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Ben Wolfgang

Ben Wolfgang

bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com

Ben Wolfgang is a National Security Correspondent for The Washington Times. His reporting is regularly featured in the daily Threat Status newsletter.
Previously, he covered energy and the environment, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016, and also spent two years as a White House correspondent during the Obama administration.
Before coming to The Times in 2011, Ben worked as political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa.
He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Ben Wolfgang

Israeli police patrol during clashes between Arabs, police and Jews, in the mixed town of Lod, central Israel, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. As rockets from Gaza streaked overhead, Arabs and Jews fought each other on the streets below. Rioters torched vehicles, a restaurant and a synagogue in one of the worst spasms of communal violence that Israel has seen in years. (AP Photo/Heidi Levine)

Israeli-Palestinian clash rattles Trump Abraham Accords, Biden agenda

Escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence is threatening to undermine progress made by the Trump administration's Abraham Accords and drive a new wedge between Israel and the Arab world, all while President Biden scrambles to address the crisis that has eclipsed his own foreign policy priorities.

May 12, 2021
An Israeli soldier stands guard next to an Iron Dome air defense system as smoke rises from an oil tank on fire after it was hit by a rocket fire from Gaza Strip, near the town of Ashkelon, Israel,, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome stretched to limit by Hamas rocket barrage

Israel's state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense system is facing its toughest test to date amid rapid-fire rocket attacks from Hamas, with military analysts in Israel openly wondering whether the Palestinian militant group has found a strategy to partially pierce the shield.

May 12, 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon, left, attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 9, 2021, marking the 76th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Joe Biden seeks Russia penalty to stop cyberattacks

Major cyberattacks with links to Russia have grown bolder even in the face of escalating U.S. economic sanctions, presenting a high-stakes dilemma for President Biden as he weighs how to respond to the devastating assault on the Colonial Pipeline and what tools America may have at its disposal to punch back.

May 11, 2021
Colonial Pipeline storage tanks are seen in Woodbridge, N.J., Monday, May 10, 2021. Gasoline futures are ticking higher following a cyberextortion attempt on the Colonial Pipeline, a vital U.S. pipeline that carries fuel from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Colonial Pipeline, hit by cyberattack, may be back up and running by end of week

The Biden administration on Monday confronted another major cyberattack with apparent links to Russia while the U.S. energy industry slowly got back on its feet after a crippling assault on the Colonial Pipeline underscored deep vulnerabilities in critical American infrastructure that security experts say must be fixed.

May 10, 2021
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley has expressed his support for changing how the military conducts investigations of sexual assault. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) **FILE**

Momentum builds to change military rules on harassment in the ranks

The polarizing push to pull sexual assault cases from the chain of command -- an idea that now appears inevitable amid openness from top Pentagon commanders and support from even some of the most outspoken pro-military conservatives on Capitol Hill -- would represent a fundamental change to one of the core tenets of U.S. military practice.

May 8, 2021
The HMS Queen Elizabeth left Portsmouth Naval Base on Saturday for exercises off Scotland before a 28-week trip through the Pacific that will take the Royal Navy to more than 40 countries. (Associated Press)

Boris Johnson South China Sea carrier deployment to project Britain power

Post-Brexit Britain is thrusting itself into 21st-century great power competition with the deployment of a massive carrier strike group through Asia and the bitterly contested South China Sea this month, marking the Royal Navy's most ambitious mission since the Falklands War of the early 1980s.

May 4, 2021
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan listens during a meeting with President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, April 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ** FILE **

White House denies Iran’s sanctions, prisoner deal claims

Biden administration officials on Sunday morning denied reports from Iranian state-run media that the U.S. and Britain have agreed to free up $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds in exchange for the release of American prisoners held in the Islamic republic.

May 2, 2021
In this Jan. 15, 2018, photo, U.S. Marines watch during the change of command ceremony at Task Force Southwest military field in Shorab military camp of Helmand province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) **FILE**

U.S. base in Afghanistan hit by rocket fire as troops begin withdrawal

In an ominous kickoff to the mission to leave, U.S. forces returned fire over the weekend after rockets hit a key air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, while America's top general on Sunday warned of "bad possible outcomes" in the country after all U.S. and NATO troops complete their withdrawal.

May 2, 2021
President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP)

Joe Biden defends plan to pull troops from Afghanistan

President Biden on Wednesday night defended his controversial decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by September 11, arguing that America has accomplished its goals in the 20-year "forever war."

April 28, 2021