Why a Nuclear Agreement With Iran Is Not Enough - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

If Trump is serious about preventing war and bloodshed in the Middle East, he must insist that any agreement with Iran's mullahs include no centrifuges or uranium enrichment of any kind, and no support for Tehran's terror proxies.

 

• As talks between Washington and Tehran are underway to reach an agreement on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, even if a deal is reached, unless it features "anywhere, anytime" inspections, to which Iran has never agreed, Iran will secretly continue to develop nuclear weapons and cheat, cheat, cheat.

• If such a deal is reached, Iran also is not going to stop its financial and military support for its terror proxies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. Iran, in short, is not going to abandon its declared goal of obliterating the "Zionist entity" ("the Little Satan") or the United States ("the Great Satan").

• If Trump is serious about preventing war and bloodshed in the Middle East, he must insist that any agreement with Iran's mullahs include no centrifuges or uranium enrichment of any kind, and no support for Tehran's terror proxies.

• If something could possibly go wrong, unfortunately it will -- leaving Trump with the legacy of delivering yet another laughably fake peace deal and of his presidency being that of another failed Barack Obama.

• Trump must also demand that Iran's leaders stop calling for the annihilation of Israel.

• The same is true for the leaders of Qatar, as well Qatar's personal insults against Trump himself.

• The Iranian regime is determined to continue supporting [terrorist leaders] to help them achieve their goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel.

• "Iran's openly stated goal is to destroy Israel, but the broader game is its perception of the United States as the 'Great Satan.' Iran's strategy involves orchestrating various terrorist groups in the Middle East, with multifaceted objectives. Firstly, it seeks to dominate the Islamic world in the region, asserting its influence over other nations. Simultaneously, it aims to strike at the credibility of the United States, a long-standing adversary in Iranian foreign policy." — Shishir Gupta, executive editor, Hindustan Times, April 27, 2023.

• The Trump administration would do well to take these issues into consideration before signing any agreement with Iran. Such an agreement, if reached, unfortunately will not mean that the Iranian regime has become America's friend. As long as the mullahs continue to wish for the destruction of Israel and America, and to back Islamist terror groups, they should be treated as dangerous enemies of both Israel and the US.

It is wrong and unrealistic to assume that Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his regime, if and when they sign a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration, would abandon their dream of destroying Israel and America. Pictured: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on as a 'Qasem Soleimani' missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

As talks between Washington and Tehran are underway to reach an agreement on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, even if a deal is reached, unless it features "anywhere, anytime" inspections, to which Iran has never agreed, Iran will secretly continue to develop nuclear weapons and cheat, cheat, cheat.

If such a deal is reached, Iran also is not going to stop its financial and military support for its terror proxies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. Iran, in short, is not going to abandon its declared goal of obliterating the "Zionist entity" ("the Little Satan") or the United States ("the Great Satan").

US President Donald J. Trump said on May 28 that he believes his administration is "very close to a solution" with Iran on a nuclear agreement. "Right now, I think they want to make a deal," Trump said. "And if we can make a deal, I'd save a lot of lives."

These are the main reasons that address why an agreement regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions is not enough.

The Iranian regime's ongoing effort to acquire nuclear weapons is a huge problem, as are its repeated demands to enrich uranium (whatever could go wrong?) and threats to destroy Israel – especially with Iran's proxy terror groups that also seek to destroy Israel.

If Trump is serious about preventing war and bloodshed in the Middle East, he must insist that any agreement with Iran's mullahs include no centrifuges or uranium enrichment of any kind, and no support for Tehran's terror proxies.

If something could possibly go wrong, unfortunately it will -- leaving Trump with the legacy of delivering yet another laughably fake peace deal and of his presidency being that of another failed Barack Obama.

Were it not for Iran's financial and military support, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis would not have been able to fire thousands of rockets, ballistic missiles and explosive drones at Israel over the past 20 months.

Halting or limiting Iran's uranium enrichment may be a positive development, but what about the hundreds of millions of dollars and the weapons it sends to its terror proxies? The Trump administration must demand an immediate halt to the funding and arming of the Iran-backed Islamist terror groups. Furthermore, it must demand that Iran's leaders stop calling for the annihilation of Israel.

The same is true for the leaders of Qatar (such as here and here), as well Qatar's personal insults against Trump himself.

As Trump was voicing optimism regarding the prospects of reaching a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received a delegation of Hamas and PIJ officials in Tehran and discussed with them "the latest developments in the region, especially the situation in Palestine and the Gaza Strip."

Iranian and Palestinian media outlets quoted Velayati as "assuring" the Hamas and PIJ officials that "the Zionist entity is doomed to disappear." Hamas and PIJ, the second largest Iran-backed terror group in the Gaza Strip, participated in the October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and thousands wounded on that day. Another 251 Israelis and foreign nationals were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 58 remain in captivity (only 20 are believed to be alive).

Velayati also "affirmed Iran's solidarity with the [Palestinian] resistance groups and praised the victories of the Palestinian resistance [against Israel] as a rare achievement in the history of Islam," according to media reports.

The meeting between Velayati and the Hamas and PIJ representatives shows that the Iranian regime has no intention to turn its back on its terror proxies, notwithstanding any possible future nuclear agreement with the US. The opposite is true. Velayati reassured the Palestinian terror leaders that the Iranian regime is determined to continue supporting them, to help them achieve their goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel. When the Iranian official talks about the "resistance," he is referring to terrorism against Israel, including the October 7 massacre.

Velayati's talk about the destruction of the "Zionist entity" shows that the Iranian regime does not intend to abandon its dream of wiping Israel off the map, and the US as well.

In the past few years, Khamenei has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and America. He was also quick to praise the October 7 massacre as a "logical and legal" action.

It is wrong and unrealistic to assume that Khamenei and his regime, if and when they sign a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration, would abandon their dream of destroying Israel and America. The previous nuclear agreement the Iranian regime signed with the Obama administration in 2015 did not stop the mullahs in Tehran from providing financial and military aid to the Islamist terror groups in the Middle East. That agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also did not see Iran's leaders change their minds about destroying Israel.

Iran's support for the Palestinian terror groups, Hezbollah and the Houthi militia has brought death and destruction on Palestinians, Lebanese and Yemenis. Iran's regime is a threat not only to Israel, but also to the US.

"Iran's openly stated goal is to destroy Israel, but the broader game is its perception of the United States as the 'Great Satan,'" wrote Shishir Gupta, executive editor of the Hindustan Times, in April 2023.

"Iran's strategy involves orchestrating various terrorist groups in the Middle East, with multifaceted objectives. Firstly, it seeks to dominate the Islamic world in the region, asserting its influence over other nations. Simultaneously, it aims to strike at the credibility of the United States, a long-standing adversary in Iranian foreign policy."

The Trump administration would do well to take these issues into consideration before signing any agreement with Iran. Such an agreement, if reached, unfortunately will not mean that the Iranian regime has become America's friend. As long as the mullahs continue to wish for the destruction of Israel and America, and to back Islamist terror groups, they should be treated as dangerous enemies of both Israel and the US.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter) 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21661/iran-nuclear-agreement

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

FBI probing ‘improvised flame thrower’ attack on Boulder Jews as hate crime - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

“This is not a political protest,” Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told JNS. “This is terrorism.”

 

Bomb squads set up a staging area after an attack on Jews in Boulder, Colo., that the FBI is investigating as an act of terror, June 1, 2025. Photo by Chet Strange/Getty Images.

 

Mohamed Sabry Soliman is in federal custody after the 45-year-old allegedly attacked Jews who were marching in Boulder, Colo. on behalf of the hostages in Gaza, with a “makeshift flame thrower” and threw an “incendiary device” at them.

Witnesses said that the attacker said, “Free Palestine,” Mark Michalek, special agent in charge of the FBI Denver field office, told a press conference on Sunday.

Four women and four men between 52 and 88 years old were transported to hospitals, Boulder police said. Authorities had earlier put the count of the injured at six

“It is clear that this is a targeted act of violence, and the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism,” Michalek said. “Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country.”

Steven Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, told reporters hours earlier that it would be “irresponsible” to speculate on motive, though he said he was aware that the FBI was probing an alleged hate crime.

Related Articles

Boulder terror suspect got work permit despite visa overstayJune 2, 2025

Netanyahu slams ‘vicious’ attack in US, blames ‘blood libels’ against IsraelJune 2, 2025

Katz: ‘Either Hamas releases the hostages, or it will be destroyed’June 2, 2025

He told reporters that a pro-Israel gathering was taking place in the area, something he said occurs frequently. He added that “multiple” people were injured, with conditions ranging from “minor” to “very serious,” and that the injuries were consistent with individuals being set on fire.

The attack occurred hours before the holiday of Shavuot, one of the most sacred times on the Jewish calendar.

“Terrorism against Jews does not stop at the Gaza border. It is already burning the streets of America,” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS.

“Today, in Boulder, Colo., Jewish people marched with a moral and humane demand: to return the hostages,” he said. “In response, the Jewish protesters were brutally attacked, with an attacker throwing Molotov cocktails at them.”

“Make no mistake,” Danon told JNS. “This is not a political protest. This is terrorism. The time for statements is over. It is time for concrete action to be taken against the instigators wherever they may be.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, wrote on an official social media account that he was monitoring the situation and that hate is unacceptable.

On a personal account, he wrote that “as the American Jewish community continues to reel from the horrific antisemitic murders in Washington, D.C., it is unfathomable that the Jewish community is facing another terror attack here in Boulder, on the eve of the holiday of Shavuot no less.

“Several individuals were brutally attacked while peacefully marching to draw attention to the plight of the hostages who have been held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza for 604 days,” he stated. “I condemn this vicious act of terrorism and pray for the recovery of the victims.”

Leo Terrell, the head of the federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and a Department of Justice adviser, stated that “this was not an isolated incident. This antisemitic terrorist attack is part of a horrific and escalating wave of violence targeting Jews and their supporters simply for being Jewish or standing up for Jewish lives.

“This latest antisemitic terrorist attack happened on the eve of a Jewish holiday, Shavuot, making it all the more chilling and cruel,” he said. “This cannot continue. This must not be normalized.”

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, stated that “the attack in Boulder is another example of a wave of domestic terror aimed at the Jewish community,” a wave that “must be the highest priority for the Trump administration and Congress.”

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that “the firebombing of a peaceful march in Boulder, Colo.—organized to demand the release of hostages held by Hamas—is horrifying, but it should not come as a surprise.

“Since Oct. 7, we have been warning that antisemitism is not isolated to the margins. Supporters of Hamas are now emboldened and threatening towns and cities across America and the democratic world,” Lauder said. “This attack, like the murders outside the Jewish museum in Washington, is part of a broader wave of hate that is being tolerated far too easily—from college campuses to government halls.

“It is not just the Jewish community that suffers. This violence tears at the very fabric of our societies,” Lauder added.

The Anti-Defamation League said that it is “closely monitoring” reports of a “violent antisemitic attack during today’s Run for Their Lives event in Boulder, Colo.,” which “occurred at a weekly gathering where Jewish community members run and walk in solidarity with the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7.”

The ADL Center on Extremism reviewed video footage of the suspect and believes he can be heard saying, “How many children have you killed,” “We have to end Zionists” and “They are killers,” while gesturing “toward what appears to be the victims of the attack.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the ADL, said that “this is the second violent attack on the U.S. Jewish community in two weeks.

“First, a young couple slaughtered in Washington, D.C. Now, a firebomb thrown at a group in Boulder, Colo., as they gathered to express solidarity with the 58 hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas terrorists,” he stated. “Two peaceful Jewish events that ended with rage-filled, violent attacks.”

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that “600-plus days of ‘pro-Palestinian’ protests in the U.S. have morphed into violent, antisemitic, pro-Hamas terrorism.

“On May 21, a young Jewish woman and her Israeli embassy boyfriend gunned down in D.C.,” he wrote. “Now American Jews targeted in Boulder. The FBI, and the Trump administration, know this foreign-fueled domestic terror must be stopped before more Americans are murdered.”

Ariella Rada, spokeswoman for Israel’s Consulate General in New York, told JNS on Sunday that attacks against Jews are fueled by falsehoods reported in the media.

“We were deeply disturbed to see mainstream U.S. media outlets take Hamas at its word and immediately run with the false allegations released by their ‘Gaza Health Ministry,’ without taking the time to investigate what actually occurred,” Rada said, referring to allegations that Israeli soldiers fired upon people seeking aid supplies in Gaza.

“Footage released by the IDF shows that it is Hamas that is responsible for these deaths,” she said. “Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that starves and intentionally puts its own civilians in danger in order to maintain power. It is doing everything in its power to disrupt the distribution of aid by Israel—in cooperation with American and international partners—to residents in Gaza.”

Rada told JNS that “it is critically important, especially at a time when Jews worldwide are being targeted, that the media take the time to report accurately and not simply echo the lies of Israel’s enemies.

“Israel is fighting a war that was forced upon it that was started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, killed over 1,200 people and dragged over 250 people back to its tunnels in Gaza,” she said. “Sadly, we have seen the lies of ‘genocide’ in Gaza inspire people to take violent action, most recently Washington, D.C., and today in Boulder, Colo., where there is another unfolding tragedy.”

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/fbi-probing-attack-in-boulder-as-hate-crime/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Gaza in turmoil: Clans emerge as rivals to Hamas's rule - Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post Staff

These clans act like armed militias, forcibly seizing food, looting warehouses, and shooting to protect their members from Hamas security forces.

 

Hamas terrorists against backdrop of Gaza tunnels. (illustration)

(photo credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90, REUTERS/JACK GUEZ)

 

Armed clans are reasserting themselves in the Gaza Strip, challenging Hamas’s authority, particularly in areas where the IDF is conducting operations and Hamas has lost control, senior IDF officials told Walla. 

Sources told Saudi-owned site Al Hadath on Sunday that Hamas has lost security control over the Gaza Strip, adding that thieves and gangs seize aid, loot homes, and terrorize residents. 

According to a senior IDF officer, these clans act like armed militias, forcibly seizing food, looting warehouses, and shooting to protect their members from Hamas security forces.

The influence of these clans predates the current conflict, rooted in longstanding smuggling networks trafficking weapons, drugs, cigarettes, and electronic goods from Egypt and Israel. Over the years, Hamas reached understandings with some of these clans, occasionally even cooperating with them, particularly during the massacre and looting on October 7.

Hamas’s hold weakened further as the IDF carried out ground operations and divided Gaza. Following the ceasefire announcement, Hamas forces deployed convoys to both the north and south, aiming to reassert control. These forces responded harshly to defiant clans, employing arrests, torture, knee shootings, and even killings to quell opposition.

Displaced Palestinian children take shelter in tents, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled)

The Abu Shabab clan, led by Yasser Abu Shabab of the Tarabin family, has emerged as a leading force. After being expelled from Rafah, the clan has operated aggressively in the north and south. Palestinian reports indicate that the group both secures humanitarian aid convoys and loots them. Hamas has accused the clan of collaborating with Israel.

What are the other groups challenging Hamas's monopoly on power?

Another significant group is the Dughmush clan - also known as Dajmash - which hails from Tel al-Hawa and al-Sabra in Gaza City. This clan was previously involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and has a history of violent confrontations with Hamas. Its leader was killed last year amid allegations of ties to Israel.

Security sources say most of these clans are motivated by a desire for power and wealth rather than ideology. They are exploiting Hamas’s weakened position to expand their influence, sometimes proving to be as effective as Hamas itself.

Other active clans include the Abu Tir clan, which operated in Khan Yunis and specialized in smuggling from Sinai; the Al Kashk clan, based in Gaza City and closely linked to local centers of authority; the Abu Risha clan, which was active in Rafah and maintained ties with Salafi groups; the Shawish clan, a relatively small but active group in Gaza; and the Baraka clan, which is affiliated with Fatah and operates primarily in Gaza City.

Former security officials caution that as long as these clans remain armed, they will pose a threat to Hamas’s authority. “There is no vacuum in Gaza,” said one official. “If Hamas gunmen are not present, clan members will try to impose their own order. Should a ceasefire hold, Hamas will have to confront this entrenched problem. If not, the clans will only grow stronger. They are not waiting for anyone.”

Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-856205

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

GHF updates on aid distribution success, debunks Hamas propaganda - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation gave an operational update while also reiterating that Hamas reports of casualties near the sites were false.

 

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distributes aid to Gazans in Tel Sultan, Gaza, June 2, 2025.

(photo credit: COURTESY GHF)

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced Monday that it has distributed close to six million meals in its first week of operations in Gaza, and it intends to open even more aid distribution sites.

According to the organization, 21 truckloads of food aid were delivered from its Tel Sultan distribution site, totaling 18,720 boxes – enough to provide approximately 1,081,080 meals. This brings the cumulative total to an estimated 5.8 million meals distributed since operations began.

GHF also provided new photos from the successful aid distribution on Monday morning.

GHF interim executive director John Acree praised the progress achieved so far, stating that the rapid deployment “proves our model is functional and effective in delivering life-saving assistance to the people of Gaza under emergency conditions.” Acree added that GHF plans to expand its operations by opening four additional distribution sites, including one in northern Gaza, to meet the overwhelming demand.

On Sunday, reports circulated claiming that the IDF had attacked a food distribution point near Rafah, resulting in civilian casualties. However, GHF dismissed these reports, releasing security camera footage from the site showing calm civilian activity and no reported incidents.

CNN and BBC are among many news websites with false headlines that the IDF opened fire on Gazans near aid distribution sites, June 1, 2025. (credit: Canva, screenshot, SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)

“All aid was distributed today without incident. No injuries or fatalities. We have heard that these false reports are being spread by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated,” the organization said.

IDF, GHF slam Hamas for harming humanitarian efforts

The IDF also denied the allegations, saying its initial investigation found no evidence of an attack on civilians at the aid site. According to an IDF source, troops operated overnight approximately one kilometer from the distribution area, outside of operating hours, and targeted individuals suspected of approaching their position.

Also on Sunday, the IDF released video footage of masked Gazan gunmen shooting innocent Palestinians who were attempting to collect aid.

GHF criticized Hamas for allegedly spreading misinformation that undermines critical humanitarian efforts. “We are scaling up as quickly as possible, but the reality is stark: For every truck we manage to bring into our network, other humanitarian groups face looting before aid reaches those in need,” the organization stated.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-856265

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

URGENT: World Health Organization About to Give Itself Unlimited Power - Robert Williams

 

by Robert Williams

'Dr.' Tedros Will Decide How You Must Live 

• [O]n May 20 they adopted the WHO Pandemic Treaty at the 78th session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. It will have to be ratified by at least 60 states, however, before it can come into effect, which means that it is up to citizens to prevent that from happening.

• The deadline to opt out of the International Health Regulations is July 19 – less than two months from now. It is time to notify your lawmakers to take immediate action in their parliaments and say NO to these regulations. So far, no country has opted out, and due to lack of media coverage most people appear completely unaware that a problem even exists.

• On June 1, 2024, the WHO's 194 member states agreed to sweeping amendments of the WHO International Health Regulations that give the organization's Director-General -- currently "Dr." Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is not a medical doctor and to all appearances is in China's pocket -- overwhelming authority to declare not only actual international public health emergencies, but also potential ones.

• ""[T]he WHO's proposed amendments to its international health regulations and its forthcoming pandemic treaty present the most serious threat to national sovereignty in a generation." — Suella Braverman, former UK Home Secretary, April 20, 2025.

• [P]ublic health, according to the WHO and its member states (your governments), is now intertwined with "climate change." If climate warrior Bill Gates and his WHO cohorts feel like it, they can declare a "climate pandemic," pronounce lockdowns and a rollout of whatever measures they might see fit "to save the planet."

• Sadly, [the WHO] made itself into a fully disgraced and corrupt body, so deeply in the pockets not only of Gates and the pharmaceutical industry, but also of Communist China.

• During Covid-19, the WHO and "Dr." Tedros actually praised China for its "extraordinary" handling of the pandemic.

• "If you liked how the COVID-19 crisis was handled – in large measure thanks to the incompetence and malfeasance of the WHO and the insidious influence of the perpetrator, the Chinese Communist Party... you're going to love this new world order. Among its consequences will be: universal health IDs, vaccine mandates, obligatory censorship, technology transfers, open-ended financial costs and the proliferation of viruses with the potential to cause pandemics – all 'managed' by greatly empowered and unaccountable international bureaucrats." – Frank Gaffney, X, April 17, 2025

• There is, however, another, newly acquired, instrument in the UN's toolbox, the "Digital Global Compact" (DGC) that seeks to make it impossible to criticize this new UN/WHO reign of terror.

• Without an ever-present, imminent and terrible-sounding "pandemic" there would be no legitimacy for WHO to seize all this power and gain access to so much control. This arrogation of power to itself could reasonably turn into runaway totalitarianism unless lawmakers step up immediately and demand that their governments object to the amendments to the International Health Regulations -- and opt out of them.

Sadly, the WHO has made itself into a fully disgraced and corrupt body, so deeply in the pockets not only of Bill Gates and the pharmaceutical industry, but also of Communist China. And now, the WHO might finally be getting just what it wanted: Unlimited power and control. Pictured: WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pays a visit to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on January 28, 2020. (Photo by Naohiko Hatta/AFP via Getty Images)

The World Health Organization (WHO) might finally be getting just what it wanted: Unlimited power and control.

The deadline to opt out of the International Health Regulations is July 19 – less than two months from now. It is time to notify your lawmakers to take immediate action in their parliaments and say NO to these regulations. So far, no country has opted out, and due to lack of media coverage most people appear completely unaware that a problem even exists.

On June 1, 2024, the WHO's 194 member states agreed to sweeping amendments of the WHO International Health Regulations that give the organization's Director-General -- currently "Dr." Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is not a medical doctor and to all appearances is in China's pocket -- overwhelming authority to declare not only actual international public health emergencies, but also potential ones.

"Agreed" is hardly accurate: member states did not even vote on them, but "agreed" on them through what is known as a consensus process. If no country objected by the end of a deadline, the amendments were to be considered approved. The process may not even have been legal. The final text was apparently not circulated with sufficient advance notice, while the negotiations were largely held behind closed doors, meaning that there was no transparency. Did parliamentarians in WHO member states even know what their governments "agreed" to?

In addition to the International Health Regulations, the WHO member states, all 194 of them, agreed on a historic draft Pandemic Treaty in April 2025 and on May 20 they adopted the WHO Pandemic Treaty at the 78th session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. It will have to be ratified by at least 60 states, however, before it can come into effect, which means that it is up to citizens to prevent that from happening. In addition, there are still outstanding "details" such as the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing System (PABS) to facilitate the sharing of genetic data on potential pandemic pathogens that the treaty introduces, on which there is still a lack of consensus. With it, the WHO handed itself sweeping powers over how countries respond to future health emergencies.

Frank Gaffney, President of the Institute for the American Future, wrote on X shortly before the adoption of the treaty:

"In less than a month, world government will be imposed on us indirectly, if not directly, thanks to a new pandemic treaty the World Health Organization finalized yesterday and plans to adopt and make legally binding in mid-May – with profound implications for public health, personal freedoms and national sovereignty.

"If you liked how the COVID-19 crisis was handled – in large measure thanks to the incompetence and malfeasance of the WHO and the insidious influence of the perpetrator, the Chinese Communist Party, and the principal beneficiary, Big Pharma – you're going to love this new world order.

"Among its consequences will be: universal health IDs, vaccine mandates, obligatory censorship, technology transfers, open-ended financial costs and the proliferation of viruses with the potential to cause pandemics – all 'managed' by greatly empowered and unaccountable international bureaucrats."

Congratulating himself on the adoption of the treaty, "Dr." Tedros declared in a monstrously untruthful statement:

"The agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during COVID-19."

Following the adoption of the Pandemic Treaty, US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted the following statement to X, urging countries to exit the WHO:

"Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics. While the United States has provided the lion's share of the organization's funding historically, other countries such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public. Global cooperation on health is still critically important to POTUS and myself, but it isn't working very well under the WHO as the failures of the COVID era demonstrate. I urge the world's health ministers and the WHO to take our withdrawal from the organization as a wake-up call."

No one on this planet voted for this treaty and, worse, no one will be allowed to criticize any of this in the future, if the UN has its way: The original Pandemic Treaty draft contained language against "misinformation" and "infodemics." The text agreed upon, after pushback, toned down the speech restrictions to "just" requiring member states to promote "timely, transparent, accurate, science- and evidence-informed information" to counter "misleading narratives" during pandemics. There is, however, another, newly acquired, instrument in the UN's toolbox, the "Digital Global Compact" (DGC) that seeks to make it impossible to criticize this new UN/WHO reign of terror.

The DGC is a new totalitarian tool of censorship meant to silence anyone who disagrees with the globalist agenda. Buried near the end of the DGC, in paragraph 30, is the only thing you need to know about it:

"We must urgently counter and address... all forms of hate speech and discrimination, misinformation and disinformation... We will establish and maintain robust risk mitigation and redress measures... We commit by, 2030 to: (a)... Develop, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, effective methodologies to measure, monitor and counter all forms of violence and abuse in the digital space... call on social media platforms to establish safe, secure and accessible reporting mechanisms for users and their advocates to report potential policy violations."

The WHO is a specialized UN agency, the purpose of which is purportedly "to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable." WHO receives a large amount of its funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is jointly controlled by activist billionaire, climate crusader and globalist Bill Gates, and his ex-wife Melinsa. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has in some years been the second-largest donor to the WHO, after the United States -- before President Donald J. Trump, on his first day in office in 2025, mercifully withdrew the US from the organization.

"If a private foundation were to become WHO's highest donor, it would be transformational," Lawrence Gostin, faculty director for the O'Neill Institute at Georgetown University and director of WHO's Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, said in 2020, adding that the idea that a private foundation could have such influence, "would have been unimaginable" at the time when the WHO was founded as an intergovernmental institution. "It would enable a single rich philanthropist to set the global health agenda," Gostin said, referring to Gates.

Apparently, however, anything is possible, including not only letting Gates and the pharmaceutical industry put the WHO with its member states into their pockets, but also giving them unlimited power.

Christine Anderson, a German Member of the European Parliament from the Alternative für Deutschland party, said this month:

"They realized something during COVID: as much as they wanted to impose even harsher restrictions, they were limited—because in a democracy, if a politician goes too far, they risk not being re-elected. So the workaround? Shift the authority to an unelected body like the WHO. That way, when harsh measures are imposed—lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or whatever else—they can say, 'Hey, it wasn't us. Our hands are tied. The WHO made the call.'"

The amended health regulations give the WHO such unprecedented power that former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has warned:

"[T]he WHO's proposed amendments to its international health regulations and its forthcoming pandemic treaty present the most serious threat to national sovereignty in a generation.

"Buried within these legal frameworks are proposals that would allow unelected WHO officials to declare public health emergencies and issue recommendations – including on lockdowns, border closures and vaccine requirements."

These demands include digital vaccine passports; the amended regulations encourage the use of digital tools for health documentation. Digital vaccine passports, not yet compulsory, could be made a requirement. Earlier drafts of the amendments, which were discarded after pushback, also had included proposals for mandatory digital health documents and provisions for approving vaccination certificates during emergencies, and even for vaccines in research phases.

It is disastrous that national governments have agreed for this power to be given to the unaccountable WHO. Sadly, it made itself into a fully disgraced and corrupt body, so deeply in the pockets not only of Gates and the pharmaceutical industry, but also of Communist China.

During Covid-19, the WHO and "Dr." Tedros actually praised China for its "extraordinary" handling of the pandemic. To this day, nothing has been done about the duplicitous role WHO played during Covid, when the organization parroted Chinese Communist Party propaganda about the virus. China, too, has never suffered a single negative consequence -- not only for having unleashed the virus on the world, but for having deliberately lied about the virus's human-to-human transmissibility.

The WHO itself admits that approximately 15 million people died from the Covid virus -- which it refused to try to stop before it grew into a pandemic. Apparently, we are all now supposed to pretend that all of that never happened, and look to the WHO for instruction and guidance in even potential pandemics. The European Union in June 2024 praised the amended health regulations as "historic." Yes, they are "historic" -- but for the wrong reason.

Should the unelected and corrupt WHO, then, be allowed to determine when a pandemic is declared and, if so, how to deal with it? Should the WHO be able to recommend restrictions, lock you down, keep your children home from school, and dictate whether or not you should take a vaccine? Would you like "Dr." Tedros to decide how you must live?

The most obvious downside, based on past performance, is that WHO will weaponize its powers under the disguise of "public health" to pursue strictly political agendas. According to Braverman:

"The WHO insists these measures are necessary to ensure global preparedness. But the question is preparedness for what – and on whose terms? It is not difficult to imagine a future crisis – real or perceived – where political interests masquerade as public health, especially in an age where digital censorship and ideological capture are increasingly normalised."

Sadly, Braverman's scenario of political interests masquerading as public health is even not far-fetched. In May 2024, the WHO declared:

"In a resounding call to action, the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly has recognized climate change as an imminent threat to global health, passing a resolution which underscores the urgent need for decisive measures to confront the profound health risks posed by climate change.

"The resolution, supported overwhelmingly by Member States, presents an overview of the existential threat that climate change poses to human health. The Health Assembly asserts that radical action is imperative to safeguard the health of the planet, underscoring the interdependence of environmental sustainability and public health."

What does it mean? That public health, according to the WHO and its member states (your governments), is now intertwined with "climate change." If climate warrior Bill Gates and his WHO cohorts feel like it, they can declare a "climate pandemic," pronounce lockdowns and a rollout of whatever measures they might see fit "to save the planet." In fact, ever since Covid-19, the WHO's corrupt Tedros has continued to fearmonger, making dire-sounding "predictions" that a new pandemic is "inevitable."

There is a perfect reason for that: Without an ever-present, imminent and terrible-sounding "pandemic" there would be no legitimacy for WHO to seize all this power and gain access to so much control. This arrogation of power to itself could reasonably turn into runaway totalitarianism unless lawmakers step up immediately and demand that their governments object to the amendments to the International Health Regulations -- and opt out of them.

Welcome to George Orwell's "Ministry of Truth." Lawmakers around the world urgently need to act on behalf of the people they were elected to represent. No governments here seem to have the interests of their citizens at heart. Time is running out – fast.

Robert Williams is based in the United States.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21659/who-power-grab

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Syria's Christians Have No Future There - Lawrence A. Franklin

 

by Lawrence A. Franklin

Israel, which has already attacked government targets in Syria to protect the Druze minority, may, as usual, turn out to provide the greatest protection for threatened minorities – as it has for, for instance, for Baha'is, Sudanese, Ethiopians and Kurds -- for which, of course, it receives no credit at all.

 

• Syria's Christians, most of whom are either Catholic or Greek Orthodox, are viewed by Muslims as infidels and therefore resented by the Syria's Sunni majority.

• Syria's new constitution, published on March 14, stipulates that Islamic jurisprudence is the sole source of judicial decision-making. The constitution also asserts that Syria's president must be a Muslim and that the executive branch has virtually dictatorial powers. The constitution also includes no provision for protecting ethnic and religious minorities, which include Christians, Alawites, Kurds and Druze.

• Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X, citing the destruction of a church in Antioch, Syria, has challenged the benign view of the new Islamist regime.

• Israel, which has already attacked government targets in Syria to protect the Druze minority, may, as usual, turn out to provide the greatest protection for threatened minorities – as it has for, for instance, for Baha'is, Sudanese, Ethiopians and Kurds -- for which, of course, it receives no credit at all.

Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X, citing the destruction of a church in Antioch, Syria, has challenged the benign view of the new Islamist regime. He claims that Islamists killed many innocent Christians in recent fighting. Pictured: Jihadist gunmen deploy outside the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St George in Latakia on December 25, 2024. (Photo by Aaref Watad/AFP via Getty Images)

Sunni Islamist terrorist gangs are still slaughtering minority Alawites in coastal Syrian towns. Thes atrocities began on March 8, allegedly in response to attacks on government troops by remnant forces of the deposed Alawite Assad regime. Some Syrian Christians were also slain, but allegedly were not specifically targeted by Ahmed al-Sharaa's new government of Hayat al-Tahrir (HTS).

During the Assad years, like the Alawites, Christians, were for the most part a tolerated minority. Syria's Christians, most of whom are either Catholic or Greek Orthodox, are viewed by Muslims as infidels and therefore resented by the Syria's Sunni majority. During the country's 14-year civil war, several churches were sacked and burned by jihadist enemies of the Assad dynasty. Some of these anti-Christian atrocities were also committed by foreign jihadists who hailed from Chechnya and Uzbekistan.

Although anti-Christian actions are ostensibly not approved by the new government, Syria's Christians apparently have cause for worry. Syria's new constitution, published on March 14, stipulates that Islamic jurisprudence is the sole source of judicial decision-making. The constitution also asserts that Syria's president must be a Muslim and that the executive branch has virtually dictatorial powers. The constitution also includes no provision for protecting ethnic and religious minorities, which include Christians, Alawites, Kurds and Druze.

The Christian population of Syria before the civil war totaled about 1.5 million. This number had already plummeted to approximately 300,000 when Sharaa's HTS assumed power last December.

Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X, citing the destruction of a church in Antioch, Syria, has challenged the benign view of the new Islamist regime. He claims that Islamists killed many innocent Christians in recent fighting. Additional violence included a report of jihadists executing a father and son, members of an Evangelical Protestant church in Latakia. Still another killing took place, of the father of a Christian priest in Banias.

While these isolated anti-Christian incidents do not yet appear to be an organized effort, Christians throughout Syria are afraid that the new regime will not be successful in uniting most of Syria under its control, if it is even trying to, and that a genocidal purge against Christians remains a serious possibility.

Aid to the Church in Need, a global Catholic charitable organization with close ties to the Vatican, has already reported to Rome that there have been multiple incidents of violence against Christians in Syria.

The Vatican appears committed to maintaining Christianity throughout the Near East, where many first century churches were established by Christ's original Apostles in cities such as Antioch. The most prominent church in Syria is still the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul in Damascus. Paul, a native of Tarsus in Asia Minor, persecuted early disciples of Jesus until he was converted by a vision of Jesus on his journey to Damascus.

It is likely that Syria's minorities, especially Christians, will try seeking refuge in nearby Israel and Lebanon. Israel, which has already attacked government targets in Syria to protect the Druze minority, may, as usual, turn out to provide the greatest protection for threatened minorities – as it has for, for instance, for Baha'is, Sudanese, Ethiopians and Kurds -- for which, of course, it receives no credit at all.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve. 

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21660/syria-christians-future

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Who Really Are the Lawless and the Dictatorial? - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

The left cries “dictatorship” while wielding the courts, agencies, and media to undermine laws, crush dissent, and call it democracy.

 

 

The left is in its usual sanctimonious but schizophrenic mood.

The media claims daily that the Trump administration has usurped power. It is supposedly destroying democracy. It tramples on the rule of law and thus has created a virtual dictatorship.

Yet at the same time, Democrats high-five the most recent district court judge who has put a stop to the current Trump executive orders—which the Trump administration abides by as it files appeals.

There are two clear conclusions from the flurry of the lower-court liberal justices’ orders: 1) Trump has obeyed their record number of interventions as the appeals go forward; and 2) rarely in the history of the republic has a pool of some 300-400 left-wing district judges exercised such nationwide control over the executive branch and indeed the entire nation.

Yet consider the array of double standards.

Donald Trump is accused of improperly dictating to private elite universities who choose to apply for and receive federal funds. At least, lower court cherry-picked justices predictably rule so.

But please spare us the district courts’ sermons on truth, justice, and the American way, given their lodestar is often ideology, not principled adherence to the law.

After all, Trump is only following the precedents of the Obama administration. With legal impunity, it had threatened fines and worse to public and private universities that did not fully implement Title 9 to Obama’s subjective standards.

Indeed, the Obama Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, in an unconstitutional fashion, habitually threatened colleges and universities (“Dear Colleague…”) with a cutoff of federal funds if they did not comply with its weird version of addressing charges of campus sexual harassment. For the “constitutional lawyer” Obama, gone was the American creed that Americans accused on campus were innocent unless proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

For the Harvard Law graduate Obama, gone were even past administrative rules that required “clear and convincing evidence” to convict the accused.

Instead, it ordered campuses to adopt its new Orwellian standard that a mere “preponderance of the evidence” might find the targeted guilty—or risk losing federal funds.

Hillsdale College long ago declined federal subsidies and grants, only to be a target of petty, even spiteful, federal harassment from both the Obama and Biden administrations.

Imagine what would be our current district court judges’ attitude toward an administration’s “interference” in denying federal funds to a campus that allowed black students to be serially harassed and assaulted on campuses—and their attackers honored by the university, in the manner that Jewish students and their assailants are today at Harvard. Would a judge really forbid the federal government from attaching conditions to its optional funding, requiring campuses to follow the law and protect at-risk students?

Imagine what district judges would say should visiting white South African students, here on student visas, trash the libraries of their hosts and rough up minority janitors or surround a library to threaten students of color trapped inside—and do so with assumed campus impunity?

Would our principled district judges really forbid a Democratic administration from holding back federal funds to force sanctimonious college presidents to stop such racially inspired campus violence?

Would the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rule that universities had violated the corpus of civil rights legislation and the 2022 Supreme Court decision if they ever allowed segregated “European-American” auxiliary graduations or de facto segregated Euro-dorms (“theme houses”)?

What if African-American students with higher test scores and GPAs on average than their white counterparts were systematically discriminated against in admissions to ensure that the incoming admitted class was composed of roughly no more than two percent black males —perhaps in the manner of the last few years when about 9 percent of the incoming Stanford classes were apparently designated white males (who make up 33-35 percent of the population)?

Would the lower courts stop a Democratic administration that forced such a racially discriminating university to follow prior civil rights court decisions and federal laws—or else?

Would our lower courts rebuke a Democratic administration that had warned a campus to abide by protections of the First Amendment if they wished continuance of federal funds—and thus, say, stop white male frat students from shouting down, disrupting, harassing, and threatening a speech of a transgendered visiting federal judge—as one of its own right-wing male administrators hijacked and prematurely ended the guest’s lecture?

When CBS’s Scott Pelley hijacked a graduation address to deliver a Bruce Springsteen-like rant against Trump, the purported tyrant, did he specify how the elected president has trampled the Constitution? Does Trump’s press secretary selectively edit her transcripts, as CBS does, to show the president in a more favorable light?

Has Trump followed any of the precedents established during the prior four years of the Biden administration?

Did he, Mr. Pelley, coordinate local, state, and federal prosecutors to warp the law and try to imprison his 2020 and 2024 political opponent?

The left talks of Elon Musk as a Trump oligarch threatening democracy. Has Musk been convicted of a felony charge of insider trading in the manner that billionaire and donor George Soros was in France? Is he now in prison like left-wing mega-donor and disgraced oligarch Sam Bankman-Fried?

Note well that in the days after Trump’s 2022 announcement to seek reelection, the Biden DOJ appointed Jack Smith as a federal prosecutor to prosecute Trump.

At roughly the same time, Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor for Fani Willis’s Georgia prosecution of Trump, mysteriously showed up in Washington to meet with the White House counsel. Why?

Stranger still, Matthew Colangelo—formerly the DOJ’s third-ranking prosecutor and a key figure in Letitia James’s ridiculous New York case—left the department once again to rejoin the legal campaign against Trump by leading Alvin Bragg’s municipal prosecution of Trump.

Note also that Smith left his billet under a cloud of ethics conflicts after receiving free legal services and not initially reporting such gifted conflict-of-interest income. Fani Willis was forced off her prosecutions for numerous ethical violations and indeed fined for not turning over subpoenaed documents. Letitia James is currently facing federal investigations ranging from mortgage, mail, and banking fraud to falsification of documents.

So far, Trump has not sent the FBI to raid the multiple Biden residences to search for more classified documents, given Biden’s serial history of improper possession of such materials.

Did Jack Smith, in Robert Hur fashion, ever claim that Trump was not feasibly prosecutable because he had a poor memory, perhaps citing the illustrious work of fired Yale psychiatrist professor and left-wing heartthrob Dr. Bandi Lee, who had earlier tele-diagnosed Trump as demented?

Are any red states currently coordinating to take the 2028 Democratic nominee off their state ballots following the lead of democratic Democrats?

Trump was certainly not nominated by Republican Party insider fiat in 2024. Instead, he ran as a maverick disruptor and won the nomination in open primaries. Kamala Harris was selected by Democrat insiders—despite never having won a single delegate or primary vote in her two nomination bids.

Joe Biden, whose prior 2020 nomination was fixed by party insiders, won the 2024 nomination by winning 14 million primary votes. But he was kicked off the ticket by the same party insiders and donors who had orchestrated his prior nomination. Is that the new Democrat-style of democracy of nullifying the wishes of 14 million voters?

The left talks endlessly of the “rule of law.” But they have crafted a funny sort of selective and self-interested jurisprudence. If a local or state entity decides it does not find federal immigration convenient, it simply defies federal orders to turn over those who have entered and resided in the country illegally, even or especially in the case of the detained who have committed crimes.

In the ancient days, Americans called that defiance “nullification.” Indeed, it was always associated with “states’ rights,” and a long history of insurrectionary illegality from the Confederacy to George Wallace standing in the door of the University of Alabama.

But the left now calls those entities that nullify federal laws “sanctuary cities”—although it would go ballistic should a red country similarly declare the federal Endangered Species Act or gun registration laws nullified in their “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Indeed, a Democrat administration would likely apply a January 6-like preventative detention and indefinite incarceration to any such nullifying “insurrectionaries.”

Are the Trump White House and the Republican majority Senate now maneuvering to end the filibuster as the Democrats once threatened? Are they trying to pack the Supreme Court to ensure more appointments before 2029, in the fashion that Democrat presidential candidates used to promise? Or are they threatening to end the Electoral College as Democrats habitually bluster?

I do not remember, during the current Trump tenure, the FBI suppressing knowledge of evidence in the manner of its Biden-era smothering of Hunter’s authenticated laptop to influence an election. Are Trump’s FBI lawyers doctoring evidence to frame their targets à la Kevin Clinesmith?

In Trump’s first 120 days, I don’t recall FBI Director Kash Patel leaking confidential presidential conversations to the New York Times, or ordering the FBI to collect dirt on Democratic candidates, or hiring a fraudulent ex-British spy to compile a lurid dossier on AOC or Bernie Sanders. Has Patel lied four times to federal investigators following the prompt of Andrew McCabe?

Nor has Patel ordered his agents to work with Facebook and Twitter to suppress embarrassing press coverage about the Trump family.

The Trump Secret Service is not a private retrieval service that hunts down his children’s missing, lurid diaries or incriminating lost laptops or illegally acquired lost handguns.

Is there now a White House-conservative media cabal covering up a Trump cancer diagnosis or demonstrable senility?

So far, the Trump CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, have not repeatedly lied under oath to Congress, following the precedents of the Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper.

So please, spare us the sanctimonious lectures on “tyranny” and “dictatorship” from the very ideologues who have done and are doing more to wreck the Constitution and destroy the confidence of the American people in the rule of law than any generation in modern memory.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O'Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent  The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/06/02/who-really-are-the-lawless-and-the-dictatorial/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

WATCH: Ukraine drones destroy 40+ Russian bombers in airport strike, footage shows - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

The drones used in the strike were part of a continuing campaign to neutralize the aircraft responsible for regular bombardments of Ukrainian cities. Ukraine notified Trump in advance.

 

Reported footage of a Ukranian drone damaging Russian bomber planes.

(photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X, SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has reportedly struck more than 40 Russian military aircraft in a large-scale drone operation targeting strategic air bases deep within Russian territory, a source told the Kyiv Independent on Sunday. Ukraine informed the Trump administration about the attack ahead of time, a Ukrainian official said, Axios reported.

Among the aircraft hit were allegedly high-value bombers such as the Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and the A-50 early warning plane. 

The operation required a year and a half of preparation, according to the reports. The drones were concealed under wooden covers, which were successfully removed via remote control.

According to the source, the drones used in the strike were part of a continuing campaign to neutralize the aircraft responsible for regular bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

Officials in Russia acknowledged at least some of the incidents, the Kyiv Independent noted. 

כטב"מים אוקראינים תוקפים מטוסי קרב רוסיים - כולל בסיביר: בלוגרים רוסיים מכנים את 'פרל הרבור הרוסי" pic.twitter.com/MVfykV6BQn

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) June 1, 2025

Ukraine's SBU allegedly targets Russian bombers in Massive drone attack June 2025. (credit: SCREENSHOT/X)

FPV drones launched were used to carry out the strikes

Footage provided by the source shows multiple bombers engulfed in flames at an undisclosed location. One confirmed target was the Belaya air base in Irkutsk Oblast, located over 4,000 kilometers from Ukraine.

Ukraine's SBU allegedly targets Russian bombers in Massive drone attack June 2025. (credit: SCREENSHOT/X)

Additional unverified reports point to attacks at airfields in Murmansk, Ryazan, and Ivanovo regions, with social media accounts indicating fires at Olenya air base and drone activity near Diaghilev and Ivanovo bases.

Some reports suggest that first-person view (FPV) drones launched from trucks were used to carry out the strikes, though the SBU has not confirmed the specific equipment employed.

The governor of Irkutsk Oblast confirmed a drone strike on a military unit in the village of Sredny, reportedly involving drones launched from a truck.

Similarly, Murmansk Governor Andrey Chibis confirmed that drones had targeted the Murmansk region, though no additional details were provided.

The Kyiv Independent noted that these claims could not be independently verified.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/international/internationalrussia-ukraine-war/article-856215

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter