WASHINGTON: The United States sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Monday as the US military increased the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.
The voyage risks further raising tensions with China but will likely be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
The movement comes as US President Donald Trump said the United States and China were “very, very close” to a deal to end a months-long trade war that has slowed global growth and disrupted markets.
The US Navy’s passage through the Taiwan Strait also came just days before a summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement.
The two ships were identified as the destroyer Stethem and Navy cargo and ammunition ship Cesar Chavez, the statement said. The 1,800-kilometer wide Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from China.
China expressed anger at the move.
“We resolutely oppose the United States taking provocative actions which are not conducive to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a news briefing on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the US ships had left the strait following a northerly route.
Taiwan’s armed forces had kept watch on the sailing and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, so there was no cause for alarm, it said.
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help defend the island nation and is its main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.
China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.
Beijing’s concerns about Taiwan are likely to factor strongly into this year’s Chinese defense budget, following a stern new year’s speech from President Xi Jinping, threatening to attack Taiwan should it not accept Chinese rule.
China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle the island on drills in the past few years and worked to isolate the island internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency released a report earlier this year describing Taiwan as the “primary driver” for China’s military modernization, which it said had made major advances in recent years.
Democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic China.
Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war, US sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.
US Navy ships pass through strategic Taiwan Strait, riles China
US Navy ships pass through strategic Taiwan Strait, riles China
Terror at Friday prayers: Witnesses describe blast rocking Islamabad mosque
- The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications
ISLAMABAD: A worshipper at the Shiite mosque in Islamabad where dozens of people were killed in a suicide blast on Friday described an “extremely powerful” explosion ripping through the building just after prayers started.
Muhammad Kazim, 52, told AFP he arrived at the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque shortly after 1:00 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Friday and took up a place around seven or eight rows from the Imam.
“During the first bow of the Namaz (prayer ritual), we heard gunfire,” he told AFP outside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital, where many of the wounded were brought for treatment.
“And while we were still in the bowing position, an explosion occurred,” he said.
Kazim, who is from Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan and lives in Islamabad, escaped unharmed, but accompanied his wounded friend to the PIMS hospital for treatment.
“It was unclear whether it was a suicide bombing, but the explosion was extremely powerful and caused numerous casualties,” Kazim said.
“Debris fell from the roof, and windows were shattered,” he added. “When I got outside, many bodies were scattered... Many people lost their lives.”
The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications.
Another worshipper, Imran Mahmood, described a gunfight between the suicide bomber, a possible accomplice and volunteer security personnel at the mosque.
“The suicide attacker was trying to move forward, but one of our injured volunteers fired at him from behind, hitting him in the thigh,” Mahmood, in his fifties, told AFP.
“He fell but got up again. Another man accompanying him opened fire on our volunteers,” he said, adding the attacker “then jumped onto the gate and detonated the explosives.”
As of Saturday morning, the death toll stood at 31, with at least 169 wounded.
The attack was the deadliest in the Pakistani capital since September 2008, when 60 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb blast that destroyed part of the five-star Marriott hotel.
Lax security
Describing the aftermath of the attack, Kazim said unhurt worshippers went to the aid of those wounded.
“People tried to help on their own, carrying two or three bodies in the trunks of their vehicles, while ambulances arrived about 20 to 25 minutes later,” he told AFP.
“No one was allowed near the mosque afterwards.”
Kazim, who has performed Friday prayers at the mosque “for the past three to four weeks,” said security had been lax.
“I have never seen proper security in place,” he told AFP.
“Volunteers manage security on their own, but they lack the necessary equipment to do it effectively,” he said.
“Shiite mosques are always under threat, and the government should take this seriously and provide adequate security,” he added.
