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      Israel and Ukraine Show How Drone Smuggling Is Powerful New War Technique

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      Launching weapons from within their territory forces adversaries to look not only outward but also inside for threats, one expert said.Small, difficult to detect and able to pack a powerful punch, attack drones have become a formidable weapon in modern warfare. But when launched from deep inside enemy territory — as in Iran and in Russia this month — their impact is all the more devastating.The surprise factor of having to fend off drones attacking from within combines a classic military strategy with modern technology. Spy craft and covert operations have long been a part of combat, but using them to build or deploy deadly drones behind enemy lines is a new tactic in the ever-evolving art of war, officials and weapons experts said.That was the case two weeks ago, when more than 40 Russian war planes were hit by a swarm of 117 drones that Ukraine had secretly planted near military bases in Russia months earlier. Some were thousands of miles from Ukraine.It was also the case in Iran, which lost missiles, interceptors and air defense systems that were destroyed on Friday by drones and other weapons that Israeli intelligence operatives had smuggled in earlier.Many of the details about the secretive operations, and how they were carried out, remain murky to protect methods of intelligence collection and sources of covert information.But Israel’s approach gave it an edge in its wide-ranging attack against Iran “because it’s coming from left flank,” said Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general and defense strategist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.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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      Israeli Strikes Kill IRGC Leader and Major Nuclear Scientists

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      Israel has long targeted Iranian officials for assassination. But these attacks marked a significant shift in tactics, targeting multiple officials at once inside Iran.Israel’s wave of attacks in Iran overnight on Friday targeted top Iranian officials and appeared to successfully kill the leader of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a shocking series of strikes that aimed to deal significant blows to Iran’s security leadership.Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed in an Israeli strike within the Iranian capital of Tehran, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial news site affiliated with the government. As leader of the force, Mr. Salami had helped oversee the relationship with Iranian proxies like Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, which had long menaced Israel.Tasnim also reported that at least three other senior Iranian leaders were thought to have been killed. They were Gholamali Rashid, the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces; Mohammad Mehdi Tehranji, an Iranian physicist; and Fereydoun Abbasi, an Iranian nuclear scientist.Israel has long sought to assassinate Iranian security chiefs and nuclear scientists. But it has generally picked them off one by one, often while they were outside Iranian territory in Lebanon or Syria.The attacks early on Friday appeared to be a significant shift in tactics. Not only did they target Iran’s nuclear program and air defenses, the Israeli attacks also sought to eliminate many senior members of the Iranian security establishment at once.Israel also targeted Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as well as other senior commanders in the Guards Corps and leading scientists in the country’s nuclear program, according to two Israeli defense officials familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials on Mr. Bagheri’s condition. More

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      Islamic State Says It Targeted Syrian Forces in Bomb Attacks

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      The extremist group claimed responsibility for two attacks, its first against the new government since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, a war monitoring group said.The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two bomb explosions, the first time the extremist group has directly targeted the new government since it took over in December, a war monitoring group said.In two statements posted online on Thursday and reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, ISIS claimed that bombs laid by its members had killed and wounded government soldiers and allied militia members.The Syrian government did not report any attacks by ISIS in the area, but announced that it had conducted two raids against Islamic State operatives in the Damascus area in the past week.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, reported that one person was killed and three members of the Syrian Army’s 70th Division were wounded when a patrol was hit by a remote-controlled land mine in the east of Sweida Province on Wednesday. The man killed was accompanying the government forces, it said.The two attacks claimed by ISIS took place in the southern province of Sweida, where the group has not been active for the best part of a decade. But the government has struggled to establish security in the province, which is effectively controlled by the Druse minority. Sectarian clashes between local militants and pro-government forces in the province killed more than 100 in late April and early May.The Islamic State, which controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria a decade ago until U.S. and allied Syrian forces largely defeated it, has continued a low-level insurgency in eastern Syria since 2019. But it has shown a renewed vigor since the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, plotting attacks even in the capital, Damascus, and claiming responsibility for a car bombing among other attacks in eastern Syria.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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      Judge Criticizes Government Inaction in Case of Migrants Held in Djibouti

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      Judge Brian E. Murphy had ordered the Trump administration to offer due process to a group of men whom the government was trying to send to South Sudan.A federal judge expressed frustration on Monday night with the government’s failure to give due process to a group of deportees the administration is trying to send to South Sudan but is now holding in Djibouti, as he had mandated last week.“It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome than defendants anticipated,” the judge, Brian E. Murphy of Federal District Court in Massachusetts, wrote in his 17-page order. He added that if giving deportees remote proceedings proved too difficult, the government could still return the men to the United States.Judge Murphy’s earlier order, issued on Wednesday, mandated that six of the eight men be given a “reasonable fear interview,” or a chance to express fear of persecution or torture if they were sent on to South Sudan. At a hearing that day, he found that the government had violated another order that the deportees be given notice in a language they could understand, and at least 15 days to challenge their removal. Instead, the judge found they were given “fewer than 16 hours’ notice.”On Monday night, Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the migrants in the case, confirmed that her team had not been given phone access to them. The Homeland Security Department’s public affairs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The substance of Judge Murphy’s order was not surprising, as he rejected a motion from the government that he pause one of his earlier orders. But his criticism of the government’s delay in offering due process appeared to reflect his growing frustration in another contentious case in the back-and-forth between the Trump administration and federal courts.The day after Judge Murphy ordered that the migrants remain in U.S. custody, the White House called them “monsters” and the judge “a far-left activist.” Then, on Friday night, Judge Murphy ordered the government to “facilitate” the return from Guatemala of a man known as O.C.G., one of the original plaintiffs in the case.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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      In Yemen, $7 Billion in Useless Bombing

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      The Signal scandal drew howls of outrage for the way Trump administration officials insecurely exchanged texts about military strikes on Yemen. But dig a little deeper, and there’s an even larger scandal.This is a scandal about a failed policy that empowers an enemy of the United States, weakens our security and will cost thousands of lives. It’s one that also tarnishes President Joe Biden but reaches its apotheosis under President Trump.It all goes back to the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in October 2023, and Israel’s savage response leveling entire neighborhoods of Gaza. The repressive Houthi regime of Yemen sought to win regional support by attacking supposedly pro-Israeli ships passing nearby in the Red Sea. (In fact, it struck all kinds of ships.)There are more problems than solutions in international relations, and this was a classic example: An extremist regime in Yemen was impeding international trade, and there wasn’t an easy fix. Biden responded with a year of airstrikes on Yemen against the Houthis that consumed billions of dollars but didn’t accomplish anything obvious.After taking office, Trump ramped up pressure on Yemen. He slashed humanitarian aid worldwide, with Yemen particularly hard hit. I last visited Yemen in 2018, when some children were already starving to death, and now it’s worse: Half of Yemen’s children under 5 are malnourished — “a statistic that is almost unparalleled across the world,” UNICEF says — yet aid cuts recently forced more than 2,000 nutrition programs to close down, according to Tom Fletcher, the U.N. humanitarian chief. The United States canceled an order for lifesaving peanut paste that was meant to keep 500,000 Yemeni children alive.Girls will be particularly likely to die, because Yemeni culture favors boys. I once interviewed a girl, Nujood Ali, who was married against her will at age 10. Aid programs to empower Yemeni girls and reduce child marriage are now being cut off as well.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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      What We Know About the Terrorist Groups India Said It Targeted

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      India has accused Pakistan of continuing to support Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. Pakistan has rejected those claims.The spark for the latest conflict between India and Pakistan, the most expansive fighting between the two countries in decades, was a terrorist attack on civilians in Kashmir last month.The Indian government had been projecting calm on its side of the disputed Kashmir region. A group of militants managed to puncture that image. They came out of the woods in a scenic picnic spot and killed 26 men. The men, almost all of them Hindu, were singled out for their religion, and many of them were killed in front of their wives and families, according to witness accounts.A little-known group called the Resistance Front claimed responsibility. The Indian government said that the group was a front for a broader terrorist apparatus that has operated out of Pakistan. Pakistan has rejected those claims.Here is what we know about the groups that India said it had targeted in its military strikes.What are the two main groups India targeted?Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was founded in the 1980s, has long been suspected of planning from Pakistan some of the worst terrorist attacks in India. It was added to a United Nations sanctions list in 2005.One of the deadliest attacks the group orchestrated was a 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, during which more than 160 people were killed. Nearly a dozen gunmen arrived on boats and held hostages at a major hotel for days. One of the attackers was captured alive, and much of the account of the attack’s ties to Pakistan came from his confessions. He was sentenced in India in 2010 and executed in 2012.Pakistan has confirmed Lashkar-e-Taiba’s links to past violence in India but says that the group was outlawed and disbanded long ago. The group’s founder, Hafiz Saeed, is free despite brief periods of detention, and Indian officials say that the group continues its activities through cover organizations and offshoots, such as the Resistance Front.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 Haven for Civilians in Sudan Is Attacked for a Third Day

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      Drone strikes hit a fuel depot, airport and a hotel in Port Sudan, bringing violence to a city that had so far been spared in the devastating civil war.Thick columns of smoke could be seen Tuesday in Port Sudan, the eastern Sudanese city where the Sudanese paramilitary group known as Rapid Support Forces was accused of attacking a fuel depot with drones.Associated PressLarge plumes of black smoke billowed over Sudan’s de facto wartime capital on Tuesday, as attacks on a city that had become a haven for civilians fleeing civil war stretched into a third day.The Sudanese paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces has launched a series of drone attacks on the military-controlled Red Sea city of Port Sudan, targeting key civilian facilities, including the airport and a hospital.On Tuesday, drones hit a fuel depot near the port and the airport, according to multiple eyewitnesses, rattling the city and leaving its streets nearly deserted. Khalid Ali Aleisir, Sudan’s minister of information and the official government spokesman, accused the group, known as the R.S.F., of carrying out a “criminal and terrorist attack” in a post on social media.“I assure our steadfast Sudanese people that the civil defense forces and all security agencies are performing their duties to the fullest, and that the will of the Sudanese people will remain unbreakable,” Mr. Aleisir said in another post that showed him standing in front of a giant plume of smoke.The drones also hit the upmarket Marina Hotel, where diplomats were believed to be staying, witnesses said. The hotel is close to government buildings.No casualties were reported, and the R.S.F. has not taken responsibility for the attacks.On Sunday, the paramilitary group attacked Port Sudan for the first time since the start of the war in 2023, ratcheting up tensions in a conflict that has already killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million.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 Killed in Attack on Migrant Facility in Yemen, Houthis Say

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      There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military, which the Iran-backed Houthi militia blamed for the attack in Saada.Dozens of people were killed in an attack on a migrant facility in Houthi-controlled northern Yemen, the Iran-backed militia and aid officials said on Monday.The Houthi militia said that an American strike hit what they called a migrant center in Saada, killing at least 68 African migrants. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the claim.The attack came hours after the U.S. military said that American forces had conducted more than 800 strikes in Yemen since mid-March in a campaign against the Houthis. It said the campaign targeted “multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations” — but made no mention of civilian casualties.Houthi officials have said that more than 100 civilians have been killed, and condemned the latest strike as a “heinous crime against African migrants.”The Houthis and the U.S. military have made competing claims about who was responsible for civilian deaths in recent strikes. Last week, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said that an explosion on April 20 that killed 12 people in the Yemeni capital had been caused by a misfired Houthi missile, not an American strike as the Houthis had claimed.On Monday, graphic footage broadcast by the Houthi-controlled al-Masirah news channel showed bodies scattered amid the rubble in Saada. In addition to the dozens who were killed, at least 40 migrants were injured, according to two aid officials in Yemen who spoke on the condition of anonymity while they further verified the circumstances of the attack.Each year, tens of thousands of African migrants attempt the perilous journey across the narrow strait separating the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula, hoping to reach wealthy Gulf States north of Yemen. Nearly 60,900 migrants have arrived in Yemen in 2024 alone, according to the International Organization for Migration.Over the past year, the Houthis have launched rockets and drones at Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying their actions are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.The United States intensified a bombing campaign against the Houthis starting on March 15, under orders from President Trump, who has vowed to continue military operations until the Houthis no longer pose a threat. More