Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Iran behind drone attack on US outpost in Syria, officials say
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say they believe Iran was behind the drone attack last week at the military outpost in southern Syria where American troops are based.
Officials said Monday that the U.S. believes that Iran resourced and encouraged the attack, but that the drones were not launched from Iran. They were Iranian drones, and Iran appears to have facilitated their use, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials said they believe the attacks involved as many as five drones laden with explosive charges, and that they hit both the U.S. side of al-Tanf garrison and the side where Syrian opposition forces stay.
There were no reported injuries or deaths as a result of the attack.
U.S. and coalition troops are based at al-Tanf to train Syrian forces on patrols to counter Islamic State militants. The base is also located on a road serving as a vital link for Iranian-backed forces from Tehran all the way to southern Lebanon and Israel.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to provide details when asked about the report during a news conference Monday. He called it a “complex, coordinated and deliberate attack” and said the U.S. has seen similar ones before from militia groups that are backed by Iran.
Kirby also declined to say if troops were warned ahead of time or whether the U.S. intends to make a military response.
“The protection and security of our troops overseas remains a paramount concern for the secretary,” Kirby said, referring to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “and that if there is to be a response, it will be at a time and a place and a manner of our choosing, and we certainly won’t get ahead of those kinds of decisions.”
The last major Iranian attack on U.S. forces was in January 2020, when Tehran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles on al-Asad air base in Iraq. U.S. and coalition troops were warned of the incoming missiles and were able to take cover, but more than 100 U.S. service members received traumatic brain injuries as a result of the blasts.
Letter to Biden: Relatives of more than two dozen American hostages and wrongful detainees held overseas told President Joe Biden in a letter Monday that they questioned his administration’s commitment to bringing their loved ones home.
In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, the family members complained that the administration seemed to be getting “bogged down in burdensome processes or policy debates that keep our loved ones from coming home and keep us uninformed of what you can and cannot do to help us.”
The White House had no immediate comment Monday.
The letter was signed by family members of 26 American hostages and detainees held in countries across the world.
Deadly mall shooting: Police in Boise, Idaho, said Monday that two people were killed and six injured — including a police officer — in a shooting at a shopping mall.
A suspect has been taken into custody, police said.
Police interviewed dozens of people outside the entrance to Macy’s, one of five large department stores at the mall of 153 stores.
The Boise Towne Square shopping mall is the city’s largest mall.
CBP investigation: The vast majority of Customs and Border Protection agents who engaged in secretive social media groups that featured violent, bigoted posts against migrants and members of Congress ultimately received significantly reduced discipline measures, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Agency officials launched an internal investigation into 135 employees for “inappropriate social media activity” and determined that 60 agents were subject to discipline. Among those, two were fired, 43 were suspended without pay, 12 received letters of reprimand, and three were issued alternative disciplinary actions, such as a suspension without pay, the report stated.
Ten other employees retired before a final misconduct determination was made.
The vast majority of the agents who committed misconduct, including those who made degrading and threatening comments about migrants, were allowed to continue working with migrants, according to the report.
The report contains findings from an investigation launched in 2019 by the Committee on Oversight and Reform following media reports about a secret Facebook group in which members of the agency used dehumanizing and derogatory language toward Latina members of Congress and deceased migrants.
CBP, which oversees Border Patrol, began producing unredacted documents this past February after the Trump administration obstructed the investigation for more than a year, the report states.
Left girl to die: A German convert to Islam was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday on charges that, as a member of the extremist Islamic State group in Iraq, she allowed a 5-yearold Yazidi girl she and her husband kept as a slave to die of thirst in the sun.
The Higher Regional Court in Munich convicted the 30-year-old, identified only as Jennifer W. in line with privacy rules, of — among other things — membership of a terrorist organization abroad, aiding and abetting attempted murder, attempted war crimes and crimes against humanity, German news agency dpa reported.
W. was taken into custody while trying to renew her identity papers at the German Embassy in Ankara in 2016 and deported to Germany.
The ‘cocaine hippos’: The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or “interested persons” with legal rights in the U.S. following a federal court order in Cincinnati.
The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.
An animal rights groups is hailing the order as a milestone victory in the long sought efforts to sway the U.S. justice system to grant animals personhood status. But the order won’t carry any weight in Colombia where the hippos live, a legal expert said.
The “cocaine hippos” are descendants of animals that Escobar illegally imported to his Colombian ranch in the 1980s when he reigned over the country’s drug trade. After his death in a 1993 shootout with authorities, the hippos were abandoned at the estate and left to thrive with no natural predators — their numbers have increased in the last eight years from 35 to between 65 and 80.