MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Millions of soccer fans are expected to gather in 11 U.S. cities for the World Cup, and security planners have been coordinating with state, local and federal law enforcement agencies to monitor unprecedented security threats.
“This is not just one national or one continental event," said Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force on the World Cup. “For us in the United States, these are 11 regional events. And so we rely on the expertise of law enforcement in these areas to also understand the intricacies of this and come in with federal resources.”
The expanded tournament kicking off next week will include 48 teams, 104 matches and three host nations. Giuliani spoke Thursday at a World Cup kickoff event about the security challenges of preparing for an event of this magnitude, from monitoring trends across states to heat mitigation.
“We also want to make sure that we’re not siloing off Miami from Seattle,” Giuliani said, “because if a beat cop is seeing something in Miami Beach, let’s say, or in Miami downtown, that somebody in Seattle is also seeing, we need to make sure that we are deconflicting that information if there’s more of a trend that could be threatening to our other host cities. So that’s where the complexity of this lies.”
Preparations have been ramping up for months. Giuliani and members of the task force have attended major U.S. events, including the College Football Playoff championship game in January, to observe how host cities coordinate security and logistics.
Host cities also received $625 million in federal security funding to bolster preparations, and Giuliani said some of that money will be used to reimburse law enforcement officials for extra security measures.
A recent challenge planners are monitoring is an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus that has plagued Congo and Uganda. The World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency of international concern.
Giuliani said security officials confirmed with the Congolese national team that they haven't been in the region for more than 21 days, and they have warned the team not to add anyone to its training camp who has been in Congo in the past three weeks.
“If they were to do that, and if anybody were to become symptomatic, they would threaten not being able to travel to Houston for the World Cup,” he said.
Congo had already canceled a three-day World Cup preparation training camp and a planned farewell to fans in the capital Kinshasa because of the outbreak. And it was working on finding a way to play its qualifier against Chile after the mayor of the Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion denied authorization for the match because of health concerns related to the outbreak.
Federal officials are also discussing FIFA's change of policy to bar fans from bringing refillable water bottles into the tournament’s 16 stadiums across North America, including some with limited or no shade.
“Certainly understanding that fans with bottles — if anything is frozen there, they can throw that, utilize it as a weapon,” Giuliani said, adding later: “We want to make sure that fans have access to water, so that way they can be hydrated. We also want to make sure that everybody is safe and that people can’t bring a weapon in there. So those conversations are still ongoing.”
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
Andrew Giuliani, head of the The White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026, speaks to the press during a briefing, Thursday, June 4, 2026, in Miami, about security for the World Cup soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
DIBBINE, Lebanon (AP) — Israel’s air force struck different parts of southern Lebanon on Friday, and its military issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has been spared much of the destruction and has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the three-month war.
The Israeli strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern Lebanon, the state news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the new warnings forced hundreds of families to flee the village of Anqoun and the area of Aarnaya, on the edge of the predominantly Christian community of Maghdoucheh, near the southern port city of Sidon. Elsewhere, people began to return to their homes to survey the aftermath of fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group.
Wide parts of the south have already been devastated by the war. An Associated Press team traveling in the south Friday saw multiple villages in ruins, including Dibbine, near Marjayoun town, from which Israeli troops withdrew a day earlier.
It was the first time Israeli troops pulled out of an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began in early March. U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese troops were at an entrance of Dibbine, clearing rubble and opening roads.
But the Lebanese army set up barbed wire at one of the entrances, preventing residents from returning yet.
At least one family arrived to search the rubble of its home along the road leading to the village, while the owner of a petrol station in Dibbine looked at his destroyed property and called village residents to report on the destruction he saw from behind the barbed wire.
Israel had warned Lebanese residents against returning to villages in the south, saying the area is still a combat zone.
The current ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon’s armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned. But the latest deal between Israel and the Lebanese government has been rejected by Hezbollah, which demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a strong ally of Hezbollah who has been acting as a mediator on behalf of the group, echoed the militants' demands. In his first comments since the agreement was announced Wednesday in Washington, Berri said that he accepts Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the areas south of the Litani River as long as it coincides with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.
The river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel, forms the boundary of a 2006 U.N.-established buffer zone in which Hezbollah is banned. Israeli troops have pushed far past the river into southern Lebanon.
Berri added in a written statement that the ceasefire should be “complete and comprehensive,” without any exceptions for land, sea or air, and “without bulldozing and demolishing everything that exists.” He was referring to wide areas that have been demolished by Israeli troops.
The war in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south since March 2, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a globally important conduit for oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other commodities.
Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
In Iran developments, American forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to the Islamic Republic in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. military said Friday.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command posted on X that the forces boarded the MT Davina, without offering details. U.S. forces around the world have sought to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods. They have been directed to stop ships tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies that could help its government.
The U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade of Iran’s ports as part of an effort to force Tehran to open the strait and accept a deal to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the war.
Nearly three hours after Friday's evacuation warnings were issued by the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Israeli warplanes struck the Lebanese villages, including Anqoun. About 2,500 people displaced by the fighting were sheltering in Anqoun, the Lebanese news agency NNA reported.
Shrapnel and pieces of missiles were seen in the rubble of homes lining the road into Dibbine. Israeli troops entered the village weeks ago for the first time and were engaged in heavy clashes with Hezbollah fighters in the area. The troops returned this week, before withdrawing Thursday.
The road to Dibbine was dotted with villages entirely emptied of residents and destroyed by Israeli strikes, including Khiam. But no Israeli troops were visible from the road.
Nearby Christian villages were largely untouched, and many of their residents decided to stay. The strategic Beaufort castle, captured by Israel last week, appeared in the distance, with a flag of the Israeli Golani Brigade. Smoke from strikes around the nearby Nabatiyeh city billowed above.
Israeli troops have seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country’s south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation. The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon’s government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
On Thursday night, an airstrike in the southern city of Tyre killed three and wounded seven people, including three children and two women, the Health Ministry said.
In northern Israel on Thursday, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities, including a town where Netanyahu had met earlier with local officials. The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since the war began. The fighting has killed at least 29 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Ben Finley in Washington contributed to this report.
A view of Beaufort Castle, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Lebanese soldier gestures in front of a Spanish U.N peacekeeper vehicle Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Spanish U.N peacekeepers patrol at an entrance of Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese army soldiers stand in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A bulldozer for the Spanish U.N peacekeeper opens a road in front of a house that was destroyed in the recent clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese soldiers deploy at a road in front of destroyed houses in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Spanish U.N peacekeepers deploy at a road in Dibbine village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, June 5, 2026, a day after Israeli forces withdrew following intense clashes with Hezbollah fighters. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People swim on a public beach as smoke, background, rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Qlaileh village, seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
An Israeli flag hangs on a destroyed building in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
