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Pentagon ends deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles

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Updated 16 July 2025
AP
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Pentagon ends deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles

  • A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way
Updated 16 July 2025
AP

LOS ANGELES: The Pentagon said Tuesday it is ending the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, accounting for nearly half of the soldiers sent to the city to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines have been in the city since early June. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the 60-day deployment to end suddenly, nor was it immediately clear how long the rest of the troops would stay in the region.
In late June, the top military commander in charge of troops deployed to LA had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 200 of them to be returned to wildfire fighting duty amid warnings from Newsom that the Guard was understaffed as California entered peak wildfire season.
The end of the deployment comes a week after federal authorities and National Guard troops arrived at MacArthur Park with guns and horses in an operation that ended abruptly. Although the US Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t explain the purpose of the operation or whether anyone had been arrested, local officials said it seemed designed to sow fear.
“Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement in announcing the decision.
On June 8, thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to Trump’s deployment of the Guard, blocking off a major freeway as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire.
A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way.
Mayor Karen Bass set a curfew in place for about a week that she said had successfully protected businesses and helped restore order. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have been largely small impromptu protests around arrests.
Bass applauded the troops’ departure.
“This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong. We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court — all of this led to today’s retreat,” she said in a statement, adding that “We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.”
On Tuesday afternoon, there was no visible military presence outside the federal complex downtown that had been the center of early protests and where National Guard troops first stood guard before the Marines were assigned to protect federal buildings. Hundreds of the soldiers have been accompanying agents on immigration operations.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployment against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued to stop it.
Newsom sued to block Trump’s command of the California National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he deployed the troops despite his opposition. He also argued that the National Guard troops were likely violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on US soil.
Newsom won an early victory in the case after a federal judge ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and exceeded Trump’s authority. But an appeals court tossed that order, and control of the troops remained with the federal government. The federal court is set to hear arguments next month on whether the troops are violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
The deployment of National Guard troops was for 60 days, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had the discretion to shorten or extend it “to flexibly respond to the evolving situation on the ground,” the Trump administration’s lawyers wrote in a June 23 filing in the legal case.
Following the Pentagon’s decision Tuesday, Newsom said in a statement that the National Guard’s deployment to Los Angeles County has pulled troops away from their families and civilian work “to serve as political pawns for the President.”
He added that the remaining troops “continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities.”
“We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now,” he said.
 

 

Topics: Pentagon USA

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India moves to strengthen ties with Russia, China amid Trump’s tariff war

Updated 7 sec ago
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India moves to strengthen ties with Russia, China amid Trump’s tariff war

  • Narendra Modi meets Chinese FM, Indian FM visits Russia
  • Delhi, Moscow agree to strengthen trade ties, boost Indian exports
Updated 7 sec ago
Sanjay Kumar

NEW DELHI: In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on Indian goods, New Delhi has moved to rebuild ties with Beijing while continuing its close energy and defense partnership with Russia, moves that experts say carry strategic opportunities.

After a yearslong standoff between India and China over a deadly clash at their disputed border, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in the Indian capital on Monday for a two-day visit and talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar.

Modi hailed the improved relations with Beijing and said after the meeting that the “steady progress” they made was “guided by respect for each other’s interests and sensitivities.”

The two sides also agreed to resume direct flights between China and India to help boost trade and investment, facilitate business and cultural exchanges, and recommence the issuing of journalist and tourist visas.

The thaw in relations comes after Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods, 25 percent of which was a penalty for India buying Russian oil, which Washington said was helping fuel Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The Indian government said the tariffs were “unjustified and unreasonable” and vowed to “take all necessary steps to protect its national interests.”

The progress in India-China relations was followed by Jaishankar’s three-day visit to Moscow, which ended on Thursday and resulted in the two sides agreeing to boost trade ties.

In a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Jaishankar said that relations between the two countries had been “among the steadiest of the major relationships in the world” since World War II.

The sides reaffirmed their ambition to expand two-way trade, including an increase in Indian exports to Russia.

“This requires swiftly addressing non-tariff barriers and regulatory impediments,” Jaishankar said.

“Enhancing Indian exports to Russia in sectors like pharmaceuticals, agriculture and textiles will certainly help to correct the current imbalance.”

Harsh V. Pant, vice president at Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation, said that while India’s engagements with Russia and China had started before Trump’s global tariff campaign, it had acted as a catalyst.

“What Trump seems to have done is to create a sentiment against America in India and to accelerate India’s ties with these countries,” he told Arab News.

International affairs expert Mohan Guruswamy said that Delhi’s efforts to strengthen ties with China and Russia would assure “India of its strategic independence.”

“By associating with America, it lost it. And associating with America has proved to be expensive,” he told Arab News.

Bharat Karnad, a political scientist and emeritus professor at the Center for Policy Research in Delhi, said India’s frayed ties with Washington were an opportunity for it “to rethink and repurpose (its) strategy.”

“America has always been an unreliable, untrustworthy partner to all its allies. It’s historically been the case that America helps only when its own interests are served and not when the allies’ interests are at stake,” he told Arab News.

This was an opportunity for Modi’s government to support de-dollarization efforts that had been pursued by the BRICS geopolitical forum, which includes India, Russia and China, he said.

“This is the time, and there are still some indications that we are working toward precisely the kinds of BRICS initiative to de-dollarize trade.

“Rather than become captive of the US or Western or any other … trading system, we should have the independence and the flexibility to switch to serve our national interests.”

Topics: India Russia China Donald Trump's tariff

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Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike

Updated 22 August 2025
AP
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Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike

  • Boko Haram began its insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, causing around 35,000 civilian deaths and displacing more than 2 million people
Updated 22 August 2025
AP
DAKAR, Senegal: The army in Niger says it used a targeted airstrike to kill a senior leader of the Boko Haram jihadi group, which has killed thousands of people in West Africa.
Ibrahim Bakoura was killed in an Aug. 15 strike in the Lake Chad region that killed “dozens of terrorists” and Boko Haram senior leaders, the army claimed in a state television broadcast Thursday. Bakoura, who was in his mid-40s, was “tracked for several weeks” before the strike, the army said.
Boko Haram, a homegrown group of jihadis from neighboring Nigeria that is considered one of the world’s deadliest armed groups, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.
The conflict has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, and resulted in the death of around 35,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 2 million others, according to the United Nations.
There should be skepticism about reports of senior militant deaths, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank. He noted Bakoura has been reported dead at least three times in the past and governments have limited capacity to verify remote airstrikes.
Boko Haram split into two factions in the ensuing power struggle after the 2021 death of the group’s longtime leader, Abubakar Shekau, who was falsely reported dead several times. Bakoura came to power in 2022.
One faction is backed by the Daesh group and is known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has become notorious for targeting military positions and has overrun the military in Nigeria on at least 15 occasions in 2025, killing soldiers and stealing weapons, according to an Associated Press count, experts and security reports.
The other faction, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, has increasingly resorted to attacking civilians and perceived collaborators and thrives on robberies and abductions for ransom.
Bakoura’s killing is the latest blow to the network of armed groups in the region in recent weeks following the arrests of top Al-Qaeda affiliated leaders in Nigeria and the son of Boko Haram’s founder in Chad.
Experts say there is a renewed response from intelligence agencies in west and central African countries whose security leaderships have suffered embarrassing loses to armed groups this year.
“What the constant attacks did was cause military and security leaders embarrassment because it got to a point soldiers were running away on sighting ISWAP advances. The attacks inspired renewed response by militaries across the region,” said Taiwo Adebayo, a security researcher at the Institute of Security Studies.
The arrest and killing of top leaders will translate to material gains in the regional fight against insecurity if the government in Niger ensures the groups do not carry out retaliatory attacks or rejuvenate elsewhere, Adebayo said.

NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit

Updated 22 August 2025
AFP
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NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit

  • Mark Rutte: ‘Robust security guarantees will be essential and this is what we are now working to define’
Updated 22 August 2025
AFP

KYIV: The head of NATO on Friday called for “robust” security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure Russia upholds any potential peace deal and “never again” attempts to invade Ukraine.

The question of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine has been front and center during the latest US-led diplomatic push to broker a peace deal to end the conflict, now in its fourth year.

“Robust security guarantees will be essential and this is what we are now working to define,” Mark Rutte said during a visit to Kyiv, speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

US President Donald Trump, who hosted a meeting of European leaders with Rutte and Zelensky on Monday, said Russia had agreed to some Western security guarantees for Kyiv.

But Moscow later cast doubt on any such arrangement. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that discussing security guarantees without Russia was “a utopia, a road to nowhere.”

On a visit to Kyiv, during which an air raid alert sounded across the city, Rutte said security guarantees were needed to ensure “Russia will uphold any deal and will never ever again attempt to take one square kilometer of Ukraine.”

Zelensky said “the guarantees consist of what partners can give Ukraine, as well as what the army in Ukraine should be like” once the war ends.

“And it is too early to say who can provide military personnel, who can provide intelligence, who has a presence at sea or in the air, and who is ready to provide funding,” he added.

Rutte also said it was “too early to exactly say what will be the outcome. But clearly, the US will be involved,” adding: “We do not want a repeat of the Budapest Memorandum or the Minsk Agreement.”

Moscow signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, which was aimed at ensuring security for Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in exchange for them giving up numerous nuclear weapons left from the Soviet era.

Russia violated that first by taking Crimea in 2014, and then by starting a full-scale offensive in 2022, which has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukraine NATO Volodymyr Zelensky Mark Rutte

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Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group

Updated 22 August 2025
Arab News
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Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group

  • UK Lawyers for Israel accused of using ‘abusive litigation’ to silence pro-Palestine voices
  • Public Interest Law Centre: ‘We will not allow legal threats to shut down the public’s right to speak out’
Updated 22 August 2025
Arab News

LONDON: A group of pro-Israel lawyers is under investigation in the UK over claims that it has threatened Palestine supporters with “vexatious” legal action.

The Public Interest Law Centre and the European Legal Support Center complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority that UK Lawyers for Israel committed “serious breaches” of the SRA’s code of conduct, and had demonstrated “a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts.”

They added that UKLFI used “strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps), which are lawsuits intended to limit freedom of expression on matters of public interest.”

Slapps are described by the SRA on its website as “abusive litigation” that “undermine freedom of expression, the rule of law and amount to a misuse of the legal system.”

PILC and ELSC acted after a number of complainants said they were contacted by UKLFI.

Among them are the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which said it was contacted by Caroline Turner, a UKLFI director, who claimed that plans by the center to hold a Palestinian film festival in May in Edinburgh, in association Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, included events that were “inherently antisemitic and anti-Zionist in nature.”

Turner, who requested that the film festival be canceled and warned that failure to do so could see the center referred to the Scottish charity regulator, also wrote on behalf of UKLFI to the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust after it arranged a concert, “The World Stands With Palestine,” in London in November 2024.

Her letter alleged that flyers advertising the event, which featured the words “Stand with Palestine” and “Stand with the Resistance,” were a possible breach of the Terrorism Act as they were “siding with the viewpoint” of Hamas.

The letter added that the concert’s flyers were “designed to stir up racial hatred against Jews and Israelis, and to sympathise with the aims of the Hamas terrorist organisation.” The concert was canceled.

UKLFI states on its website that it employs “advocacy, legal research and campaigning to support Israel, Israeli organisations, Israelis, and/or supporters of Israel against BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and other attempts to undermine, attack or delegitimise them.”

But Paul Heron, founder of PILC, said: “UKLFI are acting in a manner that chills public participation and intimidates those who stand in solidarity with Palestine … We will not allow legal threats to shut down the public’s right to speak out on Palestine.

“The SRA has a duty to step in, to uphold professional standards, and to protect civil society from intimidation dressed up as law.”

A spokesperson for the SRA said: “We have had a complaint and are investigating before deciding on next steps.”

Topics: UK

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Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals

Updated 22 August 2025
Reuters
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Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals

  • The flash floods in Pakistan was triggered by the worst of this year’s monsoon and cloudburst
  • Overall death toll across the country in the monsoon rains which began in late June stood at 776
Updated 22 August 2025
Reuters

QADIR NAGAR, Pakistan: Two days before his wedding, Noor Muhammad had a long phone call with his mother, just hours before devastating floods in Pakistan killed her along with 23 family members and relatives.
“I cannot explain how happy she was,” he said standing by the rubble of his family’s large 36-room house, perched on the bank of a flood water channel in Qadir Nagar village.
The village in mountainous Buner district has been the worst hit by recent massive rain in the country, accounting for over 200 deaths out of nearly 400 in floods in the northwest since August 15.
Buner is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital Islamabad.
“Everything was finished,” sobbed Muhammad, 25, as mourners sat at his damaged house to offer condolences, saying there was nothing left when he got home except for rubble and heavy rocks, which swept down from the mountains along with mud and raging flood waters, smashing into houses, markets and buildings.
“The flood came, a huge flood came, it swept away everything, home, mother, sister, brother, my uncle, my grandfather and children.”
Muhammad works as a laborer in Malaysia. He arrived at the Islamabad airport on August 15 to drive home where his wedding preparations were in full swing for two days later.
Instead, he attended 24 funerals.
They included his mother, a brother and a sister, he said, adding that his father and another brother survived because they had gone to pick him up at the airport.
The rest of the fatalities were among his uncles’ families who shared the house built by his grandfather, and relatives who are attending his marriage.
His fiance survived. Her home was away from the worst of the damage.
Devastating flash floods
The flash floods triggered by the worst of this year’s monsoon and cloudbursts, which started in the mountainous northwest have spread to other parts of the country of 240 million, bringing death and destruction at a large scale.
Authorities have said the longer spell of heavy rain and rare cloudbursts were rooted in climate change due to global warming, fearing the intensity will increase in the coming years.
“We and our elders have never seen a storm like this in our lives,” said Muhammad Zeb, 28, a resident in Buner. It was a complete chaos, and massive disaster, he added.
“You can see for yourself, this was a beautiful place with homes. But now, as you can see, the flood and storm have swept everything away.”
An unknown number of people remain missing, with dead bodies still being recovered, officials said.
The overall death toll across the country in the monsoon rains which began in late June stood at 776, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, which said more than 25,000 people had been rescued in the northwest.
The army and air force have joined the rescue and relief efforts.
Officials have warned of more storms ahead with another two spells of monsoon rain expected until September 10.
Buner received more than 150 mm (5.91 inches) of rain within an hour triggered by a cloudburst in the single most destructive event in this monsoon season.
A cloudburst is a rare phenomenon where more than 100mm (3.9 inches) of rainfall within an hour in a small area.
Only four people of the 28 in his house survived, Muhammad said.
“What else can we say? It’s God’s will,” he said.

Topics: weather Pakistan

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