Armed men on motorbikes kill 34 Niger soldiers, ministry says
NIAMEY (Reuters) -Several hundred armed men, many on motorbikes, attacked a Niger army base near the border with Mali, leaving at least 34 soldiers dead and 14 wounded, the Defence Ministry said.
The attackers - described as "mercenaries" by the ministry - used eight vehicles and more than 200 motorbikes in the raid on the base in Bani-bangou on Thursday, according to the statement read out on state TV.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the army base in a statement on its Telegram channel on Friday.
Niger, like other countries in West Africa's Sahel region, is battling Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Troops carried out aerial and ground search operations to secure the area after the attack, the ministry said without going into more detail on the assault.
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Ukraine warns teenagers the enemy is inside their phones
Advertisement Think of this class, in a secondary school in the western city of Lviv, as the Ukrainian version of 'Scared Straight.' The course, introduced this spring by Ukraine's top internal security agency and the national police at high schools nationwide, aims to deter teenagers from falling under the influence of Russian operatives. They have started paying Ukrainian minors to set fires or plant homemade bombs, Ukrainian authorities say. 'I remind you that criminal responsibility in Ukraine begins at 14 years of age,' said the camouflaged man at the presentation on a recent Wednesday. 'Unfortunately, this easy money can lead either to criminal liability or to death.' For more than a year, Ukrainian authorities say, the Russian state security agency, known as the FSB, has targeted Ukrainian teenagers on social media apps like Telegram, TikTok and Discord. They are offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to do simple tasks: Deliver a package. Take a photograph of a power substation. Spray graffiti. Advertisement The FSB did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Many young people do not necessarily know they are being recruited. The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, says the teenagers often just search for 'easy money' on Telegram, where the Russians are waiting for them. But some agree to more complicated missions, often because they were blackmailed for the first task they performed, or for compromising photographs hacked from their phones. The SBU said late last month that authorities had accused more than 600 people of trying to commit arson, terrorism or sabotage in Ukraine after being recruited by Russian intelligence services. Of those, about 1 in 4 were minors. (The adults often had criminal records or a history of drug abuse.) One perpetrator was only 13. In May, the head of the national juvenile police said in a TV interview that almost 50 other children had reported to authorities that Russians had tried to recruit them. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, both sides have engaged in clandestine warfare. Ukraine has recruited people in Russia for targeted high-level killings, law enforcement sources said. For instance, the Ukrainians claimed responsibility for assassinating a top Russian general and his aide with a bomb planted in a scooter in December. But with the recruitment of young Ukrainians, the Russians are taking a new step by aiming for more indiscriminate attacks, near military recruitment centers or railway stations, said Roksolana Yavorska-Isaienko, an SBU spokesperson for the Lviv region. It is reminiscent of how teenagers were used as suicide bombers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Advertisement In December, the news in Ukraine was filled with reports of a significant case. The SBU and the national police detained two groups of teenagers in the eastern city of Kharkiv who they said had been tricked online into joining a fake 'quest' game, in which the 15- and 16-year-olds were sent tasks like setting fires and taking photographs and videos of certain targets, even air defenses. Ukrainian authorities said the Russians used the information to carry out airstrikes in Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. These claims could not be independently verified. During the class, the camouflaged agent and Yavorska-Isaienko went through other examples, one by one. In March, in the case that resonated the most with the students, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old were recruited on Telegram in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk with the promise of $1,700, Ukrainian authorities said. Following instructions, the teenagers built two bombs out of thermos flasks and metal nuts. When they tried to deliver one of the bombs, authorities said, Russian agents detonated it remotely near the train station. The 17-year-old was killed, and the 15-year-old lost his legs. In April, the SBU caught a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old who burned train relay boxes in Lviv. They were recruited on Telegram, authorities said. Searches of their cellphones showed text messages between the teenagers and their Russian handlers. 'Yeah, the money will be there tomorrow,' the handler wrote, adding that it would arrive around lunchtime. 'Got it, bro,' one of the teenagers responded. Eventually, about $178 was transferred to his account. And in May -- just three days before the class -- two teenagers in the western city of Rivne made an explosive device from Russian instructions, put it in an abandoned building, positioned an ax there and covered the whole contraption with paint, authorities said. Then they called emergency services, claiming there was a dead person. After the police responded, the bomb exploded, but no one was harmed. The teenagers were arrested. Advertisement The recent class was about the 200th that the agency has done in the Lviv region since the outreach program started in April. The presenters knew how to hold the teenagers' attention. 'Maybe not all of these special operations are reported in the media -- but believe me, the enemy is not sleeping,' Yavorska-Isaienko said. 'They are working actively and carrying out illegal activities, as strange as it may sound, directly inside your phones.' She added, 'And when you hear an offer to earn quick money for a brand-new iPhone or $1,000, of course, it sounds very tempting. Sometimes, the task is disguised as a simple courier delivery, taking pictures of critical infrastructure or spraying provocative graffiti. That is often the first step toward your recruitment.' This classroom in the Lviv secondary school No. 32 resembled a typical science classroom in the United States, complete with creaky wooden floors; a poster of a tiger on the wall; models of DNA and lungs in the back; and teenagers in hoodies and jeans, heavy-metal T-shirts and a Barbie sweater. But these students did not make jokes or whisper the way many teenagers do. They asked questions: How did the Russians do surveillance? How could they help fight the FSB? These students had grown up with the war against Russia. Relatives were fighting on the front lines. One girl's uncle was missing. Advertisement 'Can I help and report it to the security services if I've already been approached for recruitment?' asked Volodia Sozonyk, 17, a boy in a blue hoodie and a manga T-shirt. 'If they've sent me an address or something I need to do, can I identify that spot for your operatives to help?' Yavorska-Isaienko and the camouflaged man told the students they could anonymously report any recruitment attempts to a new chatbot called 'Expose the FSB Agent.' And Yavorska-Isaienko told the students to use their common sense. 'No one in real life will suddenly offer you $1,000 or $2,000 just like that,' she said. 'You need to understand: The only free cheese is in the mousetrap.' This article originally appeared in
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Customer data possibly leaked in Aflac cyberattack, the third insurance hack this month
The Aflac breach potentially impacted files with customers' Social Security numbers and health details. Insurance company Aflac disclosed this week that cybercriminals breached its U.S. network and may have accessed customers' personal information, the latest in a string of cyberattacks on insurance companies announced this month. Aflac, which provides home and life insurance and manages data for more than 50 million policyholders, said in a June 20 federal regulatory filing it identified suspicious activity on its U.S. network on June 12. The company said it believes it stopped the intrusion within hours of identifying it, calling the attack part of a 'cybercrime campaign against the insurance industry.' The breach potentially impacted files containing customers' personal information, such as Social Security numbers and health-related details. Aflac said it is investigating the breach with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts and has not yet determined how many customers were affected. An Aflac spokesperson told Reuters that the characteristics of the incident were consistent with the hacking group Scattered Spider, which has a reputation for targeting multiple companies in a single industry in waves. More: This is how you stop online trackers from collecting your health data Latest Tech News: Is TikTok getting banned? Trump says he'll 'probably' extend deadline again It's the largest insurance provider yet to disclose a breach this month, after cyberattacks on Erie Insurance and Philadelphia Insurance Companies disrupted their network operations. Aflac said the attack did not affect its systems and it is able to continue providing services as usual while it responds to the security breach. Contributing: Reuters. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
Los Angeles Times
7 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Belarus frees key opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski after U.S. envoy visit
TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus has freed Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a key dissident and the husband of exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official, Tsikhanouskaya's team announced on Saturday. Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist who was jailed in 2020, arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, alongside 13 other political prisoners, his wife's team said. The release came hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with President Trump's envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in the capital of Minsk. A video published on his wife's official Telegram account showed Tsikhanouski disembarking a white minibus, with a shaved head and broad smile. He pulled Tsikhanouskaya into a long embrace as their supporters applauded. 'My husband is free. It's difficult to describe the joy in my heart,' Tsikhanouskaya told reporters. But she added that her team's work is 'not finished,' as more than 1,100 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus. Tsikhanouski was jailed after announcing plans to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 election. Following his arrest, his wife ran in his stead, rallying large crowds across the country. Official results of the election handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office but were denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham. As unprecedented protests broke out in the aftermath of the vote, Tsikhanouskaya left the country under pressure from the authorities. Her husband was later sentenced to 19½ years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots. Other prominent dissidents remain in Belarusian jails, among them Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate serving a 10-year prison sentence on charges widely denounced as politically motivated. Also behind bars is Viktor Babaryka, a former banker who was widely seen in 2020 as Lukashenko's main electoral rival, and Maria Kolesnikova, a charismatic leader of that year's mass protests. Released alongside Tsikhanouski was longtime Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent Ihar Karnei, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster confirmed. Karnei, who had also worked with prominent Belarusian and Russian newspapers, had been serving a three-year service on extremism charges he rejected as a sham. RFE/RL's Belarusian service had been designated extremist in the country, a common label assigned to anyone who criticizes Lukashenko's government. As a result, working for it or spreading its content has become a criminal offense. 'We are deeply grateful to President Trump for securing the release of this brave journalist, who suffered at the hands of the Belarusian authorities,' the broadcaster's chief executive, Stephen Capus, said Saturday in a news release. Karnei was detained several times while covering the 2020 protests. Unlike many of his colleagues, he chose to stay in Belarus despite the ensuing repression. He was arrested again in July 2023, as police raided his apartment, seizing phones and computers. Belarus also freed an Estonian national who had set up a nongovernmental organization to raise funds for Belarusian refugees. According to the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Allan Roio was detained in January and sentenced to 6½ years in prison on charges of establishing an extremist organization.
