U.S. Hits Back at Iran With Sanctions, Criminal Charges and Airstrikes

In the hours before the United States carried out strikes against Iran-backed militants on Friday, Washington hit Tehran with more familiar weapons: sanctions and criminal charges. The Biden administration sanctioned officers and officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s premier military force, for threatening the integrity of water utilities and for helping manufacture Iranian drones. And it unsealed charges against nine people for selling oil to finance the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. The timing seemed designed to pressure the Revolutionary Guards and its most elite unit, the Quds…

In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is fast becoming a world war online. Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States. Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have also joined the fight online, along with extremist groups, like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were previously at odds with Hamas. The deluge of online propaganda and disinformation is larger than anything seen before,…

Biden Visits Israel and Putin Visits China Amid Gaza and Ukraine Wars

As President Biden visited Israel on Wednesday, seeking to display steadfast American support for the country, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was in Beijing, seeking to display his “no limits” partnership with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping. The two contrasting trips show how vastly the global political landscape has been redrawn by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and how that changed landscape is on full display in the war in Gaza. Russia, China and Iran were already forming a new axis over Ukraine, one they have pursued diplomatically, economically,…

UK Sees Varied Domestic Threats, Mainly From Iran, Russia and China

The scale of those expulsions, together with the rollout of Western economic sanctions designed to isolate Russia, had proved a surprisingly potent test for Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, he added. Well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Britain was especially sensitive to the activities of Russian agents, and its pushback against Moscow’s spy networks intensified after the nerve agent poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian agent, and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England, in 2018. Since that episode prompted Britain to expel 23 Russian diplomats on espionage grounds,…

Your Thursday Briefing: A Ban on Russian Oil?

Good morning. We’re covering the E.U.’s plan to ban Russian oil, growing U.S. frustration with the politicized Supreme Court and a separatist movement in Pakistan. The E.U. may ban Russian oil With no end to the Ukraine conflict in sight, the European Union took a major step on Wednesday toward weakening Moscow’s ability to finance the war, proposing a total embargo on Russian oil. If approved this week as expected, it would be the bloc’s biggest and costliest step yet toward supporting Ukraine and ending its own dependence on Russian…

Rising Violence by Separatists Adds to Pakistan’s Lethal Instability

Pakistan’s security agencies have cracked down on educated Baluch youth, forcibly “disappearing” suspected militants, sometimes for years, without trial, according to news reports, student advocates and human rights groups. “These days, law enforcement agencies consider every university student from Baluchistan a potential militant,” said Faisal Nawaz, a student from Panjgur, in Baluchistan, who is studying at the University of Karachi. Separatist attacks have been concentrated in the sparsely populated Makran region of Baluchistan, where residents depend on illegal cross-border trade with Iran in fuel and other commodities. In a desert…

Your Monday Briefing: Russian Forces Attack Evacuees

Good morning. We’re covering sustained shelling in Ukraine, China’s new economic plan and the fallout of a terrorist attack on a mosque in Pakistan. Russian attacks halt evacuations As Russian forces continued shelling Ukraine, at least three people — a mother and her children — were killed outside Kyiv as they tried to get to safety. For the second straight day, the authorities called off an evacuation from the besieged port city of Mariupol. Here’s the latest. Russian forces were struggling to advance on multiple fronts. The Ukrainian military said…

Your Monday Briefing: Omicron Evades Many Vaccines

Good morning. We’re covering the latest Omicron news, the Hong Kong elections and a Times investigation into civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes. Omicron outstrips many vaccines A growing body of preliminary research suggests most Covid vaccines offer almost no defense against infection from the highly contagious Omicron variant. The only vaccines that appear to be effective against infections are those made by Pfizer and Moderna, reinforced by a booster, which are not widely available around the world. Other vaccines — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured…

Your Friday Briefing

Good morning. We’re covering booster shots in France, Peng Shuai’s piercing accusations in China and the Pakistani madrasa that has educated many Taliban leaders. A French rush for boosters Thousands rushed to book appointments for coronavirus booster shots on Thursday after the French government said that health passes would soon no longer be valid without them. Amid a surge in new cases and rising hospitalizations, the government made all adults eligible for booster shots starting this weekend. The health minister, Olivier Véran, said that over 400,000 vaccination appointments had been…

C.I.A. Admits to Losing Informants

The warning, according to those who have read it, was primarily aimed at front line agency officers, the people involved most directly in the recruiting and vetting of sources. The cable reminded C.I.A. case officers to focus not just on recruiting sources, but also on security issues including vetting informants and evading adversarial intelligence services. Among the reasons for the cable, according to people familiar with the document, was to prod C.I.A. case officers to think about steps they can take on their own to do a better job managing…