28/08/2025

THURSDAY | AUG 28, 2025

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

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Iran link to arson attack uncovered via funding trail

Starship passes development rut WASHINGTON: SpaceX’s Starship rocket on Tuesday deployed its first batch of mock Starlink satellites in space and tested new heat shield tiles on its plunge through Earth’s atmosphere. The giant 123m Starship system in its 10th test flight lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in south Texas, followed by its towering Super Heavy booster releasing the Starship upper stage into space three minutes later, dozens of miles above ground. Cruising in space some 30 minutes into the flight, Starship’s “Pez”-like satellite deployment system dispensed eight dummy Starlink satellites for the first time, a key demonstration for a rocket that represents the future of SpaceX’s dominant launch business. Much is riding on the rocket’s success. Nasa picked Starship to put its first astronauts on the Moon’s surface since the Apollo programme. And Musk sees Starship, designed to be fully reusable, as core to fulfilling his goal of routinely ferrying humans to Mars. Starship’s blazing-hot supersonic reentry through Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean roughly an hour into the mission put a variety of hexagonal heat shield tiles to the test as billionaire Elon Musk’s space company tries to create an exterior shield that requires little to no refurbishment after each use. Spacecraft that return to Earth have historically required new heat shields or repairs after each mission given the destructive and brutal erosion that occurs from high-speed atmospheric friction. The heat shield tiles on Nasa’s retired Space Shuttle were fit for dozens of missions, though some had to be replaced. “There are thousands of engineering challenges that remain, for both the ship and the booster, but maybe the single biggest one is the reusable orbital heat shield,” Musk said on Monday. The mission concluded with a steady, engine guided vertical landing on the ocean’s surface west of Australia. The Starship then toppled over before exploding into a fireball, likely triggered by its termination system. – Reuters Statue of feudal warlord beheaded TOKYO: A statue of a powerful 16th-century warlord and samurai outside a shopping arcade in Japan has been beheaded, a shop official and media reports said yesterday. The statue is of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who completed the unification of Japan in the 16th century, and is also known for his failed attempts to invade the Korean peninsula. The association of the Endoji shopping arcade in Nagoya regards the statue as a symbolic figure of the mall, and “is considering filing a damage report with police”, a member said. There was no information about who damaged the statue for what reasons, he said. The vandalism came after similar damages to other warlord sculptures outside the same shopping arcade in central Japan that were reportedly donated by a real estate company in 2013. In 2022, the one of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi’s rival and the first shogun of Tokugawa’s Edo period that lasted until the late 19th century, was knocked down and had a hole made in its back. The figure of Oda Nobunaga was found without an arm in 2019. The three are Japan’s most famous warlords who fought to unify Japan to end around 100 years of warring states period. In other countries, statues of historical figures have become the subject of fierce debate in recent years, especially of figures related to colonialism and slavery. – AFP

o Tehran denies involvement

SYDNEY: Australia’s intelligence agency traced the funding of hooded criminals who allegedly set fire to a Melbourne synagogue, linking the attack to Iran, officials said, even as those charged with the crime were likely unaware Tehran was their puppet master. A 20-year-old man, Younes Ali Younes, appeared in Melbourne’s Magistrates Court yesterday charged with the Dec 6 arson attack on the Adass Israel synagogue and theft of a car. He did not enter a plea and did not seek bail. His lawyer declined to comment. A day earlier Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia’s intelligence agencies had shown the attack, and another in Sydney last year, were directed by the Iranian government, and expelled Tehran’s ambassador, becoming the latest Western government to accuse Iran of carrying out hostile covert activities on its soil. Security services in Britain and Sweden warned last year that Tehran was using criminal proxies to carry out its violent attacks in those countries, with London saying it had disrupted 20 Iran-linked plots since 2022. A dozen other countries have condemned what they called a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services. Australia’s spy chief Mike Burgess said a series of “cut outs”, an intelligence term for intermediaries, were used to conceal Iran’s involvement in the attacks, and warned that it may have orchestrated others. Security forces “have done rather extraordinary work to trace the source of the funding of these criminal elements who’ve been used as tools”, Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday. The investigation worked backwards through payments made onshore and offshore to “petty and sometimes not so petty criminals”, he said in parliament yesterday. Albanese was briefed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation on Monday on evidence of a “supply chain” that he said linked the attacks to offshore individuals and Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Australia’s diplomats in Iran were discreetly told to leave, making it out of Iranian airspace just after midnight, he said. A public announcement, with Albanese flanked by his spy chief and foreign and home affairs ministers, came on Tuesday, prompting accolades from Israel. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusation.

Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi entering the embassy in Canberra yesterday. – AFPPIC

speculation they had been taken hostage. Porepunkah is home to around 1,000 residents and is at the base of Australia’s alpine ranges. Bush said that winter weather made search conditions “tough going” for police and that Freeman “will know the area better than us”. “He understands bushcraft well, which provides a challenge for us,” Bush said, adding Freeman was “heavily armed” with firearms. Local media outlets reported that police believed Freeman was a “sovereign citizen” who believes the government is illegitimate. – Reuters alight before speeding away. Victoria’s Joint Counter Terrorism Team alleged Younes stole the car to carry out the attack and recklessly endangered lives by setting fire to the synagogue when people were inside, a charge sheet shows. No one was wounded in the attack. A co-accused, Giovanni Laulu, 21, appeared in court last month on the same charges. Police have referred to the sedan as a “communal crime car” linked to other attacks that were not politically motivated. – Reuters

The turning point in the investigation came weeks earlier, as Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation seized mobile phones and digital devices from suspects arrested in Victoria state over the attack – and highlighted a stolen blue Volkswagen Golf sedan used in unrelated attacks. CTV footage of the night of Dec 6 released by police shows three hooded figures unloading red jerry cans of fuel from the boot of the car, one of whom was wielding an axe, at the entrance of the synagogue and setting it

Suspected shooter flees into dense bushland SYDNEY: A police manhunt in Australia’s rugged alpine bushland entered a second day yesterday after a “heavily armed” gunman allegedly shot dead two officers and injured another as they served a warrant at his rural property in the state of Victoria. “The hunt will continue until we find him.” On Tuesday, a team of 10 police officers, including members of the sexual offences and child investigation team, arrived at Freeman’s property in Porepunkah, about 300km northeast of Melbourne, to execute a search warrant.

Police said the suspected gunman, identified as 56-year-old Dezi Freeman, was a local man with expert knowledge of bushcraft and in possession of powerful firearms. “I can confirm that the suspect for this horrific event is still at large,” Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said at a news conference yesterday.

Freeman, also known as “Filby”, is alleged to have fired on the group, killing a 59-year-old detective and a 35-year-old senior constable and seriously injuring a detective before fleeing on foot into dense bushland, police said. Police said Freeman’s partner and children had been located safely overnight amid