Israel planted explosives in 5,000 Hezbollah's pagers, say sources Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters. The operation was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach that saw thousands of pagers detonate across Lebanon, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including the group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut. The Lebanese security source said the pagers were from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, but the company said it did not manufacture the devices, but were made by a European firm with…

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russia strikes energy facilities in Ukraine's Sumy region, authorities say Russia fired missiles at energy infrastructure in the northeast Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday hours after an overnight drone strike on the region, reducing power in some areas and forcing authorities to use back-up power systems. The Sumy region's governor, Volodymyr Artiukh, citing an initial assessment, said Russia had used at least four missiles in the latest attack on energy facilities. Ukraine's energy ministry said Russia's attacks had caused a fire at a power substation and cut power to more than 281,000 consumers. Power was later partially…

Returning residents to north Israel now a war goal, Netanyahu says Israel on Tuesday expanded its stated goals of the war in Gaza to include enabling residents to return to communities in northern Israel that have been evacuated due to attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. The decision was approved during an overnight meeting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, Netanyahu's office said. Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel a day later and fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border has since escalated, threatening to ignite a regional…

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Putin orders increase in size of Russian military President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree that officially increases the number of personnel in Russia’s armed forces to almost 2.4 million people, including 1.5 million servicemen. The latest increase comes after a similar decree in December 2023, when the president boosted the number of employees in the Russian military to just over 2.2 million, including 1.3 million troops. In his order on Monday, Putin also instructed the Russian government to allocate the necessary funds for the Defense Ministry to carry out the increase, which formally takes the number of…