US citizen arrested by Chinese government on espionage charges
The skyline of the Central Business District is seen on May 13, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A U.S. citizen was arrested in China on espionage charges, according to Chinese officials.
U Min Zin was “lawfully subjected to criminal compulsory measures by the relevant authorities on suspicion of engaging in espionage activities that endanger China’s national security Chinese foreign ministry,” spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters Friday during a news conference.
Lin did not provide any more details about the charges or the investigation into Min Zin, who has been a longtime scholar on the politics of Myanmar. The spokesperson said the Chinese government notified the U.S. consulate general in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
A State Department official told ABC News in a statement Friday that the department is aware of the reports of the arrest.
“The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans. Whenever a U.S. citizen is detained, we work to provide the appropriate consular assistance. However, under federal privacy law, we are unable to comment further at this time,” the official said.
Min Zin took part in the democracy movement in Burma, Myanmar’s former name, in the late 80s and fled the country in 1989 to avoid arrest, according to a bio on his blog.
He is the executive director of the think tank, The Institute for Strategy and Policy (Myanmar), and has written several publications about Myanmar’s politics.
Min Zin was scheduled to speak at an event in Nepal this month hosted by the Centre for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy, the think tank announced in May.
ABC News’ Shannon Kingston contributed to this report.
A man sweeps up debris near a residential building that was hit in an airstrike in the early hours of March 27, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kicked off their joint military campaign against Iran in late February, urging the fall of the Islamic Republic.
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump said, addressing Iranians in announcing the start of “major combat operations.”
A month of unrelenting combined U.S.-Israeli strikes appears to have significantly eroded Iran’s military capabilities and killed many of its most senior leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died alongside dozens of top Iranian officials in a series of airstrikes on his official residence in Tehran in the opening salvos of the war.
But despite Trump’s assertion that the “war has been won,” Iranian forces continue to launch attacks on Israel, regional U.S. bases and American partners across the Middle East, while commercial shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains constrained, with large numbers of cargo vessels in limbo on either side of the narrow waterway at the southern entrance to the Persian Gulf.
Trump has also asserted that there had been “complete regime change,” with the leaders the U.S. is now dealing with in recently announced negotiations “more moderate” and “much more reasonable,” the president told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.
Trump named Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful speaker of the Iranian parliament, as the direct U.S. negotiating partner, though Ghalibaf has denied the assertion.
But in Tehran, the cadre of officials – Ghalibaf among them – emerging to take the reins of power appear as committed as the slain figures they are replacing, many of them veterans of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), analysts have said.
The regime in Tehran, according to Danny Citrinowicz – the Israel Defense Forces’ former top Iran researcher, now at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank in Israel – “is weaker than it was before the conflict, but it is also more radical. The IRGC has further consolidated its influence over decision-making, eroding what little internal balance once existed within the regime.”
The war appears to have given Tehran long-term leverage over the Strait of Hormuz – a “weapon of mass disruption,” as described by Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group during an online briefing hosted by the think tank this week.
If the Islamic Republic survives the war, and its immediate aftermath by suppressing simmering anti-regime movements, its new leaders may be emboldened to retain perceived strategic advantages, chief among them control of the Strait of Hormuz, analysts who spoke to ABC News said.
That regime sentiment seems to be crystalizing. Ghalibaf, for example, told the IRNA state news agency that Iran’s strategy now rests on its control of three pillars: “missiles, the streets, and the Strait.”
Inside Iran, some sense that shift. Darius – who did not wish to use his real name for fear of reprisal – told ABC News from Tehran of a growing sentiment that “the source of legitimacy for the Islamic republic is shifting” from the clerical establishment to the IRGC.
“Now, the de facto leaders of the country are the generals in the IRGC. And they are actually running the show at the moment,” Darius said.
IRGC ascendant
The IRGC was formed shortly after the Iranian Revolution by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, ultimately emerging as the new Islamic Republic’s primary tool for projecting its ideology and influence beyond its own borders.
The IRGC entrenched and expanded its power during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. With its battlefield exploits and ideological zeal, the IRGC came to embody the wartime concept of “sacred defense,” Johns Hopkins University professor Vali Nasr wrote in his recent book, “Iran’s Grand Strategy.”
Observers have long considered the IRGC to be the most powerful military, political and economic institution in Iran.
Even before the most recent U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, many experts warned that decapitation strikes or a push for regime change risked empowering the IRGC to seize the state’s other mechanisms of power – though others suggested the force had no need to openly seize control, given its de facto hold over the country.
The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, served in an elite IRGC unit during the Iran-Iraq War, and analysts have suggested his candidacy was strongly supported by the force.
Mojtaba Khamenei’s newly appointed military adviser, Mohsen Rezaei, was drawn from the senior ranks of the IRGC, as was the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who was selected to replace Ali Larijani when the latter was killed by Israeli airstrikes in mid-March.
Meanwhile, IRGC veteran Ghalibaf – who has reportedly long been close to Mojtaba Khamenei – remains alive and appears to be in a position of influence, one of the few top prewar officials to have survived the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
Inside Iran, some sense that shift. Darius told ABC News from Tehran of a growing sentiment that “the source of legitimacy for the Islamic republic is shifting” from the clerical establishment to the IRGC.
“Now, the de facto leaders of the country are the generals in the IRGC. And they are actually running the show at the moment,” Darius said.
Reading the ‘mosaic’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi credited a “mosaic defense” strategy with enabling the Iranian military to launch retaliatory strikes despite the killing of so many senior military officials in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
That decentralized approach also appeared to cause some tactical confusion. Araghchi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, for example, both denied Iranian responsibility for several reported Iranian drone and missile attacks in the region in the days after the war erupted.
A decapitated regime in Tehran may pose challenges to American negotiators seeking a peace deal, Citrinowicz said, telling ABC News that the killings have created a “worse” strategic situation by dispersing power.
The centralized decision-making power enjoyed by Ali Khamenei is no more, he said. “Now, how are you going to work with them? It’s going to be very hard to reach an agreement with them,” Citrinowicz said, referring to the newly emergent group of leaders.
Trump himself appeared to acknowledge a diffusion of power in Iran as a result of the American-Israeli assassination campaign. “We have nobody to talk to, and you know what, we like it that way,” the president said earlier this month.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told “Good Morning America” this week there are “fractures” within the Iranian leadership, though he would not say with whom the administration is in contact.
Yossi Kuperwasser – the former head of the IDF’s military intelligence research division – told ABC News that the emergence of hardliners “was to be expected.”
“Once you eliminate Khamenei, he’s not going to be replaced by some wishy-washy character, but somebody who is committed to the cause and the IRGC is going to be in charge,” Kuperwasser said.
But Kuperwasser also noted that figures currently touted as Iranian negotiators, such as Ghalibaf, might not live to see the end of the war. Indeed, Larijani was often noted as among the prime negotiating candidates before his killing. “I’d guess there are going to be more eliminations,” Kuperwasser said.
As the war progressed, both U.S. and Israeli officials have distanced themselves from earlier suggestions of regime change. Instead, officials refocused the strategic narrative on their ambitions to degrade Iran’s conventional military – especially ballistic missile – and nuclear programs.
These targets, according to Kuperwasser, were always the Israeli priority.
“Simultaneously, we are trying to weaken the regime so as to create the conditions that can be used by the people of Iran in order to promote something that can bring about the removal of the regime from power,” Kuperwasser said. But that will not necessarily occur in the short term, he added.
‘Missiles, the street, the strait’
Citrinowicz said that whatever structure emerges to negotiate with the Trump administration will likely be influenced toward more hardline demands by the killing of its predecessors.
On the nuclear file, too, “it goes without saying” that Tehran’s outlook will have shifted, Citrinowicz said. Before the war, Iranian leaders had already publicly committed not to pursue nuclear weapons, though Tehran was refusing to accept Trump’s demands of zero enrichment. Now, Citrinowicz said, the new Iranian leadership “might find themselves rushing toward a bomb.”
Iran also has more leverage in the Strait of Hormuz than it did before the conflict, even with the significant military degradation that the U.S. and Israel appear to have inflicted. Officials in Tehran have suggested that Iranian control over the strait – and the requirement for those transiting it to coordinate with Tehran and pay tolls – is the new baseline.
Rubio hinted at long-term disruption in the Persian Gulf last week. “Immediately after this thing ends, and we’re done with our objectives, the immediate challenge we’re going to face is an Iran that may decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said.
Hamidreza Azizi of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs think tank said during the Crisis Group briefing that Tehran will be set on a conclusive settlement, not merely a ceasefire that would allow the U.S. and Israel to rearm and resume the conflict at a later date, as was the case after the 12-day conflict in June.
“Deep inside Iran’s strategic thinking, there is an understanding that ceasefires are only a means for the United States and Israel to buy time,” Azizi said. While before the conflict, Tehran appeared willing to make concessions on the nuclear file and other issues, now Iranian leaders see an opportunity to achieve what they were unable to across years of negotiations.
The endgame, Azizi said, could be one in which Iran preserves “some sort of leverage” over the Strait of Hormuz or secures “substantial sanctions removal.”
For its part, Citrinowicz said the U.S. appears to be scrambling. “There are so many people in the U.S. that understand this regime, but the administration is behaving like it’s Venezuela. It’s crazy,” Citrinowicz said, referring to the American operation in January to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and support his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, as Maduro’s successor.
Last week, the U.S. delivered 15-point plan to end the war, which was widely interpreted as a blueprint for Tehran’s capitulation. Iranian demands are likewise maximalist, calling for reparations and for the U.S. to abandon its regional bases.
“Nobody’s getting their wish list,” Dalia Dassa Kaye of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations said during this week’s Crisis Group briefing.
In the meantime, the battlefield costs will rise and geopolitical implications deepen across the Middle East. “Even if this ends tomorrow,” Kaye said, the costs have already been paid. “It’s going to take years to recuperate the damage.”
“This is not something you put back in a box,” he added.
ABC News’ Desiree Adib and Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
Boat off the Dhigurah island coastline with its long white sand beach lined with palm trees in the Maldives (@Didier Marti/Getty Images)
(MALDIVES) Five Italian nationals, including a mother and her daughter, died while scuba diving in a deep underwater cave in the Maldives, according to Italian and Maldivian officials, as a risky search effort attempts to recover the remaining missing divers.
The body of one of the divers has since been recovered in a cave about 200 feet deep, authorities said. The remaining four divers are believed to be inside the 200-foot-long cave, according to the Maldives National Defense Force.
Additional divers and special equipment were being sent to the area Friday for the “very dangerous, high-risk operation,” it said. The search was suspended Friday due to bad weather and the recovery operation is expected to resume on Saturday, The Associated Press reported.
Maldivian presidential spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef extended his “deepest condolences” to the people of Italy following the “tragic diving incident” in a statement on Friday. He said the search for the four remaining divers “remains our highest priority.”
Italy’s Foreign Ministry said the five Italian nationals died in a scuba diving accident. They were reported to have died “while attempting to explore caves at a depth of 50 meters,” it said.
“The reconstruction of the incident is still underway by the Maldivian authorities,” the ministry said.
The Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and the University of Genoa (UniGe) identified the deceased divers as Monica Montefalcone, a marine scientist and associate professor at UniGe; her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, a UniGe biomedical engineering student; Muriel Oddenino, a UniGe research fellow; and marine biologist Federico Gualtieril, a recent UniGe graduate in marine biology and ecology.
The institute also identified one of the victims as diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti.
Montefalcone had won multiple awards for her work to study and protect the marine environment, the institute said.
The Italian ambassador from the embassy in Colombo arrived in the Maldives on Friday to meet with Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard officials, the ministry said.
The Italian Embassy in Colombo is in contact with the victims’ families and is providing assistance to 20 other Italian nationals aboard the Duke of Yoke who participated in the expedition, the ministry said.
“The vessel is awaiting an improvement in weather conditions in order to return to Malé,” the ministry said Friday.
Ukrainian firefighters evacuate an elderly woman from the scene of an attack as Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv overnight on Monday, killing at least ten people and heavily damaging apartment buildings on July 6, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — A large Russian drone and missile strike on Kyiv killed at least 18 people and injured dozens in the Ukrainian capital and surrounding region overnight, local officials said, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy again appealing to foreign partners to ramp up the delivery of key anti-missile ammunition.
The Ukrainian air force said in posts to Telegram that Russia launched 68 missiles — among them 23 ballistic missiles — and 351 drones into the country overnight.
The air force said that 37 missiles and 326 drones were shot down or otherwise suppressed, with impacts of 29 missiles and 18 drones reported across 34 locations.
The capital bore the brunt of Russia’s latest overnight strike, officials said. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in posts to Telegram that at least 12 people were killed and 46 people were injured, of which at least 26 were hospitalized.
A further six people were killed and 26 people injured across the wider Kyiv region, according to regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk.
Klitschko reported damage in the Obolonskyi, Holosiivskyi, Podilskyi and Darnytskyi districts of the capital. In Podilskyi and Darnytskyi, the mayor said that rescue teams were searching for additional victims under the rubble of destroyed residential buildings.
Zelenskyy said in posts to social media that Ukrainian forces defending against the “massive Russian attack” intercepted many drones and cruise missiles, but not the more advanced ballistic weapons.
“The reason for this is precisely the insufficient supply of interceptor missiles. It is very important that the world, especially America and our European partners, come out of the NATO summit in Ankara with strong decisions to support our defense of the sky, and hence, the protection of ordinary people’s lives,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“As long as the missiles for the Patriots remain in the warehouses of allies, this only encourages Russia to continue destroying residential buildings,” the Ukrainian president added, referring to the American-made Patriot surface-to-air missile system which Kyiv often uses to intercept Russian missiles.
“The U.S. and Europe have enough power to stop this terror,” he added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, described the overnight attack in a post to Telegram as “a massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons of land, air and sea-based systems, as well as with strike drones.”
The ministry claimed to have targeted military-industrial and energy facilities in Kyiv, plus military airfield infrastructure.
The Defense Ministry also reported that its forces intercepted at least 625 Ukrainian drones overnight and into Monday.
Moscow was among the targets of the latest wave of Ukrainian long-range attacks, the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram. The mayor said that at least 15 Ukrainian drones were shot down en route to the capital since midnight on Sunday.
ABC News’ Natalia Popova, Natalia Kushnir and Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
