PALU, Indonesia: Nearly a week after disaster struck, aid workers raced Thursday to get shelter, food, medicine and other badly needed supplies to the Indonesian port city of Palu, ravaged by a powerful earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 1,400 people.
The Indonesian military was bringing in hundreds more troops to help with search and rescue efforts and keep order among survivors who have grown desperate six days after their lives were thrown into chaos. Hundreds of the injured and other survivors lined up on the tarmac of Palu’s badly damaged airport, hoping to escape aboard military aircraft.
A disaster agency official said the body of a South Korean was among two dead pulled Thursday from the wreckage of the Roa Roa Hotel, which collapsed sideways in a heap of cement and steel.
As help and supplies began arriving, there were other signs of progress: Trucks were hauling in new electricity poles to replace broken ones and restringing the wires. Workers said they intended to repair all the damage to the networks and substations and get them reconnected to the grid within days.
The United Nations announced a $15 million allocation to support relief efforts, saying more than 200,000 people were in dire need of assistance.
More than 70,000 homes are thought to have been wrecked by the quake, demolished by the tsunami or engulfed by mud slides. Thousands of people are sleeping in tents or in rough shelters made from debris, unsure when they’ll be able to rebuild. Many spend their days trying to secure basics like clean water and fuel for generators.
“Please tell the government and the NGOs if they’re really willing to help us with some food please do not give it away through the command posts,” said Andi Rusding, who was huddled with his relatives under a tarpaulin. “It’s better to go directly to each and every tent. Because sometime (the relief goods) aren’t distributed evenly.”
“It’s really difficult to find water and we don’t have a place to shower, but thank God we got some aid from the government, including a medical checkup,” said Masrita Arifin, who was camped out a few hundred meters (yards) from her family’s heavily damaged home.
National disaster agency spokesman Supoto Purwo Nugroho said most of the 1,424 confirmed dead had been buried.The death toll is expected to rise as rescue crews dig and comb through debris after being slowed initially by impassable roads and other damage.
People and heavy machinery were struggling to unearth victims from expanses of earth that surged sideways due to liquefaction, a phenomenon in which an earthquake turns loose, wet soil into quicksand-like mud. Several communities were wiped out as homes suddenly sank into the mire, which has since hardened in the tropical sun.
Many victims might have survived with faster help, said Palu resident Bambang. He told local television he found a friend injured and trapped under debris but was unable to help him. The friend died, leaving a message to have him buried in front of his church, he said.
“He was still alive then, but he died because the evacuation was so slow,” said Bambang, who like many Indonesians uses one name.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said military transport aircraft from India and Singapore had arrived to help in the relief efforts. Marsudi said 18 countries had offered help and the government was still working out arrangements with some countries, including Japan and the United States.
The aircraft will be used to transport supplies and evacuate victims, he said.
National police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dedi Prasetyo said security was being ramped up to ensure law and order after 92 people were arrested for looting goods such as motor oil, tires and farming equipment. Authorities earlier allowed desperate villagers to grab food supplies from shops but warned them not to take other things.
Palu has repeatedly been hit by the quakes and tsunamis that plague much of the Indonesian archipelago. The national disaster agency says more than 148 million Indonesians are at risk in earthquake-prone areas and 3.8 million people also face danger from tsunamis, with at most a 40 minute window for warning people to flee.
Race to get aid to Indonesian quake victims as deaths rise
Race to get aid to Indonesian quake victims as deaths rise
- The Indonesian military was bringing in hundreds more troops to help with search and rescue efforts and keep order among survivors who have grown desperate six days after their lives were thrown into chaos.
- The United Nations announced a $15 million allocation to support relief efforts, saying more than 200,000 people were in dire need of assistance.
Pentagon watchdog investigates if staffers were asked to delete Hegseth’s Signal messages
- The inspector general’s request focuses on how information about the March 15 airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen was shared on the messaging app
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s watchdog is looking into whether any of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter, according to two people familiar with the investigation and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
The inspector general’s request focuses on how information about the March 15 airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen was shared on the messaging app.
This comes as Hegseth is scheduled to testify before Congress next week for the first time since his confirmation hearing. He is likely to face questions under oath not only about his handling of sensitive information but also the wider turmoil at the Pentagon following the departures of several senior aides and an internal investigation over information leaks.
Hegseth already has faced questions over the installation of an unsecured Internet line in his office that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols and revelations that he shared details about the military strikes in multiple Signal chats.
One of the chats included his wife and brother, while the other included President Donald Trump’s top national security officials and inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson had no comment Friday, citing the pending investigation. The inspector general’s office would not discuss the details of the investigation but said that when the report is complete, their office will release unclassified portions of it to the public.
Besides finding out whether anyone was asked to delete Signal messages, the inspector general also is asking some past and current staffers who were with Hegseth on the day of the strikes who posted the information and who had access to his phone, according to the two people familiar with the investigation and the documents reviewed by the AP. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans have said that the information Hegseth posted to the Signal chats before the military jets had reached their targets could have put those pilots’ lives at risk and that for any lower-ranking members of the military it would have led to their firing.
Hegseth has said none of the information was classified. Multiple current and former military officials have said there is no way details with that specificity, especially before a strike took place, would have been OK to share on an unsecured device.
“I said repeatedly, nobody is texting war plans,” Hegseth told Fox News Channel in April after reporting emerged about the chat that included his family members. “I look at war plans every day. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things. That’s what I’ve said from the beginning.”
Trump has made clear that Hegseth continues to have his support, saying during a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia that the defense secretary “went through a lot” but “he’s doing really well.”
Hegseth has limited his public engagements with the press since the Signal controversy. He has yet to hold a Pentagon press briefing, and his spokesman has briefed reporters there only once.
The inspector general is investigating Hegseth at the request of the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked and is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes against the Houthis, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of the app.
Trump has said his administration targeted the Houthis over their “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.” He has noted the disruption Houthi attacks caused through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt’s Suez Canal.
The Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, between November 2023 until January this year. Their leadership described the attacks as aimed at ending the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Trump signs orders to bolster US drone defenses, boost supersonic flight
- Trump is establishing a federal task force to ensure US control over American skies
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Friday signed executive orders to bolster US defenses against threatening drones and to boost electric air taxis and supersonic commercial aircraft, the White House said.
In the three executive orders, Trump sought to enable routine use of drones beyond the visual sight of operators — a key step to enabling commercial drone deliveries — and take steps to reduce the US reliance on Chinese drone companies and begin testing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
Trump is establishing a federal task force to ensure US control over American skies, expand restrictions over sensitive sites, expand federal use of technology to detect drones in real time and provide assistance to state and local law enforcement.
Trump also aims to address the “growing threat of criminal terrorists and foreign misuse of drones in US airspace,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “We are securing our borders from national security threats, including in the air, with large-scale public events such as the Olympics and the World Cup on the horizon.”
Sebastian Gorka, senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, cited the use of drones in Russia’s war in Ukraine and threats to major US sporting events.
“We will be increasing counter-drone capabilities and capacities,” Gorka said. “We will increase the enforcement of current laws to deter two types of individuals: evildoers and idiots.”
The issue of suspicious drones also gained significant attention last year after a flurry of drone sightings in New Jersey. The FAA receives more than 100 drone-sighting reports near airports each month.
Drone sightings have at times disrupted flights and sporting events.
Trump also directed the Federal Aviation Administration to lift a ban imposed in 1973 on supersonic air transport over land.
“The reality is that Americans should be able to fly from New York to L.A. in under four hours,” Kratsios said. “Advances in aerospace engineering, material science and noise reduction now make overland supersonic flight not just possible, but safe, sustainable and commercially viable.”
The Trump orders do not ban any Chinese drone company, officials said. Last year, former President Joe Biden signed legislation that could ban China-based DJI and Autel Robotics from selling new drone models in the US DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer, sells more than half of all US commercial drones.
Spanish Muslims retrace ancient Hajj route on horseback from Andalusia to Makkah
- Harkassi said the group’s path from Spain took them across about 8,000 kilometers (nearly 5,000 miles) before they reached the Kaaba, the black cube structure in the Grand Mosque in Makkah
CAIRO: Three Spanish pilgrims performing the Hajj in Saudi Arabia rode on horseback to Makkah, traveling thousands of kilometers in snow and rain and along a path they said had not been trekked for more than 500 years.
Abdelkader Harkassi Aidi, Tarek Rodriguez and Abdallah Rafael Hernandez Mancha set out from southern Spain in October, riding through France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkiye, Syria and Jordan to arrive in Saudi Arabia in May.
It was an emotional moment for the trio when they reached Makkah. No pilgrim had traveled this way since 1491, they said.
Harkassi said the group’s path from Spain took them across about 8,000 kilometers (nearly 5,000 miles) before they reached the Kaaba, the black cube structure in the Grand Mosque in Makkah.
“We had crossed so many kilometers to be there and Allah had replied to our wish,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday from Arafat, southeast of Makkah. “We were in front of the Kaaba and had the opportunity to touch it. So, that 8,000 kilometers became nothing.”
During their monthslong journey they came across scenic stretches of nature and historical landmarks in Syria, including the Aleppo Citadel and the Umayyad Mosque.
They also found an old railway track built during the time of the Ottoman Empire that connected Istanbul to Saudi Arabia. They followed it for days to help guide them to the desert kingdom.
But there were challenges, too. They lost their horses in Bosnia, only to find them later in a land mine zone. Nobody could fetch the horses because of the explosives, but the animals eventually made it out of the area unharmed, Harkassi said.
The human element of the trip was the most valuable for the team, he added.
“When we didn’t have anything, people helped us with our horses, with our food, they gave us money. When our assistance car got broken, they fixed it for us,” Harkassi said. “People have been incredible. I think it’s proof that Muslims are united, that the one ummah (nation) that every Muslim longs for is a reality.”
Palestinian under psychiatric evaluation after hitting rabbi in France
- The rabbi, Elie Lemmel, suffered a gash to his head from the chair that hit him as he was speaking with a companion in the cafe in the wealthy western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine
PARIS: A Palestinian man arrested on Friday for throwing a chair at a rabbi in a Paris suburban cafe has been sent to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, French authorities said.
The reason for the attack was unknown, but France’s main Jewish association condemned it as an antisemitic assault, and French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou blamed a “radicalization of public debate” against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.
The rabbi, Elie Lemmel, suffered a gash to his head from the chair that hit him as he was speaking with a companion in the cafe in the wealthy western Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
The local prosecutors’ office said that it had opened a criminal investigation for assault possibly aggravated by religious motives.
It said the Palestinian, an irregular migrant living with temporary papers in Germany, was thought to be 28 years old and born in the Gaza city of Rafah.
It added that “he is undergoing a psychiatric examination requiring his forced hospitalization.”
France’s hard-line interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, said on X that the Palestinian “had no reason to be in France” and should be “severely punished and deported.”
The French Jewish association CRIF said on X that “this attack is yet another illustration of the toxic climate targeting French Jews.”
The French Jewish community, one of the largest in the world, has faced a number of attacks and desecrations of memorials since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023.
French authorities are alert to antisemitic attacks, reports of which have been on the rise as the war in Gaza grinds on.
That conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023 when the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked parts of Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,218 people.
Israel retaliated with relentless bombardments and an aid blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ongoing military operation has resulted in the deaths of at least 54,677 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Surging violence in Sahel rings alarm bells
- “Extremist leaders declared in March their intent to intensify attacks against national armies to prevent a genocide against the Fulani community”
ABIDJAN: Terrorists have intensified their offensives in the Sahel region in recent weeks, carrying out bloody raids in Mali, incursions into major cities in Burkina Faso and inflicting heavy army losses in Niger.
The three Sahel states’ military juntas, who had pledged during the coups that brought them to power to make security a priority, are struggling to contain the advance of extremists, who are threatening more than ever neighboring countries on the west African coast.
The last few weeks have been particularly deadly in the Sahel.
Several hundred soldiers have been killed in various attacks.
“The global vision of regional terrorism is changing. There is an ideological aspect, but also an ethnic one,” said Lassina Diarra of the International Counter-Terrorism Academy in Jacqueville, Ivory Coast.
“Extremist leaders declared in March their intent to intensify attacks against national armies to prevent a genocide against the Fulani community.”
Military violence targeting civilians — particularly the Fulani, often singled out in the Sahel region and accused of feeding the extremists’ ranks — “has exacerbated grievances and played into extremists’ narratives,” said the Soufan Center think tank in a brief.
It also highlighted “a broader strategy to degrade public confidence in state forces, boost recruitment.”
“There is also a question of competition for territory,” Diarra added.
The capitals of Mali and Burkina Faso “are surrounded,” said Diarra.
For Gilles Yabi, founder of the West African think tank Wathi, it is important to remain cautious of “catastrophic” predictions.
The extremists’ “main advantage is their mobility and ability to move and blend with populations,” he said.
“In Burkina Faso, we cannot rule out a Somalia-like scenario, with a capital that resists while the rest of the country is out of control,” said a Western military source.
The juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger came to power through coups between 2020 and 2023 and are now united in a confederation, the Alliance of Sahel States.
