US carries out defensive airstrikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island: Officials
Large cargo and tanker ships at Shahid Rajai port from Qeshm island pier, Persian Gulf, Iran (Germã¡n Vogel/Getty Images)
The United States carried out defensive strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, two U.S. officials told ABC News.
The airstrikes do not signal the resumption of major combat operations against Iran, but were the latest limited strike carried out by U.S. forces in recent weeks, an official said. In recent weeks, Iran has increased the number of attacks directed at commercial ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.
Unlike previous strikes in response to such attacks, the U.S. airstrikes in recent weeks had not been publicized to prevent any signaling that the strikes were part of the resumption of major combat operations against Iran, according to the official.
First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the airstrikes were limited in scope and characterized as defensive strikes, the two U.S. officials said. The term defensive strikes has been used to describe the retaliatory strikes carried out by the U.S. in response to Iranian attacks on shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Monday’s U.S. airstrikes on Qeshm Island were in response to an Iranian attack on a U.S. aircraft, said one official.
Earlier in the day, Iran had claimed that it had shot down two RQ-170 reconnaissance drones, a claim that was said to be false by a U.S. official.
Iranian state media later reported several explosions being heard on Qeshm Island.
U.S. Central Command did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment about Monday’s defensive strikes.
Atop the Acropolis ancient hill with Parthenon temple during a heat wave on July 20, 2023 in Athens, Greece. (Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
(ATHENS, Greece) — Two Greek-American tourists were rushed to the hospital Tuesday morning after they were stabbed outside the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
The incident occurred at approximately 8:05 a.m., just after the Acropolis Museum’s opening, police said.
Prior to the incident, an individual brandishing a knife outside the museum’s entrance was threatening pedestrians, prompting a bystander to place an emergency call to authorities, according to eyewitnesses and authorities.
Before law enforcement arrived, the assailant stabbed a couple, a 53-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman. The male victim suffered severe blood loss, police said.
The male victim’s injuries required urgent care due to blood loss, but both victims are reported to be in stable condition. The female victim suffered minor injuries to her hands and legs.
Police have taken a 60-year-old suspect into custody.
The rapid-response unit within the Hellenic Police and the Athens Police Directorate immobilized and disarmed the suspect, detaining the individual on the scene.
Soldiers rescue a worker alive from a tunnel during an ongoing operation at the Trishuli-3A hydropower project in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, Sept. 4, 2026. (Nepal Army)
LONDON — Two people have been rescued from a hydropower tunnel at the Trishuli 3A construction site, Nepal’s Army confirmed Friday after posting videos and images from the scene on Facebook.
Nepalese lawmaker Shri Ram Neupane, an engineer who has been involved in the search operations, also posted about the two rescues on his Facebook page, including photos and videos from the scene.
He identified the two workers rescued as Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan.
In an earlier Facebook post, Neupane said rescuers had heard voices from people trapped inside the tunnel.
“It has been confirmed that more than one person’s voice has been heard from inside,” Neupane wrote in the post. “When the rescue team said, ‘Don’t panic, we are rescuing,’ a response of ‘yes’ was received from inside.”
After being rescued, Sah, a mechanical foreman, said in a video published by the Nepali Army on Friday that his responsibility was to save the lives of the others in the tunnel because he was in the control room.
“I told everyone that there was a big accident on the big dam, and asked everyone to run and in the end, I ran out of time and could not run out,” Sah said in the video, which was translated from Nepali.
At least 557 workers are missing from the Trishuli 3A hydropower projects along the Trishuli River, with about 115 believed to be trapped in the tunnel, according to the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal.
Nepal’s Communication Minister Bikram Timilsina said officials remain hopeful that more workers will be rescued. “We are waiting for the rescue of more and more people,” Timilsina wrote on his Facebook page.
Sah said there seemed to be three or four more people still stuck in the tunnel, and possibly even more, as the tunnel is long and some may have been swept deeper inside.
Holding onto hope, Sah said he was chanting mantras while he was trapped.
The death toll following last week’s unprecedented flash flood at the Nepal-Tibet border has climbed to 1,287, with an additional 4,216 people believed to still be missing as of Thursday, officials said.
Those figures increased from 1,114 deaths and 3,916 missing people, respectively, a day earlier, according to Nepal’s National Disaster Management Authority.
Chinese state media have reported an additional 16 deaths and 546 missing people in Tibet, bringing the total death toll to 1,268 and the number of missing people on both sides of the border to 4,762.
Relief and rescue efforts are continuing, with almost all communication towers restored and nearly 12,000 people rescued through international and domestic aid.
Additionally, almost 21,500 security personnel have been mobilized in an effort to speed up search and rescue operations, with more than 5,000 people receiving treatment for injuries, officials said.
Nepali Prime Minister Shah said earlier this week that his government would begin focusing on “rehabilitation” as the length of time since the initial disaster grows.
