Foreign News
Trump security boosted weeks ago over Iran plot to kill him
Protection for Donald Trump was boosted several weeks ago after US authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him, according to national security officials.
Officials say there is no known connection between the alleged Iranian plot and the assassination attempt on the former president on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
However, the disclosure that security had been tightened raises further questions over how Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to climb a building and get close enough to fire at Trump.
The US Secret Service and the Trump campaign were notified of the Iranian threat, and security was increased as a result, according to a US national security official.
Intelligence sources told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner, that the Secret Service bolstered security in June in response to the Iranian threat. This included extra counter-assault and counter-sniper agents, drones and robotic dogs.
CBS reported that the details of a potential Iranian operation were obtained through “human source intelligence”, and came amid a notable increase in Iranian chatter regarding attacks against Trump.
Trump and officials including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have faced threats from Tehran since ordering the drone strike assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force, in Iraq in 2020.
The Iranian mission at the United Nations called the report “unsubstantiated and malicious”, adding that Trump was “a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law”.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the US Secret Service, said it and other agencies were “constantly receiving new potential threat information and taking action to adjust resources, as needed”.
“We cannot comment on any specific threat stream, other than to say that the Secret Service takes threats seriously and responds accordingly.”
The Trump campaign said it did not comment on security matters and referred BBC questions to the Secret Service.
Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said that US security officials had been “tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years”.
“These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Soleimani,” she said. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority.”
She however reiterated that the investigation “has not identified ties” between Crooks and “any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or domestic.”
In 2022, the Department of Justice announced criminal charges against a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, alleging that he was orchestrating a plot to kill Mr Bolton.
Prosecutors said the plot was “likely in retaliation” for the killing of Soleimani.
Questions have swirled about how police officers and agents responsible for the rally at Butler County fairgrounds, Pennsylvania, allowed Crooks to get so close.
The director of the Secret Service admitted that local police were inside the building while Crooks was on its roof aiming at Trump 130m (430ft) away.
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported three local police snipers were inside the building and had seen Crooks getting on the roof.
The local sheriff’s department referred BBC questions to the state police, which said it was not responsible for the area containing the building.
A state police spokesman told the BBC that it provided “all resources” requested by the Secret Service, including between 30 to 40 troopers inside the perimeter.
President Joe Biden has ordered an independent review of how the gunman could have come so close to killing Trump, and the Secret Service also faces probes from Congress.
(BBC)
Marco Rubio has assured European leaders the US does not plan to abandon the transatlantic alliance, saying its destiny “will always be intertwined” with the continent’s.
The US secretary of state told the Munich Security Conference: “We do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilisation in human history.”
He criticised European immigration, trade and climate policies, but the overall tenor of the closely-watched speech was markedly different to Vice President JD Vance’s at the same event last year, during which he scolded continental leaders.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured” by Rubio’s remarks.
Rubio, the Trump administration’s most senior diplomat, said it was “neither our goal nor our wish” to end the transatlantic partnership, adding: “For us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.
“And I am here today to leave it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends.”
However, he repeated several criticisms repeatedly levelled at Europe by the Trump administration, including describing immigration policies as a threat to civilisation, and saying a “climate cult” had taken over economic policy.
On trade, he said Europe and the US had “made mistakes together” by adopting a “dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade”.
He repeated familiar calls from the US for Europe to invest more in defence, saying: “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.”
In response, von der Leyen said: “Rubio is a good friend, a strong ally. And this was, for me, very reassuring to listen to him.”
She continued: “We want a strong Europe. And this is, I think, the message of today.”
Elsewhere in his half-hour address, Rubio said the system of international co-operation “must be rebuilt” and singled out the UN for particular criticism, saying it had “played virtually no role” in resolving the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts.
He also said the organisation was “powerless to constrain the nuclear programme” of Tehran.
In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if a deal to curb its nuclear programme can be reached, as negotiations between the two intensify.
A second round of talks will be hosted by Oman in Geneva next week, the Swiss foreign ministry said on Saturday.
Outside the conference, an estimated 200,000 protesters held a rally against the Iranian government, local police report.
The demonstrators denounced the country’s leadership, following the government crackdown on January’s protests in which thousands of people were killed.
Rubio also said the US did not know whether the “Russians are serious about ending the war” in Ukraine, before adding: “But we’re going to continue to test it.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told the conference later on Saturday that no one in Ukraine believed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would leave the country alone, describing the Russian leader as a “slave to war”.
Zelensky has come under pressure from the White House to hold presidential elections, which have been suspended while the country is under martial law.
Asked about a Financial Times report that his administration was planning for elections as soon as May, Zelensky said it was “something new to me” and repeated that “nobody supports elections during the war”.
He said that Ukraine would need “two months of ceasefire” and “security infrastructure” to safely conduct elections.
[BBC]
Two Britons and one French person have died in an avalanche in the French Alps on Friday.
The British pair were part of a group of five people skiing off-piste with an instructor in the Manchet valley, near Val d’Isère, a spokeswoman for the resort told the BBC.
The French national was skiing alone when the avalanche struck at 11:30 local time (10:30 GMT), Albertville prosecutor Benoit Bachelet said in a statement announcing the deaths.
Another British person has minor injuries, he added.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC they are aware of the death of the two British men and they are “in contact with the local authorities and stand ready to offer consular assistance”.
A manslaughter investigation has now been launched by the Albertville public prosecutor’s office and will be carried out by CRS Alpes mountain rescue police.
The ski instructor, who was unharmed, tested negative after taking alcohol and drug tests, according to Bachelet.
Val d’Isère already experienced avalanches this winter, with one person dying in the resort of Tignes nearby last month.
France’s national weather service had issued a red alert for avalanche risk across the Savoie region on Thursday, which was then lifted on Friday. But the risk level remained high across the Alps with “very unstable snow cover”.
The avalanche comes in the wake of Storm Nils, which passed through France the day before, leaving between 60cm and 100cm of snow, the weather service said.
There have been a number of fatal avalanches in the region in recent weeks, including the death of a British man off-piste skiing at the La Plagne resort in January.
“We have had some very complicated, very unstable snow since the beginning of the season,” Luc Nicolino, slopes manager at La Plagne, told AFP.
“It’s a kind of mille-feuille with many hidden, fragile layers.”
[BBC]
Two Mexican ships bearing humanitarian aid have docked in the harbour of Cuba’s capital Havana, as the United States continues its efforts to cut the island off from outside fuel supplies.
On Thursday, pedestrians on Havana’s seawall watched as the ships, one of which was the Papaloapan, unloaded white pallets on shore.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the delivery in her morning news conference, promising that more help was on the way.
“We are sending different forms of help, different forms of support,” Sheinbaum said. “Today, the ships arrive. When they return, we are going to send more support of a different type.”
She also described her country’s role as “opening the doors for dialogue to develop” between Cuba and the US, but she insisted that maintaining Cuba’s sovereignty would be paramount among her priorities.
Since January, the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to cut off the oil supplies that power Cuba’s energy grid and other critical infrastructure.
The campaign is part of a long-running series of sanctions imposed by the US on the Caribbean island nation, stretching back to the Cold War.
But the latest effort, under Trump, has experts at the United Nations warning of an imminent humanitarian “collapse” in Cuba, as oil supplies dwindle.
The oil embargo began on January 3, when Trump authorised a US military operation to attack Venezuela and abduct its then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores.
[Aljazeera]
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