World
US advises citizens not to travel to Iraq after recent attacks on US personnel
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The U.S. State Department said on Sunday U.S. citizens should not travel to Iraq after recent attacks on American troops and personnel in the region, Reuters reported.
The travel advisory says, “Do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and Mission Iraq’s limited capacity to provide support to U.S. citizens.”
There has been a spike in attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza broke out. Last week, a U.S. warship shot down more than a dozen drones and four cruise missiles fired by Iranian-backed Houthis from Yemen, read the report.
The advisory followed the ordered departure of eligible family members and non-emergency U.S. government personnel from U.S. Embassy Baghdad and U.S. Consulate General Erbil “due to increased security threats against U.S. personnel and interests,” the State Department said in a statement.
The statement added that anti-U.S. militias “threaten U.S. citizens and international companies” throughout Iraq. Earlier on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said they saw the prospect of a significant escalation in attacks on American troops in the Middle East and of Iran seeking to widen the Israel-Hamas war.
Washington is on heightened alert for activity by Iran-backed groups as regional tensions soar during the Israel-Hamas war, which began after Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing over 1,400 people.
Israel has since retaliated with deadly air strikes on Gaza, a 45 km-long (25-mile) strip of land that is part of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and home to 2.3 million people that has been ruled politically since 2007 by Hamas. Israel’s air strikes have killed over 4,700 people, Palestinian officials say.
“Because of security concerns, U.S. government personnel in Baghdad are instructed not to use Baghdad International Airport,” the State Department said on Sunday.
The United States has sent a significant amount of naval power to the Middle East in recent weeks, including two aircraft carriers, their support ships and about 2,000 Marines, Reuters reported.
The U.S. will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and additional Patriot air defense missile system battalions to the Middle East, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
World
US, Russia agree to restore diplomatic missions as first step in Ukraine war talks
The Riyadh talks were aimed as a step toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine after President Donald Trump, who took office last month, ordered top officials to begin negotiations.
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The U.S. and Russia agreed on Tuesday to restore the normal functioning of each other’s diplomatic missions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia.
The move appeared to signal a significant easing of restrictions on Russian diplomatic missions in the United States that were imposed by past U.S. administrations over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and other Russian actions, Reuters reported.
The Riyadh talks were aimed as a step toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine after President Donald Trump, who took office last month, ordered top officials to begin negotiations.
Rubio said the sides agreed as a first step to appoint teams of officials to “work very quickly to re-establish the functionality of our respective missions.”
The two countries have expelled diplomats and limited the appointment of new staff at each other’s missions in a series of tit-for-tat measures over the past decade, leaving their respective embassies thinly staffed.
Rubio said those moves had “really diminished our ability to operate in Moscow” and that Russia would say the same about its mission in Washington, read the report.
“We’re going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits,” Rubio told the Associated Press.
He said he would not negotiate in public the details of how the missions would be restored.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for details of the current operations of U.S. missions in Russia.
Rubio’s Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, raised the functioning of Russia’s U.S. missions with Rubio in a call on Saturday ahead of the talks in Riyadh, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, U.S. officials complained they were able to maintain only a “caretaker presence” in Russia, after Russia imposed a cap on personnel in U.S. missions, forcing Washington to shutter its consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg.
World
Zelenskyy warns against ‘repeat of Afghanistan scenario’ in Ukraine
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US President Donald Trump’s move to advance peace negotiations with Russia – but without Ukraine’s participation – has sparked serious concerns in Kyiv and across Europe with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning that the end of the Ukraine war could result in a situation similar to Afghanistan in 2021.
Zelenskyy’s remarks came on the eve of talks between Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
These talks, which are part of new efforts by US President Donald Trump to advance peace negotiations, have sparked concerns that Washington and Moscow might shape Ukraine’s future without its involvement.
Zelenskyy meanwhile said: “You can’t just take that off the table. That’s not how it works. I don’t think anyone is interested in an Afghanistan 2.0,” Zelenskyy said, referring to US government statements that Ukraine would not become a NATO member.
He specifically pointed to the hasty withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, which was negotiated during Donald Trump’s first term and rapidly implemented under former president Joe Biden in 2021. This led to a chaotic retreat and the collapse of the former Afghan government.
Zelensky stressed that back then, “lack of respect for human life” led to the “tragedy.” He added: “So there are experiences with what happens when someone ends something without thinking it through and withdraws very quickly.”
While acknowledging that Ukraine is now a different country than at the beginning of Russia’s invasion, with experience in its own arms production, Zelenskyy emphasized that “there will definitely be no victory for Ukraine without US support.”
UK reacts to Trump’s initiative
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer also spoke out against Trump’s move to broker peace with Russia, without Ukraine’s involvement, and warned the US president against letting Ukraine become an “Afghanistan-style disaster”.
Starmer made the comparison with the collapse of Kabul in 2021 – which Trump branded “one of the greatest defeats in American history” and urged the US not to make too many concessions to Russia.
Starmer stressed that any resolution must be lasting and prevent Russia’s President Vladimir Putin from “coming again” for more territory.
World
Israel receives shipment of heavy bombs cleared by Trump
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000-pound (907-kg) bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius, Reuters reported.
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Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States, after U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a block imposed on the export of the munitions by the administration of predecessor Joe Biden, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump said he lifted a Biden-era block on the export of the bombs to Israel despite a ceasefire agreement being in place because he believed in “peace through strength.”
“They contracted for the weapons a long time ago with the Biden administration, and then Biden wouldn’t deliver the weapons. But I look at it differently. I say, ‘peace through strength,'” Trump told reporters after returning to West Palm Beach, Florida, after a short trip to Daytona Beach. “They were sitting there. Nobody knew what to do with them. They bought them.”
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000-pound (907-kg) bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius, Reuters reported.
The Biden administration declined to clear them for export to Israel out of concern about the impact on densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Biden administration sent thousands of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants from Gaza but later held up one of the shipments. The hold was lifted by Trump last month.
“The munitions shipment that arrived in Israel tonight, released by the Trump administration, represents a significant asset for the Air Force and the IDF and serves as further evidence of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said late on Saturday.
The shipment arrived after days of concern about whether a fragile ceasefire in Gaza agreed last month would hold, after both sides accused each other of violating the terms of the deal to halt fighting to allow the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails, read the report.
Washington has announced assistance for Israel worth billions of dollars since the war began.
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