WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is expected to deploy about 800 troops to the US-Mexico border, two US officials told AFP on Thursday, after President Donald Trump said the military would help tackle a “national emergency” and called on a caravan of migrants to turn around.
The active-duty troops would augment the 2,000 or so National Guardsmen already deployed to support operations on the border, and could come from multiple military bases around the US.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was expected to sign orders either Thursday or Friday for the new deployment, one official said.
The troops would include doctors and engineers and would be used mainly to provide logistical support including tents, vehicles and equipment.
The official said the troops would satisfy elements of a “wish list” for military assistance sent to the Pentagon by the Department of Homeland Security, the US agency with responsibility for the border.
Trump tweeted that “Democrat inspired” laws make it difficult to stop people at the border.
“I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency. They will be stopped!” he said.
In April, Trump said he would send thousands of National Guard troops to the southern border.
That initial authorization allowed for about 4,000 guardsmen to be sent to the frontier, but only about half that number have been deployed.
Those troops are mainly serving in a support role to help free up border patrol officers.
Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Bill Speaks said the Defense Department was currently working with the Department of Homeland Security “to determine the specifics of our support” to border authorities.
Thursday’s move comes as thousands of Central American migrants are crossing Mexico toward the United States in a slow-moving caravan.
The issue has become a rallying cry for the US president, who has taken a hard line on illegal immigration and has repeatedly kept the story in the headlines in the run up to America’s midterm congressional elections that could see the Democrats regain some degree of power.
Many of the migrants are fleeing poverty and insecurity in Honduras, where powerful street gangs rule their turf with brutal violence.
“To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are not letting people into the United States illegally,” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon.
“Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others are doing!“
Trump had signaled his intention to send more troops last week, tweeting that unless Mexico stopped the “onslaught” of people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, he would “call up the US Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!“
He has also announced the US would start cutting aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel dismissed the threat as a posture adopted for the media, telling reporters that the country had received no official notice of the move.
“We have had no official information, and I rather think it has all been a show for the media,” the diplomat said Thursday, adding that the two countries maintained “excellent relations.”
Early Thursday, the caravan set off from the town of Mapastepec in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, moving on to the next stop in their long march north.
Some rode on trucks but most made the trek to the town of Pijijiapan on foot.
“Yes, we could do it!” they shouted when they reached their, exhausted, seven hours later.
“Little by little, we are going to arrive,” said Luis Alberto Adalberto, 21, one of the migrants.
But four days after crossing into Mexico, the caravan is still more than 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) from the US border.
“It’s hard, and we know this country is dangerous too, but back in Honduras it’s even more dangerous, they kill for nothing,” said Josena Anibal Mejia, 27, as he walked with his daughter.
The United Nations estimates that 7,000 people have joined the caravan since it set out from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on October 13.
Pentagon to send about 800 troops to US-Mexico border
Pentagon to send about 800 troops to US-Mexico border
Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi on Monday appealed their convictions for graft, his lawyer said.
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday it had yet to receive any signals from the United States about arranging a possible meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, but remained ready to organize such an encounter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
