New York Times: Pakistan Separatists Hijack Train With 400 Onboard and Give Ultimatum
Separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in an isolated mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday. A militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack said it was holding scores of security personnel who had been on the train, and it threatened to kill them if the Pakistani government did not agree to a prisoner exchange. The fate of the rest of the passengers was not immediately clear, though security officials said that at least 104 of them, mostly women and children, had been rescued, and that 17 injured passengers had been taken to the hospital for treatment. The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, forced the train to stop in the Bolan district of Balochistan Province after opening fire on it, according to railway and police officials.
BBC News: Somali forces end deadly 24-hour hotel siege
Somali security forces have ended a deadly 24-hour siege by Islamist fighters who stormed a popular hotel in the central city of Beledweyne, authorities said. The attack by al-Shabab began with a car bomb exploding, followed by gunmen entering the hotel, leading to intense clashes with security forces.
Fox News: Columbia anti-Israel protest ringleader Mahmoud Khalil faces court hearing on detention
A court hearing will take place in Manhattan federal court Wednesday morning challenging the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, one of the ringleaders of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University last year who the Trump administration is trying to deport. ICE agents arrested Khalil — who is a Palestinian raised in Syria and a permanent U.S. resident — from his university-owned apartment on the city’s Upper West Side on Saturday and told him they were revoking his green card and student visa, according to Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer.
New York Times: New Yorkers Protest as White House Defends Arrest of Columbia Activist
As hundreds of demonstrators made their way through Lower Manhattan on Tuesday to protest the detention of a prominent pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University, the White House defended the arrest and rebuked the school for what it called lack of cooperation. The activist, Mahmoud Khalil, was a leader of student protests on Columbia’s campus and often served as a negotiator and spokesman. Mr. Khalil, 30, who is Palestinian and was born and raised in Syria, is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to an American citizen.
October 7, 2023, marked the largest massacre of Jews to take place since the Holocaust, with 251 hostages taken by Hamas as well. Wendy Sachs’ documentary isn’t about that horrific event, although it includes disturbing footage from the infamous day and harrowing testimony by survivors. Rather, it concerns what happened immediately afterward, namely the precipitous rise in antisemitism that manifested itself in demonstrations on college campuses, on the streets and in social media. For those concerned about this growing problem — and everyone should be — October 8 is mandatory viewing.
An illegal immigrant from Lebanon who admitted to being a member of the Hezbollah terror group network is slated to be deported a year after being caught and released into the country under former President Joe Biden's watch. Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was captured by border agents in El Paso, Texas, on March 9, 2024 and immediately held in federal custody. He reportedly told investigators he was going to travel to New York and make a bomb and that his training with the Iran-backed terror network was focused on "jihad" and "killing people that was not Muslim."
ARD: Attacks with cars - How great is the danger from copycat offenders?
Due to these characteristics, many had already become conspicuous before an attack, "for example because of violence or hate posts on the Internet". Both of these apply to Alexander S., the perpetrator of the Mannheim attack: among other things, he has a criminal record for assault and for an extreme right-wing Facebook comment. The Baden-Württemberg State Office of Criminal Investigation assumes that Alexander S. "has had a mental illness for many years". According to media reports, there are also signs of mental illness in the case of the Munich attacker, who is suspected of having an Islamist motive. He has since been transferred to a psychiatric prison ward. An expert is currently examining possible mental impairments in the Magdeburg Christmas market attacker, who made Islamophobic statements before the attack and showed signs of paranoia.
B.Z.: After 30 years of flight - Absconded left-wing terrorists want to turn themselves in
Now everything could happen very quickly. The wanted left-wing terrorists Peter Krauth and Thomas Walter want to hand themselves in to the German authorities in Berlin this week. This is reported by "Der Spiegel". The men have been on the run for 30 years. After a planned bomb attack on the prison in Berlin-Grünau in April 1995, they fled abroad with a third accomplice, who has since died, and most recently lived in Venezuela. But they never found peace in their new home. At the end of January 2025, the Federal Public Prosecutor General's Office brought charges against the terrorists, who went by the name "Das K.O.M.I.T.E.E." wanted to bomb "social change" in Germany. According to the indictment, the men filled four propane gas cylinders with 120 kilograms of explosive material in 1995 and prepared them with time fuses. However, a police patrol that happened to be passing by discovered the terrorists outside the prison, which was being converted into a deportation prison at the time. The perpetrators then fled.
According to Tagesspiegel research, the platform, which operates from Berlin, is the direct successor to the propaganda medium "Redfish", which was owned by Russia's state media, as my colleagues have documented here and here. Red denies this. Last year, the US government even explicitly accused Russia of using "Red" to exert covert influence. After Red's attacks against Nicholas Potter, various activists joined the campaign, not only spreading Red's false allegations but also inventing even more absurd lies. Civil society organizations and experts greatly appreciated Potter's work. But it was precisely his reports on Jew-hatred on the left that made Potter a target. A few months ago, I attended one of his readings from "Judenhass Underground". These regularly have to take place under police protection.
Times of Israel: Jews protest launch of Hamas ‘propaganda’ book at London School of Economics
London’s Jewish community rallied on Monday against a London School of Economics (LSE) book launch that has been accused of providing a platform for the Hamas terror group. About 100 members of the Jewish community took part in the protest at the prestigious university, where an event was taking place by authors Helena Cobban, a British-American international relations writer, and Jordanian-American journalist Rami George Khouri on their book “Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters.”
i24 News: 4-year-old Gazan sent by Hamas enters army post in Israel-Gaza buffer zone
The Israeli army reported on Wednesday that a 4-year-old child had shown up at a military post located in the security zone of the Gaza Strip. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the boy told the soldiers that he was sent to this post by Hamas.
NPR: Mediators seek a new deal to release more than half of the hostages in Gaza
Mediators in Qatar are making efforts to negotiate the release of more than half the remaining hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza, according to an official familiar with the new round of talks aimed at reaching a new ceasefire deal in Gaza. President Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is taking part in the talks in Qatar's capital, Doha. They are the most serious Israel-Hamas talks since Trump took office in January. But the Israeli negotiating team taking part is a working-level, not senior-level, group with a limited mandate, the official said.
Times of Israel: Senior Israeli official says new talks with Lebanon aimed at normalizing ties
Israel is aiming to establish full diplomatic relations with Lebanon in talks that could open as early as next month, an Israeli official said on Wednesday. “The goal is to reach normalization,” said the official, a day after Israel, Lebanon, France and the US met in southern Lebanon.
In its myth-making and propaganda, Hezbollah portrays the war as a victory, a greater and more significant triumph than when it repulsed the Israeli military during the last major engagement between the two sides in 2006. But the militant group now has to contend with an aftermath that for many Lebanese, including some Hezbollah partisans, looks very much like defeat.Thousands of its fighters and supporters are dead, the upper echelons of its leadership decimated. Wide swaths of pro-Hezbollah areas are all but flattened; almost 100,000 people remain displaced and Israeli forces still occupy parts of Lebanon.
The IDF says the target of a drone strike in the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon today was a Hezbollah commander in the terror group’s aerial defense unit.He is identified by the military as Hassan Abbas Izzedine. He was killed in the strike on a car. The IDF says he was a “significant source of knowledge” in Hezbollah’s aerial defense unit and led attempts to rebuild the unit’s infrastructure that was targeted during the war.
Newsweek: Hezbollah's Leader Sends Warning to Donald Trump
The leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has warned U.S. President Donald Trump against launching any attack on Iran.
Naharnet: Qassem says state in charge of defense but Hezbollah to stay as 'resistance'
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has acknowledged that arms should be exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces to “control security in Lebanon and for defense.” “We are not against them being in charge and we reject the approach of militias and that anyone share the state in protecting its security,” Qassem said in an interview on al-Manar TV.
Pakistani security forces were battling hundreds of separatist militants holding roughly 300 hostages Wednesday on a train they hijacked in the country's remote southwest, officials said. At least 30 of the militants had been killed, security officials said, while about 190 of the roughly 450 passengers initially on the train had been rescued. Militants wearing vests loaded with explosives surrounded the remaining 250 or so hostages after the attack on the train, which happened as it entered a tunnel Tuesday in Bolan, a district in the restive Balochistan province.
Pakistan’s military have been engaged in a deadly standoff for more than 24 hours with armed militants who hijacked a train and took hostages, in a dramatic escalation of an insurgency that has plagued the region for decades. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant separatist group active in the restive and mineral-rich southwestern Balochistan province, claimed responsibility for the attack.
India Today: Pakistan's terror backlash: 2025 becomes deadliest year for security forces
Pakistan is facing a severe backlash from the very terrorist groups it once nurtured, with 2025 shaping up to be its deadliest year in terms of security force casualties, with the figure at 255 so far. Terror attacks targeting the Army, police and intelligence personnel have surged dramatically, with data indicating an unprecedented rise in fatalities. According to the latest intelligence assessments, Pakistan has witnessed more than 179 terror-related incidents between January 1 and March 11, 2025. Of these, 68 attacks occurred in January, 90 in February and 17 so far in March, including the Balochistan Liberation Army-led Jaffer Express attack on Tuesday.
Newsweek: Iran Compiling U.S. Terror List
Iran has announced plans to compile a list of Americans it accuses of terrorism, cyber sabotage and human rights violations against Iranians as tensions escalate between Tehran and Washington.
CNN: Entire families killed in Syria sectarian violence, UN says
Armed groups killed entire families, including women and children, during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria last week, the United Nations’ human rights office said on Tuesday. The bloodshed in the coastal heartland of former ruler Bashar al-Assad saw more than 800 people killed in clashes between armed groups loyal to the toppled dictator and forces loyal to the new Syrian regime, according to a war monitor.
New York Times: Syria Violence Marked by Sectarian and Revenge Killings, War Monitor Says
Armed groups and foreign fighters linked to the government but not yet integrated into it were primarily responsible for sectarian massacres in Syria’s coastal region over the past week, a war monitoring group said in a new report. The U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Wednesday that the U.S. would “watch the decisions made by the interim authorities” after hundreds of civilians were killed in just several days in areas dominated by the country’s Alawite religious minority. He added that Washington was concerned by “the recent deadly violence against minorities.”
The recent agreement between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has received strong support from Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials. KRG leaders view the deal as an important step toward peace, stability, and protecting Kurdish rights in Syria.
Jerusalem Post: Houthis to resume attacks on Israeli ships after Gaza aid deadline ended
Yemen's Houthis will resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, effective immediately, the group announced on Tuesday night. Any vessel that violates the group's "ban on the passage of all Israeli ships" will be targeted. This will continue "until the crossings to the Gaza Strip are reopened and aid, food, and medicine are allowed in," the Houthi terror group's military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said on behalf of the Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels warned shippers early Wednesday that “any Israeli vessel” traveling through nearby Mideast waters is now a target as Israel continues to block aid to the Gaza Strip. The warning from the Houthis again throws into chaos a crucial maritime waterway between Asia and Europe, threatens revenue from Egypt’s Suez Canal and possibly will halt aid shipments to war zones. The rebels in the past have also had a loose definition of what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning other vessels could be targeted as well.
Israel Hayom: Silent enabler: US-backed country helping Houthis
Alongside its relations with the West, Oman maintains close ties with Iran and Qatar and assists the terrorist organization operating from its neighbor Yemen.
Reuters: Somalia hotel siege death toll rises to 10, officer says
The death toll from an al Shabaab attack on a hotel in central Somalia where clan leaders were meeting on Tuesday has risen to 10 and most of the victims were civilians, a police officer in the town said on Wednesday.
Defense Post: Al-Shabaab Storms Somalia Hotel Killing Nine
Al-Shabaab fighters on Tuesday stormed a hotel in central Somalia hosting a meeting on countering the Islamist group in the region, killing nine civilians, security and police said. Gunmen rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the hotel’s entrance in the city of Beledweyne, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) from the capital Mogadishu, and opened fire on people inside.
Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.
Fact:
On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded southern Israel where, in the space of eight hours, hundreds of armed terrorists perpetrated mass crimes of brutality, rape, and torture against men, women and children. In the biggest attack on Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, 1,200 were killed, and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza—where 101 remain. One year on, antisemitic incidents have increased by record numbers.
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