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US intelligence believes Russia was behind the explosive-laden drone found at Leipzig airport last week, according to US media reports.

This comes as NATO jets shot down a foreign drone over Latvia, and as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US roadmap for Gaza that Hamas has accepted.

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1️⃣ 🇱🇻🇷🇺 NATO jets shoot down drone over Latvia: Latvia's armed forces said jets flying under NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission destroyed a foreign drone over the eastern Balvi region on Friday, blaming its entry into Latvian airspace on Russian electromagnetic warfare. NATO Air Command said two Italian Eurofighters scrambled from Lithuania alongside two Turkish F-16s from Estonia, with one of them neutralising the threat over an unpopulated area.

2️⃣ 🇮🇱🇵🇸🇺🇸 Israel rejects Gaza roadmap accepted by Hamas: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that Israel rejects the 15-point document put forward in late July by US President Donald Trump's Peace Council, saying troops would not withdraw until Hamas is genuinely disarmed. Hamas, which backed the roadmap days after selecting Khalil al-Hayya as its new leader, has urged Washington to press the Israeli leader not to obstruct the process ahead of the 27 October election.

3️⃣ 🇮🇱🇵🇸 Settlers besiege Palestinian families near Nablus: Two families in the village of Qusra have been trapped in their homes since Sunday after Israeli settlers tore down a wall and used the stones to block the road, cutting water and power and leaving seven people including two young girls unable to leave. The Israeli military has condemned the seizure of Palestinian homes as illegal and reprehensible, while a UN official told the Security Council that the West Bank is at breaking point.

4️⃣ 🇸🇦🇹🇷🇵🇰 Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan sign defence pact: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed an agreement in Mecca stating that an armed attack on any one of the three states will be treated as an attack on them all. No specific obligations are set out, and a Turkish official quoted by Reuters called the pact purely defensive, while an Iranian lawmaker said a paper agreement would not bring the Saudis security.

5️⃣ 🇸🇾 Syria sentences former President al-Assad to death: Damascus's Fourth Criminal Court convicted Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad of premeditated murder, torture and crimes against humanity on Tuesday and sentenced him to death in absentia, along with his brother Maher al-Assad. His cousin Atef Najib, who ran political security in Deraa and launched the 2011 crackdown that preceded the uprising, stood in a cage as he received a death sentence for crimes against humanity.

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🇩🇪🇷🇺 US intelligence ties Russia to Leipzig airport bomb

American intelligence assessments point to Russia as the source of the explosive-laden drone found at Leipzig airport last week, according to US media reports, even as Berlin has declined to name a culprit.

The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying the quadcopter, which carried semtex and was discovered beside a Ukrainian cargo plane, probably belongs to the Russian government, while CNN reported that Washington had concluded it came from a Russian secret service.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the incident as a professional hybrid threat scenario by a well-equipped foreign actor and spoke of a new level of danger for the country.

The device slipped past the airport's defences and was only immobilised after a late-night bus driver spotted and reported it roughly four hours later, averting what authorities have said could have been a multiple casualty event.

Moscow's embassy in Berlin has dismissed any suggestion of Russian involvement as a rashly contrived provocation, and the interior ministry said on Monday it would double its federal anti-drone unit to 300 experts.

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1️⃣ 🇸🇾🇷🇺 Syria and Russia agree to end military use of coastal bases: Syria's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that a deal with Moscow will end the use of the Hmeimem air base and the Tartus naval base as Russian military outposts, with Damascus taking over the airfield and the port's commercial berth under civil administration. The military facilities at both sites are to become joint training and qualification centres, in what the ministry called a reorganising of the Russian presence along the coast.

2️⃣ 🇺🇸 Trump deputises US firms for offensive cyber operations: US President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum on Wednesday directing his administration to draw on private companies to run limited offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal organisations under government direction. Vetted firms would carry out cyber surveillance and cyber effects operations through a Homeland Security programme overseen with the Justice Department, and must hold a bond or escrow of at least $1m.

3️⃣ 🇹🇷 Turkey approves conditional pardon for PKK fighters: Legislators voted 468 to 88 for a bill suspending sentences and postponing prosecutions for thousands of Kurdistan Workers' Party members, though it takes effect only once authorities verify the group has fully disarmed. The PKK-linked ANF outlet carried a statement calling the law a beginning with serious shortcomings, and repeating a demand for the release of its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.

4️⃣ 🇪🇺 EU's Starlink rival moves closer to launch: The SpaceRISE consortium and the European Commission have signed an implementation agreement for IRIS², the bloc's flagship secure satellite programme, which will supply encrypted communications to EU institutions, critical infrastructure and emergency responders. The deal adds 66 satellites for a total of 348, with first launches expected from 2029 and Eutelsat, SES and Hispasat building the network alongside the European Space Agency.

5️⃣ 🇫🇷 Jellyfish and heat knock out French nuclear capacity: Some 20.4% of France's nuclear generating capacity was unavailable on Wednesday according to AFP calculations from EDF data, a record shortfall driven by drought, extreme heat and a swarm of jellyfish that clogged cooling pumps at the Gravelines plant. Thirteen of the 57 reactors in the fleet were affected, with eight fully shut down and five running at reduced output.

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