Drone attack sets fire at Russian military airfield
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(LONDON) — A large fire was burning at a Russian military airfield early on Thursday after it was targeted by drones overnight, officials said.
Videos circulating on Russia social media showed fires and thick black smoke rising from the Marinovka airfield near Volgograd in southern Russia, which the region’s governor confirmed was attacked by multiple drones overnight.
Gov. Andrey Bocharov claimed the drones were shot down but that one fell causing a fire.
Other videos shared overnight appear to show the moment of the attack, with the sound of gunfire followed by explosions near the air base.
The reported attack comes as Ukraine appears to be intensively targeting Russian airfields amid its incursion into Russia.
Last week, Ukraine launched its largest drone attack of the war targeting airfields, striking four in western Russia. On Wednesday, Ukraine even appeared to target an airfield deep in Russia’s north near Murmansk, inside the Arctic Circle.
A massive fire is also continuing to expand at a major fuel storage facility in Russia’s southern Rostov region, which has now been burning out of control for five days after a drone strike.
Dramatic videos showed enormous black smoke clouds rising from the facility, where huge fuel tanks have continued to explode. Another video showed firefighters driving away quickly as a tank exploded.
(VIENNA, Austria) — Chemical substances and technical devices were found at the house of a 19-year-old Austrian suspected of planning an attack on upcoming Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna, Austria, the public security director at Austria’s Ministry of Interior, Franz Ruf, told public broadcaster ORF’s Oe1 program in an interview Thursday.
Ruf added that these are still being evaluated by investigators. He previously confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday that chemical substances had been secured and were being evaluated.
Three of Swift’s concerts scheduled this week in Vienna were canceled after two suspects were arrested Wednesday for allegedly plotting a terror attack, authorities said.
The cancellations came hours after authorities announced a 19-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested Wednesday morning and a second suspect was arrested in the afternoon.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Felix Franz, Will Gretsky, Emily Shapiro, Josh Margolin and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(JERUSALEM and LONDON) — Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was assassinated early Wednesday in Iran, was a longtime antagonist of Israel who rose to become leader of the Palestinian organization’s political bureau, expanded the group’s footprint outside the Gaza Strip and served as a key figure in the negotiations to end the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
He had long been accused by Western and Israeli leaders of having strong ties to the Hamas organization’s miltary wing, which claimed responsibility last year for the Oct. 7 surprise attack on southern Israel. He had been detained by Israel in 1989 and spent three years in an Israel prison before eventually rising to the top of the Hamas group.
Haniyeh had been a part of talks as Israel and Hamas negotiated for an end to the fighting in Gaza and a return to the hostages held by Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday declined to comment on the assassination or how it may affect those negotiations, saying it was an “enduring imperative to getting a cease-fire, and what I do know is we are going to work at that every day.”
“All I can tell you right now is I think nothing takes away from the importance of, as I said a moment ago, getting to the cease-fire, which is manifestly in the interests of the hostages and bringing them home,” Blinken told reporters in Singapore.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the assassination.
Haniyeh had led Hamas political bureau since 2017
As the civil-focused Hamas branch won in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006, sweeping into power throughout Gaza, Haniyeh was named prime minister.
Israel in 2007 accused then-Prime Minister Haniyeh of “adherence to an ‘armed struggle'” against Israel. The Israeli Foreign Ministry quoted Haniyeh as saying, “We are concentrating on politics but have not abandoned our arms.”
Haniyeh was dismissed after a year in office by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, took control of the security services centers in Gaza. Haniyeh rejected the decision because he considered it “unconstitutional” and described it as hasty, stressing that “his government will continue its duties and will not abandon its national responsibilities towards the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian Authority, another civil group in Gaza, was expelled from the territory in 2007, according to The U.S. Department of State. The U.S. described the political maneuvering by Hamas as a “violent takeover.”
Ten years later, in 2017, Haniyeh became leader of the Hamas political group, which by then was the “de facto ruler” in Gaza, the U.S. said. Members of the General Shura Council elected him in voting held simultaneously in the Qatari capital, Doha, and in Gaza.
Haniyeh when he came to power was in charge of the civil wing the of the Hamas organization, the branch that manages “charities, schools, clinics, youth camps, fundraising, and political activities,” as the U.S. State Department described it.
The following year, in January 2018, during the Trump administration, Haniyeh was placed on a U.S. government terrorism list, an official designation that named him as an individual associated with terror. His addition on that list would allow the U.S. government to block his assets under a Bush administration executive order.
“Ismail Haniyeh is the leader and President of the Political Bureau of Hamas. Haniyeh has close links with Hamas’s military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians,” the U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism said in a 2018 report.
A State Department spokesperson at the time said Haniyeh had “reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas has been responsible for an estimated 17 American lives killed in terrorist attacks.”
Haniyeh had in the years since then called for Arab states to stop recognizing Israel by terminating agreements to normalize relations, according to a 2023 report on international religious freedom compiled by U.S. officials.
He had lived in exile since 2019 in Qatar, an Arab country that has played a key role in the Israel-Hamas negotiations.
Rise to power from a Gaza refugee camp
Born in 1963 in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, Haniyeh attended schools within and near the camp. He graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza in 1987, obtaining a degree in Arabic literature. He received an honorary doctorate from the Islamic University in 2009, according to the school. After graduating, he worked as a teaching assistant at the university, and then took over administrative affairs after that.
Haniyeh began his activity within the “Islamic Bloc,” which represented the student arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” emerged.
Haniyeh was widely considered to be a charismatic, popular and pragmatic leader within the Hamas movement. He was respected by many Palestinians when he became the first Palestinian prime minister for the Hamas movement and he refused to leave his simple home at a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas movement over the years lost dozens of its leaders in Israeli assassinations in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad, but those deaths have not appeared to weaken the movement. Israeli killed the founding and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and many top leaders in the second intifada from 2001 to 2005, but in fact did not appear to diminish the movement.
Three of Haniyeh’s sons and many of his grandchildren, in addition to other relatives, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the ongoing war with Israel broke out on Oct. 7.
ABC News’ Lauren Minore and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian authorities are urging citizens in the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions of Russia — areas where Ukraine has been attacking — to stop using video cameras, social media and dating sites.
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs issued the memo Tuesday, saying the “enemy,” referring to Ukraine, is using video cameras and social media to gather information.
“The enemy massively identifies IP ranges in our territories and connects to unprotected video surveillance cameras remotely, viewing everything from private courtyards to roads and highways of strategic importance. In this regard, if there is no urgent need, then it is better not to use video surveillance cameras,” Ministry of Internal Affairs officials told Interfax, a Russian news service.
Russian authorities told citizens not to use online dating services, as such resources are used to collect information. Russian servicemen were advised not to open links coming from strangers and to try not to use a phone with a lot of official and personal information.
“It is necessary to control and moderate chats, as well as promptly delete from them the accounts of persons captured by the enemy, as well as the accounts of persons to whose phones the enemy has gained access,” the Russian interior ministry said.
The Russian agency asked citizens not to post DVR recordings on social networks and messengers, not to conduct live broadcasts, close their personal data and remove all geotags and photo bindings on social networks.
More than 30 people have died and more than 140 people have been injured in Russia’s Kursk region since Ukrainian forces started their incursion in the region two weeks ago, the Russian news agency TASS reported Wednesday, citing unnamed medical personnel.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have been ordered to evacuate the Kursk region since Ukraine’s attacks began, according to Russian news outlets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is seeking to create a “buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory.”
