WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will provide Ukraine with $200 million in weapons and ammunition to help sustain Kyiv’s counteroffensive as troops on the front lines face significant hurdles against a well-entrenched Russian defense, according to two US officials.
This latest package will include missiles for the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and the Patriot air defense system, munitions for howitzers and tanks, Javelin rockets, mine-clearing equipment, 12 million rounds of small arms ammunition and demolition munitions, said a US official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid has not yet been publicly announced.
The aid comes as the US funding for Ukraine is nearly all spent and the Biden administration is expected to request a new package of supplemental aid from Congress to continue that support.
Ukraine has already received more than $43 billion from the US since Russia invaded last year. Those funds have provided weapons systems like howitzers and millions of rounds of ammunition to fight back against the much larger Russian military. Due to the intense and bloody land war there, much of the ammunition and weaponry has already been used up.
In eastern areas of the country, intense fighting between the two sides means that along the front line, “multiple changes” in position and control take place within a day, Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said Wednesday on her official Telegram channel.
The Biden administration is funding the Ukraine war effort through two programs. presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, which pulls weapons from existing US stockpiles; and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which funds long-term contracts for larger weapons systems like tanks that need to be either built or modified by defense companies. Both funding tracks run through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The administration would already be out of PDA money for fiscal year 2023 if the Pentagon had not discovered it made an accounting error by overvaluing previous rounds of weapons systems given to Ukraine. As a result, it has about $6.2 billion left in PDA money to keep support going until Congress approves additional funds. This latest aid package of $200 million is being drawn from that surplus.
“We feel confident that we can continue to supply Ukraine with what it needs on the battlefield,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said at a press briefing Tuesday. “I’m just not going to get ahead of anything in terms of any supplemental or any additional requests to Congress.”
There is also about $600 million remaining in fiscal year 2023 USAI funds.
US to send $200 million in military aid to Ukraine
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US to send $200 million in military aid to Ukraine
- Ukraine has already received more than $43 billion from the US since Russia invaded last year
Afghan Taliban announce Qatar-brokered prisoner swap deal with US
- Afghan fighter Khan Mohammad imprisoned in America has been released in exchange for US citizens
- Media named the Americans as William McKenty and Ryan Corbett, the latter in Taliban custody since 2022
KABUL: The Taliban government said Tuesday they had released American citizens from prison in return for an Afghan fighter held in the United States, in a deal brokered by Qatar.
Discussions about the prisoner exchange were confirmed last year, but the swap was announced after outgoing US president Joe Biden handed over to Donald Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday.
“An Afghan fighter Khan Mohammad imprisoned in America has been released in exchange for American citizens and returned to the country,” the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said Mohammad had been serving a life sentence in the state of California after being arrested “almost two decades ago” in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.
Asked by AFP, the foreign ministry declined to provide further details or the number of American prisoners.
However, in July last year, the Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said two American prisoners were being held in custody in Afghanistan and that an exchange had been discussed with the United States.
US media named the Americans as William McKenty and Ryan Corbett, the latter in Taliban custody since 2022.
Biden came under heavy criticism for the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, more than a year after Trump presided over a deal with the Taliban insurgents to end US and NATO involvement in the two-decade war.
After Trump’s election win in November, the Taliban government had said it hoped for a “new chapter” in ties with the United States.
Taliban authorities have repeatedly said they want positive relations with every country since sweeping back to power in 2021.
No state has officially recognized their government, with restrictions on women’s rights a key sticking point for many countries, including the United States.
The Taliban government on Tuesday called the exchange “a good example of resolving issues through dialogue, expressing special gratitude for the effective role of the brotherly country of Qatar in this regard.”
“The Islamic Emirate views positively those actions of the United States that contribute to the normalization and expansion of relations between the two countries,” it added, using the Taliban authorities’ name for their government.
Dozens of foreigners have been detained by the Taliban authorities since the group’s return to power.
It is unclear how many Afghan citizens are in US custody.
At least one Afghan prisoner remains in detention at the secretive US prison Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Muhammad Rahim, whose family called for his release in November 2023.
In February last year, two former prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay until 2017 were welcomed home to Afghanistan, more than 20 years after they were arrested.
Afghan prisoner in US custody freed in exchange for American citizens, Kabul says
An Afghan prisoner in American custody was freed in exchange for US citizens, Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers this exchange a good example of resolving issues through dialogue and extends special gratitude to the brotherly nation of Qatar for its effective role in this process,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Malaysia seeks gag order on talk of jailed ex-PM’s bid to reveal royal document
- Najib Razak claims that a document exists allowing him to serve his remaining prison sentence under house arrest
- Former PM was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s attorney-general’s chambers has sought a gag order to ban public discussion of former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s judicial review claim that a document exists allowing him to serve his remaining prison sentence under house arrest, according to state news agency Bernama.
Najib, jailed for his role in the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal, is pursuing a legal bid to compel authorities to confirm the existence of and execute an “addendum order” that he said was issued last year as part of a pardon by then-King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, entitling him to serve the remainder of his sentence at home.
The issue has caused a huge stir in Malaysia, with disgraced political heavyweight Najib insisting the former king’s addendum order was ignored by authorities when they announced the halving of his sentence last year.
The former king’s palace has issued a letter saying the document does exist, but Malaysia’s law ministry said it has no record of it, its home minister has denied knowledge and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said “we did not hide anything.”
Bernama on Monday quoted Shamsul Bolhassan, deputy chief of the chambers’ civil division, as saying the gag order request had been filed to a court.
The official had previously said the case touched on sensitive issues, according to Bernama.
Najib was found guilty in 2020 of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power for illegally receiving funds misappropriated from a unit of state investor 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
He is on trial for corruption in several other 1MDB-linked cases and denies wrongdoing. Najib this month hailed as “one step forward” the Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn the dismissal of his attempt to access the document. The case will go back to court to be heard by another judge.
Strong earthquake in Taiwan injures 27 and causes scattered damage
- The quake hit at 12:17 a.m. and was centered 38 kilometers southeast of Chiayi County Hall
- Taiwan lies along the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, where most of the world’s earthquakes occur
TAIPEI: A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck southern Taiwan early Tuesday, leaving 27 people with minor injuries and some reported damage.
The quake hit at 12:17 a.m. and was centered 38 kilometers (24 miles) southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration said. The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at a less powerful magnitude 6.
There were scattered reports of minor to moderate damage around the cities of Chiayi and Tainan.
Taiwan’s fire department said 27 people were sent to hospitals for minor injuries. Among them were six people, including a 1-month-old baby, who were rescued from a collapsed house in the Nanxi district of Tainan. The Zhuwei bridge on a provincial highway was reported to be damaged.
No deaths have been reported, though rescuers were still assessing damage.
Two people in Tainan and one person in Chiayi city were rescued without injuries after being trapped in elevators.
The quake caused a fire at a printing factory in Chiayi, but it was extinguished, and there were no reports of injuries.
Last April, a magnitude 7.4 quake hit the island’s mountainous eastern coast of Hualien, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 1,000 others. The strongest earthquake in 25 years was followed by hundreds of aftershocks.
Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.
Trump to pull nearly 1,660 Afghan refugees from flights, say US official, advocate
- Group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the US as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution
- Nearly 200,000 Afghans brought to US by former President Joe Biden’s administration since the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Kabul
WASHINGTON: Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the US government to resettle in the US, including family members of active-duty US military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending US refugee programs, a US official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.
The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the US as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former US-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups and the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the US but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan, they said.
Trump made an immigration crackdown a major promise of his victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of US refugee programs up in the air.
The White House and the State Department, which oversees US refugee programs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Afghans and advocates are panicking,” said VanDiver. “I’ve had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.
“We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider,” he said of contacts with Trump’s transition team.
VanDiver’s organization is the main coalition that has been working with the US government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the US since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last US forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.
Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the US by former President Joe Biden’s administration since the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Kabul.
One of the dozens of executive orders Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday suspended US refugee programs for at least four months.
The new White House website said that Trump “is suspending refugee resettlement, after communities were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources.”
“We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought and died or were injured alongside our troops, and families of active-duty US service members are going to be stuck,” said VanDiver.
VanDiver and the US official said that the Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the US were being removed from the manifests of flights they were due to take from Kabul between now and April.
Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee blasted the move, saying in a post on X that “this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted, verified Afghan Allies at the mercy of the Taliban is shameful.”
They include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American active-duty US service personnel born in the US or of Afghans who came to the US, joined the military and became naturalized citizens, they said.
Those being removed from flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former US-backed Kabul government and some 200 unaccompanied children of Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the US withdrawal, said VanDiver and the US official.
An unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for US contractors or US-affiliated organizations also are in the group, they said.
