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Democrats have called the high-level discussions on the messaging app Signal ‘obviously reckless, obviously dangerous’. Democratic lawmakers have demanded the resignation of top-level United States government officials after an article in The Atlantic revealed editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a group chat discussing plans for bombing Yemen. The calls by several Democrats came as the White House remained in damage control mode on Tuesday, seeking to dismiss allegations that government secrets were at risk. “There was no classified information, as I understand it,” President Donald Trump said at a meeting of US ambassadors, waving the scandal aside. “ We’ve pretty much looked into it. It’s pretty simple, to be honest. It’s just something that can happen.” The Republican leader told reporters he had no intention of seeking punishments, barring the use of the Signal messaging app or asking for an apology from those involved. Trump’s comments come in response to Goldberg’s article, published a day prior, wherein the editor explains how he received an invitation on Signal from a user identified as White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. Goldberg accepted the invitation. He quickly found himself in the midst of a conversation about the merits of bombing Houthi fighters in Yemen. While Goldberg declined to quote specific military information from the chat, he did share in his published article interactions between officials at the highest level of government, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Accounts seeming to belong to Vance, Hegseth and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, for instance, were quoted as debating the timing of the attacks and whether economic gain could be “extracted” from Europe in exchange for the bombings. The vice president, in particular, expressed concern that the bombings would do more to benefit European trade in the Red Sea, where the Houthis are known to strike naval and shipping vessels. The article created a splash in Washington, DC, almost as soon as it was published. Questions were raised about why sensitive information was discussed on a non-government platform and whether the text messages would be preserved, as required by federal records laws. Some of those questions were put directly to two of the participants in the Signal chat, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Both Ratcliffe and Gabbard testified at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday, facing a grilling from Democrats. “ This was not only sloppy. It not only violated all procedures, but if this information had gotten out, American lives could have been lost. If the Houthis had this information, they could reposition their defensive systems,” said Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee. “ It’s also just mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line, and nobody bothered to even check Security Hygiene 101.” Senator Ron Wyden, another Democrat at the hearing, called the Signal chat “ obviously reckless, obviously dangerous”. “Both the mishandling of classified information and the deliberate destruction of federal records are potential crimes that ought to be investigated immediately,” Wyden said. “And I want to make clear that I’m of the view that there ought to be resignation, starting with the national security advisor and the secretary of defence.” The position of the White House, however, has been that no classified information was released over the Signal chat. In his article, Goldberg is clear that top-secret information was included in the group chat’s messages. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel,” Goldberg wrote. Had Goldberg repeated that information in his publication, he could have opened himself up to legal repercussions. Instead, Goldberg offered a broad-strokes description of what transpired in the chat. “What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” he wrote. But on Tuesday, the Trump administration contested that assessment, saying no secrets were revealed in the Signal chat. “Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media. “Here are the facts about his latest story: 1. No ‘war plans’ were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread.” Ratcliffe and Gabbard repeated similar remarks at the hearing at Capitol Hill, denying ever sharing top-secret information on Signal, whether on that chat or another. “ To be clear, I haven’t participated in any Signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all,” Ratcliffe said. “ I have the same answer,” Gabbard echoed. Unlike Ratcliffe, Gabbard declined to even acknowledge whether she was a participant in the chat, as reported in Goldberg’s article. Their position led to a heated confrontation with Senator Warner, who argued that — if the chat did not contain classified information — its contents should be released immediately for review. “Why are you not going to get into the specifics? Is it because it’s all classified?” Warner asked. “Because this is currently under review by the national security —,” Gabbard began to respond, as Warner interjected: “Because it’s all classified? If it’s not classified, share the text now.” At the meeting with the US ambassadors, meanwhile, Trump denied there was any national security breach. “ Our national security now is stronger than it’s ever been,” Trump told reporters. Instead, he blamed technology — and the Signal app specifically — for allowing Goldberg to access the private chat. “ It’s not a perfect technology. There is no perfect technology. The really good ones are very cumbersome, very hard to access,” he said. The scandal over the sensitive information in the Signal chat also allowed Trump to renew his broadside against The Atlantic magazine, where Goldberg works. Trump has criticised the magazine in the past, particularly after it published a 2020 report that claimed the Republican leader had privately disparaged fallen soldiers as “losers” and “suckers”. Trump himself is not a military veteran, but he has publicly questioned the service of soldiers like the late Senator John McCain. Goldberg authored that article as well. Trump denied the allegations at the time, calling the article a “disgrace”. The Republican leader has long railed against mainstream media outlets, even suggesting that their reporting could be illegal. As he addressed the scandal at Tuesday’s meeting, Trump singled out Goldberg yet again for his reporting. “I happen to know the guy’s a total sleaze bag,” Trump said. “The Atlantic is a failed magazine. Does very, very poorly. Nobody gives a damn about it. This gives it a little bit of a shot. And I will tell you this: They’ve made up more stories. And they’re just a failing magazine. The public understands that.” Trump then turned to Waltz, who was also seated at the meeting, and proceeded to defend the adviser’s apparent mistake in inviting Goldberg to the Signal chat. “He’s a very good man. That man is a very good man, right there, that you criticise,” Trump said, gesturing to Waltz. “ He’s a very good man, and he will continue to do a good job.” Waltz, a former US representative for the state of Florida, himself chimed in to point the finger at The Atlantic and its editor. “ I think there’s a lot of the lessons. There’s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president,” Waltz said. “This one in particular, I’ve never met. Don’t know. Never communicated with. And we are looking into him and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.” Democrats, however, have praised Goldberg for his restraint in not publishing national security secrets and for voluntarily removing himself from the Signal chat. “ No matter how much the secretary of defence or others want to disparage him, this journalist had at least the ethics to not report, I think, everything he heard,” Senator Warner said at the intelligence hearing. What Goldberg did quote verbatim, however, were messages where top officials discussed whether to delay the attacks on Yemen — and whether Europe would benefit most from the bombings. The account seeming to belong to Vance, for example, posted a comment highlighting how much European trade runs through the Red Sea and surrounding waterways. “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” the vice president apparently wrote. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.” Vance seemed to back postponing the bombings by a month, but he ultimately withdrew his objections — though not without a further swipe at Europe. “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance appears to have written. To that, Hegseth reportedly replied, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” The backroom haggling appears to confirm what has long been speculated in the public sphere: that relations between the US and Europe are on a downward slide. Trump has accused Europe of taking advantage of the US, pointing to trade deficits that show Americans consuming more European goods than vice versa. On April 2, his administration plans to implement what Trump has called “reciprocal tariffs“, matching import taxes other countries impose. At Tuesday’s meeting, Trump was asked if he agreed with Hegseth and Vance’s apparent assessment that Europe was “free-loading”. “Do you really want me to answer that?” Trump asked, deadpan. “Yeah. I think they’ve been freeloading. The European Union’s been absolutely terrible to us on trade. Terrible.” He then switched direction, touting his peace negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, as well as the upcoming tariffs. “ I think I’ve been very fair to countries that have really abused us economically for many, many decades.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

US Treasury says it removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions after president’s decree. Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle a web of sanctions against Syria, a move that will likely unlock investments in the country more than six months after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s decree on Monday offers sanction relief to “entities critical to Syria’s development, the operation of its government, and the rebuilding of the country’s social fabric”, the US Treasury said in a statement. The Syrian government has been under heavy US financial penalties that predate the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011. The sprawling sanction programme, which included provisions related to the former government’s human rights abuses, has derailed reconstruction efforts in the country. It has also contributed to driving the Syrian economy under al-Assad to the verge of collapse. Trump promised sanctions relief for Syria during his visit to the Middle East in May. “The United States is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbours,” the US president said in a statement on Monday. “A united Syria that does not offer a safe haven for terrorist organisations and ensures the security of its religious and ethnic minorities will support regional security and prosperity.” The US administration said Syria-related sanctions against al-Assad and his associates, ISIL (ISIS) and Iran and its allies will remain in place. While the US Treasury said it already removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions, some Syria penalties may not be revoked immediately. For example, Trump directs US agencies to determine whether the conditions are met to remove sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act, which enabled heavy penalties against the Syrian economy for alleged war crimes against civilians. Democratic US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar had partnered with Republican lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna to introduce earlier this week a bill that would legislatively lift sanctions on Syria to offer long-term relief. Real relief for the Syrian people requires repealing certain laws. My bill with @RepLuna permanently repeals the sanctions and gives the post-Assad Syria a fighting chance. https://t.co/gExbLiKS7z — Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 30, 2025 As part of Trump’s order, the US president ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review the designation of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”. Moreover, the US president ordered a review of the status of al-Sharaa’s group, al-Nusra Front – now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – as a designated “foreign terrorist” organisation. Al-Nusra was al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, but al-Sharaa severed ties with the group in 2016. Al-Nusra later became known as Jabhat Fath al-Sham before merging with other rebel groups as HTS. Al-Sharaa was the de facto leader of a rebel enclave in Idlib in northwest Syria for years before leading the offensive that overthrew al-Assad in December 2024. Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and praised the Syrian president as “attractive” and “tough”. The interim Syrian president – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani – has promised inclusive governance to allay concerns about his past ties to al-Qaeda. But violence and kidnappings against members of al-Assad’s Alawite sect by former rebel fighters over the past months have raised concerns among some rights advocates. Al-Sharaa has also pledged that Syria would not pose a threat to its neighbours, including Israel, which has been advancing in Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights and regularly bombing the country. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

A BBC documentary on security forces killing protesters ignited a political firestorm in Kenya – not for what it revealed, but for daring to reveal it at all. When the Kenyan government blocked the public screening of a BBC documentary investigating the military’s role in the killing of protesters, it was about more than censorship. It was about protecting a decades-old pact – a silent agreement between the military, the state, the media, and the public: the army stays out of overt politics, and in return, no one looks too closely at what it’s doing. That pact is now under threat, and the backlash has been ferocious. Government-aligned MPs have accused the BBC of inciting instability, calling for the broadcaster to be banned from operating in Kenya. Social media campaigns have been launched under hashtags like #BBCforChaos, framing journalism as sabotage. But what is really being defended is not national security, it’s the manicured silence that has kept Kenya’s military above scrutiny. This decades-long silence has been carefully cultivated since independence. Two failed military coups, in 1971 and 1982, and the terrible records of military regimes across the continent, instilled a lasting fear of soldiers as political actors. To avoid future insurrections, successive governments kept the army well-watered and fed in their barracks and out of the headlines. In return, the public – and especially the media – looked away. No see, no coup. But behind the scenes, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) were growing in strength. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, they expanded their capabilities, acquired new hardware, and cultivated a myth of discipline and professionalism. The invasion of Somalia in 2011 brought the KDF out of the shadows. Now centre stage, the military took up the banner of patriotic warriors fighting terrorism and instilling discipline into the famously corrupt civilian public service. In the following decade, the administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed retired and serving military personnel, including the then-defence forces chief, to a variety of civilian governance roles. But as the military’s power and visibility expanded, there was little expanded public oversight and scrutiny. This is despite the very public failures that came in the aftermath of the ill-advised invasion which shattered the myth of integrity and competence. The invasion itself, launched to great media fanfare, was soon bogged down. After a yearlong slog to the Somali port of Kismayo, Kenyan troops were almost immediately implicated in a smuggling racket, trafficking sugar and charcoal out in collusion with al-Shabab, the very enemy they were sent to fight. In 2016, at least 140 soldiers were killed in a single al-Shabab attack on the KDF base in El Adde – Kenya’s deadliest battlefield loss. Back home, things weren’t going much better. The invasion inspired a wave of terrorism. The KDF’s bungled and criminal response to the 2013 attack on the Westgate mall in downtown Nairobi which killed 68 people, badly exposed it. Soldiers systematically robbed the mall while pretending to battle terrorists. Less than two years later, the military was back in the news, having again bungled the response to an attack on the Garissa University College, which left 147 people dead. Throughout all this, the military responded with silence and spin. There was no public inquiry. No reckoning. No accountability. Similarly, there were few calls for accountability when the KDF grabbed a chunk of Lenana Road, a major Nairobi thoroughfare, to expand its headquarters, or when its top brass were implicated in attempts to influence the 2022 presidential election. None of these incidents sparked serious media investigation or political debate about the military’s role. Kenya’s mainstream media have largely internalised the terms of the pact. Defence reporters rarely publish anything critical of the army. Many function more as conduits for military press statements than as independent journalists. The KDF, in effect, enjoys a veto over how it is portrayed. That’s what makes the BBC documentary so dangerous – not because it poses a real threat to stability, but because it disrupts the performance of silence. It challenges the idea that the military is untouchable, and that truth about its conduct must be suppressed for the greater good. But a viable democracy cannot be built on fear. Kenya cannot thrive while shielding one of its most powerful institutions from public accountability. If journalists are vilified for telling the truth, and if media houses censor themselves to stay in favour with generals, then the line between civilian rule and military impunity is already dangerously thin. The real threat to national security is not the BBC. It is the refusal to confront the army’s failures and abuses – and the willingness of so many to stay silent in the face of them. Kenya must break the pact. The military must be accountable not just to its commanders, but to the people. And journalism must be free to expose the truth, even when it makes the people with guns uncomfortable. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Follow Al Jazeera English:...