International
Bomb That Killed Top Hamas Leader In Iran Was Planted Months In Advance By Assassins, Officials Say
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By JAKE SMITH
The bomb that killed top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was planted in his guesthouse in Iran two months in advance, according to several reports.
Haniyeh was assassinated after attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday. Initially thought to be an airstrike, Haniyeh was actually killed in an explosion set off by a bomb that had been planted by assassins two months earlier in a Tehran guesthouse where he had been residing, according to five Middle Eastern officials who spoke to The New York Times.
The bomb was detonated remotely once Haniyeh reached his room in the guesthouse, according to the Times. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Axios that Mossad, Israel’s top intelligence agency, planted and detonated the bomb.
Israel has not taken credit for Haniyeh’s assassination, nor has the U.S. publicly identified who it believes was behind the operation. Israel has taken responsibility for some of its military actions in the past — such as the strike against a high-level Hezbollah operative in Lebanon on Monday — but Mossad’s operations have often been shrouded in mystery and met with silence from the Israeli government.
It is unclear how the assassins were able to plant the bomb to begin with, according to the Times. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran’s military, was tasked with running and providing security for the guesthouse, which is located in an upper-class neighborhood of Tehran.
The assassins managed to bypass IRGC security and plant the bomb in a hidden location, according to the Times. That IRGC officials failed to catch the assassin or detect the bomb in the months that it was hidden represents a massive security and intelligence failure, as well as a stain on the IRGC’s reputation, two Iranian officials told the Times.
When the bomb exploded around 2 a.m. local time, the guesthouse shook and partially collapsed, according to the Times. Officials and medical personnel scrambled to Haniyeh’s room to find that he had died immediately, as did his bodyguard, who was also in the room at the time.
Haniyeh’s death is a major blow to Hamas, given his high-level status as the terrorist organization’s political leader. Iran and Hamas declared Israel was responsible immediately following the news of Haniyeh’s death and have vowed revenge; Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly gave the order to strike directly inside of Israel out of retaliation, although the scale or timing of such a strike is unknown, according to the Times.
Business
How convenient: Minnesota day care reports break-in, records gone
A Minneapolis day care run by Somali immigrants is claiming that a mysterious break-in wiped out its most sensitive records, even as police say officers were never told that anything was actually stolen — a discrepancy that’s drawing sharp attention amid Minnesota’s spiraling child care fraud scandal.
According to the center’s manager, Nasrulah Mohamed, someone forced their way into Nakomis Day Care Center earlier this week by entering through a rear kitchen area, damaging a wall and accessing the office. Mohamed told reporters the intruder made off with “important documentation,” including children’s enrollment records, employee files, and checkbooks tied to the facility’s operations.
But a preliminary report from the Minneapolis Police Department tells a different story. Police say no loss was reported to officers at the time of the call. While the department confirmed the center later contacted police with additional information, an updated report was not immediately available.
Video released by the day care purporting to show damage from the incident depicts a hole punched through drywall inside what appears to be a utility closet, with stacks of cinder blocks visible just behind the wall — imagery that has only fueled skepticism as investigators continue to unravel what authorities have described as one of the largest fraud schemes ever tied to Minnesota’s human services programs.
Mohamed blamed the alleged break-in on fallout from a viral investigation by YouTuber Nick Shirley, who recently toured nearly a dozen Minnesota day care sites while questioning whether they were legitimately operating. Shirley’s video has racked up more than 110 million views. Mohamed insisted the coverage unfairly targeted Somali operators and said his center has since received what he described as hateful and threatening messages.
A manager at the Nokomis Daycare Center in Minneapolis detailed "extensive vandalism" at the facility during a Wednesday news conference.
Manager Nasrulah Mohamed reported that the suspect stole important employee and client documents, an incident he attributed to YouTuber Nick… pic.twitter.com/71nNTSXdTT
— FOX 9 (@FOX9) December 31, 2025
“This is devastating news, and we don’t know why this is targeting our Somali community,” Mohamed said, calling Shirley’s reporting false. Nakomis Day Care Center was not among the facilities featured in the video.
The break-in claim surfaced as law enforcement and federal officials continue to expose a massive fraud network centered in Minneapolis, involving food assistance, housing, and child care payments. Authorities say at least $1 billion has already been identified as fraudulent, with federal prosecutors warning the total could climb as high as $9 billion. Ninety-two people have been charged so far, 80 of them Somali immigrants.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was freezing all federal child care payments to Minnesota unless the state can prove the funds are being used lawfully. The payments totaled roughly $185 million in 2025 alone.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, under intensifying scrutiny for allowing fraud to metastasize for years, responded by attacking the Trump administration rather than addressing the substance of the findings. “This is Trump’s long game,” Walz wrote on X Tuesday night, claiming the administration was politicizing fraud enforcement to defund programs — despite federal officials pointing to documented abuse and ongoing criminal cases.
Meanwhile, questions continue to swirl around facilities already flagged by investigators. Reporters visiting several sites highlighted in Shirley’s video found at least one — Quality “Learing” Center — operating with children inside despite state officials previously saying it had been shut down. The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families later issued a confusing clarification, saying the center initially reported it would close but later claimed it would remain open.
As Minnesota scrambles to respond to the funding freeze and mounting arrests, the conflicting accounts surrounding the Nakomis Day Care incident underscore a broader problem confronting state leaders: a system so riddled with gaps and contradictions that even basic facts — like whether records were actually stolen — are now in dispute, while taxpayers are left holding the bill.
International
Trump confirms first American land strike against Venezuelan narco networks
President Trump confirmed Friday that U.S. forces have carried out what he described as the first American land strike on a Venezuelan smuggling facility, marking a significant escalation in his administration’s campaign against narco-terror networks tied to the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The disclosure came unexpectedly during a live radio broadcast on New York’s WABC Radio, when billionaire businessman and guest host John Catsimatidis told listeners his phone was ringing mid-segment — and that the caller was the president. Catsimatidis, who was filling in on Sid and Friends in the Morning, said he had been exchanging text messages with Trump the night before about U.S. military action against Islamic State targets in northern Nigeria. Trump, he said, decided to call in unannounced to discuss a range of global security issues, including maritime drug interdictions in the Caribbean and Pacific.
During that conversation, Trump revealed that U.S. forces had already struck a key Venezuelan smuggling hub on land. “I don’t know if you read it or saw it — they have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” Trump said on air. “Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”
The president did not identify the location of the facility or detail how the operation was carried out. Still, the comment appeared to confirm what Trump had been signaling publicly for weeks — that his crackdown on Venezuelan narco-terror operations would soon move beyond sea interdictions. Trump ordered U.S. forces to begin targeting drug-running boats in September and has repeatedly warned that land-based operations were coming.
In a Thanksgiving Day call with U.S. military personnel, Trump said efforts to stop Venezuelan traffickers “by land” would begin “very soon,” adding that “the land is easier.” He reiterated that message on December 11, telling reporters at the White House that land operations were imminent. If the timeline Trump laid out Friday is accurate, the strike took place less than two weeks after those remarks.
The left-leaning New York Times later reported that unnamed officials had confirmed the strike occurred but declined to provide specifics. According to the paper, U.S. officials would not disclose where the site was located, how it was targeted, or what precise role it played in drug trafficking, and there has been no public acknowledgment from Maduro’s government or other regional authorities.
Even with those details still under wraps, Trump’s remarks represent the clearest confirmation yet that U.S. military action against Venezuelan smuggling networks has expanded onto sovereign territory — a move that underscores how far his administration is willing to go to dismantle drug pipelines tied to hostile regimes in the Western Hemisphere.
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