Iran’s leaders moved to challenge stability
A lethal helicopter crash that killed the Iranian president and overseas minister on Sunday resulted from “technical failure,” Iranian state information media reported. Right here’s the most recent information, and what we all know concerning the crash.
The deaths of President Ebrahim Raisi and Overseas Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian have left Iran with out two influential leaders at a very tumultuous political second. However consultants mentioned they anticipated little change in its overseas or home insurance policies. Iran’s long-simmering shadow conflict with Israel burst out into the open after the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas, and the international locations have traded direct assaults in current months.
The supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, mentioned there could be “no disruption” to the federal government’s work. Iran’s first vp, Mohammad Mokhber, would assume the position of performing president and should manage elections for a brand new president inside 50 days, Ayatollah Khamenei added. However Raisi’s dying complicates a troublesome search for the following ruler.
U.S. response: Within the eyes of the Biden administration, Raisi was a brutal tyrant, a sworn enemy and a risk to world peace. However inside hours of affirmation of his dying, the U.S. State Division introduced its “official condolences,” in a fragile diplomatic ritual.
Evaluation: Iran’s subsequent leaders — who’re nearly sure to even be hard-liners — must select whether or not they are going to proceed to function with warning of their confrontations with the U.S.
Arrest warrants looked for Israeli and Hamas leaders
Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the Worldwide Prison Court docket, has requested arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on expenses of “conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity.”
The request, in reference to the conflict in Gaza and the Oct. 7 assault on Israel, was a robust rebuke that equates Netanyahu with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief inside Gaza. “At this time we as soon as once more underline that worldwide regulation and the legal guidelines of armed battle apply to all,” Khan mentioned in his assertion. “No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian chief — nobody — can act with impunity.”
The warrants are largely symbolic. The courtroom’s jurisdiction just isn’t acknowledged in Israel or Gaza, and it might be months earlier than judges resolve whether or not to difficulty the warrants. But when they’re issued, the leaders might be arrested in the event that they journey to one of many courtroom’s 124 member nations, which embrace most European international locations however not the U.S.
Response: Talking at a celebration of Jewish Heritage Month on the White Home, President Biden condemned the choice of the I.C.C. prosecutor to hunt arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. He additionally rejected the declare being weighed by the separate Worldwide Court docket of Justice that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza.
An F.B.I. investigation into Russian informants
The F.B.I. minimize ties to not less than a handful of informants and issued warnings about dozens of others after an inner evaluation following the 2020 election was prompted by considerations that they had been linked to Russian disinformation, present and former U.S. officers mentioned.
The evaluation led to the severing of sources at a second when the bureau was asking brokers to supply extra data from and about those self same networks. The episode highlighted how, even in an age of high-tech intelligence gathering and surveillance, human sources proceed to play an vital position in regulation enforcement and nationwide safety.
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