KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday visited the frontline region of Donetsk in east Ukraine, describing fighting in the area as “difficult” with Russian forces pushing to capture the industrial city of Bakhmut.
The visit came as Russian President Vladimir Putin convened his security council in the wake of the latest spate of drone attacks on military-linked facilities inside Russian territory.
The focus of fighting in Ukraine has shifted to Donbas after Kyiv’s forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson last month following a Russian retreat from the regional capital.
Zelensky appeared in a video wearing a heavy winter coat, standing next to a large sign in Ukraine’s blue and yellow colors bearing the city name Sloviansk and calling for a moment of silence to commemorate killed Ukrainian soldiers.
“The east of Ukraine today is the most difficult front. And I am honored to be here now with our defending troops in Donbas. I believe that next time we will meet in our Ukrainian Donetsk and Lugansk and in Crimea as well,” Zelensky said.
Russian forces and their proxies have controlled parts of Donetsk and Lugansk since 2014, when fighting with separatists broke out and the Kremlin annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
“From the bottom of my heart, I congratulate you on this great holiday, the Day of the Armed Forces,” said Zelensky, who was later shown meeting soldiers and distributing awards.
In the nearby Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, its Moscow-appointed mayor said that Ukrainian shelling had killed six civilians and injured others.
The Ukrainian leader has visited several frontline regions after more than nine months of fighting, including Kherson in the south recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces, calling its recapture “the beginning of the end of the war.”
Sloviansk, which was among regions in Donetsk briefly held by Russian-backed separatists, lies some 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Bakhmut, which has become the center of fighting since Kherson’s fall.
The Kremlin said Putin met senior officials to discuss issues related to the country’s “domestic security” and that Russia was taking “necessary” measures to fend off more of what it said were Ukrainian attacks.
Officials in Russia’s Kursk region near the border with Ukraine said earlier Tuesday that a drone attack near an airfield had caused a fire at an oil storage unit.
That attack came after the defense ministry said a day earlier that Ukraine had tried to attack another airfield in Ryazan region and also the key Engels airfield in the Saratov region.
Engels is a base for the country’s strategic aircraft that Kyiv says have been used to strike Ukraine, and both sites are hundreds of kilometers away from Ukraine’s border.
The British defense ministry said that if Russia deems Ukraine to have been responsible then Moscow will “probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine.”
The drone attacks come on the back of weeks of systematic Russian attacks that have crippled Ukrainian critical infrastructure like water, electricity and heating ahead of winter.
Russia on Monday fired another barrage of dozens of missiles that knocked out power and water in cities across Ukraine, the latest wave of attacks that Moscow has said Kyiv was responsible for because it refused Russian demands.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday said that Russian forces were using long-range, precision weapons to target military-linked facilities and “crush the military potential of Ukraine.”
The defense ministry also announced Tuesday it had received back from Ukraine captivity 60 Russian servicemen in their most recent exchange.
Russia’s invasion and its decision to conscript hundreds of thousands of men has set off an exodus of Russians from the country, including critical politicians and journalists.
However, neighboring Latvia announced Tuesday it was revoking the license for exiled independent TV channel Dozhd for multiple violations that included showing the Crimea peninsula annexed from Ukraine as part of Russia.
“The laws of Latvia must be respected by everyone,” Ivars Abolins, head of the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council, said on Twitter.
Zelensky visits Donbas near ‘difficult’ Ukraine front
https://arab.news/24fyz
Zelensky visits Donbas near ‘difficult’ Ukraine front
- The focus of fighting in Ukraine has shifted to Donbas after Kyiv's forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson
- Zelensky appeared in a video wearing a heavy winter coat, standing next to a large sign in Ukraine's blue and yellow colours bearing the city name Sloviansk
US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US
UNITED STATES: Brett Holmgren got woken up early on New Year’s Day by alerts that a driver had plowed into a crowd of revellers in New Orleans.
The rampage, which killed 14 people, was the deadliest attack on US soil in years and was inspired by the Daesh group.
The National Counterterrorism Center, which Holmgren leads, sprang into action to help the FBI run down information on the culprit from Texas and his plot.
It was a rare recent example of a mass attack motivated by religious extremism to hit the US homeland. But it didn’t occur in a vacuum, coming at a time when a terror threat that has waxed and waned in the two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is decidedly on the rise around the world.
“We are in a period where we are facing an elevated threat environment,” Holmgren said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We faced that last year. We’re going to face it again in 2025.”
The NCTC emerged in the aftermath of 9/11 as a centralized US government hub to collect and analyze data and intelligence on the international terrorism threat, providing information to the White House and other agencies to shape policy decisions and protect against attacks.
A former counterterrorism analyst and assistant secretary of state, Holmgren was named its acting director last July and intends to step aside at the conclusion of the Biden administration.
At that point, new leadership under President-elect Donald Trump will grapple with managing some of the global hot spots like Syria that have vexed officials in recent months and that the NCTC has been tracking.
Holmgren cites multiple factors for why the threat is higher than before, including passions arising from the Israel-Hamas war — a conflict that he says has been a driving factor in some 45 attacks worldwide since October 2023. He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians, some with ties to the Daesh group, to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US
Around the world, officials are monitoring tensions in Africa, which Holmgren called potentially the greatest long-term threat to US security given that the Daesh group has a large footprint on the continent and is investing resources there.
He says the “most potent overseas threat facing the United States” right now is the group’s Afghanistan-based affiliate, known as Daesh-Khorasan, whose attacks include a March 2024 massacre at a Moscow theater and the August 2021 bombing that killed 13 US service members and about 170 Afghans in the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One ongoing spot of concern is Syria, where an insurgent group named Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, led a lightning offensive last month that toppled the government of President Bashar Assad.
HTS is a Sunni Islamist group that formerly had ties with Al-Qaeda, although its leader has preached religious coexistence since taking over in Damascus. The group has not plotted against US interests in recent years and has been “the most effective counterterrorism partner on the ground,” Holmgren said.
HTS has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terror organization, a label that carries severe sanctions.
Asked whether that designation would remain, Holmgren said that was a policy decision, though he noted: “They want to be perceived as being on the right side of the international community at this time when it comes to (counterterrorism). But we will continue to evaluate not just their words but also the actions that they’re undertaking.”
In an indication of Syria’s continued instability, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press last week that the US needs to keep troops there to prevent the Daesh group from reconstituting, and intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government already have thwarted a plan by Daesh to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in a Damascus suburb.
US officials, meanwhile, remain concerned about the possibility of Daesh gaining strength by taking over weapons left behind by Assad’s government or through a mass release of fighters who are now imprisoned.
“A large-scale prisoner release in Syria could provide a real boost in the arm for IS at a time where they have been under significant pressure,” Holmgren said.
The counterterrorism center’s focus is on international terrorism, which includes cases in the US like the New Orleans rampage in which the attacker was inspired by a group from abroad. The culprit, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, pledged his allegiance to Daesh in videos he recorded just before he drove his speeding pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street early on Jan. 1.
As of now, Holmgren said, there’s no evidence that Jabbar was communicating with any Daesh operatives overseas or guided by anyone, but given that he was a lone actor who was radicalized, “this symbolizes exactly the type of attack that we’ve warned about for some time.”
“And I think it illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and across administrations at disrupting plotting overseas and going after terrorist leaders, we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home, countering violent extremist propaganda abroad,” he added.
“That is ultimately what is going to be needed to prevent more attacks like the one in New Orleans,” Holmgren said.
By the same token, through vast intelligence collection, hardened defenses and overseas counterterrorism operations, the US has made the risk of another large-scale attack like Sept. 11 lower than it’s ever been.
“But if we get complacent as a country,” he warned, “it will come back to bite us.”
South Korean investigators arrest President Yoon in insurrection probe
- Yoon is the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested
- His last month’s short-lived martial law order plunged the country into turmoil
SEOUL: South Korean authorities arrested President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday over accusations of insurrection following his briefly imposed martial law.
The arrest ended a standoff between investigators and Yoon’s presidential security team, which had prevented his detention earlier this month.
The Corruption Investigation Office announced it had “executed an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol today at 10:33 am,” after which he was seen stepping out of the car wearing a white shirt and suit as he slipped through the CIO’s back entrance for high-ranking officials.
“I decided to answer to the CIO’s investigations in order to prevent unsavory bloodshed,” Yoon said in a pre-recorded video statement released by his lawyers following the arrest.
“That does not mean I recognize the CIO’s investigation as legitimate.”
The CIO is leading a joint probe — together with military investigators and police — to probe allegations against Yoon.
He is charged with insurrection and will be held at the Seoul Detention Center. Authorities now have 48 hours to question the president and seek a warrant to detain him for up to 20 days.
The probe coincides with Yoon’s impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court. The trial began on Tuesday but hearings were adjourned minutes after it started due to Yoon’s absence.
The trial follows the National Assembly’s vote on Dec. 14 to impeach Yoon over the imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 — a move that lawmakers swiftly overturned hours after it was announced.
Yoon is the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested.
The CIO’s legitimacy in investigating Yoon has come under scrutiny as the president and his lawyers argue that it lacks the legal authority to investigate insurrection charges.
“The CIO does not have the right to investigate insurrection charges ... we strongly urge them to follow due legal processes,” Yoon’s lawyer and friend of 40-years, Seok Dong-hyun, said in a press conference after the president was taken into custody.
But Prof. Hong Young-ki from the Korea University School of Law told Arab News it was a matter of interpreting the law, “but the court has already confirmed the legitimacy” by approving the arrest warrant.
“The court already recognized the CIO’s jurisdiction when it issued the arrest warrant. Then who can go against the court and say that the CIO is illegitimate? How can a third party do it?” he said.
“The president wants to say that, but how can someone who was merely a prosecutor say his interpretation is more correct than that of the court? I don’t really think his argument has that much persuasive power.”
Claiming that the CIO’s investigation was illegitimate, Yoon was trying to evade arrest also during the eventually successful second attempt, which started at 4:10 a.m., with 3,000 officers surrounding his hillside house.
Buses and barbed wire were set up on the road leading to Yoon’s residence to prevent entry, while lawmakers from the president’s ruling People’s Power Party gathered at the site, tried to block the authorities, and shouted that “South Korea’s rule of law has collapsed” and that the “constitution has been destroyed.”
The opposition Democratic Party welcomed the arrest.
“A bit late, but it shows that South Korea’s governmental authority and justice is still alive,” floor leader Park Chan-dae said in a briefing.
“(Yoon’s arrest) is the first step in restoring liberal democracy and realizing the rule of law.”
South Korean investigators question President Yoon in insurrection probe
- Yoon is the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested
- His last month’s short-lived martial law order plunged the country into turmoil
Seoul: South Korean investigators began questioning President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday after arresting him over accusations of insurrection following his briefly imposed martial law.
The arrest ended a standoff between investigators and Yoon’s presidential security team, which had prevented his detention earlier this month.
The Corruption Investigation Office announced it had “executed an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk-yeol today at 10:33 am,” after which he was seen stepping out of the car wearing a white shirt and suit as he slipped through the CIO’s back entrance for high-ranking officials.
“I decided to answer to the CIO’s investigations in order to prevent unsavory bloodshed,” Yoon said in a pre-recorded video statement released by his lawyers following the arrest.
“That does not mean I recognize the CIO’s investigation as legitimate.”
The CIO is leading a joint probe — together with military investigators and police — to probe allegations against Yoon.
He is charged with insurrection and will be held at the Seoul Detention Center. Authorities now have 48 hours to question the president and seek a warrant to detain him for up to 20 days.
The probe coincides with Yoon’s impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court. The trial began on Tuesday, but hearings were adjourned minutes after it started due to Yoon’s absence.
The trial follows the National Assembly’s vote on Dec. 14 to impeach Yoon over the imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 — a move that lawmakers swiftly overturned hours after it was announced.
Yoon is the first sitting president in South Korean history to be arrested.
The CIO’s legitimacy in investigating Yoon has come under scrutiny as the president and his lawyers argue that it lacks the legal authority to investigate insurrection charges.
“The CIO does not have the right to investigate insurrection charges ... We strongly urge them to follow due legal processes,” Yoon’s lawyer and friend of 40 years, Seok Dong-hyun, said in a press conference after the president was taken into custody.
Prof. Hong Young-ki from the Korea University School of Law told Arab News it was a matter of interpreting the law, “but the court has already confirmed the legitimacy” by approving the arrest warrant.
“The court already recognized the CIO’s jurisdiction when it issued the arrest warrant. Then who can go against the court and say that the CIO is illegitimate? How can a third party do it?” he said.
“The president wants to say that, but how can someone who was merely a prosecutor say his interpretation is more correct than that of the court? I don’t really think his argument has that much persuasive power.”
Claiming that the CIO’s investigation was illegitimate, Yoon tried to evade arrest also during the eventually successful second attempt, which started at 4:10 a.m., with 3,000 officers surrounding his hillside house.
Buses and barbed wire were set up on the road leading to Yoon’s residence to prevent entry, while lawmakers from the president’s ruling People’s Power Party gathered at the site, tried to block the authorities, and shouted that “South Korea’s rule of law has collapsed” and that the “constitution has been destroyed.”
The opposition Democratic Party welcomed the arrest.
“A bit late, but it shows that South Korea’s governmental authority and justice is still alive,” floor leader Park Chan-dae said in a briefing.
“(Yoon’s arrest) is the first step in restoring liberal democracy and realizing the rule of law.”
Dense fog over Indian capital delays flights, trains
- Visibility at Delhi’s main airport was between zero to 100 meters, over 40 trains across northern India delayed
- Delhi was ranked as the world’s most polluted city in live rankings by Swiss group IQAir on Wednesday
Dense fog and cold weather delayed train and flight departures in several parts of northern India, including its capital New Delhi, on Wednesday.
India’s weather office issued an orange alert for Delhi, the second highest warning level, forecasting dense to very dense fog in many areas.
Visibility at Delhi’s main airport was between zero to 100 meters (328.08 ft), the weather office said, and more than 40 trains across northern India were delayed because of fog, local media reported.
Some aircraft departures from Delhi were delayed, airport authorities said on social media platform X, warning that flights lacking the CAT III navigation system that enables landing despite low visibility would face difficulties. Delhi’s main airport handles about 1,400 flights every day.
“Low visibility and fog over Delhi may lead to some delays,” the country’s largest airline IndiGo said in a social media post.
Local media showed images of vehicles crawling along highways through the fog, and people huddled indoors as the temperature dipped to 7 degrees Celsius (44.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Delhi was ranked as the world’s most polluted city in live rankings by Swiss group IQAir on Wednesday, with a reading of 254, ranked as “very unhealthy.”
The Indian capital has been battling poor air quality and smog since the beginning of winter.
New IsDB financing plan to strengthen Bangladesh’s energy, food security
- International Islamic Trade Finance Corp. offers $2.75bn support
- For the first time financing extended for Bangladesh’s fertilizer imports
Dhaka: A new agreement on a $2.75 billion Islamic Development Bank financing loan for the Bangladeshi oil and agriculture sectors aims to boost the South Asian nation’s energy and food security by facilitating the import of petroleum products, liquified natural gas and fertilizers.
The International Islamic Trade Finance Corp., a division of the Jeddah-based IsDB, announced earlier this week that it had signed a “landmark annual financing plan with the Government of Bangladesh for US$2.75 billion to support the country’s energy and agriculture sectors.”
The plan will cover the period from July 2025 to June 2026 and will “facilitate the importation of petroleum products, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and fertilizers by Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), Bangladesh Oil, Gas & Mineral Resources Corporation (Petrobangla) and Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) respectively,” the ITFC said in a statement.
Bangladesh imports most of its fuel and requires about 1.5 million metric tons of crude oil annually, according to BPC.
The IITFC loan will help the state-owned entity responsible for importing and marketing fuel oil meet its obligations to the suppliers. The two main ones are Saudi Aramco and the UAE’s Adnoc.
“Without the loan support from ITFC, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to ensure a smooth petroleum supply in the local market. For importing crude oil, we need a letter of credit support of around $80 million. Our state-owned banks can’t provide such a huge amount,” Mohammed Morshed Hossain Azad, BPC’s general manager of finance, told Arab News.
“ITFC pays this amount to Saudi Aramco and UAE-based Adnoc on behalf of Bangladesh Petroleum Corp. After six months, we repay this amount to ITFC in installments through our state-owned banks. This loan support from ITFC was crucial for Bangladesh’s energy security … For maintaining a smooth and uninterrupted supply of fuel in our market, there is no alternative in hand.”
While Bangladesh’s energy imports have been supported by ITFC financing before, it is the first time that fertilizer imports are too.
Bangladesh’s annual demand for chemical fertilizers is about 6 million metric tons, of which about 80 percent comes from abroad.
“The timely supply of fertilizer is very important for ensuring the food security of around 175 million people of Bangladesh,” Mohammed Moazzem Hossain, BADC accounts controller, told Arab News.
Under the ITFC deal, the BADC will import triple superphosphate and diammonium phosphate from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Morocco.
“We import DAP and TSP fertilizer from these three Muslim countries,” Hossain said.
“This is the first time in the history of Bangladesh that we have received loan support for importing fertilizer. The interest rate is also convenient for us.”
