World
2 Japanese navy helicopters carrying 8 crew believed crashed in Pacific, Defense Ministry says
Two Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force helicopters carrying eight crewmembers were believed to have crashed in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo during night-time training, Japan’s defense minister said.
The two SH-60K reconnaissance choppers, carrying four crew each, lost contact late Saturday near Torishima island in the Pacific about 600 kilometers (370 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters.
One of the eight crewmembers was recovered from the waters, but his or her condition was unknown. The officials were still searching for the other seven.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, Kihara said, adding that officials are prioritizing the rescue operation.
The MSDF deployed eight warships and five aircraft for the search and rescue of the missing crew, while they have recovered fragments believed to be of the SH-60K, Kihara said. “We believe the helicopters have crashed.”
The helicopters, a twin-engine, multi-mission aircraft designed by Sikorsky and known as Seahawk, were on night-time anti-submarine training in the waters, Kihara said. One lost contact at around 10:38 p.m. (1338 GMT) after sending an emergency signal. The other aircraft lost contact about 25 minutes later.
The SH-60K aircraft is usually deployed on destroyers for anti-submarine missions.
Saturday's crash comes a year after a Ground Self-Defense Force UH-60 Blackhawk crashed off the southwestern Japanese island of Miyako, leaving all 10 crewmembers dead. In January 2022, a Air Self-Defense F-15 fighter jet crashed off the northcentral coast of Japan, killing two crew.
Man set himself on fire outside court proves challenging for news organizations
Video cameras stationed outside the Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump is on trial caught the gruesome scene Friday of a man who lit himself on fire and the aftermath as authorities tried to rescue him.
CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC were all on the air with reporters talking about the seating of a jury when the incident happened and other news agencies, including The Associated Press, were livestreaming from outside the courthouse. The man, who distributed pamphlets before dousing himself in an accelerant and setting himself on fire, was in critical condition.
The incident tested how quickly the networks could react, and how they decided what would be too disturbing for their viewers to see.
With narration from Laura Coates, CNN had the most extensive view of the scene. Coates, who at first incorrectly said it was a shooting situation, then narrated as the man was visible onscreen, enveloped in flames.
“You can smell burning flesh,” Coates, an anchor and CNN's chief legal analyst, said as she stood at the scene with reporter Evan Perez.
The camera switched back and forth between Coates and what was happening in the park. Five minutes after the incident started, CNN posted the onscreen message “Warning: Graphic Content.”
Coates later said she couldn’t “overstate the emotional response of watching a human being engulfed in flames and to watch his body be lifted into a gurney.” She described it as an “emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment here.”
Fox's cameras caught the scene briefly as reporter Eric Shawn talked, then the network switched to a courtroom sketch of Trump on trial.
“We deeply apologize for what has happened,” Shawn said.
On MSNBC, reporter Yasmin Vossoughian narrated the scene. The network showed smoke in the park, but no picture where the body was visible.
“I could see the outline of his body inside the flames,” Vossoughian said, “which was so terrifying to see. As he went to the ground his knees hit the ground first.”
The AP had a camera with an unnarrated live shot stationed outside the courthouse, shown on YouTube and APNews.com. The cameras caught an extensive view, with the man lighting himself afire and later writhing on the ground before a police officer tried to douse the flames with a jacket.
The AP later removed its live feed from its YouTube channel and replaced it with a new one because of the graphic nature of the content.
The news agency distributed carefully edited clips to its video clients — not showing the moment the man lit himself on fire, for example, said executive producer Tom Williams.
Julien Gorbach, a University of Hawaii at Manoa associate professor of journalism, said news organizations didn't face much of a dilemma about whether to show the footage because there was little for the public to gain by seeing images of a man lighting himself on fire.
The episode highlights how fast information travels and the importance of critical thinking, Gorbach said.
“It outpaces our ability to a) sort out the facts, and b) do the kind of methodical, critical thinking that we need to do so that we understand the truth of what actually this incident was all about,” Gorbach said.
The location of the incident may have prompted some to think the self-immolation was related to the trial.
Gorbach, who was listening to MSNBC on satellite radio when it happened, said the coverage he heard was careful to question whether there was any connection to the trial. It also raised the possibility the man may have wanted to get media attention.
News organizations can't suppress the news just so the public doesn't get confused, he said. Word would get out regardless as non-journalists post accounts online.
“So it’s really a test of us as a public,” he said.
Israel and Iran's apparent strikes and counterstrikes give new insights into both militaries
Israel demonstrated its military dominance over adversary Iran in its apparent precision strikes that hit near military and nuclear targets deep in the heart of the country, meeting little significant challenge from Iran's defenses and providing the world with new insights into both militaries' capabilities.
The international community, Israel and Iran all signaled hopes that Friday's airstrikes would end what has been a dangerous 19-day run of strikes and counterstrikes, a highly public test between two deep rivals that had previously stopped short of most direct confrontation.
The move into open fighting began April 1 with the suspected Israeli killing of Iranian generals at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. That prompted Iran's retaliatory barrage last weekend of more than 300 missiles and drones that the U.S., Israel and regional and international partners helped bat down without significant damage in Israel. And then came Friday's apparent Israeli strike.
As all sides took stock, regional security experts predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the country's allies would emerge encouraged by the Israeli military’s superior performance. In response to international appeals, however, both Israel and Iran had appeared to be holding back their full military force throughout the more than two weeks of hostilities, aiming to send messages rather than escalate to a full-scale war.
Crucially, experts also cautioned that Iran had not brought into the main battle its greatest military advantage over Israel — Hezbollah and other Iran-allied armed groups in the region. Hezbollah in particular is capable of straining Israel’s ability to defend itself, especially in any multifront conflict.
Overall, “the big-picture lesson to take away is that unless Iran does absolutely everything at its disposal all at once, it is just the David, and not the Goliath, in this equation,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow and longtime regional researcher at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
Aside from those Iranian proxy forces, “the Israelis have every single advantage on every single military level,” Lister said.
In Friday’s attack, Iranian state television said the country's air defense batteries fired in several provinces following reports of drones. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects.
Lister said it appeared to have been a single mission by a small number of Israeli aircraft. After crossing Syrian airspace, it appears they fired only two or three Blue Sparrow air-to-surface missiles into Iran, most likely from a standoff position in the airspace of Iran's neighbor Iraq, he said.
Iran said its air defenses fired at a major air base near Isfahan. Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.
Israel has not taken responsibility for either the April 1 or Friday strikes.
The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based center that promotes Israeli-U.S. security ties, quickly pointed out that Friday's small strike underscored that Israel could do much more damage “should it decide to launch a larger strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.”
Iran's barrage last weekend, by contrast, appears to have used up most of its 150 long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of the U.S. military's Central Command.
Especially given the distance involved and how easy it is for the U.S. and others to track missile deployments by overhead space sensors and regional radar, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue against Israel,” McKenzie said.
Israelis, for their part, have "shown that Israel can now hit Iran from its soil with missiles, maybe even drones,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.
Iran's performance Friday, meanwhile, may have raised doubts about its ability to defend against such an attack, Vatanka said. Iran is about 80 times the size of Israel and thus has much more territory to defend, he noted.
Plus, Israel demonstrated that it can rally support from powerful regional and international countries, both Arab and Western, to defend against Iran.
The U.S. led in helping Israel knock down Iran's missile and drone attack on April 13. Jordan and Gulf countries are believed to have lent varying degrees of assistance, including in sharing information about incoming strikes.
The two weeks of hostilities also provided the biggest showcase yet of the growing ability of Israel to work with Arab nations, its previous enemies, under the framework of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The U.S. under the Trump administration moved responsibility for its military coordination with Israel into Central Command, which already hosted U.S. military coordination with Arab countries. The Biden administration has worked to deepen the relationship.
But while the exchange of Israeli-Iran strikes revealed more about Iran's military abilities, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied armed groups in Iraq and Syria largely appeared to stay on the sidelines.
Hezbollah is one of the most powerful militaries in the region, with tens of thousands of experienced fighters and a massive weapons arsenal.
After an intense war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 that killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and dozens of Israeli civilians, both sides have held back from escalating to another full-scale conflict. But Israeli and Hezbollah militaries still routinely fire across each other's borders during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Hezbollah “is Iran's only remaining potential advantage in this whole broader equation,” Lister said.
Six months of fighting in Gaza have “completely stretched” Israel's military, he said. “If Hezbollah went all out and launched the vast majority of its rocket and missile arsenal at Israel, all at once, the Israelis would seriously struggle to deal with that.”
And in terms of ground forces, if Hezbollah suddenly opened a second front, the Israel Defense Forces “would be incapable at this point” of fighting full-on with both Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.
US says a UN agency has agreed to help in distribution of aid to Gaza via sea route
The U.N. World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid for the starving civilians of Gaza once the U.S. military completes a pier for transporting the humanitarian assistance by sea, U.S. officials said Friday.
The involvement of the U.N. agency could help resolve one of the major obstacles facing the U.S.-planned project — the reluctance of aid groups to handle on-the-ground distribution of food and other badly needed goods in Gaza absent significant changes by Israel.
An Israeli military attack April 1 that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen intensified international criticism of Israel for failing to provide security for humanitarian workers or allow adequate amounts of aid across its land borders.
Israeli military tells Palestinians not to return to north Gaza after witnesses say troops kill 5
President Joe Biden, himself facing criticism over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while supporting Israel's military campaign against Hamas, announced March 8 that the U.S. military would build the temporary pier and causeway, as an alternative to the land routes.
The U.S. Agency for International Development confirmed to The Associated Press that it would partner with the WFP on delivering humanitarian assistance to Gaza via the maritime corridor.
“This is a complex operation that requires coordination between many partners, and our conversations are ongoing. Throughout Gaza, the safety and security of humanitarian actors is critical to the delivery of assistance, and we continue to advocate for measures that will give humanitarians greater assurances,” USAID said in its statement to the AP.
U.S. and WFP officials were working on how to deliver the aid to Palestinian civilians "in an independent, neutral, and impartial manner,” the agency said.
There was no immediate comment from the WFP, and an WFP spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
Israel promised to open more border crossings into Gaza and increase the flow of aid after its drone strikes killed the seven aid workers, who were delivering food into the Palestinian territory.
Muslim leaders are ‘out of words’ as they tire of the White House outreach on the war in Gaza
The war was sparked when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage. The Israeli offensive in Gaza, aimed at destroying Hamas, has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,800 people, according to local health officials. Hundreds of U.N. and other humanitarian workers are among those killed by Israeli strikes.
International officials say famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where 70% of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger.
The U.S. military will be constructing what’s known as a modular causeway as part of the maritime route, in hopes that handling the inspection and processing of the aid offshore will speed the distribution to Gaza's people.
Offshore, the Army will build a large floating platform where ships can unload pallets of aid. Then the aid will be transferred by Army boats to a motorized string of steel pier or causeway sections that will be anchored to the shore.
Several Army vessels and Miliary Sealift Command ships are already in the Mediterranean Sea, and are working to prepare and build the platform and pier.
That pier is expected to be as much as 1,800 feet (550 meters) long, with two lanes, and the Pentagon has said it could accommodate the delivery of more than 2 million meals a day for Gaza residents.
Army Col. Sam Miller, commander of the 7th Transportation Brigade, which is in charge of building the pier, said about 500 of his soldiers will participate in the mission. All together, Pentagon officials have said about 1,000 U.S. troops will be involved.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters this week that the U.S. in on track to have the system in place by the end of the month or early May. The actual construction of the pier had been on hold as U.S. and international officials hammered out agreements for the collection and distribution of the aid.
He said the U.S. has been making progress, and that Israel has agreed to provide security on the shore. The White House has made clear that there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza, so while they will be constructing elements of the pier they will not transport aid onto the shore.
U.S. Navy ships and the Army vessels will provide security for U.S. forces building the pier.
Israel, Iran play down apparent Israeli strike. The muted responses could calm tensions — for now
Israel and Iran on Friday both played down an apparent Israeli airstrike near a major air base and nuclear site in central Iran, signaling the two bitter enemies are ready to prevent their latest eruption of violence from escalating into a full-blown regional war.
But the indecisive outcome of weeks of tensions — which included an alleged Israeli strike that killed two Iranian generals, an unprecedented Iranian missile barrage on Israel and the apparent Israeli strike early Friday in the heart of Iran — did little to resolve the deeper grievances between the foes and left the door open to further fighting.
“It appears we’re closer than ever to a broad regional war, despite the fact that the international community will most likely make a great effort to de-escalate tensions,” wrote Amos Harel, the military-affairs commentator for the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Israel has long considered Iran to be its greatest enemy — citing the Islamic Republic’s calls for Israel’s destruction, its controversial nuclear program and its support for hostile proxies across the Middle East.
These tensions have risen since Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Iranian-backed Palestinian groups, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking a devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza that has continued for more than six months. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed proxy in Lebanon, immediately began striking Israeli targets, opening up tit-for-tat fighting along a second front, while Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have also fired missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war.
While Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years, mostly in neighboring Syria, they have largely avoided direct confrontations. That changed after an April 1 airstrike killed two Iranian generals at an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Although Israel did not comment, Iran blamed Israel for the strike and vowed revenge.
Iran responded with its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching over 300 missiles and attack drones late Saturday night. Israel, working with a U.S.-led international coalition, said it intercepted 99% of the incoming fire, though a handful of missiles managed to land, causing minor damage to an Israeli military base and seriously wounding a young girl.
In Friday’s attack, Iranian state television said that air defense batteries fired in several provinces over reports of drones in the air. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects.
“The explosion this morning in the sky of Isfahan was related to the shooting of air defense systems at a suspicious object that did not cause any damage,” Mousavi said.
Authorities said air defenses fired at a major air base near Isfahan, which long has been home to Iran’s fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats — purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks. The apparent attack Friday came on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 85th birthday.
State television described all Iranian atomic sites in the areas as “fully safe.” The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said there was “no damage” to Iran’s nuclear sites.
Iranian officials made no mention of possible Israeli involvement. That could be intentional, particularly after Iranian officials for days have been threatening to respond to any Israeli retaliatory attack.
Israel also had no comment on the apparent attack, though one hard-line government minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, hinted at his dissatisfaction, with a one-word tweet early Friday, using a slang word for weak or lame.
But Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said at a summit of Western leaders in Capri that the U.S. received “last-minute” information from Israel about the attack. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not dispute that, but said: “We were not involved in any offensive operations.”
Yoel Guzansky, a former Iran expert in the Israeli prime minister’s office, said Israel appears to have carried out the attack to “check off a box” by sending a message to Iran without doing anything too provocative that could upset the United States, which had urged restraint, or spark further Iranian retaliation.
“It seems very limited, to send a message that ‘we can strike you inside of Iran,’” said Guzansky a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.
He said “the current round” of violence appears to be over, but that “nothing has changed” with Israel still facing Iranian-backed threats on various fronts.
“I see further rounds,” he said. And the next time, if Iran surprises Israel or allies don’t assist in Israel’s defense, “the outcome will be different.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres called for an end to the strikes.
“It is high time to stop the dangerous cycle of retaliation in the Middle East,” his office said.
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute and a longtime regional analyst, challenged Iran’s claims that drones carried out the attacks. It appears instead that a small number of Israeli aircraft flew from Israel over Syria — striking at least two southern Syria military bases that have air defense systems along the way, he said.
They then entered Iraqi airspace, from where they fired a small number of Blue Sparrow air-to-surface ballistic missiles, likely without ever entering Iranian airspace, Lister said.
Accounts of explosions over Iraq support that scenario, and so does debris from what appears to be the booster of an Israeli-made Blue Sparrow missile that Iraqi security found in a field outside Baghdad, Lister said.
“In other words, the Israelis would never have needed to enter Iranian airspace to conduct this attack,” Lister said. “I think this was Israel’s way of just sending a message that we can reach you anywhere we want.”
If this latest round subsides, Israel can now return its focus to its ongoing war in Gaza and the simmering fighting with Hezbollah. With neither of those fronts letting up, the risk of further run-ins with Iran remains high, though neither side appears eager after Friday’s apparent Israeli attack.
“Neither side is ready to jump over the brink,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute. But he added a major caveat.
“Probably we’re going to go back to the proxy war, “ he said, but now it’s a proxy war with the risk of “that sudden eruption of state-to-state war. Which we didn’t have to worry about before.”
Rakhine State once again becomes a battleground; civilians paying a heavy price: Turk
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk today warned that intensified fighting in Rakhine State between the military and the Arakan Army, alongside tensions being fuelled between the Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine communities, pose a grave threat to the civilian population. He warned of a grave risk that past atrocities will be repeated.
Since the year-long informal ceasefire between the two sides broke down last November, 15 of Rakhine’s 17 townships have been affected by fighting, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, and taking the number of displaced to well over 300,000.
“Rakhine State has once again become a battleground involving multiple actors, and civilians are paying a heavy price, with Rohingya at particular risk,” the High Commissioner said. “What is particularly disturbing is that whereas in 2017, the Rohingya were targeted by one group, they are now trapped between two armed factions who have a track record of killing them. We must not allow the Rohingya to be targeted again.”
The military has been fast losing ground to the Arakan Army (AA) throughout northern and central Rakhine. This has led to intensified fighting in the townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw, ahead of an expected battle for the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe. The two townships are home to large Rohingya populations, putting them at grave risk.
“Facing defeat, the military has outrageously started to forcibly conscript, bribe and coerce Rohingya into joining their ranks. It is unconscionable that they should be targeted in this way, given the appalling events of six years ago, and the ongoing extreme discrimination against the Rohingya including the denial of citizenship,” Türk said.
Some reports say the military is forcing the Rohingya recruits or villagers to burn ethnic Rakhine homes, buildings or villages. Ethnic Rakhine villagers have allegedly responded in kind by burning Rohingya villages. The UN Human Rights Office is trying to verify all reports received, a task complicated by a communications blackout throughout the State.
Türk said disinformation and propaganda are also rife, pointing to claims that “Islamic terrorists” have taken Hindus and Buddhists hostage.
“This was the same kind of hateful narrative that fuelled communal violence in 2012 and the horrendous attacks against the Rohingya in 2017,” he said.
Since the start of the year, the AA has positioned itself in and around Rohingya villages effectively inviting military attacks on Rohingya civilians.
On 15 April, the Médecins Sans Frontières office and pharmacy were torched in Buthidaung, along with some 200 homes. Hundreds have fled and are reported to be taking refuge in a high school, the grounds of the former hospital, and along roads in Buthidaung town. With both the Maungdaw and Buthidaung hospitals having been shut by the military in March and with the conflict intensifying, there is effectively no medical treatment in northern Rakhine.
“The alarm bells are ringing, and we must not allow there to be a repeat of the past,” Türk said. “Countries with influence on the Myanmar military and armed groups involved must act now to protect all civilians in Rakhine State and prevent another episode of horrendous persecution of the Rohingya.”
Iran fires at apparent Israeli attack drones near Isfahan air base and nuclear site
An apparent Israeli drone attack on a major air base early near the central city of Isfahan activated Iranian air defenses early Friday. The strike came just days after Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on Israel.
No Iranian official directly acknowledged the possibility that Israel had attacked, and the Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment. However, regional tensions have been high since the Saturday assault on Israel amid its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its own strikes targeting Iran in Syria.
Speaking at the G7 meeting in Capri, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the U.S. received “last-minute” information from Israel about the attack on Isfahan. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not dispute that, but said: "We were not involved in any offensive operations.”
The apparent attack came on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's 85th birthday. Israeli politicians also made comments hinting that the country had launched an attack.
Air defense batteries fired in several provinces over reports of drones being in the air, state television reported. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects.
“The explosion this morning in the sky of Isfahan was related to the shooting of air defense systems at a suspicious object that did not cause any damage,” Mousavi said. Others suggested the drones may be so-called quadcopters — four-rotor, small drones that are commercially available.
Authorities said air defenses fired at a major air base in Isfahan, which long has been home to Iran's fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats — purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Tasnim news agency published a video from one of its reporters, who said he was in the southeastern Zerdenjan area of Isfahan, near its “nuclear energy mountain.” The footage showed two different anti-aircraft gun positions, and details of the video corresponded with known features of the site of Iran's Uranium Conversion Facility at Isfahan.
“At 4:45, we heard gunshots. There was nothing going on,” he said. “It was the air defense, these guys that you’re watching, and over there too.”
The facility at Isfahan operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, as well as handling fuel production and other activities for Iran's civilian nuclear program.
Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran's nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.
State television described all atomic sites in the area as “fully safe." The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites” after the incident.
The IAEA “continues to call for extreme restraint from everybody and reiterates that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts,” the agency said.
Iran's nuclear program has rapidly advanced to producing enriched uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels since the collapse of its atomic deal with world powers after then-President Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord in 2018.
While Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, Western nations and the IAEA say Tehran operated a secret military weapons program until 2003. The IAEA has warned that Iran now holds enough enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons if it chose to do so — though the U.S. intelligence community maintains Tehran is not actively seeking the bomb.
Dubai-based carriers Emirates and FlyDubai began diverting around western Iran about 4:30 a.m. local time. They offered no explanation, though local warnings to aviators suggested the airspace may have been closed.
Iran then grounded commercial flights in Tehran and across areas of its western and central regions. Iran later restored normal flight service, authorities said.
Around the time of the incident in Iran, Syria's state-run SANA news agency quoted a military statement saying Israel carried out a missile strike targeting an air defense unit in its south and causing material damage. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strike hit a military radar for government forces. It was not clear if there were casualties, the Observatory said.
That area of Syria is directly west of Isfahan, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away, and east of Israel.
Meanwhile in Iraq, where a number of Iranian-backed militias are based, residents of Baghdad reported hearing sounds of explosions, but the source of the noise was not immediately clear.
The incident Friday in Iran also sparked concerns about the conflict again escalating across the seas of the Middle East, which have been seeing attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen on shipping over the war in Gaza.
The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center warned ships in the region that they could see increased drone activity in the skies.
“There are currently no indications commercial vessels are the intended target,” it wrote.
The Houthis have launched at least 53 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.
Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen and as shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined over the threat.
The apparent attack also briefly spooked energy markets, sending benchmark Brent crude above $90 before it fell again in trading Friday.
However, Iranian state-run media sought to downplay the incident after the fact, airing footage of an otherwise-peaceful Isfahan morning. That could be intentional, particularly after Iranian officials for days have been threatening to retaliate for any Israeli retaliatory attack on the nation.
“As long as Iran continues to deny the attack and deflect attention from it and no further hits are seen, there is space for both sides to climb down the escalation ladder for now,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
Ukraine claims it shot down a Russian strategic bomber as Moscow's missiles kill 8 Ukrainians
Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.
Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight people, including a 14-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy, and injuring 28, local officials said.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kyiv officials’ almost daily appeals for more Western air defense systems, again drawing a parallel with how Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack.
Missile and drone attacks can be thwarted, he wrote on social platform X: “This has been demonstrated in the skies over the Middle East, and it should also work in Europe."
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba added: “Children must not be killed in airstrikes in modern Europe.”
Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners are a major threat to Russian aviation as the Kremlin’s forces slowly push forward along the around 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in what has become a grinding war of attrition. Ukrainian officials say they expect a major Russian offensive in the summer.
Ukraine said the air force and military intelligence cooperated to bring down the Tu-22M3 bomber with anti-aircraft missiles. Russia commonly uses the bomber to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets from inside its own airspace. The plane can also carry nuclear warheads.
The Russian defense ministry said the warplane crashed “in a deserted area” in the southern region of Stavropol, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Three crew members were rescued after ejecting from the aircraft, and the search for a fourth is taking place, according to the ministry. But Stavropol Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov said one of the rescued pilots died.
On Christmas Eve, Ukraine claimed to have shot down two Russian fighter jets. In January, the Ukrainian air force said it shot down a Russian early warning and control plane and a key command center aircraft that relays information to troops on the ground, in what appeared to be a significant blow for the Kremlin’s forces. The next month, Ukraine said it knocked out another early warning and control plane.
Also in January, Moscow accused Kyiv of shooting down a Russian military transport plane that was carrying Ukrainian POWs who were headed for a prisoner swap.
Russian forces overnight conducted a combined aerial attack with the use of 22 missiles of various types and 14 Shahed drones during the night, the Ukrainian air force said. All the drones and 15 of the missiles were intercepted, it said.
The attack hit urban areas as well as train infrastructure in the Dnipro region, Ukraine’s National Railway Operator said. Among those killed in the strikes was employee Oksana Storozhenko, the mother of two teenage sons, it said.
US vetoes widely supported resolution backing full UN membership for Palestine
The United States vetoed a widely backed U.N. resolution Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. U.S. allies France, Japan and South Korea supported the resolution.
The strong support the Palestinians received reflects not only the growing number of countries recognizing their statehood but almost certainly the global support for Palestinians facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, so its admission would have been approved, likely by a much higher number of countries.
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties."
The United States has “been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York — even with the best intentions — will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
His voice breaking at times, Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council after the vote: “The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will and it will not defeat our determination.”
“We will not stop in our effort,” he said. “The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near.”
This is the second Palestinian attempt for full membership and comes as the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict at center stage.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas first delivered the Palestinian Authority’s application for U.N. membership in 2011. It failed because the Palestinians didn’t get the required minimum support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members.
They went to the General Assembly and succeeded by more than a two-thirds majority in having their status raised from a U.N. observer to a non-member observer state in 2012. That opened the door for the Palestinian territories to join U.N. and other international organizations, including the International Criminal Court.
Algerian U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council who introduced the resolution, called Palestine’s admission “a critical step toward rectifying a longstanding injustice" and said that “peace will come from Palestine’s inclusion, not from its exclusion.”
In explaining the U.S. veto, Wood said there are “unresolved questions” on whether Palestine meets the criteria to be considered a state. He pointed to Hamas still exerting power and influence in the Gaza Strip, which is a key part of the state envisioned by the Palestinians.
Wood stressed that the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side in peace, is the only path for security for both sides and for Israel to establish relations with all its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
“The United States is committed to intensifying its engagement with the Palestinians and the rest of the region, not only to address the current crisis in Gaza, but to advance a political settlement that will create a path to Palestinian statehood and membership in the United Nations,” he said.
Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, reiterated the commitment to a two-state solution but asserted that Israel believes Palestine "is a permanent strategic threat."
"Israel will do its best to block the sovereignty of a Palestinian state and to make sure that the Palestinian people are exiled away from their homeland or remain under its occupation forever,” he said.
He demanded of the council and diplomats crowded in the chamber: “What will the international community do? What will you do?”
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled for years, and Israel’s right-wing government is dominated by hard-liners who oppose Palestinian statehood.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the resolution “disconnected to the reality on the ground” and warned that it “will cause only destruction for years to come and harm any chance for future dialogue.”
Six months after the Oct. 7 attack by the Hamas militant group, which controlled Gaza, and the killing of 1,200 people in “the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” he accused the Security Council of seeking “to reward the perpetrators of these atrocities with statehood.”
Israel’s military offensive in response has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and destroyed much of the territory, which speaker after speaker denounced Thursday.
After the vote, Erdan thanked the United States and particularly President Joe Biden “for standing up for truth and morality in the face of hypocrisy and politics.”
He called the Palestinian Authority — which controls the West Bank and the U.S. wants to see take over Gaza where Hamas still has sway — “a terror supporting entity.”
The Israeli U.N. ambassador referred to the requirements for U.N. membership – accepting the obligations in the U.N. Charter and being a “peace-loving” state.
“How can you say seriously that the Palestinians are peace loving? How?” Erdan asked. “The Palestinians are paying terrorists, paying them to slaughter us. None of their leaders condemns terrorism, nor the Oct. 7 massacre. They call Hamas their brothers.”
Despite the Palestinian failure to meet the criteria for U.N. membership, Erdan said most council members supported it.
“It’s very sad because your vote will only embolden Palestinian rejectionism every more and make peace almost impossible,” he said.
Indians vote in the first phase of the world's largest election as Modi seeks a third term
Millions of Indians began voting Friday in a six-week election that's a referendum on Narendra Modi, the populist prime minister who has championed an assertive brand of Hindu nationalist politics and is seeking a rare third term as the country's leader.
People began queuing up at polling stations hours before they were allowed in at 7 a.m. in the first 21 states to hold votes, from the Himalayan mountains to the tropical Andaman Islands. Nearly 970 million voters — more than 10% of the world’s population — will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament for five years during the staggered elections that run until June 1. The votes will be counted on June 4.
This election is seen as one of the most consequential in India’s history and will test the limits of Modi's political dominance.
If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.
Most polls predict a win for Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who are up against a broad opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress and powerful regional parties.
It's not clear who will lead India if the opposition alliance, called INDIA, wins the election. Its more than 20 parties have not put forward a candidate yet.
The BJP controls much of India's Hindi-speaking northern and central parts, but is now trying to gain a foothold in the east and south. Their toughest challenge is in the southern Tamil Nadu state, with 39 seats, where voting is being held Friday.
Voters in hot and humid Chennai, the state's capital, began briskly filling the city's nearly 4,000 polling booths. A number of them said they were voting for a change in federal government given rising prices, unemployment and religious polarization stoked by the BJP.
“First thing I came to vote for is to have a country without any religious disharmony. In Tamil Nadu — Hindus, Muslims, Christians, we're all together. And this unity should grow," said 65-year-old Mary Das, who was waiting to vote.
P. Chidambaram, an opposition Congress party leader and the country’s former finance minister, said that the people of Tamil Nadu would not vote for the BJP as “it is imposing one language, one culture, one system and one kind of food.”
The BJP has long struggled to capture votes in the state, where two powerful regional parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam — dominate. The BJP drew a blank in 2019, and won one seat in 2014.
In Rajasthan, people returning from polling stations covered their heads against dusty winds.
“If the new government is able to solve unemployment, then it will be good. People are migrating from this region to earn a living," said Atinder Singh, 26.
Voting is also taking place in the northeastern state of Manipur, where a near-civil war for a year has triggered ethnic violence. Mobs have rampaged through villages and torched houses, and more than 150 people have been killed.
The election comes after a decade of Modi's leadership, during which the BJP has consolidated power through a combination of Hindu-first politics and economic development.
Modi has ratcheted up Hindu nationalist rhetoric on the campaign trail, and has sought to present himself as a global leader. His ministers tout him as the steward of a surging India, while his supporters celebrate his campaign promise to make India a developed nation by 2047, when it marks 100 years of independence.
But while India’s economy is among the world’s fastest-growing, many of its people face growing economic distress. The opposition alliance is hoping to tap into this, seeking to galvanize voters on issues like high unemployment, inflation, corruption and low agricultural prices that have driven two years of farmers' protests.
The opposition — and critics — also warn that Modi has turned increasingly illiberal. They accuse Modi of using tax authorities and the police to harass the opposition, and they fear a third term could undermine India's democracy. His Hindu nationalist politics, they argue, has bred intolerance and threatens the country's secular roots.
“Modi has a very authoritarian mindset. He doesn't believe in democracy. He doesn't believe in Parliamentarianism,” said Christophe Jaffrelot, a political scientist who has written about Modi and the Hindu right.
Modi insists that India's commitment to democracy is unchanged. He told a Summit for Democracy meeting in New Delhi in March that “India is not only fulfilling the aspirations of its 1.4 billion people, but is also providing hope to the world that democracy delivers and empowers.”
The Indian leader, who enjoys vast popularity, is targeting a two-thirds majority this time.
The BJP hopes for a landslide win powered by its popular welfare programs, which it says have improved access to clean toilets, health care and cooking gas, as well as providing free grain to the poor. Moves like the construction of a controversial temple to Ram on the site of a demolished mosque, and the scrapping of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir's former autonomy, may resonate with supporters who hail him as the champion of the Hindu majority.
“Any party that comes back for a third term, and with a brute majority, is a scary prospect for democracy,” said Arati Jerath, a political commentator.
Modi's two terms have seen civil liberties in India come under attack, while implementing what critics say are discriminatory policies. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened, violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority, and government agencies have arrested opposition politicians in alleged corruption cases.
The BJP has denied its policies are discriminatory and says its work benefits all Indians.