Trump: ‘We don’t run from anybody’ in blasting Biden over Afghanistan withdrawal
President Donald Trump Friday sharply criticized former President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling it an “embarrassment” and arguing his administration would not have left military equipment behind.
“You remember that where they left all the military equipment behind? We didn’t. We wouldn’t have left anything,” Trump said while speaking at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “We were going to get out with dignity and strength, respect. We looked like we were running. We don’t run from anybody. That was a Biden embarrassment.”
Trump also questioned why aircraft were not flown out of the country.
“We don’t leave equipment behind. We don’t leave jets behind,” he said. “I said, why do you leave those jets behind, sir? I thought it was cheaper to leave it behind. You know, $150 million plane. All they had to do is put a little jet fuel in there and fly it to wherever they want to fly it.”
He said the U.S. military had been rebuilt during his first term and is now stronger than ever.
“So with the help of everyone in this room, America is the strongest military on the face of the earth. We rebuilt it. We really did,” Trump said. “We rebuilt it in my first term.”
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His remarks came during a visit that honored the special operators involved in the operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which he contrasted as an “extraordinary military operation.”
The U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 after nearly 20 years of war. The evacuation followed a February 2020 agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term that set a timeline for U.S. forces to leave the country.
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Biden oversaw the final withdrawal as Taliban forces rapidly seized control of Afghanistan, culminating in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians.
Biden has argued that he was bound by the withdrawal agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term and faced the choice of completing the pullout or sending more U.S. troops back into combat. Trump has rejected that claim, saying his deal with the Taliban was “conditions-based” and that he would not have withdrawn if the Taliban failed to meet its commitments.
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden Friday for comment and has yet to receive a reply.
Ukraine strikes major Russian ammo depot with ‘Flamingo’ missile as Trump urges Zelenskyy to move on deal
Video released this week shows Ukraine launching domestically produced FP-5 “Flamingo” cruise missiles, as Kyiv pushes deeper strikes on Russian military infrastructure nearly four years into the war.
Ukraine’s military said the missiles were used in an overnight attack on February 11 to 12 targeting a missile, ammunition and an explosives arsenal near the settlement of Kotluban in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast, describing the facility as belonging to Russia’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, known as GRAU, and said it was among the largest ammunition storage hubs used by Russian forces.
Ukrainian officials said powerful explosions and secondary detonations were recorded at the site, while the extent of damage was still being assessed.
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Russian regional authorities acknowledged an incident at a Defense Ministry facility in the same area. Volgograd Governor Andrey Bocharov said air defenses repelled a missile attack and that falling debris triggered a fire at a military facility near Kotluban. He said an evacuation of nearby residents was ordered during firefighting because of the threat of detonation. Anadolu Agency reported that buses were prepared to move residents to temporary accommodation centers.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has also publicly referenced the Flamingo system. In a daily update carried by Russian state media, the ministry said its air defenses shot down five Flamingo long-range cruise missiles over the previous 24 hours. The ministry did not provide evidence in the statement, and Kyiv has not confirmed how many missiles were intercepted.
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Ukraine has increasingly highlighted indigenous long-range capabilities, including the FP-5. An East-to-West News agency video report previously cited Ukrainian officials describing the missile’s range as 3,000 kilometers, or about 1,864 miles, and said officials claim accuracy within about 14 meters, though battlefield performance is difficult to independently verify.
In response to a reporter’s question on Friday on the talks between the sides, President Donald Trump put the onus back on President Zelenskyy to make a deal.
“Well, Zelenskyy is going to have to get moving. Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelenskyy is going to have to get moving otherwise, he’s going to miss a great opportunity. He has to move,” he said.
A new round of U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine is expected in Geneva next week, even as fighting persists along the more than 1,200-kilometer front line.
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Ukrainian officials said Russian attacks across Ukraine continue, saying on Friday that a Russian drone assault on port infrastructure near Odesa killed one person and injured six others, while a separate strike near the eastern front line killed three brothers, including an eight-year-old and wounded their mother and grandmother.
Iran regime accused of killing 19 Christians in anti-regime protests as persecution continues: watchdog
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s atrocities against demonstrators opposed to the regime has reportedly resulted in security forces killing at least 19 Iranian Christians, according to Article 18, an organization that promotes religious freedom in Iran.
Article 18 reported on Feb. 9 that “The total number of Christians confirmed to have been killed during the protests is at least 19, including members of Iran’s recognized (Armenians and Assyrians) and unrecognized (converts) communities.”
According to the Article 18 statement, the Islamic Republic’s “brutal response to last month’s mass demonstrations” resulted in the security forces murdering Iranian Christians Nader Mohammadi, 35, and Zahra Arjomandi, 51, who were both shot dead on Jan. 8 in separate protests 1,000 miles apart.
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Mohammadi was the father of three young children, and was killed in Babol in northern Iran. Arjomandi, who was a mother of two children, died in her son’s arms on the Persian Gulf island of Qeshm, in southern Iran, noted Article 18.
The Iranian Christian website Mohabat News stated that regime security forces refused to release Arjomandi’s body for six days. Mohabat reported that her body was only released for burial under “strict security measures”, which included a media blackout and prohibiting a memorial service.
Mansour Borji, the executive director for Article 18, told Fox News Digital that, “Today, Christians, like millions of other Iranians, seek the freedom and justice that they have been denied for nearly five decades, and they know well that this comes at a price. Every year many Christians are arrested and imprisoned under torturous conditions for practicing their right to religious freedom, where a simple act like praying together in house-churches seems like an act of civil disobedience.”
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He continued, “Our organization considers the Islamic Republic’s massacre of all peaceful protesters a crime against humanity that should not go unpunished. There must be an end to the impunity that, for far too long, has enabled this regime to commit crimes like at home and abroad. Branding peaceful protesters as ‘terrorists,’ and Christians that are persecuted every year as ‘Zionist mercenaries,’ is nothing but scapegoating.”
He warned that “The Islamic Republic’s regime has, since its inception, demonstrated all traits of a totalitarian state. Most Iranians have now come to realize that their fundamental rights have been taken away from them, including the freedom to choose one’s own religion or belief, political self-determination and even their lifestyle choices. Christians were some of the earliest to experience this, when an Anglican priest and convert to Christianity, Rev. Arastoo Sayyah, was killed in his church office less than 200 hours after the 1979 revolution.”
A comprehensive 2025 report titled, “The Tip of the Iceberg” about the persecution of Iranian Christians was released by Article 18 in collaboration with Open Doors, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Middle East Concern.
According to the “The Tip of the Iceberg” report, Mohammad Nasirpour, the deputy prosecutor of Tehran and head of the 33rd District Prosecutor’s office, stated in his indictment against four Iranian Christians on June 2022: “Armenian and Assyrian Christians in the Protestant denomination, with their evangelical nature and mission to Christianize Iran, are perceived as a security threat to the Islamic Revolution, aimed at undermining the Islamic foundation of the Islamic Republic. It could be said that Persian-speaking evangelical movements are supported by fundamentalist evangelical Christians and Zionists.”
According to a Feb. 10 report on the website of Christianity Today, Iranian Christians want President Trump to intervene to stop the Ayatollah’s regime from continuing with its massacre of Iranians.
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“That’s probably one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole situation right now,” said Shahrokh Afshar, founder of Fellowship of Iranian Christians. “Everyone was hoping he would do something,” Afshar told the outlet after the Iranian authorities killed thousands of protesters in January, according to some estimates.
Fox News Digital has reported over the decades on the Islamic Republic’s high-intensity persecution of Iranian Christians in the wake of the growing popularity of Christianity in the Muslim-majority country. Iran’s regime targets diverse groups of Christians, including Evangelicals and Catholics. In 2017, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested two Christians – a mother and her son – as part of a brutal crackdown on Catholicism in the country’s West Azerbaijan Province.
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The family’s bibles and literature on Christian theology were also seized during the raid.
The United States State Department has designated Iran as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC)” because the Islamic regime has “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom” with respect to violations of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The Iranian regime -controlled statistical center of Iran claims there are 117,700 Christians of recognized denominations as of the 2016 census, according to the most recent U.S. State Department report on the plight of Iranian Christians.
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However, the State Department noted that, “The Christian advocacy NGO Article 18 estimates there are 500,000 to 800,000 Christians in the country, while the Christian advocacy NGO Open Doors International estimates the number is 1.24 million. Christian NGOs report many Christians are converts from Islam or other recognized faiths.” The population of Iran is roughly 92 million.
Netanyahu urges court to revoke Palestinians’ Israeli citizenship after convictions for violent crimes
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday asked a court to revoke the Israeli citizenship of two Palestinian men convicted of terrorism offenses.
The effort appears to be the first use of a law enacted three years ago allowing the revocation of citizenship and subsequent deportation of Palestinian citizens who were convicted of certain violent crimes such as terrorism and received financial support from the Palestinian Authority as a reward.
Netanyahu filed court documents arguing that the severity of the crimes, along with payments the men reportedly received from a Palestinian Authority fund, justify pulling their citizenship and expelling them from the Jewish State.
The prime minister has long claimed the fund rewards violence, including attacks on civilians.
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But Palestinian officials have contended that it is a safety net for the broad cross section of society with family members in Israeli detention. They also accused Netanyahu of focusing on the relatively small number of beneficiaries who carried out the attacks.
When the law passed, critics argued that it allowed Israel’s legal system to treat Jewish and Palestinian people differently. Civil rights groups said that basing a deportation law on Palestinian Authority payments effectively excluded Jewish Israelis, including settlers convicted of attacks against Palestinians, from the threat of losing their citizenship, as the statute targeted people of a certain race.
Netanyahu said this week that the government launched proceedings against the two men and that similar cases would be brought in the future.
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Israeli officials said Mohamad Ahmad, a citizen from Jerusalem, was convicted of “offenses that constitute an act of terrorism and receiving funds in connection with terrorism.” He allegedly received payment after he was sentenced in 2002 for a shooting attack and served 23 years before his release in 2024.
Mohammed Ahmad Hussein al-Halsi was sentenced in 2016 to 18 years behind bars for stabbing elderly women. He also allegedly received payments while in prison.
Ahmad would be deported immediately, while al-Halsi would be removed upon his release, as individuals are subject to removal to Gaza once their sentences are complete under the 2023 law, which applies to citizens or permanent residents convicted of “committing an act that constitutes a breach of loyalty to the State of Israel,” including terrorism.
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The general director of Israel’s Adalah legal center, Hassan Jabareen, called the move to use the law “a cynical propaganda move” by Netanyahu. He said stripping citizenship violated the most basic principles of the rule of law, including by acting against people who have completed prison sentences.
“The Israeli government is attempting to strip individuals of the very foundation through which all rights are protected, their nationality,” he said on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.