Airplane is seen in front of Chinese and Taiwanese flags in this illustration, August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it spotted 28 Chinese air force planes in its air defence zone on Wednesday morning, part of what Taipei calls regular harassment by Beijing amid heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
Democratically-governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained in recent years of stepped-up Chinese military activities near the island as Beijing seeks to assert its sovereignty claims.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said that beginning at around 6 a.m. (2200 GMT Tuesday), Chinese warplanes, including J-10 fighters, had flown into the southwestern corner of the island’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ.
Some of the Chinese aircraft crossed the Bashi Channel to carry out drills with the Chinese aircraft carrier the Shandong in the Pacific, the ministry added.
China’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Taiwan’s forces monitored the situation, including sending up its own air force planes and activating air defence systems, the ministry added, using the normal phrasing for its response to such Chinese incursions.
A Chinese naval formation led by the Shandong entered the western Pacific for training, Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Monday.
Japan’s defence ministry later said its Maritime Self-Defense Force had spotted the Shandong and five accompanying Chinese navy vessels, including two frigates and two missile destroyers, around 650 km south (400 miles) off Japan’s southwestern Miyako island on Wednesday morning.
FILE – United Nations forces patrol the streets of Timbuktu, Mali, on Sept. 26, 2021. The United Nations is in the throes of what Secretary-General António Guterres calls an “unprecedented” six-month exit from Mali on orders of the West African nation’s military junta, which has brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help fight an Islamic insurgency. (AP Photo/Moulaye Sayah, File)
Two attacks by al-Qaida linked insurgents in the restive north of Mali on Thursday killed 49 civilians and 15 government soldiers, the country’s military junta said.
A passenger boat near the city of Timbuktu on the Niger River and a Malian military position in Bamba further downstream in the Gao region were targeted, according to a statement from the military junta read on state television. It said the attacks have been claimed by JNIM, an umbrella coalition of armed groups aligned with al-Qaida.
The Malian government killed about 50 assailants while responding to the attacks, the announcement said. It said also declared three days of national mourning from Friday to honor the civilians and soldiers killed in the attacks.
Al-Qaida affiliated and Islamic State-linked groups have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, the United Nations said in a report last month, as they take advantage of a weak government and of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement.
The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have offered the IS group and al-Qaida affiliates a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario,” they said.
That’s the year when a military coup took place in the West African country and rebels in the north formed an Islamic state two months later. The extremist rebels were forced from power in the north with the help of a French-led military operation, but they moved from the arid north to more populated central Mali in 2015 and remain active.
In August 2020, Mali’s president was overthrown in a coup that included an army colonel who carried out a second coup and was sworn in as president in June 2021. He developed ties to Russia’s military and Russia’s Wagner mercenary group whose head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash in Russia on Aug. 23.
The classified Pentagon documents stated that Taiwan officials question the ability to “accurately detect missile launches.” AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File
Secret military documents reportedly included in the mass Discord leak posted by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reveal critical weaknesses in Taiwan’s air defenses.
The classified Pentagon assessments of the island nation’s military readiness state that Taiwan officials themselves question their ability to “accurately detect missile launches” from China, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
US analysts found that only half of Taiwan’s aircraft would be “fully mission capable” in the event of a Chinese attack — and suggested that Beijing could successfully control Taiwan’s airspace if it chose to invade.
Last week, three days of Chinese “combat readiness patrols” signaled a warning to independent Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
Teixeira, 21, a low-level Air National Guard information technology specialist, is accused of posting hundreds of classified documents related to the Ukraine war and other sensitive military topics to a Discord channel with 20 to 30 members.
The social media site, popular among video-game players such as Teixeira, is cooperating with the investigation, Discord chief legal officer Clint Smith said Friday.
“This recent incident fundamentally represents a misuse of our platform and a violation of our platform rules,” Smith said.
Heavily armed federal agents arrested Teixeira at his mother’s home in North Dighton, Mass. on Thursday.
Teixeira leaked the critical weaknesses in Taiwan’s air defenses. Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School
Meanwhile, one of former President Trump’s top national security aides said Saturday that Teixeira could not have acted alone — but is merely the patsy in a much wider intelligence breach.
“It’s just not possible” for Teixeira to have had access to such a highly sensitive trove, Kash Patel, Trump’s former deputy director of national intelligence, told Breitbart News.
“You can be the biggest IT person in [the Department of Defense], and you are still compartmented off of the actual information,” Patel explained.
Patel said he does not believe “for a single second” that “this guy — a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman — ran his operation alone.”
Instead, he said, the explosive revelations are likely part of “an Assange-style operation” — referring to the WikiLeaks founder who faces espionage charges for helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files.
“The way it was produced, the way it was put out there — pages, printed photographs taken, published online — that is a methodical way of releasing classified information illegally,” Patel said — calling Teixiera’s arrest “an extensive cover-up.”
Teixeira, who joined the Massachusetts Air National Guard in 2019, worked as a cyber transport systems journeyman with the 102nd Intelligence Wing, responsible for the upkeep of military communications hardware.
Smoke rises in Omdurman, near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum North, Sudan April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Sudan’s military launched air strikes on a paramilitary force’s base near the capital in a bid to reassert control over the country on Sunday as clashes killed at least 25 people and threatened efforts to transition to civilian rule.
At the end of a day of heavy fighting, the army struck a base belonging to the government’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the city of Omdurman, which adjoins the capital Khartoum, eyewitnesses said late on Saturday.
They could still hearing the sound of heavy artillery across Khartoum, Omdurman and nearby Bahri in the early hours of Sunday morning. Eyewitnesses also heard gunfire in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, where there had been no earlier reports of fighting.
The Sudanese Doctors’ Union earlier reported at least 25 people were killed and 183 wounded in battles that erupted on Saturday between the military and the RSF.
The group said it recorded deaths at Khartoum’s airport and Omdurman, as well as west of Khartoum in the cities of Nyala, El Obeid and El Fasher.
The RSF claimed to have seized the presidential palace, army chief’s residence, state television station and airports in Khartoum, the northern city of Merowe, El Fasher and West Darfur state. The army rejected those assertions.
The Sudanese air force told people to stay indoors while it conducted what it called an aerial survey of RSF activity, and a holiday was declared in Khartoum state for Sunday, closing schools, banks and government offices.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard across the capital, where TV footage showed smoke rising from several districts and social media videos captured military jets flying low over the city, at least one appearing to fire a missile.
A Reuters journalist saw cannon and armoured vehicles on the streets and heard heavy weapons fire near the headquarters of both the army and RSF.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan told Al Jazeera TV the RSF should back down: “We think if they are wise they will turn back their troops that came into Khartoum. But if it continues we will have to deploy troops into Khartoum from other areas.”
The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF unless the force dissolved. The army told soldiers seconded to the RSF to report to nearby army units, which could deplete RSF ranks if they obey.
The RSF leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, called Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”. The military and RSF, which analysts say is 100,000 strong, have been competing for power as political factions negotiate forming a transitional government after a 2021 military coup.
“We know where you are hiding and we will get to you and hand you over to justice, or you die just like any other dog,” Hemedti said.
A prolonged confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections.
POLITICAL AGREEMENT AT RISK
The clashes follow rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military. The disagreement has delayed the signing an internationally backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy.
A coalition of civilian groups that signed a draft of that agreement in December called on Saturday for an immediate halt to hostilities, to stop Sudan sliding towards “the precipice of total collapse”.
“This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country,” they said in a statement. “This is a war that no one will win, and that will destroy our country forever.”
The RSF accused the army of carrying out a plot by loyalists of former strongman President Omar Hassan al-Bashir – who was ousted in a coup in 2019 – and attempting a coup itself. The 2021 coup ousted the country’s civilian prime minister.
Eyewitnesses reported fighting in many areas outside the capital. Those included heavy exchanges of gunfire in Merowe, eyewitnesses told Reuters.
The RSF shared a video that it said showed Egyptian troops who “surrendered” to them in Merowe. Egypt said the troops were in Sudan for exercises with their Sudanese counterparts.
Hemedti told Sky News Arabia the Egyptians were safe and the RSF would cooperate with Cairo on their return.
Second underwater drone test in just over two weeks as Pyongyang continues efforts to expand and modernise its weaponry.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered a rapid modernisation of the country’s arsenal [File: KCNA/KNS via AFP]North Korea has conducted another test of a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone, according to state media.
The country tested the so-called Haeil-2 more than a week after it disclosed a new underwater drone system dubbed Haeil-1, which translates to “tsunami” in Korean, and is designed to undertake sneak attacks in enemy waters.
Analysts are sceptical about whether the underwater vehicle is ready for deployment but say North Korea is eager to display its diverse weaponry against the United States and South Korea, which have been conducting large-scale military exercises in recent weeks.
The latest test took place from April 4 to April 7, state media KCNA reported on Saturday.
“The underwater nuclear attack drone Haeil-2 … cruised 1,000km [621 miles] of simulated underwater distance,” the agency said, adding that the test warhead was also detonated.
“The test perfectly proved the reliability of the underwater strategic weapon system and its fatal attack ability,” the report said.
North Korea announced last month it had successfully tested the Haeil-1 underwater attack drone [KCNA/ KNS via AFP]North Korea carried out a record number of weapons tests in 2022 and has maintained its military momentum this year, claiming it needs to bolster its defences because the US-South Korean drills, which this week included at least one US nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bomber, are rehearsals for invasion.
On March 23, North Korea claimed it tested an underwater nuclear attack drone able to unleash a “radioactive tsunami“. On that occasion, state media said the drone cruised underwater for 59 hours and 12 minutes before detonation.
Satellite imagery has also indicated a high level of activity at North Korea’s main nuclear complex after leader Kim Jong Un ordered the production of weapons-grade nuclear material be ramped up.
Last year, North Korea declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power, while Kim has told the North Korean military to intensify drills in preparation for a “real war“.
