Category Archives: US foreign policy

Nato chief promises ‘forceful response’ to any attack, as Trump remarks dismissed

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Jens Stoltenberg says Nato ‘ready and able to defend all allies’, after Trump invited Russia to attack member countries

The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said that any attack on the western military alliance would be met with a “united and forceful response”, after the former US president Donald Trump invited Russia to attack member countries he perceived as not meeting their financial obligations.

Stoltenberg said in a statement: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk. I expect that regardless of who wins the presidential election, the US will remain a strong and committed Nato ally.”

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Outgunned and exhausted: what hope for Ukraine if US military aid dries up?

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With Republicans blocking US military aid, if Europe does not plug the gap Ukraine risks slow-motion defeat

Ukraine began 2024 on the defensive and Kyiv’s battlefield prospects are dimming further as Republicans in the US Congress appear increasingly to be intent on blocking future military aid. If Europe does not plug the gap, Ukraine risks slow-motion defeat from 2025.

A simple figure sums up the problem. Ukraine is once again being outgunned in this near two-year-old war: the current estimate is that Russia is firing 10,000 artillery shells a day to Ukraine’s 2,000, a dismal ratio that may yet worsen in the absence of future US gifts of ammunition.

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Biden urged to include politicians in sanctions on violent Israeli settlers

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Human rights groups also want to see executive order used to stop US groups from donating millions of dollars each year to settlers

There are growing calls for Joe Biden to use his new executive order sanctioning violent Israeli settlers to also target political leaders, including government ministers, responsible for driving attacks against Palestinians.

Pro-Israel groups and others in the US say the order is potentially a severe blow to the settlement movement in the West Bank, in part because financial sanctions could block even Israeli banks from doing business in parts of the occupied territories.

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Gaza: Israel moves closer to Rafah offensive despite ‘bloodbath’ warning

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Biden and UN say assault on city where 1.3m civilians are sheltering would be disastrous

Israel has moved closer to a full-scale ground offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, as Benjamin Netayahu ordered military leaders to present a plan to evacuate civilians from the area.

Despite warnings from a senior aid official that an assault on Rafah – where about 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering – would lead to a “bloodbath”, and the UN urging against forced mass displacement, Israel appeared determined to push ahead.

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US funding failure will have serious battlefield consequences, says Ukraine

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Zelenskiy aide says ‘foreign policy has become a hostage of internal politics’ after Republicans torpedo aid bill

The repeated failure of the Biden administration to get a funding package for Ukraine approved by the Senate will have real consequences in terms of lives on the battlefield and Kyiv’s ability to hold off Russian forces on the frontline, say Ukrainian officials.

The latest move by Senate Republicans to torpedo a bipartisan bill that would have combined $60bn (£48bn) in aid for Ukraine with aid to Israel and increased border security measures is a bitter blow for Kyiv. It could signal a very grim year ahead as the US political agenda settles into an election year with Donald Trump all but certain to be the Republican candidate.

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Houthis claim fresh attacks on British and US ships in Red Sea

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Two vessels not badly damaged but incident casts doubt on success of UK-US strikes on Yemen missile sites

Houthi rebels say they have successfully targeted a British and a US ship in the Red Sea, casting doubt on the effectiveness of three waves of US-UK strikes on missile sites belonging to the group in Yemen.

Neither of the two ships were badly damaged but the incident will underscore the need for commercial ships either to pay higher insurance premiums or take longer, more expensive routes to avoid the threat of Houthi attacks. A third ship was targeted on Tuesday afternoon, but not struck, at least reassuring Britain that the Houthi capabilities may have been degraded by the US-UK airstrikes.

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US says strikes on Iran-linked militias just ‘the beginning’ of its response

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National security adviser refuses to rule out targeting Iran after 85 sites were attacked in Iraq and Syria

US airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East were just the beginning of a sustained response, the White House national security adviser warned on Sunday, as he refused to rule out strikes on Iranian soil.

Jake Sullivan said the strikes on Friday night against 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, designed as retaliation for the killing of three US soldiers, “were the beginning, not the end of our response, and … there will be more steps, some seen, some perhaps unseen, all in an effort to send a very clear message that when American forces are attacked, when Americans are killed, we will respond and we will respond forcefully”.

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Overnight Israeli airstrikes kill scores in Gaza as fears grow of push into Rafah

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More than 127 reportedly killed in bombings, including in Rafah where more than a million people are sheltering

Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed scores of people overnight, as fears grow of the military campaign intensifying in the southern city of Rafah, a tiny pocket of the territory where more than a million people are sheltering.

Amid intensifying divisions in Israel’s government over the war, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was expected to arrive in the region on Sunday, his fifth trip since the militant group attacked Israel on 7 October, killing at least 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

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US launches airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for deadly drone attack

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President says ‘If you harm an American, we will respond’ as US forces strike in what is expected to be first of multiple attacks

Joe Biden has warned “if you harm an American, we will respond” as US forces attacked more than 80 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The US president said the strikes had been launched in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops in Jordan, adding: “Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”

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What does Biden’s order against Israeli settlers mean and why did he do it now?

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Some see the US president’s executive order imposing sanctions on settlers who violently attack Palestinians as a bid to win support

Was Joe Biden’s announcement of unprecedented US sanctions against Israeli settlers in occupied Palestine a sign of political weakness at home, or of a newly found willingness to assert American influence over Israel?

The president signed the executive order imposing financial and travel sanctions on settlers who violently attack Palestinians shortly before a campaign rally in the swing state of Michigan, where the largest Arab American population in the country has rounded on Biden over his largely blanket support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

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Joe Biden issues executive order against Israeli settlers in West Bank

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Financial sanctions and visa bans imposed on four individuals as US frustration with Israel grows

Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians, amid fast-growing frustration in Washington at Israel’s trajectory in the midst of its war in Gaza.

The order initially imposes financial sanctions and visa bans against four individuals, and US officials said they were evaluating whether to punish others involved in attacks that have intensified during the Israel-Hamas war.

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US orders reprisal strikes against Iranian-backed militia

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Strikes expected to take place in Syria and possibly Iraq, after three US soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan

The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.

Austin said all drones in the region attacking the US were of Iranian origin. The retaliatory strikes are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location.

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US military stockpiling supplies in Australia in readiness for any confrontation with China

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American war planners used joint Talisman Sabre exercises to position equipment in northern Victoria

When US and Australian troops practised amphibious landings, ground combat and air operations last year, they drew headlines about the allies deepening defence cooperation to counter China’s growing military ambitions.

But for US war planners preparing for a potential conflict over Taiwan, the high-profile Talisman Sabre exercises had a far more discrete value: they helped create new stockpiles of military equipment that were established in Australia after the drills ended in August, US officials said.

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China hacking threatens US infrastructure, FBI director warns, as Volt Typhoon botnet foiled

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Chris Wray tells House committee there has been been far too little public focus on a sleeper cyber threat that affects ‘every American’

US officials say they have disrupted a state-backed Chinese effort to plant malware that could damage civilian infrastructure, as the head of the FBI warned that Beijing was positioning itself to disrupt daily life in America were the US and China ever to go to war.

The operation disrupted a botnet of hundreds of small office and home routers based in the US that were owned by private citizens and companies that had been hijacked by the Chinese hackers to cover their tracks as they sowed malware.

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Several people killed in Israeli strikes on Iran-linked site in Syria

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Strikes reportedly hit farm housing members of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed factions

Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people, two days after regional tensions rose again when three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a military outpost in Jordan.

The Israeli strikes, which also left an unspecified number injured, were not regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria.

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Pentagon mulls response to Jordan drone strike amid fears for Gaza ceasefire efforts

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Lloyd Austin says president ‘will not tolerate attacks on US forces’, but Qatar warns that reprisal attacks could undermine Israel hostage talks

US defense secretary Lloyd Austin has vowed to take “all necessary actions” to defend US troops after Iran-backed militants killed three US troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan.

“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops,” Austin said at the Pentagon on Monday.

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Talks on Israel-Hamas hostage deal ‘constructive’ but meaningful gaps remain

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US, Qatari, Israeli and Egyptian officials met in Paris and will continue to discuss options

Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but meaningful gaps remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said.

The statement said the parties would continue to hold discussions this week. “There are still significant gaps in which the parties will continue to discuss this week in additional mutual meetings,” the statement added.

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UN chief urges donors to reconsider UNRWA funding withdrawal

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António Guterres says loss of funding from US and others means aid into Gaza for whole of this month cannot be guaranteed

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to the 10 donor countries that have withdrawn funding from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff.

Guterres said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and any UN employee involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

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Famine in Gaza is being made ‘inevitable’ says UN rapporteur

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Countries defunding UNRWA, the main aid distributer in Gaza, accused of collectively punishing more than 2.2 million Palestinians

The Gaza Strip is facing “inevitable famine” because of the decision by western countries to pause funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian affairs after Israeli accusations that 12 of the group’s employees took part in the Hamas attack on 7 October last year.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said on Sunday “famine was imminent” and now “inevitable”, in a comment following the news that the US and nine other countries were suspending additional funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

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Iraq accuses US of ‘reckless escalation’ of regional violence after latest strikes

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Pentagon calls overnight attacks ‘necessary and proportionate’, after US personnel were injured in a weekend attack in Iraq

US strikes against militias in Iraq have prompted the most scathing criticism yet from Baghdad, with the prime minister’s office accusing Washington of contributing to a “reckless escalation” of regional violence.

The Pentagon announced earlier on Wednesday that it had carried out overnight retaliatory strikes against three facilities linked to Iran-backed militias in response to its own forces coming under attack at an Iraqi airbase at the weekend.

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