Iran War, Political Violence in US, New Action on Housing Affordability

0:02Ailsa Chang:The situation in Iran is going very well. A lot of big hits today, a lot of big wins today.

0:09Rachel Martin:Some of those big hits? Military sites on Hark Island. I'm Aisha Roscoe.

0:15Ailsa Chang:And I'm Scott Simon and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:20Rachel Martin:Hark Island is important for Iran's oil industry. In a moment, the latest in the war.

0:27Ailsa Chang:Also, three separate incidents of political violence in the last eight days against protesters in New York, a synagogue in Michigan, and at a Virginia university. Are there any links between them?

0:38Rachel Martin:And President Trump's latest executive orders geared toward making home ownership affordable. We have details.

0:45Ailsa Chang:So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

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1:27Rachel Martin:It's now been two weeks of the war with Iran, a war that's widened to include several countries in the Gulf as well as Lebanon.

1:36Ailsa Chang:The death toll is rising, with the latest number out of Iran at more than 1 ,300 people killed, according to Iranian officials.

1:43Rachel Martin:Overnight, President Trump says the U.S. struck an island critical to Iran's oil industry. Iran has vowed retaliation.

1:51Ailsa Chang:And an Iraqi security official, unnamed, because he's not authorized to speak publicly, tells NPR that an airstrike hit a radar installation at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. NPR's Kerry Khan is in Tel Aviv. Kerry, thanks for being with us.

2:05Rachel Martin:Thanks for having me.

2:06Ailsa Chang:And let's begin. What do we know about strikes on that Iranian island?

2:10Rachel Martin:President Trump says the strikes on Khark Island only hit military sites, but he said oil facilities could be next if Iran continues to interfere with ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital water ray that 20 % of the world's oil supply passes through. Hark Island is off the coast of Iran. It's in the northern Persian Gulf. 90 % of Iran's crude exports are handled there. Iran's military quickly threatened retaliation and said it would turn oil and energy firms working with the U.S. in the region into, quote, a pile of ashes. And while a weekend, Iran is still launching missiles and drones at several Gulf nations.

2:49Rachel Martin:Already today, Dubai and Bahrain are reporting aerial infiltrations. Yesterday, Saudi Arabia's defense minister says it intercepted nearly a dozen drones.

3:00Ailsa Chang:The intensity of the war and the rhetoric remain heightened in the region. Is there any sign that Iranian leadership seems to be softening after a couple of weeks of bombing?

3:13Rachel Martin:Well, I'll tell you that yesterday, Iran's leaders were out in public. The government brought out thousands to an annual pro-Palestinian rally in a huge square in Tehran. Even the president and the head of the regime's feared security forces were there. the head of the forces, he's actually listed on this new bounty the U.S. put out offering up to $10 million for information on top Iranian officials. Here's a bit of that rally from state TV, and you're going to hear an airstrike hit very close to the crowd.

3:49Rachel Martin:And the crowd doesn't disperse, and instead you hear people chanting defiantly against Israel in the U.S., Iran is sustaining relentless air assaults. Israel says overnight it hit numerous command centers of the regime's security apparatus. U.N. Defense Secretary says it's obliterated Iran's navy and has near total control of Iranian airspace. But in Israel, the number of missiles and drones from Iran have dropped dramatically, although yesterday a cluster missile from Iran did spark fires in several areas and several sites in central Israel.

4:23Ailsa Chang:And of course, you're reporting from Israel. What are you able to pick up about the goals Israel might have in this war?

4:31Rachel Martin:Leaders here are moving away from talking about regime change as the goal of the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his first press conference since the war this week, and he pretty much said regime change probably not happening. Expect just a weakened regime. An official in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Israel is estimating one more week of fighting in Iran. The official said Israel is working on preparing the public here to accept the government's new line that this will not be a war leading to Iranian leadership change, but a war that puts Israel in a much better security situation.

5:11Rachel Martin:And Israel is also relentlessly striking in its other front across the border in Lebanon. That has led to a devastating humanitarian crisis there. One in seven are now displaced, and that's according to a leading international refugee organization. There is a lot of concern about Israel expanding further into Lebanon. That same official in the region told NPR that Israel is not ruling out an expanded ground operation in southern Lebanon.

5:38Ailsa Chang:NPR's Carrie Kahn in Tel Aviv. Thanks so much for being with us, Carrie.

5:42Rachel Martin:You're welcome.

5:52Rachel Martin:Three separate incidents in the U.S. since last Saturday have been marked as political violence. Two are being investigated as acts of terrorism.

6:01Ailsa Chang:NPR's domestic extremism correspondent, Odette Youssef, joins us now to sort through an attack on a synagogue in a suburb of Detroit, an attempted attack on anti-Muslim protesters in New York, and a shooting at a university in Virginia. Odette, thanks for being with us.

6:17Rachel Martin:Thanks, Scott.

6:18Ailsa Chang:What is the latest we know about all these attacks?

6:20Rachel Martin:Well, the synagogue attack in Michigan involved a naturalized Lebanese-American citizen who NPR has learned lost two brothers last week to an Israeli strike in Lebanon, and his parents and sisters-in-law were also wounded. Security at the synagogue shot and killed him. Nobody else died in that incident. Earlier on that same day, a gunman shot and killed someone at Old Dominion University in Virginia. He also died at the scene. There is still more to learn about this person, Scott, but he did serve time in prison after pleading guilty about a decade ago to providing material support for ISIS, the Islamic State.

7:03Rachel Martin:And then last weekend, there was an attempted attack on Islamophobic protesters outside the mayor's mansion in New York City. An 18-year-old and a 19-year-old have been charged, and they allegedly made statements effectively saying, that they were inspired by ISIS.

7:21Ailsa Chang:Obviously, it can be tempting to tie these attacks together. Is that called for? Is it premature?

7:27Rachel Martin:I think it's important to look at each individual instance. It certainly feels like the war on Iran is elevating uncertainty here. In the case of the attempted attack outside Gracie Mansion in New York, though, there's no indication that it ties directly to grievance about the war. In the case of the Old Dominion attack, we simply don't know enough right now to say. And in the attack on Temple Israel outside of Detroit, officials have not stated a motive. I think what we can absolutely say is that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has provided a new opening that foreign terrorist groups are exploiting.

8:09Rachel Martin:Here's Michael Masters. He's national director of the Secure Community Network, which does threat monitoring and security training for the Jewish community across North America.

8:18Ailsa Chang:We have seen the calls for violence coming from Iran, coming from its proxies. We have seen the calls for violence coming from other designated terrorist organizations, from the so-called Islamic State to al-Qaeda and others.

8:33David Greene:We know that people are working to answer that call and that they are answering it at quicker pace.

8:39Ailsa Chang:Answering it at a quicker pace sounds alarming. Yes.

8:43Rachel Martin:And this is something that extremism researchers have been observing now for some time, Scott, that people are indoctrinating into extremist ideologies faster than had ever really been the case before. A big part of that has been technology. You know, social media companies have largely pulled back on content moderation. And this means that we're seeing an increase in dehumanizing content, threats, and extremist propaganda on mainstream platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Here's Bill Braniff. He's with the Polarization and Extremism Research Lab at American University. The internet is becoming a more and more dangerous place and AI is accelerating that trend as resources are being pulled back from not just content moderation, but all the different ways one can make a platform a safer place.

9:39Ailsa Chang:Odette, what are people in faith communities asking for?

9:42Rachel Martin:Most immediately, Scott, I'm hearing calls for more federal funding for physical security and training. They are asking for roughly three times what is currently provided in federal grants. But I will be frank, you know, the people I've been speaking to are not seeing this problem getting better anytime soon. You know, we don't have a clear idea of how long the fighting in Iran will go. And ultimately, what Braniff and others say we need is to shift to a prevention model that can address some of the underlying reasons that people may go looking for extreme ideas or communities online.

10:24Ailsa Chang:Odette Yusuf, thanks so much. Thank you.