Ukraine drones target Moscow for 3rd consecutive day, mayor says, amid major attack

(QATAR) — Her room is made up of four towering gray walls. With a rug, a colorful comforter and a few pictures, 15-year-old Zahra Muheb has tried to make it feel like home. She’s spent her last two birthdays living at Camp As Sayliyah, a refugee camp on an unused American military base in Doha that’s a temporary home for more than 1,100 Afghan refugees. 

Most of its residents are women and children who were placed there by the U.S. State Department during the U.S. refugee resettlement process. 

Zahra told ABC News her dreams for the future have changed drastically since President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting refugee resettlement efforts during the first days of his second term. She said the ripple effects have been felt throughout every corner of the camp.

“I mean, when you go out of the camp and you’re sick, they take you to hospital and they put GPS trackers on you so that you cannot escape,” she said. “I feel like prison might be much better than here.” 

Zahra also told ABC News that she was threatened by the camp duty director and other camp officials after speaking to news outlets.

She claimed that they said someone in Washington, D.C., asked them to talk to her, then turned to her parents and said, “What you allow your daughter [to do] has significantly increased the risk of going back to Afghanistan.”

In response to Zahra’s specific claims, a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, “We have no information regarding this alleged incident” and that “accusations are dealt with promptly to protect residents.”

The fear of being sent back to Afghanistan is intense for many refugees at the base, she noted.

Zahra told ABC News camp officials are using that fear and not knowing where they will be placed against residents at the base.

“They are lying to people about [being sent to a] third country,” she said. “They are encouraging people to go back to Afghanistan, paying them money.”

Zahra’s family was already vetted by the Biden administration, but they and many other camp residents remain in limbo, waiting to see where and when the U.S. State Department will relocate them. 

In recent talks, the Trump administration said they were considering moving those residing at Camp As Sayliyah from Doha to the Democratic Republic of Congo — a country that’s now struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak — though that deal was scrapped.

“The State Department continues to work toward a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people,” a department spokesperson told ABC News.

In response to the possibility of being sent to the DRC, Zahra said she wanted to address Trump directly, saying the idea was “not even acceptable.” 

“Mr. Donald Trump and Mrs. Melania reconsider [to] at least take us to America because we deserve safety. We deserve a life with dignity,” she told ABC News.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration raised the refugee ceiling by 10,000 solely for white South African refugees despite the promises the U.S. previously made to those residing at Camp As Sayliyah. 

On June 2, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department’s fiscal year 2027 budget, lawmakers pushed back against these new policies.

Democratic Sen. Van Hollen of Maryland told Republican Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “this administration has capped refugees at a record low” and that “White South Africans, Afrikaners, have comprised roughly 99% of those slots.” He called the administration’s process a “race-based refugee system.”

Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, denounced the notion of sending Afghan allies living at Camp As Sayliyah back to Afghanistan, which is controlled by the Taliban, or the DRC, which has seen a surge of sexual violence towards women and children in recent years amid the conflict that has raged since 2022.

In response, Rubio noted that the U.S. “can’t admit any Afghans at this point into the country,” due to an executive order in the wake of last November’s deadly attack on two members of the National Guard last November.

“I don’t know of any single country that’s going to take a thousand people, but we’ve talked to multiple countries about taking several hundred of these people and allowing them to move to a safe location,” he said.

The residents we spoke to told ABC News they feel left behind, including a father who served as a member of the Afghan Command Forces for the U.S. and asked ABC News not to use his name for fear of retaliation.

“In reality, we were brought here legally and we completed all legal processes,” he said. “We stood side by side with the United States in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. Now the time has come for the U.S. government to fulfill their promises.”

Shawn VanDiver, the president of AfghanEvac, a non-profit organization that advocates for Afghan refugees, arranged a call with residents, congressional staffers and politicians in April.

“We’re gonna keep fighting for you, there’s a lot of people in Congress that are gonna keep fighting for you,” he told the residents.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, joined the call to relay what his son, who served in Afghanistan as a Marine Corps infantry officer, told him about the Afghan allies “who put their lives on the line.”

“They love America. We will work for them and fight for them just as we would our own veterans,” he said.

In a previous statement, the U.S. State Department told ABC News in March that “Afghan Nationals at the Camp do not currently have a viable pathway to the United States” and that residents would be relocated by March 31. In June, ABC News spoke with several residents who still do not know where or when they will be relocated, if at all.

“There was a viable pathway, the administration has chosen to close it — it is a policy choice,” VanDiver told ABC News.

For now, residents at the camp hope the U.S. will keep its original promise to bring them to the country to start a new life.

Zahra asked ABC News to use her name, hoping it will help her resettlement efforts and others at the camp who are afraid of being sent to countries in conflict like DRC.

“I’m showing my face and I am raising my voice. To the camp officials from here … you cannot stop me,” she said. “Whatever you do, it won’t stop me. If you think that you can treat me [like this] and it will stop me, it cannot. I will fight. I will take those people to safety. I will try.”

On Thursday, 83 members of Congress signed a letter to Rubio, demanding a clear plan for residents at Camp As Sayliyah, shortly after Zahra’s story aired on ABC News on Tuesday. In the letter, congressional leaders gave the department until June 24 to respond with answers and a credible plan for refugees who have been living in limbo.

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(NEW YORK) — El Nino conditions continue to intensify and are likely to be a strong event in the coming months, significantly influencing our weather, the hurricane season and global temperatures, according to the latest forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

There is very high confidence that El Nino will continue through early spring 2027.

NOAA’s latest forecast calls for a strong El Nino to develop by the fall, with an 81% chance of a very strong El Nino between October and December, which could also end up being one of the strongest events on record. Historical records go back to 1950.

Stronger El Nino events only make certain impacts more likely and do not always guarantee strong impacts, NOAA noted.

El Nino refers to the warmer-than-average phase of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a natural cycle where sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean rise and fall. The cooler-than-average phase is called La Nina, while near-average conditions are known as ENSO-neutral.

NOAA ranks the strength of El Nino events by measuring the sea surface temperature departure from average (anomaly) across this region, classifying events as weak, moderate, strong or very strong.

“El Nino conditions are already underway and are forecast to strengthen rapidly into a strong event,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “This will intensify the chances of drought and heavy rainfall and the risk of heatwaves on land and marine heatwaves in many regions of the world.”

While adjectives such as “super” and “extreme” are popular ways of describing the strength of an El Nino event on social media, NOAA and the WMO classify by strength. The WMO noted in a recent statement that “the term [[super]] is not part of standardized operational classifications.”

Typical El Nino impacts across the United States

Impacts from El Nino, similar to La Nina, tend to be most consistent and pronounced from late autumn through early spring following the event’s onset, NOAA says. There is usually a delay between the onset of the event and many of the associated effects.

“The more consistent impacts on precipitation and temperature don’t occur until the winter months — so for 2026-27,” Michelle L’Heureux, physical scientist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said.

Experts caution that the impacts on weather patterns are nuanced. Each season is different, and typical El Nino conditions don’t always materialize.

“Every El Nino is different in terms of timing, magnitude, and geographic extent, and such differences lead to variability in the impacts — on temperatures and rainfall, for example — on a global scale,” Andrew Kruczkiewicz, senior staff researcher at Columbia Climate School, said.

Northeast: Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across the northern half of the U.S. during meteorological winter (December to February), however its influence is less pronounced in the Northeast, compared to the Upper Midwest and Northwest.

El Nino typically increases the odds of above-average snowfall in the mid-Atlantic and coastal areas of the Northeast as storms often move up the coast. Farther inland, drier-than-average conditions and less snow are more likely.

South: During the winter months, near- to below-average temperatures are favored along the southern tier of the U.S., especially from Texas to the Southeast.

For precipitation, wetter-than-average conditions are typically observed across Texas, the Gulf Coast and Southeast. Below-average precipitation is frequently observed across parts of the south-central Mississippi Valley.

Midwest: Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored from the northern Plains into the Great Lakes in the winter. Drier-than-average conditions are frequently observed across parts of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes regions.

El Nino typically increases the odds of above-average snowfall in the south-central Plains with below-average snowfall favored in northern Plains and Great Lakes regions.

West: During the winter months, warmer-than-average temperatures are likely across much of the Northwest. For precipitation, wetter-than-average conditions are typically observed across southern California and much of the Southwest, with below-average precipitation frequently observed across parts of the northern Rockies.

El Nino typically increases the odds of above-average snowfall in the southern Rockies, with below-average snowfall favored in the northern Rockies.

Meanwhile, above-average tropical activity in the eastern Pacific increases the likelihood of indirect impacts to the southwestern U.S., such as sending more rain to the region and more frequent flash flood concerns.

Alaska: El Nino impacts in Alaska tend to be more pronounced than across much of the contiguous U.S., with the strongest effects typically occurring during the winter and spring months. During winter, warmer- and drier-than-average conditions are more likely, with less snowfall and reduced snowpack.

Above average temperatures often persist into spring, while precipitation trends closer to average. However, warmer conditions typically mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, prolonging snow deficits.

Hawaii: Rainfall is typically above average across Hawaii the year an El Nino event develops before conditions become drier during the winter months and remain dry well into the following year. The shift toward drier weather can increase the likelihood of drought and elevate the risk of wildfires.

Meanwhile, above-average tropical activity in the eastern Pacific increases the risk of impacts from tropical systems across the Hawaiian Islands.

El Nino’s influence on hurricane season activity

While El Nino is only one of several key factors that influence tropical activity, forecasts now indicate it will be a strong event during the peak of the hurricane season, making it the primary driver of activity in both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific in the coming months.

El Nino conditions often suppress tropical activity during the Atlantic hurricane season by producing unfavorable atmospheric winds. In the Eastern Pacific, the opposite occurs, with favorable conditions supporting above-average hurricane season activity.

As a result, NOAA’s May 21 hurricane outlook is predicting below average tropical activity for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season with above average activity likely in the eastern Pacific.

“El Nino increases convection (thunderstorms) across the eastern and central Pacific, which causes downstream wind shear over the Atlantic from strong upper-level winds,” Andy Hazelton, an associate scientist at the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, said.

Vertical wind shear, which refers to changes in wind speed and direction with height in the atmosphere, is often a primary factor in below-average hurricane season activity. Strong vertical wind shear can tear a developing tropical system apart or even prevent it from forming, NOAA says.

“The rising motion over the Pacific also leads to increased subsidence (sinking air) over the Atlantic, which suppresses thunderstorms and tropical cyclone development,” Hazelton added.

Other factors, such as sea surface temperatures, also play an important role in tropical cyclone development and strength. Unseasonably warm ocean waters can partially offset the effects of unfavorable atmospheric winds, according to forecasters.

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(LONDON) — The escalating Israeli operation against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon may prove to be the most intractable theater of the wider U.S.-Israeli confrontation with Iran, analysts who spoke with ABC News warned.

But the showdown unfolding in Lebanon could pose an existential threat to both Hezbollah and the Lebanese state, experts said, with the latter having long struggled to rein in the powerful militia but now facing growing pressure — and threats — from Israel to do more despite the danger of civil instability.

The technocratic government that came to power in Beirut on a wave of optimism in February 2025 is now facing “the worst possible combination of factors,” Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank told ABC News during a recent webinar hosted by the U.K.-based Chatham House think tank.

Lebanon “is a secondary front at the moment that is likely to burn for longer both because the Israelis see the political-military opportunity, but also the Iranians see it as a place where they can bleed and distract the Israelis,” Hokayem added.

Cascading crises
Even before the latest round of violence erupted, observers were noting rising discontent with Hezbollah among the wider Lebanese population and their elected representatives. 

The recent scars of Hezbollah’s activities were all too visible. On the edges of Beirut’s stylish downtown area and the trendy Mar Mikhael neighborhood is the devastated port area, wrecked by a massive explosion in 2020, with efforts to apportion responsibility for the disaster allegedly repeatedly stymied by Hezbollah. While some blame Hezbollah, others blame the entire political ruling class and the systemic corruption in the country.

Villages across the Hezbollah-dominated south and east of the country lay in ruins from Israeli missiles, bombs and artillery shells fired in clashes since Hezbollah attacked Israel in solidarity with Hamas after the latter’s deadly surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. In a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in 2024, the Israeli army partially withdrew, holding on to five positions in southern Lebanon.

Parts of Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh area — a longtime Hezbollah stronghold — were cratered, with giant posters of its slain totemic leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive 2024 Israeli airstrike on the city, seen by ABC News late last year rising above the arterial road which runs through the area from the airport to the rest of the city.

The conflict significantly degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, apparently setting the stage for Lebanon to appoint a new government with fewer ties to the group — led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun — after more than two years of a caretaker cabinet amid a political deadlock.

Neither were formally endorsed by Hezbollah. Aoun, the country’s former army chief, and his new government said they were committed to disarming Hezbollah, appealing to foreign partners to help.

Many observers suggested Hezbollah appeared to be in a historically weak position from late 2024 into early 2026. Its patrons in Tehran were themselves weakened by confrontations with Israel and, later, the U.S. Discontent inside Iran exploded into multiple rounds of anti-government protests, with Tehran’s funding and direction of foreign proxy forces a common grievance among demonstrators.

The fall of Tehran-aligned and Hezbollah-bolstered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad across the border in December 2024 robbed Hezbollah of strategic depth, vital arms smuggling routes and financial opportunities. Nasrallah — an icon of the Iran-directed “Axis of Resistance” — was dead, as were many of the group’s most senior military and strategic minds, according to long-time observers of the group.

Meanwhile, strikes that Israel described as targeted against Hezbollah personnel and infrastructure in Lebanon continued, killing hundreds of people despite the November 2024 ceasefire deal. Hezbollah did not respond, apparently pursuing a policy of strategic patience that some observers interpreted as operational weakness.

Before the outbreak of its latest war with Israel in 2023, estimates of Hezbollah’s military strength ranged from 30,000 to more than 50,000 personnel. Its parliamentary party won 15 seats in the last Lebanese legislative elections in 2022, securing around 20% of all votes to the tune of nearly 360,000 ballots, according to data from Lebanon’s Interior Ministry.

Aoun’s government took some steps to curtail Hezbollah’s uniquely powerful position, in which it had been able to establish — with Iranian help — what analysts often described as “a state within a state.” 

The Lebanese Armed Forces claimed in January to have completed the first phase of the plan to disarm all non-state groups in the area south of the Litani River — around 18 miles north of Israel’s border — as part of the 2024 ceasefire deal.

Those efforts continued after the U.S. and Israel launched their latest military campaign against Iran in late February. In early March, the Lebanese government declared all military activities by Hezbollah illegal. The army also set up checkpoints to search vehicles headed south for weapons.

But the idea of the state’s open confrontation with the Iranian-backed militia group prompts fears of a slide back into the bloody anarchy of the 1975-1990 civil war that killed more than 100,000 people and devastated the young nation.

Sectarian tensions are again rising in Lebanon. Last month, Salam criticized the country’s sectarian political system — designed to ensure power sharing between the country’s ethnic and religious groups — as “a source of harm both for the state and for the citizens.”

The state’s forces, while popular, are broadly considered to be weak relative to other regional militaries and non-state actors. Meanwhile, despite its recent setbacks, Hokayem said Hezbollah remains “a very powerful coercive force domestically in Lebanon, where they can punish, intimidate and possibly assassinate their enemies.”

Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said in August that the group would not surrender its weapons to the state, warning there would be “no life in Lebanon” if its arms were taken by force.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see, in addition to communal violence, more targeted hits — including assassinations — inside the country,” Hokayem said of intensifying Hezbollah activity. “If the military, the security forces are not able to prevent that or contain this, then you can easily see a loss of trust in central institutions, which is already very low.”

“Given the trajectory of events, more likely than not the state will weaken despite what some people in Washington say or would like to believe,” he added.

A ‘prolonged’ conflict
Israeli forces are now moving deeper into southern Lebanon, with the Israel Defense Forces having issued a series of “urgent” warnings for the full evacuation of the country south of the Zahrani River, which sits around 36 miles north of the border. That order came on top of an evacuation order for all residents south of the Litani River — 18 miles north of the border — and for all residents in the southern Beirut suburbs.

Human Rights Watch said that more than a million people have been forced to flee their homes — nearly one-fifth of the entire population of the country. More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon in the latest round of fighting, the country’s health ministry said.

Israel’s aggressive policy in Lebanon came after Hezbollah fired on northern Israel on March 2, joining Tehran in its response to the U.S.-Israeli campaign launched against Iran on Feb. 28.

Hezbollah defied assessments it had been substantially weakened by its two-year involvement in the war in Gaza, firing rockets and drones daily toward northern Israel. 

The IDF said this week that Hezbollah had fired over 2,000 projectiles toward Israel so far. That fire has killed four people — two civilians and two soldiers.

IDF Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on March 22 that the Israeli operation “has only just begun,” describing the nascent campaign as “a prolonged operation.” As of March 24, the IDF had destroyed multiple bridges spanning the Litani River.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes in the line of contact villages, to thwart threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah,” referring to Israel’s destruction of Gaza towns during the war on Hamas.

Katz said troops would seize and hold southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to create what he called a “defensive buffer.”

More extreme voices have demanded a permanent occupation. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for example, said the Litani should form “the new Israeli border,” in an echo of longheld ambitions of Israeli ultranationalists.

Lebanon’s president described the destruction of the bridges over the Litani and continued Israeli strikes elsewhere as a “dangerous escalation and flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.” The measures, Aoun said, “are considered a prelude to a ground invasion.”

But there appears little hope of relief from Beirut’s two prime foreign partners — the U.S. and France — Hokayem said. “The Americans essentially have washed their hands of Lebanon,” he said, citing frustration with the government’s inability or unwillingness to rein in Hezbollah.

“In Washington there are people who have this illusion that you can break the back of Hezbollah, if only there was a bit more spine in some in Beirut,” Hokayem said. “It’s very difficult to see that.”

Barbara Leaf, who served as the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs under President Joe Biden, said during the Chatham House event that the U.S. had taken a “hectoring” approach with the new Lebanese government. The message, Leaf said, is, “Take care of Hezbollah, and if not, the Israelis will.”

The U.S. Department of State has urged all Americans in Lebanon — of whom there were around 86,000 in 2022, according to the State Department — to leave the country as soon as possible.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said of the situation in Lebanon, “We’re working on it very hard. We love Lebanon. We love the people of Lebanon, and we’re working very hard.” Hezbollah, he said, “has been a disaster for many years.”

Days later, Trump again said Hezbollah has been “a big problem” that was “rapidly being eliminated” by Israeli military action.

With clear U.S. backing, Israeli leaders appear set on a decisive operation in Lebanon, which forms one theater of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s drive to create what he calls a “new Middle East” shorn of Iranian influence.

Those ambitions will require a long-term presence on Lebanese territory, Yezid Sayigh, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center think tank in Beirut, wrote in early March. “A complementing Lebanese effort is necessary, hence the effort to force the Lebanese government’s hand one way or the other,” he added.

But the ongoing operation may undermine the very partners Israel needs in Beirut, Hokayem said. “A Lebanon in which so much territory is occupied will struggle to enter any kind of genuine peace negotiations with Israel,” he said.

“I don’t think they could be a central authority with enough strength and legitimacy,” he added.

Faced with yet another national crisis, many in Lebanon are pessimistic. The country must consider “the worst-case scenarios,” political scientist Ziad Majed wrote earlier this month.

This means, Majed said, huge destruction in Hezbollah’s heartlands in the south, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut combined with a military occupation blocking hundreds of thousands of displaced people from returning to their homes.

Such a scenario, Majed warned, could “lead to suffocating living crises and social and political tensions that many might exploit for political opportunism, incitement and other forms of sectarian conflict.”

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