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    ICC Had Sought Warrants for 3 Hamas Leaders. At Least 2 Are Now Dead.

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    The International Criminal Court on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for a single Hamas official — not three as the chief prosecutor had initially sought in May. That’s because two of them have since been killed.Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, requested the warrants after investigating Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza.In May, Mr. Khan asked the court to issue warrants for Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar; its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh; and its military chief, Muhammad Deif. He accused them of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the killing of civilians and the capture of hostages during the October 2023 attack, as well as maltreatment of and sexual violence against hostages during their captivity in Gaza.The requests required approval by judges from the I.C.C., the world’s top criminal court. That took months. In the meantime, Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in July, a killing widely attributed to Israel. The court subsequently announced that it had terminated proceedings against him. And Israeli forces killed Mr. Sinwar in a firefight in Gaza in October.As for Mr. Deif, Israel claimed to have killed him in an airstrike in Gaza in October. On Thursday, the court said it was “not in a position to determine whether Mr. Deif has been killed or remains alive” and was therefore issuing the warrant for his arrest.Matthew Mpoke Bigg More

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      Arizona Man Is Arrested After Shootings at Democratic Campaign Office

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      The authorities said they believed the suspect was “preparing to commit an act of mass casualty.”An Arizona man has been arrested on terrorism charges in connection with three shootings at a Democratic Party campaign office in suburban Phoenix that wounded none but rattled campaign workers in a bitter election season.The man, Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, was arrested Tuesday, according to the authorities. Mr. Kelly also set out anti-Democratic Party signs lined with razor blades near his home, attaching bags filled with an unknown white powder and labeled “Biohazard,” according to court papers.The shootings at the Democratic Party’s campaign office in Tempe, Ariz., started in mid-September and all took place between midnight and 1 a.m., according to the police. After the third shooting, on Oct. 6, the Arizona Democratic Party closed the office.More than 120 guns, 250,000 rounds of ammunition and a grenade launcher were uncovered at Mr. Kelly’s home, a lawyer for the Maricopa County attorney’s office, Neha Bhatia, said at a virtual court appearance on Wednesday. Some of the firearms were machine guns, she said, adding that the authorities believed he was “preparing to commit an act of mass casualty.”She warned that he could pose a threat to Democratic political figures if he does not remain in custody. His Facebook page was full of anti-Democratic Party posts, according to court papers.In the first shooting on Sept. 16, the Democratic Party office was struck about 13 times by BB gun pellets, shattering the building’s glass front door, according to court papers. On Sept. 23, and again on Oct. 6, the office was struck by gunfire, further damaging the building, the court papers said.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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      Residents in Lebanon Flee as Israel Strikes Hezbollah-Affiliated Financial Institution

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      The Israeli military conducted a wave of airstrikes across Lebanon on Sunday, targeting branches of Al-Qard al-Hasan, a financial association associated with the militant group Hezbollah.The organization was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2007 and has been accused by American, Israeli, Saudi Arabian and other officials of operating as Hezbollah’s de facto banking arm. Inside Lebanon, where Hezbollah also functions as a political organization and provides a range of social services, Al-Qard al-Hasan is designated a non-governmental organization and is viewed as a Hezbollah-affiliated charity.It operates as a lender and financial services provider for civilians in many areas of Lebanon, where the traditional banking sector is in shambles. Many of its branches are situated on the ground floors of residential buildings, and it is deeply embedded in the Shiite Muslim communities it serves.On social media on Sunday night, Avichay Adraee, the Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military, warned residents of Lebanon to evacuate buildings near the infrastructure of Al-Qard al-Hasan around Beirut and across southern and eastern Lebanon, saying that the organization “is involved in financing the terrorist activities of the Hezbollah organization against Israel.”Soon after, the sounds of explosions could be heard ringing across Beirut, the Lebanese capital. A New York Times reporter saw dense plumes of black smoke rising in the near distance after the strikes.The strikes marked an apparent escalation of Israel’s war against Hezbollah, with a senior Israel intelligence official saying the targeting of the banking system — rather than weapons depots or command and intelligence centers — was intended to disrupt Hezbollah’s day-to-day operations, undermine its support in Lebanese communities and hamper its ability to rebuild.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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      Former U.S. Soldier Is Sentenced to 14 Years for Planning to Help ISIS

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      Pvt. Cole Bridges pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members.A former soldier in the U.S. Army was sentenced on Friday to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempting to provide ISIS with information to help plan an ambush he thought would result in the deaths of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, according to the U.S. Justice Department.The soldier, Pvt. Cole Bridges, 24, of Stow, Ohio, also discussed potential locations for terrorist attacks in New York City with an undercover F.B.I. agent whom he believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State.Private Bridges enlisted in the military in 2019 and joined an infantry division in Fort Stewart, Ga. Before enlisting, he had already been persuaded by radical ideologies, according to the Justice Department.“Cole Bridges used his U.S. Army training to pursue a horrifying goal: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully plotted ambush,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.Beginning in at least 2019, Private Bridges began researching jihadist propaganda and posted his support for ISIS on social media. About a year after joining the Army, he began a correspondence with an F.B.I. agent who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with the group in the Middle East.A criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York detailed the soldier’s fervent intent on aiding the Islamic State, describing Private Bridges as “a supporter of ISIS and its mission to establish a global caliphate.”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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      Afghan Man Charged With Plotting Election Day Attack on Behalf of ISIS

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      It is not clear where the man intended to stage the attack, though the criminal complaint said he sought to inflict mass casualties on behalf of the Islamic State.The F.B.I. has arrested an Afghan citizen in Oklahoma City on charges of plotting a suicide attack on Election Day, with the intent of inflicting mass casualties on behalf of the Islamic State, according to a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday.In preparation for the attack, the complaint said, the man, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, liquidated his family’s financial assets to raise cash for the resettlement of his relatives in Kabul and recruited a co-conspirator, his nephew, who was not named because he is under the age of 18.It is not clear where Mr. Tawhedi intended to stage the attack, though investigators said he planned to use two AK-47s. His online history showed that he searched for how to access cameras in Washington on the same day he visited the White House and Washington Monument webcams, according to investigators.Mr. Tawhedi communicated his plans in chilling detail to a man he later identified as a member of the Islamic State, telling him he would obey any order he was given.“God willing, with the help of God, we will get ready for the election day,” he wrote, according to the filing.Charges against other individuals are possible, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation.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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      A Cryptic Letter With a Clear Warning

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      A domestic terrorist group sent a note to The New York Times admitting to detonating a bomb in Queens.Nearly 50 years ago, on Jan. 29, 1975, a bomb exploded inside the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., damaging the building but causing no injuries. A bomb was discovered that same day at a federal office building in Oakland, Calif., and was safely detonated.The acts were part of a spree of violence by a far-left militant group, Weather Underground, a splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society, which opposed the Vietnam War. (The group took its name from lyrics written by Bob Dylan — “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” — in the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”) In a manifesto, the Weather Underground called for “the destruction of U.S. imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”In late 1970, about a year after the group’s formation, The New York Times received a cryptic letter dated Oct. 9. Painted across the note was a red, five-pointed star, a symbol for Communism. The letter was signed in large cursive letters: Weatherman.That letter is currently stored in the “morgue,” The Times’s vast clippings archive.The letter makes reference to “slave ships of the twentieth century” and says that “with rallies and riots, with marches and Molotovs, kids in New York City and around the country will continue the battle.”Most startling is that the group claimed credit for an attack in Queens: “Last night as part of an international conspiracy we blew up the Long Island City Criminal Courthouse,” the letter reads. The explosion, which occurred on the third floor, heavily damaged the interior of the gray stone building.The group would ultimately claim responsibility for more than 25 bombings, according to the F.B.I., including at the Capitol building in March 1971. The group eventually splintered as the Vietnam War came to an end, disbanding in the late ’70s.In a 2020 guest essay for Times Opinion, Mark Rudd, a community organizer who once belonged to the Weather Underground, described his time with the group. “We didn’t realize that the violence we claimed we hated had infected our souls,” he wrote. “At the time, I’m not sure we’d have cared.” More

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      In U.N. Speech, Netanyahu Declares That Israel Is ‘Winning’

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      The Israeli prime minister castigated Israel’s critics and the United Nations itself during his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arrived in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, he seemed to be entering a lion’s den.Speaker after speaker at the annual gathering of world leaders had portrayed Israel as a global villain. Police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who called Mr. Netanyahu a war criminal. His public rebuttal of a Biden administration plan to pause the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah raised tensions between the two governments.But Mr. Netanyahu bulldozed his way through his visit, castigating Israel’s critics and the United Nations itself, offering no diplomatic concessions, and ordering an airstrike in Beirut that may have killed Israel’s long hunted archnemesis, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.The strike landed even as Mr. Netanyahu delivered defiant remarks to a U.N. General Assembly hall — largely emptied after dozens of diplomats walked out in protest — in which he triumphantly declared of Israel’s multiple conflicts: “We are winning.”It is an assessment some U.S. officials say could reflect short-term truth while skirting past the risk of a larger conflict that could be devastating for all involved.Hours later, senior Israeli officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation, expressed remarkable confidence about their military and sabotage campaign against Hezbollah. Their blows against the group over the past two weeks and Mr. Nasrallah’s possible death could be a turning point, they said, in their ongoing struggle with Iran, which arms and funds Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy forces in what the officials portrayed as a plan to destroy Israel.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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      For Americans Haunted by Beirut Bombings, a Killing Resurfaces Decades of Pain

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      Two deadly bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed scores of U.S. military personnel more than 40 years ago have cast a long shadow over survivors and victims’ families.A day after the killing of a senior Hezbollah member seen as a key figure in those attacks, many of those Americans welcomed the news but said it stirred painful memories without resolving the past.“It doesn’t bring closure,” said Michael Harris, 59, a Marine veteran who was “blown out” of his barracks in one of the attacks and lives today in Rhode Island. “It wasn’t just one person responsible.”The senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqeel was killed on Friday after Israeli fighter jets bombed a heavily residential area of Beirut’s southern suburbs. Mr. Aqeel has been long been wanted by the United States for his role in two 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed over 350 people, most of them U.S. service members. The United States had placed a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head, but he had survived multiple assassination attempts.The first attack, a bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983, killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. Six months later, a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing more than 300 people, including 241 American service members.For many survivors and victims’ loved ones, those bombings never go away.Every time Mr. Harris picks up the paper or watches the news about another bombing, he said, “it opens up wounds.”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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      Sweeping Iraq Raid Killed 4 ISIS Leaders

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      The U.S. military said those killed in a joint assault by U.S. and Iraqi forces last month included the group’s top commander in Iraq and its leading bomb maker.One of the largest counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State in Iraq in recent years killed four top insurgent leaders last month, the U.S. military said on Friday, dealing the group a major blow at a time when its attacks in Iraq and Syria are on the rise.The raid by American and Iraqi commandos against several Islamic State hide-outs in western Iraq on Aug. 29 killed at least 14 insurgents and devastated the group’s top leadership in the country, according to a statement from the Pentagon’s Central Command and U.S. counterterrorism officials.Among the dead the military identified was Ahmad Hamid al-Ithawi, the top ISIS commander in Iraq and one of the group’s most well-established veterans. Two senior commanders for ISIS operations in western Iraq were also killed, the military’s statement said.Another main target killed was Abu Ali al-Tunisi, a Tunisian national who was the subject of a $5 million reward from the U.S. government, the military revealed on Friday. Mr. al-Tunisi has been ISIS’s most significant designer, manufacturer and teacher in explosives — including improvised devices, suicide vests and car bombs, counterterrorism officials said.“The raid appears to have effectively killed off ISIS’s entire command in Anbar,” Charles Lister, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, wrote in a Substack newsletter, “Syria Weekly,” on Friday. Anbar is a vast province in western Iraq that has been a locus for violent Sunni extremists for years.Central Command and the Iraqi military offered scant details when they announced the raid on Aug. 30, even though it was one of the most sweeping counterterrorism missions in the country in years.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