Month: July 2024

Hours after the incident, the FBI said it had identified the shooter in the assassination attempt as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Pennsylvania, US media reported early on Sunday.

Crooks and one rally attendee were killed and two other spectators were injured, the Secret Service said in a statement.

The incident was being investigated as an assassination attempt, a source told Reuters.

Incumbent US President Joe Biden has since spoken to Trump after the incident, according to a White House Official. Biden also spoke with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Butler Mayor Bob Dandoy, the official said.

Trump, 78, had just started his speech when the shots rang out. He grabbed his right ear with his right hand, then brought his hand down to look at it before dropping to his knees behind the podium before Secret Service agents swarmed and covered him.

He emerged about a minute later, his red “Make America Great Again” hat knocked off, and could be heard saying “wait, wait,” before agents ushered him into a vehicle.

“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles (50 kilometres) north of Pittsburgh. “Much bleeding took place.”

The shooter’s identity and motive were not immediately clear. Leading Republicans and Democrats quickly condemned the violence. The Trump campaign said he was “doing well.”

The shooting occurred less than four months before the November 5 election, when Trump faces an election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. Most opinion polls, including those by Reuters/Ipsos, show the two locked in a close contest.

Biden said in a statement: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Republican US Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas told Fox News his nephew had been wounded at the rally.

“He was grazed in the neck. A bullet crossed his neck, cut his neck and he was bleeding,” Johnson said.

Witness account

Ron Moose, a Trump supporter who was at the rally, described the chaos: “I heard about four shots and I saw the crowd go down and then Trump ducked also real quick. Then the Secret Service all jumped and protected him as soon as they could. We are talking within a second they were all protecting him.”

Moose said he then saw a man running and being chased by officers in military uniforms. He said he heard additional shots but was unsure who fired them. He noted that by then snipers had set up on the roof of a warehouse behind the stage.

The BBC interviewed a man who described himself as an eyewitness, saying he saw a man armed with a rifle crawling up a roof near the event. The person, who the BBC did not identify, said he and the people he was with started pointing at the man, trying to alert security.

The shots appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said. The FBI said it had taken the lead in investigating the attack.

Possible security lapses in focus after shooting

The attack on Trump raised questions about how the Republican presidential candidate is protected on the campaign trail and what caused the apparent security lapses at Saturday’s rally.

While information about the incident is still sparse, at least one person interviewed by the BBC said he had tried to alert police and the US Secret Service, to no avail, to an apparent sniper climbing onto a nearby roof outside the security perimeter of the rally venue.

As a former president and the Republican presidential candidate, Trump is protected primarily by the Secret Service.

During most of Trump’s campaign stops, local police aid the Secret Service in securing the venue. Agents from other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, such as the Transportation Security Administration, occasionally help.

It is no easy task. Many Trump rallies feature thousands of audience members, take place in the open air and last for hours. Before the event, agents scan the venue for bombs or other threats, and Trump invariably arrives in a fortified motorcade.

Law enforcement officials typically put up barriers as a perimeter and require all attendees to go through a metal detector to enter the venue. Armed protective agents search all attendees’ bags and even wallets. Many rallygoers are patted down by hand.

Saturday’s attack, however, appeared to have been committed by a gunman located outside the secured perimeter, according to initial media reports.

A local resident who was present at the Saturday event and asked to remain anonymous said he saw what appeared to be two Secret Service agents perched on a nearby roof ahead of the event. He said the agents had been scanning the area with binoculars beforehand.

“They kept looking over to the left behind the event, before Trump came on stage. They seemed very focused on that area, said the attendee.

The Secret Service said shortly after the shooting that it had begun an investigation and briefed Democratic President Joe Biden, though the agency did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment regarding its protocols. Pennsylvania State Police referred questions to the Secret Service, which did not immediately respond.

In the moments after Trump was injured, the former president was quickly surrounded by Secret Service personnel who formed a human shield, while heavily armed agents in body armour and toting rifles also took to the stage and appeared to scan the area for threats.

In a statement quoted by NBC and CBS, The FBI “has identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the ‘subject involved’ in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13, in Butler, Pennsylvania”. According to state voter records, the suspect was a registered Republican.

Republicans, Democrats decry violence

Trump is due to receive his party’s formal nomination at the Republican National Convention, which kicks off in Milwaukee on Monday.

“This horrific act of political violence at a peaceful campaign rally has no place in this country and should be unanimously and forcefully condemned,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on social media.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was horrified by what happened and was relieved Trump was safe. “Political violence has no place in our country,” he said.

Biden’s campaign was pausing its television ads and halting all other outbound communication, a campaign official said on Saturday.

Americans fear rising political violence, recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with two out of three respondents to a May survey saying they feared violence could follow the election.

Some of Trump’s Republican allies said they believed the attack was politically motivated.

“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” said US Representative Steve Scalise, the number two House Republican, who survived a politically-motivated shooting in 2017.

“Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”

Hardline Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “Democrats wanted this to happen. They’ve wanted Trump gone for years and they’re prepared to do anything to make that happen.”

Trump, who served as president from 2017-2021, easily bested his rivals for the Republican nomination early in the campaign and has largely unified around him the party that had briefly wavered in support after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6 2021, attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

The businessman and former reality television star entered the year facing a raft of legal worries, including four separate criminal prosecutions.

He was found guilty in late May of trying to cover up hush money payments to a porn star, but the other three prosecutions he faces — including two for his attempts to overturn his defeat — have been ground to a halt by various factors including a Supreme Court decision early this month that found him to be partly immune to prosecution.

Trump contends without evidence that all four prosecutions have been orchestrated by Biden to try to prevent him from returning to power.

Republican US Senate candidate David McCormick, who was seated in the front row at the rally, said he had started to go up on stage when Trump said he would have him come up later.

“Within a minute or two, I heard the shots […] It was clear it was gunfire,” he told Reuters in an interview. “It felt like it was an assassination attempt […] It was terrifying.”

Nepal authorities on Friday evening temporarily halted the search for at least 63 people missing after a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains swept two buses off a highway and plunged them into a river.

Dozens of rescuers had been combing the site for survivors along a remote stretch of road in the central district of Chitwan before sunset forced them to abandon their efforts.

“It is dark now and it is not possible to continue the operation today,” Kumar Neupane, spokesman for Nepal’s Armed Police Force, told AFP.

“The search will resume tomorrow morning.”

District official Khimananda Bhusal told AFP that the buses were carrying at least 66 people between them, but three passengers had been able to escape as they crashed into the Trishuli river.

“We are not sure of the total number because the buses could have picked up others on the road,” he said. “The river has swollen and no one else has been found yet.”

Bhusal said that the survivors were out of danger and one had been discharged from the hospital.

One told AFP from his hospital bed that his two children and two grandchildren had been aboard one of the buses when it hit the water.

“My son, my daughter, my grandchildren, all four are gone… only I am here,” Jugeshwor Ray Yadav, 45, told AFP.

“I gulped down some water, but somehow I swam. I swam and then caught a branch on the hill,” he said.

The force of the landslide pushed the buses over concrete crash barriers and down a steep embankment into the river, at least 30 metres (100 feet) from the road.

Search and rescue teams on the riverbank spent the day struggling to scour the muddy waters due to fierce currents made worse by the rains.

Hours after the search began, they had yet to discover any trace of the vehicles or their remaining occupants.

“The teams are trying but the river’s flow is very strong. They have not found anything,” Neupane, the police spokesman, told AFP.

The accident took place before dawn along the Narayanghat-Mugling highway, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu.

One bus was heading from Kathmandu to Gaur in Rautahat district in southern Nepal, and the other was en route to the capital from southern Birgunj.

A driver was killed in a separate accident on the same road after a boulder hit his bus. He died as he was being treated at a hospital.

‘Deeply saddened’

Outgoing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he was “deeply saddened” by the accident in a post on social media platform X.

“I direct all agencies of the government, including the home administration, to search for and effectively rescue the passengers,” he said.

Deadly crashes are common in the Himalayan republic because of poorly constructed roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.

Nearly 2,400 people lost their lives on Nepal’s roads in the 12 months to April, according to government figures.

Twelve people were killed and 24 were injured in an accident in January when a bus heading to Kathmandu from Nepalgunj fell into a river.

Road travel becomes deadlier during the annual monsoon season as rains trigger landslides and floods across the mountainous country.

Monsoon rains across South Asia from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies, but also bring widespread death and destruction.

The rainfall is hard to forecast and varies considerably, but scientists say climate change is making the monsoon stronger and more erratic.

Floods, landslides and lightning strikes have killed 88 people across the country since the monsoon began in June, according to police figures.

North Korea has denounced a declaration at a recent NATO summit that condemned Pyongyang’s weapons exports to Russia, calling the document “illegal”, state media said Saturday.

In a joint declaration this week, NATO leaders condemned North Korea for “fuelling Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, by “providing direct military support” to Moscow.

NATO leaders also voiced “profound concern” over China’s industrial support to Russia.

Pyongyang has repeatedly denied allegations that it is shipping weapons to Moscow, but in June leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement that included a pledge to come to each other’s military aid if attacked.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday that the foreign ministry “most strongly denounces and rejects” the NATO declaration.

Citing a ministry spokesman, the agency said the declaration “incites new Cold War and military confrontation on a global scale”, and requires “a new force and mode of counteraction”.

On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Seoul and Washington this week also signed  guidelines on an integrated system of deterrence for the Korean peninsula to counter North Korea’s nuclear and military threats.

South Korea’s presidential office said Seoul and Washington will carry out joint military drills to help implement the newly announced guidelines, which formalise the deployment of US nuclear assets on and around the Korean peninsula to deter and respond to potential nuclear attacks by Pyongyang.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing as it draws closer to Russia.

After Pyongyang sent multiple barrages of trash-carrying balloons across the border, Seoul last month fully suspended a tension-reducing military deal and resumed live-fire drills on border islands and by the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula.

NATO leaders on Thursday looked to bolster ties with Asian partners after slamming China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war, before holding talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of a summit in Washington.

The 32-nation alliance has used the pomp-filled set piece in the US capital to showcase its resolve against Moscow and backing for Kyiv.

The three-day gathering has been overshadowed by political uncertainty in the United States as President Joe Biden — who will give a press conference Thursday — fights for his own political survival.

After spending the bulk of the summit focused on bolstering Ukraine, NATO shifted attention eastwards by welcoming the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

A strongly-worded declaration from NATO released Wednesday called Beijing a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine” through its supplies of dual-use goods such as microchips that can help Moscow’s military.

China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” NATO leaders said.

Beijing hit back by warning NATO to “stop hyping up the so-called China threat and provoking confrontation and rivalry.”

China presents itself as a neutral party in the conflict, but it has however offered a critical lifeline to Russia’s isolated economy, with trade booming since the conflict began.

The United States has been pushing its European allies for years to pay closer attention to the challenges posed by China.

The Washington summit is the third such gathering attended by leaders from the four Asia-Pacific partners.

Diplomats said several initiatives with the partner countries were due to be announced, including bolstering cooperation against cyberattacks and disinformation, and providing Ukraine non-lethal help.

But the Pacific leaders’ presence is more about signaling NATO’s greater interest in the region at a time of growing competition between Washington and Beijing.

– US missiles, Kremlin warning –

After that sit-down, Ukraine’s Zelensky will take center stage at the giant convention center in the heart of the US capital.

He will join his NATO counterparts after getting promises of new air defences for Ukraine and as Kyiv gets closer to finally receiving long-promised F-16 jets.

But Zelensky has called on Kyiv’s backers, especially the United States, to go further — including by giving his outgunned forces greater scope to strike inside Russia.

The United States on Wednesday also announced an important step to bolster NATO’s own deterrence against Russia in Europe by saying it would begin “episodic deployments” of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026.

The White House said it would eventually look to permanently station them in Germany, and the missiles would “have significantly longer range” than current US systems in Europe.

The Kremlin on Thursday struck back, saying it was planning “response measures” to contain the “very serious threat” from NATO, accusing the alliance of being “fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine.”

The leader of NATO member Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that any possibility of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO was “worrying.”

“Any steps that could lead to this outcome should be consciously avoided,” said the Turkish leader, one of the few NATO members to have maintained ties with Russia since the invasion.

Amid worries by key allies of drawing the alliance closer to war, NATO’s leaders on Wednesday once again demurred from issuing Ukraine a clear invitation to join their alliance.

Zelensky unleashed a diplomatic firestorm at a summit in Lithuania last year by lambasting NATO’s reluctance on membership.

In a bid to soften any disappointment this time around, NATO leaders called Ukraine’s path to membership “irreversible.”

They also pledged to provide Kyiv a minimum of 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military support “within the next year.”