Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack
For more than two years, Yahya Sinwar huddled with his top Hamas commanders and plotted what they hoped would be the most devastating and destabilizing attack on Israel in the militant group’s four-decade history.
Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, provide a detailed record of the planning for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as Mr. Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the assault or at least commit to a broader fight with Israel if Hamas staged a surprise cross-border raid.
The documents, which represent a breakthrough in understanding Hamas, also show extensive efforts to deceive Israel about its intentions as the group laid the groundwork for a bold assault and a regional conflagration that Mr. Sinwar hoped would cause Israel to “collapse.”
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One of the World’s Most Immigrant-Friendly Countries Is Changing Course
A late-night Uber ride from Toronto’s Pearson Airport into the city usually guarantees a good fare for the driver.
But not for Sachindeep Singh on the evening of Sept. 19.
A few miles into the ride, his Uber app stopped working.
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China’s ‘New Great Wall’ Casts a Shadow on Nepal
The Chinese fence traces a furrow in the Himalayas, its barbed wire and concrete ramparts separating Tibet from Nepal. Here, in one of the more isolated places on earth, China’s security cameras keep watch alongside armed sentries in guard towers.
High on the Tibetan Plateau, the Chinese have carved a 600-feet-long message on a hillside: “Long live the Chinese Communist Party,” inscribed in characters that can be read from orbit.
Just across the border, in Nepal’s Humla District, residents contend that along several points of this distant frontier, China is encroaching on Nepali territory.
The Nepalis have other complaints, too. Chinese security forces are pressuring ethnic Tibetan Nepalis not to display images of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in Nepali villages near the border, they say. And with the recent proliferation of Chinese barriers and other defenses, a people have also been divided. The stream of thousands of Tibetans who once escaped Chinese government repression by fleeing to Nepal has almost entirely vanished.
Yet Nepal’s leaders have refused to acknowledge China’s imprints on their country. Ideologically and economically tied to China, successive Nepali governments have ignored a 2021 fact-finding report that detailed various border abuses in Humla.
“This is the new Great Wall of China,” said Jeevan Bahadur Shahi, the former provincial chief minister of the area. “But they don’t want us to see it.”
China’s fencing along the edge of Nepal’s Humla District is just one segment of a fortification network thousands of miles long that Xi Jinping’s government has built to reinforce remote reaches, control rebellious populations and, in some cases, push into territory that other nations consider their own.
The fortification building spree, accelerated during Covid and backed by dozens of new border settlements, is imposing Beijing’s Panopticon security state on far-flung areas. It is also placing intense pressure on China’s poorer, weaker neighbors.
China borders 14 other countries by land. Its vast frontier, on land and at sea, remained largely peaceful as China’s economy grew to become the world’s second-largest. But amid Mr. Xi’s tenure, Beijing is redefining its territorial limits, leading to small skirmishes and outright conflict.
“Under Xi Jinping, China has doubled down on efforts to assert its territorial claims in disputed areas along its periphery,” said Brian Hart, a fellow at the China Power Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Viewed individually, each action along China’s borders — fortifying boundaries, contesting territory and pushing into disputed zones — might seem only incremental. But the aggregated result is startling.
Near its eastern maritime reaches, in what are internationally recognized as Philippine waters, China has turned a coral reef into a military base. On its far western land border, China’s People’s Liberation Army has pushed into disputed mountain territory shared with South Asian neighbors.
Two dozen soldiers from India and China, both nuclear powers, died in high-altitude, hand-to-hand combat in 2020. Another border clash two years later injured more soldiers.
China’s border buildup is a major reason that the U.S. Department of Defense, in its 2023 China Military Power Report, declared that China has “adopted more dangerous, coercive, and provocative actions in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The shifting security landscape is drawing the attention of global powers and leading to new alliances. Small nations with ties to China, like Nepal, are vulnerable, even as they downplay or deny border disputes for fear of losing Beijing’s economic favor.
“Weaker states like Nepal,” Mr. Hart said, “face immense pressures because of the overwhelming power differential with China.”
“If China does not face costs for encroaching on its weakest neighbors, Beijing will be further emboldened to threaten countries in the region,” he added.
Nepal’s foreign minister, Arzu Rana Deuba, said in an interview with The New York Times that she had not received complaints about problems on the border with Tibet and that the government’s focus was more on the southern boundary with India, where more Nepalis live.
“We have not really thought much of looking at the northern border, at least I haven’t,” she said.
A Top Secret Report
The distance from Simikot, the capital of Humla District, to the frontier village of Hilsa is 30 miles. But the drive to the border with Tibet takes more than 10 bone-jarring hours through rough, rocky terrain. Humla is unconnected to Nepal’s national road network. Cars and heavy machinery must be flown in.
Himalayan passes in Humla reach nearly 16,400 feet. Deadly altitude sickness can set in fast. It was to this district, Nepal’s poorest and least developed, that members of a fact-finding mission — composed of Nepali Home Ministry officials, government surveyors and police personnel — traveled three years ago.
Armed with a 1960s map from when Nepal and China formally agreed upon their boundary, they set out to discover whether the official cartography diverged from the reality on the ground. The mission members trekked to remote border pillars. They chatted with yak herders and Tibetan Buddhist monks.
Eventually, they produced their report to Nepal’s cabinet. And then the report disappeared. The public was not allowed to see it. Even high-ranking officials and politicians were refused access, several people involved said.
The veil of secrecy extended to the historical map that the mission brought with it. Survey department employees said they have been cautioned that sharing it could be a security breach — a strange warning for a map accessible in American archives.
A copy of the report obtained by The Times shows that the government mission documented a series of small border infringements by China. Also coursing through the report are worries about China’s grander geopolitical intentions and fears about upsetting Nepal’s powerful neighbor.
A nation of 30 million people, Nepal is small, landlocked and underdeveloped. Its government is headed by a Communist, who this year replaced a former Maoist rebel as prime minister. In ideology and in economics, Nepal leans heavily toward China, even as it remains in the orbit of nearby India.
The report says that in several places in and around Hilsa, China constructed fortifications and other infrastructure, including closed-circuit TV cameras, that are either in Nepal or in a buffer zone between the two countries where building is prohibited by bilateral agreement. Chinese border personnel took over a Nepali irrigation canal fed by the Karnali River, the report said, although the Chinese retreated when the Nepali mission visited.
Chinese forces have illegally prevented ethnic Tibetans living in Nepali areas near the border from grazing their livestock and participating in religious activities, the report said. Such constraints bring extraterritorial menace to Mr. Xi’s campaign of repression in Tibet.
The report advised that Nepal and China urgently needed to address various border disputes, but a bilateral mechanism for resolving border problems, which includes joint inspections, has been stalled since 2006.
N.P. Saud, Nepal’s foreign minister until March, said in an interview with The Times that bilateral “border meetings are held frequently.”
But one of Mr. Saud’s deputies told The Times that no border inspections had occurred in more than 17 years. Asked about this, Mr. Saud amended his statement.
“I can share with you that the joint inspection team will work soon,” he said. “I can’t tell you the exact time until it is finalized.”
Mr. Saud said that he did not know why the Humla report had not been made public.
“The border of a country,” he said, “is not a matter of secrecy.”
Mr. Saud said Nepal could not make any determination on the report’s validity until the joint inspections restart.
“Until and unless we confirm the report,” he said, “how we can raise the issue internationally with another country?”
Ms. Deuba, who replaced Mr. Saud as foreign minister, said she was not aware of the report or of Chinese fencing on the border.
The Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu declined to comment.
The Chinese government says that it is a force for peace in the region. In an article in the party-run People’s Daily, Pan Yue, the head of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, wrote last year that China “never sought to conquer or expand territorially, never colonized neighboring countries.”
History collides with such national mythmaking. In 1979, Chinese forces briefly invaded Vietnam, which China had once controlled for a millennium. Since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, China and India have fought two border wars.
Mr. Shahi, the former provincial chief minister from Humla, said that his efforts to publicize Chinese border intrusions have been actively discouraged.
“The Chinese, they say to our government, and then the government says to me, ‘If you talk about this border issue, then they will stop trade, they will stop everything,” he said. “Who the hell can say this to me about our land?”
A Holy Land, Divided
The border fence separating Hilsa from Chinese-controlled Tibet cleaves not only nations but centuries. On the Chinese side, modern buildings feature glass atriums, armored vehicles glide along paved roads and floodlights blaze in the night sky. Nepal, by contrast, seems stuck in a bygone era. Ramshackle shelters hunch in the cold. There is not an inch of asphalt or any reliable electricity.
The Chinese side used to be nearly as remote, the seclusion broken only by a flow of pilgrims to Mount Kailash, which is holy to four faiths. But as part of a push into lands populated by ethnic minorities, the Chinese government has seeded Tibet and the neighboring Xinjiang region with new infrastructure.
Migrants from China’s Han ethnic majority have poured in, including to the Tibetan town of Purang near the border with Hilsa. A new high-altitude airport in Purang, a feat of engineering, serves both civilian and military purposes, part of a transportation network that gives the People’s Liberation Army easy access to border areas. Just 20 miles away is the junction of China, Nepal and India.
Beijing considers a large swath of Indian-controlled territory along the Tibet-India boundary to be its own, calling it “South Tibet.” On the border with tiny Bhutan, China claims more disputed land and has built settlements there.
The Chinese focus on Tibet reflects more than geopolitical ambitions. Mr. Xi’s government has overseen a brutal effort to pacify ethnic minorities. High-tech surveillance of Tibetans, and the fortification of the border, has all but severed their escape route into Nepal, where ethnic Tibetans also live.
Chinese police and border guards, Hilsa residents say, regularly cross over to Nepal without going through normal immigration procedures. They intimidate ethnic Tibetan Nepalis and have captured some of the few Tibetans who succeeded in fleeing to Nepal, said Lhamu Lama, a Humla District village administrator.
An officer with the Nepali paramilitary police in Hilsa said that last year his commander asked the Chinese to retreat from an area that the 1960s official map indicated was not Chinese land. The Chinese never responded, said the officer, who did not want his name used because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
“China is big and powerful so it can do what it wants,” said Pema Wangmu Lama, who was born in Tibet but now lives in Nepal. “Even if Hilsa is swallowed up one day, who would know or care what’s happening here?”
Alex Salmond, Scotland’s Former First Minister, Dies at 69
Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who campaigned for the country to leave the United Kingdom and led the nation during an independence referendum, has died at 69.
Mr. Salmond, who as first minister led the Scottish government from 2007 to 2014, died after delivering a speech in North Macedonia on Saturday, the BBC reported. Mr. Salmond had led the Scottish National Party twice, guiding it from a fringe political group into a powerful force that won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament in 2011. It was a push for Scotland’s political independence that had propelled his own career, and he was the nation’s first pro-independence first minister.
That movement fractured after a failed independence referendum and a multiyear saga in which Mr. Salmond was accused of multiple sexual assaults and eventually acquitted. But Mr. Salmond continued to campaign for the cause until his death, and his influence in British politics persisted after he stepped down as first minister.
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One of the Loneliest Countries Finds Companionship in Dogs
The deceased lay wrapped in a cotton blanket, surrounded by white roses and hydrangea, angelic figurines and lit candles and incense. A wall-mounted screen displayed photographs of him. His 71-year-old companion, Kim Seon-ae, convulsed with tears as she bid farewell, caressing his head and face. Next door, young uniformed morticians prepared for his cremation.
The elaborate and emotional ritual was for a white poodle named Dalkong, who was nestled in a willow basket with his eyes still open.
“He was like a virus that infected me with happiness,” said Ms. Kim, who had lived with Dalkong for 13 years until he succumbed to heart disease. “We were family.”
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Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine
It was a familiar and vexing problem: Russian soldiers were using the dense cover of tree lines to prepare to storm the Ukrainian trenches.
“We used a lot of resources to try and drive them out and destroy them,” said Capt. Viacheslav, 30, the commander of the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade’s strike drone company known as “Dovbush’s Hornets.”
But they could not do so, he said in an interview last month.
So they gave a new weapon a newer twist, attaching thermite-spewing canisters to drones and creating a weapon capable of spitting out molten metal that burns at 4,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Soldiers call them “dragon drones.”
Thermite — which was developed a century ago to weld railroad tracks — is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide. When ignited, it produces a self-sustaining reaction that makes it almost impossible to extinguish.
It was used to devastating effect in both world wars. In Ukraine, it has been used primarily in artillery shells and hand grenades.
Now it is being attached to drones that sweep over Russian defensive positions, raining burning metal over the enemy before crashing. The flames ignite the vegetation that Russian troops use for cover and burn it out, exposing them and their equipment to direct attack.
The dragon drones are yet one more step in the revolution of drone warfare that has transformed the battlefield. Its role as a laboratory for improvisation and adaptation has become a hallmark of this war.
“It worked quite well,” Captain Viacheslav said. Speaking on the condition that only his first name be used in accordance with military protocol, he shared videos of his pilots testing the drones and using them in combat outside Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine.
In recent weeks, as more and more of these drones filled the skies across the front, Ukrainian soldiers began posting dozens of videos of the attacks on social media, hoping to spark fear along with fire.
It did not take long for the Russians to begin producing dragon drones of their own.
Andrey Medvedev, a Moscow politician, posted a video on Telegram last month showing Russian troops using drones to pour fire on Ukrainian soldiers. He included a quote from “Game of Thrones”: “Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did.”
The use of thermite is not barred under international law, but the use of such incendiary weapons in civilian areas is prohibited under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Cold War-era guidance issued under the auspices of the United Nations.
There has been no significant criticism of dragon drones, which are known to have been used only against military targets, not against civilians.
The dragon drones represent only a tiny fraction of the rapidly expanding fleets being employed by both armies as they engage in an urgent arms race to innovate and mass produce drones that fly faster and farther, while becoming ever deadlier.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said early this month that his country was on pace to produce 1.5 million drones this year, and he wants to ramp up production to four million annually.
Earlier this year, Ukraine created the Unmanned Systems Force, the world’s first military branch dedicated to drone warfare.
Russia, for its part, has effectively turned its economy to supporting its military industrial complex, recently announcing a proposed budget for next year with a 25 percent increase in military spending, to more than $145 billion.
As a result, it is able to churn out drones at an extraordinary pace.
“They’ve taken it to a more official level, and their supply seems much better,” Captain Viacheslav said.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with the Russian Military-Industrial Commission in September to highlight efforts to expand drone production. While Russian companies delivered only about 140,000 drones last year, the Russian leader said they increased production tenfold to 1.4 million drones in 2024.
Marina Miron, a researcher in the war studies department at King’s College London, said that the Russians had been “quite slow at the beginning” but that they were now spending a vast sum on research and development and could scale new innovations at greater speed than the Ukrainians.
“They moved quickly,” she said.
Russia has also received a significant boost from Iran, which American officials say has been sending drones to Moscow for use in Ukraine.
There are dozens of types of drones in production.
Surveillance drones flying high in the sky help artillery crews and missileers identify targets. Maritime drones have been employed by Ukraine to devastating effect, helping drive the Russian Navy from a large part of the Black Sea. And both sides regularly deploy long-range attack drones guided by satellite navigation to hit targets hundreds of miles away.
Closer to the ground, the skies are filled with relatively cheap expendable attack drones, known as F.P.V.s, for first-person view. They are guided by a pilot wearing a headset that shows livestreaming video from the drone, and can now hit targets more than 10 miles from the operator.
Some fly directly into a target and explode. Others are reusable and can hover over a target, dropping bomblets or grenades on enemy forces.
Captain Viacheslav scrolled through a video catalog of recent attacks he keeps on his cellphone, where images of death and destruction were jarringly interspersed with videos of friends and family.
“This is called ‘White Heat,’” he said. “With over 10 kilograms of explosives, it burns through everything. This one is called ‘Dementor,’ like in ‘Harry Potter.’ It’s black, and it’s a 120-mm mortar. We just repurpose it. This is ‘Kardonitik’ — the guys really like it.”
The list went on and on.
Since his unit arrived in the Pokrovsk area in April, Captain Viacheslav said, it has killed more than 3,000 Russian soldiers. “This is just my unit,” he said. It is not possible to verify his claims independently.
He also shared videos showing the effectiveness of Russian drones.
“One of our soldiers had 40 percent of his skin burned off,” he said, replaying a video of the wounded man being evacuated from the front. “I was the one driving him in the car.”
While both sides are on course to produce millions of drones, he said, skilled pilots become even more valuable and far harder to replace.
“Pilots are like specialists — worth their weight in gold — and it’s crucial to protect them,” Captain Viacheslav said. “Once located, the enemy spares no resources in destroying the position.”
Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from eastern Ukraine, and John Ismay from Washington.
Israeli Strikes on Northern Gaza Kill at Least 20, Aid Workers Say
The humanitarian crisis in the northern Gaza Strip deepened on Saturday as an Israeli bombardment killed at least 20 people, trapped thousands more and prompted one of the area’s last functioning hospitals to issue desperate pleas for assistance.
Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday hit the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, even as the Israeli military is pressing ahead with its campaign in Lebanon, where it warned residents of 23 more towns to evacuate on Saturday.
The Israeli military also reported that about 320 projectiles were fired into Israel on Saturday by the militant group Hezbollah, the focus of its offensive in Lebanon.
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China Vows to Unleash More Borrowing to Spur Economy and Strengthen Banks
China’s powerful Ministry of Finance said on Saturday that it would borrow more to help cash-short localities and put more money in the hands of state-owned banks, an effort to address a severe slowdown in real estate and shore up crumbling consumer confidence.
Lan Fo’an, the finance minister, did not detail how much additional borrowing or spending the government was ready to commit to bolster weak domestic consumption, stabilize the country’s real estate market and strengthen banks. But he hinted that such a plan might still be under development.
“After due procedures, we will release the number to society,” he said.
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Political Uncertainty and Budget Reality Put France in a Financial Vise
France has become one of the most financially troubled countries in Europe, with an outsize debt and deficit that are likely to keep ballooning despite efforts by a fragile new government to address the problem, the Fitch Ratings agency said on Friday.
A day after France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, introduced a tough austerity budget aimed at mending the nation’s rapidly deteriorating finances, Fitch issued a negative outlook for France’s sovereign credit rating. The rating was left unchanged at an AA– level for now, but Fitch warned that it could be revised lower if the government’s budget plans fall apart.
The outlook reflects greater financial risks that have swirled in France since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the lower house of Parliament in June and took until last month to appoint a new government. The episode left Parliament deeply divided, split nearly evenly between warring political factions on the left, right and center, and leaving Mr. Barnier with no clear majority. That will make it harder to pass a belt-tightening budget and assuage nervous international investors at a time when France’s national debt has ballooned to more than 3 trillion euros ($3.28 trillion).
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