BAKU: Russian air defense systems may have brought down an Azerbaijani airliner this week, a US official said Friday after an Azerbaijani minister also suggested the plane was hit by a weapon, citing expert analysis and survivor accounts.
Friday’s assessments by Rashan Nabiyev and White House national security spokesman John Kirby echoed those made by outside aviation experts who blamed the crash on Russian air defense systems responding to a Ukrainian attack. These statements raised pressure on Russia, where officials said a drone attack was underway in the region where the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was heading for a landing. They did not address statements blaming air defenses.
Kirby told reporters on Friday that the US “have seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems,” but refused to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation.
Pressed on whether the US has intelligence that helped lead to that conclusion, or was simply relying on informed speculation from experts based on visual assessments of the crash, Kirby characterized the short answer as “yes” but said he’d “leave it at that,” without providing further details.
The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on Wednesday when it turned toward Kazakhstan and crashed while making an attempt to land. The crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.
Nabiyev, Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transportation, told Azerbaijani media that “preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact,” as does witness testimony.
“The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe,” Nabiyev said.
Passengers and crew who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny.
Flight attendant Aydan Rahimli said that after one noise, the oxygen masks automatically released. She said that she went to perform first aid on a colleague, Zulfugar Asadov, and then they heard another bang.
Asadov said that the noises sounded like something hitting the plane from outside. Shortly afterwards, he sustained a sudden injury like a “deep wound, the arm was lacerated as if someone hit me in the arm with an ax,” he added. He denied a claim from Kazakh officials that an oxygen canister exploded inside the plane.
Two other survivors recounted hearing explosions before the plane went down: Jerova Salihat told Azerbaijani television in an interview in the hospital that “something exploded” near her leg, and Vafa Shabanova said that “there were two explosions in the sky, and an hour and a half later the plane crashed to the ground.”
Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia, said Friday that as the plane was preparing to land in Grozny in deep fog, Ukrainian drones were targeting the city, prompting authorities to close the area to air traffic.
Yadrov said that after the captain made two unsuccessful attempts to land, he was offered other airports but decided to fly to Aktau in Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea.
He didn’t comment on statements from some aviation experts, who pointed out that holes seen in the plane’s tail section suggested that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems.
Ukrainian drones have previously attacked Grozny and other areas in the Russian North Caucasus.
Azerbaijan Airlines blamed the crash on unspecified “physical and technical interference” and announced the suspension of flights to several Russian airports. It didn’t say where the interference came from or provide any further details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the claims that the plane was hit by Russian air defenses, saying that it will be up to investigators to determine the cause of the crash.
“The air incident is being investigated, and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
If it’s proven that the plane crashed after being hit by Russian air defenses, it would be the second deadly civil aviation accident linked to fighting in Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed with a Russian surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people aboard, as it flew over the area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.
Russia has denied responsibility, but a Dutch court in 2022 convicted two Russians and a pro-Russia Ukrainian man for their role in downing the plane with an air defense system brought into Ukraine from a Russian military base.
Investigators from Azerbaijan are working in Grozny as part of the probe of Wednesday’s crash, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement.
Following Wednesday’s suspension of flights from Baku to Grozy and Makhachkala, Azerbaijan Airlines announced Friday that it would also halt service to eight more Russian cities.
The company will continue to operate flights to six Russian cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Those cities also have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes in the past.
Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air also announced Friday that it was suspending flights from Astana to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains for a month.
FlyDubai also halted flights to Sochi and Mineralnye Vody in southern Russian for the next few days.
The day before, Israel’s El Al carrier suspended flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow citing “developments in Russia’s airspace.” The airline said it would reassess the situation next week.
Azerbaijani and US officials suggest plane that crashed may have been hit by weapons fire
https://arab.news/csbmd
Azerbaijani and US officials suggest plane that crashed may have been hit by weapons fire
- Azerbaijani lawmaker and aviation experts blame Azerbaijan Airlines crash on Russian air defenses
- Crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured
Phone bans sweep US schools despite skepticism
ALEXANDRIA, United States: At a red-brick school in Virginia, Hayden Jones is one of 1,000 students banned from using their phones as part of a trial hoping to boost learning.
But the 12-year-old’s verdict on the restrictions — a shrug of his shoulders — reflects the skepticism shared by some students and parents.
The phone ban at Twain Middle School is among a wave of measures implemented around the United States, and is part of a global movement replicated in Brazil, France and beyond.
Supporters believe restrictions will guard pupils from the apparent harms of smartphone use while at school, but opponents say the measures fail to prepare teenagers for the digital world they will inevitably enter.
Since September, Jones must now place his Android phone in a magnetic pouch each morning, which is locked until the end of the school day as part of a pilot scheme this academic year.
Jones, speaking to AFP in a corridor lined with classrooms, said he hopes the ban will be gone by the time he starts eighth grade in September.
“I like being able to go to my locker and call my parents. That’s a big concern for me,” he said, adding that some pupils have found ways to still use their devices — including by bringing a “dummy phone” to put in the pouch.
School principal Matthew Mough admitted that enforcing the ban — and winning over students — has proved challenging, though he said most follow the rules.
“The majority of kids who have phones don’t love it,” he said. “However, if you dig deeper with them in the conversation, they will acknowledge that it’s helped them remain focused.”
Mough said the phone ban has reduced classroom distractions, cyberbullying and instances of students meeting up to skip lessons.
Cell phone bans come alongside research suggesting that social media use increases the likelihood of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression in young people.
Advocacy groups regularly cite these studies as justification for school phone bans, which have seen rare political consensus in a nation deeply divided on virtually every other political issue.
Around 76 percent of US public schools — from liberal California to conservative Florida — had some sort of ban on non-academic phone use, according to the latest Department of Education figures, with several state-wide measures also in place or under consideration.
They are largely backed by teachers, with the National Education Association saying 90 percent of its members support policies banning phones during lessons.
“The biggest problem is that kids aren’t in a place developmentally where they’re able to handle the type of technology that we’re talking about,” said Sabine Polak, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, which backs full-scale phone bans.
Critics of the restrictions argue that educating children about the potential risks of social media and smartphone use is better than prohibition.
“The answer is not to just ban and put our heads in the sand,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, which represents over 1,000 parent organizations in the United States.
She compared efforts to ban phones to “abstinence education,” noting that failing to properly teach children about complicated issues such as sex has failed in the past.
“It’s not effective, and frankly, it’s dumb,” Rodrigues told AFP. “What we need to do is equip our kids with the information, with the skills and the strategies they’re going to need to navigate a digital future.”
At the school in Virginia, Jones said the phone ban has not changed how he interacts with his device, still using it for games, social media and watching YouTube videos.
His one complaint about his phone? “Nothing really, honestly, I mean besides the fact that it weighs a ton in my pocket.”
Trump denies reported Musk-Rubio clash in cabinet meeting
- But stresses that cabinet secretaries will now take the lead on staffing choices, implying that he had taken the opportunity to rein Musk in
- Also insists that cuts be made with a “scalpel” instead of a “hatchet,” in reference to Musk's indiscriminate firing of federal employees
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump denied on Friday a report that his senior adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, had clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and another cabinet official during a White House meeting.
According to The New York Times, Musk argued with Rubio and separately with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during a cabinet meeting chaired by Trump on Thursday.
Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a drive to slash costs and cut jobs across government departments, reportedly leading to tensions with department heads.
Musk reportedly faulted Rubio for having fired “nobody,” except for a staff member from Musk’s DOGE. He also told Rubio he was “good on TV,” as if to say he was not good for much else, the Times said.
An incensed Rubio lashed back at Musk for not being truthful. He countered that 1,500 State Department officials had accepted early retirement, and sarcastically asked whether he should hire them back just to sack them again more spectacularly.
In another exchange, Duffy accused DOGE of having tried to sack vital air traffic controllers right as he deals with the aftermath of several plane crashes, prompting Musk to accuse him of a “lie,” again according to the New York Times.
Trump reportedly intervened to halt the argument and suggest that henceforth the controllers be hired from the “geniuses” studying at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After the meeting, Trump announced that cuts would continue but with a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet,” implying that he had taken the opportunity to rein Musk in.
But, asked on Friday about the reported dispute, the president dismissed it.
“No clash, I was there, you’re just a troublemaker,” he told a reporter who asked about the report.
He went on to insist of Musk and Rubio “they’re both doing a fantastic job ... they both get along fantastically well.”
Since coming to office, Trump’s administration has sacked or announced the departure of tens of thousands of federal employees in a scorched-earth efficiency drive.
Several US media have reported friction between Musk and senior officials, who accuse his young crew of DOGE officials — recruited from Silicon Valley — of exceeding their authority.
The meeting was convened following complaints about the Musk operation’s blunt-force approach from agency heads to top White House officials, including chief of staff Susie Wiles.
The White House Office of Legislative Affairs has been inundated with calls in recent days from frustrated Republican members of Congress all over the country, some of whom have faced anger from constituents at home.
(With AFP & Reuters)
DR Congo offers bounty for arrest of M23 leaders
- The M23, which, according to UN experts, is backed by some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers, resumed its fight against the government in Kinshasa in 2021 and has since seized swaths of territory in North Kivu, which borders Rwanda
KINSHASA: Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are offering a $5-million reward for help in arresting leaders of the M23 group that recently captured two major northern towns, the Justice Ministry announced.
“A reward of $5 million is offered to any person who helps arrest the convicts Corneille Nangaa, Bertrand Bisimwa and Sultani Makenga,” the ministry said in a statement.
Nangaa, a leader in the River Congo Alliance, or AFC, a military-political coalition to which the M23 belongs, is a former president of the DRC’s electoral commission.
Bisimwa and Makenga are, respectively, the president and military chief of the M23.
Tried in absentia in Kinshasa, all three men were convicted and sentenced to death in August 2024.
DRC authorities are also offering a bounty of $4 million for any information leading to the arrest of the three men’s “accomplices on the run” and “other sought individuals,” the statement said.
The M23, which, according to UN experts, is backed by some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers, resumed its fight against the government in Kinshasa in 2021 and has since seized swaths of territory in North Kivu, which borders Rwanda.
A lightning offensive in recent weeks has captured the provincial capital, Goma, and Bukavu, the main cities in the neighboring province of South Kivu.
The DRC’s mineral-rich east has been ravaged for three decades by conflict and atrocities.
According to the Financial Times, the US is in exploratory talks with the DRC over a deal that would give Washington access to critical minerals in the country.
Congo approached the US last month, proposing a deal that would offer exploration rights to the US in exchange for support for the government of President Felix Tshisekedi, the newspaper reported, citing public documents.
Security sources said on Friday at least 35 people were killed when pro-government militia attacked a village in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,
The attack happened at about 3 a.m. on Thursday in the village of Tambi, in the Masisi area of North Kivu province controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group.
A security source said that at least 35 people were killed in the attack, while local sources and an eyewitness put the death toll at more than 40.
A community leader and a medical source said villagers had recently returned to the area after having fled fighting between the M23 and the Congolese army and local militia.
“The militia went to attack Tambi where residents had started to return ... they opened fire and civilians were killed,” said one community leader, who said 43 people died.
“They put some victims in a church and then shot them. Those who were in the fields were killed there.”
The community leader, a local health worker, and a local resident said another group of civilians sought refuge in a house and died when the militia set it on fire.
“We counted 47 bodies in the morning,” the resident said, adding that they were buried in a communal grave.
Some of the victims were unable to be identified because of their burns, he added.
Protesters on International Women’s Day demand equal rights, end to discrimination, sexual violence
- On the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing
- In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues
ISTANBUL: Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.
On the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine.
The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women’s role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading “Family will not bind us to life” and “We will not be sacrificed to the family.”
Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women’s rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkiye from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkiye’s We Will Stop Femicides Platform says 394 women were killed by men in 2024.
“There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further,” Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.
Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination
In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don’t get the same treatment as men.
In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women.
Opening the center on International Women’s Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.
From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work.
In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious.
Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
In the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood.
Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women’s liberation movement.
In Russia, the women’s day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg.
Germany’s president warns of backlash against progress already made
In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
“Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces,” he said. He gave an example of ” large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new ‘masculine energy’ in companies and society.”
UK govt cuts funding for Islamophobia reporting service
- Tell Mama, founded in 2012, provides ‘invaluable’ data, police sources tell The Guardian
- The organization, which received 10,700 reports of Islamophobia last year, faces closure
LONDON: The UK government is ending funding for Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, The Guardian reported on Saturday.
The project, founded in 2012, is now facing closure weeks after it reported a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country.
Since its launch, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The ministry told Tell Mama that no grant would be provided by the end of March, without providing alternative arrangements.
Data provided by the service to police under a 2015 sharing agreement has been “invaluable” for monitoring community cohesion and responding to threats, police sources told The Guardian.
Tell Mama received 10,700 reports of Islamophobia last year, with 9,600 being verified. Muslims were the most targeted group in hate attacks in the year ending March 2024, according to police figures. They made up 38 percent of victims nationwide.
Tell Mama’s founder Fiyaz Mughal said its resources were being cut while “the far right and populists across Europe are growing significantly. There are going to be more individuals targeted, we know that in the current environment, and where are they going to go?
“This is an injustice at a time where I have never seen anti-Muslim rhetoric become so mainstream.”
Tell Mama provides a crucial point of contact for vulnerable people who often feel unable to contact the police, Mughal said.
“I’m not aware of any other organisation that can do this work and even if a new agency tried, it would take them 10 to 15 years to reach where Tell Mama is,” he added.
On Feb. 28, the government announced a new working group on anti-Muslim hatred that will create a new definition of Islamophobia and “support a wider stream of work to tackle the unacceptable incidents of anti-Muslim hatred.”
But Mughal accused the government of “saying one thing and doing another,” adding: “Labour talks a lot about countering Islamophobia but they are cutting the only project doing anything on a national scale — supporting victims, working with numerous police forces and supporting prosecutions.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said Tell Mama’s contributions “have allowed for the effective analysis of community tensions and informed actions to reduce such tensions.”
A spokesperson for the ministry responsible for the cut said: “Religious and racial hatred has absolutely no place in our society, and we will not tolerate Islamophobia in any form.
“This year we have made up to £1 million ($1.29 million) of funding available to Tell Mama to provide support for victims of Islamophobia, and we will set out our approach to future funding in due course.”
