iran to supply weapons and materiel to Hezbollah in Lebanon, bolstering the militant group’s power and Iran’s influence as its main backer.“Hezbollah has lost the supply route coming through Syria at the current stage, but this is a small detail and may change with time,” the Hezbollah leader, Naim Qassem, said Saturday in a televised speech.He added that Hezbollah — which recently agreed to a cease-fire with Israel after months of war — would look for alternate means of getting supplies or see if its Syria route could be re-established under “a new regime.”He did not specifically mention the coalition of rebel forces that swept into Damascus, the Syrian capital, last weekend, or Syria’s deposed president, Bashar al-Assad, who had for years relied on help from Hezbollah and Iran in his country’s civil war.Hezbollah’s loss of its supply route through Syria, which remains fractured, is another setback for the militant group after a year of conflict with Israel and several months of all-out warfare. In a string of blows from September until late last month, when the cease-fire took effect in Lebanon, Israel detonated the group’s wireless devices, bombarded it with intense air raids, attacked its positions with a ground invasion and killed many of its commanders.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 Launches Missile Attack on Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure

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      Military analysts had speculated that Moscow could escalate such attacks as a show of force after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, its ally.Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure early Friday, in an assault that President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “one of the largest strikes” on his country’s power facilities.The attack consisted of 93 missiles and 200 drones, Mr. Zelensky said on social media, “including at least one North Korean missile.”Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said on Facebook, “Once again, the energy sector across Ukraine is under massive attack.”Of the 81 missiles that Ukraine managed to shoot down, 11 were intercepted by F16 fighter jets provided by allies, Mr. Zelensky said. He once again urged Ukraine’s partners to respond, saying, “The world can stop this madness.”The International Atomic Energy Agency had made a renewed call on Thursday for Russia to stop targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure: The agency’s board of governors signed a resolution addressing the threats that the attacks pose to nuclear safety.“The international community must increase pressure on Russia for its deliberate attempts to create a radiation disaster on the continent,” the resolution said.The agency said after Friday’s attack that five of Ukraine’s nine operating nuclear reactors had to reduce their power output because of Russia’s “renewed attacks on energy infrastructure.”The first reports of damage after the assault came from western Ukraine. The Lviv and Ternopil regions reported power outages, and Svitlana Onyshchuk, the head of the Ivano-Frankivsk military administration, said on social media that her region had experienced “the most massive attack since the start of the full-scale war.”Russia launches exploding drones at Ukraine nightly. The larger waves, which combine various types of missiles along with the drones, have come every few weeks and are typically aimed at electrical infrastructure such as power plants, in a long-running campaign to black out the country.Military analysts had speculated this week that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could try to escalate these attacks as a show of force after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Russia’s ally.Some analysts have said, however, that Russia is at the limits of its capacity for launching missiles, having depleted its stockpiles and firing as many missiles as its industry can produce.On Wednesday, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said it was possible that Russia could fire another of a new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, in the coming days. Russia fired an Oreshnik missile at a rocket factory in Dnipro in November after Ukraine began using American-provided missiles to hit targets in Russia.Anastasia Kuznietsova More

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      Russian Troops Advance to Within 3 Miles of Key Ukrainian Transit Hub

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      Russia is pushing toward Pokrovsk, a strategic city for Ukraine’s army with important rail and road connections, in a rapid capturing of ground in the Donetsk region.Ukraine’s top general said on Thursday that his troops were facing “extremely fierce” fighting as Russian forces close in on the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, and that “unconventional decisions” would have to be made to bolster Ukrainian defenses.Although the commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, did not specify what kind of measures might be taken, his alarming statement underscored the deteriorating situation around Pokrovsk, a key rail and road hub for Ukraine’s army.In an effort to flank Pokrovsk, Russian troops have pushed south of the city in recent days and are now less than three miles from its outskirts, according to battlefield maps based on satellite images and publicly available footage of the fighting. They are also steadily advancing through villages and settlements several dozen miles to the south, threatening to seize the last two Ukrainian strongholds in the southern part of the Donetsk region.Moscow is advancing in Donetsk at its fastest pace since 2022, capturing hundreds of square miles each month as it leverages its overwhelming manpower advantage by breaking through Ukrainian positions weakened by troop shortages.Analysts say the Kremlin is racing to secure as many territorial gains as possible before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office next month and starts to push for peace talks with terms that are likely to be shaped by each side’s status on the battlefield.Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said that from September to November, Russia had seized more than 600 square miles of Ukrainian territory, roughly twice the size of New York City, almost all of it in the Donetsk region.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