The U.S. is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to the Board of Peace. President Donald Trump announced during the inaugural meeting of the board that the U.S. was committing to contribute $10 billion to the board.

‘The Board of Peace is showing how a better future can be built, starting right here in this room,’ Trump said on Thursday. ‘I want to let you know that the United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace… and we’ve had great support for that number.’

The president said the contribution ‘sounds like a lot, but it’s a very small number’ when compared to the cost of war. Trump estimated that the $10 billion commitment was equivalent to the cost of two weeks of fighting.

‘Together, we can achieve the dream of bringing lasting harmony to a region tortured by centuries of war, suffering and carnage,’ Trump added, saying that he hoped it could serve as inspiration for other nations entangled in conflicts that seem unending.

The Board of Peace was set up as part of the Trump administration’s plans to end the Israel-Hamas war and to rebuild Gaza. Several countries have committed to joining the board, including Argentina, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Morocco, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

While touting the significance of the board, Trump also encouraged more nations to join not just the initiative, but in a greater effort toward peace, singling out Iran in particular.

‘And now is the time for Iran to join us on a path that will complete what we’re doing. And if they join us, that’ll be great. If they don’t join us, that’ll be great too, but it will be a very different path,’ Trump said. ‘They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region, and they must make a deal.’

The president warned that ‘bad things’ would happen if Iran did not make a deal.

‘Iran is a hot spot right now. And they’re meeting, and they have a good relationship with the representatives of Iran,’ Trump said. ‘And, you know, good talks are being had. It’s proven to be over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with them. And we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise, bad things happen. But we have to make a meaningful deal.’

Representatives of the U.S. and Iran recently participated in indirect nuclear talks in Oman, with both sides meeting with Omani foreign minister Badr al-Busaidi. Following the indirect talks, which he said were ‘very good,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that Iran wanted to make ‘a deal very badly.’

‘They know the consequences if they don’t make a deal. The consequences are very steep,’ Trump told reporters earlier this month.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi also expressed optimism after the indirect talks, which he said were ‘a good start.’

‘After a long period without dialogue, our viewpoints were conveyed, and our concerns were expressed. Our interests, the rights of the Iranian people, and all matters that needed to be stated were presented in a very positive atmosphere, and the other side’s views were also heard,’ Araghchi said at the time.

‘It was a good start, but its continuation depends on consultations in our respective capitals and deciding on how to proceed,’ he added.

A top Iranian official was spotted in Oman just days after the indirect talks, though it was not immediately clear if he was there to discuss next steps in the negotiations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts has officially fast-tracked the estimated $400 million proposal to build President Donald Trump’s new White House East Wing ballroom Thursday.

While Thursday’s session was originally intended only for design discussion, Chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr. moved for an immediate final approval.

‘Our sitting president has actually designed a very beautiful structure,’ Cook said before the vote. ‘The United States just should not be entertaining the world in tents.’

The project involves building the ballroom on the site where the East Wing once stood, following its October demolition.

Six of the seven commissioners voted in favor. Commissioner James McCrery abstained, having served as the project’s architect.

‘This is an important thing to the president. It’s an important thing to the nation,’ Fine Arts chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said in the panel’s first public hearing on Trump’s proposal earlier this month.

Administrations long before Trump’s complained about having to host State Dinners and major events in temporary structures. The old East Wing dining room had just a 200-seat capacity, according to the White House, making this expansion more than triple the seats and nearly double the square footage of the main White House structure.

The estimated $400 million project has faced criticism from Democrats, but Trump has vowed the funding to be private and the benefits to be immense.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation had filed a federal lawsuit to halt construction.

‘We’re donating a $400 million ballroom, and we got sued not to build it – for 150 years they’ve wanted a ballroom,’ Trump said in December. ‘And we’re giving them, myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing. We’re donating a building that’s approximately $400 million.

‘I think I’ll do it for less, but it’s 400. I should do it for less. I will do it for less, but just in case they say 400; otherwise, if I go $3 over, the press will say it costs more.’

Despite Thursday’s approval, the project faces further review March 5 by the National Capital Planning Commission, led by a top White House aide.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The senior lawmaker leading the U.S. House of Representatives investigation of Jeffrey Epstein is the latest high-profile official to sound off on the arrest of former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., reiterated the need for accountability and lauded the Trump administration’s commitment to releasing its own information on Epstein.

‘There must be accountability for anyone who was involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes,’ Comer told Fox News Digital. ‘The Justice Department’s transparency is ensuring that no one is above the law — even British royalty.’

News first broke of the former Prince Andrew’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office in the early hours of Thursday morning on the U.S. East Coast.

It comes after a British police department said it was looking into a complaint that Andrew shared confidential information with Epstein, according to the BBC.

While he has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, Andrew was one of the late pedophile’s most well-known associates through the years.

Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s earliest and most vocal accusers, alleged in a memoir that Andrew had sex with her when she was a minor.

Giuffre died of suicide in April of last year. Epstein died of suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., one of the earliest U.S. lawmakers to call for Andrew’s arrest in October 2025, told Fox News Digital, ‘If you’re watching a former prince get arrested today, remember: four Republicans refused to flinch, refused to fold, and forced the Epstein files into the light.’

‘Courage has consequences. So does corruption,’ said Mace, also a House Oversight Committee member.

She was one of four House Republicans who voted with Democrats to force a vote on mandating that the Department of Justice (DOJ) release all of its files related to Epstein’s case. The subsequent House vote was nearly unanimous, with just one GOP lawmaker voting against it.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sounded off with renewed calls for accountability for other alleged Epstein associates.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., said Andrew ‘appears repeatedly in the documents we have uncovered as having knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and is specifically named by victims as someone who engaged in wrongdoing.’

‘We hope today’s arrest will lead to answers and show that there will be accountability even if you hide, regardless of how rich and powerful you are,’ he said in a statement.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., wrote on X, ‘This is exactly the kind of accountability we need from the Department of Justice. It’s time to bring the perpetrators to justice.’

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign is $2.5 million richer this week and a bit closer to victory after Stephen Colbert, host of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS, made up a ridiculous lie about being censored by President Trump.

It took a few days for the dust to settle, but now that we have a clear picture of what happened, it is about as bad as it can be. In fact, it would likely be a fireable offense if the ratings challenged Colbert was not already slated to get the ax in May.

According to Colbert’s version of events, which is falling apart faster than a house of cards in a wind tunnel, he was told by CBS lawyers on Monday, just minutes before he was set to interview Talarico, that he could not air the conversation. Why? Because of the Trump administration Federal Communication Commission’s new rules on equal time.

A petulant Colbert went on to tell his audience that he wasn’t even supposed to mention being censored to them, but, putting on his free speech super hero cape, he would do the interview anyway, defying his bosses and release it on YouTube.

The only problem with all of this is that, according to both CBS and the FCC, nobody told Colbert the interview could not air. He just made it up. All that happened was that CBS lawyers told him if he had Talarico on, he might also have to give equal time to his Demcorat primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas.

It is not clear why Colbert would have any issue with having Crockett on, unless perhaps he and his friends in high places think the preppy White Bible school boy is more electable than the sassy Black finger-snapping lady.

Talarico was fundraising off of Colbert’s lie within minutes and raked in $2.5 million. Oh, and did I mention that early voting in Texas started on Tuesday, the day after this duplicitous debacle?

It truly was remarkable to watch. Even by Wednesday, when they knew quite well Colbert had not been censored, CNN had an entire panel that argued the Trump administration’s pressure on CBS had backfired because of the fundraising and the 5 million YouTube views the video got.

But there was no pressure on Colbert from the Trump administration. As FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham, ‘CBS was very clear that Colbert could run the interview that he wanted with that political candidate. They just said, you may have to comply with equal time… But instead of doing that, they claimed that they were victims.’

All that the FCC has said, without taking any action, is that it may enforce equal time rules for talk shows, something it has not done in the past, but given how skewed late night comedy and daytime talk have become, it is worth considering.

‘The View,’ ABC’s mid-morning girl gaggle, had 128 liberal guests in 2025 and only two conservatives, one of which was actress Cheryl Hines, who is actually not conservative, just married to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Put bluntly, the reason that the equal time rules have not been enforced on talk shows is that they never had to be, because Johnny Carson, Tom Snyder and Phil Donahue didn’t turn their shows into nonstop political ads. Obviously, that has changed.

Colbert has been very clear that he purposefully uses his ‘comedy show’ to push a political agenda, in this case, to the benefit of James Talarico and the detriment of Jasmine Crockett, who is now in the awkward position of defending the Trump administration.

However, wherever one comes down on the equal time rules, it is crystal clear that Colbert is just flat-out, stone-cold lying when he says they were used to ban his interview from the air. Sadly, it is a lie many Democratic voters may take to their deathbeds.

There were two big victims to Colbert’s perfidy, the first being Crockett, who may be discovering that she is a little too Brown and uppity for the rich White men who still control liberal media and politics.

The second victim was the average citizen, who was separated from their money based on Colbert’s lies to fill the coffers of Talarico.

Thankfully, we only have about two more months to deal with Colbert’s nonsense and lies, at least on CBS late night. After that he can go to YouTube and interview anyone he pleases, just as he could have on Monday night.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overseeing the well-being of children, eliminated thousands of pages of regulatory guidance that had been languishing on the books as far back as 1976, Fox News Digital learned. 

The Administration for Children and Families is a Health and Human Services agency charged with promoting the economic and social well-being of kids and their families via overseeing programs such as the Head Start school readiness program, child support enforcement, foster care and adoption services, and managing unaccompanied minors. 

The office rescinded 35,781 pages of guidance documents after an agencywide review found 74% of its ‘sub-regulatory footprint’ was obsolete. The documents included technical bulletins, program instructions, action transmittals and dear colleague letters — letters from federal agencies or members of Congress that typically inform colleagues on new guidance or legislation — that had accumulated across the past 50 years. 

The Administration for Children and Families emphasized that the rescinded documents were not erased, but instead archived online along with a detailed list of current guidance documented on the Department of Health and Human Services’ website. 

The Administration for Children and Families was officially established in 1991, but its origins and work stretch back decades, inheriting programs and guidance from earlier Health and Human Services offices — including major initiatives that date to the mid-1970s. 

‘President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda is unparalleled in U.S. history,’ the Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘ACF is proud to do our part to advance the President’s agenda by taking the first of many planned actions, namely removing 36,000 pages of obsolete sub-regulatory guidance that had quietly accumulated over decades and shining a brighter spotlight on what remains,’ he added. ‘In essence, ACF has brought our regulatory dark matter to light.’ 

The rescinded guidance included program-specific documents such as a memo on filing the June 1999 Child and Family Services Plan and Final Report, 2005 avian flu guidance and a 2010 staffing-change notice for the now-defunct Division of Energy Assistance.

The Administration for Children and Families directed its Office of Legislation and Budget to compile a comprehensive list of guidance documents considered active — a process that took three weeks just to catalog the files, the agency said. The inventory produced more than 4,000 documents totaling about 55,776 pages, dating back to 1976. 

Each program office was required to justify whether the individual documents were still needed, and ordered to provide written rationale if guidance was deemed obsolete or necessary. Obsolete documents were considered ones that related to old funding cycles, guidance superseded by newer rules, duplicate statutes or documents related to programs that no longer list, Fox News Digital learned. 

The Administration for Children and Families said the goal of cleaning up the office with outdated guidance is to reduce confusion and allow grant recipients to focus resources on ‘delivering outcomes for American children and families,’ rather than navigating tens of thousands of pages of outdated documentation.

The move aligns with the Trump administration’s broader push to pare back regulations and cut what it calls bureaucratic red tape.

The Federal Communications Commission, for example, took a hatchet to outdated policies in a sweeping deregulation effort in 2025, including doing away with outdated guidance on the use of telegraphs, rabbit-ear TV receivers and phone booth rules in July 2025. 

President Donald Trump’s newly created Board of Peace is set to hold its first meeting Thursday, with administration officials and participating countries framing the gathering as a step toward implementing the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction effort rather than a moment likely to deliver an immediate breakthrough.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement, ‘President Trump is proud to welcome representatives from more than 40 nations to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on Thursday for a major announcement on Board of Peace actions aimed at establishing enduring peace in the Middle East. Since the president and his team ended the war between Israel and Hamas last October, we have maintained the ceasefire, delivered historic levels of humanitarian aid, and secured the return of every living and deceased hostage. The Board of Peace will build on that progress and prove to be the most consequential international body in history.’

At least 40 countries are expected to attend the inaugural session in Washington, where Trump is slated to chair discussions on a multibillion-dollar reconstruction framework, humanitarian coordination and the potential deployment of an international stabilization force.

Officials said representatives will come from across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, and speakers are expected to include President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, Tony Blair, Ambassador Mike Waltz, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and other participants.

Trump unveiled the initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. Initial members include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Hungary, Morocco, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Argentina, Paraguay, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Vietnam.

On Sunday, Trump said members of the initiative had already pledged $5 billion toward rebuilding Gaza and would commit personnel to international stabilization and policing efforts. ‘The Board of Peace will prove to be the most consequential international body in history, and it is my honor to serve as its Chairman,’ Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the commitments.

Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, has announced a plan to train a future Gaza police force, while Indonesia has committed thousands of troops to a prospective international stabilization mission expected to deploy later this year.

The United Arab Emirates, a founding participant in the initiative, said it plans to continue its humanitarian engagement in Gaza.

‘The UAE remains committed to scaling up its humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians in Gaza and to advancing a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians,’ the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, noting its role as a founding member of the Board of Peace and part of the Gaza Executive Board.

Even as Gulf and regional partners signal willingness to fund humanitarian needs, long-term reconstruction remains tied to security conditions on the ground.

Disarmament remains the central test

Analysts say the meeting’s significance will hinge less on headline announcements and more on whether participants align on the unresolved core issue shaping Gaza’s future: Hamas’ disarmament.

Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, argued the meeting’s credibility will depend on whether participants coalesce around a clear position on disarmament. ‘Unless there is going to be a joint statement coming out of it that clearly says Hamas has to disarm — to me the meeting would be a failure,’ he said, because it would show ‘the U.S. cannot get everyone on the same page.’

Funding is also expected to dominate discussions, though diplomats and analysts caution that pledges may not translate quickly into large-scale reconstruction.

‘We’re going to see pledges,’ al-Omari told Fox News Digital, ‘with a footnote that a pledge does not always translate to deliverables,’ urging attention to which countries commit funds and whether the money is earmarked for humanitarian aid, stabilization or long-term rebuilding.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), also cautioned that early financial pledges are unlikely to translate into immediate large-scale reconstruction. ‘I can’t imagine that much of that initial pledge or any of it is going to actual long-term or even medium-term reconstruction of Gaza. Just too many parties won’t support it, pending actual progress on the core question of disarmament and demilitarization of Hamas,’ he said.

Hannah added that the financing challenge remains enormous. ‘It’s been a major outstanding question: How are you going to fund this tremendous bill that is going to come due over the course of the next several years?’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching this now for 35 years, and if I had $100 for every time a major Arab country pledged support for the Palestinians but not delivered, I’d be a relatively wealthy man.’

Netanyahu signs on despite Turkey, Qatar tensions

The initiative has also highlighted political tensions surrounding Israel’s participation, particularly given the involvement of Turkey and Qatar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed on to the agreement last week during a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, placing Israel formally inside the framework despite earlier Israeli objections to Ankara and Doha playing a central role in Gaza’s future.

Hannah said Netanyahu’s decision reflects strategic calculations tied to Washington. ‘I think the prime minister doesn’t want to anger the president. He’s prioritizing his really good strategic relationship with Trump over this tactical difference over Turkey and Qatar,’ he said. ‘The prime minister is just making a basic calculation of where Israel’s interests lie here and trying to balance these competing factors.’

European allies raise legal concerns

Beyond Gaza, the initiative has sparked concern among European allies, many of whom have declined to join the board.

European officials told Fox News Digital the group’s charter raises legal and institutional questions and may conflict with the original U.N. framework that envisioned a Gaza-focused mechanism.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, European leaders argued the Board of Peace’s mandate appears to diverge from the U.N. Security Council resolution that initially supported a Gaza-specific body.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the resolution envisioned a time-limited structure tied directly to Gaza and to the U.N., but that the board’s current charter no longer reflects those provisions. ‘The U.N. Security Council resolution provided for a Board of Peace for Gaza… it provided for it to be limited in time until 2027… and referred to Gaza, whereas the statute of the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things,’ she said. ‘So I think there is a Security Council resolution but the Board of Peace does not reflect it.’

In response, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized what he described as excessive concern over the initiative and argued the status quo in Gaza was unsustainable, and attacked what he said was ‘hand-wringing’ about the Board of Peace — saying the cycle of war with Hamas in control had to be broken.

Not a replacement for the United Nations

Despite European unease, analysts say the Board of Peace is unlikely to replace the U.N. system.

Al-Omari dismissed the idea that the initiative poses a serious institutional challenge, arguing that major powers remain deeply invested in the existing multilateral structure.

Hannah agreed, saying the administration appears to view Thursday’s meeting primarily as incremental progress rather than any kind of major breakthrough. ‘The way the administration is looking at this is just another sign of continued progress and momentum, rather than any kind of major breakthrough,’ he concluded.

A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison Thursday for leading an insurrection after declaring martial law in December 2024.

Yoon was found guilty of abuse of authority and masterminding the insurrection.

Yoon, 65, denied the charges and argued that he had presidential authority to declare martial law and that his action was aimed at sounding the alarm over opposition parties’ obstruction of government.

Prosecutors said in January that Yoon’s ‘unconstitutional and illegal emergency martial law undermined the function of the National Assembly and the Election Commission … actually destroying the liberal democratic constitutional order.’

Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law lasted roughly six hours, sparking mass street protests before parliament quickly voted it down.

Under South Korean law, masterminding an insurrection carries a maximum sentence of death or life imprisonment. Prosecutors hadsought the death penalty.

While courts last imposed a death sentence in 2016, South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997.

Yoon is expected to appeal the ruling.

Yoon faces eight ongoing trial proceedings and was already given a five-year prison sentence last month in a separate case on charges including obstructing authorities’ attempts to arrest him following his martial law declaration. He has appealed that sentence.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A Washington, D.C., grandmother who lost her grandson to gun violence delivered a fiery defense of President Donald Trump during a Black History Month celebration Wednesday at the White House.

Forlesia Cook’s grandson, Marty William McMillan Jr., was killed in 2017 at the age of 22. Cook has since spoken publicly about the loss, including testifying before Congress about his killing.

After Trump invited Cook to say a few words at the event, she used the moment to defend him, urging critics to ‘get off the man’s back.’

‘I love him, I don’t want to hear nothing you got to say about that racist stuff,’ she said. ‘And don’t be looking at me on the news, hating on me because I’m standing up for somebody that deserves to be standing for.’

Cook’s voice grew louder as she continued.

‘Get off the man’s back,’ she said. ‘Let him do his job. He’s doing the right thing. Back up off him.’

She ended her remarks by declaring, ‘And grandma said it.’

The East Room crowd erupted in applause and cheers.

Trump appeared to welcome the praise, joking that she should run for public office.

‘Wow, that’s pretty good,’ Trump said. ‘When is she running for office? Forlesia, when are you running for office? You have my endorsement.’

Cook also thanked Trump for calling the National Guard to the capital and praised his tough-on-crime approach.

‘One thing I like about him, he keeps it real, just like grandma,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that because I can trust him.’

The White House event marked the annual celebration of Black History Month.

Trump also addressed the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, saying, ‘I wanted to begin by expressing a sadness at the passing of a person who was, I knew very well, Jesse was a piece of work. He was a piece of work, but he was a good man.’

‘I just want to pay my highest respects to Reverend Jesse Jackson,’ Trump added, calling him ‘a real hero’ and saying, ‘he really was special, with lots of personality, grit and street smarts.’

The president also announced that former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.

: This was the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight.

Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as ‘the worst of the worst,’ were being held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for keeping the militants locked away and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would be immediate.

‘If these 6,000 or so got out and returned to the battlefield, that would basically be the instant reconstitution of ISIS,’ the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital.

In an exclusive interview, the official walked Fox News Digital step by step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraqi custody, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and a swift military lift.

The risk, the official explained, had been building for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began to assess that Syria’s transition could tip into disorder and create the conditions for a catastrophic jailbreak.

The ODNI sent the official to Syria and Iraq at that time to begin early discussions with both the SDF and the Iraqi government about how to remove what the official repeatedly described as the most dangerous detainees before events overtook them.

Those fears sharpened in early January as fighting erupted in Aleppo and began spreading eastward. Time was running out to prevent catastrophe. ‘We saw this severe crisis situation,’ the official said.

According to the source, the ODNI oversaw daily coordination calls across agencies as the situation escalated. The official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was ‘managing the day to day’ on policy considerations, while the ODNI drove a working group that kept CENTCOM, diplomats and intelligence officials aligned on the urgent question: how to keep nearly 6,000 ISIS fighters from slipping into the fog of war.

The Iraqi government, the official said, understood the stakes. Baghdad had its own reasons to move quickly, fearing that if thousands of detainees escaped, they would spill across the border and revive a threat Iraq still remembers in visceral terms.

The official described Iraq’s motivation bluntly: leaders recognized that a massive breakout could force Iraq back into a ‘2014 ISIS is on our border situation once more.’

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the official said, played a pivotal role in smoothing the diplomatic runway for what would become a major logistical undertaking.

Then came the physical lift. The official credited CENTCOM’s surge of resources to make the plan real on the ground, saying that ‘moving in helicopters’ and other assets enabled detainees to be removed in a compressed timeframe.

‘Thanks to the efforts… moving in helicopters, moving in more resources, and then just logistically making this happen, we were able to get these nearly 6000 out in the course of just a few weeks,’ the official said.

The SDF, he said, had been securing the prisons, but its attention was strained by fighting elsewhere, fueling U.S. fears that a single breach could spiral into a mass escape. Ultimately, detainees were transported into Iraq, where they are now held at a facility near Baghdad International Airport under Iraqi authority.

The next phase, the official said, is focused on identification and accountability. FBI teams are in Iraq enrolling detainees biometrically, the official said, while U.S. and Iraqi officials examine what intelligence can be declassified and used in prosecutions.

‘What they were asking us for, basically, is giving them as much intelligence and information that we have on these individuals,’ the official said. ‘So right now, the priority is on biometrically identifying these individuals.’

The official said the State Department is also pushing countries of origin to take responsibility for their citizens held among the detainees.

‘State Department is doing outreach right now and encouraging all these different countries to come and pick up their fighters,’ he said.

While the transfer focused strictly on ISIS fighters, the senior intelligence official said families held in camps such as al-Hol were not part of the operation, leaving a major unresolved security and humanitarian challenge.

The camps themselves were under separate arrangements, the official said, and responsibility shifted as control on the ground evolved. 

According to the official, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government reached an understanding that Damascus would take over the al-Hol camp, which holds thousands of ISIS-affiliated women and children.

‘As you can see from social media, the al-Hol camp is pretty much being emptied out,’ the official said, adding that it ‘appears the Syrian government has decided to let them go free,’ a scenario the official described as deeply troubling for regional security. ‘That is very concerning.’

The fate of the families has long been viewed by counterterrorism officials as one of the most complicated, unresolved elements of the ISIS detention system. Many of the children have grown up in camps after ISIS lost territorial control, and some are now approaching fighting age, raising fears about future radicalization and recruitment.

For now, the official said, intelligence agencies are closely tracking developments after a rapid operation that, in their view, prevented thousands of experienced ISIS militants from reentering the battlefield at once and potentially reigniting the group’s fighting force. 

‘This is a rare good news story coming out of Syria,’ the official concluded.

President Donald Trump praised civil rights activist Jesse Jackson as a ‘real hero’ during a White House Black History Month event Wednesday, just a day after Jackson’s death.

‘I wanted to begin by expressing a sadness that the passing of a person who was. I knew very well Jesse was a piece of work. He was a piece of work. But he was a good man. He was a real hero,’ Trump said on Wednesday, earning cheers from the audience. 

Trump hosted leaders from the Black community at the White House Wednesday to honor Black History Month in February. He remarked as the event kicked off that there was a ‘sold-out crowd’ and that the upcoming White House ballroom would accommodate far more people. 

Trump had lamented Jackson’s death in a prior Truth Social post Tuesday, elaborating on Wednesday that the pair’s relationship got ‘better and better all the time.’

‘A lot of people you get to know, they get worse and worse. Jesse got better and better. But I knew him well long before becoming president, and he really was special, with lots of personality, grit and street smarts,’ Trump continued. 

Jackson, 84, died Tuesday. His cause of death has not been identified, but he had suffered from health issues including living with a rare neurological condition.

Jackson was a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, and longtime civil rights leader who joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s before his assassination, and was the founder of civil rights group, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. 

‘I will tell you, he was gregarious and someone who truly loved people and a force of nature, who is, somebody that we’re going to greatly miss. And on behalf of everyone here today, I know you join me in sending our condolences to the entire family,’ Trump continued. 

Wednesday’s event included celebrating the legacy of Black Americans, economic wins under the Trump administration, as well as Trump reigniting his 2025 announcement that former Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who served under Trump’s first term, would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  

‘Ben’s getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It’s the highest award you can have outside of the Congressional Medal of Honor,’ Trump said.