UNITED NATIONS: North Korea warned Monday that the unprecedented deployment of three US aircraft carrier groups “taking up a strike posture” around the Korean peninsula is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out.
North Korea’s UN Ambassador Ja Song Nam said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres Monday that the joint military exercises with South Korea are creating “the worst ever situation prevailing in and around the Korean peninsula.”
Along with the three carrier groups, he said the US has reactivated round-the-clock sorties with nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers “which existed during the Cold War times.”
He also said the US is maintaining “a surprise strike posture with frequent flight of B-1B and B-2 formations to the airspace of South Korea.”
“The large-scale nuclear war exercises and blackmails, which the US staged for a whole year without a break in collaboration with its followers to stifle our republic, make one conclude that the option we have taken was the right one and we should go along the way to the last,” Ja said.
He didn’t elaborate on what “the last” might be, but North Korea has launched ballistic missiles that have the potential to strike the US mainland, and it recently conducted its largest-ever underground nuclear explosion. It has also threatened to explode another nuclear bomb above the Pacific Ocean.
The four-day joint naval exercises by the US and South Korea, which began Saturday in waters off the South’s eastern coast, were described by military officials as a clear warning to North Korea. They involve the carrier battle groups of the USS Ronald Reagan, Theodore Roosevelt and Nimitz, which include 11 US Aegis ships that can track missiles, and seven South Korean naval vessels.
Seoul’s military said in a statement that the exercises aim to enhance the combined US and South Korean operational and aerial strike capabilities and to display “strong will and firm military readiness to defeat any provocation by North Korea with dominant force in the event of crisis.”
According to the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, it is the first time since a 2007 exercise near Guam that three US carrier strike groups are operating together in the Western Pacific.
The military drills come amid US President Donald Trump’s visit to South Korea and Asia, which has been dominated by discussions over the North Korean nuclear threat.
Ja accused the UN Security Council in Monday’s letter of repeatedly “turning a blind eye to the nuclear war exercises of the United States, who is hell bent on bringing a catastrophic disaster to humanity.” He said the exercises raise serious concern about “the double standard” of the UN’s most powerful body.
He also referenced Trump’s September speech to the UN General Assembly in which the president said that if the US is “forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
Trump tweeted soon after making the speech that Korea’s leadership “won’t be around much longer” if it continued its provocations, a declaration that led the North’s foreign minister to assert that Trump had “declared war on our country.”
Ja said Monday the US “is now running amok for war exercises by introducing nuclear war equipment in and around the Korean peninsula, thereby proving that the US itself is the major offender of the escalation of tension and undermining of the peace.”
Ja asked Guterres to circulate the letter to the Security Council and the General Assembly, and also asked him to use his power under Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring to the Security Council’s attention “the danger being posed by the US nuclear war exercises which are clearly threats to international peace and security.”
North Korea says US carrier groups raise nuclear war threat
North Korea says US carrier groups raise nuclear war threat
Afghan Taliban hit several locations in Pakistan in ‘retaliation’ for attacks
- Pakistani air raids on southeastern Afghanistan killed at least 46 people on Tuesday
- Pakistan’s attacks took place as Islamabad’s special envoy visited Kabul for talks to strengthen ties
KABUL: Afghan Taliban forces targeted several locations in Pakistan on Saturday, Afghanistan’s defense ministry said, days after the Pakistani military launched deadly air raids on its territory in the latest flare-up of tensions.
The Pakistani Air Force bombed Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province on Tuesday, claiming it was targeting alleged hideouts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group separate from the Afghan Taliban.
The raids killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women, the Afghan Ministry of National Defense said after the attack.
Announcing Saturday’s strikes, the ministry said in a statement that “several points beyond the assumptive lines ... were targeted in retaliation.”
While the statement did not mention Pakistan, the “assumptive lines” is a reference to the Afghan-Pakistani border, part of the Durand Line — a colonial-era boundary dividing the regions and communities between Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan. The boundary has never been officially recognized by any Afghan government.
Citing ministry sources, local media reported that 19 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the clashes. There was no official comment from Pakistan, but a security source confirmed that the confrontation with Afghan forces took place.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has repeatedly accused them of allowing TTP militants to use Afghan territory for cross-border attacks — a claim the Taliban have denied.
The latest escalation of hostilities comes as TTP fighters last week claimed responsibility for killing 16 Pakistani soldiers in the border region of South Waziristan. The area targeted by Pakistani strikes days later was the nearby Barmal district on the Afghan side of the border.
“Pakistan claims that by targeting alleged TTP hideouts and training venues in Barmal district in southeast of Afghanistan, it ensures security inside the country. This means that by challenging the security of its neighbors, Pakistan is trying to strengthen its own security,” Abdul Saboor Mubariz, board member of the Center for Strategic and Regional Studies in Kabul, told Arab News.
The Pakistani attack took place on the same day that Islamabad’s special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, was in Kabul for talks to strengthen bilateral ties.
“A major problem that exists in Pakistan’s politics is that the civil government is not aligned with the military ... The civil government is backing negotiations, while the army is after a military solution,” Mubariz said.
“TTP has been a major barrier in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan ... the Taliban, however, have continuously shown willingness for talks.”
Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based analyst and expert on the politics and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, interpreted Pakistan’s attack just hours after the Islamabad envoy’s visit as a “strategic message from Pakistan’s military establishment, signaling that failure to meet their demands through dialogue may result in the application of force.”
The subsequent responses from Taliban officials and Saturday’s retaliation by Taliban forces “appear to underscore their resolve not to yield to such pressure,” Sayed told Arab News.
“The Taliban’s stance suggests a commitment to defending Afghanistan’s territorial sovereignty and an unwillingness to capitulate under the threat of force. This approach of employing force is unlikely to yield a sustainable resolution; instead, it risks exacerbating security challenges for both states, particularly Pakistan, while further destabilizing the broader regional security landscape.”
Several airlines cancel flights to Russia after Azerbaijan Airlines crash
- Turkmenistan Airlines was the latest airline to announce cancelations Saturday
- Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air has suspended its flights to Yekaterinburg until the end of January
MOSCOW: Several airlines have announced the suspension of flights to Russian cities, after Western experts and the US suggested the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines this week may have been caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
Moscow has declined to comment on reports the plane could have been accidentally shot down by its air defense.
Russia has said that Grozny, the Chechen capital where the plane was meant to land, was being attacked by Ukrainian drones that day.
It crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
Turkmenistan Airlines — the national carrier of the reclusive Central Asian state — was the latest airline to announce cancelations Saturday.
It said that “regular flights between Ashgabat-Moscow-Ashgabat were canceled from 30/12/2024 to 31/01/2025,” without giving an explanation.
The decision came after UAE airline flydubai suspended flights between Dubai and the southern Russian cities of Mineralnye Vody and Sochi that were scheduled between December 27 and January 3.
Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air has suspended its flights to Russia’s Urals city of Yekaterinburg until the end of January.
Earlier this week, Israeli airline El Al said it was suspending its flights to Moscow for a week.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 crashed near the western Kazakh city of Aktau, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
It was carrying out a flight between Azerbaijan’s capital Baku and the city of Grozny in Russia.
For several days, some Western experts have been pointing to a crash caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
Citing preliminary results of an investigation, Azerbaijan’s transport minister said Friday that the crash suffered physical “external interference.”
Statements from Azerbaijan citing the investigation into the incident suggest Baku believes the plane was hit mid-air.
On Friday, White House spokesman John Kirby said Washington has “indications” Russia may have been responsible, without giving details.
Cyber attack on Italy’s Foreign Ministry, airports claimed by pro-Russian hacker group
- The pro-Russian hacker group Noname057(16) claimed the cyberattack on Telegram
MILAN: Hackers targeted around ten official websites in Italy on Saturday, including the websites of the Foreign Ministry and Milan’s two airports, putting them out of action temporarily, the country’s cybersecurity agency said.
The pro-Russian hacker group Noname057(16) claimed the cyberattack on Telegram, saying Italy’s “Russophobes get a well deserved cyber response.”
A spokesperson for Italy’s cybersecurity agency said it was plausible that the so-called “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDoS) attack could be linked to the pro-Russian group.
In such attacks, hackers attempt to flood a network with unusually high volumes of data traffic in order to paralyze it.
The spokesperson said the agency provided quick assistance to the institutions and firms targeted and that the attack’s impact was “mitigated” in less than two hours.
The cyberattack has not caused any disruptions to flights at Milan’s Linate and Malpensa airports, a spokesperson for SEA, the company which manages them, said.
While the websites were inaccessible, the airports’ mobile apps continued to function, the SEA spokesperson added.
Finland moves tanker suspected of undersea cable damage closer to port
- BBaltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022
OSLO: Finnish authorities said on Saturday they are moving an impounded tanker closer to port after boarding the vessel carrying Russian oil earlier this week on suspicion it had damaged an undersea power line and four telecoms cables.
Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and NATO said on Friday it would boost its presence in the region.
The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded on Thursday by a Finnish coast guard crew that took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official said.
Finnish police believe the Eagle S may have caused the damage to undersea cables the previous day by dragging its anchor along the seabed.
“The police begin an operation to transfer the Eagle S tanker from the Gulf of Finland to Svartbeck, an inner anchorage near the port of Kilpilahti,” the Helsinki police department said in a statement on Saturday.
This would be a better place to carry out investigations, it added.
Finland’s customs service believes the ship is part of a “shadow fleet” of aging tankers being used to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.
The Kremlin said on Friday Finland’s seizure of the ship was of little concern to it. In the past, Russia has denied involvement in any of the Baltic infrastructure incidents.
France asks Indonesia to transfer national on death row
- Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees
- French diplomats have acknowledged that talks were underway for the transfer of Serge Atlaoui
JAKARTA: France has sent Indonesia an official request for the transfer of a French death row inmate who has spent nearly 20 years in prison, an Indonesian minister said on Saturday.
Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipino mum on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali Nine” drug ring.
French diplomats have acknowledged that talks were underway for the transfer of Serge Atlaoui, a 61-year-old Frenchman arrested in 2005 at a drugs factory outside the capital Jakarta.
The Indonesian government has now confirmed it received the official transfer request, which will be discussed in early January.
“We have received a formal letter requesting the transfer of Serge Atlaoui,” senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said.
The French embassy in Jakarta declined AFP’s request for comment.
Father-of-four Atlaoui has maintained his innocence, claiming that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant.
He was initially sentenced to life in prison, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death on appeal.
Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, known as Indonesia’s “Alcatraz,” following the death sentence, but he was transferred to the city of Tangerang, west of Jakarta, in 2015 ahead of his appeal.
That year, he was due to be executed alongside eight other drug offenders but won a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.
In the appeal, Atlaoui’s lawyers argued that then-president Joko Widodo did not properly consider his case as he rejected Atlaoui’s plea for clemency — typically a death row convict’s last chance to avoid the firing squad.
The court, however, upheld its previous decision that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear a challenge over the clemency plea.
Atlaoui’s lawyer, Richard Sedillot, said last month that there was still “considerable hope” for a transfer.
Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said the official request is the “penultimate step in a long fight” for those at the Paris-based organization who have campaigned for years to prevent Atlaoui’s execution.
“We are now waiting for this transfer to become a reality,” ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said.
Earlier this month, Filipino inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited with her family after nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s death row. She was transferred to a women’s prison in Manila where she awaits a hoped-for pardon for her drugs conviction.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
At least 530 people were on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, mostly for drug-related crimes, according to data from rights group KontraS, citing official figures.
According to Indonesia’s Immigration and Corrections Ministry, more than 90 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.
Despite ongoing negotiations for prisoner transfers, the Indonesian government recently signaled that it would resume executions — on hiatus since 2016 — of drug convicts on death row.
