Scores of people were injured and at least two people, including a small child, were killed on Friday after a car ploughed into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the eastern German town of Magdeburg, in what local officials are describing as a terror attack.

At least 68 other people were injured, including 15 who were left in a critical state, according to the city government.

In the attack, a black BMW drove straight into the crowd at the Christmas market, travelling at speed for 400 metres in the direction of the town hall, according to eyewitnesses cited by the broadcaster.

Videos posted on social media showed a dark-coloured car driving into the crowds at high speed. Several media outlets showed the videos in their coverage, but the authenticity of the footage has yet to be officially confirmed.

Emergency workers were seen treating victims on the ground at the market, surrounded by blood. Makeshift tents were erected at the site. Witnesses reported hearing cries and screams. The operator of a food stall on the market described the scenes as “reminiscent of a war”.

“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Saxony-Anhalt’s leader Reiner Haseloff, who was on his way to Magdeburg, said.

The driver of the car was immediately arrested, and later identified as Taleb A., a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi Arabia. Haseloff said the man had been living in Germany since 2006. The suspect, a consultant for psychiatry and psychotherapy, was recognised as a refugee in 2016.

Footage from the scene showed the alleged perpetrator lying on the ground, his head raised, next to a badly damaged black car. A policeman metres from him is pointing a drawn weapon in his direction as passersby look on in shock.

“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city,” Haseloff said.

The suspect rented the car shortly before the attack, according to reports citing a security source, and was not known to authorities as having an Islamist background.

A woman who spoke to the regional newspaper, the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung said that the perpetrator had “driven deliberately into the section of the Christmas market decked out with scenes from fairytales”, where a lot of families with young children were gathered. She told the paper she had just managed to fling herself and her child out of the path of the vehicle.

After the incident, police cleared an area surrounding the vehicle to investigate a possible explosive device, local broadcaster MDR reported. It later cited police as saying that no such device had been found.

A police operation was also under way in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect is believed to have lived, local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported.

Police were not immediately available to comment on the reports of a suspicious item or the operation in Bernburg.

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X. He was due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday along with the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, according to their spokespeople.

The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, wrote that “the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted” in the attack but cautioned that “the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified”.

The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.

French president Emmanuel Macron said he was “profoundly shocked” by the attack, adding that he “shares the pain of the German people”.

Michael Reif, spokesperson for the city, addressed journalists near the market, confirming that the incident had taken place at about 7.04pm local time and was being treated as a terror attack rather than an accident.

He said: “The images are terrible. According to my knowledge, the car drove into the crowds of visitors … but from what direction and how far it went, I can’t say.”

Magdeburg’s mayor Regina-Dolores Stieler-Hinz said at least one person had died and more than 50 were injured. Emergency services said that the number might be up to 80.

Hospitals within a 50-mile (80km) radius of Magdeburg were geared up to take patients, while all the region’s emergency helicopters were deployed to the incident.

A witness identified as Nadine, 32, from Wolfsburg, told the tabloid Bild she was looking for her boyfriend Marco, who was torn from her side when the car raced into the crowds. “He was hit by the car and ripped away from me,” she said. “It was terrible. No one even screamed. I didn’t even hear the car.” Marco received injuries to his head and leg, she said. “We don’t know in what hospital he’s been sent to. The uncertainty is unbearable”.

Security experts said they were astounded that the man was able to drive into the market despite the heavy-set bollards which had been installed to prevent such an attack.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, a terrorist expert, told German media: “In the first instance it’s a surprise that a vehicle of that size was able to drive onto a Christmas market in Germany.”

Germany is home to an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Christmas markets which are hosted around the country for about a month, from the end of November to just after Christmas.

Keeping the markets secure has been a major issue ever since 2016 when an Islamist extremist attacker drove a truck into a crowd of Christmas market-goers in Berlin, leaving 13 people dead and dozens more injured. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Faeser had said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant. Many Christmas markets, including the one on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, which was the target of the attack in 2016, have installed extra security including traffic bollards, in an attempt to prevent it from happening again.

Germany has in recent times also seen a series of suspected Islamist knife attacks. Three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August. Police arrested a Syrian suspect over the attack, which was claimed by IS.

In June, a police officer was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national held as the main suspect.

On Friday night the Facebook page of the Magdeburg market carried the message: “The Christmas market is now closed for today. We ask for your understanding.”

• At least two people have been killed and 68 injured after a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German town of Magdeburg on Friday evening. Fifteen people were left in a critical condition and a small child was among the fatalities, government officials said.

• A dark BMW drove straight into the crowd at speed at the market, witnesses were reported as saying, while apparent videos of the ramming were posted on social media.

• Police have arrested a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who they believe is responsible for the attack, according to the German state premier, Reiner Haseloff, who was on his way to Magdeburg, and described it as “a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas”.

• The suspect is named Taleb A and first arrived in Germany in March 2006, according to security sources cited by the Spiegel news outlet. He was recognised as a refugee in July 2016 and is a consultant for psychiatry and psychotherapy. “As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator,” Haseloff said. “So that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city.”

• Emergency workers were seen treating victims on the ground at the market, surrounded by blood. Makeshift tents were erected at the site. Witnesses reported hearing cries and screams. The operator of a food stall at the market described the scenes as “reminiscent of a war”.

• Police cleared an area around the vehicle after the incident to investigate a possible explosive device, according to local broadcaster MDR, which later cited police as saying no such device had been found.

• A police operation was also under way in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect is believed to have lived, local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported.

• Hospitals within a 80km (50-mile) radius of Magdeburg were geared up to take patients, while all the region’s emergency helicopters were deployed to the area. Magdeburg’s University hospital said it was treating 10 to 20 patients and preparing for more, German press agency dpa reported. Emergency services said the number of injured might be as high as 80.

• Saudi Arabia condemned the attack, with its ministry of foreign affairs saying the kingdom expressed its “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”.

• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his “thoughts are with the victims and their families”. He was due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday along with the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, their spokespeople said.

• The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, wrote that “the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted” in the attack but cautioned that “the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified”.

• The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was “horrified” by the attack and “we stand with the people of Germany”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was “profoundly shocked” by the attack an that he “shares the pain of the German people”.

• At least two people have been killed and 68 injured after a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German town of Magdeburg on Friday evening. Fifteen people were left in a critical condition and a small child was among the fatalities, government officials said.

• A dark BMW drove straight into the crowd at speed at the market, witnesses were reported as saying, while apparent videos of the ramming were posted on social media.

• Police have arrested a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who they believe is responsible for the attack, according to the German state premier, Reiner Haseloff, who was on his way to Magdeburg, and described it as “a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas”.

• The suspect is named Taleb A and first arrived in Germany in March 2006, according to security sources cited by the Spiegel news outlet. He was recognised as a refugee in July 2016 and is a consultant for psychiatry and psychotherapy. “As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator,” Haseloff said. “So that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city.”

• Emergency workers were seen treating victims on the ground at the market, surrounded by blood. Makeshift tents were erected at the site. Witnesses reported hearing cries and screams. The operator of a food stall at the market described the scenes as “reminiscent of a war”.

• Police cleared an area around the vehicle after the incident to investigate a possible explosive device, according to local broadcaster MDR, which later cited police as saying no such device had been found.

• A police operation was also under way in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect is believed to have lived, local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported.

• Hospitals within a 80km (50-mile) radius of Magdeburg were geared up to take patients, while all the region’s emergency helicopters were deployed to the area. Magdeburg’s University hospital said it was treating 10 to 20 patients and preparing for more, German press agency dpa reported. Emergency services said the number of injured might be as high as 80.

• Saudi Arabia condemned the attack, with its ministry of foreign affairs saying the kingdom expressed its “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”.

• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his “thoughts are with the victims and their families”. He was due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday along with the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, their spokespeople said.

• The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, wrote that “the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted” in the attack but cautioned that “the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified”.

• The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was “horrified” by the attack and “we stand with the people of Germany”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was “profoundly shocked” by the attack an that he “shares the pain of the German people”.

Justin Trudeau has carried out a major reshuffle of his cabinet, changing a third of his senior team – even as a series of blows seemed to guarantee the end of his term as prime minister and a spring election for Canada.

The move on Friday came at the end of a disastrous week that saw the shock resignation of his deputy, calls for his resignation from within his own party and public mockery from Donald Trump.

Moments before the reshuffle was announced there was one last setback, as the New Democratic party, which had been helping keep Trudeau in office, announced it was withdrawing support – essentially writing the death certificate for his government.

Nevertheless, the beleaguered prime minister pushed on with the reshuffle, adding eight new faces to his bench Friday.

The new cabinet includes the Toronto MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as housing minister, replacing Sean Fraser who announced on Monday he would not seek re-election. David McGuinty, an Ottawa MP, will now be the public safety minister and the Montreal MP Rachel Bendayan will take the official languages profile and become associate public safety minister.

But the new team will take its place even as the writing appeared to be on the wall for Trudeau, who has been in office for nearly a decade.

Shortly before the reshuffle NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced that his party will bring forward a vote of no-confidence when the House of Commons resumes in January.

“The Liberals don’t deserve another chance,” wrote Singh in a public letter. “That’s why the NDP will vote to bring the government down.”

Singh had called on Trudeau to resign following the resignation of deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday, but had not yet made any concrete moves to force the prime minister out.

Freeland, a key member of Trudeau’s team for over a decade, departed with harsh words for the prime minister, questioning his ability to steer Canada through Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs and “America-first” economic nationalism. “We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” she said in a departing letter that warned that Canadian voters doubted whether the government understands the “gravity of the moment”.

Already smelling blood in the water, Trump used Freeland’s resignation as another chance to mock the deeply unpopular prime minister, belittling Trudeau as the “governor” of Canada, which he mused could become a US state and taking credit for a new border security plan apparently drawn up to pacify the US leader.

A spring election is now guaranteed, leaving Trudeau with “zero options”, said Scott Reid, a political adviser and former director of communications to the Liberal former prime minister Paul Martin.

“He will have to step down and will almost certainly need to prorogue parliament to avoid the collapse of his government,” he said.

Friday’s cabinet shuffle has been “overshadowed entirely” by Singh’s declaration, said Reid.

“The PMs hesitation to clarify plans for his future has left a vacuum that others have filled and now gravely reduced his options,” he said.

“For the government, preparing for [a spring election], begins by finding a new leader [for the Liberal party].”

Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the Writ, said the shuffle was more about tying up administrative loose ends than energizing the government.

The turmoil of this week is the culmination of a punishing year for a prime minister, whose critics say has stayed on well past his expiry date. Trudeau, who once pledged to bring “sunny ways” back to Canada, has seen his popularity plummet amid record inflation, an acute housing crisis, astronomical grocery prices and general voter fatigue after nine years in power.

The nature of a leadership race inside the Liberal party will depend on various factors including on whether it’s an open race or only limited to party members.

Freeland’s resignation was seen by some analysts as a sign that she could be gearing up for a run.

Trudeau’s allies have said the prime minister will take the Christmas break to ponder his future and is unlikely to make any announcement before January.

But analysts say that Singh’s letter means he is running out of road.

“It’s the last straw … This is the event that forces Trudeau to recognize his options are pretty limited at this stage,” said Grenier.

The US House of Representatives passed a funding proposal Friday evening just hours before the US government was due to shut down, with a bill that dropped Donald Trump’s demand for a debt limit increase.

The bill, which passed 366-34, approves government funding for three months and will be sent to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

The vote came after the president-elect and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, scuttled a prior bipartisan deal at the last minute, sparking conflicts within the Republican party.

The bill now on its way to the Senate temporarily funds federal operations at current levels and adds $100bn in disaster aid and $10bn in assistance to farmers.

The breakdown within the Republican party in the final days of the year offered a preview of the chaos that Trump is expected to bring when he returns to the White House on 20 January. A shutdown would have forced thousands of US government workers to be furloughed and could have disrupted holiday travel. The last federal shutdown happened in December 2018, in Trump’s first term.

The original bipartisan bill had been negotiated by House Republicans and Democrats, but was attacked on Wednesday by Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to elect Trump. Musk warned that any lawmaker who supported the “outrageous” spending bill “deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”

In response, the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, put forward a second version of the bill, a pared-down budget proposal that included a brand-new demand from Trump: a suspension of the debt ceiling. Trump had calculated that suspending limits on the national debt while Biden was still in office would save him a difficult fight in his first few months in the White House.

Democrats decried the new bill as a cover for a tax cut to benefit wealthy backers such as Musk, while creating trillions of dollars in additional debt for the US. Several Republicans also rebelled, outraged by the proposed lifting of government borrowing limits.

The bill failed by a vote of 174-235, a humiliating setback for Trump.

The political drama this week showed that Trump’s grip on the Republican party is not ironclad. The president-elect had furiously urged the package to be passed, including threatening to support primary opposition candidates of Republicans who opposed it.

Earlier on Friday, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, launched a blistering attack on Republicans for their handling of the budget crisis. “Republicans blew up this deal – they did – and they need to fix this, period,” she told reporters. “[Republicans need] to stop playing politics with a government shutdown, and … they’re doing the bidding of their billionaire friends, that’s what we’re seeing, at the expense of hardworking Americans.”

While Jean-Pierre didn’t name specific individuals, her comments appear to be referencing Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Democrats mocked the influence of the tech billionaire this week, referring to the interventions of “President Musk”. In a speech on Friday, Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, decried the meddling of the “world’s richest man who no one voted for”, saying it was Musk’s fault that “Congress has been thrown into pandemonium”.

Musk repeatedly spread misinformation about the bipartisan proposal he helped kill, the AP found. He claimed the plan would have given lawmakers a 40% raise when the maximum possible increase through the proposal was actually 3.8%. Musk also shared a false post claiming the proposal would have given $3bn to a potential new NFL stadium in Washington DC; the bill had a provision to transfer the land of the Washington Commanders stadium from the US government to the District of Columbia, but explicitly stated there would be no associated federal funding.

Trump earlier on Friday repeated his demand for the suspension – or even elimination – of the federal borrowing limit and insisted any shutdown should happen under Joe Biden’s watch rather than his own upcoming administration.

Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said Friday night that he was “confident” the final bill would pass the Senate. “Though this bill does not include everything Democrats fought for, there are major victories in this bill for American families … emergency aid for communities battered by natural disasters, no debt ceiling, and it will keep the government open with no draconian cuts,” he said in a statement.

Among the 38 Republicans who voted against the Trump-backed debt ceiling package on Thursday were several members of the conservative, pro-Trump Freedom caucus. The group included prominent conservatives like Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Chip Roy and Scott Perry, who have historically been strong Trump allies but are drawing a line at lifting government borrowing limits.

Kat Cammack, a Republican congresswoman who voted against the bill, told reporters that “this was not an easy vote for constitutional conservatives”

The Associated Press contributed to reporting

The US has lifted a $10m bounty on Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the strongest force to emerge in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, after the first face-to-face meeting between American diplomats and the HTS leadership.

Barbara Leaf, the state department’s senior diplomat for the Middle East, said Sharaa had given assurances in the meeting in Damascus that Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups would not be allowed to operate in Syrian territory.

Leaf said the US delegation informed Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, that Washington would no longer offer the $10m (£8m) reward for his capture, noting later that the bounty would complicate efforts to talk to the HTS leader.

“It was a policy decision … aligned with the fact that we are beginning a discussion with HTS,” she said.

“So if I’m sitting with the HTS leader and having a lengthy detailed discussion about the interests of the US, interests of Syria, maybe interests of the region, it’s suffice to say a little incoherent then to have a bounty on the guy’s head.”

Leaf was accompanied in Damascus by the presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, and Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser who has been put in charge of handling US relations with the new forces running Syria.

Leaf said the fall of Assad should mark an end to Iranian influence in Syria.

“What our government would like to see is a Syria that can stand on its own two feet, that can regain, like its neighbour, Iraq, a full measure of sovereignty over its own affairs,” she said.

The diplomats raised questions about the whereabouts of Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012, as well as Majd Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American psychotherapist, and other US citizens who disappeared during Assad’s rule. The US has not had diplomatic relations with Syria since closing its embassy in 2012.

Another of the issues on the table in Damascus on Friday was the future of Syria’s Kurds, who have been longstanding US allies in combating Islamic State (IS) in the region.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the “imperative” of the fight against IS had been discussed, but did not give any more specifics.

Washington’s Nato ally Turkey has called on other outside powers to cut their support for the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, the People’s Defence Units (YPG), which make up the core of the counter-IS alliance, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Pentagon revealed on Thursday it had 2,000 troops inside Syria, more than twice the number previously reported. The defense department said the surge in the military presence was temporary and had happened in recent months.

The YPG has links with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which Turkey labels as a terrorist organisation.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Thursday: “In the upcoming period we do not believe that any power will continue to collaborate with terrorist organisations. The heads of terrorist organisations such as Islamic State and PKK-YPG will be crushed in the shortest possible time.”

As rebel forces closed in on Damascus in the first week of December, Turkey and the Syrian militia it backs used the opportunity to launch attacks on Kurdish positions.

Leaf said the US was seeking a compromise over the SDF’s future.

“We are working energetically in discussions with Turkish authorities, also with the SDF,” she said.

“We think the best way ahead is for a ceasefire around Kobane [a Kurdish stronghold on the Turkish border] and that we work to find what I would call a managed transition in terms of SDFs role in that part of the country.

“So I think we’re working above all to de-escalate things there, to not distract from the really critical counter-Isis fight and the critical role that the SDF has in managing foreign terrorist fighter detention facilities, while Damascus and the SDF hopefully begin a dialogue themselves.”

Donald Trump, who is due to return to the Oval Office next month, has questioned why the US needs to stay in Syria. In 2019, during his first presidential term, Trump ordered a withdrawal of US forces from Syria, in the face of determined resistance from the Pentagon and the Washington security establishment.

Ultimately, a residual US presence was left in the region, but Trump has been insistent since Assad’s fall on 8 December that the US should have no role. “This is not our fight,” the president-elect said on social media.

Carstens, speaking on Friday about efforts to find Tice in the aftermath of the Assad regime’s fall, said the US was calling for investigations of possible sites where the missing journalist may have been detained.

“Over 12 years we’ve been able to pinpoint about six facilities that we believe have a high possibility of having had Austin Tice at one point or another,” he said.

“We’ve tried to focus on those six, because we have limited resources. And since state cannot be on the ground, nor can the FBI for an extended amount of time right now, we’ve been working with our our partners, allies, NGOs and even members of the media to take a look at these facilities and give us a sense of what they’re seeing, what they’re finding.”

The outgoing Biden administration believes it is close to brokering an elusive ceasefire in Gaza but there was no news of a breakthrough on Friday, when the estimated Palestinian death toll passed 45,000.

Among the dead on Friday, according to local health officials, were seven people, including four children, killed in an Israeli airstrike on a building in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

The Iranian government is attempting to salvage some influence with Syria’s new leaders, as Tehran reels from its sudden loss of authority in Damascus after the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is already facing multiple domestic and international crises, including power cuts due to a lack of oil supplies, continued tensions over its nuclear programme and a row about a new law that will toughen punishments for women who do not wear the hijab. But it is the sudden loss of influence in Syria after the fall of Assad to rebel groups that is exercising Iranian officials most.

In the short term they want to salvage some influence with the rebels in Damascus. Iranian diplomats insist they were not wedded to Assad, and were disillusioned with his refusal to compromise. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview this week: “We had long ago reached the conclusion that the continuation of governance in Syria would face a fundamental challenge. Government officials were expected to show flexibility towards allowing the opposition to participate in power, but this did not happen.”

He added: “Tehran always had direct contacts with the Syrian opposition delegation. Since 2011, we have been suggesting to Syria the need to begin political talks with those opposition groups that were not affiliated with terrorism.”

At the same time, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson insisted it only entered Syria in 2012 at Assad’s request to help defeat Islamic State. “Our presence was advisory and we were never in Syria to defend a specific group or individual. What was important to us was helping to preserve the territorial integrity and stability of Syria.”

Such explanations have not cut much ice in Damascus. Iran remains one of the few countries criticised by Ahmed al-Sharaa, theHayat Tahrir al-Sham leader.

Many Iranian officials are claiming the current victory lap being enjoyed by Turkey in Syria may be brief as Ankara’s interests will start to diverge from the government led by HTS, a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey.

The Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi said: “We must follow the Syrian issue with hope and know that this situation will not continue, because the current rulers of Syria will not remain united with each other”.

The conservative Javan newspaper predicted that “the current honeymoon period in Syria will end due to the diversity of groups, Salafism, economic problems, the lack of security and diversity of actors.”.

Officially Iran blames the US and Israel for Assad’s collapse, but resentment at Ankara’s role is rife, ironically echoing Donald Trump’s claim that Syria has been the victim of an unfriendly takeover by Turkey. In his speech responding to Assad’s downfall the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said a neighbouring state of Syria played a clear role” in shaping events and “continues to do so now”. The Fars news agency published a poster showing the HTS leader in league with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden.

Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations questioned whether HTS would remain allies with Turkey for long. It said: “Although Turkey is only one of the main winners of Bashar al-Assad’s fall from power in the short term, Ankara can never bring a government aligned with itself to power in Syria. Even if Tahrir al-Sham attempts to form a stable government in Syria, which is impossible, in the medium term, it will become a major threat to Turkey, which shares an 830-kilometre border with Syria.”

The former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani predicted a bleak future for Syria and Turkey. “In recent weeks, all of Syria’s military power has been destroyed by Israel, and unfortunately, the militants and Turkey did not respond appropriately to Israel. It will take years to rebuild the Syrian army and armed forces.”

Mohsen Baharvand, a former Iranian ambassador to the UK, suggested the Damascus government may find itself overly reliant on Turkey. “If the central government of Syria tries to consolidate its authority and sovereignty through military intervention and assistance from foreign countries – including Turkey – Syria, or key parts of it, will be occupied by Turkey, and Turkey will enter a quagmire from which it will incur heavy human and economic costs.”

He predicted tensions between Turkey and HTS in particular about how to handle the Syrian Kurdish demand in north-east Syria for a form of autonomy. The Turkish-funded Syrian National Army is reportedly ready to mount an offensive against the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in Kobani, a Kurdish-majority Syrian town on the northern border with Turkey.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on Wednesday that if the issue were addressed “properly” Ankara would not seek a military intervention. “There is a new administration in Damascus now. I think this is primarily their concern now,” Fidan said.

More broadly, the Syrian reverse is forcing Iran to accelerate a rethink of its foreign policy. The review centres on whether the weakening of its so-called axis of resistance – comprising allied groups in the region – requires Iran to become a nuclear weapon state, or instead strengthen Iran by building better relations in the region.

For years, Iran’s rulers have been saying that “defending Iran must begin from outside its borders.” This hugely costly strategy is largely obsolete, and how Iran explains its Syria reverse will be critical to deciding what replaces that strategy.

Judges in Sicily have acquitted Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini of charges of kidnapping and dereliction of duty after he refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.

The case dates back to a time when Salvini, head of the far-right political party Lega, served as the interior minister during the first government of the then prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, from 2018-19.

One of Salvini’s first moves after he took office was to declare Italian ports closed to rescue ships engaged in saving people fleeing Libya. There were subsequently 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities, some of which became the focus of investigations.

Early in August 2019, Salvini blocked the humanitarian rescue boat Open Arms, carrying 147 refugees, from docking in a port, forcing it to anchor off the island of Lampedusa while conditions onboard deteriorated, resulting, among other things, in a scabies outbreak. During the standoff, some people threw themselves overboard in desperation as the captain pleaded for a safe, close port.

After a 19-day ordeal, the people that had been picked up at sea were finally able to disembark on the orders of a local prosecutor.

Salvini, who was forced out of his position as interior minister shortly after the affair, was investigated on allegations of kidnapping and dereliction of duty.

“I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,” Salvini said on Friday before the ruling.

Prosecutors, who had requested a six-year prison sentence, argued: “The duty to save lives at sea is a responsibility of states and takes precedence over norms and bilateral agreements aimed at combating irregular migration.”

However, after a three-year trial, culminating in 24 hearings that included the testimony of 45 witnesses, including the Hollywood actor Richard Gere, who had visited the ship in solidarity during the standoff, judges in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, did not find the evidence presented by the prosecutors compelling enough to warrant the minister’s conviction.

Salvini, who now serves as infrastructure and transport minister and deputy prime minister in a coalition government with the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, had always denied the charges and insisted he was proud of what he did in order to “to defend Italy’s borders”.

“Today is a beautiful day for Italy,’’ Salvini told reporters outside the courtroom after the verdict. “Today the judges have said that we have done our duty, that defending the borders is not a crime but a right.”

Before the verdict, he rallied supporters to engage in public demonstrations against what he labelled a “political trial”.

Nationalist politicians across Europe have weighed in on Salvini’s behalf, from France’s Marine Le Pen to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Orbán tweeted “justice for Salvini” on Thursday alongside a photo of himself and others holding up T-shirts emblazoned with Salvini’s face in a mock-up “wanted” poster.

Meloni expressed “great satisfaction” over the ruling, which she said proved that the accusations were “unfounded and surreal.”

Oscar Camps, founder of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, said he hoped prosecutors would appeal against the verdict.

“With this trial we wanted to restore the dignity of the 147 people who were held on board and deprived of their liberty for 20 days,” he said.

“We were stopped from carrying out our work during those weeks while we were off the coast of Lampedusa and unable to reach a safe port … saving lives is what Open Arms has been doing for the past 10 years, what we have been doing up until today and what we will carry on doing tomorrow. Our work will not be stopped.”

Judges in Sicily have acquitted Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini of charges of kidnapping and dereliction of duty after he refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.

The case dates back to a time when Salvini, head of the far-right political party Lega, served as the interior minister during the first government of the then prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, from 2018-19.

One of Salvini’s first moves after he took office was to declare Italian ports closed to rescue ships engaged in saving people fleeing Libya. There were subsequently 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities, some of which became the focus of investigations.

Early in August 2019, Salvini blocked the humanitarian rescue boat Open Arms, carrying 147 refugees, from docking in a port, forcing it to anchor off the island of Lampedusa while conditions onboard deteriorated, resulting, among other things, in a scabies outbreak. During the standoff, some people threw themselves overboard in desperation as the captain pleaded for a safe, close port.

After a 19-day ordeal, the people that had been picked up at sea were finally able to disembark on the orders of a local prosecutor.

Salvini, who was forced out of his position as interior minister shortly after the affair, was investigated on allegations of kidnapping and dereliction of duty.

“I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,” Salvini said on Friday before the ruling.

Prosecutors, who had requested a six-year prison sentence, argued: “The duty to save lives at sea is a responsibility of states and takes precedence over norms and bilateral agreements aimed at combating irregular migration.”

However, after a three-year trial, culminating in 24 hearings that included the testimony of 45 witnesses, including the Hollywood actor Richard Gere, who had visited the ship in solidarity during the standoff, judges in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, did not find the evidence presented by the prosecutors compelling enough to warrant the minister’s conviction.

Salvini, who now serves as infrastructure and transport minister and deputy prime minister in a coalition government with the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, had always denied the charges and insisted he was proud of what he did in order to “to defend Italy’s borders”.

“Today is a beautiful day for Italy,’’ Salvini told reporters outside the courtroom after the verdict. “Today the judges have said that we have done our duty, that defending the borders is not a crime but a right.”

Before the verdict, he rallied supporters to engage in public demonstrations against what he labelled a “political trial”.

Nationalist politicians across Europe have weighed in on Salvini’s behalf, from France’s Marine Le Pen to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Orbán tweeted “justice for Salvini” on Thursday alongside a photo of himself and others holding up T-shirts emblazoned with Salvini’s face in a mock-up “wanted” poster.

Meloni expressed “great satisfaction” over the ruling, which she said proved that the accusations were “unfounded and surreal.”

Oscar Camps, founder of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, said he hoped prosecutors would appeal against the verdict.

“With this trial we wanted to restore the dignity of the 147 people who were held on board and deprived of their liberty for 20 days,” he said.

“We were stopped from carrying out our work during those weeks while we were off the coast of Lampedusa and unable to reach a safe port … saving lives is what Open Arms has been doing for the past 10 years, what we have been doing up until today and what we will carry on doing tomorrow. Our work will not be stopped.”

Elon Musk has caused outrage in Berlin after appearing to endorse the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland.

Musk, who has been named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the US federal government, wrote on his social media platform X: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

He reposted a video by a German rightwing influencer, Naomi Seibt, who criticised Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats who has the best chance of becoming the next German chancellor, and praised Javier Milei, the libertarian president of Argentina.

The German health minister, Karl Lauterbach, called Musk’s decision to wade into the German political debate weeks before the snap election “undignified and highly problematic”.

Europe’s largest economy is expected to go to the polls on 23 February after the collapse last month of Olaf Scholz’s centre-left coalition. The AfD is running in second place in opinion polls. Elements of the party have been classed as rightwing extremists by Germany’s domestic intelligence services, and mainstream parties have vowed to refuse to work with the AfD at national level.

The German government issued only a perfunctory response to Musk’s post, noting that it had registered it, but a spokesperson refused to add any further comment.

At a press conference in Berlin, Scholz responded indirectly to the post, saying: “We have freedom of speech here. That also applies to multimillionaires. Freedom of speech also means that you’re able to say things that aren’t right and do not contain good political advice.”

The German former MEP Elmar Brokdismissed Musk’s comment as “the world domination fantasies of the American tech kings”.

Late on Friday, after at least two people were killed and scores wounded in a suspected terror attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, Musk doubled down, tweeting: “Scholz should resign immediately. Incompetent fool.”

Lauterbach accused Musk of election interference and called for authorities to “keep a close eye on the goings-on on X”.

He said: “It is very disturbing, the way in which the platform X, which I use very intensively myself, is increasingly being used to spread the political positions and goals of Mr Musk.”

The most direct response to the Musk tweet came from Christian Lindner, the head of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), who was sacked as finance minister by Scholz over deep disagreements around fiscal management.

Lindner wrote on X: “Elon, I’ve initiated a policy debate inspired by ideas from you and Milei. While migration control is crucial for Germany, the AfD stands against freedom, business – and it’s a far-right extremist party. Don’t rush to conclusions from afar. Let’s meet, and I’ll show you what the FDP stands for. CL”.

In May, the AfD was expelled from a pan-European parliamentary group of populist far-right parties after a string of controversies, including a comment by the senior AfD figure that the Nazi SS were “not all criminals”.

The ID group, which includes France’s far-right National Rally, Italy’s Lega, Austria’s Freedom party, Geert Wilders’ Dutch Freedom party and Vlaams Belang in Belgium, said it “no longer want[ed] to be associated” with such incidents.

Musk has previously expressed backing for other anti-immigration forces across Europe, including the UK’s Reform party and Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

He has also previously voiced enthusiastic support for Milei, who in his first year as Argentina’s president has cut public spending and axed tens of thousands of public sector jobs, and plunged many households into economic despair.

Alice Weidel, the head of the AfD, who is standing as its candidate for chancellor, reposted Musk’s comment, writing to him: “Yes! You are perfectly right @elonmusk!”

Referring to a recent interview she gave on Trump with the news organisation Bloomberg, Weidel said Musk should note “how socialist [Angela] Merkel ruined our country, how the Soviet European Union destroys the country’s economic backbone and malfunctioning Germany”. She wished Musk and Trump a happy Christmas and “all the best for the upcoming tenure”.

Last year Musk criticised the German government and its struggle to tackle illegal migration, one of the main topics on the election campaign agenda. He has also fired off personal jibes against Scholz and his economics minister, Robert Habeck.

This week Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, posted a photograph of himself and the party’s treasurer meeting Musk at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and claimed Musk was prepared to provide financial support to bolster his party’s chances of entering government.

The Israeli military said its forces shot a protester during a demonstration against the army’s activities in a village in southern Syria on Friday, injuring him in the leg.

Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on 8 December Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military facilities in what it says is a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.

In a move widely condemned internationally, Israel also sent troops into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights and beyond, calling it a defensive and temporary measure.

“During a protest against IDF’s activities in the area of Maariya in southern Syria, IDF [the Israeli military] called on protesters to distance themselves from the troops,” the military told Agence France-Presse.

The village is just outside the southern point of the UN-patrolled zone.

“After the troops identified a threat, they operated in accordance with standard operating procedures against the threat … The protester was shot in the leg,” the military said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli troops were stationed at a barracks in the village.

“During a protest condemning the Israeli incursion, a young man was injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire in the village of Maariya, in the Daraa region,” the observatory said.

Israeli forces from Al Jazeera barracks “opened fire directly at the demonstrators”, wounding the man in the leg, it said.

A villager from Maariya told AFP that Israeli soldiers had been entering his village and other nearby villages in recent days.

“When the Israelis entered … they sowed fear and horror among the people, the children, the women,” Ali al-Khalaf, 52, said.

“So much so that some people fled to other nearby villages. They [Israeli troops] entered the villages of Maariya, Aabdyn and Jamlah.”

On Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled zone. During the visit the Israeli prime minister reviewed the army’s deployment in the area, his office said.

Hours after Assad was overthrown, Netanyahu had ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone.

Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with the prime minister saying it was in response to a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”.

Israeli forces have also been operating in areas beyond the buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory, the military has confirmed.

Netanyahu said his country had “no interest in confronting Syria. Israel’s policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground”.

Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, accused Israel of “a new, unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone but said “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war” prevents it from entering new conflicts.

Israel conquered about two-thirds of the Golan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it. The US, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, is the only country that has recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan.

Eight people have been convicted in a French anti-terrorism court of involvement in the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty outside his school four years ago.

Paty, 47, was killed outside his school near Paris on 16 October 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police.

Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since the end of November are accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organising a hate campaign online before the murder took place.

The 540-seat courtroom in central Paris was packed for the verdict, which marked the final chapter of the Paty trial. The atmosphere became charged as the lead judge delivered the sentences.

Families of the accused, seated on the benches, reacted strongly – there were gasps, cries, shouts, and even ironic clapping erupted, prompting the judge to pause several times and call for silence.

Prosecutors requested sentences ranging from 18 months suspended imprisonment to 16 years in prison against the defendants. They include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped buy weapons for the attack and the father of a schoolgirl whose lies started the fatal spiral of events.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor had asked the court to downgrade the offences of four of the eight defendants, prompting ire from Paty’s family.

“It’s more than a disappointment,” Paty’s sister Mickaëlle had told broadcaster TF1. “In a moment like this, it feels like one is fighting for nothing.”

Also, the public prosecutor dropped the charge of complicity in favour of a lower charge of association with a terrorist enterprise against the two young men accused of providing logistical support to the killer. He asked for 14 years in prison for Naïm Boudaoud and 16 years for Azim Epsirkhanov.

The attack occurred against a backdrop of protests in many Muslim countries and calls online for violence targeting France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper had republished its caricatures of the prophet Muhammad a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists.

The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims, who saw them as sacrilegious. But the fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life.

Much attention at the trial focused on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a teenager who was 13 at the time and claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on 5 October 2020.

Chnina, 52, sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” needed to be fired, along with the address of the school in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint-Honorine. In reality, Chnina’s daughter had lied to him and had never attended the lesson in question.

Paty was giving a lesson mandated by the National Education Ministry on freedom of expression. He discussed the caricatures in this context, saying students who did not wish to see them could temporarily leave the classroom.

An online campaign against Paty snowballed, and 11 days after the lesson, Anzorov attacked the teacher with a knife as he walked home, and displayed the teacher’s head on social media. Police later shot Anzorov as he advanced toward them, armed.

Chnina is accused of alleged association with a terrorist enterprise for targeting the 47-year-old teacher through false information. The public prosecutor requested a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for him.

His daughter was tried last year in a juvenile court and given an 18-month suspended sentence. Four other students at Paty’s school were found guilty of involvement and given suspended sentences; a fifth was given a sixth-month term with an electronic bracelet.

Some of the defendants expressed regrets and claimed their innocence on the eve of the verdict. They did not convince Paty’s family.

“It’s something that really shocks the family,” lawyer Virginie Le Roy said. “You get the feeling that those in the box are absolutely unwilling to admit any responsibility whatsoever. Apologies are pointless, they won’t bring Samuel back, but explanations are precious to us. But, unfortunately, I have to make a more than mixed assessment. We haven’t had many explanations of the facts.”

• The IMF’s executive board approved a $1.1bn disbursement to Ukraine as part of an ongoing loan programme to provide budget support. The approval on Friday bolsters Ukraine as it faces continued Russian attacks, and comes just over a month after staff at the International Monetary Fund completed the sixth review of an existing four-year program worth some $15.5bn. Friday’s payout brings the total disbursed under the program since it was signed in March 2023 to around $9.8bn, according to the IMF. Friday’s board approval means Kyiv will receive the money before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January.

• Six people, including one child, were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk region on Friday, said the acting governor, Alexander Khinshtein. Ten wounded people, including a 13-year-old, were taken to hospital with minor injuries, Khinshtein wrote on Telegram. Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the incident. Khinshtein said Ukraine had fired US-supplied Himars rockets, damaging several buildings including a school, recreation centre and private residences in Rylsk, about 16 miles (26 km) from the border with Ukraine’s Sumy region.

• The attack came hours after Ukrainian authorities said a Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one person and wounded 12 others. Moscow claimed the Kyiv strike was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons. Russia is trying to push back a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk that was launched in early August, but Ukraine’s troops are dug in, and still hold part pf the Kursk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual press conference on Thursday that they would be expelled, but declined to set a date for when this would happen.

• Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday he would speak with Putin again after reinitiating contact with the Kremlin chief last month. “I have spoken to the Russian president and will speak to him again,” Scholz declared, without saying when, at a press conference with Estonian prime minister Kristen Michal. The aim of such calls with Putin would “always be to make clear that his contribution to ending the conflict is to end his aggression and withdraw troops”, Scholz said. Scholz raised eyebrows when he picked up the phone to Putin in mid-November for the first time in over two years amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

• Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, the Russian general assassinated by Ukraine was buried with full military honours on Friday and posthumously granted a top award. Kirillov, who was chief of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops, is the most senior Russian officer to be killed inside Russia by Ukraine. He was killed outside his Moscow apartment building on Tuesday along with his assistant when a bomb attached to an electric scooter went off in an attack for which Ukraine’s SBU security service took responsibility.

• A Russian cyber-attack on Ukraine’s justice ministry registries caused a shutdown of online services for marriages and other matters, but no data appears to have been leaked or stolen, the Ukrainian government said. Russia took several months to prepare the cyber-attack, which was the largest to target Ukraine’s state registries in recent times, deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, who is also justice minister, told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv.
  Online services to register matters like marriages, cars, births or a change of residence in Ukraine were suspended, the government service platform said.
  The attack sought to “instil panic among Ukrainian citizens and those abroad,” Stefanishyna said. There was no comment from Russia.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said that he had approved the appointment of a senior Crimean Tatar politician, who spent nearly three years imprisoned by Russia, as ambassador to Turkey. The 44-year-old former journalist and community leader for the persecuted predominantly Muslim minority group from Moscow-annexed Crimea was released in a rare prisoner swap involving civilians earlier this year. Dzhelyal was arrested in September 2021 and sentenced in 2022 to 17 years in prison on a terrorist charge for allegedly conspiring to blow up a gas pipeline near the regional capital of Simferopol along with several other activists, who likewise denied guilt.

• Ukraine’s central bank said on Friday it would ease some of its wartime currency controls to simplify nuclear fuel purchases and coupon payments on corporate Eurobonds and reduce jewellery imports. The central bank has been gradually softening its restrictions on capital outflows and tight foreign exchange measures imposed after Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
  It said in a statement it would expand permissions to buy hard currency for nuclear fuel purchases. Ukraine faces a severe energy crisis after Russia intensified bombardments of its power infrastructure, damaging thermal and hydropower generation. Now the country relies on nuclear power stations for more than half of its energy needs. The central bank said it would also ease its restrictions on purchases and sales of precious metals, aiming to support domestic producers and reduce imports of jewellery products.

WhatsApp claimed legal victory over the maker of Pegasus spyware late on Friday.

The Israeli company, NSO Group Technologies, was accused in a lawsuit by Meta’s messaging app of infecting and surveilling the phones of 1,400 people over a two-week period in May 2019 via its notorious Pegasus software.

The judge in the case, Phyllis Hamilton, found the company had violated state and federal US hacking laws as well as WhatsApp’s own terms of service.

NSO Group will face a separate jury trial in March 2025 to determine the damages it owes WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging service.

WhatsApp said in a statement: “After five years of litigation, we’re grateful for today’s decision. NSO can no longer avoid accountability for their unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, human rights activists and civil society. With this ruling, spyware companies should be on notice that their illegal actions will not be tolerated.”

NSO Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a summary judgment, the judge found NSO Group violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Apple had filed a similar suit against the company but dropped it in September.

NSO Group dragged its feet throughout the litigation, according to the judge’s ruling. Hamilton had ordered NSO Group to provide WhatsApp with the source code of its spyware in early 2024. In her Friday ruling, however, she said the company repeatedly failed to comply, a major reason she granted WhatsApp’s request for sanctions against the company.

Though the lawsuit was filed in California, NSO Group made its source code available to view only in Israel by an Israeli citizen, which the judge called “simply impracticable”, according to the ruling.

NSO Group has repeatedly said its government clients control the use of Pegasus and are responsible for hacking carried out with it, but filings in the case showed that not to be true. The company was demonstrated to be the party that “installs and extracts” information with Pegasus, which was used to infiltrate not only WhatsApp but also iPhones to extract pictures, emails and texts.

Among the victims of the hack identified by Meta were senior government officials, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents and diplomats. Joe Biden’s administration put NSO Group on a blacklist in 2021 and forbid US government agencies from purchasing its products. Pegasus has been implicated in hacks by authoritarian governments across the world.