The Israeli government said a drone targeted the prime minister’s house Saturday, though there were no casualties, as Iran’s supreme leader vowed Hamas would continue its fight following the killing of the mastermind of last year’s deadly Oct. 7 attack. Sirens wailed in Israel warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The military said dozens of projectiles were launched. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea, though neither he nor his wife were home. The barrage comes as Israel considers its expected response to an Iranian attack earlier this month and presses its offensives against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the battered northern part of the Palestinian enclave, and strikes in the strip killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there. In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted. Barrages from Lebanon target northern Israel In addition to the drone launched at Netanyahu’s private residence, Israel’s military said some 180 projectiles were fired throughout the day from Lebanon on Saturday morning. A 50-year-old man was killed after being hit by shrapnel while sitting in his car in northern Israel, and four people were injured, Israel’s medical services said. In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, sirens blared as people ran for cover and intercepted missiles exploded in the sky. One rocket landed in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were lightly injured. The Israeli fire service also said it was battling several blazes resulting from missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border. Israel's war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October. On Saturday, Israel's military issued fresh evacuation warnings for two buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hriek. Israel has issued near-daily warnings for people to leave buildings and villages across parts of Lebanon. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million people, including some 400,000 children. Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel. In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck. Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas rejects hostage release A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week. On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him. “Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said in his first comments on the killing. Since Israel claimed Sinwar’s death Thursday, confirmed by a top Hamas official Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming. Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children. More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces opened fire at the hospital’s building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff. At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement. Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight Friday, killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 people were injured. In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, the same hospital said. Associated Press journalists counted the bodies from both strikes at the hospital. A United Nations school sheltering displaced people in the west of Gaza City, was also hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense first responders. The strikes knocked out internet networks in northern Gaza, said Paltel, the Palestinian communications company, on Facebook Saturday. The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel. Opportunity in Sinwar's death Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country. Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech Thursday announcing the killing that “our war is not yet ended.” Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting. In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.  

A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago. The Lebanon-based Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It later said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones. Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air-defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles. Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated. Israel launched its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month with the goal of weakening Hezbollah and pushing the militant group away from the border to allow thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes. Inside Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people including children at a school Sunday night, according to two local hospitals. The school in Nuseirat was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the war. Meanwhile, explosions hit early Monday outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing three people and injuring about 50 others, the hospital said. Tents caught fire, and residents of the Central Gaza community carried the injured into the hospital. Hezbollah's deadly strike in Israel came the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to help bolster protection against missiles, along with troops needed to operate it. An Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline. Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack. Netanyahu calls UN peacekeepers ‘human shield’ for Hezbollah The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one position early Sunday and destroyed the main gate. They later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL called the incident a “further flagrant violation of international law.” Read: UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon are in the crosshairs of Israel’s war on Hezbollah International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, called Sunday's incident “deeply worrying” and said attacks against peacekeepers may constitute a war crime. Israel’s military says Hezbollah operates in the peacekeepers' vicinity, without providing evidence. Military officials said a tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers backed into a U.N. post Sunday while under fire. A smoke screen was used to provide cover, they said. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani asserted that Israel has tried to maintain constant contact with UNIFIL, and any instance of U.N. forces being harmed will be investigated at “the highest level.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. “We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel. Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. Israeli strike in Lebanon destroys Ottoman-era market Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 58 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers. Read more: Israeli strike on Gaza kills a family of 8 Israeli airstrikes overnight destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatiyeh, killing at least one person and wounding four. “Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed. Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating, and said it continued to target the militants on Sunday. Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances. The Red Cross said the operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. Bodies rot in the streets in northern Gaza Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza almost daily. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas. In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, and other areas. Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war's opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1. The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers. Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble. “We are unable to reach them,” he said, asserting that dogs are eating some remains. The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead. Israel's bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn't distinguish between militants or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday (May 28, 2023). At least one person was killed. Russia launched the "most massive attack" on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones. A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ukraine's air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems. Read more: Russian prime minister says pressure from West is strengthening ties with China In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks. Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of Kyiv's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the city's 1,541st anniversary. The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said. "The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians," Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram. Read more: The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens "Today, the enemy decided to 'congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)," Popko also wrote on the messaging app. Local officials in Russia's southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery. Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days. Read more: Russia fights alleged incursion from Ukraine for 2nd day, reports more drone attacks

Russian troops and security forces fought for a second day Tuesday against an alleged cross-border raid that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian military saboteurs but which Kyiv portrayed as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region on the Ukraine border, said forces continued to sweep the rural area around the town of Graivoron, where the alleged attack on Monday took place. Ten civilians were wounded in the attack, he said, and one died during evacuation. Gladkov urged residents of the area who evacuated on Monday to stay put and not come back to their homes just yet. "We will let you know immediately ... when it is safe," Gladkov said. "Security agencies are carrying out all the necessary actions. We're waiting for the counterterrorism operation to be over." Also Read: Russia alleges border incursion by Ukrainian saboteurs; Kyiv claims they are disgruntled Russians It was impossible to independently verify who was behind the attack or what its aims were, and disinformation has been one of the weapons of the almost 15-month war. While it is not the first time Russia has alleged an incursion by Ukrainian saboteurs, it is the first time the operation to counter the raid has continued for a second day, highlighting the struggles Moscow is facing amid its bogged-down invasion of Ukraine and embarrassing the Kremlin. The British Defense Ministry said Russian security forces "highly likely" clashed with partisans in at least three locations within Belgorod. "Russia is facing an increasingly serious multi-domain security threat in its border regions, with losses of combat aircraft, improvised explosive device attacks on rail lines, and now direct partisan action," it said in a tweet on Tuesday. In addition to the alleged incursion, Gladkov reported multiple drone attacks on Graivoron and other settlements of the Belgorod region on Monday night. The attacks resulted in no casualties, but damaged buildings and caused a fire. On Tuesday morning, two more drones were shot down by the region's air defense systems. Also Read: New sanctions: How effective are they in stopping Russia's invasion of Ukraine? According to Gladkov, an elderly woman died during evacuation, and two more people were wounded "in the settlements the enemy entered." That brought the total number of those wounded during the attack to 10. Gladkov first reported on Monday afternoon that a Ukrainian Armed Forces saboteur group entered Graivoron, a town about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border with Ukraine. The town also came under Ukrainian artillery fire, he said. He later announced a counterterrorist operation in the area, and said that authorities were imposing special controls, including personal document checks, and stopping the work of companies that use "explosives, radioactive, chemically and biologically hazardous substances." Ukrainian officials blamed the incident on Russian guerrilla groups bent on changes at the Kremlin. Ukraine intelligence representative Andrii Cherniak said Russian citizens belonging to murky groups calling themselves the Russian Volunteer Corps and the "Freedom of Russia" Legion were behind the assault. Also Read: ‘Exhaust them’: Why Ukraine has fought Russia for every inch of Bakhmut, despite high cost The Russian Volunteer Corps claimed in a Telegram post it had crossed the border into Russia again, after claiming to have breached the border in early March. The Russian Volunteer Corps describes itself as "a volunteer formation fighting on Ukraine's side." Little is known about the group, and it is not clear if it has any ties with the Ukrainian military. The same is true for the "Freedom of Russia" Legion. The Belgorod region in southwest Russia, just like its neighboring Bryansk region and several others, has witnessed sporadic spillover from the 15-month war, with its border towns and villages regularly coming under shelling and drone attacks.  

A strike Thursday by a suspected Iranian-made drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded five American troops and another contractor in northeast Syria, the Pentagon said. American forces said they retaliated soon after with “precision airstrikes” in Syria targeting facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, with activist groups saying they killed at least four people. The attack and the U.S. response threaten to upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the American intelligence community had determined the drone was of Iranian origin, but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim. “The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against coalition forces in Syria" by groups affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, Austin said. Iran relies on a network of proxy forces through the Mideast to counter the U.S. and Israel, its arch regional enemy. The Pentagon said two of the wounded service members were treated on-site, while three others and the injured contractor were transported to medical facilities in Iraq. Overnight, videos on social media purported to show explosions in Syria’s Deir el-Zour, a strategic province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields. Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area, which also has seen suspected airstrikes by Israel in recent months allegedly targeting Iranian supply routes. Iran and Syria did not immediately acknowledge the strikes, nor did their officials at the United Nations in New York respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. The activist group Deir Ezzor 24 put the death toll from the American strikes at four people. Deir Ezzor 24, which covers news in Deir el-Zour province, said the strikes hit the city of Deir el-Zour as well as militiamen posts near Mayadeen and Boukamal. It said the strikes also wounded people, including Iraqis. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that the American strikes killed six Iranian-backed fighters at an arms depot in the Harabesh neighborhood in the city of Deir el-Zour. The Observatory, which relies on a network of local contacts in Syria, said U.S. bombing at a post near the town of Mayadeen killed two fighters. A separate American strike hit a military post near the town of Boukamal along the border with Iraq, killing another three fighters, the Observatory said. The AP could not immediately independently confirm the activist reports. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been suspected of carrying out attacks with bomb-carrying drones across the wider Middle East. In recent months, Russia has begun using Iranian drones in its attacks on sites across Ukraine as part of its war on Kyiv. Iran has issued a series of conflicting denials about its drones being used in the war, though Western nations and experts have tied components in the drones back to Tehran. The exchange of strikes came as Saudi Arabia and Iran have been working toward reopening embassies in each other’s countries. The kingdom also acknowledged efforts to reopen a Saudi embassy in Syria, whose embattled President Bashar Assad has been backed by Iran in his country’s long war. U.S. Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the head of the American military’s Central Command, warned that American forces could carry out additional strikes if needed. “We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,” Kurilla said in a statement. Addressing the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Kurilla warned lawmakers that the “Iran of today is exponentially more militarily capable than it was even five years ago.” He pointed to Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and bomb-carrying drones. Kurilla also alleged that Iran had launched some 78 attacks on U.S. positions in Syria since January 2021. “What Iran does to hide its hand is they use Iranian proxies,” Kurilla said. Diplomacy to deescalate the crisis appeared to begin immediately around the strikes. Qatar’s state-run news agency reported a call between its foreign minister and Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser. Doha has been an interlocutor between Iran and the U.S. recently amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program. Qatar’s foreign minister also spoke around the same time with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian. Austin said he authorized the retaliatory strikes at the direction of President Joe Biden. “As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” Austin said. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.” The U.S. under Biden has struck Syria previously over tensions with Iran. In February and June of 2021, as well as August 2022, Biden launched attacks there. U.S. forces entered Syria in 2015, backing allied forces in their fight against the Islamic State group. The U.S. still maintains the base near Hasakah in northeast Syria where Thursday's drone strike happened. There are roughly 900 U.S. troops, and even more contractors, in Syria, including in the north and farther south and east. Since the U.S. drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, Iran has sought “to make life difficult for U.S. forces stationed east of the Euphrates,” said Hamidreza Azizi, an expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Iran increased its support for local proxies in Deir el-Zour while trying to ally with the tribal forces in the area,” Azizi wrote in a recent analysis. “Due to the geographical proximity, Iraqi groups also intensified their activities in the border strip with Syria and in the Deir el-Zour province.” The strikes come during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Syria’s war began with the 2011 Arab Spring protests that roiled the wider Middle East and toppled governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. It later morphed into a regional proxy conflict that has seen Russia and Iran back Assad. The United Nations estimates over 300,000 civilians have been killed in the war. Those figures do not include soldiers and insurgents killed in the conflict; their numbers are believed to be in the tens of thousands.

Ukraine's capital was targeted by multiple drones in an attack early Monday, authorities reported, three days after what they described as one of Russia's biggest assaults on Kyiv since the beginning of the war. The Kyiv city administration said on its Telegram account that more than 20 Iranian-made drones were detected over the capital's air space and at least 15 of them were shot down. It added that a critical infrastructure point was hit, without giving more details. Read more: Jewish festival of lights begins in Ukraine as battles rage Kyiv region Gov. Oleksii Kuleba said on Telegram that some infrastructure facilities were damaged, as well as private houses, and at least two people were injured. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that explosions were heard in two districts, Shevchenkivskyi and Solomianskyi. He said also on Telegram that there were no immediate casualties reported, and that the emergency services are working in the area. Although the capital seemed the main target of the latest Russian attack, the armed forces said that other places in the country were also targeted. Ukraine's air force said on Telegram that they were able to destroy 30 of at least 35 self-explosives drones that Russia launched across the country from the eastern side of the Azov Sea. Read more: Dead boy pulled from rubble of latest Russian hit on Ukraine The Ukrainian military has reported increasing success in shooting down missiles and explosive drones. Russia has been targeting energy infrastructure, including in Kyiv, as part of a strategy to try to freeze Ukrainians. On Friday, Ukraine’s capital was attacked as part of a massive strike from Russia. Dozens of missiles were launched across the country, triggering widespread power outages.

A fire broke out early Tuesday at an airport in Russia’s southern Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, the regional governor reported, blaming a drone attack. The fire occurred the day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for drone strikes on two air bases deep inside Russia and launched another wave of missile strikes on Ukrainian territory. “As a result of a drone attack, an oil reservoir caught on fire in the area of Kursk airport. The fire is being contained. All emergency services are working on the spot,” Kursk Governor Roman Starovoy said in a Telegram post. Read more: Russia claims Kyiv hit its air bases, fires more missiles Ukrainian officials have not formally confirmed carrying out the attacks. The unprecedented attacks in Russia threatened a major escalation of the nine-month war. One of the airfields that was hit houses bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The attacks showed the vulnerability of some of Russia’s most strategic military sites, raising questions about the effectiveness of their air defenses if drones could come so close to them. The ministry didn’t say where the drones had originated, but Russian military bloggers said they likely were launched by Ukrainian scouts. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had shot down two Ukrainian drones. It said three Russian servicemen were killed and four others wounded by debris, and that two aircraft were slightly damaged. Read more: Ukrainians hid orphaned children from Russian deportation The attacks on the Engels base in the Saratov region on the Volga River and the Dyagilevo base in the Ryazan region in western Russia were part of Ukraine’s efforts to curtail Russia’s long-range bomber force, the ministry said. The Engels base, located more than 600 kilometers (more than 370 miles) east of the border with Ukraine, houses the Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes on Ukraine. The Dyagilevo air base, which houses tanker aircraft used to refuel other planes in flight, is about 500 kilometers (over 300 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian border.

Bangladesh has strongly condemned the recent Houthi bomb-laden drone attack targeting Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Airport that wounded civilians, including few Bangladeshis, working at the airport. Such attacks are a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, moral values and completely unacceptable, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday. Bangladesh expressed its grave concerns over the growing number of Houthi militia attacks on Saudi Arabia which undermines the ongoing peace initiatives. Read: Bangladeshi’s conviction: FM says evidence to be shared with Saudi govt While urging a peaceful resolution to Yemen conflict, Bangladesh expressed its solidarity with the government of Saudi Arabia and its brotherly people in condemning such irresponsible activities. The Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh has been asked to look after Bangladeshi citizens injured in latest Houthi attack and provide necessary support.

In a first-ever drone attack on a military facility in India, two back-to-back blasts rocked a high-security Air Force station in the central government-controlled territory of Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday. Two Indian Air Force personal sustained minor injuries in the explosions that took place in the technical area of the Jammu Air Force Station barely six minutes apart. The first blast ripped off the roof of a building inside the airport, the Indian Air Force said. "Two low intensity explosions were reported early Sunday morning in the technical area of Jammu Air Force Station. One caused minor damage to the roof of a building while the other exploded in an open area," the Air Force tweeted. READ: Dhaka condemns Drone attacks targeting KSA, Abha Int'l Airport by Houthi rebels "There was no damage to any equipment. Investigation is in progress along with civil agencies," it added. Sources also told UNB that the anti-terror National Investigation Agency has been roped in to assist in the probe. "Preliminary probe suggests that drones were used to trigger the explosions," sources said. The central government-controlled territory's police chief Dilbag Singh told the local media that it was a terror attack and cases under the anti-terror law have been registered at the local station. Earlier in the day, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took stock of the situation and asked the Vice Chief of the Air Force to rush to the high security airport. "Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh spoke to Vice Air Chief, Air Marshal HS Arora regarding today’s incident at Air Force Station in Jammu. Air Marshal Vikram Singh is reaching Jammu to take stock of the situation," the Defence Minister's Office tweeted. Five years ago, another high-security Indian Air Force station in Pathankot town in the neighbouring state of Punjab was attacked by a heavily armed group. The Pathankot Air Force Station is under the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force. READ: Was the drone attack on Iranian general an assassination? Five militants and seven Indian soldiers were killed during three days of fighting at the Pathankot station in January 2016. A Kashmir-based militant outfit had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, believed to been carried out to detail peace moves by arch-rivals India and Pakistan.

After Friday's targeted killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, newsrooms struggled with the question: Had the United States just carried out an assassination? And should news stories about the killing use that term?