Hegseth: US Plans Attacks on Land Against Drug Cartels in Latin Americahttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5306777-hegseth-us-plans-attacks-land-against-drug-cartels-latin-america
Hegseth: US Plans Attacks on Land Against Drug Cartels in Latin America
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Hegseth: US Plans Attacks on Land Against Drug Cartels in Latin America
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
The United States is planning land attacks against drug traffickers in Latin America, expanding an airstrike campaign against presumed drug-running boats in international waters, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in Panama.
Last September President Donald Trump's administration launched a bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, leaving at least 215 people dead. The campaign has been criticized as amounting to extra-judicial killings.
Plans for anti-drug operations on land are on the agenda of an alliance of 19 countries led by Trump that could expand to wherever drug gangs operate, Hegseth told journalists.
According to AFP, he said the United States hopes to deploy forces alongside its allies with "operational capability like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats" in the Caribbean and Pacific.
It will be the "same effect on land, and so we're working with Ecuador, we're working with Colombia, we're working with partners to bring the fight to the DTO's on land," Hegseth said Wednesday night in an unidentified location in the Panamanian jungle, referring to drug trafficking organizations.
He traveled to Panama for annual joint military exercises carried out by over 20 countries.
"Anywhere you traffic drugs or you threaten the American people or our partners, you are a target just like ISIS or Al Qaeda," Hegseth said, wearing an olive-green shirt while surrounded by soldiers.
The Americans Counter Cartel Coalition brings together countries with right-wing governments, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru.
Hegseth said cartels should be "on notice."
Mexico, with a left-leaning government, is not part of the alliance even though it is home to powerful drug cartels.
Hegseth defended the attacks against alleged drug boats, which legal experts and human rights organizations have warned could constitute extrajudicial executions.
"We're going to close with and destroy these networks with every capability of the American government," he warned.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN
British hard-right leader Nigel Farage has won a snap UK election he triggered in Clacton on Friday, comfortably beating satirical opponent Count Binface as was expected, according to results.
Farage, who did not attend the result announcement, received 22,239 votes, electoral officials said, while runner-up Count Binface exceeded expectations with 9,455 votes.
Farage had declared victory in front of a crowd of supporters earlier on Friday, while the vote count was still ongoing, said AFP.
Farage was largely expected to win in the constituency, where he was already an MP and where none of the country's main parties were running.
Farage and Binface both beat a long list of joke candidates, independents and members of fringe political parties.
Candidates on stage at the Clacton Leisure Center, where the count was held, were seen cheering for each other as the results were announced, with many receiving fewer than 100 votes.
Voter turnout in Thursday's election was 44 percent, lower than the 59 percent turnout recorded at the 2024 general election, but not unusual for a by-election.
The result was called just after 6 am (0500 GMT), with officials warning earlier in the night that the vote count would take longer than usual because of the long ballot papers.
Drone Attacks Spark Fire at Russian Energy Export Port of Ust-Lugahttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5306783-drone-attacks-spark-fire-russian-energy-export-port-ust-luga
FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
Drone Attacks Spark Fire at Russian Energy Export Port of Ust-Luga
FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
Firefighters were battling flames on Friday at Russia's Baltic Sea port Ust-Luga, a major energy exports hub, after a fire sparked by a drone attack, regional governor Aleksander Drozdenko said on messaging app Telegram.
More than fifty drones were downed in the Leningrad region, he added, as the region around Ust-Luga, a center for exports of oil and oil products, kept up efforts to repel the attack, Reuters said.
The scale of damage was not immediately clear in the attack, which continues Ukraine's tactics of hitting Russian oil processing and export facilities and grain shipping routes, in an effort to deny revenue to Moscow and force it to end the war.
On Friday, fighter jets shot down a drone that entered the airspace of Latvia, the armed forces of the NATO and European Union member said, while Finland temporarily restricted parts of the Baltic Sea, as a precaution against drone attacks.
Ukraine has struck, sometimes repeatedly, more than a dozen major refineries in Russia, one of the world's largest oil producers, causing a widespread domestic fuel crisis.
The Russian capital of Moscow, home to another big oil processing plant, downed overnight more than a dozen drones heading towards it, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram on Friday.
Sources: US Could Not Verify Israeli Warnings of Iran Plots Against Trumphttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5306763-sources-us-could-not-verify-israeli-warnings-iran-plots-against-trump
Catering trucks are parked at Air Force One on the tarmac as the motorcade carrying US President Donald Trump arrives on the tarmac to depart following the NATO summit at Ankara International Airport in Ankara, Türkiye, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Sources: US Could Not Verify Israeli Warnings of Iran Plots Against Trump
Catering trucks are parked at Air Force One on the tarmac as the motorcade carrying US President Donald Trump arrives on the tarmac to depart following the NATO summit at Ankara International Airport in Ankara, Türkiye, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The US has received several warnings from Israel over the past year that Iran intended to assassinate President Donald Trump, including before a secret Air Force One ruse in Türkiye, that US intelligence officials could not independently verify, according to a current US official and two former officials.
The warnings, passed to US intelligence agencies and in some cases relayed directly by Israeli officials to senior White House officials, included possible plots to shoot Trump with a sniper or recruit someone to attack him with a knife at a large public event, the sources said. The tips began in the lead-up to the 12-day war in June 2025 and intensified prior to the US decision to go to war in Iran in February, the sources said.
The most detailed warning came ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara in July, the US official and the other person familiar with the matter said. Israeli officials briefed the White House about intelligence that indicated Iran may try to kill Trump, potentially with a shoulder-launched missile, while he traveled on Air Force One for the summit, Reuters quoted the officials as saying.
The US intelligence community has long assessed that Iran wants to retaliate for Trump’s killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. But the Central Intelligence Agency has not been able to corroborate some of the specific threats against Trump's life shared by Israeli intelligence since early last year, the officials said.
In the case of the NATO episode, a Turkish official said the country's intelligence agencies also did not have any evidence to corroborate the Israeli claim about the threat to Trump's life, an assessment the host country shared with Americans.
Despite the lack of verification, White House officials and the Secret Service have taken steps to mitigate the threats out of an abundance of caution, including an extraordinary deception operation during the Türkiye trip that involved moving Trump from Air Force One to a different aircraft for his flight out of the country.
That episode underscores how Israeli intelligence is influencing the Trump administration's decision-making about Iran at a time of heightened tensions with Tehran — and broader disagreement between US and Israeli intelligence assessments on Iran's threat overall.
Earlier this year, American intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon, even as Israel argued Tehran posed an urgent threat. Despite the reports from the US intelligence community, Trump moved forward with strikes in Iran in February.
Trump also took into consideration intelligence shared by Israel that Tehran had tried to assassinate him before launching the military campaign, Reuters previously reported.
FILE - President Donald Trump boards Air Force One, Aug. 7, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy disputed that Israel was using its intelligence to influence US policy on Iran.
"The same people who claim that Israel is trying to influence US policy through alleged intelligence sharing would just as soon accuse Israel of concealing critical information if it benefited their own agenda," the spokesperson said.
The White House and CIA both declined comment.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to discuss specific intelligence matters but said the agency remains focused on Trump's security amid recent assassination attempts and an increase in threats against the president. "The US Secret Service continuously analyzes a wide range of information to guide our protective operations in real time and across every location we secure," he said.
The US has long relied heavily on Israeli intelligence on Middle East matters, particularly as they relate to Iran.
The current and former officials said Israeli intelligence on Iran typically flows to the CIA or the National Security Agency through formal channels and is subsequently analyzed, two former US officials said.
The US intelligence agencies often cannot verify Israeli intelligence but will use other forms of information to make judgment calls on its authenticity and accuracy, the officials said.
In several instances over the course of the two US military offensives in Iran, the CIA assessed it had "low confidence" in the Israeli intelligence about the threats posed by Iran, including any plans to assassinate Trump, according to one former official and another person familiar with the matter.
It is unclear how widely those assessments have been circulated inside the administration.
The NSA declined to comment.
Two of the former US officials described to Reuters several instances in which senior Israeli officials and representatives over the last year called the White House, including in the Situation Room, to brief senior Trump officials on Iranian threats directly.
The direct engagement comes amid a breakdown in US intelligence sharing inside the Trump administration.
Last year, amid increased tension with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA stopped working on joint assessments with the National Intelligence Council, the former officials said.
The council is the US intelligence community's elite analytical group overseen by ODNI to turn out reports reflecting the view of the broader intelligence community, with the CIA being the largest contributor to its assessments.
Fewer recent Iran assessments by the NIC have stemmed partly from recent layoffs at ODNI, the officials and another person familiar with the matter added.
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