A GLAMOROUS fighter pilot decided to swap the cockpit for a different kind of runway as she now wants to become Miss Universe.
Michelle Martin, who joined the Chilean Air force at 18, will now represent her homeland in the famous beauty pageant.
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Military fighter pilot Michelle Martin will run for Miss UniverseCredit: Jam Press
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The 24-year-old often flaunts her figure and beauty on social mediaCredit: Jam Press
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Born in Venezuela, Michelle joined the Chilean Air Force at 18Credit: Jam Press
At 24 years old, Michelle has risen to the rank of Second Lieutenant.
But military career did not stop her from being one of the most glamorous fighter pilots out there.
Michelle often flaunts her beauty on and off duty – from a tight sleek bun look matched with her uniform, to summery snaps at the beach.
She was born in Venezuela and settled in Chile with her family more than five years ago.
Read more about Miss Universe
Daughter of a Chilean father and a Venezuelan mother, Michelle will represent the city of Puerto Montt where she has been based for several years.
Talking about her decision to take part in Miss Universe, she said: “My decision to participate was enthusiastically welcomed by my family in Chile and Venezuela, as well as by my Air Force colleagues.”
“I really love military life. “The career is very nice and you grow integrally,” she said in a previous interview.
Michelle is one of only a few candidates who aren’t involved in the entertainment industry.
This year, Miss Universe Chile representatives include Big Brother star, Francisca Maira and influencer, Bárbara Lackington, who appeared on MasterChef in 2019.
Trans model, Ariel Cordero, has also been announced as a candidate.
The final of Miss Universe 2024 will take place in Mexico City later this year on November 17.
An organisation spokesperson said: “We would like to present Michelle Martin who qualified for Miss Universe Chile 2024 by in-person casting.
“Soon you will be able to learn more about Michelle in our Miss Universe Chile app.”
Last week, it was confirmed that a 72-year-old grandmother is vying to become Miss Universe Argentina.
If successful, Estela Menéndez hopes to represent her country at the international event this year.
She was able to enter the pageant after the age limit was dropped for 2024.
Previously, candidates had to be aged between 18 and 28 years.
Whilst some women might want to shun the spotlight, Jocelyn is happy appearing on stage and has entered numerous pageants before.
This includes the Ms Asia International Global and Mrs Mother of the Universe competition, both of which she won in 2014 and 2017 respectively.
When the Miss Universe organisation relaxed these rules last year, Jocelyn knew she wanted to enter the pageant.
Even press attention and the younger competitors don’t seem to faze this 69-year-old, with her taking part in a regional leg of the Miss Universe pageant in Quezon City last month.
The fashion design is no stranger to barring all though, regularly wear stomach barring outfit for pageants and modelling gigs.
Even when she is off duty, the 69-year-old is still wearing denim hot pants and high heels – proving that age really is just a number.
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Michelle will represent the city of Puerto Montt, where she has been based for yearsCredit: Jam Press
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At 24, she has risen through the ranks and became Second LieutenantCredit: instagram
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Michelle said the news to join the beauty pageant were welcomed by her family and friends at the Air ForceCredit: Jam Press
Firefighters extinguish a fire in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, early on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024.
Soichiro Koriyama | Bloomberg | Getty Images
At least 30 people were killed after a powerful earthquake hit Japan on New Year’s Day, with rescue teams on Tuesday struggling to reach isolated areas where buildings had been toppled, roads wrecked and power cut to tens of thousands of homes.
The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck in the middle of the afternoon on Monday, prompting residents in some coastal areas to flee to higher ground as tsunami waves hit Japan’s west coast, sweeping some cars and houses into the sea.
Thousands of army personnel, firefighters and police officers from across the country have been dispatched to the worst-hit area in the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture.
However, rescue efforts have been hindered by badly damaged and blocked roads and authorities say they are finding it difficult to assess the full extent of the fallout.
Many rail services, ferries and flights into the area have been suspended. Noto airport has closed due to damage to its runway, terminal and access roads, with 500 people stranded inside cars in its parking lot, according to public broadcaster NHK.
“The search and rescue of those impacted by the quake is a battle against time,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during an emergency disaster meeting on Tuesday.
Kishida said rescuers were finding it very difficult to reach the northern tip of the Noto peninsula due to wrecked roads, and that helicopter surveys had discovered many fires and widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure.
Authorities in Ishikawa said they had confirmed 30 deaths from the earthquake so far, with half of those fatalities in hard-hit Wajima city near the quake’s epicentre.
Firefighters have been battling blazes in several cities and trying to free more people trapped in collapsed buildings, Japan’s fire and disaster management agency said.
More than 140 tremors have been detected since the quake first hit on Monday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The agency has warned more strong shocks could hit in the coming days.
Nobuko Sugimori, a 74-year-old resident of Nanao city in Ishikawa, told Reuters she had never experienced such a quake before.
“I tried to hold the TV set to keep it from toppling over, but I could not even keep myself from swaying violently from side to side,” Sugimori said from her home which had a large crack down its front wall and furniture scattered around the inside.
Across the street, a car was crushed under a collapsed building where residents had another close call.
Fujiko Ueno, 73, said nearly 20 people were in her house for a New Year celebration when the quake struck but miraculously all emerged uninjured.
“It all happened in the blink of an eye” she said, standing in the street among debris from the wreckage and mud that oozed out of the road’s cracked surface.
Several world leaders sent condolence messages with President Joe Biden saying in statement the United States was ready to provide any necessary help to Japan.
“Our thoughts are with the Japanese people during this difficult time,” he said.
The Japanese government ordered around 100,000 people to evacuate their homes on Monday night, sending them to sports halls and school gymnasiums, commonly used as evacuation centres in emergencies.
Many returned to their homes on Tuesday as authorities lifted tsunami warnings.
But around 33,000 households remained without power in Ishikawa prefecture early on Tuesday morning after a night where temperatures dropped below freezing, according to Hokuriku Electric Power’s 9505.T website. Most areas in the northern Noto peninsula also have no water supply, NHK reported.
The Imperial Household Agency said it would cancel Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako’s slated New Year appearance on Tuesday following the disaster. Kishida postponed his New Year visit to Ise Shrine scheduled for Thursday.
Japan’s defence minister told reporters on Tuesday that 1,000 army personnel are currently involved in rescue efforts and that 10,000 could eventually be deployed.
The quake comes at a sensitive time for Japan’s nuclear industry, which has faced fierce opposition from some locals since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima. Whole towns were devastated in that disaster.
Japan last week lifted an operational ban imposed on the world’s biggest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which has been offline since the 2011 tsunami.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority said no irregularities were found at nuclear plants along the Sea of Japan, including five active reactors at Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi and Takahama plants in Fukui Prefecture.
Hokuriku Electric’s Shika plant, the closest to the epicentre, has also been idled since 2011. The company said there had been some power outages and oil leaks following Monday’s jolt but no radiation leakage.
The company had previously said it hoped to restart the reactor in 2026.
Chip equipment maker Kokusai Electric said it is investigating further after finding some damage at its factory in Toyama ahead of the planned resumption of operations on Thursday.
Companies including Sharp, Komatsu and Toshiba have been checking whether their factories in the area have been damaged. damage at its factory in Toyama ahead of the planned resumption of operations on Thursday.
A U.S. Army wife has been charged with murder after she killed her 11-month-old son at their home on a Georgia military base, saying she wanted to send the baby to “be with Jesus and God,” authorities said.
April Evalyn Short, 30, of Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, has been charged by federal complaint with murder, with an aggravating circumstance of the alleged crime occurring during an act of child abuse, according to a statement by Jill E. Steinberg, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
Officials at Fort Eisenhower said in an online statement that the victim was the son of April Short and her husband, Staff Sergeant James Short. The couple’s two other children, ages 6 and 11, were home when their little brother was killed on Wednesday, authorities said.
April Short used a knife to cut the neck of her 11-month-old baby, who was rushed to Eisenhower Army Medical Center but unable to be saved, according to Steinberg.
April Evalyn Short, 30, of Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, is charged with murder after authorities said she cut her 11-month-old son’s neck, according to Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. Jefferson County Detention Center
Newsweek reached out via phone on Saturday night to representatives for Fort Eisenhower and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment. It was unclear at the time of publication if April Short had an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, James Short was on duty when he received a text message from his wife that caused him to become worried for the well-being of his children, according to the criminal complaint obtained by local media outlets The Augusta Press and WJBF.
The concerning message made references to God and said, “The days of darkness are upon us,” prompting him to call his wife who did not pick up, the criminal complaint states.
James Short returned home and found his wife barricaded in their primary bedroom with the baby and two other children. When he was unable to get into the adjoining primary bathroom, he called 911.
Officers with the Military Police and Department of the Army Civilian Police (DACP) arrived and were able to coax April Short out of the house but as police tried to detain her, she initially attempted to flee, the court documents state.
Authorities did not say if the two other children had suffered any injuries, but the criminal complaint states that April Short threatened to cut the 6-year-old girl if she didn’t stop crying.
When April Short was apprehended, James Short realized that his wife did not have their infant son with her, according to the criminal complaint. Around 9 a.m., he found the baby boy wrapped in a plastic shower curtain in the bathroom where he was bleeding from apparent neck wounds.
When FBI agents interviewed the older children, the 6-year-old said that her mother got knives and said she “was going to help” her little brother “be with Jesus and God.” April Short also told the children, “Don’t come into the bathroom because it might be really scary,” according to the court documents.
During an interview with investigators, April Short admitted to wrapping the infant in a shower curtain inside the bathtub and using a knife to cut his neck, saying that she knew what she did was “wrong” and “evil.”
While April Short made an initial court appearance on Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian K. Epps, she has not yet entered a plea, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
She’s been ordered by the court to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
“There is reasonable cause to believe [April Short] may suffer from a mental disease or defect rendering her mentally incompetent to the extent she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense,” the court order states.
April Short is currently in the custody of U.S. Marshals and is being held at Jefferson County Detention Center to await further proceedings.
The case is being investigated by the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division with assistance from the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Henry W. Syms Jr. and Patricia G. Rhodes.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
During World War I, Black soldiers like David Brewer’s grandfather were not allowed in combat. Instead, they lugged cargo, dug trenches and buried the dead for the U.S. Army.
But as the Western Front continued to churn out the dead, France welcomed a group of Black Americans in 1918 to fight under their country’s banner.
The group became known as the Harlem Hellfighters — one of the most renowned Black regiments in history.
Brewer’s grandfather Sylvester Calhoun didn’t fight, but he helped the estimated 4,500 Black soldiers in France who turned the tide of the war.
In 2014, Brewer, a retired vice admiral in the Navy — only the fifth African American to attain the rank — flew to France with his 94-year-old mother so she could see where her father had served with her own eyes.
Actor Dennis Haysbert, left, moderated the panel of retired military leaders including the Air Force’s Lt. Gen. Stayce Harris and Maj. Gen. John F. Phillips, speaking.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
The pair found delight at the sounds of jazz on city streets — just one influence of the Black soldiers who came to France for the Great War.
During World War II, Brewer’s uncle fought in the U.S. Army in Italy. Brewer’s father did not see combat during his service, but settled in Tuskegee, Ala., for his studies.
“His classmate,” Brewer said, “was Gen. Chappie James” — the first Black man to become a four-star general in any U.S. military branch.
Former lawmaker Mark Ridley-Thomas, right, chats with retired Navy Vice Adm. David Brewer, center, and Marine Corps Reserve Maj. Gen. Leo V. Williams III after the panel discussion.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, as Veterans Day neared, Brewer and five other Black military leaders brought their stories to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. They spoke about the long and rich history of Black service members.
“Believe it or not,” philanthropist Bernard Kinsey said, many Black soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their heroics in the the Civil War.
And Black troops — “‘colored,’ we were called then,” Kinsey clarified — “dominated getting recognized until Jim Crow.”
The Veterans Day panel was organized by Kinsey’s family, renowned as art collectors. The event included a tour of the historic art, poems and artifacts — like a 1924 photograph of 28 Black Los Angeles firefighters — from the Kinsey Collection that will hang in the halls of SoFi until March.
The heroics of Henry Johnson, who earned the nickname “Black Death” in May 1918, were highlighted at Wednesday’s event.
Fighting on the edge of France’s Argonne Forest, Johnson saved a fellow soldier from capture using grenades and his rifle as a club. And using a bolo knife, he prevented a German raid from reaching his French allies.
Overseas, Johnson and compatriot Needham Roberts received the Croix de Guerre — France’s highest award for valor. But back home in America, the Army refused to recognize Johnson, who was wounded 21 times in the battle.
Discharge records did not mention his debilitating injuries, and the Army would notaward him a Purple Heart.
Johnson died in 1929 at the age of 32 of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. In 2015, President Obama posthumously awarded Johnson the Medal of Honor.
Although Johnson’s bravery overseas didn’t immediately ease the hardships that he and his peers faced when they returned home, he helped pave the way for prominent commanders in years to come.
In 1940, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. became the Army’s first Black general.
But the belief that Black people could not succeed as officers, or sailors, lingered for years more, Brewer said. In 1944, naval commanders finally launched an officer training course for 16 of the estimated 100,000 Black sailors in the U.S. Navy.
Every one of them passed the course, according to Navy records.
But only 12 were selected as officers. A 13th was made a chief warrant officer, resulting in the group’s nickname: “The Golden 13.”
Twenty-eight years later, in 1970, Brewer joined the Navy, which at the time had no Black admirals.
“And only five – five — Black sailors had achieved the rank of Navy captain by 1970,” he added.
This year marks 75 years since the U.S. military desegregated, and the numbers still aren’t where they should be, according to the panel of prestigious Black officers.
As Brewer told it, President Truman only integrated the military after Isaac Woodard, a young Black Army sergeant, was dragged off a Greyhound bus on the way home to South Carolina after serving in World War II.
Still in uniform, just hours after being honorably discharged, Woodard was beaten blind and arrested.
The panel of retired military leaders gave credit to the Black service members who came before them and made it possible for them to become high-ranking officers.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
“It was in my wife’s hometown — [in] Fairfield County, South Carolina,” Brewer shared with veterans, students and dignitaries who traveled from as far as Washington, D.C., for the panel.
The country was outraged, and in July 1946, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, abolishing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in the United States armed forces.
Even then, it took six years for the Army to fully integrate, said Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick — a Black commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Bostick’s father was an orphan at 8 years old, living in Brooklyn, moving from foster home to foster home. “He never really had a family,” Bostick said, until he joined an all-Black unit in the Army at age 17.
He was able to move up the ranks to master sergeant, serving for more than two decades.
“Can you all imagine doing anything for 26 ½ years?” Bostick asked a group of Junior ROTC cadets from John C. Fremont High School in South Los Angeles.
Maj. Gen. Leo V. Williams III of the Marines remembered his father served as a steward in the Navy for 38 years “and retired as one of the senior Black enlisted folks in the Navy.”
The Marine Corps, on the other hand, “was so far behind the other services that you can’t even begin to compare,” Williams said.
When his now ex-wife told her father that she’d be marrying a Black Marine Corps officer, “he said, ‘He’s a liar,’” Williams recalled. “That was 1970.”
“It’s a history that we have crawled our way slowly forward,” he added. “But you have to understand the history to understand how difficult it may be to make moves based on the culture of your institution.”
Williams bid farewell to the Junior ROTC Marines with a ringing “Oorah” as he departed the stage.
Ruth Murcia, left, and fellow Marine Corps Junior ROTC students from John C. Fremont High School join retired Maj. Gen. Williams, one of the panelists, at the exhibit of items from the Kinsey Collection.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Ruth Murcia, a junior at Fremont High, waited for a chance to speak with Williams. The silver lieutenant discs on her uniform collar quickly caught his eye.
Her family background is steeped in military tradition, but Murcia fears the journey won’t be as easy as loved ones make it sound. She explained that she’s on the fence about joining the armed forces.
Williams advised Murcia to head into the military as an officer, a path made possible by ROTC programs across the country.
Army and Air Force leaders recognized the potential of Black recruits and began placing ROTC units at historically Black universities like Howard as early as 1917. But the Navy refused to host a program of its own until President Lyndon B. Johnson forced the issue in 1968, Brewer said.
The president, a native Texan, placed the unit in his home state at Prairie View A&M.
In 1970, Brewer became one of 13 graduates in the university’s inaugural ROTC class.
“We call it the Prairie View Naval ROTC Golden 13,” Brewer said. “It’s ironic how history repeats itself.”
Bostick, having served as the Army’s head of personnel, said he didn’t aspire to join the military as a child growing up in Japan and Germany.
College was his calling.
“I watched my dad fight two wars. He was always away,” Bostick said. “I didn’t want to do that.”
Bostick fortunately found an ally who helped him become one of six Black engineers out of 4,000 graduates at West Point to complete their coursework.
“In 221 years, there’s been one Black chief of engineers from West Point. That’s me — I don’t know how I got there,” Bostick said with a chuckle.
After 38 years of service, the Army tapped Bostick to address the lack of diversity in the Corps of Engineers, he said.
Bostick called 25 generals into a room to see whom he could promote. There was one white woman, and he was the lone Black face in the room.
He then called in 42 colonels.
“There’s one Asian and there’s one Black female,” Bostick said.
Then he said: “Give me the top 25 captains.” There was one Black man and one white woman.
“So then I go back to West Point, and I’m welcoming 127 cadets that picked the Corps of Engineers. There’s two Black males,” Bostick added.
He wryly told the Army that he estimated he’d have the diversity problem fixed by 2048.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Army has grounded aviation units for training after 12 soldiers died within the last month in helicopter crashes in Alaska and Kentucky, the military branch announced Friday.
The suspension of air operations was effective immediately, with units grounded until they complete the training, said Lt. Col. Terence Kelley, an Army spokesperson. For active-duty units, the training is to take place between May 1 and 5. Army National Guard and Reserve units will have until May 31 to complete the training.
“The move grounds all Army aviators, except those participating in critical missions, until they complete the required training,” the Army said in a statement.
On Thursday, two Army helicopters collided near Healy, Alaska, killing three soldiers and injuring a fourth. The aircraft from the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment at Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, were returning from training at the time of the crash, according to the Army. The unit is part of the 11th Airborne Division, which is nicknamed the “Arctic Angels.”
Military investigators were making their way to Alaska’s interior, with a team from Fort Novosel, Alabama, expected to arrive at the crash site by Saturday, said John Pennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Alaska. Little new information about the crash was released Friday.
The Army on Thursday said two of the soldiers died at the site and the third on the way to a hospital in Fairbanks. The injured fourth soldier was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition Friday, Pennell said. The names of those who were killed were not immediately released.
“The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” Army Chief of Staff James McConville said of the decision to ground flight units for training.
The Army said that while Thursday’s crash and the one in Kentucky remain under investigation, “there is no indication of any pattern between the two mishaps.”
Healy is home to about 1,000 people roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Denali National Park and Preserve, or about 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of Anchorage.
Located on the Parks Highway, the community is a popular place for people to spend the night while visiting Denali Park, which is home to the continent’s tallest mountain.
Healy is also famous for being the town closest to the former bus that had been abandoned in the backcountry and was popularized by the book “Into the Wild” and the movie of the same name. The bus was removed and taken to Fairbanks in 2020.
SANFORD, Fla., January 19, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Jeffrey Van Anda, a professional with over 25 years of engineering experience, succeeds John McDade as SVP, Engineering at Hoverfly Technologies, Inc. (“Hoverfly”).
At the conclusion of 2022, Hoverfly’s John McDade announced his retirement after spending almost eight years in a variety of roles. “John has been with Hoverfly since its inception in the tethered drone space and the teams he managed helped create the standard of excellence we have today. We wish him nothing but the best in his retirement,” said Hoverfly President and COO Steve Walters.
John McDade is succeeded by respected leader Jeffrey Van Anda. Van Anda is a technical visionary with over 25 years of engineering design and leadership experience. He was the former VP of Engineering at Orion Technologies where he built and led an engineering team to design high-speed backplanes, complicated single-board computers, and rugged computer systems for various military customers. This experience also included hardening the quality processes to gain AS9100 quality certification for the company. Van Anda holds degrees in computer engineering and electrical engineering from the University of Florida.
“With Jeff Van Anda, we are excited to bring on a proven, driven professional who we know will be an exemplary leader for our engineering team in an exciting chapter for the company. Our organization continuing to grow and evolve is a testament to the trajectory of the company and we are thrilled to welcome Jeff to the team,” said Walters.
Van Anda uses his unique breadth of both engineering acumen and organizational leadership to ensure consistent growth for both the business and each individual professional on the team. Trusted and respected for transparency, communication, critical thinking, and the establishment of sound processes, Van Anda ensures all stakeholders and teammates are aware of the priorities and methods to achieve them.
LAS VEGAS, January 17, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– ArmorSource has introduced its Next Generation Aire System, a full spectrum of advanced hole-free head protection solutions for military, law enforcement, and special forces personnel. The Aire System includes six Next Gen Lightweight Shells, a revolutionary Liner System, an ultra-lightweight helmet mount, and multiple helmet accessories to provide maximum protection and comfort.
ArmorSource users can choose from the following six unique boltless shells:
‘Aire‘ – Providing high frag protection plus NIJ IIIA at less than 1.9 lbs./850g. for the complete helmet, the ‘Aire’ is one of the lightest certified ballistic helmets.
‘Aire II‘ – Meeting the U.S. DOD Advanced Combat Helmet GEN II specifications with lower areal density, better trauma and frag protection.
‘Aire EX‘– An Extended Rifle Resistance Helmet that provides protection against M193, M80 ball, 7.62X39 LC, and other rounds to enhance the safety of front-line and anti-terror operators.
‘Aire LE’ – Designed to defeat several handgun threats that law enforcement agents frequently face on top of NIJ IIIA.
‘Aire CF’ – The first Carbon-based safety helmet that comes in an ACH geometry for tactical missions and training.
‘Crew II’ – ArmorSource was recently awarded a contract to provide the U.S. Army with 14,000 Next Generation Advanced Combat Vehicle Crewman Helmet units starting in Q2/2023.
Each of these shells has a unique matrix, but all are versions of the ArmorSource Next Generation Ballistic Technology that utilize the most advanced ballistic composite materials available.
The Aire System also provides three ‘AireSupport’ suspension systems, as well as three ‘AireLink’ retention systems, for users to choose from. Available accessories include ultra-lightweight AireMount shrouds, AireRail side-rails, and multiple newly designed accessories.
An additional Aire option is the ‘AireLock Liner System’, a ballistic version of the Skydex IsoFit. When worn with an ArmorSource-certified shell, this revolutionary floating/mesh system provides a new level of comfort and safety to users.
“The new Aire system provides not only the highest ballistic and environmental performance at the lightest weight, but is also versatile and modular, built to allow each of our customers, no matter if they are front-line warriors, tankers, marines, law enforcement, SWAT, special command, or security guard, to build their own head protection configuration. This is a new game, not only for ArmorSource, but for its customers,” says Nick Gramly, ArmorSource’s VP of Technology. “To make sure the system performance stays consistent for long periods, the shells went through extensive third-party testing that included testing under multiple conditions such as extreme hot and cold, salt water, exposure to common field agents, high altitude, and accelerated aging.”
Leveraging its state-of-the-art design, R&D, testing and manufacturing facilities, ArmorSource strives to continuously enhance its products’ ballistic capabilities while maintaining and improving all aspects of comfort and durability.
ArmorSource’s recognition as a trusted ballistic helmet solution provider for militaries, law enforcement organizations, and special forces on multiple continents is a testament to its dedication to maximizing the survivability of personnel around the world.
BEIJING — China’s communist leaders eulogized the late leader Jiang Zemin on Tuesday as a loyal Marxist-Leninist who oversaw their country’s rapid economic rise while maintaining rigid party control over society.
President and party leader Xi Jinping praised Jiang in an hour-long address at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People as senior officials and military brass stood at attention.
Xi recalled Jiang’s lengthy political career, emphasizing his role in maintaining political stability in allusion to Jiang’s rise to be top leader just ahead of the army’s bloody suppression of the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Jiang died at age 96, just days after China’s largest street protests since 1989, which were driven by anger over draconian COVID-19 restrictions. Acting to quell the protests, authorities flooded city streets with security personnel and an unknown number of people have been detained.
Those attending Tuesday’s memorial observed three minutes of silence and trading was paused on the country’s stock exchanges.
On Monday, state broadcaster CCTV showed Xi, his predecessor Hu Jintao and others bowing before Jiang’s coffin at a military hospital in Beijing before his body was sent for cremation at the Babaoshan cemetery, where many Chinese leaders are interred.
Jiang led China out of diplomatic isolation over the 1989 crackdown and supported economic reforms that spurred a decade of explosive growth. The economy has slowed as it matures and confronts an aging population, trade sanctions, high unemployment and the fallout from lockdowns and other anti-COVID-19 restrictions imposed by Xi.
A trained engineer and former head of China’s largest city, Shanghai, Jiang was president for a decade, and led the ruling Communist Party for 13 years until 2002. After taking over from reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, he oversaw the handover of Hong Kong from British rule in 1997 and Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Jiang died of leukemia and multiple organ failure on Nov. 30 in Shanghai, state media reported. The party declared him a “great proletarian revolutionary” and “long-tested Communist fighter.”
Hu’s appearance was his first in public since Oct. 22, when he was unexpectedly guided off the stage during the closing ceremony of the national congress of the Communist Party.
No official explanation was given, and speculation over his abrupt departure has ranged from a health crisis to a signal of protest by the 79-year-old former leader against Xi, who has eliminated term limits on his position and appointed loyalists to all top positions.
In Hong Kong, officials, lawmakers and judges observed three minutes of silence Tuesday morning.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange did not halt trading but its external screens at Exchange Square downtown stopped showing data for three minutes. The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange, also in Hong Kong, suspended trading briefly to mark the occasion.
An official memorial for Jiang drew large crowds over the weekend, mostly older Hong Kongers who have seen Hong Kong’s transition from British to Chinese rule. The handover was made with a pledge by China that Hong Kong would maintain its own social, economic and legal systems for 50 years.
A sweeping crackdown on freedom of speech and assembly, electoral reforms that effectively eliminated the political opposition and the imposition of a draconian National Security Law under Xi have drained most of the substance from the “one country, two systems” framework as promised under Jiang.
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Associated Press reporter Kanis Leung contributed to this report from Hong Kong.
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit against the maker of an anti-malarial drug blamed for causing psychotic behavior and neurological damage to U.S. servicemembers, ruling that the case had no right to be filed in California.
The proposed class-action case brought last year by an Army veteran accused Roche Laboratories Inc. and Genentech Inc. of intentionally misleading the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of mefloquine, the generic version of the drug Lariam.
Similar cases had been brought in Canada and Australia, but the lawsuit in federal court in Northern California was the first large-scale case of its kind in the U.S., attorneys said.
The U.S. military, which developed the drug during the Vietnam War, was once its largest user to combat malaria. It was given to hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Afghanistan and Somalia.
Roche, which was granted the intellectual property rights and won FDA approval for Lariam in 1989, said it manufactured its last lots for U.S. distribution in 2005. Those drugs expired in 2008 — a year before the company’s 2009 merger with Genentech.
The Pentagon continued to distribute generic versions of the drug, though elite Army units were ordered to stop using mefloquine in 2013 after the FDA put a black box warning on it after it was found to cause permanent brain damage in rare cases. The warning said it caused side effects such as dizziness, loss of balance and ringing in the ears that could become permanent.
The Army has mainly replaced mefloquine with drugs found to be safer.
John Nelson of Florida brought the suit after he said he became permanently disabled from taking the drug during his Army service from 2005 to 2015. Nelson said he never experienced any neuropsychiatric symptoms until he began taking mefloquine just before being stationed in Afghanistan.
U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson ruled in San Francisco on Monday that Nelson had sufficiently alleged that the manufacturer knew about dangers of the drug and did not warn the U.S. military.
But the judge said it was a stretch to apply a California law that holds name brand manufacturers responsible for warnings on the generic version of their drugs. Nelson never lived in California and Roche and Genentech were only headquartered in the state for two months while he took the drug overseas in 2009.
“It would be unfair for plaintiff to be able to bring his claims in California and, by virtue of the state’s innovator liability doctrine, he would be extended greater rights than he would be granted in his own state of residence, Florida,” Thompson wrote.
The judge noted that other possible venues — New Jersey, where Roche had been based, and Florida, where Nelson lives and Kentucky, Oregon and Tennessee where he lived previously — either don’t have similar laws that would extend liability to the original manufacturer of a generic drug or have courts that have issued opinions making such a finding unlikely.
Roche issued a one sentence statement asserting that lawyers were “forum shopping” and said it was pleased the court found the case didn’t belong in a California court.
Nelson said his symptoms went from vivid stimulating dreams that disrupted his sleep and made him anxious to having panic attacks, paranoia, insomnia and twice tried to take his own life, the lawsuit said. He was diagnosed as depressed and later as bipolar, though medications, including antipsychotics, did not help.
After attending a conference in 2020 about effects of anti-malarial drugs, Nelson suspected he may have experienced mefloquine toxicity and pursued testing that confirmed the diagnosis.
The lawsuit sought unspecified damages for negligence, failure to warn users, and fraudulent misrepresentation, among other claims. It also sought to have the companies pay for medical monitoring of those who took the drug to understand the impacts.
Attorneys for Nelson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle, commonly known as a “death spiral” because the ants might eventually die of exhaustion.
“The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America,” by H.W. Brands (Doubleday)
Though they’re mentioned in the subtitle, William Tecumseh Sherman and Geronimo often feel more like supporting players in H.W. Brands’ latest book “The Last Campaign.”
That’s more a compliment than a complaint, because it illustrates just how much history is packed into Brands’ latest book. The Army general and Apache leader are the pillars for Brands’ straightforward yet dramatic retelling of the nation’s westward expansion and battles with American Indians in the years following the Civil War.
Brands, a prolific historian who has tackled many figures and eras of American history, provides an account that’s accessible to any casual reader of history and not just academics.
The book does serve as a dual biography of Sherman and Geronimo, showing how these two figures shaped a tumultuous era. But its most gripping parts rely on firsthand accounts of American Indians’ loss of their land and way of life, and the violence that ensued during these years.
The book introduces readers to the wide cast of players during this period, and not just the familiar names like Sitting Bull or George Custer. Brands also doesn’t lose sight of the larger picture of the nation’s politics, avoiding a book that could have easily turned into a simple recitation of every battle and conflict without context.
Brands’ writing style and his mastery of history make the book an excellent introduction to the time period for newcomers, and a fresh perspective for those already familiar with this chapter in the nation’s history.
MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military carried out “stabilization measures” near the southern city of Kherson on Saturday following the end of an eight-month occupation by Russian forces, a retreat that cast a further pall on President Vladimir Putin’s designs to take over large parts of Ukraine.
People across Ukraine awoke from a night of jubilant celebrating after the Kremlin announced its troops had withdrawn to the other side of the Dnieper River from Kherson, the only regional capital captured by Russia’s military during the ongoing invasion.
In a regular social media update Saturday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russian forces were fortifying their battle lines on the river’s eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70% of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.
Ukrainian officials from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on down cautioned that while special military units had reached Kherson city, a full deployment to reinforce the advance troops still was underway. On Friday, Ukraine’s intelligence agency said it thought some Russian soldiers stayed behind, ditching their uniforms for civilian clothes to avoid detection.
“Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemy’s presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers’ stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Friday.
Photos circulating Saturday on social media showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities the Kremlin installed to run the Kherson region. A Telegram post on the channel of Yellow Ribbon, a self-described Ukrainian “public resistance” movement, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing what appeared to be Soviet-era military figures.
Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces planned to withdraw across the Dnieper River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south.
In the last two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have reclaimed dozens of towns and villages north of Kherson city, and the Ukrainian General Staff said that’s where the stabilization activities were taking place.
The Russian retreat represented a significant setback for the Kremlin some six weeks after Putin annexed the Kherson region and three others provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in breach of international law and in the face of widespread condemnation. The Russian leader unequivocally asserted the illegally claimed areas as Russian territory.
Russian state news agency TASS quoted an official in Kherson’s Kremlin-appointed administration on Saturday as saying that Henichesk, a city on the Azov Sea some 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of Kherson city, would serve as the region’s “temporary capital” after the withdrawal across the Dnieper.
Ukrainian media derided the announcement, with daily newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda saying Russia “had made up a new capital” for the region.
Like Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to temper the excitement over the invaded nation’s latest morale boost. “We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues,” he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Kuleba also brought up the prospect of the Ukrainian army finding evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Kherson, just as it did after the Russian Defense Ministry pulled back its forces in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions earlier in the way.
“Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from Russian army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by Russian army in the course of the occupation of these territories,” Ukraine’s top diplomat said. “It’s not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.”
U.S. assessments this week showed Russia’s war in Ukraine may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Despite the advances in Kherson, other parts of Ukraine continued to face civilian casualties, energy shortages and other fallout from Russian military attacks and Putin’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The state-owned electricity grid operator, Ukrenergo, announced emergency blackouts — which could go on indefinitely — in eight regions that included Kyiv, where a Russian military strike hit an energy facility critical to supplies to the capital.
Ukrenergo said scheduled one-hour blackouts, which are temporary and limited in time, also would continue daily in central and northern Ukraine.
Moscow has admitted targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with drone and rocket strikes since early October. Ukrainian officials reported said last month that 40% of the country’s electric power system had been severely damaged.
While much of the focus was on southern Ukraine, Russia continued its grinding offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east, targeting in particular the Donetsk region city of Bakhmut, the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported Saturday that two civilians were killed and four wounded over the last day as battles heated up around Bakhmut and Avdiivka, a small city that has remained in Ukrainian hands throughout the war.
Russia’s continued push for Bakhmut demonstrates the Kremlin’s desire for visible gains following weeks of clear setbacks. Taking the city would open the way for a possible push onto other Ukrainian strongholds in the heavily contested Donetsk region. A reinvigorated eastern offensive could also potentially stall or derail Kyiv’s ongoing advances in the south.
Kyrylenko, in a Facebook post Saturday, also pointed to “intense shelling” by Russia overnight of two other Ukrainian-held cities: Lyman, near the border with the neighboring Luhansk region, and Vuhledar, southwest of Donetsk’s separatist-controlled capital of the same name.
Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said Ukrainian forces had recaptured 11 unnamed settlements in his province but their advance was “not as rapid as in other regions.”
“We congratulate Kherson on its homecoming!” Haidai posted on Telegram. In Luhansk, the “occupiers continue to dig in and gather reinforcements, mine everything around them.”
In the Dnipropetrovsk region west of Donetsk, Russia kept up its shelling of communities near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Ukrainian regional governor said. Russia and Ukraine have long traded blame for shelling in and around the plant, Europe’s largest.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, reemphasized that the United States would defer to Ukrainian authorities on whether or when to negotiate with Russia about a possible end to the conflict.
“Russia invaded Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One en route to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as part of a trip by President Joe Biden to international summits in southeast Asia.
“If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war,” Sullivan said. “If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia said it began withdrawing troops from a strategic Ukrainian city Thursday, creating a potential turning point in the grinding war, while a Ukrainian official warned that Russian land mines could render Kherson a “city of death.”
Ukrainian officials acknowledged Moscow’s forces had no choice but to flee Kherson, yet they remained cautious, fearing an ambush. With Ukrainian officials tight-lipped with their assessments, reporters not present and spotty communications, it was difficult to know what was happening in the port city, where the residents who remained after tens of thousands fled were afraid to leave their homes.
A forced pullout from Kherson — the only provincial capital Moscow captured after invading Ukraine in February — would mark one of Russia’s worst war setbacks. Recapturing the city, whose pre-war population was 280,000, could provide Ukraine a launching pad for supplies and troops to try to win back other lost territory in the south, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
Ukrainian forces seem to be scoring more battlefield successes elsewhere in the Kherson region and closing in on the city. President Volodymyr Zelenskky said Thursday night the pace has increased so much that residents “are now checking almost every hour where our units have reached and where else our national flag was raised.”
The armed forces commander-in-chief, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, said Kyiv’s forces have advanced 36.5 kilometers (22.7 miles) and retaken 41 villages and towns since Oct. 1 in the province, which the Kremlin has illegally annexed. That included 12 settlements on Wednesday alone.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russian troops laid mines throughout Kherson as they withdrew to turn it into a “city of death” and predicted they would shell it after relocating across the Dnieper River.
From these new positions, the Kremlin could try to escalate the 8 1/2-month war, which U.S. assessments showed may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Arkadiy Dovzhenko, who fled Kherson in June, said his grandparents still living there told him Thursday that “the Russians were bringing a lot of equipment into the town and also mining every inch of it.”
Zelenskyy said Thursday night his forces were racing to remove land mines from 170,000 square meters (65,637 square miles) nationwide, and planned also to do so in Kherson. A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military, Natalia Humeniuk, said on Ukrainian television that resistance forces working behind enemy lines “carefully collect information” about critical infrastructure threatened by mines.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered a troop withdrawal from Kherson and nearby areas on Wednesday after his top general in Ukraine reported that a loss of supply routes during Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive made a defense “futile.”
Shoigu’s ministry reported Thursday a “maneuver of units of the Russian group” to the Dnieper River’s eastern bank, also known as its left bank.
On Thursday, Ukrainian officials appeared to soften the skepticism they had expressed over whether the Russians were really on the run or trying to trap Ukraine’s soldiers. “The enemy had no other choice but to resort to fleeing,” armed forces chief Zaluzhny said, because Kyiv’s army destroyed supply systems and disrupted Russia’s local military command.
Still, he said the Ukrainian military could not confirm a Russian withdrawal.
Alexander Khara, of the Kyiv-based think tank Center for Defense Strategies, echoed those concerns, saying he remained fearful that Russian forces could destroy a dam upriver from Kherson and flood the city’s approaches. The former Ukrainian diplomat also warned of booby traps and other possible dangers.
“I would be surprised if the Russians had not set up something, some surprises for Ukraine,” Khara said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who just over a month ago celebrated the annexation of Kherson and three other Ukrainian regions and vowed to defend them by any means, has not commented on the withdrawal.
A resident said Kherson was deserted Thursday and that explosions could be heard from around Antonivskiy Bridge — a key Dnieper River crossing that Ukrainian forces have repeatedly bombarded.
“Life in the city seems to have stopped. Everyone has disappeared somewhere and no one knows what will happen next,” said Konstantin, a resident whose last name was withheld for security reasons.
He said Russian flags have disappeared from the city’s administrative buildings, and no signs remain of the Russian military personnel who earlier moved into the apartments of evacuated residents. Russian state news agency Tass reported that emergency services such as police officers and medical workers would leave along with the last Russian troops.
Halyna Lugova, head of the Ukrainian administration of Kherson city, told Ukrainian television Thursday that the Russian military was moving vehicles towards the Antonivskiy Bridge. Lugova, who is now based in Ukrainian-controlled territory, described conditions in the city as brutal.
Kherson remains without power, heating and internet service, gas stations in the city are closed, and there is no fuel, she said. The city also has run out of medications for cancer and diabetes patients. Ukrainian news reports said the Russians blew up the local television center, some of the cellphone towers and energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian officials have been cautious at other times in declaring victories against a Russian force that at least initially outgunned and outnumbered Ukraine’s armed forces.
Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said the reticence explains “why, until Ukrainians are in the city, they don’t want to declare that they have it (in) control.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was similarly cautious. He spoke to Zelenskyy on Thursday, and his office said they agreed “it was right to continue to exercise caution until the Ukrainian flag was raised over the city.”
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday he believed a retreat was underway, but that Russia had amassed as many as 30,000 troops in Kherson and that a full withdrawal could take several weeks.
One analyst noted that the Ukrainian army has destroyed bridges and roads as part of its counteroffensive, making a quick transfer of Russian troops across the Dnieper River impossible.
“The main question is whether the Ukrainians will give the Russians the opportunity to calmly withdraw, or fire at them during the crossing to the left bank,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said. “The personnel can be taken out on boats, but the equipment needs to be taken out only on barges and pontoons, and this is very easily shelled by the Ukrainian army.”
Putin’s allies rushed to defend the retreat as tough, but necessary. However, Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov broke ranks and described the move as “Russia’s biggest geopolitical loss since the collapse of the Soviet Union” and warned that “political consequences of this huge loss will be really big.”
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Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Raf Casert contributed from Brussels. Jill Lawless contributed from London. Andrew Katell contributed from New York.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
To Honor Service Members on Veterans Day, the Nation’s First and Only On-Demand Child Care Platform is Providing Free Access to Military OneSource Military Members
Press Release –
Nov 10, 2022
SAN DIEGO, November 10, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– For the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, who have the most mission-critical jobs in America, worrying about Child Care should be the last thing on their minds. Yet, 23% of Active Duty families can’t access care. In honor of National Veterans and Military Families Month, TOOTRiS, the largest network and first real-time Child Care platform in the country, has launched Operation Child Care – providing free year-long premium access for military families to tap into more than 180,000 state-licensed Child Care providers to secure reliable and affordable care.
There are nearly 1 million children of Active Duty members nationwide. Of that, more than 70% are under the age of 11 years old and in need of care. Military OneSource, a Department of Defense-funded program that connects military families to valuable community resources, recognizes those challenges and has enlisted TOOTRiS to join its Community Resource Finder to help. As an approved Military OneSource national resource, more than 500,000 active duty and 300,000 Reservists will now be able to easily find and access TOOTRiS’ premium services free of charge.
“We tie every resource back to ‘what gives our members peace of mind?’” said Steven Darbyshire, Military OneSource Consultant. “There isn’t a more important decision a parent can make than placing their child in care. TOOTRiS provides all the options and resources needed for every parent to enroll in the best program based on their specific requirements.”
Starting Nov. 11, Veterans Day, TOOTRiS will be giving military families nationwide free premium memberships, allowing them to tap into the country’s largest Child Care network with more than 180,000 providers nationwide. Through TOOTRiS, military families will now be able to:
Search for 24/7 Child Care near their home, base, or work.
Use more than 100 filters to narrow the search to exact needs.
See each program’s availability in real-time without the need to call.
Find temporary slots and drop-ins – all accessible for free online via a desktop, tablet, or mobile app.
“Military members and their families sacrifice so much for our country,” said Alessandra Lezama, TOOTRiS CEO and select member of the ReadyNation CEO Task Force on Early Childhood. “As a San Diego-based company, we see the military ships leave the harbor every month and understand the impact of deployment on those military families. We are so proud and honored to be in a position to connect parents with the best-suited program for their children.”
TOOTRiS was founded in 2019 to transform Child Care so that every working parent — especially women — has the same opportunity for advancement by having access to affordable, high-quality Child Care; and so that every child, regardless of household income, has the same opportunity to early childhood education that can ensure kindergarten readiness and academic success.
About TOOTRiS
TOOTRiS is the first and only universal Child Care platform that converges private and public Child Care stakeholders (Family Child Care homes and Center-based providers, parents, agencies, and employers) into a unified, real-time technology platform enabling employers to offer fully-managed Child Care Benefits to their workforce. TOOTRiS — which has more than 180,000 providers in its nationwide network — helps working parents to connect with providers and transact in real-time, empowering parents – especially women – to secure quality Child Care, while allowing providers to fully monetize their program.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Protests in Iran raged on streets into Thursday with demonstrators remembering a bloody crackdown in the country’s southeast, even as the nation’s intelligence minister and army chief renewed threats against local dissent and the broader world.
Meanwhile, a top official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed it had “managed to achieve” having so-called hypersonic missiles, without providing any evidence.
The protests in Iran, sparked by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old woman after her detention by the country’s morality police, have grown into one of the largest sustained challenges to the nation’s theocracy since the chaotic months after its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
At least 328 people have been killed and 14,825 others arrested in the unrest, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests over their 54 days. Iran’s government for weeks has remained silent on casualty figures while state media counterfactually claims security forces have killed no one.
As demonstrators now return to the streets to mark 40th-day remembrances for those slain earlier — commemorations common in Iran and the wider Middle East — the protests may turn into cyclical confrontations between an increasingly disillusioned public and security forces that turn to greater violence to suppress them.
Online videos emerging from Iran, despite government efforts to suppress the internet, appeared to show demonstrations in Tehran, the capital, as well as cities elsewhere in the country. Near Isfahan, video showed clouds of tear gas. Shouts of “Death to the Dictator” could be heard — a common chant in the protests targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there were injuries or arrests in this round of protests, though Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency acknowledged the demonstrations near Isfahan. They commemorated the Sept. 30 crackdown in Zahedan, a city in Iran’s restive Sistan and Baluchestan province, in which activists say security forces killed nearly 100 people in the deadliest violence to strike amid the demonstrations.
Meanwhile Thursday, Guard Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said in a speech that his forces acquired hypersonic missiles. However, he offered no photograph, video or other evidence to support the claim and the Guard’s vast ballistic missile program is not known to have any of the weapons in its arsenal.
Hypersonic weapons, which fly at speeds in excess of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, could pose crucial challenges to missile defense systems because of their speed and maneuverability.
China is believed to be pursuing the weapons, as is America. Russia claims to already be fielding the weapons and have said it used them on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“This system is very, very fast, and is capable of maneuvering both inside and beyond the atmosphere,” Hajizadeh claimed. “This means the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new missile can pass through both terrestrial air defense systems and the super-expensive extraterrestrial systems that could target missiles beyond the earth atmosphere.”
Iranian officials have kept up their threats against the demonstrators and the wider world. In an interview with Khamenei’s personal website, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib renewed threats against Saudi Arabia, a nation along with Britain, Israel and the U.S. that officials have blamed for fomenting unrest that appears focused on local grievances.
Khatib warned that Iran’s “strategic patience” could run out.
“Throwing stones at powerful Iran by countries sitting in glass houses has no meaning other than crossing the borders of rationality into the darkness of stupidity,” Khatib said. “Undoubtedly, if the will of the Islamic Republic of Iran is given to reciprocate and punish these countries, the glass palaces will collapse and these countries will not see stability.”
Iran blames Iran International, a London-based, Farsi-language satellite news channel once majority-owned by a Saudi national, for stirring up protesters. The broadcaster in recent days said the Metropolitan Police warned that two of its British-Iranian journalists faced threats from Iran that “represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families.”
Last week, U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia shared intelligence with America that suggests Iran could be preparing for an imminent attack on the kingdom. Iran later called the claim “baseless,” though the threats from Tehran continue.
The commander of the ground forces of Iran’s regular army, Brig. Gen. Kiumars Heydari, separately issued his own threat against the protesters, whom he called “flies.”
“If these flies are not dealt with today as the revolutionary society expects, it is the will of the supreme leader of the revolution,” he reportedly said. “But the day he issues an order to deal with them, they will definitely have no place in the country.”
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Libyan military commander who once lived in Virginia sat for a deposition Sunday in a U.S. lawsuit in which he is accused of orchestrating indiscriminate attacks on civilians and torturing and killing political opponents, according to an advocacy group that supports the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs who sued Khalifa Hifter had been waiting for years to question him directly about his role in fighting that has plagued the country over the last decade.
Hifter, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army, is a defendant in three separate federal lawsuits in Virginia accusing him of killings and torture in that country’s civil war.
Once a lieutenant to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Hifter defected to the U.S. during the 1980s and spent many years living in northern Virginia. He is widely believed to have worked with the CIA during his time in exile.
Plaintiffs believe that he and his own family own significant property in Virginia, which could be used to collect any judgments entered against him in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema had entered a default judgment against Hifter in July after he failed to show up for earlier depositions. Last month, though, Brinkema agreed to set aside that ruling if Hifter sat for a deposition by Nov. 6.
Hifter’s U.S. lawyer had asked the judge to reconsider the default judgment, saying Hifter’s duties as a military commander made it difficult for him to schedule a deposition. They also expressed concern that Hifter’s political opponents would use the deposition against him or that the questions would touch on sensitive political or military issues.
In an affidavit Hifter submitted in September, he said the Libyan authorities to whom he answers as commander of the Libyan National Army did not want him to participate in a deposition “because it would be used by plaintiffs and political opponents in the media.”
He also said he is a still a candidate for the Libyan presidency if and when those elections can be held.
“The false charges in this lawsuit have been used by my political opponents to undermine my candidacy and disrupt the peace process,” Khalifa said in the affidavit.
Robert Cox, Hifter’s U.S. based lawyer, did not return a call and email Monday seeking to confirm details of Sunday’s deposition.
Libya has been wracked by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled Gadhafi in 2011. Over the past decade, the oil-rich nation had been split between a Hifter-backed government in the east that receives Russian support, and a U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli.
Esam Omeish, president of the Libyan American Alliance, which supports one group of plaintiffs, confirmed Sunday’s deposition and called it a “historic precedent.”
“This is a giant step towards holding him liable in this civil suit and the beginning of exposing the crimes of this warlord, who has been the biggest obstacle towards Libya’s peace and stability,” Omeish said in a statement.
Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told The Associated Press.
They said the Russians want to attract thousands of the former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion” with offers of steady, $1,500-a-month payments and promises of safe havens for themselves and their families so they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death at the hands of the Taliban.
“They don’t want to go fight — but they have no choice,” said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen or so commandos in Iran with whom he has texted fear deportation most. “They ask me, ‘Give me a solution? What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us.’”
Arghandiwal said the recruiting is led by the Russian mercenary force Wagner Group. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and speaks the language.
The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from U.S. soldiers who fought with Afghan special forces that the Taliban was intent on killing them and that they might join with U.S. enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their former ally.
A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger that the Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets — could end up giving up information about U.S. tactics to the Islamic State group, Iran or Russia — or fight for them.
“We didn’t get these individuals out as we promised, and now it’s coming home to roost,” said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan, adding that the Afghan commandos are highly skilled, fierce fighters. “I don’t want to see them in any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the Ukrainians.”
Mulroy was skeptical, however, that Russians would be able to persuade many Afghan commandos to join because most he knew were driven by the desire to make democracy work in their country rather than being guns for hire.
AP was investigating the Afghan recruiting when details of the effort were first reported by Foreign Policy magazine last week based on unnamed Afghan military and security sources. The recruitment comes as Russian forces reel from Ukrainian military advances and Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues a sputtering mobilization effort, which has prompted nearly 200,000 Russian men to flee the country to escape service.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently acknowledged being the founder of the Wagner Group, dismissed the idea of an ongoing effort to recruit former Afghan soldiers as “crazy nonsense.”
The U.S. Defense Department also didn’t reply to a request for comment, but a senior official suggested the recruiting is not surprising given that Wagner has been trying to sign up soldiers in several other countries.
It’s unclear how many Afghan special forces members who fled to Iran have been courted by the Russians, but one told the AP he is communicating through the WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who are considering offers.
He said many like him fear deportation and are angry at the U.S. for abandoning them.
“We thought they might create a special program for us, but no one even thought about us,” said the former commando, who requested anonymity because he fears for himself and his family. “They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.”
The commando said his offer included Russian visas for himself as well as his three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan. Others have been offered extensions of their visas in Iran. He said he is waiting to see what others in the WhatsApp groups decide but thinks many will take the deal.
U.S. veterans who fought with Afghan special forces have described to the AP nearly a dozen cases, none confirmed independently, of the Taliban going house to house looking for commandos still in the country, torturing or killing them, or doing the same to family members if they are nowhere to be found.
Human Rights Watch has said more than 100 former Afghan soldiers, intelligence officers and police were killed or forcibly “disappeared” just three months after the Taliban took over despite promises of amnesty. The United Nations in a report in mid-October documented 160 extrajudicial killings and 178 arrests of former government and military officials.
The brother of an Afghan commando in Iran who has accepted the Russian offer said Taliban threats make it difficult to refuse. He said his brother had to hide for three months after the fall of Kabul, shuttling between relatives’ houses while the Taliban searched his home.
“My brother had no other choice other than accepting the offer,” said the commando’s brother, Murad, who would only give his first name because of fear the Taliban might track him down. “This was not an easy decision for him.”
Former Afghan army chief Alizai said much of the Russian recruiting effort is focused on Tehran and Mashhad, a city near the Afghan border where many have fled. None of the generals who spoke to the AP, including a third, Abdul Jabar Wafa, said their contacts in Iran know how many have taken up the offer.
“You get military training in Russia for two months, and then you go to the battle lines,” read one text message a former Afghan soldier in Iran sent to Arghandiwal. “A number of personnel have gone, but they have lost contact with their families and friends altogether. The exact statistics are unclear.”
An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the Americans during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were airlifted out when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan. Since many of the Afghan commandos did not work directly for the U.S. military, they were not eligible for special U.S. visas.
“They were the ones who fought to the really last minute. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never negotiated,” Alizai said. “Leaving them behind is the biggest mistake.”
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Condon reported from New York. AP writers Rahim Faiez in Islamabad and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military has long had a cozy relationship with Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Those ties are about to deepen.
For the first time, a settler will serve as chief of staff of Israel’s military, becoming the enforcer of Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, now in its 56th year.
Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi’s nomination was approved on Sunday and he is expected to begin his three-year term on Jan. 17.
Halevi’s rise caps the decades-long transformation of the settler movement from a small group of religious ideologues to a diverse and influential force at the heart of the Israeli mainstream whose members have reached the highest ranks of government and other key institutions.
Critics say the settlers’ outsized political influence imperils any hope for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and endangers the country’s future as a democracy. They say Halevi’s appointment lays bare just how interconnected settlers and the military truly are.
“It isn’t surprising that we’ve come to a point where the chief of staff is a settler too,” said Shabtay Bendet of the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.
Others say Halevi, currently deputy chief of staff, has had a distinguished military career and his place of residence won’t affect his decision-making. He served as head of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, as well as military intelligence and led the Southern Command, from where he oversaw operations in the Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised Halevi as an ethical officer. “I have no doubt that he is the right man to head the military,” Gantz said upon nominating him.
The military declined to make Halevi available for an interview.
Born just months after the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank, and raised in Jerusalem, Halevi is a descendant of a rabbi seen as the father of the modern settler movement.
Halevi lives in Kfar HaOranim, a settlement that abuts the invisible line between Israel and the West Bank.
Many of those moving to Kfar HaOranim might have been drawn by cheaper housing prices in a central location between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, rather than a radical ideology. Yet choosing to live in a settlement often indicates even some nationalist political inclination. Many Israelis are still hesitant to visit parts of the West Bank.
A search through some of Halevi’s past speeches and public statements did not reveal his opinion on the Jewish settlement enterprise.
The settler movement embraced the incoming army chief.
“We are proud that the new chief of staff is a resident,” said Israel Ganz, the head of the regional settlement council that includes Kfar HaOranim. He said he expects any chief of staff to operate with a belief in the “righteousness” of Jewish settlement and “deepening the roots” of Jewish settlers.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their hoped-for state, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Since 1967, the settler population has grown to some 500,000 people, who live in more than 130 settlements and outposts in the West Bank. Nearly 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, most of them in semi-autonomous population centers administered by the Palestinian Authority.
Much of the international community considers the settlements illegitimate and obstacles to peace, while Israel views the territory as its biblical heartland and critical to security.
A two-tier system is in place in the West Bank, with settlers enjoying the same rights as citizens in Israel, while Palestinians are subject to military rule. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank but it is hobbled in many aspects by the occupation.
For Palestinians, soldiers are the most visible enforcers of the occupation. Under international law an occupying military is meant to protect civilians under its rule, but Palestinians typically view soldiers as hostile to them.
Soldiers man the checkpoints that Palestinians must cross through to enter Israel or the ones that are set up between their cities, disrupting their journey. Soldiers often conduct arrest raids in Palestinian autonomous areas, in search of suspected militants. Palestinians accused of violence are tried, and almost always convicted, in military courts. Israel sees those measures as essential to its security.
Critics also say the military turns a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians, which has been intensifying in recent months, including rampages that have also targeted soldiers. In one case last week a settlement guard on a Defense Ministry salary was seen joining forces with a settler in a clash with Palestinians. The military says troops work to prevent breaking of the law by both Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank.
For settlers, the military buttresses their presence in the West Bank. Soldiers protect settlements. The military escorts settlers when they want to visit sensitive sites or hold a march or protest. A defense body headed by a general is in charge of approving settler housing, and some of the military’s top commanders are settlers.
Oded Revivi, mayor of the Efrat settlement, said he didn’t believe Halevi’s place of residence would influence the way he ran the military in the West Bank, which he said is dictated by policies made by elected officials.
“He was chosen because of his career, because of his achievements during his career,” he said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with where he lives.”
Over the years, settlers reached key positions in Israeli institutions.
The country’s current roster of Supreme Court judges includes at least two settlers. Settler politicians have long served as Cabinet ministers, including Avigdor Lieberman, who has been Israel’s foreign, defense and finance minister. Settlers have held key positions in cultural institutions and in bodies that allocate land. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was previously a settler leader, though he did not live in a settlement.
That integration, part of a years-long concerted effort by settlers, is hardly questioned by Israelis.
Many Israelis give little thought to the occupation, and news media often ignore the approval of new settler housing, unless it draws international rebuke. And pushback against the settler narrative is often officially silenced. Schools in liberal Tel Aviv were recently prohibited from showing maps that demarcate the West Bank, indicating it as distinct from Israel.
The world of culture, once a mainstay of liberalism and Israel’s dovish left, has embraced settlers, featuring them on reality TV shows, while artists and musicians are increasingly agreeing to perform in settlements or accept funding from settler sponsors. One popular rocker who had often denounced settlers apologized to them at a recent concert in the Beit El settlement.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian commentator, said having a settler as chief of staff raises concerns that the military’s conduct toward the Palestinians will worsen, further entrench Israel’s occupation and make the creation of a Palestinian state all the more unlikely.
“There’s this fiction that people in the international community seem to have that somehow there’s Israel and then there’s the settlements — as though they are separate and apart from one another,” she said. “But really, in reality, we see that it’s all one.”
The general carrying out President Vladimir Putin’s new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia’s campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.
Bald and fierce-looking, Gen. Sergei Surovikin was put in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine on Oct. 8 after what has so far been a faltering invasion that has seen a number of chaotic retreats and other setbacks over the nearly eight months of war.
Putin put the 56-year-old career military man in command following an apparent truck bombing of the strategic bridge to the Crimean Peninsula that embarrassed the Kremlin and created logistical problems for the Russian forces.
Russia responded with a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, which Putin said were aimed at knocking down energy infrastructure and Ukrainian military command centers. Such attacks have continued on a daily basis, pummeling power plants and other facilities with cruise missiles and waves of Iranian-made drones.
Surovikin also retains his job of air force chief, a position that could help coordinate the airstrikes with other operations.
During the most recent bombardments, some Russian war bloggers carried a statement attributed to Surovikin that signaled his intention to pursue the attacks with unrelenting vigor in an attempt to pound the Kyiv government into submission.
“I don’t want to sacrifice Russian soldiers’ lives in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO,” the bloggers quoted his statement as saying. “We have enough technical means to force Ukraine to surrender.”
While the veracity of the statement couldn’t be confirmed, it appears to reflect the same heavy-handed approach that Surovikin took in Syria where he oversaw the destruction of entire cities to flush out rebel resistance without paying much attention to the civilian population. That indiscriminate bombing drew condemnation from international human rights groups, and some media reports have dubbed him “General Armageddon.”
Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest award, in 2017 and promoted him to full general.
Kremlin hawks lauded Surovikin’s appointment in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef” who owns a prominent military contractor that plays a key role in the fighting in Ukraine, praised him as “the best commander in the Russian army.”
But even as hard-liners expected Surovikin to ramp up strikes on Ukraine, his first public statements after his appointment sounded more like a recognition of the Russian military’s vulnerabilities than blustery threats.
In remarks on Russian state television, Surovikin acknowledged that Russian forces in southern Ukraine were in a “quite difficult position” in the face of Ukrainian counteroffensive.
In carefully scripted comments that Surovikin appeared to read from a teleprompter, he said that further action in the region will depend on the evolving combat situation. Observers interpreted his statement as an attempt to prepare the public for a possible Russian pullback from the strategic southern city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.
Surovikin began his military career with the Soviet army in 1980s and, as a young lieutenant, was named an infantry platoon commander. When he later rose to air force chief, it drew a mixed reaction in the ranks because it marked the first time when the job was given to an infantry officer.
He found himself in the center of a political storm in 1991.
When members of the Communist Party’s old guard staged a hard-line coup in August of that year, briefly ousting Gorbachev and sending troops into Moscow to impose a state of emergency, Surovikin commanded one of the mechanized infantry battalions that rolled into the capital.
Popular resistance mounted quickly, and in the final hours of the three-day coup, protesters blocked an armored convoy led by Surovikin and tried to set some of the vehicles ablaze. In a chaotic melee, two protesters were shot and a third was crushed to death by an armored vehicle.
The coup collapsed later that day, and Surovikin was quickly arrested. He spent seven months behind bars pending an inquiry but was eventually acquitted and even promoted to major as investigators concluded that he was only fulfilling his duties.
Another rocky moment in his career came in 1995, when Surovikin was convicted of illegal possession and trafficking of firearms while studying at a military academy. He was sentenced to a year in prison but the conviction was reversed quickly.
He rose steadily through the ranks, commanding units deployed to the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, leading troops sent to Chechnya and serving at other posts across Russia.
He was appointed commander of Russian forces in Syria in 2017 and served a second stint there in 2019 as Moscow sought to prop up President Bashar Assad’s regime and help it regain ground amid a devastating civil war.
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin, along with Putin, Assad and other figures as bearing command responsibility for violations during the 2019-20 Syrian offensive in Idlib province.
He apparently has a temper that has not endeared him to subordinates, according to Russian media. One officer under Surovikin complained to prosecutors that the general had beaten him after becoming angry over how he voted in parliamentary elections; another subordinate reportedly shot himself. Investigators found no wrongdoing in either case.
His track record in Syria could have been a factor behind his appointment in Ukraine, as Putin has moved to raise the stakes and reverse a series of humiliating defeats.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has repeatedly called for ramping up strikes in Ukraine, praised Surovikin as “a real general and a warrior, well-experienced, farsighted and forceful who places patriotism, honor and dignity above all.
“The united group of forces is now in safe hands,” the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov said, voicing confidence that he will “improve the situation.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian leaders are pressing the U.S. and Western allies for air defense systems and longer-range weapons to keep up the momentum in their counteroffensive against Russia and fight back against Moscow’s intensified attacks.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday said allies are committed to sending weapons “as fast as we can physically get them there.” And he said defense leaders meeting in Brussels are working to send a wide array of systems, ranging from tanks and armored vehicles to air defense and artillery.
But there are still a number of high-profile, advanced weapons that Ukraine wants and the U.S. won’t provide, due to political sensitivities, classified technology or limited stockpiles.
A look at some of the weapons Ukraine will or won’t get:
WHAT WEAPONS UKRAINE IS GETTING
In a meeting with about 50 defense leaders this week, Austin and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed plans to send more air defense weapons to Ukraine and also increase training for Ukrainian troops.
“We know that Ukraine still needs even more long-range fires, and air defense systems and artillery systems along with other crucial capabilities,” Austin said Wednesday. He said allies talked about a number of air defense systems.
And the Pentagon has said it will deliver the first two advanced NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks, providing Kyiv with a weapon that it has pressed for since earlier this year. The systems will provide medium- to long-range defenses against Russian missile attacks.
Germany is now delivering its first IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system, which has a range of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). It has promised a total of four.
Overall, the U.S. has sent Ukraine $16.8 billion in weapons and other aid since the war began on Feb. 24. That aid has included hundreds of armored vehicles, 142 155mm Howitzers and 880,000 rounds of ammunition for them, plus thousands of Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft weapons and 60 million rounds of bullets.
WHAT WEAPONS THE US HASN’T SENT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly made it clear that his country needs more advanced weapons to continue the fight. Russia launched a barrage of attacks using drones, heavy artillery and missiles this week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attacks in response to an explosion last weekend on a crucial bridge linking Russia to Crimea. The Russians are also struggling to beat back a fierce counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces, who have just retaken five towns and villages in the southern Kherson region. It was illegally annexed by Russia along with the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.
Zelenskyy’s pleas for some weapons, however, are so far going unanswered.
A key request is for the Army Tactical Missile System. Known as ATACMS, it is one of the weapons that Zelenskyy has repeatedly requested. It would give Ukraine the ability to strike Russian targets from as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers).
The system uses the same launchers as the HIMARS rockets that Kyiv has successfully used in its counteroffensive, but has as much as three times the range of those rockets.
A major U.S. concern is that the longer-range capability could be used against targets inside Russia and further provoke Putin, said Brad Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute.
Similarly, the U.S. isn’t likely to send Ukraine the highly sophisticated surface-to-air Patriot missile system, which has the ability to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
J.D. Williams, a senior defense researcher at the Rand Corp., said the Patriots are connected to some of the United States’ most sensitive command-and-control networks and could require U.S. troops on the ground to operate them. The Biden administration has ruled out using U.S. combat forces inside Ukraine.
The U.S. has only a limited number of those systems.
Zelenskyy has also pressed the U.S. since March to provide fighter jets such as F-16s, but the U.S. has repeatedly rejected the idea to avoid further escalation with Russia.
The U.S. also has so far declined to send Ukraine more sophisticated longer-range drones, such as the Gray Eagle, which also would give Ukraine a longer-distance strike capability. There also are concerns about Russia gaining access to such advanced technology if one were to be shot down.
Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
