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This is VOA News. I'm Joe Ramsey.
An Iranian plot to kill former U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have centered on a Pakistani man with ties to Tehran who hoped to also target other high-profile politicians and officials. VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin has more. Charging documents unsealed Tuesday say 46-year-old Asif Merchant spent two weeks in Iran before flying to the United States in April, looking for help to target multiple government officials and politicians. And while the papers never identify which U.S. officials were on Merchant's hit list, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said in a statement that this case was the one that prompted the U.S. Secret Service to enhance security for former President Donald Trump. U.S. officials arrested Merchant in July 12, a day before an unrelated assassination attempt targeting Trump during a campaign rally in Western Pennsylvania. Jeff Seldin, VOA News, Washington. U.S. Vice President and Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris's running mate, state of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, made his first campaign appearance on Tuesday. "... violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That's not even counting the crimes he committed." Harris announced her choice of Walz earlier in the day, opting for a vice presidential running mate with executive experience, military service and a track record of winning over rural white voters who have gravitated to Trump over the years. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus was named chief adviser of Bangladesh's interim government on Tuesday, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising. This is VOA News. New details are emerging on the rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq. AP correspondent Lisa Dwyer reports. U.S. officials say five U.S. service members and two contractors were injured when two rockets hit a military base in Iraq Monday. Five of those injured are being treated at the Al Asad Airbase and two were evacuated, but all seven are reportedly in stable condition. The rocket attack is the latest in what's been an uptick in strikes on U.S. forces by Iranian-backed militias. Between last October and January, an umbrella group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq regularly claimed attacks it said were in retaliation for Washington's support of Israel in its war against Hamas and Gaza and were aimed at pushing U.S. troops out of the region. I'm Lisa Dwyer. Hamas named its Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, as successor to former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week, the terrorist group said on Tuesday, in a move that reinforces the radical path pursued since the October 7 attack on Israel. Sinwar, the architect of the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, has been in hiding in Gaza, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of the war. News of the appointment, which came as Israel braces for a response to the killing of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, was greeted with a salvo of rockets from Gaza from the bands of militants still fighting Israeli troops in the besieged enclave. A Chinese American man has been convicted of giving China intelligence on dissidents. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports. A Chinese American scholar has been convicted of U.S. charges of using his reputation as a pro-democracy activist and the founder of a pro-democracy group in New York City to gather information on Chinese dissidents and feed it to his homeland's government. A federal jury in New York delivered its verdict Tuesday in the case of Shujun Wang. Prosecutors say Wang lived a double life for over a decade at the behest of China's main intelligence agency. He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers portrayed him as a gregarious academic with nothing to hide. Julie Walker, New York. Elon Musk's social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging a "massive advertiser boycott" deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws. It accuses the group of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies. I'm Joe Ramsey. |