WASHINGTON: A four-star US Air Force general has warned of a conflict with China as early as 2025 — most likely over Taiwan — and urged his commanders to push their units to achieve maximum operational battle readiness this year.
In an internal memorandum that first emerged on social media on Friday, and was later confirmed as genuine by the Pentagon, the head of the Air Mobility Command, General Mike Minihan, said the main goal should be to deter “and, if required, defeat” China.
“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” Minihan said.
Laying out his reasoning, Minihan said Taiwan’s presidential elections next year would offer Chinese President Xi Jinping an excuse for military aggression, while the United States would be distracted by its own contest for the White House.
“Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025,” he added.
The memorandum also calls on all Mobile Command personnel to go to the firing range, “fire a clip” into a target and “aim for the head.”
A Pentagon spokesperson responded to an AFP email query about the memo saying, “Yes, it’s factual that he sent that out.”
Senior US officials have said in recent months that China appears to be speeding up its timeframe to seize control of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing.
China staged major military exercises in August last year, seen as a trial run for an invasion after a defiant visit of solidarity to Taipei by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who at the time was second in line to the White House.
The United States switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but sells weapons to Taiwan for its self-defense.
A growing number of US lawmakers have called for ramping up assistance, including sending direct military aid to Taiwan, saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscores the need for early preparation.
Senior US general warns of possible looming war with China
https://arab.news/cafxg
Senior US general warns of possible looming war with China
- “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” says US Air Mobility Command chief
- Says Taiwan’s presidential elections next year would offer China an excuse for military aggression
Saudi Arabia ‘acceptable’ location for potential Russia-Ukraine peace talks, President Putin tells Arab News
- Putin speaking at pre-BRICS Summit press conference in Moscow Region
- Russian president added Israel-Palestine crisis would be on BRICS Summit agenda next week
MOSCOW: Saudi Arabia would be an acceptable location for Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, President Vladimir Putin told Arab News on Friday, but any negotiations would be dependent on Ukraine lifting its ban on dealing with Russia.
Speaking at a pre-BRICS Summit press conference in Moscow Region, he said Russia was ready for dialog with Kyiv but only on the basis of what has already been previously agreed in 2022 Istanbul talks.
Praising the "good personal relationship" with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he said he believed the Kingdom's efforts toward mediation were sincere.
The 16th annual BRICS summit will take place in Kazan next week between the namesake five countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as the first meeting for new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE.
Putin told Arab News the Israel-Palestine crisis would be on the agenda in discussions between the countries.
He reiterated the Kremlin's support for the implementation of the two-state solution, adding that he was in contact with authorities in Israel and Palestine and had invited Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to take part in next week's summit.
During the briefing, Putin also said 30 other countries had expressed interest in cooperation with BRICS nations, and said its "doors are open, we are not barring anyone."
He echoed India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said BRICS was "not an anti-Western alliance, just a non-Western alliance."
EU leaders talk tough on migration, but divided on action
- “We recognize that we need to think out of the box in order to address this pressing concern,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed the concept as representing “very few small drops” — and not a viable answer to the migration challenges of a large country
BRUSSELS: Migration was at the top of the agenda as EU leaders met in Brussels on Thursday, with most governments keen to display a tough stance after hard-right gains in several countries, but little agreement on a course of action.
Talk of easing deportations, creating processing centers outside the European Union and speeding up implementation of a long-negotiated deal agreed on earlier this year have dominated the run-up to a summit that crystallized a rightward shift in the bloc’s rhetoric.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hosted a mini-summit in Brussels just ahead of the main event to discuss a common approach with 10 like-minded countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Hungary and Greece. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen was also present.
“We recognize that we need to think out of the box in order to address this pressing concern,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters.
But divisions remain among the bloc’s 27 countries on the next steps, in particular a controversial idea of creating return “hubs” outside the EU.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed the concept as representing “very few small drops” — and not a viable answer to the migration challenges of a large country.
“If we all followed the rules we have together, we would already be much further ahead,” he said.
Germany is among nations that want an early implementation of a landmark migration pact struck this year, which hardens border procedures and requires countries to take in asylum seekers from “frontline” states or provide money and resources.
But others say the package, set to come into force in June 2026, falls short.
A majority have backed a proposal to expedite deportations of irregular migrants and explore other “innovative solutions,” as Meloni posted on X on Thursday.
Meloni showcased the deal Rome struck with Albania to send some migrants there, according to her office. Other EU capitals have shown keen interest in the scheme, and von der Leyen has said the bloc will draw lessons from it.
Finding “solutions” to possibly return some Syrian refugees to Syria was also talked about, according to a diplomatic source.
Detected irregular border crossings into the European Union are down more than 40 percent this year after reaching the highest level in nearly a decade in 2023, according to EU border agency Frontex.
But migration remains “seen as a pressing and an urgent domestic issue” by many EU nations, a senior EU diplomat said.
Germany, which is part of the bloc’s Schengen free movement area, tightened border controls in September in response to several suspected Islamist attacks.
And this month Poland said it would partially suspend asylum rights, accusing Russia and Belarus of pushing migrants over the border to destabilize the country.
“There is a new wind blowing in Europe,” said Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose nationalist populist party came top in general elections in the Netherlands last year.
Wilders was in Brussels to attend another event: a meeting of the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament.
Hard-right parties often riding anti-immigrant sentiment performed strongly in European Parliament elections in June, and have topped recent national and regional votes in Austria and Germany.
France also tilted to the right after a snap parliamentary election this summer.
But whether the tough talk will result in concrete changes remains to be seen.
Von der Leyen kickstarted the process this week, promising changes to “streamline the process of returns.”
In a letter to the bloc, she mentioned the option of developing deportation centers outside the European Union.
But an EU diplomat cautioned that the idea was “vague and preliminary,” saying there was no real plan for it at this stage.
Disagreement over what remains a subject fraught with legal and ethical issues caused a similar immigration overhaul effort to fail in 2018.
“All these solutions of ‘migration hubs’, as they are called, have never shown in the past to be very effective, and they are always very expensive,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told reporters.
“What works are agreements with third countries, agreements that are broader than only on migration,” he said.
The EU has signed deals with Tunisia, Mauritania and others providing aid and investments in return for help curbing arrivals. They have been credited with reducing Mediterranean boat crossings but criticized for exposing asylum seekers to mistreatment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also attended the meeting to present Kyiv’s “victory plan” to defeat Russia, and EU leaders will discuss other topics, including Israel’s conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
French school to be named after teacher beheaded by militant
- “By naming the Bois d’Aulne school Samuel Paty College, we incarnate the French ideal,” said Pierre Bedier, president of the Yvelines department where the school is located
- New name plates would be put up in the course of the current school year
VERSAILLES, France: A school in France will be named after Samuel Paty, a teacher who worked there until he was murdered by a militant for discussing Prophet Muhammad drawings in class, local authorities said after a unanimous vote in favor of the change.
Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was stabbed and then beheaded near his secondary school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on October 16, 2020 in an attack that horrified France.
Paty’s attacker, 18-year-old Chechen refugee Abdoullakh Anzorov, was shot dead at the scene by police.
He murdered Paty after messages spread on social media that the teacher had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“By naming the Bois d’Aulne school Samuel Paty College, we incarnate the French ideal, the republican hope that knowledge brings progress, by giving it the face of a humble, devoted and enthusiastic man, the face of Samuel Paty,” said Pierre Bedier, president of the Yvelines department where the school is located.
New name plates would be put up in the course of the current school year, his office added.
Some parents’ associations had called for the name change to be delayed, arguing that children who were deeply shocked by the 2020 events could be traumatized all over again by revisiting those memories.
They wanted the change to be delayed until after mid-2025 when all pupils who knew Paty personally will have left the establishment, to no avail.
The children “had to live through something unimaginable,” they said in a message to the town’s mayor.
Paty had used the Charlie Hebdo magazine as part of an ethics class to discuss free speech laws in France, where blasphemy is legal and cartoons mocking religious figures have a long history.
His killing took place just weeks after Charlie Hebdo republished the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
After the magazine used the images in 2015, Islamist gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12 people.
Hamas leader’s death creates chance for ceasefire, US Defense Secretary says
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says that US Forces in the Middle East stand ready to support Israel’s defense
BRUSSELS: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s killing opens a major opportunity to negotiate a lasting ceasefire, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Friday, after attending a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
He added that US Forces in the Middle East stand ready to support Israel’s defense.
“Sinwar’s death also provides an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a lasting ceasefire, to end this awful war and to rush humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said.
North Korean troops in Russia readying for combat in Ukraine war, South Korea says
- Facial recognition artificial intelligence technology used to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region
- North Korea has shipped artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets to Russia since August last year – South Korean spy agency
SEOUL: North Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s far east for training and acclimatizing at local military bases and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said it had been working with Ukrainian intelligence service and had used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.
In more than 13,000 containers, North Korea has shipped artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets to Russia since August last year, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the battle front in Ukraine.
In all, more than eight million artillery and rocket rounds have been shipped to Russia, it said.
“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed,” the spy agency said in a statement.
Earlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called an unscheduled security meeting with key intelligence, military and national security officials to discuss North Korean troops’ involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Yoon’s office said.
“The participants ... shared the view that the current situation where Russia and North Korea’s closer ties have gone beyond the movement of military supplies to actual dispatch of troops is a grave security threat not only to our country but to the international community,” it said.
Yoon’s office said South Korea, together with its allies, has been closely tracking North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia from the initial stages.
South Korea will respond to the North’s activities with all available means, it added, without elaborating on what actions it might take.
South Korea, which has emerged as a major global arms exporter, selling fighter jets, mechanized howitzers and missiles, has come under pressure from some Western allies including Washington to help arm Ukraine with lethal weapons but has stopped short of openly doing so.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King’s College in London said despite the gravity of the development, it may not be heavy enough to shift Seoul’s position.
“When it comes to South Korea, I think that its red line is Russia providing support to North Korea that allows Pyongyang to substantially improve its nuclear and missile program, not North Korea’s support for Russia.”
RUSSIAN UNIFORMS, FAKE IDS
Vessels belonging to Russia’s Pacific Fleet were detected moving about 1,500 North Korean special forces troops to Vladivostok from Oct. 8 to 13 and are expected to resume the shipment of troops soon, the NIS said.
The troops have been supplied with Russian military uniforms and weapons as well as fake identification documents for when they are deployed for combat, the NIS added.
The agency said it used facial recognition AI to identify with a high degree of accuracy technical military officers from the North Korean military in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine where they are supporting Russia’s missile offensive and helping with technical glitches.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused North Korea on Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow’s war effort, although NATO’s chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang’s presence at this stage.
Since their leaders’ summit in the Russian far east last year, North Korea and Russia have dramatically upgraded their military ties and they met again in June to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership that includes a mutual defense pact.
Russia and North Korea both deny they have engaged in arms transfers. The Kremlin has also dismissed South Korean assertions that North Korea may have sent some military personnel to help Russia against Ukraine.
North Korea has 1.28 million active duty troops, according to South Korea’s latest data, and has stepped up its development of a series of ballistic missiles and a nuclear arsenal, fueling regional tension and drawing international sanctions.
Deploying troops to Russia, if confirmed, would be its first major involvement in a war since the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea reportedly sent a much smaller contingent to the Vietnam War and to the civil conflict in Syria.
