BAMAKO: An attack blamed on militants in central Mali killed more than 20 civilians on Monday, two local officials said, in the latest killings in the troubled Sahel region.
Mali has for over a decade been ravaged by militants and other armed groups, with the center of the West African country becoming a hotbed of violence since 2015.
“At least 21 civilians have been killed” in the village of Djiguibombo, several dozen kilometers (miles) from the town of Bandiagara, an official from the provincial authority said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He attributed the attack to militants.
Another provincial authority official, who spoke overnight, said about 20 people had been killed and the security situation prevented authorities from going to the site.
But a local youth representative said the army had arrived afterwards.
Both local authority sources asked not to be identified given their positions. Since the junta came to power in 2020, information about such incidents is not generally made public.
The attack began before nightfall and “lasted around three hours,” the youth representative said, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“Twenty people have been killed. More than half are young people. Some victims had their throats cut,” the source said.
“Many inhabitants fled toward Bandiagara. Those who stayed were not even able to bury the dead properly,” he said.
The deteriorated security context, remote locations and a lack of reliable information mean that attacks often take a long time to confirm.
Mali has since 2012 been plagued by different factions affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, as well as by self-declared self-defense forces and bandits.
The militant violence that started in the north spread to the center of the country in 2015, when Katiba Macina — an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group — was established, led by the Fulani preacher Amadou Kouffa.
Human rights groups regularly denounce widespread impunity for attacks on civilians.
Radical Islamist groups impose pacts on local populations under which they are allowed to go about their business in return for paying a tax, accepting Islamic rules and not collaborating with the Malian army or other armed groups.
Communities are subject to retaliatory measures in the event of non-compliance.
The violence spilled over into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, with military regimes seizing power in all three countries.
Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced by the violence.
Since taking power in a 2020 coup, Mali’s military rulers have broken off their anti-militant alliance with France and European partners, while turning politically and militarily toward Russia.
The junta has enlisted the services of what it presents as Russian military instructors, but who, according to a host of experts and observers, are mercenaries from the private Russian company Wagner.
Bamako regularly claims to have gained the upper hand against the militants, as well as separatists in the north.
Suspected militant attack in Mali kills more than 20 civilians
https://arab.news/n5967
Suspected militant attack in Mali kills more than 20 civilians
- Mali has for over a decade been ravaged by militants and other armed groups
- Mali has since 2012 been plagued by different factions affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group
US nuclear missile program costs soar to around $160 billion, sources say
- Bloomberg reported earlier on Friday that the new price tag was around $141 billion with the Pentagon assessing modifications of construction and schedule
WASHINGTON: The cost of an Air Force program to replace aging nuclear missiles has ballooned to about $160 billion from $95.8 billion, three people familiar with the matter said, threatening to slash funding for other key modernization plans.
The project, now named the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, is designed and managed by Northrop Grumman Corp. and aims to replace aging Minuteman III missiles.
Its latest price tag has risen by around $65 billion since a 2020 cost estimate, according to a US official, an industry executive and a hill aide briefed on the matter. This may force the Pentagon to scale back the project’s scope or time frame, a second industry executive said.
Bloomberg reported earlier on Friday that the new price tag was around $141 billion with the Pentagon assessing modifications of construction and schedule.
Northrop Grumman declined to comment. The Pentagon did not comment on the figure, but said it expects to give a new cost estimate around Tuesday.
The new Sentinel cost estimate eclipses an increase to “at least” $131 billion that the Air Force made public in January.
That triggered the Nunn-McCurdy Act, a 1982 law that requires the Pentagon to formally justify to Congress the importance of a program whose unit acquisition costs have risen more than 25 percent above a baseline.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is expected to deliver that notification next week.
Though Air Force leaders argue that Sentinel is crucial for maintaining America’s nuclear deterrent, the Pentagon asked industry to provide cost estimates on a service life extension program for the existing inventory of Minuteman III missiles, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Increased cost estimates are putting pressure on other Air Force priorities like the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter jet program, according to two of the sources.
Other programs potentially at risk include hypersonic weapons development, the B-21 bomber, and various space initiatives.
NATO leaders will vow to pour weapons into Ukraine for another year, but membership is off the table
NATO leaders will vow to pour weapons into Ukraine for another year, but membership is off the table
- Leaders hope to reassure Ukraine of their ongoing support and show Russia that they will not walk away
- Fears raised over decline in support for Ukraine as Russia-leaning politicians gain ground in their respective countries
BRUSSELS: NATO leaders plan to pledge next week to keep pouring arms and ammunition into Ukraine at current levels for at least another year, hoping to reassure the war-ravaged country of their ongoing support and show Russian President Vladimir Putin that they will not walk away.
US President Joe Biden and his counterparts meet in Washington for a three-day summit beginning Tuesday to mark the military alliance’s 75th anniversary as Russian troops press their advantage along Ukraine’s eastern front in the third year of the war.
Speaking to reporters Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO’s 32 member countries have been spending around 40 billion euros ($43 billion) each year on military equipment for Ukraine since the war began in February 2022 and that this should be “a minimum baseline” going forward.
“I expect allies will decide at the summit to sustain this level within the next year,” Stoltenberg said. He said the amount would be shared among nations based on their economic growth and that the leaders will review the figure when they meet again in 2025.
NATO is desperate to do more for Ukraine but is struggling to find new ways. Already, NATO allies provide 99 percent of the military support it gets. Soon, the alliance will manage equipment deliveries. But two red lines remain: no NATO membership until the war is over, and no NATO boots on the ground there.
At their last summit, NATO leaders agreed to fast-track Ukraine’s membership process — although the country is unlikely to join for many years — and set up a high-level body for emergency consultations. Several countries promised more military equipment.
A year on, they want to put on a fresh display of unity and resolve, even as uncertainty over elections roils many of the organization’s biggest members. The possible return of Donald Trump, who undermined trust among the allies while he was the US president, is a particular concern.
But governments in France and Germany also were weakened in elections this year. Italy is led by a prime minister whose party has neo-fascist roots, while an anti-immigrant party heads a shaky coalition in the Netherlands and Spain’s Cabinet relies on small parties to rule. The UK will have a new leader.
Whoever might be in power though, it’s become clear that there’s not a lot more that NATO can do.
Lately, Stoltenberg has insisted on a long-term commitment to Ukraine. Major funding delays, notably due to political wrangling in the US Congress, have left the country’s armed forces, in his words, “to defend themselves with one hand tied on the back.”
He had hoped the allies would agree to spend at least 40 billion euros annually on weapons in a “major, multi-year” program. It does not mean an increase in support, though. The figure roughly equals what they have already spent each year since the war began.
One new initiative the leaders are likely to endorse is a mission to get the right military equipment into Ukraine and streamline training for its armed forces. In their haste to help, Western backers have inundated Ukraine with all kinds of weapons and materiel.
In the early chaos of war, anything was welcome, but the deliveries have become unmanageable — a multitude of different kinds of vehicles or defense systems that require distinct maintenance plans and dedicated supply chains to keep them running.
Offers of training programs outside Ukraine have also been abundant, indeed so prolific and different that its armed forces struggle to prioritize which troops to send, to what NATO country, and for how long.
“We’ve let a thousand flowers bloom,” conceded a senior US State Department official, but added that with a new mission, probably based in Wiesbaden, Germany, and under the likely leadership of a US general, “NATO can come in and say: We’ve got it.”
The official requested anonymity to discuss plans that had not been finalized.
Sending military equipment via this new mission would also prevent rogue governments or leaders from meddling with joint deliveries. NATO officials say the mission would complement the US-led effort to drum up arms, the so-called Ramstein group.
The US will announce new steps to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and military capabilities, according to a senior Biden administration official.
The official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, declined to detail the air defense capabilities that would be sent. But the administration signaled last month that the US will rush delivery of air defense interceptor missiles to Ukraine by redirecting planned shipments to other allied nations.
The official said members of the NATO-Ukraine Council would meet Thursday at the summit. Later that day, Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will host an event with leaders from nearly two dozen other nations who have negotiated and signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine.
A conundrum for NATO leaders is how to frame Ukraine’s membership prospects without letting it join. Many allies refuse to allow Ukraine in while fighting continues, concerned about being dragged into a wider war with Russia. Hungary opposes Ukraine’s membership altogether.
In the run-up to the summit, NATO envoys have been weighing the use of words such as “irreversible” to describe Ukraine’s path to membership as they tweak language that has shifted constantly since they promised in 2008 that the country would join one day.
It’s unclear how this will be accepted in Kyiv. At their last meeting, the leaders were noncommittal about timing, saying only that they would be “in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met.”
Zelensky described it as “unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership.” He complained that “vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.”
In recent weeks, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have been briefed on developments to avoid a repeat of the criticism. Stoltenberg said he and Zelensky agreed earlier this month that the new steps the leaders will take “constitute a bridge to NATO membership and a very strong package for Ukraine at the summit.”
Membership would protect Ukraine against a giant neighbor that annexed its Crimean Peninsula a decade ago and more recently seized vast swaths of land in the east and south. Before then, Kyiv must reform its security institutions, improve governance and curb corruption.
UK’s new PM Keir Starmer kills Rwanda plan on first day, Telegraph reports
- Newspaper was citing Labour sources, who called the plan “effectively dead”
LONDON: Britain’s newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer has killed off a deportation plan that would see migrants who arrived in the UK illegally sent to Rwanda on his first day on the job, the Telegraph reported on Friday.
The newspaper was citing Labour sources, who called the plan “effectively dead.”
Starmer had earlier promised to scrap the Conservative’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, but with migration a key electoral issue, he will be under pressure himself to find a way to stop tens of thousands of people arriving across the Channel from France on small boats.
‘Astonished’ Germany says Hungary canceled foreign minister meeting
- The German ministry said it was “astonished” and that a “serious and honest” discussion was needed
- The Moscow meeting was the first meeting of an EU leader with Putin
FRANKFURT: Hungary has canceled a meeting for Monday in Budapest with Germany’s foreign minister and her Hungarian counterpart, a German foreign ministry official said on Friday.
The German ministry said it was “astonished” and that a “serious and honest” discussion was needed after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
The Hungarian foreign ministry and a government spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Moscow meeting was the first meeting of an EU leader with Putin in Moscow since April 2022, two months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The talks angered some European Union leaders who warned against appeasing Moscow and said Orban did not speak for the EU.
The German foreign ministry official said that the meeting would be rescheduled.
Russian strikes kill 7, wound dozens in east Ukraine
- Moscow has centered its firepower on the industrial region
- Two Russian strikes on the town of Selydove, which lies close to the front where Moscow’s forces are advancing, killed at least five and injured eight
KYIV: Multiple Russian attacks killed at least seven and wounded more than two dozen others in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine on Friday, officials said.
Moscow has centered its firepower on the industrial region, which it claims to have annexed and has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed forces since 2014.
Russian-installed officials also said Ukrainian shelling killed five people on its side of the front line in the Donetsk region.
Two Russian strikes on the town of Selydove, which lies close to the front where Moscow’s forces are advancing, killed at least five and injured eight, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.
“Russians dropped two guided aerial bombs on the town,” he said in a statement on Telegram.
The regional prosecutor’s office said the strikes were an hour apart and used cluster munitions and a glide bomb.
A 32-year-old woman was killed and 20 others were wounded by Russian shelling in the town of Komar, damaging homes, shops, and an administrative building, Filashkin also said.
And one person was killed and another was wounded in a Russian Smerch rocket attack on the town of Ukrainsk.
“It is dangerous to stay here, as well as in the rest of Donetsk region,” he wrote on social media.
Further north in the Donetsk region, Russian forces are pushing toward the hilltop settlement of Chasiv Yar.
Images distributed by Ukrainian forces show rows of destroyed and smoldering Soviet-era housing blocks in the town.
Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed official of the Donetsk region, said five people were killed in various Ukrainian attacks on territory that Russia controls.
Russia claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region in 2022, even though its forces do not have full control of the area.
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that Ukraine must abandon four regions in the east and south — including Donetsk — if Kyiv wants peace.
