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      Donald Trump briefed on suspected Iranian assassination plot

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      US intelligence officials have briefed Donald Trump about a suspected Iranian plot to kill him, his campaign has said.The briefing, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), is believed to have focused on a scheme unrelated to two failed domestic assassination attempts against the Republican nominee for president, and came amid reports suggesting that Iran is conducting an ongoing hack against Trump’s campaign.Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s spokesperson, said the briefing concerned “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate [Trump] in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States”.He added: “Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months, and law enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference.”The ODNI confirmed to the Guardian on Wednesday morning that the briefing took place.Trump referred to the briefing in a post on his Truth Social site and predicted that another assassination attempt would be made against him.“Big threats on my life by Iran,” he wrote. “Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again. Not a good situation for anyone. I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before….An attack on a former President is a Death Wish for the attacker!”Intelligence officials were reported to have been tracking an Iranian-backed conspiracy to kill Trump even before the 13 July attempt, which was carried out by a lone gunman, Thomas Crooks, who killed one rally attendee before being killed himself by a Secret Service agent.Investigators have found no evidence that Crooks, 20, was part of a larger plot and have concluded that he acted alone.The Iranian motivation to kill Trump is believed to stem from a desire for revenge over his decision when he was president to order the US strike that killed Maj Gen Qassim Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force in January 2020.Iran has denied plotting to assassinate Trump.It came as a Senate report was issued on Wednesday on Trump being shot in July in an attempt to kill him at an election rally in Pennsylvania. It concluded that there was a failure of leadership among the Secret Service team assigned to protect him.The plot identified by the ODNI is thought not only to be distinct from the Pennsylvania attempt but also from a second suspected domestic assassination bid that took place at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this month that was foiled after a Secret Service agent fired on an armed man who was spotted lurking in bushes.That alleged gunman, Ryan Routh, was apprehended after fleeing and was charged on Tuesday with the attempted assassination of Trump.In August, federal prosecutors charged a Pakistani man said to have ties to Iran with taking part in an alleged murder plot against an unidentified US politician.Last week, US intelligence officials said Iranian hackers stole materials from the Trump campaign and passed them to media outlets and the now-defunct campaign of Joe Biden, which all declined to publish them. A Microsoft threat assessment analysis has linked the hack to a group within the Iranian revolutionary guards. More

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      Trump campaign’s suspected Iranian hack may still be happening

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      A suspected Iranian hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has continued within the last 10 days and may still be happening, according to a journalist who received illegally obtained documents from the Republican nominee’s election effort.Judd Legum, the publisher of the progressive newsletter Popular Information, revealed that he was sent a letter that Trump’s lawyer had written to the New York Times on 15 September from a source called “Robert”, as well as dossiers on three potential running mates, including JD Vance, the current GOP vice-presidential nominee.The letter was verified to be authentic. “Robert” appeared to be the same source who had leaked other Trump materials to Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post in August. The FBI has said it is investigating that leak as a suspected Iranian hack. The source known as “Robert” has been linked by a Microsoft threat analysis to a group within the theocratic regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which sent out phishing emails to presidential campaigns.US intelligence agencies revealed last week that Iranian hackers passed sensitive information stolen from Trump’s campaign to Joe Biden’s now-defunct presidential campaign in June and July. Legum’s disclosure suggests that the breach may have been more extensive than previously known and could still be under way despite the efforts of US security agencies.Legum said that he received a message from “Robert” on 18 September containing the cover page of a dossier on Vance. “Robert refused to identify himself,” Legum wrote, except to suggest it was the same “Robert” from the previous leaks.Legum – whose own communications were made public after the 2016 Russian hack of Hillary Clinton’s then campaign chair John Podesta – described then receiving a 271-page file on Vance, along with thick dossiers on Doug Burgum, the South Dakota governor, and Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, both of whom were considered by Trump as possible running mates. All documents were marked “Privileged & Confidential”.He said he was also sent a dozen emails purporting to be from senior Trump advisers Susie Wiles and Dan Scavino and pollster John McLaughlin, dated from October 2023 until last August.Legum said he also received a four-page letter sent by a Trump lawyer to three individuals at the New York Times just nine days ago, further evidence that the breach had not been plugged.“The letter has not been made public by either the Trump campaign or the paper,” Legum wrote.Legum then provided a copy of the letter to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, who confirmed it as genuine after checking with a source at the New York Times who had already seen it. The letter complained about a Times article that questioned Trump’s validity as a successful businessman, Smith wrote in a separate piece.“The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last 10 days,” Legum concluded.During a rally in New York last Wednesday, Trump referred to the disclosure of the breach from US intelligence agencies, saying: “Iran hacked into my campaign. I don’t know what the hell they found, I’d like to find out. Couldn’t have been too exciting.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe campaigns of Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as the media outlets that have received stolen Trump materials, have all declined to make them public – a stark contrast to the 2016 hack of Clinton, the results of which were published in multiple outlets, while Trump vocally encouraged Russia to continue hacking.Legum said he would stick to the current policy of non-publication.“It was tempting to use this opportunity to turn the tables on the Trump campaign and publish the stolen campaign materials provided to me by Robert,” he wrote. “But I believe that is the wrong approach.”A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said the hack showed that Iran is “terrified of the strength and resolve of Donald J Trump”.Suspected Iranian-backed plots to kill Trump – who has already survived two assassination attempts during the campaign – prompted the Secret Service in July to step up additional security at his rallies. The following month, a Pakistani national with suspected links to Iran was arrested on suspicion of plotting political assassinations on US soil, including against Trump. More

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      Explosion at an Iranian Mine Kills Dozens, State Media Says

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      A methane leak set off the explosion, the country’s official media said, and a rescue effort was underway for those believed to be trapped in the mine.A methane explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran killed dozens of miners, and the death toll was expected to rise, Iranian state media said on Sunday.The miners died of suffocation from the rapid release of methane and carbon monoxide, according to a report by Iran’s state news agency, IRNA. IRNA, which said earlier Sunday that 51 miners had been killed, later put the figure at 34. Other state media had estimates of the number of people killed that ranged from 30 to 51.At the time of the explosion on Saturday, in the eastern Iranian city of Tabas, there were 69 workers in the mine, IRNA said.Many may still be trapped, according to Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.It was not possible to independently verify details of the incident.Officials say they are trying to work quickly to rescue the workers trapped in the mine, which is operated by the Madanjo Company, according to the Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran ordered an investigation into the explosion, IRNA reported. Mohammad-Ali Akhondi, a crisis management official, urged caution about the rescue efforts, IRNA reported.“The reality is that it is a difficult task to rescue the injured,” he said, according to IRNA. The report said rescuers would need to go about 2,300 feet diagonally and 820 feet vertically underground to reach the trapped workers.Industrial accidents are common in Iran, and many construction and mining sites operate with outdated and inadequate materials.In 2017, dozens of miners were killed and many were hurt after an explosion at a coal mine near the northern Iranian town of Azadshahr, in the Golestan Province. More

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      Iran Hackers Sought to Send Stolen Trump Campaign Information to Biden Camp

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      The emails were part of a sweeping effort by Iran to steal and disseminate sensitive internal communications between aides working for former President Donald J. Trump.Iranian hackers seeking to influence the 2024 election sent excerpts from pilfered Trump campaign documents to people associated with President Biden’s re-election campaign this summer, but the recipients did not respond, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.The emails, sent in late June and early July, were part of a sweeping effort by Iran to steal and disseminate sensitive internal communications between aides working for former President Donald J. Trump after it gained access to the email accounts of a longtime political adviser, Roger J. Stone.“Iranian malicious cyberactors” sent unsolicited emails that contained “an excerpt taken from stolen, nonpublic material from former President Trump’s campaign,” officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the F.B.I. and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wrote in a joint statement.The intended recipients, who were not identified in the statement, did not appear to have replied. Even as federal officials have suggested that the hackers also targeted the Biden and Harris campaigns, they believe that the emails including the stolen Trump material were sent to be disseminated to his political enemies.“This is further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because they know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.A spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, Morgan Finkelstein, noted that a few people were “targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” though she added that she was not aware that any material had been sent to campaign accounts.“We have cooperated with the appropriate law enforcement authorities since we were made aware that individuals associated with the then-Biden campaign were among the intended victims of this foreign influence operation,” she added.The Justice Department’s national security division has been investigating the Stone attack and could charge some of those responsible as early as this week, according to several officials familiar with the situation.In a speech last week, the senior Justice Department official responsible for investigating overseas election interference and the head of the department’s national security division, Matthew G. Olsen, accused Russia of seeking to undermine Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to bolster Mr. Trump’s re-election chances.He also cited Iran’s recent hacking of the Trump campaign as evidence that some adversaries were also seeking to damage Mr. Trump’s chances of victory.In August, the Justice Department indicted a Pakistani citizen with ties to Iran for plotting assassination attempts against top political figures, including the former president. More

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      The Guardian view on Israel’s booby-trap war: illegal and unacceptable | Editorial

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      In the second world war, guerrilla forces scattered large quantities of booby-trapped objects likely to be attractive to civilians. The idea was to cause widescale and indiscriminate death. The Japanese manufactured a tobacco pipe with a charge detonated by a spring-loaded striker. The Italians produced a headset that blew up when it was plugged in. More than half a century later, a global treaty came into force which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”. Has anyone told Israel and its jubilant supporters that, as Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group points out, it is a signatory to the protocol?On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 12 people – including two children and four hospital workers – and wounding thousands more. This situation is directly analogous to the historical practices that current global arms treaties explicitly prohibit. US media say Israel was behind the attack, and the country has the motive and the means to target its Iran-backed enemies. Israel’s leaders have a long history of carrying out sophisticated remote operations, ranging from cyber-attacks, suicide drone attacks and remote-controlled weapons to assassinate Iranian scientists. On Wednesday it was reported that Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, killing nine and wounding hundreds.This week’s attacks were not, as Israel’s defenders claimed, “surgical” or a “precisely targeted anti-terrorist operation”. Israel and Hezbollah are sworn enemies. The current round of fighting has seen tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the Israel-Lebanon border because of the Shia militant group’s rocket and artillery attacks.However, the pager bombs were clearly intended to target individual civilians – diplomats and politicians – who were not directly participating in hostilities. The plan appeared to produce what lawyers might call “excessive incidental civilian harm”. Both these arguments have been levelled at Russia to claim Moscow was committing war crimes in Ukraine. It’s hard to say why the same reasoning is not applied to Israel – apart from that it is a western ally.Such disproportionate attacks, which seem illegal, are not only unprecedented but may also become normalised. If that is the case, the door is opened for other states to lethally test the laws of war. The US should step in and restrain its friend, but Joe Biden shows no sign of intervening to stop the bloodshed. The road to peace runs through Gaza, but Mr Biden’s ceasefire plan – and the release of hostages – has not found favour with either Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Hamas.The worry is that Israel’s actions lead to a disastrous all-out conflict that would pull the US into a regional fight. The world stands on the edge of chaos because Mr Netanyahu’s continuing hold on power and consequent insulation from corruption charges depend largely on his nation being at war. None of this is possible without US complicity and assistance. Perhaps it is only after its presidential election that the US will be able to say that the price of saving Mr Netanyahu’s skin should not be paid in the streets of Lebanon or by Palestinians in the occupied territories. Until then, the rules-based international order will continue to be undermined by the very countries that created the system. More

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      Houthis Launch Missile at Central Israel

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      The rare attack was an illustration of the evolving conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iranian proxies.The Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility on Sunday for a rare missile attack on Israel, the second time in two months that the Iranian-backed group has successfully penetrated the skies over the central part of the country.The assault was the latest illustration of the evolving conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iranian proxies, which have mounted attacks on Israeli territory in what they have said is solidarity with Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza. It also demonstrated the military capabilities of the Houthis, based hundreds of miles from Israel on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.Air-raid sirens blared in dozens of towns and villages in central Israel around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, sending people rushing to fortified safe rooms and bomb shelters.The Israeli military initially said the Houthis had fired a surface-to-surface missile that landed in an “open area” and that no casualties were reported. In a follow-up statement, the military said an initial inquiry indicated the missile had “fragmented midair” and that it was reviewing its attempts to intercept the strike.Yahya Sarea, a Houthi military spokesman, said the armed group had fired a ballistic missile at what he claimed was a military target in central Israel. His claims could not be independently verified.“The enemy should expect more strikes and quality operations,” Mr. Sarea said in a televised statement.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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      Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

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      Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow, , while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”. More

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      US preparing criminal charges over Iranian hack targeting Trump campaign

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      The US justice department is preparing criminal charges in connection with an Iranian hack that targeted Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in a bid to shape the outcome of the November election, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.It was not immediately clear when the charges might be announced or whom precisely they will target, but they are the result of an FBI investigation into an intrusion that investigators across multiple agencies quickly linked to an Iranian effort to influence American politics.The prospect of criminal charges comes as the justice department has raised alarms about aggressive efforts by countries including Russia and Iran to meddle in the presidential election between Trump and Kamala Harris, including by hacking and covert social media campaigns designed to shape public opinion.Iran “is making a greater effort to influence this year’s election than it has in prior election cycles, and that Iranian activity is growing increasingly aggressive as this election nears”, Matthew Olsen, the assistant attorney general and the justice department’s top national security official, said in a speech on Thursday in New York City.“Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in impacting Iran’s national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome,” he added.The Trump campaign disclosed on 10 August that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets – Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post – were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what it received.Politico reported that it began receiving emails on 22 July from an anonymous account. The source – an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” – passed along what appeared to be a research dossier that the campaign had apparently done on JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. The document was dated 23 February, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subsequently blamed that hack, as well as an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign, on Iran.Those agencies issued a statement saying that the hacking and similar activities were meant to sow discord, exploit divisions within American society and influence the outcome of elections.The statement did not identify whether Iran has a preferred candidate, though Tehran has long appeared determined to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike Trump ordered as president that killed an Iranian general.The two people who discussed the looming criminal charges spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press because they were not authorized to speak publicly about a case that had not yet been unsealed.The Washington Post first reported that charges were being prepared.Justice department officials have been working to publicly call out and counter election-interference efforts. The response is a contrast to 2016, when Obama administration officials were far more circumspect about Russian interference they were watching that was designed to boost Trump’s campaign.“We have learned that transparency about what we are seeing is critical,” Olsen, the justice department official, said Thursday.“It helps ensure that our citizens are aware of the attempts of foreign government to sow discord and spread falsehoods – all of which promotes resilience within our electorate,” he added. “It provides warnings to our private sector so they can better protect their networks. And it sends an unmistakable message to our adversaries – we’ve gained insight into your networks, we know what you’re doing, and we are determined to hold you accountable.”Last week, in an effort to combat disinformation before the election, the justice department charged two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, with covertly funneling a Tennessee-based content-creation company nearly $10m to publish English-language videos on social media platforms with messages in favor of the Russian government’s interests and agenda. More