Latest news with #Army-led
India Today
2 days ago
- Climate
- India Today
PM Modi likely to skip G7 summit in Canada amid strained ties: Sources
50:19 Incessant rains have triggered floods and landslides across North-East India. Over 3 lakh people in 19 Assam districts are affected, with rivers breaching danger levels. Sikkim's Teesta river has caused bridge collapses. The Indian Air Force rescued 14 people from Arunachal's Bomje river as NDRF, SDRF, and Army-led rescue efforts continue amid more rain alerts.
Time of India
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Operation Keller: 3 local Lashkar terrorists killed in south Kashmir
Operation Keller SRINAGAR: Three Kashmiri terrorists linked to Pakistan-backed banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba were shot dead Tuesday during an Army-led counterterrorism operation in upper reaches of south Kashmir 's Shopian district, about 80km south of Srinagar. Two of the slain men were identified as Shahid Kuttay and Adnan Shafi Dar, both locals from Shopian whose family homes were demolished with explosives following the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. Officials have yet to confirm identity of the third terrorist. Officials have not confirmed if the trio had direct links to Pahalgam massacre, saying investigations are underway. Police records list Kuttay as an active terrorist since March 8, 2023. Dar joined LeT on Oct 18, 2024. Both were trained locally. Police said Kuttay was involved in the April 8 shooting at Danish Resort in Shopian, where two German tourists and their driver were wounded. The resort lies along Mughal Road connecting Kashmir valley with Poonch district of Jammu. He also had a role in the killing of a BJP sarpanch in Heerpora of Shopian on May 18, 2024. Dar, according to police, was responsible for killing a migrant labourer in Shopian's Wachi on the day he joined LeT. Tuesday's offensive was launched after intelligence inputs received by Rashtriya Rifles indicated presence of armed terrorists in Shoekal Keller area. Joint teams of Army and paramilitary forces quickly cordoned off the dense forest zone in a search operation codenamed Operation Keller . A fierce firefight broke out as forces surrounded the terrorists and blocked escape routes, resulting in deaths of all three. 'Operation is in progress,' Army said in a statement. This marked Kashmir valley's second security shootout with terrorists this year. On March 16, J&K police shot dead a Pakistani terrorist in Handwara forest, roughly 100km north of Srinagar. Posters featuring images of three suspects in Pahalgam attack have appeared across parts of south Kashmir, particularly Shopian, offering a reward of Rs 20 lakh for information. Written in Urdu, the posters urge public assistance: 'Those who killed the innocents do not have a place in our country.' Another line reads: 'Kashmir is united against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.' Security forces are on high alert and in pursuit of terrorists amid a pause in Indo-Pak military action, which was triggered by India launching airstrikes on nine terrorist sites in PoK and Pakistan under Operation Sindoor on May 7, a fortnight after the Pahalgam massacre.
The Hindu
10-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
33 killed in Sudan strikes blamed on paramilitary RSF
At least 33 people have been killed in Sudan in attacks blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the Army since April 2023, first responders said Saturday. The attacks came after six straight days of RSF drone strikes on the Army-led government's wartime capital Port Sudan damaged key infrastructure including the power grid and the country's last operational civilian airport. On Friday evening, at least 14 members of the same family were killed in an air strike on a displacement camp in the vast western region of Darfur, a rescue group said, blaming the paramilitaries. The Abu Shouk camp "was the target of intense bombardment by the Rapid Support Forces on Friday evening", said the group of volunteer aid workers, which also reported wounded. "Fourteen Sudanese, members of the same family, were killed" and several people wounded, it said in a statement. The camp near El-Fasher, the last state capital in Darfur still out of the RSF's control, is plagued by famine, according to the United Nations. It is home to tens of thousands of people who fled the violence of successive conflicts in Darfur and the conflict that has been tearing Africa's third largest country apart since 2023. The RSF has shelled the camp several times in recent weeks. Abu Shouk is located near the Zamzam camp, which the RSF seized in April after a devastating offensive that virtually emptied it. Drone attacks The United Nations says nearly one million people had been sheltering at the site. On Saturday, an RSF strike on a prison in the army-controlled southern city of El-Obeid killed at least 19 people and wounded 45, a medical source said. The source told AFP that the jail in the North Kordofan state capital was hit by an RSF drone. Elsewhere on Saturday, army warplanes struck RSF positions in the Darfur cities of Nyala and El-Geneina, destroying arms depots and military equipment, a military source said. This week, the RSF said it had taken the strategic town of En Nahud in West Kordofan, a key army supply line to Darfur. Sudan's army-aligned authorities accuse the United Arab Emirates of supplying drones to the RSF, which has no air force of its own. The war -- which began as a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 13 million people and triggered what the United Nations calls one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. It has effectively divided the country in two with the army controlling the north, east and centre while the RSF and its allies dominate nearly all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south. Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon seeks drone-killing technology that's safe for civilians
The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit plans to issue a solicitation for low-collateral counter-drone technology next week, part of the second iteration of its Replicator rapid-fielding effort that's focused on helping the Pentagon protect its installations from small-drone attacks. DIU Director Doug Beck told House lawmakers Thursday his organization is particularly interested in technologies that can take out drone threats in highly populated areas without major impacts on the environment and, critically, civilians. 'It's really about those low-collateral interceptors and getting after those solutions — whether it's through electronic means, kinetic or ballistic means or other forms of bringing those drones down,' Beck told the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee in a hearing. Replicator's goal is to create a new pathway for the Pentagon to buy and scale high-need capabilities on faster timelines. Replicator 1, which is ongoing, set out to deliver thousands of low-cost drones by August of this year. Last September, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the next phase of the effort, dubbed Replicator 2, would center on the small UAS challenge. DIU is leading Replicator 2 and is partnered closely with the Army-led Joint Counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems Office, JCO, and the Counter Uncrewed Systems Warfighter Senior Integration Group. Speaking last week at the Apex Conference, DIU's chief of Policy Sunmin Kim said that along with its emphasis on low-collateral defeat systems, Replicator 2 is also focused on identifying more affordable systems that are available either commercially or from traditional defense contractors with mature technology. 'We're interested in low-cost sensing options, so things like passive [radio frequency] radars versus actually using active sensors that we typically do for aircraft,' she said. Defending against adversarial drones is a significant challenge for the U.S. military and its allies — from attacks in the Red Sea to reports of drone swarms flying over domestic bases. The Pentagon has launched a number of efforts and organizations over the last few years to address these threats, including the JCO and the Counter Uncrewed Systems Warfighter Senior Integration Group. Last year, the department designated the commanders of U.S. Northern Command and Indo-Pacific Command as 'lead synchronizers' for counter-UAS operations. And in December, DOD completed a classified counter-UAS strategy meant to provide a 'singular' focus on the most urgent challenges. Military leaders said Thursday that while the Defense Department is making progress identifying technical solutions and working through complex policies and authorizations, it's not moving fast enough. 'We're happy, but we're not satisfied,' Lt. Gen. Eric Austin, deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for capabilities, development and integration, said during the hearing. 'We're fielding equipment that has the ability and the built-in open architecture to adapt and improve from a software and a hardware perspective, but we've got a ways to go to keep up with the threat and exceed that threat.' Austin highlighted the Marine Air Defense System, or MADIS, which can integrate with the service's command and control systems and detect and take down small uncrewed aircraft. The Marine Corps also plans to field a prototype this fiscal year of a counter-UAS capability specifically designed to protect dismounted Marines. 'This initiative will put man-portable solutions into Marines' hands at the tactical edge,' Austin said. 'We are feverishly working in belief this will be a model for fielding and iterative improvement.' Maj. Gen. David Stewart, director of the JCO, and Beck both noted that while DOD has made strides toward identifying and developing counter-UAS technologies, it isn't buying and fielding those systems in sufficient quantities. 'I believe and assess the capability is there,' Stewart said. 'We have a bit of a capacity problem across each of the services.' Beck noted that for the services to fill those capacity gaps, they need more resources, authorities and funding flexibility from Congress. 'We need to be doing much, much more,' he said. 'We must put capability in place now. We must dramatically improve our capacity and speed to update unmanned and counter-unmanned technologies. We must build the muscle to do so at greater and greater scale.'
