Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

The co-pilot who tried to crash a FlyDubai passenger jet on Wednesday was “suicidal” and “underwent Islamic radical indoctrination,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday during an appearance on Fox News, providing the first indication of a motive for the attack. – Washington Post

President Isaac Herzog of Israel on Thursday said that he would recommend five citizens for the country’s highest civilian award for heroism after they intervened to help stop a midair disaster on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. – New York Times

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is in a tight race with a national election approaching, and his supporters and opponents quickly seized on Wednesday’s narrowly averted disaster on a FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv. – New York Times

Israeli militant settlers shot two Palestinians, killing one and injuring the other, in an attack on ​the village of Yasuf in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on ‌Thursday, according to Palestinian officials. – Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump won’t say whether he thinks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be reelected when voters head to the polls later this month. – Associated Press

Israeli President Isaac Herzog accused Britain of intervening in his country’s elections through sanctions he called “unfair and politically motivated,” urging his European allies to talk with Israel before blaming the country. – Politico

El Al Israel Airlines has been forced to cancel its rescue flights to Dubai, the company announced on Friday morning, after Israeli airlines’ permission to land there was revoked by the authorities. – Jerusalem Post

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with four of the passengers from the hijacked flydubai flight who helped restrain the terrorist who attacked the pilot on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post

World WIZO convened an international panel on pursuing justice for Hamas’s sexual crimes in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, bringing Israeli and Ukrainian legal experts to an official side event of the 15th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. – Jerusalem Post

The IDF revealed on Thursday that 170 individuals who were misleadingly presented as civilian “journalists” killed in strikes on Gaza were actually affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other terrorist organizations. – Jerusalem Post

A reported media representative for Hamas has been accused of funneling some $1.7 million to the terror organization from international donors who believed they were giving humanitarian aid to Gaza, NBC News reported, citing a federal indictment unsealed on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post

Former hostage Eli Sharabi called on the United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday to recognize the treatment of hostages held in Gaza as torture and demand criminal investigations into those responsible. – Jerusalem Post

The commander of Hamas’ Northern Gaza Brigade was responsible for holding Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, the IDF and ISA revealed in a joint statement. – Arutz Sheva

Editorial: Flight FZ1073 connected two countries that established relations under the 2020 Abraham Accords. Flydubai inaugurated scheduled commercial service between Dubai and Tel Aviv that November, making direct aviation one of the agreement’s most visible results. The people placed at risk on Wednesday included an Indian captain and passengers of several nationalities aboard an Emirati aircraft bound for Israel. The heroes aboard FZ1073 did not have the luxury of waiting for perfect information. They saw a cockpit in chaos and acted. Governments have official confirmation of violence aboard a civilian aircraft and the safety of solid ground. As such, they should be able to manage a sentence. – Jerusalem Post

Russia and Ukraine

Ukraine said Thursday that it had launched a ballistic missile at a Russian target for the first time in combat, introducing a hard-to-stop weapon that Moscow already uses regularly to deadly effect. – Wall Street Journal

European voters are increasingly backing populist parties opposed to supporting Ukraine as fatigue grows with the war, forcing leaders to come up with a new pitch: We are pushing for peace. – Wall Street Journal

The Treasury Department issued economic restrictions on Thursday against A7, a Russian company that has helped to circumvent Western sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. – New York Times

It seemed a small act of vandalism. A man was caught on a surveillance camera in August cutting through a border fence from Belarus into Latvia, where he bashed another such camera with a pole before fleeing back to where he had come from. – New York Times

For months, Ukrainian officials have warned people to brace for what could be their hardest winter at war. Russia, they said, would use its ever more powerful weapons to try to cripple the country’s power grid. The first big strike was expected later this fall, with the first bite of cold. – New York Times

The Kremlin plans to sharply increase spending on the war in Ukraine, even at the cost of ballooning debt, cuts to health care and other social programs, and higher taxes, according to a draft 2027 budget made public on Wednesday. – New York Times

Russian air strikes have killed one and injured two in the Ukrainian capital ​of Kyiv and forced the closure of two ‌bridges across the Dnipro River, city authorities said on Friday. – Reuters

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday ​the world was living through a dangerous moment and warned the West not to escalate a standoff over Ukraine by threatening the Russian exclave ‌of Kaliningrad, which Moscow has made clear it would defend with nuclear weapons if necessary. – Reuters

A Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv on Thursday, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital endured another day of relentless aerial attacks. Children and staff at the school were in shelters when the drone hit, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said, and its warhead didn’t explode. – Associated Press

Ukraine will present the Trump administration and Congress this week with a wish list of Russian companies, vessels and individuals it would like to see hit with U.S. sanctions under a new law signed by President Donald Trump this month, according to a senior Ukrainian diplomat. – Associated Press

Saudi Arabia

A video showing a Saudi healthcare worker in a black niqab examining a woman in a tank top from an Israel-bound flight that was diverted to the kingdom has gone viral after being published by Saudi media and shared online. – Agence France-Presse

The US military sent two additional Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to protect the countries’ oil and gas facilities in recent weeks, Axios reported on Friday morning, citing two US officials and one regional source. – Jerusalem Post

Loud blasts were reported Thursday night in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital held by the Iran-backed Houthi movement, according to AFP. The rebel-affiliated Saba news agency accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out what it described on social media as “Saudi aggression.” – Arutz Sheva

The Saudi Interior Ministry published a detailed statement on Thursday regarding the incident involving Flydubai flight FZ1073, which landed in Tabuk, and confirmed that an initial investigation found that the co-pilot attacked the captain. – Arutz Sheva

Editorial: That’s something Riyadh has said it will not do until a pathway to a Palestinian state is established. But it is unclear if that condition was written into the text of the agreement, which was sent to Congress in August for a 90-day review. Some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the nuclear deal. With few legislative days left on the calendar, it’s uncertain whether opponents could muster enough support to pass a resolution of disapproval. Even then, Trump could veto any legislation aiming to block the deal. At minimum, Congress should insist that Saudi Arabia abide by the same conditions as the UAE. The Saudis do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. – Washington Post

Seth Mandel writes: What makes all this even more frustrating is last week’s revelation that, just before October 7, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu refused requests by Israeli officials to take out some Hamas targets because he thought Jerusalem and Riyadh were close to a deal and he didn’t want to jeopardize normalization with the Saudis. At some point the Israelis will also start to wonder if the Saudis aren’t taking advantage of them. As one Israeli official told Ynet, “The kingdom currently enjoys a security relationship in the form of a ‘mistress,’ paying no price for it and only benefiting. If Israel is smart, it will know how to leverage the security relationship and gain diplomatic benefits from it as well.” – Commentary

Middle East & North Africa

More oil is flowing from the Middle East than at any point since the start of the war with Iran, yet crude still costs almost $100 a barrel, much more than at other times when supplies were more constrained. – New York Times

Representatives of the Syrian government and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have held face-to-face talks in Turkey to try ​to calm tensions between them, according to six sources briefed on the first known meeting between the longtime foes. – Reuters

A Turkish journalist whose articles were cited among the grounds for blocking independent news portal T24 ‌said the decision effectively treated objective reporting about LGBTQ+ people as a crime, as the outlet prepared to appeal the order on Thursday. – Reuters

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on Thursday announced June 30 as a new deadline for armed factions to turn over their weapons to the state, following the end of the US-led coalition’s mission in the country. – Al Arabiya

South Asia

Castillo, a 40-year-old Californian businessman, would eventually end up in a notorious Myanmar prison—under a military regime that the U.S. doesn’t recognize—because of a dispute with the local chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce. – Wall Street Journal

The American University of Afghanistan, one of the most potent symbols of the United States’ decades in the country, has lost its State Department funding, putting the education of hundreds of Afghan women at risk, the school’s president said. – New York Times

Pakistani airstrikes on two Afghan provinces overnight killed at least 10 civilians, Afghanistan and the United Nations said Thursday, with the cross-border conflict between the two countries showing no signs of abating. – Associated Press

Pakistan’s army on Thursday accused an Afghan Taliban governor of hosting senior figures from groups with different ideological objectives for talks on escalating attacks inside Pakistan. – Associated Press

John Lee writes: Finally, the important point is that Southeast Asian governments, firms, and individuals cannot ignore the dilemma. They have to make strategic and economic choices about which ecosystem—the American or Chinese—they seek to partner with and prioritize. Some decisions will not be cost-free, and many choices are necessarily zero-sum. To be sure, many Southeast Asian nations claim that they are not interested in taking part in a geopolitical contest between giants. But to paraphrase what Leon Trotsky allegedly said about war, Southeast Asians might not be interested in geopolitical rivalry, but geopolitical rivalry is interested in them. – Hudson Institute

Europe

U.K. police arrested a dual U.K.-Iranian national on suspicion of preparing a terror act on Thursday, as investigations into Iran’s suspected links to a foiled attack on the RAF Fairford base continue. – Wall Street Journal

The Finnish authorities said on Thursday that they were investigating a series of suspected break-ins at the homes of ​members of Parliament in which nothing appeared to have been stolen or damaged. – New York Times

France and Britain are abandoning a landmark migration deal that allowed the British to return migrants who crossed the English Channel illegally in exchange for those who applied to enter via official means. – New York Times

Greece ​urged the European Union on Thursday to allow member states to temporarily suspend asylum applications during major migration flows, arguing ‌that current rules are inadequate to handle mass arrivals as in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta this summer. – Reuters

US ​Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‌will visit Iceland, Greece and Portugal next week to discuss economic and ​security cooperation and other issues, ​the State Department said in ⁠a statement on Thursday. – Reuters

France’s prime minister convened a crisis meeting Thursday and canceled ministers’ trips to focus on the nationwide spread of protests, some violent, by high school students venting about under-resourced schools, long hours and other complaints. – Associated Press

A former board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar has been detained in Spain on charges of financial impropriety that he and others maintain were fabricated by the current board. – Associated Press

A French investigative journalism website said Thursday it had been able to authenticate antisemitic messages from 2013 attributed to far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s de facto deputy. – Agence France-Presse

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama took a playful shot at U.S. Democrats over ongoing “Flamingo Revolution” protests against a planned luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. – Politico

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz moved to reassure allies in Europe and Kyiv that his domestic political weakness would not erode his government’s support for Ukraine as the war nears its fifth winter. – Politico

The European Commission and Ukraine have reached a deal to accelerate the disbursement of €45 billion earmarked for Kyiv in 2027 under the EU’s €90 billion loan program, they said Thursday in a joint statement. – Politico

Donald Trump’s threat to halt U.S. diesel exports could leave Europe’s truckers facing another sharp rise in fuel costs — and consumers paying more for goods. – Politico

European leaders must stop calling Russian attacks “hybrid,” according to Estonia’s foreign minister. They are “terror attacks” and “sabotage attacks,” Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO in an interview, and part of a systematic Russian effort against Europe that amounts to “some kind of war.” – Politico

Latvia has detained two of its citizens since June on suspicion of spying for Russia’s military intelligence agency and using a private aircraft to surveil an army base hosting NATO forces, authorities said Thursday. – Politico

Editorial: Underlying all of this is Britain’s bad habit—and it’s often bipartisan—of thinking the country’s only problem is budget math when its real problem is declining economic growth and productivity. Mr. Burnham thinks he needs to reassure investors he can find the spare cash to fund a new entitlement. But they’re waiting to see a convincing growth plan instead, and notably one that shrinks the bloated state rather than expanding it in the name of “investment.” On this week’s evidence, the British have longer to wait. – Wall Street Journal

Will Kingston-Cox and Laurențiu Pleșca write: The Colonița event was fortunate only in where the drone happened to land, not in how quickly anyone learned it had. A standing, real-time arrangement to share flight-track data with Bucharest and Kyiv costs little beyond political will. A narrow, security-specific alert for the handful of areas at risk, including Chișinău and near the Ukrainian border, could be running well before the broader civil protection system it will eventually sit alongside. Romania’s alerts on Sept. 8 concerned a different drone, ten days before the Colonița explosion. They show what a timely warning can look like. Until Moldova can give its own residents similar notice, the next drone may again announce itself before the state does. – The Hill

The Americas

Weeks before a referendum on Alberta’s future in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday sought to strengthen ties with the province by designating a proposed oil pipeline to the Pacific coast a “project of national interest,” a move that speeds its regulatory approval process. – Wall Street Journal

The Trump administration, acting in defiance of top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, has stripped tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from European and Middle Eastern countries and will give those funds instead to conservative-leaning governments in Latin America, three U.S. officials told The Washington Post. – Washington Post

Bolivia arrested its attorney general on Wednesday night, days after the United States accused him of soliciting and accepting bribes connected to drug trafficking. – Washington Post

For months, Brazil’s presidential race has been consumed by concerns over U.S. meddling, a scandal embroiling the Supreme Court and the political fallout from a multibillion-dollar banking corruption investigation. – New York Times

The International Monetary Fund is looking ​to set up an ‌office in Venezuela it said on Thursday, although the ​country’s government has ​not requested an IMF programme ⁠or any other ​sort of funding at ​this stage. – Reuters

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro snubbed a planned debate ahead of the first round of the presidential election, depriving 158 million voters from watching them face off. – Associated Press

Kidnappings are on the rise in Haiti, with gangs increasingly targeting high-profile people and launching mass abductions as the country pushes to hold long-awaited presidential elections. – Associated Press

Matias Spektor writes: The vote that begins on October 4—and the likely runoff three weeks later between the top two vote getters—will not break this cycle on its own. Doing so requires a long-term effort to ensure that Brazil has the funding, cohesion, and trustworthy institutions needed to make ambitious agreements and get them to stick. What voters will decide instead is how Brazil manages its credibility deficit and whether the country can start the long process of closing it. – Foreign Affairs

Cybersecurity

As China’s government pushes its citizens to embrace artificial intelligence, it is confronting a problem partly of its own making: overreliance on the technology. – New York Times

OpenAI has informed more than 100 organizations about incidents involving unauthorized activity tied to its ​AI agents, according to a blog post by ‌the ChatGPT maker, as AI labs face mounting scrutiny over rogue AI agent activity. – Reuters

Amazon is seeking to offload about $8 billion of advanced ​Nvidia chips to investors through a new ‌vehicle to strengthen its balance sheet, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. – Reuters

Advanced artificial intelligence tools may have been used in a cyberattack on South Korea’s Shinhan Bank Co. that exposed information on about 25,000 customers, Yonhap News reported, highlighting the risk of automated hacking against financial institutions. – Bloomberg

China-aligned cyber espionage group targeted U.S. artificial intelligence policy experts through phishing emails that impersonated prominent officials, economists and an employee of AI company Anthropic, according to research released Thursday by Proofpoint. – CyberScoop

Collaboration with industry is key to balancing AI security risks and benefits, as well as staying ahead of China and other adversarial nations, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said Thursday. – CyberScoop

Authorities arrested the alleged leader and two additional members of KillSec, a data extortion group primarily run by teenagers that successfully compromised about 500 organizations since 2024, Europol and the Justice Department said Thursday. – CyberScoop

An Iranian national accused by the U.S. of taking part in dozens of breaches involving the theft of academic data and intellectual property has been extradited from Montenegro. Amir Barati, a 40-year-old citizen of both Turkey and Iran, was arrested on June 25 by Montenegro’s Police Directorate after the FBI issued an arrest warrant. – The Record

One of Poland’s major online invoicing platforms suffered a data breach that may have exposed information belonging to its users, their customers and business partners. Fakturownia said earlier this week that an unidentified attacker exploited a vulnerability in its systems and gained unauthorized access to servers. – The Record

Editorial: See Bernie Sanders’s bill, which would pause data-center construction until the government ensures they don’t “exacerbate the threat of climate change” and their models “do not threaten the health and well-being of working families, privacy and civil rights, and the future of humanity” or cause “job displacement.” His legislation reflects the growing Democratic consensus. Had Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, it’s likely the federal government would have used its power to impose a de facto AI moratorium. When it comes to AI, Mr. Trump has superior intelligence. – Wall Street Journal

Leif Weatherby writes: In the Hugging Face incident, it makes sense to see the models not as embracing a life of crime, but instead following a cultural script they’ve learned in their training — a kind of cybercrime adventure novel — and writing it as they go. The “covert” messages are a kind of choose-your-own-adventure novel, not evidence of conspiratorial swarms. We need to understand that cultural technologies are vulnerable to a vast number of such narrative swerves at every moment. To have any hope of coping with A.I., we need to analyze these tools’ output literally, not speculate about how close to human they are. That’s the only rational path to control of these technologies. – New York Times