Preparing War

KN, The US wants a “prominent” role in Gaza after Israel’s military operation in the Palestinian enclave ends, Politico has reported. Washington expects a joint Palestinian-Arab force of several thousand troops to take charge of security in Gaza after the current conflict.

Politico reported details of discussions within the administration of US President Joe Biden about what a post-war settlement should look like, citing four officials and a leaked document from the Department of State.

The US reportedly wants to retain a “civilian adviser” to any future security force, likely based in Egypt or Jordan. American forces, however, would “never enter Gaza itself” in order to avoid the impression that Washington was “dictating the future of the territory.”

A classified document from March envisioned an American filling the role of a “director-general” of the future security mission, according to the outlet. Under that proposal, the force would consist of roughly 2,000 Palestinians and 1,000 troops from Arab-speaking nations. It would be commanded by an officer from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, or “ideally” Egypt.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has thanked Russia, China, Hungary, and other countries for voting against the Western-backed ‘Srebrenica genocide’ resolution in the UN General Assembly.

The Serbian leader spoke after the assembly took a vote on a proposal by Germany and Rwanda to designate July 11 as ‘Srebrenica genocide’ remembrance day. Of the 193 UN member states, 84 voted in favor, 19 against, 68 abstained, and 20 left the assembly.

Despite the fact that the number of countries that opposed or abstained was greater than the number of those who voted in favor, the resolution was adopted.

Ukrainian military intelligence was directly involved in the deadly terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall just outside Moscow in March, the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, has said.

He added that the investigation into the attack is still being conducted, but all indications are that Ukraine was behind the scene.

He said the preparation and financing of the attack, as well as the terrorists’ escape from the scene afterwards, was coordinated over the internet by members of Wilayat Khorasan, also known as Islamic State – Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

He added that two of the four criminals involved arrived in Russia from Türkiye shortly before the attack. Upon completion, he said, “the terrorists received a clear command to move to the Ukrainian border, where a ‘window’ had been prepared for them.”

Hungary is reevaluating its role in NATO, as it has no intention to take part in actions that could involve member states in the Ukraine conflict and lead to a direct clash with Russia, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

Speaking on local Kossuth Radio, Orban stated that his country has already been relegated to the role of a non-participant within the US-led military bloc due to its stance on Ukraine, and Budapest is now working on legal ways to retain its membership but reserve the right to abstain from joining NATO operations it disagrees with.

According to the prime minister, there are “alarming similarities” between the emotionally charged media publications and statements by Western politicians regarding the Ukraine conflict and the atmosphere preceding the First and Second World Wars.

Germany will continue to pour money into Ukraine but will not do anything that places Berlin in direct conflict with Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed.

The German leader drew the red line in an opinion piece published on Thursday in The Economist. His position sharply contrasts with that of French President Emmanuel Macron, who maintains that the option of putting NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine must not be ruled out.

Both European leaders blame Moscow for the ongoing hostilities, but have diverging views on how involved their respective nations could become in the conflict. Macron, for example, agree to provide Kiev with French air-launched mid-range SCALP missiles, but Scholz declined a similar move, arguing that German military personnel must not take part in the preparation of Ukrainian strikes against Russia.

Finance ministers from the G7 economies will release a joint communique on Saturday expressing their support for using the revenue generated by roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine, Bloomberg reported.

The finance ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US will discuss Ukraine at a meeting on Saturday in the Italian town of Stresa, ahead of a summit of G7 leaders in June.

In the runup to the meeting, the US has been pressing its European allies to use future profits from immobilized Russian funds as a guarantee for a multibillion-dollar loan to Kiev. While Washington initially advocated the outright seizure of this money, the Europeans objected, citing legal issues and potential damage to the West’s financial credibility.

According to a draft communique seen by Bloomberg, the finance chiefs will state that they are “discussing potential schemes to bring forward the extraordinary revenues stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to halt its ongoing military operation in the Palestinian city of Rafah, as it is “not convinced” that the Israeli military’s evacuation orders are doing enough to protect civilians.

ICJ head Nawaf Salam said that its justices were “not convinced that the evacuation efforts and the related measures that Israel affirms to have undertaken” are sufficient to “alleviate the immense risk” to civilians in Rafah.

“Israel must immediately hold its military offensive of [sic] any other action in the Rafah governorate,” Salam continued, warning that failure to do so could bring about the wholesale destruction of life in the city.

Situated in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, Rafah hosted around 1.4 million Palestinian refugees displaced from other areas of the enclave until earlier this month, when Israel ordered around half that number to evacuate the city as it sent tanks and troops into its eastern neighborhoods.

The ICJ has already ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocide in Gaza, and to take action to improve conditions for its two million residents. However, Salam said that the humanitarian situation has “deteriorated further” since the court’s last order in March, and is now classified as “disastrous.”

Russian forces have become “bogged down” trying to capture the Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk, Ukraine’s top general Oleksandr Syrsky said though fighting on the eastern front remains intense.

Kyiv has been trying to push back against a Russian ground assault in the northeastern Kharkiv region since May 10, when thousands of Russian troops punched through the border in a surprise attack.

After initial success, “the enemy has got completely bogged down in street battles for Vovchansk and suffered very high losses in assault units,” Syrsky said, but added that fighting near the eastern cities of Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove was “intense.”

Over 11,000 people have been evacuated from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched its new offensive, according to local governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Syrsky’s comments came as state-owned train operator Ukrainian Railways reported a flurry of strikes on the Kharkiv region’s railway system, damaging tracks, train carriages and buildings.

“The enemy continues to make deliberate attempts to stop the railway in Kharkiv region,” Ukrainian Railways said.

Long-distance and suburban trains were running as scheduled, the state railway monopoly said, despite repeated Russian strikes on the network, which is vital for both civilians and the military.

US and UK intelligence services are attempting to leverage their long-standing ties with various terrorist groups to sow chaos in Central Asia, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has said.

Naryshkin said the West, led by the US, was seeking to maintain its grip on global hegemony. To achieve this goal, Western countries are trying to contain the development of other nations by fomenting strife and exploiting international and sectarian tensions, he claimed.

Naryshkin noted that, despite Washington’s “humiliating” withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, British and American intelligence services still cooperate with underground terrorist cells “to destabilize the situation not only in [this country], but also in Central Asia and Eurasia as a whole.”

US and UK spy agencies, he continued, essentially created such notorious terrorist organizations as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Washington and London are still operating in countries like Syria, which has been the scene of a multi-sided civil war since 2011, and Afghanistan, the intelligence chief alleged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the West is trying to manipulate existing conflicts, including the one raging in the Middle East, to undermine Russia and inflict a “strategic defeat” on the country. In February, Nikolai Patrushev, the former secretary of Russia’s Security Council who was recently appointed as an adviser to Putin, warned that the US could use any regional conflict to target countries that refuse to follow Washington’s lead in foreign policy.

White House officials are reportedly worried that Russia and North Korea may conspire to ramp up geopolitical tensions just before this year’s US presidential election to help Republican candidate Donald Trump defeat incumbent Joe Biden.

Biden’s administration is “increasingly concerned” over intensifying ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, The White House is bracing for the possibility that Kim will take provocative military actions – at Putin’s behest – to boost Trump’s chances in the November election, the outlet added, citing six unidentified senior officials.

Photo: Soldiers with the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Oklahoma Army National Guard, fire weapons over a trench during a live-fire exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, July 24, 2021. (Pfc. Emily White/Oklahoma Army National Guard) via Military.com