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Tag: Military and defense

  • Iran says drone attack targets defense facility in Isfahan

    Iran says drone attack targets defense facility in Isfahan

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities said early Sunday, causing some damage at the plant amid heightened regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Republic.

    The Iranian Defense Ministry offered no information on who it suspected carried out the attack, which came as a refinery fire separately broke out in the country’s northwest and a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck nearby, killing two people.

    However, Tehran has been targeted in suspected Israeli drone strikes amid a shadow war with its Mideast rival as its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. Meanwhile, tensions also remain high with neighboring Azerbaijan after a gunman attacked that country’s embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others.

    Details on the Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, remained scarce. A Defense Ministry statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two of them successfully shot down. A third apparently made it through to strike the building, causing “minor damage” to its roof and wounding no one, the ministry said.

    Iranian state television’s English-language arm, Press TV, aired mobile phone video apparently showing the moment that drone struck along the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway that heads northwest out of Isfahan, one of several ways for drivers to go to the holy city of Qom and Tehran, Iran’s capital. A small crowd stood gathered, drawn by anti-aircraft fire, watching as an explosion and sparks struck a dark building.

    “Oh my God! That was a drone, wasn’t it?” the man filming shouts. “Yeah, it was a drone.”

    Those there fled after the strike.

    That footage of the strike, as well as footage of the aftermath analyzed by The Associated Press, corresponded to a site on Minoo Street in northwestern Isfahan that’s near a shopping center that includes a carpet and an electronics store.

    Iranian defense and nuclear sites increasingly find themselves surrounded by commercial properties and residential neighborhoods as the country’s cities sprawl ever outward. Some locations as well remain incredibly opaque about what they produce, with only a sign bearing a Defense Ministry or paramilitary Revolutionary Guard logo.

    The Defense Ministry only called the site a “workshop,” without elaborating on what it made. Isfahan, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran, is home to both a large air base built for its fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.

    Separately, Iran’s state TV said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known, as it showed footage of firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze.

    State TV also said the magnitude-5.9 earthquake killed two people and injured some 580 more in rural areas in West Azerbaijan province, damaging buildings in many villages.

    Iran and Israel have long been engaged in a shadow war that has included covert attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.

    Last year, Iran said an engineer was killed and another employee was wounded in an unexplained incident at the Parchin military and weapons development base east of the capital, Tehran. The ministry called it an accident, without providing further details.

    Parchin is home to a military base where the International Atomic Energy Agency has said it suspected Iran conducted tests of explosive triggers that could be used in nuclear weapons.

    In April 2021, Iran blamed Israel for an attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges.

    Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media widely reported that the country had orchestrated a devastating cyberattack that caused a blackout at the nuclear facility. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency.

    In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top nuclear scientist.

    Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes. U.S. intelligence agencies, Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency have said Iran ran an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.

    The United Nations’ top nuclear official, Rafael Mariano Grossi, recently warned that Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses.

    Efforts to revive a 2015 agreement with world powers that placed limits on Iran’s nuclear activities ground to a halt last year. Both the U.S. and Israel have vowed to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, and neither has ruled out military action.

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    Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss contributed to this report.

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  • Jerusalem, West Bank on edge after outbreak of violence

    Jerusalem, West Bank on edge after outbreak of violence

    JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister signaled Friday that the military would stop its airstrikes if Palestinian militant groups halted rocket attacks, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in decades raised the prospect of a major flare-up in fighting.

    After a limited exchange of Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza overnight, residents of Jerusalem were on edge Friday morning as they waited to see what comes next.

    Israel’s defense minister instructed the military to prepare for new strikes in the Gaza Strip “if necessary.”

    The bombardments followed an Israeli raid in the flashpoint Jenin refugee camp, which turned into a gun battle that killed at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman.

    The raid sparked clashes elsewhere during which Israeli forces killed a 22-year-old in al-Ram, a Palestinian town north of Jerusalem. At the funeral in al-Ram, crowds of Palestinians carried the young man’s body aloft and waved the flags of both Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, and militant Hamas, angrily chanting for revenge. Two other Palestinians were killed in fighting the previous day.

    The escalation in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict created an early test for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government, which came to office as tensions with the Palestinians soared and has vowed to take a hard line.

    The raid also prompted the Palestinian Authority to halt security coordination with Israel and drew “deep concern” from the State Department just days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to visit the region.

    So far, the hostilities have followed a familiar pattern that allows both sides to respond without forcing the other side into a major escalation. Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza toward the south of Israel. Israel retaliated with nonlethal airstrikes on militant targets in Gaza, such as training camps and an underground rocket manufacturing site.

    Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed the military dealt a “tough blow” to Palestinian militants in Gaza and said the army was preparing to strike “high-quality targets … until peace is restored to the citizens of Israel.”

    An uneasy calm prevailed around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as Temple Mount. Tensions at the volatile Jerusalem holy site has triggered violence in the past, including a bloody Gaza war in 2021. The site is considered both the third-most sacred site in Islam, as well as the site of an ancient Jewish temple that is the holiest place in Judaism.

    Israeli police were out in force at entrances to the limestone alleys that lead to the sacred compound, apparently bracing for violence as they searched Palestinian passers-by before weekly noon prayers.

    Fadi, a 41-year-old shopkeeper near Al-Aqsa, said he felt the outbreak of violence had frightened residents and subdued the usual Friday morning shopping frenzy. He declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.

    “The Old City is empty because of all the problems,” he said. “We’re just trying to work and this happens. It’s like we’re trapped in every way.” The night before, scuffles erupted between young religious Jews and Palestinians at restaurants and shops in the area.

    Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.

    Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. The same year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

    So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press.

    Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed. So far this year, nearly half of the Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or civilians have been claimed as members by three militant groups.

    Gulf Arab nations offered harsh criticism over the military raid. Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomat in the United Arab Emirates, warned Friday that “the Israeli escalation in Jenin is dangerous and disturbing and undermines international efforts to advance the priority of the peace agenda.” The UAE recognized Israel in 2020 along with Bahrain, which has remained silent on the surge in violence.

    At the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, young Palestinians milled around as usual and women hawked raisins from their fields. News of the nine killed in Jenin and the overnight rockets blared from phones and radios.

    Ibrahim Salameh, a 21-year-old smoking on the steps of Damascus Gate, said he had never been so scared. On Wednesday, he said, his teenage neighbor was killed as police entered the Shuafat refugee camp to demolish an attacker’s home.

    “Every day there’s more and more fear, more tension,” he said. “Somehow I’m living with this idea that at any moment I could be shot dead.”

    Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

    In the West Bank, Fatah announced a general strike and most shops were closed in Palestinian cities. The PA declared Thursday that it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants. Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship, and also due to U.S. and Israeli pressure.

    The PA has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds like the Jenin camp.

    Jenin, a city in the north of the West Bank, was an important a militant stronghold during the 2000-2005 intifada. Over the last year, it again emerged as a stronghold of Palestinian militancy and epicenter of Israeli military operations. Several of the Palestinians who killed Israelis in attacks last spring were from the Jenin region in the northern West Bank.

    Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim those territories for their hoped-for state.

    Israel has established dozens of settlements in the West Bank that now house 500,000 people. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace, even as talks to end the conflict have been moribund for over a decade.

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    Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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  • Expanded US training for Ukraine forces begins in Germany

    Expanded US training for Ukraine forces begins in Germany

    BRUSSELS — The U.S. military’s new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday, with a goal of getting a battalion of about 500 troops back on the battlefield to fight the Russians in the next five to eight weeks, said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    Milley, who plans to visit the Grafenwoehr training area on Monday to get a first-hand look at the program, said the troops being trained left Ukraine a few days ago. In Germany is a full set of weapons and equipment for them to use.

    Until now the Pentagon had declined to say exactly when the training would start.

    The so-called combined arms training is aimed at honing the skills of the Ukrainian forces so they will be better prepared to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks. They will learn how to better move and coordinate their company- and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.

    Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training — combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles heading to Ukraine — will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.

    “This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said. “And we’re hoping to be able to pull this together here in short order.”

    The goal, he said, is for all the incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so that the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”

    The new instruction comes as Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.

    Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one apartment building rose to 30.

    Milley said he wants to make sure the training is on track and whether anything else is needed, and also ensure that it will line up well with the equipment deliveries.

    The program will include classroom instruction and field work that will begin with small squads and gradually grow to involve larger units. It would culminate with a more complex combat exercise bringing an entire battalion and a headquarters unit together.

    Until now, the U.S. focus has been on providing Ukrainian forces with more immediate battlefield needs, particularly on how to use the wide array of Western weapons systems pouring into the country.

    The U.S. has already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS. Other nations are also conducting training on the weapons they provide.

    In announcing the new program last month, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the idea “is to be able to give them this advanced level of collective training that enables them to conduct effective combined arms operations and maneuver on the battlefield.”

    Milley said the U.S. was doing this type of training prior to the Russian invasion last February. But once the war began, U.S. National Guard and special operations forces that were doing training inside Ukraine all left the country. This new effort, which is being done by U.S. Army Europe Africa’s 7th Army Training Command, will be a continuation of what they had been doing prior to the invasion. Other European allies are also providing training.

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  • Iran hangs former defense ministry official over spy claim

    Iran hangs former defense ministry official over spy claim

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Saturday it had executed a dual Iranian-British national who once held a high-ranking position in the country’s defense ministry despite international warnings to halt his death sentence, further escalating tensions with the West amid the nationwide protests now shaking the Islamic Republic.

    The hanging of Ali Reza Akbari, a close ally of top security official Ali Shamkhani, suggests an ongoing power struggle within Iran’s theocracy as it struggles to contain the demonstrations over the September death of Mahsa Amini. It also harkened back to the mass purges of the military that immediately followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    Akbari’s hanging drew immediate anger from London, which along with the U.S. and others has sanctioned Iran over the protests and its supplying Russia with the bomb-carrying drones now targeting Ukraine.

    “This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

    Foreign Secretary James Cleverly summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in the United Kingdom and separately warned: “This will not stand unchallenged.”

    Iran’s Mizan news agency, associated with the country’s judiciary, announced Akbari’s hanging without saying when it happened. However, there were rumors he had been executed days earlier.

    Iran has alleged, without providing evidence, that Akbari served as a source for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known popularly as MI6. A lengthy statement issued by Iran’s judiciary claimed Akbari received large sums of money, his British citizenship and other help in London for providing information to the intelligence service.

    However, Iran long has accused those who travel abroad or have Western ties of spying, often using them as bargaining chips in negotiations.

    Akbari, who ran a private think tank, is believed to have been arrested in 2019, but details of his case only emerged in recent weeks. Those accused of espionage and other crimes related to national security are usually tried behind closed doors, where rights groups say they do not choose their own lawyers and are not allowed to see evidence against them.

    Iranian state television aired a highly edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations, footage that resembled other claimed confessions that activists have described as coerced confessions.

    The BBC Farsi-language service aired an audio message from Akbari on Wednesday, in which he described being tortured.

    “By using physiological and psychological methods, they broke my will, drove me to madness and forced me to do whatever they wanted,” Akbari said in the audio. “By the force of gun and death threats they made me confess to false and corrupt claims.”

    Iran has not commented on the torture claims. However, the United Nations human rights chief has warned Iran against the “weaponization” of the death penalty as a means to put down the protests.

    On Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel also criticized Akbari’s pending execution.

    “The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable,” he said. “We are greatly disturbed by the reports that Mr. Akbari was drugged, tortured while in custody, interrogated for thousands of hours, and forced to make false confessions.”

    He added: “More broadly, Iran’s practices of arbitrary and unjust detentions, forced confessions and politically motivated executions are completely unacceptable and must end.”

    Iran is one of the world’s top executioners. However, it wasn’t immediately clear when the last time of a former or current high-ranking defense official had been executed. In 1984, Iran executed its navy chief Adm. Baharam Afzali along nine other military people on the charge of spying for Soviet Union.

    Iran’s government for months has been trying to allege — without offering evidence — that foreign countries have fomented the unrest gripping the Islamic Republic since the death of Amini in September after her detention by the morality police. Protesters say they are angry over the collapse of the economy, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.

    For several years, Iran has been locked in a shadow war with the United States and Israel, marked by covert attacks on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated foreign intelligence services had made major inroads. Iran mentioned that scientist in discussing Akbari’s case, though it’s unclear what current information, if any, he would have had on him.

    Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with U.N. observers. He served as a deputy defense minister under Shamkhani during reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s administration, likely further making his credentials suspicious to hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy.

    Today, Shamkhani is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the country’s top security body which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei oversees. Akbari’s audio message aired by the BBC Persian included him saying he was accused of obtaining top-secret information from Shamkhani “in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt.” However, it appears Shamkhani remains in his role.

    The anti-government protests now shaking Iran are one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

    At least 520 protesters have been killed and 19,400 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.

    Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests in similarly criticized trials, including attacks on security forces.

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    Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

    Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a frigate armed with the country’s latest Zircon hypersonic missile on a trans-ocean cruise in a show of force as tensions with the West escalate over the war in Ukraine.

    Russia touts that the Zircon missile can evade any Western air defenses by flying at an astounding 7,000 miles per hour (11,265 km/h).

    Here is a glance at the ship and its weapons.

    THE PRIDE OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY

    Commissioned by the navy in 2018 following long trials, the Admiral Gorshkov is the first ship in the new series of frigates which were designed to replace the aging Soviet-built destroyers as a key strike component of the Russian navy.

    Armed with an array of missiles, the ship is 130-meters (427-feet) long and has a crew of about 200.

    In 2019, it circled the world oceans on a 35,000-nautical mile journey.

    INTENSIVE TESTS

    The Admiral Gorshkov has served as the main testbed for the latest Russian hypersonic missile, Zircon.

    In recent years, the Zircon has undergone a series of tests, including being launched at various practice targets. The military declared the tests successful and Zircon officially entered service last fall.

    Zircon is intended to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines and could be used against both enemy ships and ground targets. It is one of several hypersonic missiles that Russia has developed.

    THE NEW WEAPON

    Putin has hailed Zircon as a potent weapon capable of penetrating any existing anti-missile defenses by flying nine times faster than the speed of sound at a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (over 620 miles).

    Putin has emphasized that Zircon gives the Russian military a long-range conventional strike capability, allowing it to strike any enemy targets with precision.

    Russia’s hypersonic weapons drive emerged as the U.S. has been working on its own Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.

    Putin heralded Zircon as Russia’s answer to that, claiming that the new weapon has no rival, giving Russia a strategic edge.

    Months before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin put the U.S. and its NATO allies on notice when he warned that Russian warships armed with Zircon would give Russia a capability to strike the adversary’s “decision-making centers” within minutes if deployed in neutral waters.

    Speaking via video link during Wednesday’s sendoff ceremony, Putin again praised Zircon as a “unique weapon” without an “equivalent for it in any country in the world.”

    In response, the Pentagon said it is monitoring the ship, and did not think it presented a threat that could not be countered.

    “We are aware of the reports regarding the Russian launch of a frigate, the Admiral Grorshkov. We will continue to routinely monitor its activities as we maintain awareness of our operating environment,” said Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Roger Cabiness. “While we do not comment on specific capabilities or speculate on hypotheticals, the Department of Defense remains confident in our ability to deter our adversaries and defend United States national security interests at any time, in any place.”

    OTHER RUSSIAN HYPERSONIC WEAPONS

    Russia has already commissioned the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles for some of its ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that constitute part of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad. Putin has hailed the Avangard’s ability to maneuver at hypersonic speeds on its approach to target, dodging air defenses.

    The Russian military has also deployed the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on its MiG-31 aircraft and used them during the war in Ukraine to strike some priority targets. Kinzhal reportedly has a range of about 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles).

    PATROL DUTY

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on Wednesday that the Admiral Gorshkov will patrol the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean, but didn’t give further details.

    Shoigu said the Admiral Gorshkov’s crew will focus on “countering the threats to Russia, maintaining regional peace and stability jointly with friendly countries.” He added the crew will practice with hypersonic weapons and long-range cruise missiles “in various conditions.”

    Some military experts say a single, hypersonic missile-armed warship is no match for the massive naval forces of the U.S. and its allies.

    But others noted that the frigate’s potential deployment close to U.S. shores could be part of Putin’s strategy to up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict.

    “This is a message to the West that Russia has nuclear-tipped missiles that can easily pierce any missile defenses,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote in a commentary.

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    Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report from Washington.

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  • Sitting ducks? Russian military flaws seen in troop deaths

    Sitting ducks? Russian military flaws seen in troop deaths

    KYIV, Ukraine — The Russian military’s top brass came under increasing scrutiny Wednesday as more details emerged of how at least 89 Russian soldiers, and possibly many more, were killed in a Ukrainian artillery attack on a single building.

    The scene last weekend in the Russian-held eastern Ukrainian town of Makiivka, where the soldiers were temporarily stationed, appears to have been a recipe for disaster. Hundreds of Russian troops were reportedly clustered in a building close to the front line, well within range of Ukraine’s Western-supplied precision artillery, possibly sitting close to an ammunition store and perhaps unwittingly helping Kyiv’s forces to zero in on them.

    It was one of the deadliest single attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and the highest death toll in a single incident acknowledged so far by either side in the conflict.

    Ukraine’s armed forces claimed the Makiivka strike killed around 400 Russian soldiers housed in a vocational school building. About 300 more of them were wounded, officials alleged. It wasn’t possible to verify either side’s claims due to the fighting.

    The Russian military sought to blame the soldiers for their own deaths. Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement late Tuesday that their phone signals allowed Kyiv’s forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch a strike.

    Emily Ferris, a research fellow on Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told The Associated Press it is “very hard to verify” whether cellphone signaling and geolocation were to blame for the accurate strike.

    She noted that Russian soldiers on active duty are forbidden from using their phones — exactly because there have been so many instances in recent years of their being used for targeting, including by both sides in the Ukraine war. The conflict has made ample use of modern technology.

    She also noted that blaming the soldiers themselves was a “helpful narrative” for Moscow as it helps deflect criticism and steer attention toward the official cellphone ban.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to move the conversation along, too, as he took part via video link in a sending-off ceremony Wednesday for a frigate equipped with the Russian navy’s new hypersonic missiles.

    Putin said the Zircon missiles that the Admiral Gorshkov frigate was carrying were a “unique weapon,” capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Russia says the missiles can’t be intercepted.

    Meanwhile, away from the battlefields, France said Wednesday it will send French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine — the first tanks from a Western European country — following an afternoon phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.

    The French presidency didn’t say how many tanks would be delivered and when. The NATO member has given Ukraine anti-tank and air defense missiles and rocket launchers.

    Later Wednesday, President Joe Biden confirmed that the U.S. is considering sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine. The Bradley is a medium armored combat vehicle that can carry about 10 personnel, or be configured to carry additional ammunition or communications equipment.

    The Pentagon has already provided Ukraine with more than 2,000 combat vehicles, including 477 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles and more than 1,200 Humvees.

    The weekend Makiivka strike seemed to be the latest blow to the Kremlin’s military prestige as it struggles to advance the invasion of its neighbor.

    But Ferris, the analyst, said “there should be a bit of caution around leaning too heavily on this (attack) as a sign of (the) Russian army’s weakness.”

    As details of the strike have trickled out in recent days, some observers detected military sloppiness at the root of so many deaths.

    U.K. intelligence officials said Wednesday that Moscow’s “unprofessional” military practices were likely partly to blame for the high casualties.

    “Given the extent of the damage, there is a realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike, creating secondary explosions,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said on Twitter.

    In the same post, the ministry said the building struck by Ukrainian missiles was little more than 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the front line, within “one of the most contested areas of the conflict,” in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region.

    “The Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate,” the update added.

    The Russian Defense Ministry, in a rare admission of losses, initially said the strike killed 63 troops. But as emergency crews searched the ruins, the death toll mounted. The regiment’s deputy commander was among the dead.

    That stirred renewed criticism inside Russia of the way the broader military campaign is being handled by the Ministry of Defense.

    Vladlen Tatarsky, a well-known military blogger, accused Russian generals of “demonstrating their own stupidity and misunderstanding of what’s going on (among) the troops, where everyone has cellphones.”

    “Moreover, in places where there’s coverage, artillery fire is often adjusted by phone. There are simply no other ways,” Tatarsky wrote in a Telegram post.

    Others blamed the decision to station hundreds of troops in one place. “The cellphone story is not too convincing,” military blogger Semyon Pegov wrote. “The only remedy is not to house personnel en masse in large buildings. Simply not to house 500 people in one place but spread them across 10 different locations.”

    Unconfirmed reports in Russian-language media said the victims were mobilized reservists from the region of Samara, in southwestern Russia.

    The Institute for the Study of War saw in the incident further evidence that Moscow isn’t properly utilizing the reservists it began calling up last September.

    “Systemic failures in Russia’s force generation apparatus continue to plague personnel capabilities to the detriment of Russian operational capacity in Ukraine,” the think tank said in a report late Tuesday.

    Ferris, of the Royal United Services Institute, said the Makiivka strike shows the Russian army is more interested in growing its number of troops, not in training them in wartime skills.

    “That’s really how Russia conducts a lot of its warfare — by overwhelming the enemy with volume, with people,” she said. “The Kremlin view, unfortunately, is that soldiers’ lives are expendable.”

    In a grinding battle of attrition, Russian forces have pressed their offensive on Bakhmut in Donetsk despite heavy losses. The Wagner Group, a private military contractor owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with close ties to Putin, has spearheaded the Bakhmut offensive.

    U.S. intelligence officials have determined that convicts Wagner pulled from prisons accounted for 90% of Russian casualties in fighting for Bakhmut, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the finding.

    The White House said last month that intelligence findings showed Wagner had some 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 40,000 recruited convicts. The U.S. assesses that Wagner is spending about $100 million a month in the fight.

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    Kozlowska reported from London. Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

    Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a frigate armed with the country’s latest Zircon hypersonic missile on a trans-ocean cruise in a show of force as tensions with the West escalate over the war in Ukraine.

    Russia touts that the Zircon missile can evade any Western air defenses by flying at an astounding 7,000 miles per hour (11,265 km/h).

    Here is a glance at the ship and its weapons.

    THE PRIDE OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY

    Commissioned by the navy in 2018 following long trials, the Admiral Gorshkov is the first ship in the new series of frigates which were designed to replace the aging Soviet-built destroyers as a key strike component of the Russian navy.

    Armed with an array of missiles, the ship is 130-meters (427-feet) long and has a crew of about 200.

    In 2019, it circled the world oceans on a 35,000-nautical mile journey.

    INTENSIVE TESTS

    The Admiral Gorshkov has served as the main testbed for the latest Russian hypersonic missile, Zircon.

    In recent years, the Zircon has undergone a series of tests, including being launched at various practice targets. The military declared the tests successful and Zircon officially entered service last fall.

    Zircon is intended to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines and could be used against both enemy ships and ground targets. It is one of several hypersonic missiles that Russia has developed.

    THE NEW WEAPON

    Putin has hailed Zircon as a potent weapon capable of penetrating any existing anti-missile defenses by flying nine times faster than the speed of sound at a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (over 620 miles).

    Putin has emphasized that Zircon gives the Russian military a long-range conventional strike capability, allowing it to strike any enemy targets with precision.

    Russia’s hypersonic weapons drive emerged as the U.S. has been working on its own Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.

    Putin heralded Zircon as Russia’s answer to that, claiming that the new weapon has no rival, giving Russia a strategic edge.

    Months before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin put the U.S. and its NATO allies on notice when he warned that Russian warships armed with Zircon would give Russia a capability to strike the adversary’s “decision-making centers” within minutes if deployed in neutral waters.

    Speaking via video link during Wednesday’s sendoff ceremony, Putin again praised Zircon as a “unique weapon” without an “equivalent for it in any country in the world.”

    OTHER RUSSIAN HYPERSONIC WEAPONS

    Russia has already commissioned the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles for some of its ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that constitute part of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad. Putin has hailed the Avangard’s ability to maneuver at hypersonic speeds on its approach to target, dodging air defenses.

    The Russian military has also deployed the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on its MiG-31 aircraft and used them during the war in Ukraine to strike some priority targets. Kinzhal reportedly has a range of about 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles).

    PATROL DUTY

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on Wednesday that the Admiral Gorshkov will patrol the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean, but didn’t give further details.

    Shoigu said the Admiral Gorshkov’s crew will focus on “countering the threats to Russia, maintaining regional peace and stability jointly with friendly countries.” He added the crew will practice with hypersonic weapons and long-range cruise missiles “in various conditions.”

    Some military experts say a single, hypersonic missile-armed warship is no match for the massive naval forces of the U.S. and its allies.

    But others noted that the frigate’s potential deployment close to U.S. shores could be part of Putin’s strategy to up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict.

    “This is a message to the West that Russia has nuclear-tipped missiles that can easily pierce any missile defenses,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote in a commentary.

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  • Rockets hit US base in eastern Syria, no casualties reported

    Rockets hit US base in eastern Syria, no casualties reported

    BEIRUT — Two rockets struck a base housing American troops in eastern Syria on Wednesday without causing any human or material losses, the U.S. military said.

    The morning attack on Mission Support Site Conoco came as Iran and its allies in the region marked the third anniversary of the killing of Iran’s leading general and chief of the powerful Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

    No one claimed responsibility for the attack in eastern Syria, where it is not uncommon for bases housing U.S. troops to come under rocket fire or mortar attacks. Iran-backed militia are based nearby as are sleeper cells of the Islamic State group that was defeated in Syria in March 2019.

    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the rockets were fired by Arab tribesmen in the region who are armed by Iran.

    “Attacks of this kind place Coalition Forces and the civilian populace at risk and undermine the hard-earned stability and security of Syria and the region,” said Joe Buccino, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, in a statement.

    CENTCOM said members of the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces visited the site from which the rockets originated, and found a third that was not fired.

    The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced later Wednesday that they arrested a senior figure in the Islamic State group, the militants’ financial official from Deir el-Zour province. His arrest comes amid a dayslong campaign by the U.S.-backed force against IS sleeper cells in parts of northeastern Syria that have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in recent weeks.

    There are roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria, including in the north and farther south and east.

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  • Burkina Faso rights group alleges 28 dead in ethnic killings

    Burkina Faso rights group alleges 28 dead in ethnic killings

    OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Volunteer militia groups supporting Burkina Faso’s army have killed dozens of civilians of the ethnic Fulani group, including children, in the troubled country’s west, a local rights group charged on Tuesday.

    The military supporters killed nearly 30 civilians last week in Nouna town, a predominately Fulani and Muslim community, according to Daouda Diallo, executive secretary of the civic group, the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities. Burkina Faso’s Fulani people have been increasingly targeted by the military and local defense militias because they are suspected of supporting the West African country’s Islamic extremist rebels that have been inflicting violence on the country for years.

    “They (support militia) essentially targeted resourceful or influential people and the able-bodied members of the community, resulting in the loss of many human lives,” said Diallo. The killings in Nouna were revenge attacks by volunteer fighters after jihadis attacked their headquarters, he said.

    Burkina Faso’s government said it has launched an investigation into the killings of at least 28 people. In a statement Monday, Armel Sama Burkina Faso’s prosecutor called on the population to remain calm during the investigation and said the government would arrest the perpetrators who conducted acts of “unprecedented gravity.”

    Extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced nearly 2 million people in Burkina Faso over the past seven years. Lack of confidence in the government’s ability to stem the extremist violence led to two coups in Burkina Faso last year.

    Violence against the Fulani people has increased since the country’s new junta leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, seized power in September, allege rights groups. Between October and January Diallo’s group documented nearly 250 cases of extrajudicial killings compared to 95 in the previous four months, said Diallo.

    There were more initiatives for dialogue between communities and the jihadis under the rule of the previous junta leader, Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, which might have resulted in fewer killings, he said.

    In an attempt to stem jihadi violence, the government has recruited tens of thousands of civilian volunteers to fight alongside the army. Both groups have been accused by rights groups of committing atrocities against civilians. Many Fulani community members say they’re equally afraid of the jihadis as they are of the volunteer militias.

    Burkina Faso’s government didn’t immediately respond to questions about the alleged abuses. In his New Year’s speech to the nation, Traore thanked the volunteer fighters for their patriotism.

    But across Burkina Faso, residents charge that the volunteers are rounding up civilians and killing them.

    In December, seven volunteers abducted a father and son from their shop in Kongoussi town in the Center North region, Yacouba Diallo a resident who said he witnessed their abduction told The Associated Press by phone. The men were found dead in the forest two days later, the father had two gunshots to his body and the son was slaughtered with a knife, said Diallo.

    As jihadi violence escalates, conflict analysts warn these killings will increase.

    “I think we are currently seeing a grim turn in the crisis in Burkina Faso, as there has clearly been an increase in extrajudicial killings in recent weeks and the events in Nouna are the culmination of this trend,” said Heni Nsaibia, a senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

    “There is an imminent risk of further mass atrocities in the near future, possibly committed by any of the parties involved in the conflict,” he said.

    ___

    Mednick reported from Dakar, Senegal

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  • Lula set for inauguration to preside over polarized Brazil

    Lula set for inauguration to preside over polarized Brazil

    BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be sworn in Sunday in the capital, Brasilia, and assume office for the third time, marking the culmination of a political comeback sure to thrill supporters and enrage opponents in a fiercely polarized nation.

    But Lula’s presidency is unlikely to be like his previous two mandates, coming after the tightest presidential race in more than three decades in Brazil and resistance to his taking office by some of his opponents, political analysts say.

    The leftist defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in the Oct. 30 vote by less than 2 percentage points. For months, Bolsonaro had sown doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic vote and his loyal supporters were loath to accept the loss.

    Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.

    His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – something the country had not seen since the early 1980s, and which have prompted growing security concerns about inauguration day events.

    “In 2003, the ceremony was very beautiful. There wasn’t this bad, heavy climate,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, referring to the year Lula first took office. “Today, it’s a climate of terror.”

    Tanya Albuquerque, a student, flew from Sao Paulo to Brasilia and had tears in her eyes as she heard local leftists celebrating incoming visitors at Brasilia’s airport. She decided to attend after seeing pictures of Lula’s first inauguration.

    “Maybe we won’t have 300,000 people tomorrow like then; these are different and more divisive times. But I knew I wouldn’t be happy in front of a TV,” Albuquerque, 23, said on Saturday.

    Lula has made it his mission to heal the divided nation. But he will have to do so while navigating more challenging economic conditions than he enjoyed in his first two terms, when the global commodities boom proved a windfall for Brazil.

    At the time, his administration’s flagship welfare program helped lift tens of millions of impoverished people into the middle class. Many Brazilians traveled abroad for the first time. He left office with a personal approval rating of 83%.

    In the intervening years, Brazil’s economy plunged into two deep recessions — first, during the tenure of his handpicked successor, and then during the pandemic — and ordinary Brazilians suffered greatly.

    Lula has said his priorities are fighting poverty, and investing in education and health. He has also said he will bring illegal deforestation of the Amazon to a halt. He sought support from political moderates to form a broad front and defeat Bolsonaro, then tapped some of them to serve in his Cabinet.

    Given the nation’s political fault lines, however, it is highly unlikely Lula ever reattains the popularity he once enjoyed, or even sees his approval rating rise above 50%, said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro’s State University.

    Furthermore, Santoro said, the credibility of Lula and his Workers’ Party were assailed by a sprawling corruption investigation. Party officials were jailed, including Lula — until his convictions were annulled on procedural grounds. The Supreme Court then ruled that the judge presiding over the case had colluded with prosecutors to secure a conviction.

    Lula and his supporters have maintained he was railroaded. Others were willing to look past possible malfeasance as a means to unseat Bolsonaro and bring the nation back together.

    But Bolsonaro’s backers refuse to accept someone they view as a criminal returning to the highest office. And with tensions running hot, a series of events has prompted fear that violence could erupt on inauguration day.

    On Dec. 12, dozens of people tried to invade a federal police building in Brasilia, and burned cars and buses in other areas of the city. Then on Christmas Eve, police arrested a 54-year-old man who admitted to making a bomb that was found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia’s airport.

    He had been camped outside Brasilia’s army headquarters with hundreds of other Bolsonaro supporters since Nov. 12. He told police he was ready for war against communism, and planned the attack with people he had met at the protests, according to excerpts of his deposition released by local media. The next day, police found explosive devices and several bulletproof vests in a forested area on the federal district’s outskirts.

    Lula’s incoming Justice Minister, Flávio Dino, this week called for federal authorities to put an end to the “antidemocratic” protests, calling them “incubators of terrorists.”

    In response to a request from Lula’s team, the current justice minister authorized deployment of the national guard until Jan. 2, and Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes banned people from carrying firearms in Brasilia during these days.

    “This is the fruit of political polarization, of political extremism,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Pavão stressed that Bolsonaro, who mostly vanished from the political scene since he lost his reelection bid, was slow to disavow recent incidents.

    “His silence is strategic: Bolsonaro needs to keep Bolsonarismo alive,” Pavão said.

    Bolsonaro finally condemned the bomb plot in a Dec. 30 farewell address on social media, hours before flying to the U.S.. His absence on inauguration day will mark a break with tradition and it remains unclear who, instead of him, will hand over the presidential sash to Lula at the presidential palace.

    Lawyer Eduardo Coutinho will be there. He bought a flight to Brasilia as a Christmas present to himself.

    “I wish I were here when Bolsonaro’s plane took off, that is the only thing that makes me almost as happy as tomorrow’s event,” Coutinho, 28, said after singing Lula campaign jingles on the plane. “I’m not usually so over-the-top, but we need to let it out and I came here just to do that. Brazil needs this to move on.”

    ———

    Jeantet reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Brasilia.

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  • Turkish, Syrian, Russian defense chiefs hold surprise talks

    Turkish, Syrian, Russian defense chiefs hold surprise talks

    ANKARA, Turkey — The Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers have held previously unannounced talks in Moscow, the Turkish and Russian defense ministries said on Wednesday. It was the first ministerial level meeting between rivals Turkey and Syria since the start of the Syrian conflict 11 years ago.

    A Turkish defense ministry statement said the Turkish, Syrian and Russian intelligence chiefs also attended the talks in Moscow which, it said, took place in a “positive atmosphere.”

    The discussion focused on “the Syrian crisis, the refugee problem and efforts for a joint struggle against terror organizations present on Syrian territory,” the ministry said.

    It added that the sides would continue to hold trilateral meetings.

    Russia has long been pressing for a reconciliation between Turkey and the Syrian government — Moscow’s close ally — which have been standing on opposite sides in Syria’s civil war.

    Turkey backed rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Damascus for its part denounced Turkey’s hold over stretches of territory in northern Syria which were seized in Turkish military incursions launched since 2016 to drive Kurdish militant groups away from the frontier.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the three ministers discussed ways to resolve the Syrian crisis, the refugee issue and to combat extremist groups.

    The parties noted “the constructive nature of the dialogue … and the need to continue it in the interests of further stabilizing the situation” in Syria and the region as a whole, the short statement said. It didn’t provide any other details.

    The previously unannounced talks in Moscow follow repeated warnings by Turkey of a new land incursion into Syria after a deadly bombing in Istanbul last month. Turkish authorities blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and on the Syria-based People’s Protection Units, or YPG. Both groups denied involvement.

    Russia has opposed a new Turkish military offensive.

    The efforts toward a Turkish-Syrian reconciliation also comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who faces presidential and parliamentary elections in June — is under intense pressure at home to send Syrian refugees back. Anti-refugee sentiment is rising in Turkey amid an economic crisis.

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  • Taiwan extends compulsory military service to 1 year

    Taiwan extends compulsory military service to 1 year

    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan will extend its compulsory military service from four months to a year starting in 2024, President Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday, as the self-ruled island faces China‘s military, diplomatic and trade pressure.

    Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 during a civil war, is claimed by China. The decades-old threat of invasion by China has sharpened since Beijing cut off communications with Taiwan‘s government after the 2016 election of Tsai, who is seen as pro-independence.

    China’s People’s Liberation Army in particular has stepped up its military harassment, sending fighter planes and navy vessels toward Taiwan on a near-daily basis in recent years. In response, the island’s military actively tracks those movements, which often serves as training for its own military personnel.

    The longer military service applies to men born after 2005, and will start Jan. 1, 2024. Those born before 2005 will continue to serve four months, but under a revamped training curriculum aimed at strengthening the island’s reserves forces.

    “No one wants war,” Tsai said. “This is true of Taiwan’s government and people, and the global community, but peace does not come from the sky, and Taiwan is at the front lines of the expansion of authoritarianism.”

    The White House welcomed the announcement on conscription reform, saying it underscores Taiwan’s commitment to self-defense and strengthens deterrence.

    “We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability in line with our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act and our one-China policy,” the White House said, adding it continues to oppose any unilateral changes in the status quo by either China or Taiwan.

    Beijing has often used military exercises to respond to moves it views as challenging its claims to sovereignty.

    In August, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, and China responded with the largest-scale military exercises it’s held in decades, because it saw Pelosi’s visit as an official diplomatic exchange. Although the U.S. is the island’s largest unofficial ally, the two governments technically do not have diplomatic relations, as Washington does not formally recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.

    The plan sets Taiwan up for increasing its defense capabilities but what remains to be seen is how well the Defense Ministry will carry out the reforms, said Arthur Zhin-Sheng Wang, a defense expert at Taiwan’s Central Police University.

    Taiwan’s current 4-month-long military conscription requirement was widely panned by the public as being too short and not providing the training that professional soldiers actually need. The government had slashed it down from a year to four months in 2017 as it was transitioning the army into an all-volunteer corps.

    Of Taiwan’s 188,000-person military, 90% are volunteers and 10% are men doing their required four months of service.

    A poll from the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation in December found that among Taiwanese adults, 73.2% said they would support a one-year military service. That support was across party lines, the survey found, spanning the Democratic Progressive Party and the more China-friendly Nationalist Party.

    “This is one of the basic steps that should have been done a long time ago,” said Paul Huang, a research fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation. Huang said the implementation period in 2024, when Taiwan will elect a new president, meant that Tsai was “passing the buck” to her successor.

    Among the youngest demographic group of 20-24, however, 37.2% said they opposed extending the military service, and only 35.6% said they would support an extension.

    ———

    AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Pakistan troops search for attackers after 6 soldiers killed

    Pakistan troops search for attackers after 6 soldiers killed

    QUETTA, Pakistan — Pakistani forces on Monday expanded their search for the perpetrators behind multiple attacks that killed six troops and wounded 17 civilians in a restive southwestern province the previous day.

    The top government official in the southwestern Baluchistan province, Abdul Aziz Uqaili, said there were a total of nine attacks in the province on Sunday. No civilians were killed in the attacks, he tweeted. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the violence in Baluchistan.

    Earlier, the military in a statement said five soldiers, including an army captain, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a security forces’ vehicle during a clearance operation in Kahan, a remote area in Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

    The sixth soldier was killed in a shootout with the Pakistani Taliban in the Sambaza area of Zhob district, according to Azfar Mohesar, a senior police official. A militant was also killed in the shootout, he said.

    In the provincial capital of Quetta, 12 people were wounded when assailants threw a hand grenade in a bazaar near a residential area, Mohesar added. Elsewhere in Baluchistan, five people were wounded in attacks in the towns of Kalat, Khuzdar, and Hub.

    On Monday, Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Asim Munir and other officials attended the funeral of army Capt. Mohammad Fahad Khan, who was among the soldiers killed in Baluchistan the previous day.

    The Pakistani Taliban — known also as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP — have stepped up attacks across Pakistan since November, when they unilaterally ended a cease-fire after accusing the military of violating the truce.

    The militant group is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan last year as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.

    Also, unrelated to TTP, separatists in Baluchistan have long waged a low-level insurgency seeking independence from the central government in Islamabad.

    Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Islamabad on Monday issued a security alert for the kingdom’s citizens, advising them to remain careful as there was a threat of attacks in Pakistan. The development came a day after the U.S. Embassy issued a similar warning for its citizens in the capital.

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  • Feds: Jan. 6 participant arrested after California standoff

    Feds: Jan. 6 participant arrested after California standoff

    A participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has been taken into custody in Southern California after an hours-long standoff

    LOS ANGELES — A participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was taken into custody Thursday in Southern California after an hours-long standoff, authorities said.

    Eric Christie, 56, was arrested in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley, according to Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokesperson.

    He initially refused to comply with federal agents’ orders but surrendered without incident after three hours of negotiations, Eimiller said. She would not comment whether he was armed during the standoff.

    Video and photographs from the insurrection, discovered by online sleuths, show Christie at the Capitol last year, wrapped in a rainbow flag with a hammer attached to his belt, court documents state. A video captured Christie yelling “this is our Capitol” into a bullhorn while the crowd rushes into the Capitol as police attempted to keep them back.

    Christie’s arrest came the same day as the House Jan. 6 committee released its final report, concluding an 18-month investigation, asserting that Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

    Christie faces federal charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly weapon, as well as disorderly or disruptive conduct in restricted building or grounds with a deadly weapon, according to court documents.

    It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon. NBC News first reported Christie’s arrest.

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  • West Point moves to vanquish Confederate symbols from campus

    West Point moves to vanquish Confederate symbols from campus

    NEW YORK — Before turning against the U.S. military to command the Confederate army, Robert E. Lee served as the superintendent of West Point, the hallowed military academy that produced patriots like Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower.

    But in the coming days, the storied academy will take down a portrait of Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform from its library, where it has been hanging since the 1950s and place it in storage. It will also remove the stone bust of the Civil War’s top southern general at Reconciliation Plaza. And Lee’s quote about honor will be stripped from the academy’s Honor Plaza.

    The moves are part of a Department of Defense directive issued in October ordering the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.”

    That includes a trio of bronze panels, measuring 11 feet tall and 5 feet wide, that depict significant events and figures in U.S. history, including Benjamin Franklin and Clara Barton. But the oversized plaques, dedicated in 1965, not only featured Lee and other supporters of the Confederacy but an image of an armed man in a hood, with “Ku Klux Klan” written below.

    The congressional Naming Commission, which initiated the changes at the academy, noted “there are clearly ties in the KKK to the Confederacy.”

    In a message posted on the academy’s website, Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland, the academy’s superintendent, said it would begin complying with the commission’s recommendations during the holiday break.

    “We will conduct these actions with dignity and respect,” he said.

    The United States Military Academy, as West Point is officially known, was established in 1809 along the bank of the Hudson River in upstate New York.

    The school has about 4,600 cadets, two-thirds of them white and about 13% Black, according to federal data.

    West Point was not the only installation under scrutiny by the congressional commission. It also recommended that eight other installations address symbols of the racist past.

    The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, renamed buildings and roads that memorialized Confederate admirals or those who sought to perpetuate Black enslavement.

    More than a half-dozen of the commission’s recommendations for West Point involve Lee, who graduated second in his class in 1829 and later served as superintendent.

    The commission recommended that Lee Barracks, Lee Road, Lee Gate, Lee Housing Area and Lee Area Child Development Center all be renamed.

    The report said Lee’s armies “were responsible for the deaths of more United States soldiers than practically any other enemy in our nation’s history.”

    Two other Confederate officers in the commission’s crosshairs were West Point grads P.G.T. Beauregard and William Hardee. The panel called for Beauregard Place and Hardee Place to be renamed.

    It was not until the early 1930s when West Point began installing Confederate memorials, the commission noted, saying it did so under pressure from the revisionist “Lost Cause” movement that sought to recast the causes of the Civil War and depict those who fought for the Confederacy as deserving of honor for their sacrifices.

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  • IAEA discusses Ukraine nuclear plant protections with Russia

    IAEA discusses Ukraine nuclear plant protections with Russia

    KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog met Thursday in Moscow with officials from Russia’s military and state atomic energy company as he pursues a long-running drive to set up a protection zone around a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

    Russian company Rosatom described the talks on measures needed to safeguard Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the surrounding region as “substantive, useful and frank.” International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi indicated that more negotiations were needed after “another round of necessary discussions.”

    “It’s key that the zone focuses solely on preventing a nuclear accident,” he tweeted. “I am continuing my efforts towards this goal with a sense of utmost urgency.”

    The meeting in Moscow came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a defiant wartime visit to the U.S. capital, his first known trip outside his country in the nearly 10 months since Russia invaded.

    The visit to Washington was aimed at reinvigorating support for Ukraine in the U.S. and around the world at a time when Russia appears to have lost battlefield momentum. There is concern that Ukraine’s allies are growing weary of providing the military and economic assistance that have enabled Ukraine to keep fighting.

    The Russian military on Thursday reported that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu paid a visit to Russian troops on the front line what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. The exact location of the visit was not disclosed.

    A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed Shoigu inspecting temporary troop quarters in dugouts and talking to military commanders.

    Before his trip to Washington, Zelenskyy met with Ukrainian troops in the eastern city of Bakhmut, the recent focus of some of the war’s most intense combat. Russian President Vladimir Putin has never been seen traveling to front-line areas. Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that Putin visited his Ukraine command headquarters last week, but its location wasn’t disclosed, and it wasn’t even clear if it was in Ukraine.

    The IAEA’s Grossi has urged Russia and Ukraine for over three months to agree on a safety zone around Europe’s largest nuclear power station. Zaporizhizia province and areas across the Dnieper River from the nuclear power plant have been under regular shelling since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called for a demilitarized zone around the plant, which was seized by Russian forces early in the war.

    Although all six of the plant’s reactors are shut down, the reactor core and used nuclear fuel must still be cooled for lengthy periods to prevent them overheating and triggering dangerous meltdowns like the ones that occurred in 2011 when a tsunami hit the Fukushima plant in Japan. Ukraine saw the world’s worst nuclear accident, at Chernobyl in 1986.

    Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for the repeated shelling, which has led on multiple occasions to the Zaporizhizia plant losing the electricity needed to operate the cooling system. Ukrainian officials earlier this month also accused Russian troops of installing multiple rocket launchers at the site.

    Grossi said in November that the main issues under discussion involve military equipment and the radius of the safety zone. He said the IAEA’s proposal is very simple: “Don’t shoot at the plant, don’t shoot from the plant.”

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Today in History: December 22, the shoe bomber fails

    Today in History: December 22, the shoe bomber fails

    Today in History

    Today is Thursday, Dec. 22, the 356th day of 2022. There are nine days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 22, 1990, Lech Walesa (lek vah-WEN’-sah) took the oath of office as Poland’s first popularly elected president.

    On this date:

    In 1858, opera composer Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy.

    In 1894, French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)

    In 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

    In 1944, during the World War II Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe rejected a German demand for surrender, writing “Nuts!” in his official reply.

    In 1984, New York City resident Bernhard Goetz (bur-NAHRD’ gehts) shot and wounded four youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.

    In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu (chow-SHES’-koo), the last of Eastern Europe’s hard-line Communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising.

    In 1992, a Libyan Boeing 727 jetliner crashed after a midair collision with a MiG fighter, killing all 157 aboard the jetliner, and both crew members of the fighter jet.

    In 1995, actor Butterfly McQueen, who’d played the scatterbrained slave Prissy in “Gone with the Wind,” died in Augusta, Georgia, at age 84.

    In 2001, Richard C. Reid, a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, tried to ignite explosives in his shoes, but was subdued by flight attendants and fellow passengers. (Reid is serving a life sentence in federal prison.)

    In 2003, a federal judge ruled the Pentagon couldn’t enforce mandatory anthrax vaccinations for military personnel.

    In 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law allowing gays for the first time in history to serve openly in America’s military, repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

    In 2020, President Donald Trump unexpectedly released two videos, one falsely declaring that he had won the election in a “landslide,” and the other urging lawmakers to increase direct payments for most individuals to $2,000 in a COVID relief package, a move opposed by most Republicans.

    Ten years ago: The late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was praised as a humble leader who embodied honor, dignity and duty during a public visitation at Hawaii’s state Capitol, five days after his death at age 88. Egypt’s Islamist-backed constitution received a “yes” majority in a final round of voting on a referendum that saw a low voter turnout.

    Five years ago: The wildfire that had burned its way through communities and wilderness northwest of Los Angeles became the largest blaze ever officially recorded in California; it had scorched 273,400 acres and destroyed more than 700 homes. iPhone owners from several states sued Apple for not disclosing sooner that it issued software updates deliberately slowing older-model phones so aging batteries would last longer. President Donald Trump signed the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul into law. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang said was capable of reaching anywhere on the U.S. mainland.

    One year ago: U.S. health regulators authorized the first pill against COVID-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans would be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus. A New York man, Matthew Greene, pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol with fellow members of the far-right Proud Boys; he was the first Proud Boys member to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with other members to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. The Department of Homeland Security announced that 100 children, mostly from Central America, had been reunited with their families after being separated under President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance border policy. The NHL announced that players would not be able to participate in the Beijing Olympics; the league would spend the previously scheduled Olympic break making up games postponed because of COVID-19 protocols.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Hector Elizondo is 86. Country singer Red Steagall is 84. Former World Bank Group President Paul Wolfowitz is 79. Baseball Hall of Famer Steve Carlton is 78. Former ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer is 77. Rock singer-musician Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) is 74. Rock singer-musician Michael Bacon is 74. Baseball All-Star Steve Garvey is 74. Golfer Jan Stephenson is 71. Actor BernNadette Stanis is 69. Rapper Luther “Luke” Campbell is 62. Actor Ralph Fiennes (rayf fynz) is 60. Actor Lauralee Bell is 54. Country singer Lori McKenna is 54. Actor Dina Meyer is 54. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is 52. Actor Heather Donahue is 49. Actor Chris Carmack is 42. Actor Harry Ford is 40. Actor Greg Finley is 38. Actor Logan Huffman is 33. R&B singer Jordin Sparks is 33. Pop singer Meghan Trainor is 29. Norwegian tennis player Casper Ruud is 24.

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  • UN council adopts resolution urging end to Myanmar violence

    UN council adopts resolution urging end to Myanmar violence

    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council approved its first-ever resolution on Myanmar on Wednesday, demanding an immediate end to violence in the Southeast Asian nation and urging its military rulers to release all “arbitrarily detained” prisoners including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to restore democratic institutions.

    The resolution reiterated the call by the 15-member council for the country’s opposing parties to pursue dialogue and reconciliation and urged all sides “to respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.”

    The council vote was 12-0 with three abstentions, China, Russia and India.

    Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, whose country sponsored the resolution, said it is the first adopted by the U.N.’s most powerful body since the country, formerly known as Burma, joined the United Nations in 1948.

    It is the result of the military overturning the results of a democratic election and seizing power on Feb. 1, 2021, plunging the country into a series of cascading crises with “negative consequences for the region and its stability,” she said.

    “Today we’ve sent a firm message to the military, that there should be a no doubt we expect this resolution to be implemented in full,” Woodward said. “We stand with the people of Myanmar. It is time for the junta to return the country to them.”

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken applauded the adoption of the resolution as an important step but said the Council had more work to do “to advance a just solution” to the crisis.

    “The Security Council should leverage this opportunity to seek additional ways to promote a return to the path of democracy, advance accountability for the regime’s actions, and support ASEAN’s efforts to achieve meaningful implementation of the Five Point Consensus,” he said in a statement, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ plan to restore peace and stability.

    U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remains “extremely concerned” about the deteriorating humanitarian situation and human rights in Myanmar. “We welcome this strong message from the Security Council,” he told AP.

    For five decades Myanmar had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections and moves toward democracy, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country.

    That ended with the military takeover on the day Parliament was to reconvene following November 2020 elections which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly — an outcome the military claims without evidence was based on fraud.

    The takeover was met with massive public opposition, which has since turned into armed resistance that some U.N. experts have characterized as civil war.

    Last month, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, said over 16,000 people had been detained on political charges in Myanmar since the army takeover. Of those arrested, more than 13,000 were still in detention. The association said at least 2,465 civilians had been killed since the 2021 takeover, although the number is thought to be far higher.

    Much of the international community, including Myanmar’s fellow ASEAN members, have expressed frustration at the generals’ hard line in resisting reform. Myanmar’s rulers agreed to ASEAN’s plan in April 2021 but have made little effort to implement it.

    The plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation of the dialogue process by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels and a visit to Myanmar by the association’s special envoy to meet all concerned parties. Current U.N. special envoy Noeleen Heyzer and ASEAN special envoy Prak Sokhonn, a Cambodian minister, have both visited Myanmar but neither was allowed to meet Suu Kyi.

    The resolution “acknowledges ASEAN’s central role in helping to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar” and encourages the international community to support ASEAN’s efforts, including in implementing the five-point consensus.

    Noting that Myanmar’s military committed to supporting the five-point consensus, the U.N. resolution calls for immediate action to implement it and urges all parties in Myanmar to work on starting a dialogue aimed at peacefully resolving the crisis. It also underlines the need “for a peaceful, genuine and inclusive process to de-escalate violence and reach a sustainable political resolution.”

    The resolution also expresses “deep concern” at the ongoing state of emergency imposed by the military, the arrest of Suu Kyi and former president Win Myint who should be released immediately, and at “the increasingly large numbers of internally displaced persons and dramatic increase in humanitarian need.” It reiterates the council’s condemnation of the execution of activists in July.

    Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Security Council resolution is a momentous step on behalf of the people of Myanmar, opening the door toward holding Myanmar’s brutal generals to account.”

    But Tom Andrews, the independent U.N. special investigator on Myanmar, tweeted that as well-meaning as the resolution is, “without consequences” in the resolution “these important sentiments will not stop the junta from attacking and destroying the lives of the 54 million in Myanmar.”

    Since the Security Council won’t authorize action against the military, he said, “those nations who support the people of Myanmar must immediately step forward with coordinated action to end the carnage.”

    Britain’s Woodward said the resolution was the result of many weeks of consultations with members of the council and ASEAN and key regional partners. Diplomats said the final negotiations were between Britain and China, Myanmar’s neighbor and ally.

    Louis Charbonneau, Human Rights Watch’s U.N. director, said: “China and Russia’s abstentions signal that even the junta’s few friends have lost interest in sticking out their necks to defend its atrocities.”

    China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said he abstained because the resolution’s “tone still lacks balance.”

    Stressing that China’s “policy of friendship towards Myanmar is for all its people,” he said “there is no quick fix” to the current crisis which requires all parties and factions to pursue dialogue and achieve political reconciliation.

    “Neither democratic transition nor national reconciliation can be achieved overnight, and both require time, patience, and pragmatism,” Zhang said. He urged the international community to listen to ASEAN’s views and allow time for ASEAN to build consensus.

    On another Myanmar issue, the resolution underscored the need to address the crisis in Rakhine state and to create conditions for the return of Rohingya Muslims who were chased out of the Buddhist-majority country and now live as refugees in neighboring Bangladesh and elsewhere.

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  • ‘Tired of this war’: Congolese cope with M23 rebel violence

    ‘Tired of this war’: Congolese cope with M23 rebel violence

    BENI, Congo — Kavira Mathe was making dinner for her two sons when bullets began flying. Eastern Congo’s M23 rebels had attacked her village, killing scores of civilians. She and others fled for their lives, she said.

    “I lost several friends,” said Mathe speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Kanyabayonga where she now shelters. Trekking 50 kilometers (some 30 miles) to safety, she saw roads littered with bodies that appeared to have been bound and shot, she said.

    “It was really horrible to see,” said Mathe. “We are tired of this war.”

    Communities in eastern Congo are struggling to survive in the wake of that massacre and others in which at least 130 people were killed by M23 rebels in what the United Nations called “unspeakable violence” against civilians.

    Nearly 26,000 people have been displaced since the attacks at the end of November, according to the U.N. refugee agency, adding to hundreds of thousands who have been uprooted since fighting began between M23 and a coalition of armed civilian protection militia more than a year ago.

    The Associated Press spoke with four people who fled the attacks in North Kivu province. They said M23 shot people indiscriminately, raided shops and chased them from their homes so that people had to hike to safety for hours over rugged terrain and through rivers, without food or water. Many now live in squalid conditions, cramped into small rooms with no money or access to fields for farming.

    The M23 rebel group, largely comprised of Congolese ethnic Tutsis, rose to prominence 10 years ago when its fighters seized Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city on the border with Rwanda. It derives its name from a March 23, 2009, peace deal, which it accuses the Congo government of not implementing. The rebel group was dormant for nearly a decade before resurfacing late last year.

    Since October, M23 violence has surged and the rebels have seized more territory including Rutshuru Center and Kiwanja and destroyed a newly established site for displaced Congolese who had recently returned from Uganda.

    “This situation has directly put thousands of families in very poor living conditions. In the makeshift camps where they live, there is no food, no shelter, no drinking water, no primary healthcare. In short, the families are in unprecedented suffering,” said Francois Kamate, press officer for LUCHA, a local rights group.

    Aid organizations are struggling to cope with the soaring needs. Water is extremely limited in the areas surrounding Goma, contributing to an outbreak of cholera. More than 100 cases have been reported in recent weeks, said Caitlin Brady, Congo director for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

    “The humanitarian community is responding, but we have to have more resources to scale up,” she said. The nearly 400,000 newly displaced people since October are in addition to nearly 5.5 million people already displaced in Congo and the situation is quite desperate, she said.

    Many civilians living under M23 aren’t receiving assistance at all as some of the areas are too hard to access amid the insecurity. Those living under the rebels say they live in terror.

    “The situation is very bad. People are being killed,” said a resident living in Rutshuru Center, a town now occupied by the group. The AP is not using his name to protect his identity. People are living in fear and the rebels are demanding food and money, he said. M23 is also beating and jailing those who take photos in town because they’re worried people are passing on information, he said.

    Efforts at peace talks have so far yielded little. Both sides accuse the other of breaking a fragile cease-fire agreed to last month in Angola. This week, M23 representatives met with regional leaders, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo and the Congolese army, saying it welcomes efforts to resolve the conflict, said Lawrence Kanyuka the group’s political spokesman in a statement.

    Congo’s government blames Rwanda for supporting the M23 with troops and superior firepower, findings backed by the U.N. In a speech to the country this week Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi called out the international community for not doing enough to stem the fighting.

    “The east is plagued by violence because of the presence of many armed groups in almost total indifference to the international community,” he said.

    The continued external support for the rebels, compounded by escalating violence, could threaten regional stability, say conflict analysts.

    “Congo’s militia problem has increasingly turned into a potent regional security threat,” said Trupti Agrawal, senior analyst for East Africa for the Economist Intelligence Unit. “The rebel groups’ ability to escalate attacks despite reinforcements to counterinsurgency operations indicates their strength.”

    ———

    Mednick reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press reporter Jean-Yves Kamale contributed from Kinshasa.

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  • Key Ukrainian city’s rapid fall leaves unanswered questions

    Key Ukrainian city’s rapid fall leaves unanswered questions

    KHERSON, Ukraine — When about 100 Russian troops rolled into Kherson’s Lilac Park on the morning of March 1, Oleh Shornik was one of about 20 lightly armed Ukrainian volunteers who didn’t stand a chance against them.

    Ukraine’s military was nowhere to be seen, and Russian troops in armored vehicles had easily entered the Shumensky neighborhood, opening fire and sending shrapnel flying everywhere, witnesses said. Civilians walking to work were hit in the short, fierce battle. The volunteers, hiding among the trees in the park, were cut down so rapidly that they weren’t even able to throw the Molotov cocktails they had prepared.

    “They did not have time to do anything,” said Anatolii Hudzenko, who was inside his home next to the park during the attack, in an interview with The Associated Press.

    Left seemingly on their own, the civilian volunteers fell quickly. A day later, so did Kherson.

    Thousands of Russian troops, sweeping up from the Crimean Peninsula on Feb. 24, captured the city on the Dnieper River so rapidly that many residents say they felt abandoned by the Ukrainian military and its quick withdrawal, leaving the city without an adequate defense.

    But was the doomed stand in Lilac Park a futile, early act of resistance to what became a bloody Russian occupation of Kherson? Was it due to the hasty retreat by Ukraine’s military so it could regroup to fight another day — indeed later retaking the city in November? Or was it the result of a betrayal by high-level Ukrainian security officials collaborating with Moscow?

    It’s possible it was a combination of all of those.

    Now that Russia has retreated from Kherson following Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south, residents want to know why Moscow’s forces were able to overrun the city so easily.

    “There are more questions than answers to this story,” said Svetlana Shornik, standing at her ex-husband’s grave for the first time because the Russians had blocked access to the cemetery while they had occupied the city.

    Besides the volunteers killed in the park, about five others were slain that day at a roundabout nearby.

    Families of the dead say they have been trying in vain for months to get information from the military and the government so they can have some closure about the deaths of their loved ones.

    “I know very little,” said Nadiia Khandusenko, recounting what few facts she knows about the death of her husband, Serhii, who also was killed in Lilac Park.

    Wiping away tears, Shornik told the AP that she believes her ex-husband probably suffered in his final minutes because an autopsy revealed the 53-year-old retired policeman was shot in the lung. The bodies lay on the bloodstained grounds of the park for three days because the Russians would not allow them to be buried, residents said.

    “They are heroes,” Shornik said. “They were practically defending (the city) with their bare hands,” she said.

    ———

    Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Force began operating just before the Russian invasion. A volunteer militia under the command of the Defense Ministry, it was made up of civilians, part-time reservists and former troops to fight alongside the regular military.

    Despite their lack of training and equipment, the volunteers have played a crucial role in the war and were a key reason Kyiv wasn’t occupied, said Mykhailo Samus, founder of New Geopolitics Research Network, a Ukrainian think tank.

    “When a (Russian) sabotage group gets into a city, they expect to see civilians, but they found a lot of people with Kalashnikov guns and it was a disaster for Russians,” Samus said.

    Civilian volunteers were unable to hold back the Russian forces from Kherson, a port city with a prewar population of 280,000 that is home to a ship-building industry.

    Kherson is just north of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. When Ukraine controlled the city, it was able to cut off fresh water to the peninsula, and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of the need to restore water supplies as one reason to invade.

    Flat and marshy, the Kherson region has few forests or other natural barriers to halt the tanks and troops from nearby Crimea that hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet and air bases.

    In addition, Ukrainian officials such as Kherson Mayor Ihor Kolykhaev told the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda in May that the failure to destroy key bridges leading to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions was a mistake that helped the Russians, although he stressed he was not a military man.

    Ukraine’s outnumbered military, meanwhile, had withdrawn from Kherson for the southern city of Mykolaiv, said Maj. Oleksandr Fedyunin, a military spokesman.

    That withdrawal “ensured the survivability of troops and did not allow the enemy to gain fire superiority in the air,” said Bohdan Senyk, chief spokesman for the army.

    Kherson’s swift capture has raised questions about whether Ukrainian collaborators aided the Russian invasion.

    “Russia had its agents infiltrated into the Ukrainian security forces, and the cleanup by Kyiv was slow and inefficient,” said Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine forum at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “The cost of that betrayal was high human loss.”

    On April 1, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed two senior officials of Ukraine’s SBU domestic security agency, including the head of the Kherson regional branch, stripping their rank as generals for violating their military oath of allegiance. He called them “anti-heroes” and said they “had trouble determining where their Fatherland is.”

    He added: “I don’t have time now to deal with all the traitors, but they will all face punishment.”

    In addition, an aide to one of those SBU officials was arrested and faces prosecution for allegedly handing over maps of minefields and helping coordinate Russian airstrikes that aided Moscow’s forces, said Oleksandr Samoilenko, head of Kherson’s regional legislature.

    ———

    The Russian takeover of Kherson — the only regional capital to fall in the war — ushered in a harsh, eight-month occupation that saw fierce resistance from its remaining civilians, including attacks against Moscow-installed officials, planted bombs and other threats. Moscow introduced the ruble, set up Russian cellphone networks and cut off Ukrainian TV in the area. Street protests were banned.

    As in other Ukrainian areas that Russia seized, officials who refused to cooperate were abducted, including the Kherson mayor, Kolykhaev. Residents allege they were confined, beaten, shocked, interrogated and threatened with death in at least five sites in the city and four others in the wider region.

    The region was one of four that was illegally annexed by Moscow in September, although its troops were forced to withdraw weeks later as Ukrainians stepped up their attacks with U.S.-supplied missiles and cut the Russians’ supply lines. The retreating forces left behind mines and booby traps, shuttered shops and restaurants, and a traumatized population.

    In Lilac Park, a small memorial honors the volunteers who fell there. Wreaths are fastened to a few trees, with some yellow roses and a plaque mounted with a cross and a small Ukrainian flag at the top.

    It reads: “On March 1, 2022, fighters from the Territorial Defense were taken to heaven.”

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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