Month: January 2024

China Skirts Sanctions to Make Russia Its Top Oil Supplier in 2023

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BEIJING — Russia leapfrogged Saudi Arabia to become China’s top crude oil supplier in 2023, data showed on Saturday, as the world’s biggest crude importer defied Western sanctions to purchase vast quantities of discounted oil for its processing plants.

Russia shipped a record 107.02 million metric tons of crude oil to China last year, equivalent to 2.14 million barrels per day (bpd), the Chinese customs data showed, far more than other major oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Imports from Saudi Arabia, previously China’s largest supplier, fell 1.8% to 85.96 million tons, as the Middle East oil giant lost market share to cheaper Russian crude.

Shunned by many international buyers following Western sanctions over the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian crude oil traded at significant discounts to international benchmarks for much of last year amid a Western-imposed price cap.

Accelerating demand from Chinese and Indian refiners for the discounted oil boosted the price of Russian ESPO (East-Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline) crude through 2023, pushing past the Group of Seven’s $60 a barrel price cap imposed in December 2022 as alternative shipping and insurance options to circumvent the sanctions proliferated.

ESPO crude shipments for December delivery were priced at a discount of about 50 to 20 cents per barrel to the ICE Brent benchmark, versus a $1 premium for October delivery cargoes and a discount of $8.50 for shipments delivered in March, according to trading sources.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia raised prices for its signature Arab Light in July, pushing some refiners to look for cheaper cargoes.

To support prices, Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the world’s top three oil producers, announced output and export cuts last year. Saudi Arabia is cutting output by about 1 million bpd this quarter, while Russia said it would deepen its cut in exports this year to 500,000 bpd from 300,000 bpd.

Chinese refiners use intermediary traders to handle the shipping and insurance of Russian crude to avoid violating the Western sanctions.

Buyers also use the waters off Malaysia as a trans-shipment point for sanctioned cargoes from Iran and Venezuela. Imports tagged as originating from Malaysia climbed 53.7% last year.

China reported no official shipments of Venezuelan crude in December despite an easing of U.S. sanctions on Caracas in October following a deal between President Nicolas Maduro’s administration and its political opposition.

Shipments to China from the U.S. last year surged 81.1% last year despite geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington as U.S. crude production increased.

China’s overall crude imports for 2023 rose to a record of 563.99 million metric tons, equivalent to 11.28 million bpd. 
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Devotees Splurge on Jets, Gold Idols for Hindu Temple Opening in India

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AYODHYA, India — The private jet parking lots at airports near the Indian city of Ayodhya are full and the shops have run out of gold-plated idols, as wealthy devotees prepare for the invitation-only opening ceremony of one of Hinduism’s holiest temples.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, are among the 8,000 or so attendees at Monday’s inauguration event for the Ram Temple, which devotees believe is built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, a sacred Hindu deity.

The temple is built on land where the Babri mosque stood until it was demolished in 1992, leading to some of the worst Hindu-Muslim rioting in the country, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The construction of the temple began after the Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus in 2019. Its completion fulfills a key campaign promise of Modi and his Hindu nationalist party.

The opening ceremony, organized by the trust that built the temple, comes months before a national election that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is widely expected to win, and the who’s who of India is expected to be there.

“It’s become like a status symbol to be invited to this event,” said Rajan Mehra, CEO of Indian luxury charter service Club One Air, adding that his fleet is booked to make multiple trips next week.

Officials estimate 100 private jets will descend Monday on Ayodhya airport, filling it to capacity. Slots at Varanasi, a city around four hours away by car, are also full, as are jet spaces in Gorakhpur airport, which is a three-hour drive away.

Mehra did not disclose the price of the charters, but private jet booking website JetSetGo lists the price of a Mumbai-Gorakhpur return flight on a Falcon 2000 jet with nine passengers on board at $74,000.

The ceremony is also giving jewelers and gold traders a boost.

Some retailers say gold and gold-plated statues of Lord Ram and temple replicas, priced between $361 and $2,647, are so popular that they have run out of stock. Some items were imported from Thailand, they added.

“Customers are asking for them for gifting and for keeping them at homes. There is a waiting period of two weeks,” said Baldev Singh, a manager at HS Jewellers in Lucknow city.

The temple has already ushered an economic boom in Ayodhya, set to emerge as a pilgrimage hotspot for India’s 1.1 billion Hindus, and property prices have skyrocketed.

This week, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan bought a 929-square-meter plot for $1.7 million, government officials said, roughly nine times the average land prices in this city just a few years ago.

The plot is part of the House of Abhinandan Lodha luxury development that includes a spa and a pool.

“There’s huge demand for the project from domestic professionals, non-resident Indians. This is unlike any other demand,” Chairman Abhinandan Lodha told Reuters.

“People are betting on economic prosperity but there’s also emotional attachment to be part of the Ayodhya story,” he said.
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UN Report Says Ethnic Violence Kills Up to 15,000 in 1 Sudan City

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UNITED NATIONS/CAIRO — Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in Sudan’s West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied Arab militia, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday.

In the report to the United Nations Security Council, independent U.N. sanctions monitors attributed the toll in El Geneina to intelligence sources and contrasted it with the U.N. estimate that about 12,000 people have been killed across Sudan since war erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

The monitors also described as “credible” accusations that the United Arab Emirates had provided military support to the RSF “several times per week” via Amdjarass in northern Chad. A top Sudanese general accused the UAE in November of backing the RSF war effort.

In a letter to the monitors, the UAE said 122 flights had delivered humanitarian aid to Amdjarass to help Sudanese fleeing the war. The United Nations says about 500,000 people have fled Sudan into eastern Chad, several hundred kilometers south of Amdjarass.

Between April and June last year El Geneina experienced “intense violence,” the monitors wrote, accusing the RSF and allies of targeting the ethnic African Masalit tribe in attacks that “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The RSF has previously denied the accusations and said any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters.

“The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their allied Arab militias,” the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council.

‘Shot to the head’

Reuters last year chronicled the ethnically targeted violence committed in West Darfur. In hundreds of interviews with Reuters, survivors described horrific scenes of bloodletting in El Geneina and on the 30-kilometer route from the city to the border with Chad as people fled.

The monitors’ report included similar accounts. They said that between June 14 and June 17, some 12,000 people fled El Geneina on foot for Adre in Chad. The Masalit were the majority in El Geneina until the attacks forced their mass exodus.

“When reaching RSF checkpoints women and men were separated, harassed, searched, robbed, and physically assaulted. RSF and allied militias indiscriminately shot hundreds of people in the legs to prevent them from fleeing,” the monitors said.

“Young men were particularly targeted and interrogated about their ethnicity. If identified as Masalit, many were summarily executed with a shot to the head. Women were physically and sexually assaulted. Indiscriminate shootings also injured and killed women and children,” according to the report.

Everyone who spoke to the monitors mentioned “many dead bodies along the road, including those of women, children and young men.” The monitors also reported “widespread” conflict-related sexual violence committed by RSF and allied militia.

New firepower

The monitors said the RSF takeover of most of Darfur relied on three lines of support — Arab allied communities, dynamic and complex financial networks, and new military supply lines running through Chad, Libya, and South Sudan.

The U.N. missions for Chad, Libya and South Sudan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Complex financial networks established by RSF before and during the war enabled it to acquire weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups,” wrote the monitors, adding that the RSF used proceeds from its pre-war gold business to create a network of as many as 50 companies in several industries.

Since the war started “most of the gold, which was previously exported to UAE, was now smuggled to Egypt,” the monitors said.

The new firepower acquired by the RSF “had a massive impact on the balance of forces, both in Darfur and other regions of Sudan,” the report found.

The RSF has recently made military gains, taking control of Wad Madani, one of Sudan’s major cities, and consolidating its grip on the western region of Darfur.

In December, the United States formally determined that warring parties in Sudan committed war crimes and that the RSF and allied militias also had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

The war has left nearly half of Sudan’s 49 million people needing aid, while more than 7.5 million people have fled their homes — making Sudan the biggest displacement crisis globally — and hunger is rising.

The sanctions monitors told the U.N. Security Council that “an excess of mediation tracks, the entrenched positions of the warring parties, and competing regional interests meant that these peace efforts had yet to stop the war, bring political settlement or address the humanitarian crisis.”
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IGAD Gives Sudan’s Warring Factions 2 Weeks to Meet

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ENTEBBE, UGANDA — East Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development has given Sudan’s warring factions two weeks to meet face-to-face to de-escalate the situation. The meeting, which also discussed the tension between Ethiopia and Somalia, made it clear that Somalia’s integrity must be respected.

The IGAD meeting in Kampala described the conflict and political tension in the Horn of Africa and Sudan as a disturbing, senseless and devastating development.

Djibouti President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, also the IGAD chairperson, said the group’s heads of state met with a sense of urgency as the region grapples with challenging times.

The conflict in Sudan broke out in April between the national army, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces. Since then, 7 million people have been displaced and 12,000 have been killed.

Sudan suspended its participation in the Kampala IGAD summit, accusing the regional body of violating its sovereignty and setting a dangerous precedent.

In a communique, read by Djibouti’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, the heads of states, including Presidents William Ruto of Kenya and Salva Kiir of South Sudan, along with representatives of the European Union, African Union and the United Nations, outlined their demands to the warring factions.

According to the communique, the conflict must be resolved by the Sudanese without any external interference.

The IGAD leaders condemned the ongoing conflict that has caused suffering, with people losing hope and the state about to collapse.

The Rapid Support Forces has specifically been accused of mass killings and use of rape as a weapon of war, especially in Darfur. Both parties have been accused of war crimes.

Meanwhile IGAD expressed concern about relations between Ethiopia and Somalia.

Early this month, Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, giving Ethiopia access to the sea. In return, Ethiopia would consider recognizing Somaliland as an independent country.

IGAD reaffirmed that any such agreement should be with Somalia.

Mike Hammer, the U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, said the U.S. is particularly concerned that the agreement could disrupt the fight that Somalis, Africa and regional partners are waging against the terrorist group al-Shabab.

“We have already seen troubling indications that al-Shabab is using the MOU to generate new recruits,” he said. “We urge both sides to avoid precipitous actions including related to existing Ethiopian force deployment to Somalia that could create opportunities for al-Shabab to expand its reach within Somalia and into Ethiopia.”

The African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat urged both Somalia and Ethiopia to engage without delay, saying the tension compounds an already difficult time for the region.
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2023: Highest Number of Humanitarian Emergencies in a Decade

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new york — The 2020s have not been kind. The decade began with the COVID-19 pandemic and has since seen climate disasters and conflicts impact millions around the world; but last year was particularly difficult.

The U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said Friday in a new report that it responded to the highest number of emergencies in a decade last year. The Emergency Preparedness and Response in 2023 report recorded 43 emergency declarations in 29 countries.

Driven by the deadly February earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and Cyclone Mocha that tore through Myanmar and Bangladesh in May, and the eruption of internal armed conflict in Sudan in mid-April, UNHCR said new crises, plus the deterioration in old unresolved situations, have stretched its capacity to respond.

“Whether sparked by conflict, human rights violations, natural disasters or extreme weather events, these emergencies have resulted in a surge of displacement, leaving countless individuals and families in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and protection,” said Dominique Hyde, UNHCR Director of External Relations. “The scale of human suffering is unmeasurable and a stark reminder of the imperative for collective action and solidarity.”

Globally, there were a record 114 million refugees and displaced people in 2023. The number is expected to grow to 130 million this year. UNHCR says despite raising more than $5 billion last year, including $4.6 billion for emergencies and protracted crises, a $400 million shortfall by year-end prevented it reaching everyone targeted for assistance.

The sheer scale of the emergencies is daunting.

In Turkey and Syria, UNHCR figures show nearly 24 million people were affected by last February’s earthquakes. In Libya, 900,000 people across five provinces were directly affected by flash floods. In Bangladesh and Myanmar, more than 10 million were impacted by Cyclone Mocha in May while Sudan has become the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 7 million people forced to flee the fighting that erupted in April.

Afghans also faced new challenges in 2023. More than 100,000 were left in need of humanitarian assistance after two powerful earthquakes struck the Herat Province in October.

That same month, Pakistan’s government announced it would deport all undocumented Afghans living in the country. Some had been there for decades. UNHCR says nearly 479,000 returned to Afghanistan between mid-September and the end of December — over 29,000 of them were deported by the Pakistani authorities.

In Central and South America, more than a half million refugees and migrants cross the dangerous Darien passage headed for North America.

Old unresolved disputes also resulted in emergencies last year.

More than 100,000 Armenians left the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, when fighting erupted between the two countries over the disputed territory.

In the eastern Congo, more than 7 million people were affected by fighting between the military and armed groups.

The U.N. Refugee Agency said it launched a rapid response to these and other crises, reaching nearly 17 million vulnerable and needy people with essential shelter supplies and other relief items last year.
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US Ambassador to Moscow Granted Visit to See Jailed Journalist

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. ambassador to Russia on Thursday visited American journalist Evan Gershkovich at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow.

Following Ambassador Lynne Tracy’s visit, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said that Gershkovich “remains resilient and is grateful for the support of friends, family and supporters.”

“We continue to call for Evan’s immediate release,” the embassy said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has been detained for nearly 10 months on espionage charges that he denies.

He is one of two American journalists detained by Russia in 2023. The other, Alsu Kurmasheva, works with VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague and was detained while in Russia to see family.

While the U.S. State Department declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained shortly after his arrest, it has still not made that designation for Kurmasheva, who has spent more than 90 days in custody.

The Journal welcomed the latest consular visit as “important for Evan and his family.”

“We appreciate the U.S. government’s ongoing support for his well being,” the newspaper said in a statement.

In the nearly 10 months since Gershkovich was jailed, the Russian government has not publicly provided evidence to back up the spying allegations against the reporter. He is being held in pretrial detention and will remain in custody until at least the end of January.

At a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman, told Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker that her son was “doing the best that he can under the circumstances, and the circumstances are very hard.”

Russia’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

While Gershkovich approaches 10 months in jail, fellow American journalist Kurmasheva this week passed the three-month mark.

The dual U.S.-Russian citizen wrote a letter to her friends and colleagues, part of which her husband posted on the social media platform X.

“You admire my courage in coming [to Russia] at ‘such a time.’ But we live in the present, and we won’t have any ‘other’ time. ‘Time’ will, of course, exist, but someone close to you, someone who needs your help, may no longer be there,” Kurmasheva wrote.

“No one will give me back the three months of my life that I’ve now spent where I shouldn’t be. I am responsible for my family. For my young children, for my elderly mother,” Kurmasheva said.

“Today, I’m looking at your postcards with images of open doors and windows. You are strong and confident. You will definitely find the right answers to your questions. Open doors for yourself and others; don’t be afraid of it. I am very grateful to you,” Kurmasheva said.

An editor at RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir service, Kurmasheva traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June, and she was waiting for her passports to be returned when authorities detained her in October.

Kurmasheva was initially charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent,” but Russian authorities in December added an additional charge of spreading false information about Russia’s military.

Kurmasheva and her outlet reject the charges, which carry a combined sentence of up to 15 years in prison. She will be held in pretrial detention until at least February.

Her husband, Pavel Butorin, called for her release in a post on X.

“The Russian government must drop its absurd charges against Alsu, release her from detention, and allow her to leave Russia and return to her family,” he wrote.

Butorin is the director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

Since Kurmasheva’s jailing, her employer and press freedom groups have urged the U.S. State Department to declare Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open additional resources to help secure her release.

When asked about why Kurmasheva has not been declared wrongfully detained, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Thursday told reporters, “I would say that it is a case that we continue to focus an enormous amount of attention on. It’s something we continue to look into.

“And as I have said a number of times, that just because we have not made a wrongful detention determination at any point does not indicate anything about the work that we are doing or about what our future posture may be,” Miller said.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday ranked Russia as the fourth-worst jailer of journalists in the world for 2023, with 22 reporters behind bars. Of those, 12 are foreign nationals.

In addition to Kurmasheva and Gershkovich, the other 10 foreign reporters are Ukrainian.

Paul Beckett, a Washington-based assistant editor at the Journal who is leading the newspaper’s campaign to secure Gershkovich’s release, told VOA that the disproportionate number of foreign journalists held by Moscow “shows the antipathy that they have toward independent reporting.”
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Is Europe Ready for Possible Return of President Trump?

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America’s allies in Europe are preparing for a possible second presidential term for Donald Trump after he won the Iowa Republican caucus earlier this month, cementing his place as the current front-runner to take on President Joe Biden in November’s election. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Pakistan, Iran Agree to De-escalate After Trading Airstrikes

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan and Iran agreed Friday to defuse tensions and re-establish full diplomatic ties after their militaries traded unprecedented airstrikes this week against alleged militant camps on each other’s territory. 

According to the Pakistani foreign ministry, the agreement stemmed from a telephone conversation that Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani held with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. 

“The two foreign ministers agreed that working-level cooperation and close coordination on counter-terrorism and other aspects of mutual concern should be strengthened. They also agreed to de-escalate the situation,” the statement said. 

The chief diplomats also discussed the return of ambassadors of the two countries to their respective capitals. 

The conflict erupted on Tuesday when Iranian security forces launched “missile and drone strikes” against what they said were bases of an anti-Iran militant group, Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), in the southwestern Pakistani border province of Baluchistan.

Pakistan condemned the attack as a “blatant breach” of its territorial sovereignty, saying it killed two children and injured several other civilians. On Wednesday, Islamabad announced it was recalling its ambassador to Tehran, asking the Iranian ambassador to leave the country and suspending all bilateral engagements with Iran to protest the “unprovoked” cross-border incursion.

On Thursday, Pakistan undertook retaliatory airstrikes against what it said were “terrorist hideouts” in the southeastern Iranian border province of Sistan-Baluchistan being used to launch attacks against Pakistani security forces in Baluchistan.

Iran said the Pakistani strikes killed at least nine “non-Iranian nationals,” mostly children and women.

The reciprocal cross-border incursions by the two countries marked an unprecedented escalation in the usually tense bilateral relations. It also raised fears about broader instability in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7.

Jilani underscored “the close brotherly relations” between the two countries and expressed Islamabad’s “desire” to work with Tehran “based on [the] spirit of mutual trust and cooperation,” the Pakistani statement said. He “stressed that respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty must underpin this cooperation,” it added.

The Iranian Embassy in Islamabad said on its official X social media platform that Amir-Abdollahian had “a very good phone talk to restore relations to a high level” and the two countries “can set a new record in de-escalation … by returning the ambassadors to the capitals” and mutual visits of foreign ministers of Iran and Pakistan. 

Meanwhile, Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar chaired a Friday meeting with the country’s top civilian and military leaders to discuss the crisis stemming from tensions with Iran. 

“The forum undertook a wholesome review of the situation and lauded the professional, calibrated, and proportionate response by the armed forces of Pakistan against unprovoked and unlawful violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty (by Iran),” said a statement issued after the meeting of what is known as the National Security Committee.

“The meeting also concluded that in line with the universal principles governing the conduct of good neighborly relations, the two countries would mutually be able to overcome minor irritants through dialogue and diplomacy and pave the way to further deepen their historic relations.”

The military tensions between Iran and Pakistan prompted United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the United States, and China to urge the neighboring countries to exercise restraint and defuse mutual tensions. 

The Pakistani military said Thursday’s strikes it conducted hit bases in Iran that are run by the insurgent groups Baloch Liberation Front, or BLF, and Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA. The groups routinely attack Pakistani security forces in natural resources-rich Baluchistan. 

The U.S. has listed the BLA as a global terrorist organization. 

Tehran said that its drones and missiles targeted Jaish al Adl bases. The predominantly Shiite Muslim country blames the Sunni Muslim-based militant group for plotting attacks against Iranian security forces in Sistan-Baluchistan.

Iran and Pakistan share a nearly 900-kilometer-long border where separatists, militants, and smugglers have thrived for decades, with both countries accusing the other of not doing enough to counter the security challenges.  
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Militant Attack Kills Pakistan Anti-Polio Officer Near Afghan Border

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ISLAMABAD — Gunmen in northwestern Pakistan Friday ambushed and killed a senior health official who was coordinating anti-polio efforts in a turbulent region bordering Afghanistan.

Authorities said the shooting in the militancy-hit Bajaur district also injured a police guard for the slain polio program coordinator, medical doctor Abdul Rehman.

No group immediately took responsibility for the deadly assault in an area infested with militants.

The anti-state Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, actively targets security forces and government officials in volatile districts near and on the Afghan border.

A roadside bomb explosion in Bajaur earlier this month killed at least seven police officers and injured around two dozen others. The victims were on their way to provide security to polio teams during a national immunization drive.

The TTP, designated as a global terrorist organization by the United States, claimed credit for that bombing.

Pakistan and war-ravaged Afghanistan are the last two countries in which the highly infectious polio virus still paralyzes children. However, the cases in both countries significantly declined in 2023, with six reported in each.

Militant attacks have killed dozens of Pakistani polio workers and police personnel escorting them in recent years. The violence and vaccination boycotts in parts of Pakistan continue to hinder eradication efforts, particularly in northwestern districts bordering Afghanistan, according to the World Health Organization.
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Pakistan’s Leaders to Review Security in Wake of Iran Strikes

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders will carry out a security review on Friday on the standoff with Iran, the information minister said, after the neighbors carried out drone and missile strikes on militant bases in each other’s territory.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee, with all the military services chiefs in attendance, the minister, Murtaza Solangi, told Reuters by telephone.

It aims at a “broad national security review in the aftermath of the Iran-Pakistan incidents,” Solangi said. Kakar cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and flew home Thursday.

The tit-for-tat strikes by the two countries are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and have raised alarm about wider instability in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7.

However, both sides have signaled a desire to cool tensions, the highest in years, although they have had a history of rocky relations.

Iran said Thursday’s strikes killed nine people in a border village in its territory, including four children. Pakistan said the Iranian attack on Tuesday killed two children.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the two nations to exercise maximum restraint. The U.S. also urged restraint although President Joe Biden said the clashes showed that Iran is not well liked in the region.

Islamabad said it hit bases of the separatist Baloch Liberation Front and Baloch Liberation Army, while Tehran said its drones and missiles targeted militants from the Jaish al-Adl, a third group.

The targeted militant groups operate in an area that includes Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan and Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. Both are restive, mineral-rich and largely underdeveloped.

The groups that Islamabad targeted inside Iran have been waging an armed insurgency for decades against the Pakistani state, including attacks against Chinese citizens and investments in Baluchistan.

The JAA, which Iran targeted, is also an ethnic militant group, but with Sunni Islamist leanings that primarily Shiite Iran sees as a threat.

The group, which has had links to the Islamic State group, has carried out attacks in Iran against its powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, Iran and its allies had been flexing their muscles in the region, even before its cross-border incursion into Pakistan.

Iran launched strikes on Syria against what Tehran said were Islamic State sites, and Iraq, where it said it had struck an Israeli espionage center.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen have targeted shipping in the Red Sea since November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians. 
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NATO Holding Its Biggest Exercises in Decades Next Week

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BRUSSELS — NATO will launch its biggest military exercises in decades next week with around 90,000 personnel set to take part in months of drills aimed at showing the alliance can defend all of its territory up to its border with Russia, top officers said Thursday.

The exercises come as Russia’s war on Ukraine bogs down. NATO as an organization is not directly involved in the conflict, except to supply Kyiv with nonlethal support, although many member countries send weapons and ammunition individually or in groups and provide military training.

In the months before President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, NATO began beefing up security on its eastern flank with Russia and Ukraine. It’s the alliance’s biggest buildup since the Cold War. The war games are meant to deter Russia from targeting a member country.

The exercises – dubbed Steadfast Defender 24 – “will show that NATO can conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers, from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any condition,” the 31-nation organization said.

Troops will be moving to and through Europe until the end of May in what NATO describes as “a simulated emerging conflict scenario with a near-peer adversary.” Under NATO’s new defense plans, its chief adversaries are Russia and terrorist organizations.

“The alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via transatlantic movement of forces from North America,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Christopher Cavoli, told reporters.

Cavoli said it will demonstrate “our unity, our strength, and our determination to protect each other.”

The chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said that it’s “a record number of troops that we can bring to bear and have an exercise within that size, across the alliance, across the ocean from the U.S. to Europe.”

Bauer described it as “a big change” compared to troop numbers exercising just a year ago. Sweden, which is expected to join NATO this year, will also take part.

U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps has said that the government in London would send 20,000 troops backed by advanced fighter jets, surveillance planes, warships and submarines, with many being deployed in eastern Europe from February to June.
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EU, AU, US Say Sudan War, Somalia’s Tension With Ethiopia Threaten Horn of Africa’s Stability

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NAIROBI, Kenya — The African Union, European Union, and United States called Thursday for an immediate cease-fire and constructive dialogue between warring factions in Sudan.

The groups also called for an end to tension between Somalia and Ethiopia over an agreement signed between Ethiopia and Somalia’s breakaway region Somaliland.

Representatives of the groups, who spoke in Kampala, Uganda, after the meeting of an East African regional bloc, said that the two crises are threatening regional stability in the Horn of Africa.

Sudan’s armed forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces have been fighting for control of Sudan since April. Long-standing tensions erupted into street battles in the capital and other areas including the western Darfur region.

The AU, EU and U.S. and U.N. noted that the fighting has displaced 7 million people and kept 19 million children out of school.

Michael Hammer, U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, called on Sudan’s factions to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and to fulfill recent commitments to stop fighting.

“It’s time for them to take action consistent with their stated claims that they want to stop the fighting and meet the needs of the people,” Hammer said.

He spoke after the regional bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, held an emergency meeting of heads of states in Kampala to discuss the Sudan war and rising tension between Somalia and Ethiopia.

Hammer said the leader of Sudan’s army, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is known as Hemedti, must follow through on their promise at a December 9 IGAD summit to reach an unconditional cease-fire.

“They will be responsible for the break up of Sudan if this conflict continues,” Hammer said.

The first step is an enforceable cease-fire that can be closely monitored, said Ramtane Lamamra, the U.N. envoy for Sudan.

“Guns must be silenced,” he said, adding that the war endangers “stability of the entire region and beyond.”

On Tuesday, the Sudanese government suspended ties with the east African regional bloc, accusing it of violating Sudan’s sovereignty by inviting the paramilitary leader to a summit. Hemedti attended Thursday’s summit in Kampala but did not speak.

Amid the renewed calls for a ceasefire, the United Nations announced Thursday that the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan, which is charged with investigating violations of human rights and international humanitarian law since April 15, began its work this week.

Mohamed Chande Othman, the fact-finding mission’s chair, said investigations of alleged violations by the Sudanese Armed Forces, Rapid Support Forces and other warring parties are under way, and particular attention will be paid to sexual violence and other violations against women and children, according to U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

The Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council established the fact-finding mission in October 2023 with the aim of ensuring that those responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are brought to justice. Dujarric said the mission will present an oral report on its initial findings at the council’s session that starts in June.

Regarding Somalia, the AU, EU and U.S. said they recognize the country’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, including the breakaway region of Somaliland.

Tension has been rising after land-locked Ethiopia signed an agreement on January 1 with Somaliland to give it access to the sea. Somaliland in return expects Ethiopia soon to recognize the region as an independent state, which angers Somalia.

Hammer said the U.S. is particularly concerned that the tensions could undermine international-backed efforts to combat al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia.

Annette Weber, the EU special envoy for the Horn of Africa, said the two crises have a common link with Red Sea, which she called a critical waterway carrying 10 percent of global cargo.

Weber also said there needs to be a collective response among Horn of Africa countries against attacks on ships by Yemen-based Houthi rebels.
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