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US Extends Carrier Deployment After Syria Attack

USS George H.W. Bush supercarrier of the United States Navy ( US Army)
USS George H.W. Bush supercarrier of the United States Navy ( US Army)
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US Extends Carrier Deployment After Syria Attack

USS George H.W. Bush supercarrier of the United States Navy ( US Army)
USS George H.W. Bush supercarrier of the United States Navy ( US Army)

The United States has decided to extend the deployment of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group to provide options to policymakers after last week's deadly attacks in Syria by Iran-backed forces, US military officials said on Friday.

The decision likely means the Bush strike group and its more than 5,000 US forces, which are now in the European Command operational area, will not be returning to home port in the United States on schedule.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Colonel Joe Buccino confirmed the carrier group's extension, Reuters reported.

"The extension of the George HW Bush Carrier Strike Group, inclusive of the USS Leyte Gulf, the USS Delbert D. Black, and the USNS Arctic, allows options to potentially bolster the capabilities of CENTCOM to respond to a range of contingencies in the Middle East," Buccino said in a statement.

Buccino also noted a scheduled, expedited deployment of a squadron of A-10 attack aircraft to the region.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Bush strike group was expected to remain in the European Command area of responsibility.

News of the deployment came a day after the Pentagon doubled its tally of the number of American troops wounded in last week's attacks in Syria to 12, following the diagnosis of six US military personnel with traumatic brain injuries.

The attacks also killed an American contractor and injured another.

President Joe Biden warned Iran last week that the United States would act forcefully to protect Americans. The Pentagon has estimated eight militants were killed during retaliatory US airstrikes against two Iran-linked facilities in Syria during the tit-for-tat exchanges triggered by the first March 23 attack against a US base near the Syrian city of Hasakah.

The White House said on Monday that the incidents would not trigger a US pullback from the nearly eight-year-old US deployment to Syria, where American troops and local Kurdish-led partners are battling the remnants of ISIS.

Still, the United States has formally prioritized in its national security policies Russia, Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific above the Middle East after two decades of US intervention in the region during its global war against terrorism.

That has led to an overall decline in US military personnel and assets in the Middle East.

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World

China Says Japan-India Cooperation ‘Should Not Target’ Beijing

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prior to their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, 02 July 2026. (EPA)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prior to their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, 02 July 2026. (EPA)
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China Says Japan-India Cooperation ‘Should Not Target’ Beijing

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prior to their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, 02 July 2026. (EPA)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prior to their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, 02 July 2026. (EPA)

China said on Friday that cooperation between India and Japan "should not target" Beijing, after the leaders of the other two countries agreed to work more closely on critical minerals.

The strategic commodities, which are used in everything from electric vehicles and smartphones to jet engines and guided missiles, featured prominently during talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan's Sanae Takaichi in New Delhi on Thursday.

Asked about the meeting, China's foreign ministry said countries should work to "foster understanding and trust".

"Cooperation between nations... should not target or harm the interests of third parties, let alone serve as a pretext for forming exclusive cliques or stoking confrontation," spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a news conference.

The relationship between Beijing and Tokyo has become more turbulent since Takaichi suggested in November that a potential future attack on Taiwan -- the self-ruled island claimed by China -- could warrant Japanese military involvement.

Chinese authorities have responded in part by restricting flows to Japan of rare earths, a sector China dominates globally in both mining and processing.

Modi said after his talks with Takaichi that the countries had agreed to "strengthen supply chain resilience in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, quantum technologies and critical minerals".

Takaichi warned that Japan and India were facing challenges including "weaponization of the economy and non-market policies and practices".

This week, China's commerce ministry added 20 Japanese entities to an export blacklist on the basis that they had boosted Tokyo's military capabilities.

Japan called the latest move "unacceptable and deeply regrettable", demanding its reversal.

World

Researchers Say EU Lawmaker Who Investigated Surveillance Was Hacked by Israeli Spyware

Logo of Israel's NSO Group, owner of the Pegasus spyware, on a smartphone placed on a keyboard. (Reuters)
Logo of Israel's NSO Group, owner of the Pegasus spyware, on a smartphone placed on a keyboard. (Reuters)
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Researchers Say EU Lawmaker Who Investigated Surveillance Was Hacked by Israeli Spyware

Logo of Israel's NSO Group, owner of the Pegasus spyware, on a smartphone placed on a keyboard. (Reuters)
Logo of Israel's NSO Group, owner of the Pegasus spyware, on a smartphone placed on a keyboard. (Reuters)

A former member of the European Parliament who served on a committee investigating abusive surveillance was himself hacked using an Israeli-made spy tool, a Canadian tech watchdog group said on Friday.

Citizen Lab said in a report that the phone of Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek television journalist-turned-lawmaker, was hacked at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023 using Pegasus spyware, a tool distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group.

At the time of the targeting, Kouloglou was serving on the European Parliament's PEGA Committee, which was set up in 2022 to examine the use of illegal phone hacking across the European Union. The committee focused mainly on ‌the use of ‌Pegasus and similar tools, finding that governments across the EU likely used spyware, "in ‌one ⁠way or another, ⁠some legitimate, some illegitimate."

Kouloglou said he was astonished at the audacity of whoever was behind the hacking.

"I was not expecting that a PEGA member would be spied on by Pegasus," he told Reuters. "I was not expecting that they would be as reckless as that."

NSO did not return messages seeking comment.

In a statement to Reuters, the European Parliament did not directly address Kouloglou's case but said its IT security services "constantly monitor cybersecurity threats as well as potential cyberattacks against its working environment."

It said spyware screening tools ⁠had been available to all lawmakers since 2022 and that a report ‌adopted last month called for their extension to all devices ‌used for parliamentary business.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive branch, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

NSO has ‌said its spy tools are used to police serious crime and to protect national security, ‌but the company has repeatedly been accused of facilitating intrusive surveillance of journalists, political opponents, civil rights activists and religious figures around the world. NSO was blacklisted by the US government in 2021 over human rights and national security concerns.

Last year, WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms won a $168 million damages award against NSO for unlawfully hacking the ‌platform, although the award was significantly reduced. Last month, Meta accused NSO of violating the court's injunction on targeting its services and filed for ⁠a contempt order.

Citizen Lab ⁠said it believed that Kouloglou had been hacked through a vulnerability in Apple software that was not known at the time. It said Kouloglou received repeated warnings about state-sponsored hacking attempts from Apple in 2023 and 2024. Citizen Lab did not identify who actually used Pegasus to target the former lawmaker, but it linked some of the hacking activity to earlier discoveries that Pegasus was used to spy on Russian- and Belarusian-speaking journalists and activists in exile. Apple did not directly address questions about Kouloglu, but said the vulnerability referred to in the Citizen Lab report had since been patched and that it regularly issued alerts to hacking targets.

Sophie in 't Veld, a former EU lawmaker who championed the PEGA committee's creation, said the hacking of Kouloglou's phone showed how the spread of mercenary spyware had created a surveillance free-for-all.

"We're in a situation where anybody could spy on anyone and they're spying on citizens, they're spying on journalists, they're spying on NGOs, on lawyers, on politicians, and nobody knows who's behind it," she said.

World

Man Dies after Setting Self Ablaze Outside UN in New York

A man self-immolates outside the United Nations headquarters in New York (Reuters)
A man self-immolates outside the United Nations headquarters in New York (Reuters)
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Man Dies after Setting Self Ablaze Outside UN in New York

A man self-immolates outside the United Nations headquarters in New York (Reuters)
A man self-immolates outside the United Nations headquarters in New York (Reuters)

A man died after setting himself on fire outside the UN's headquarters in New York on Thursday, police said, with activists and reports identifying him as a pro-Tibet campaigner.

The New York Police Department told AFP that "at 1832 (2232 GMT) NYPD received a call... a male set himself on fire at First Avenue and 42nd Street. He was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. Investigations ongoing." No motive was given.

A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement to AFP: "We are saddened by this tragic and horrific incident, and offer our condolences to his family."

US media and a pro-Tibet activist said the individual was a pro-Tibet campaigner, though investigators did not confirm this claim.

Tencho Gyatso, President of the International Campaign for Tibet, named the deceased man as Lobga Rangzen.

"Lobga was a tireless advocate for Tibet who devoted himself to peacefully raising awareness of the human rights crisis in Tibet," Gyatso said in a statement to AFP.