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Has Russia helped Iran target CIA sites in the Gulf?

Al Jazeera

What is Iran's Pickaxe Mountain? Has Russia helped Iran target CIA sites in the Gulf? When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov on Thursday in Manila, on the margins of a summit of Southeast Asian nations, Moscow's war on Ukraine was officially the top agenda item. But the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov was held under the shadow of fresh reports suggesting that Russia might be playing a more active role than it has publicly acknowledged in Iran's attacks on United States military sites in the Middle East. Three days into the war, on March 3, The Washington Post reported that a CIA station in the US embassy in Riyadh had been targeted, according to two people familiar with the matter.


Iran strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role

The Japan Times

Iranian drones are displayed in an undisclosed location in Iran, in this handout image obtained on Jan. 13, 2025.U.S. officials have acknowledged that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran in its drone strikes on U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf region. WASHINGTON/RIYADH - Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Persian Gulf have prompted U.S. intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology, said four people familiar with U.S. intelligence. These people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said U.S. intelligence officials have not yet reached firm conclusions about the possible Russian involvement in the attacks on CIA facilities. But they cited the strikes' effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia's broader technical support for Iran, as possible evidence. It has been previously reported -- and U.S. officials have acknowledged -- that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran in its strikes on U.S. targets in the Gulf region generally, but the intelligence community's investigation of possible Russian involvement in supporting the CIA facility attacks has not been previously disclosed. At least two CIA sites were struck in March, it has been reported.


Iran war: What is happening on day 19 of US-Israel attacks?

Al Jazeera

Iran war: What is happening on day 19 of US-Israel attacks? Iran has pledged "revenge" after Israeli strikes killed security chief Ali Larijani and commander of Basij paramilitary forces Gholamreza Soleimani, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying Tehran's political system remains strong as the war entered its 19th day . Iran launched more attacks on Israel, causing extensive property damage, after an earlier strike killed two people in Ramat Gan. Political tensions are also rising in the United States, as senior counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigned, saying "we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby". Meanwhile, President Donald Trump criticised NATO allies and partners for failing to provide stronger military support in efforts to end Iran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.


Iran war: What is happening on day 17 of US-Israel attacks?

Al Jazeera

Could Iran be using China's BeiDou system? Iran war: What is happening on day 17 of US-Israel attacks? Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Tehran as the US-Israel war on Iran entered its 17th day on Monday. Escalations continue in the Gulf region, where authorities suspended flights at Dubai international airport after a drone incident sparked a fire nearby. Dubai-based Emirates announced later that it was resuming limited flights, with several planned routes cancelled for the day.





Language Model Tokenizers Introduce Unfairness Between Languages

Neural Information Processing Systems

Recent language models have shown impressive multilingual performance, even when not explicitly trained for it. Despite this, there are concerns about the quality of their outputs across different languages. In this paper, we show how disparity in the treatment of different languages arises at the tokenization stage, well before a model is even invoked. The same text translated into different languages can have drastically different tok-enization lengths, with differences up to 15 times in some cases. These disparities persist even for tokenizers that are intentionally trained for multilingual support.