Iran and the United States held secret, indirect talks in Oman in January, addressing the escalating threat posed to Red Sea shipping by the Houthis in Yemen, as well as the attacks on American bases by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, according to Iranian and U.S. officials familiar with the discussions. The secret talks were held […]
Read MoreTag: Iran
Dancing and Jumping Over Fire, Iranians Use Holiday to Defy Rules
Iranians have looked for opportunities in recent months to display defiance against the rules of the clerical government. In Tuesday night’s annual fire festival, many found a chance. Across Iran, thousands of men and women packed the streets as they danced wildly to music and jumped joyfully over large bonfires, according to videos on social […]
Read MoreIran’s 2022 Protest Crackdown Included Killings, Torture and Rape, U.N. Finds
United Nations investigators say Iranian authorities killed, tortured and raped women, men and children in a brutal repression of mass protests that erupted over the death in police custody of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly wearing a mandatory hijab incorrectly. A U.N. fact-finding mission reporting to the Human Rights […]
Read MoreIn Parliamentary Vote, Iranians Vented Their Rage With the Ruling Elite
Iranians have delivered a stinging rebuke to Iran’s ruling conservatives, an analysis of parliamentary election results shows, with millions of Iranians having boycotted the vote and a far-right faction making striking gains. Many well-known conservative lawmakers, including the current speaker of Parliament, Gen. Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, saw their vote […]
Read MoreInside America’s Shadow War With Iran
It’s often been said that the most dangerous hot spot in the world is the waterway between Taiwan and mainland China, where the Chinese Navy and Air Force flex their muscles every day to try to intimidate Taiwan — while the U.S. Navy patrols nearby. I wonder. There is actually a stable balance of deterrence […]
Read MoreU.S. Strike Killed Afghans Recruited to Fight for Iran
It was a memorial for the “martyrs” killed when the U.S. struck military bases in Syria, according to Iranian state television. A small crowd sat in rows of folding chairs, men in the front and women in the back, at the main cemetery in Tehran, the Iranian capital, earlier this month. Children milled around and […]
Read MoreIsrael Was Behind Attacks on Major Gas Pipelines in Iran, Officials Say
Israel carried out covert attacks on two major gas pipelines inside Iran this week, disrupting the flow of heat and cooking gas to provinces with millions of people, according to two Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. The strikes represent a notable shift in the shadow war that Israel […]
Read MoreLebanon’s State Media Says Israeli Strikes Killed 10 Civilians
Israel’s military launched new attacks on targets in Lebanon on Thursday, a day after its strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least 10 civilians, the most in months of cross-border fighting. The strikes — which came in response to a rocket attack from Lebanon on Wednesday that killed one Israeli soldier and wounded eight other […]
Read MoreA Sweet-and-Sour Tofu That Balances It All
As 2023 gave way to 2024, the weather snapped, and I was suddenly drawn to very particular kinds of food: comforting, restoring, reassuring. As I leafed through Najmieh Batmanglij’s wonderful book “Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies,” it was her khoreshes — delicate, refined braises — that were clearly calling, […]
Read MoreIt’s Not Time for Our Troops to Leave the Middle East
The United States base at Tower 22 in Jordan is in the middle of a seemingly unending desert, astride the ancient Damascus-Baghdad Highway near the border with Syria. In January it is cold, often rainy and very bleak. Last month three U.S. service members at Tower 22 were killed by a drone launched by an […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Hears Trump Case, and Israel Eyes Rafah
The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]
Read MoreIraq Hosts Both U.S. and Iranian-Backed Forces. It’s Getting Tense.
For years, Iraq has managed to pull off an unlikely balancing act, allowing armed forces tied to both the United States and Iran, an American nemesis, to operate on its soil. Now things are getting shaky. When Washington, Tehran and Baghdad all wanted the same thing — the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group […]
Read MoreU.S. Strikes Hit Most of Targets in Iraq and Syria, Pentagon Says
American warplanes destroyed or severely damaged most of the Iranian and militia targets they struck in Syria and Iraq on Friday, according to the Pentagon, the first major salvos in what President Biden and his aides have said will be a sustained campaign. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Monday […]
Read MoreU.S. Plans More Strikes, and Storm Slams Los Angeles
The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]
Read MoreU.S. Strikes Iranian-Backed Targets for Third Day in a Row
The United States launched scores of strikes across the Middle East over the weekend as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken set out for the region to push forward negotiations to secure the release of Israelis still held hostage in Gaza and get more humanitarian aid into the battered enclave. The latest strike came Sunday […]
Read MoreU.S. Strikes in Yemen, Syria and Iraq: A Timeline
The United States has led a major wave of retaliatory strikes in the Middle East, hitting scores of targets belonging to Iranian-backed armed groups since Friday. The strikes are a sharp escalation of hostilities in the region, one that President Biden had sought to avoid since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began […]
Read MoreU.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 […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Conducted Retaliatory Strikes in Iraq and Syria
American forces today carried out a series of military strikes against Iranian forces and the militias that they back in half a dozen sites in Syria and Iraq. The assaults, targeting command centers, weapons facilities and bunkers used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force and affiliated militia groups, made good on President Biden’s […]
Read MoreBiden Honors Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Jordan
President Biden honored three Army reservists killed in the Middle East as their bodies were returned to the United States on Friday in a silent, somber ceremony marking the first deaths under fire in a proxy war with Iranian-backed militias since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Mr. Biden attended a short event known as […]
Read MoreChina Meets the U.S. to Discuss Fentanyl, But the Détente Has Limits
China and the United States are back at the negotiating table. Whether they can agree on much is another matter. In Bangkok, China’s top diplomat last week discussed North Korea and Iran with President Biden’s national security adviser. Days later, in Beijing, officials restarted long-stalled talks on curbing the flow of fentanyl to the United […]
Read MoreIran Tries to Avoid War With U.S. After Stoking Mideast Conflicts
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting this week, deeply worried that the United States would retaliate after an Iran-aligned militia in Iraq killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 others in Jordan. The council, including the president, foreign minister, chiefs of the armed forces and two aides to the country’s […]
Read MoreA Biden Doctrine for the Middle East Is Forming. And It’s Big.
There are two things I believe about the widening crisis in the Middle East. We are about to see a new Biden administration strategy unfold to address this multifront war involving Gaza, Iran, Israel and the region — what I hope will be a “Biden Doctrine” that meets the seriousness and complexity of this dangerous […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Director Warns of China Hacking Threat
Christopher A. Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned on Wednesday that China was ramping up an extensive hacking operation geared at taking down the United States’ power grid, oil pipelines and water systems in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Mr. Wray, appearing before a House subcommittee on China, offered an […]
Read MoreMayorkas Impeachment Push, and a Militia’s Surprise Move
The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]
Read MoreWhat Iran Really Wants
Iran has emerged as the chief architect in multiple conflicts strafing the Middle East, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. It trained and helped arm the Iraqi militias that killed three U.S. service members with a drone in Jordan this weekend. It supplied Hamas and Hezbollah in their clashes with Israel. It launched missiles […]
Read MoreU.S. Identifies 3 Soldiers Killed at Base in Jordan
The Department of Defense on Monday identified three Army Reserve soldiers who were killed at a U.S. base in Jordan on Sunday in what the Biden administration said was a drone attack from an Iran-backed militia. The department said at least 34 other service members were wounded in the attack. Those killed were Sgt. William […]
Read MoreBloodthirsty Republicans Urge Biden to Attack Iran Right Now
The benefits of free flights didn’t stop at the NRA head, who also effectively allowed his family to use the company credit card for trips, charging the NRA more than $1 million for flights around the country, including a $26,995 flight from Dallas to Orlando, a $15,495 flight from Las Vegas to Nebraska, and a […]
Read MoreRepublican Lawmakers Urge Biden to Directly Attack Iran Right Now
The benefits of free flights didn’t stop at the NRA head, who also effectively allowed his family to use the company credit card for trips, charging the NRA more than $1 million for flights around the country, including a $26,995 flight from Dallas to Orlando, a $15,495 flight from Las Vegas to Nebraska, and a […]
Read MoreHow Biden May Respond to the Drone Strike That Killed Three U.S. Soldiers
Even before the drone strike that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan on Sunday, the Biden administration was planning for a moment just like this, debating how it might strike back in ways that would deter Iran’s proxy forces and send a message that Tehran would not miss. But the options range from the […]
Read MoreGOP lawmakers call on Biden to retaliate on Iran after 3 US troops killed in drone attack
GOP lawmakers call on Biden to retaliate on Iran after 3 US troops killed in drone attack | The Hill Skip to content A series of GOP lawmakers are ramping up the pressure on President Biden to retaliate against Iran following the strike in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members and injured at least […]
Read MoreHouthis’ Propaganda Is Going Global
Soon after Yemen’s Houthi militia hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea, taking it and its 25-member crew hostage, the armed group used the vessel to record a music video. In the slick production, called “Axis of Jihad,” a drone camera pans over the hulking ship. Then a famous Houthi poet appears on the […]
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