DUBAI: America’s top defense official vowed Saturday to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to counter its “dangerous use” of suicide drones in the wider Mideast, a pledge coming as negotiations remain stalled over Tehran’s tattered atomic deal with world powers.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comments in Bahrain at the annual Manama Dialogue appeared aimed at reassuring America’s Gulf Arab allies as the Biden administration tries to revive the nuclear deal, which limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
His remarks also come after Gulf sheikhdoms saw the US’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, raising concerns about America’s commitment to the region as defense officials say they want to pivot forces to counter perceived challenges from China and Russia.
“The United States remains committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. And we remain committed to a diplomatic outcome of the nuclear issue,” Austin told an event put on by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But if Iran isn’t willing to engage seriously, then we will look at all of the options necessary to keep the United States secure.”
Iran long has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, though US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Tehran had an organized weapons program until 2003. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, a series of escalating incidents have struck the wider Mideast. That includes drone and mine attacks targeting vessels at sea, as well as assaults blamed on Iran and its proxies in Iraq and Syria. The US also killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad in early 2020, which saw Iran target American troops in Iraq with ballistic missiles.
Under Biden, US military officials are looking at a wider reshuffling of forces from the Mideast to other areas, though it still maintains a large presence at bases across the region. Austin hinted at that in his remarks, saying: “Our potential punch includes what our friends can contribute and what we have prepositioned and what we can rapidly flow in.”
“Our friends and foes both know that the United States can deploy overwhelming force at the time and place of our choosing,” Austin said.
US defense chief vows to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapon
https://arab.news/2qc4k
US defense chief vows to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapon
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attends the annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain
- US intelligence agencies say Tehran had an organized weapons program until 2003
UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent
- Both climbers used Southeast Ridge route to summit
- They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients
KATMANDU: A British climber and a Nepali guide have broken their own records for most climbs of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, hiking officials said on Sunday.
Rakesh Gurung, director of Nepal’s Department of Tourism, said Britain’s Kenton Cool, 50, and Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa, 54, climbed the 8,849-meter (29,032 foot) peak for the 18th and 29th time, respectively.
They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients.
“He just keeps going and going... amazing guy!” Garrett Madison of the US-based expedition organizing company Madison Mountaineering said of the Nepali climber. Madison had teamed up with Kami Rita to climb the summits of Everest, Lhotse, and K2 in 2014.
K2, located in Pakistan, is the world’s second-highest mountain and Lhotse in Nepal is the fourth-tallest.
Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures called Cool’s feat remarkable.
“He is a fundamental part of the Everest guiding industry. Kenton Cool is an institution,” Furtenbach, who is leading an expedition from the Chinese side of Everest, told Reuters.
Both climbers used the Southeast Ridge route to the summit.
Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the Everest summit.
Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994 and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.
He climbed the mountain twice last year.
Mountain climbing is a major tourism activity and a source of income as well as employment for Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest peaks, including Everest.
Nepal has issued 414 permits, each costing $11,000 to climbers for the climbing season that ends this month.
Banning UK arms exports to Israel would strengthen Hamas, UK’s Cameron says
- Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians
LONDON: Stopping British arms sales to Israel if it launches a ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would strengthen Hamas, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Sunday.
Israel ordered Palestinians to evacuate more of the southern city on Saturday in an indication it was pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack, despite US President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold the supply of some weapons if it did so.
Cameron said he did not support an operation in Rafah in the absence of a plan to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the southern border city.
However, Britain was in a “completely different position” to the United States in terms of providing arms to Israel, he said, noting that the less than 1 percent of Israel’s weapons that came from Britain were already controlled by a strict licensing system.
“We could, if we chose to, make a sort of political message and say we are going to take that political step,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
“The last time I was urged to do that (...), just a few days later there was a brutal attack by Iran on Israel, including 140 cruise missiles,” he added.
Cameron said the “better answer” would be for Hamas, which controls Gaza, to accept a hostage deal.
“Just to simply announce today we’re going to change our whole approach to arms exports rather than go through our careful process, it would strengthen Hamas, it would make a hostage deal less likely, I don’t think it would be the right approach,” he said.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed close to 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
‘Completely helpless’: Afghanistan’s north struggles to get aid after deadly floods
- Thousands of houses and livestock were also wiped out by the flash floods
- Afghanistan is prone to natural disasters, considered vulnerable to climate change
KABUL: Survivors of the deadly flash floods that ripped through northern Afghanistan were still struggling without basic aid on Sunday, as the official death toll rose to over 300.
Heavy rains on Friday triggered flash floods across at least seven provinces, including Baghlan, Ghor, Badakhshan and Takhar, injuring more than 1,600 people and destroyed about 2,600 houses, according to the latest data from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees.
Many people remain missing and livestock were wiped out as survivors picked through muddy, debris-littered streets and damaged buildings over the weekend, while authorities and humanitarian agencies deployed aid and rescue workers.
“All available resources are being mobilized, and relevant ministries and agencies are actively engaged in delivering urgent aid,” Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for economic affairs, told survivors in Baghlan province on Sunday, as he reassured “unwavering support” from the Taliban-led government “until their lives are restored to normalcy.”
But some people in the province, which bore the brunt of the deluges, said that aid has yet to reach them.
“We haven’t received any support from the government or aid organizations yet. Everyone comes and asks us questions, then they go back,” Ghulam Nabi, who is from the province’s Burka district, told Arab News in a phone interview.
“We lost our houses and our lives. Everything we had is under mud now. The agriculture land and livestock, our only source of livelihood, are also completely destroyed. We don’t have the basic means to cook food for ourselves.”
Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods had left scores of people dead and destroyed farmlands across Afghanistan, a country where 80 percent of its more than 41 million people depend on agriculture to survive.
The South Asian nation is prone to natural disasters and is considered by the UN to be one of countries most vulnerable to climate change.
Aid group Save the Children said about 600,000 people, half of them children, live in the five districts in Baghlan that have been severely impacted by the recent floods.
“Lives and livelihoods have been washed away. The flash floods tore through villages, sweeping away homes and killing livestock. Children have lost everything,” Arshad Malik, the group’s country director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
Most of the affected areas are still cut off on Sunday, inaccessible by trucks as roads and bridges were damaged by the floods, which also impacted other public infrastructure.
People were struggling to access essential health services, the World Health Organization said in a statement, as “several health facilities remain non-operational.”
Abdul Fatah Jawad, director of Ehsas Welfare and Social Services Organization, said that many of the flood survivors were still in shock.
“People are so scared and traumatized. Most houses that survived the flooding are emptied as people fear more floods. Families took refuge in school yards and deserted areas far from residential houses,” Jawad told Arab News.
He said families are in urgent need of basic goods, such as food, drinking water, medicine, tents, blankets and shelter. Since Saturday, his organization has managed to deliver cooked food for hundreds of families.
“People, particularly children, need to eat something … They also need cash to rebuild their houses and their businesses,” he said. “Some families lost everything — house, land, livestock, business. They are completely helpless.”
Indonesia welcomes expanded Makkah Route access as pilgrims start departing for Hajj
- Indonesia will be sending 241,000 pilgrims this pilgrimage season
- The Makkah Route initiative is available in 3 Indonesian cities
JAKARTA: Indonesia on Sunday welcomed the expansion of the Makkah Route initiative to three airports, as the first batch of the country’s largest Hajj contingent to date departed for Saudi Arabia.
The world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation will be sending 241,000 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year for the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Although the Hajj this year is expected to start on June 14 and end on June 19, many pilgrims depart early to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill their religious duty.
As Indonesia’s first Hajj flight carrying nearly 400 pilgrims departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the early hours of Sunday, Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said he was grateful to the Saudi leadership for adding the Makkah Route initiative in other Indonesian cities.
“On behalf of the Indonesian government, I thank the Saudi government for providing additional fast-track facilities, other than Jakarta, it is now available in Solo and Surabaya,” Qoumas said after he sent off the first group in the Indonesian capital.
“Hopefully this will give ease, benefit, and a smooth journey for all Indonesian pilgrims.”
Launched in 2019, the Kingdom’s Makkah Route initiative is a pre-travel program created to help pilgrims meet all the visa, customs and health requirements at the airport of origin, and save them long hours of waiting before and upon arrival in Saudi Arabia.
This year, the initiative will benefit more than 128,000 Indonesian pilgrims who will leave from the three selected cities.
“We saw the fast-track service at the airport. It doesn’t take any longer than two minutes. It’s very fast, very helpful for the pilgrims. When they arrive, they don’t have to go through any other immigration process, they can just hop on the bus and begin their worship in the holy land,” Qoumas said.
This year, Saudi Arabia increased Indonesia’s quota of pilgrims by 20,000, from 221,000 last year, making it the biggest in the Southeast Asian nation’s history.
The highest quota in previous years came before the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2019, when the Kingdom approved a quota of 231,000 pilgrims for Indonesia.
The additional quota will help shorten the wait for some pilgrims by a few years, which is especially important for elderly pilgrims. Many Indonesians have to wait up to 45 years for their turn, according to official estimates.
Ace Hasan Syadzili, a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, was also present to see off the first batch of pilgrims on Sunday, commended the Makkah Route initiative.
“This is certainly helpful. Looking at the previous years, without fast track the immigration can take between two to five hours. But this fast track will speed up services for Hajj pilgrims,” Syadzili said.
“We will continue to oversee and supervise the Hajj management process this year so that it is in line with the people’s expectations.”
US Marine pilot arrested in Australia worked with Chinese hacker, lawyer says
- Daniel Duggan, a naturalized Australian citizen, fears requests by Western intelligence agencies for sensitive information were putting his family at risk
SYDNEY: A former US Marine pilot fighting extradition from Australia on US charges of training Chinese military pilots to land on aircraft carriers, unknowingly worked with a Chinese hacker, his lawyer said.
Daniel Duggan, 55, a naturalized Australian citizen, feared requests by Western intelligence agencies for sensitive information were putting his family at risk, the lawyer said in a legal filing seen by Reuters.
The lawyer’s filing supports Reuters reporting linking Duggan to convicted Chinese defense hacker Su Bin.
Duggan denies the allegations that he broke US arms control laws. He has been in an Australian maximum security prison since his 2022 arrest after returning from six years working in Beijing.
US authorities found correspondence with Duggan on electronic devices seized from Su Bin, Duggan’s lawyer Bernard Collaery said in the March submission to Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who will decide whether to surrender Duggan to the US after a magistrate hears Duggan’s extradition case.
The case will be heard in a Sydney court this month, two years after his arrest in rural Australia at a time when Britain was warning its former military pilots not to work for China.
Su Bin, arrested in Canada in 2014, pleaded guilty in 2016 to theft of US military aircraft designs by hacking major US defense contractors. He is listed among seven co-conspirators with Duggan in the extradition request.
Duggan knew Su Bin as an employment broker for Chinese state aviation company AVIC, lawyer Collaery wrote, and the hacking case was “totally unrelated to our client.”
Although Su Bin “may have had improper connection to (Chinese) agents this was unknown to our client,” Duggan’s lawyer wrote.
‘OVERT INTELLIGENCE CONTACT’
AVIC was blacklisted by the US last year as a Chinese military-linked company.
Messages retrieved from Su Bin’s electronic devices show he paid for Duggan’s travel from Australia to Beijing in May 2012, according to extradition documents lodged by the United States with the Australian court.
Duggan asked Su Bin to help source Chinese aircraft parts for his Top Gun tourist flight business in Australia, Collaery wrote.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and US Navy criminal investigators knew Duggan was training pilots for AVIC and met him in Australia’s Tasmania state in December 2012 and February 2013, his lawyer wrote.
ASIO and the US Navy Criminal Investigation Service did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the meetings. ASIO has previously said it would not comment as the matter was before the court.
“An ASIO officer suggested that while carrying on his legitimate business operations in China, Mr.Duggan may be able to gather sensitive information,” his lawyer wrote.
Duggan moved to China in 2013 and was barred from leaving the country in 2014, his lawyer said. Duggan’s LinkedIn profile and aviation sources who knew him said he was working in China as an aviation consultant in 2013 and 2014.
He renounced his US citizenship in 2016 at the US embassy in Beijing, backdated to 2012 on a certificate, after “overt intelligence contact by US authorities that may have compromised his family safety,” his lawyer wrote.
His lawyers oppose extradition, arguing there is no evidence the Chinese pilots he trained were military and that he became an Australian citizen in January 2012, before the alleged offenses.
The United States government has argued Duggan did not lose his US citizenship until 2016.
