Category: war

Omar Asad, 80, was detained at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank overnight in January 2022. The soldiers left him unresponsive on the ground of a construction site and said they assumed he had fallen asleep. Palestinian leaders say this case shows the near impunity of Israeli soldiers. They have called for those involved to be prosecuted in an international court. Mr Asad had been out drinking coffee and playing cardsbeforedriving to his home in the village of…

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to order troops to take more land in Ukraine in order to protect Russian territory, he said in remarks on Tuesday. The assertion comes as Ukraine begins a long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s south and east, claiming small victories that have been disputed by the Russian government. Putin said Ukraine has suffered “catastrophic” losses in their probing attacks into Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine, however Ukrainian officials have so far called the offensive a success. He…

Two senior officials with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), briefed ambassadors on recent developments, including the arrest of a top fugitive from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the final verdict related to atrocities committed in the Balkan wars. Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, Mechanism President, reported that in-court proceedings are all but concluded as only one case related to core crimes committed in Rwanda now remains on the docket. “This represents a watershed moment…

Ukrainian forces have been met with strong resistance from Russian soldiers after attempting to penetrate enemy lines in the east of the country in the past couple days. US officials have described the losses, which included US-supplied MRAP armored vehicles, as “significant,” per CNN. Though Ukraine was able to push through Russian forces around Bakhmut, they were met with anti-tank missiles, grenades, and mortars from the Russian side. The report noted that Russian forces have trenched themselves several layers deep,…

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had an “open, candid” conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the early hours of Wednesday about a wide range of bilateral issues, a US official said. The top US diplomat arrived in Saudi Arabia late on Tuesday for a much anticipated visit amid frayed ties due to deepening disagreements on everything from Iran policy to regional security issues, oil prices and human rights. Washington has struggled to…

The BRICS bloc’s push to create a new trade and reserve currency that can serve as an alternative to the dollar could start chipping away at the greenback’s hegemony in less than three months’ time, former CIA and Department of Defense advisor and investment banker James Rickards has predicted. “It involves the rollout of a major new currency that could weaken the role of the dollar in global payments and ultimately displace the US dollar as the leading payment currency…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force walked back comments reportedly made by a colonel regarding a simulation in which a drone outwitted its artificial intelligence training and killed its handler, after the claims went viral on social media. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in a June 2 statement no such testing took place, adding that the service member’s comments were likely “taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.” “The Department of the Air Force has not…

A former Federal Security Service officer said Putin could be overthrown by Wagner. The Wagner Army is Putin’s private military army, largely made up of mercenaries. The Army chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, could pose an active threat to Putin, said the war analyst. Vladimir Putin could be ousted by Russia’s private military group, the Wagner army, according to Igor Girkin, a former Federal Security Service officer who once led a group of Russian militants in Donetsk. Girkin, who is also known…

While Ukrainian forces tend to treat each new addition to their arsenal supplied by the West as a game changer, their jubilation tends to be short-lived as Russian forces swiftly learn how to deal with these threats. A Storm Shadow cruise missile Kiev recently got from the UK proved to be no exception.Yesterday, Russian air defense units operating in the Ukrainian conflict zone shot down two Storm Shadow missiles, as well as several other airborne threats.Also, some 12 UAVs operated by Kiev forces were shot down by Russian air defense units in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic, Donetsk People’s Republic and Zaporozhye region.The United States and its allies have supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons and military hardware – including small arms, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and air defense systems – to Ukraine, fanning the flames of the ongoing conflict in the country and effectively helping prolong the fighting and the suffering of the Ukrainian civilians.

The value of frozen Russian private assets under sanctions increased from 18.9 billion euros in December to 24.1 billion euros in late May, the newspaper said. As many as 1,473 individuals and 205 firms from Russia have been sanctioned by the EU, German media added. After the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Western countries have imposed comprehensive sanctions against Russia, including the freezing of nearly half of the country’s foreign currency reserves – amounting to about $300 billion. The European Union alone has frozen assets of Russian entities and individuals worth dozens of billions of dollars under 10 packages of sanctions.

German police have launched a criminal investigation into English rock legend and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on suspicion of glorifying Nazism during two concerts in Berlin. The musician has insisted the performance was in opposition to fascism. On Friday, in a statement quoted by several media outlets, the Berlin police said that Waters was suspected of inciting hatred, and that the probe was centered on his performances on May 17 and 18 in the German capital. In footage posted…

MOSCOW – Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has started withdrawing its forces from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and transferring its positions there to regular Russian troops, its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video published on Thursday. “We are withdrawing the units from Bakhmut. From today at five in the morning, May 25 until June 1, most of the units will rebase to camps in the rear. We are handing our positions to the military,” he said. The video was…

Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, whose leader said the warheads were already on the move, in the Kremlin’s first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. The U.S. State Department denounced the deployment plan, but said Waacshington had no intention of altering its position on strategic nuclear weapons or seen any signs Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon. Russian President Vladimir…

Russia has intercepted two US Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea. The Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday Russia had scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent violations of the state border” by the American bombers, AFP reported. “After removing the foreign military aircraft from the Russian state border, the Russian fighter went back to its air base,” the ministry added. The statement said that “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international…

By Harun Maruf  The United States military has confirmed conducting a new airstrike against al-Shabab militants in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia. The airstrike took place in Jilib town on Saturday in collaboration with the Somali federal government, according to a press statement released Monday by the U.S. Africa Command known as AFRICOM. “The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement said. The AFRICOM statement did not say whether any of the…