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Trump Picks Mike Huckabee, Pro-Israel Conservative, as Ambassador

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to the media at Trump Tower in New York City on November 18, 2016. (AFP)
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to the media at Trump Tower in New York City on November 18, 2016. (AFP)
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Trump Picks Mike Huckabee, Pro-Israel Conservative, as Ambassador

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to the media at Trump Tower in New York City on November 18, 2016. (AFP)
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to the media at Trump Tower in New York City on November 18, 2016. (AFP)

President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was nominating former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel, tapping a staunchly pro-Israel conservative whose choice could signal future US policy toward conflicts in the Middle East.

An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. A former Republican presidential hopeful, Huckabee hosted a weekly Fox News TV show for six years ending in 2015.

"There’s no such thing as an occupation," Huckabee said in a 2017 interview with CNN, in which he referred to the West Bank by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.

Evangelicals are an overwhelmingly pro-Israel part of Trump’s base and voted heavily in favor of him in the Nov. 5 election.

Trump's announcement of the nomination drew immediate praise from senior Israeli officials but was likely to be panned by Palestinians, whose nationalist cause Huckabee has denigrated in the past.

"He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!" Trump said in a statement.

Huckabee, 69, would take on one of Washington's most sensitive diplomatic posts at a time when Israel is fighting the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and the Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon while facing off against regional arch-foe Iran.

Huckabee has criticized President Joe Biden for pressuring Israel to moderate its conduct of the Gaza war and has opposed the current Democratic administration's calls for a ceasefire there.

"If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas," Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.

ISRAELI OFFICIALS HAIL NOMINATION

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies celebrated the election of Trump, a staunch but sometimes unpredictable ally of Israel. In his first term the Republican president-elect delivered major wins for the Israeli leader.

Members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which includes pro-settler parties that oppose Palestinian statehood, hailed Huckabee's nomination.

"I look forward to working with you to strengthen the bond between our peoples," Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X. "As a longstanding friend of Israel and our eternal capital Jerusalem - I hope you will feel very much at home."

Trump has strongly backed Netanyahu's goal of destroying Hamas but has called for Israel to finish the job quickly. He has promised to bring peace to the Middle East but has not said how.

If his first term is any indication, Trump is likely to pursue a strongly pro-Israel approach, going even beyond the solid support given by Biden to Washington's top regional ally.

Huckabee, who has led evangelical tours to Israel for years, has been a supporter of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state that would include the Gaza Strip.

Most of the international community views as illegal the settlements on the West Bank land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Huckabee served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007. He fell short in bids for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and 2016.

His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is the current governor of Arkansas. She served as Trump's White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.

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World

Back From Iran, Pakistani Students Say They Heard Gunshots While Confined to Campus

A Pakistani medical student Arslan Haider waits at the airport after arriving from Tehran on a commercial flight amid the ongoing nationwide protests in Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, January 15, 2026. (Reuters)
A Pakistani medical student Arslan Haider waits at the airport after arriving from Tehran on a commercial flight amid the ongoing nationwide protests in Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, January 15, 2026. (Reuters)
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Back From Iran, Pakistani Students Say They Heard Gunshots While Confined to Campus

A Pakistani medical student Arslan Haider waits at the airport after arriving from Tehran on a commercial flight amid the ongoing nationwide protests in Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, January 15, 2026. (Reuters)
A Pakistani medical student Arslan Haider waits at the airport after arriving from Tehran on a commercial flight amid the ongoing nationwide protests in Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, January 15, 2026. (Reuters)

Pakistani students returning from Iran on Thursday said they heard gunshots and stories of rioting and violence while being confined to campus and not allowed out of their dormitories in the evening.

Iran's leadership is trying to quell the worst domestic unrest since its 1979 revolution, with a rights group putting the death toll over 2,600.

As the protests swell, Tehran is seeking to deter US President Donald Trump's repeated threats to intervene on behalf of anti-government protesters.

"During ‌nighttime, we would ‌sit inside and we would hear gunshots," Shahanshah ‌Abbas, ⁠a fourth-year ‌student at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, said at the Islamabad airport.

"The situation down there is that riots have been happening everywhere. People are dying. Force is being used."

Abbas said students at the university were not allowed to leave campus and told to stay in their dormitories after 4 p.m.

"There was nothing happening on campus," Abbas said, but in his interactions with Iranians, he ⁠heard stories of violence and chaos.

"The surrounding areas, like banks, mosques, they were damaged, set on fire ... ‌so things were really bad."

Trump has repeatedly ‍threatened to intervene in support of protesters ‍in Iran but adopted a wait-and-see posture on Thursday after protests appeared ‍to have abated. Information flows have been hampered by an internet blackout for a week.

"We were not allowed to go out of the university," said Arslan Haider, a student in his final year. "The riots would mostly start later in the day."

Haider said he was unable to contact his family due to the blackout but "now that they opened international calls, the students are ⁠getting back because their parents were concerned".

A Pakistani diplomat in Tehran said the embassy was getting calls from many of the 3,500 students in Iran to send messages to their families back home.

"Since they don't have internet connections to make WhatsApp and other social network calls, what they do is they contact the embassy from local phone numbers and tell us to inform their families."

Rimsha Akbar, who was in the middle of her final year exams at Isfahan, said international students were kept safe.

"Iranians would tell us if we are talking on Snapchat or if we were riding in a cab ... ‌that shelling had happened, tear gas had happened, and that a lot of people were killed."

World

Bomb Hoax Forces Turkish Airlines to Make Emergency Landing in Barcelona

A Turkish Airlines aircraft after landing at El Prat airport, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 15 January 2026, after Spanish security forces where alerted due to a bomb threat on board the aircraft. (EPA)
A Turkish Airlines aircraft after landing at El Prat airport, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 15 January 2026, after Spanish security forces where alerted due to a bomb threat on board the aircraft. (EPA)
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Bomb Hoax Forces Turkish Airlines to Make Emergency Landing in Barcelona

A Turkish Airlines aircraft after landing at El Prat airport, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 15 January 2026, after Spanish security forces where alerted due to a bomb threat on board the aircraft. (EPA)
A Turkish Airlines aircraft after landing at El Prat airport, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 15 January 2026, after Spanish security forces where alerted due to a bomb threat on board the aircraft. (EPA)

A false bomb threat delivered via an onboard mobile connection caused a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to make an emergency landing at Barcelona's El Prat Airport on Thursday, Spanish police and the airline ‌said.

A Turkish ‌Airlines spokesperson ‌said ⁠earlier that ‌the plane had landed after crew detected that a passenger had created an in-flight internet hotspot which was named to include a bomb threat as the aircraft approached ⁠Barcelona.

Spain's Guardia Civil police force said ‌in a statement ‍that following a ‍thorough inspection of the aircraft ‍after its passengers had disembarked, the alert had been deactivated and no explosives had been found. Spanish airport operator AENA said El Prat was operating normally.

Police have launched ⁠an investigation to determine who was behind the hoax, the statement added.

Türkiye's flag carrier has faced previous incidents of hoax threats, usually made via written messages, that led to emergency landings over the years.

World

US Sanctions Iranian Officials Over Protest Crackdown

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent watches as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent watches as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
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US Sanctions Iranian Officials Over Protest Crackdown

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent watches as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent watches as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP)

The United States imposed sanctions Thursday on Iranian security officials and financial networks, accusing them of orchestrating a violent crackdown on peaceful protests and laundering billions in oil revenues.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the measures in the wake of the biggest anti-government protests in the history of the republic, although the demonstrations appear to have diminished over the last few days in the face of repression and an almost week-long internet blackout.

"The United States stands firmly behind the Iranian people in their call for freedom and justice," Bessent said in a statement, adding that the action was taken at President Donald Trump's direction.

Among those sanctioned is Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme Council for National Security, whom Washington accused of coordinating the crackdown and calling for force against protesters.

Four regional commanders of Iran's Law Enforcement Forces and Revolutionary Guard were also sanctioned for their roles in the crackdown in Lorestan and Fars provinces.

Security forces in Fars "have killed countless peaceful demonstrators" with hospitals "so inundated with gunshot wound patients that no other types of patients can be admitted," the Treasury said.

The Treasury additionally designated 18 individuals and entities accused of operating "shadow banking" networks that launder proceeds from Iranian oil sales through front companies in the UAE, Singapore and Britain.

These networks funnel billions of dollars annually using cover companies and exchange houses, as Iranian citizens face economic hardship, according to the Treasury.

The sanctions freeze any US assets of those designated and prohibit Americans from doing business with them. Foreign financial institutions risk secondary sanctions for transactions with the designated entities.

The action builds on the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. In 2025, the Treasury sanctioned more than 875 persons, vessels and aircraft as part of this effort, it said.