Latest news with #army
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 days ago
- Health
- Asharq Al-Awsat
RSF Drone Strike Kills Several in Sudan Hospital
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces bombarded El-Obeid on Friday, killing six people in a hospital in the key southern city, medical and army sources said. "The militia launched a drone strike on the Social Insurance Hospital, killing six and wounding 12, simultaneously attacking residential areas of the city with heavy artillery," an army source told AFP, adding that the bombardment had also hit a second hospital in the city center. A medical source at El-Obeid Hospital, the city's main facility, confirmed the toll, adding that the Social Insurance Hospital had been forced shut "due to damage" sustained in the drone strike. El-Obeid, a strategic city 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Khartoum which is the capital of North Kordofan state, was besieged by the RSF for nearly two years before the regular army broke the siege in February. It was one of a series of counteroffensives that also saw the army recapture Khartoum, but El-Obeid has continued to come under RSF bombardment. The city is a key staging post on the army's supply route to the west, where the besieged city of El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast Darfur region still under its control. The RSF and the army have clashed repeatedly along the road between El-Obeid and El-Fasher in recent weeks. On Thursday, the RSF said they retaken the town of Al-Khoei, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of El-Obeid, after the army recaptured it earlier this month. The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million since it erupted in April 2023. The United Nation says the conflict has created the world's biggest hunger and displacement crises. It has also effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the centre, east and north, while the RSF forces and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south. Since losing Khartoum in March, the RSF has adopted a two-prong strategy: long-range drone strikes on army-held cities accompanied by a counteroffensive in the south. On Thursday, the RSF also announced they had recaptured Dibeibat, in South Kordofan state some 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of El-Obeid, another town that the army had retaken earlier this month. Swathes of South Kordofan are controlled by a rebel group allied with the RSF, Abdelaziz al-Hilu's faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North.
Wall Street Journal
7 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Putin Has Retooled Russia's Economy to Focus Only on War
Russia's successes on the front lines in Ukraine are a big reason why Vladimir Putin isn't yet ready to sign up to President Trump's peace efforts. Some of his neighbors fear the success of the war machine now driving its economy means he never will. In the early stages of the war, the Russian president put the country on a footing for a long conflict. Putin retooled the economy to churn out record numbers of tanks and howitzers, while using sizable signing bonuses of up to a year's salary to raise a massive army. At one point, more than a thousand recruits were signing up each day to fight.
LBCI
10-05-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Blasts heard in Indian Kashmir's Srinagar: Reuters
Two loud blasts were heard in Indian's Kashmir's summer capital of Srinagar on Saturday, near the city airport and the local headquarters of the army, according to an official, a Reuters witness, and local residents. Two blasts were also heard in Kashmir's Baramulla town, an official and residents told Reuters, as fighting continued between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan. Reuters
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Who is Gen Asim Munir, the army chief leading Pakistan's military amid India crisis?
In the 77 years since Pakistan was established, its affairs and politics have long been governed by the whims of powerful military generals. Yet even now that the country is out of the clutches of martial law, it is still widely understood that the most powerful man in Pakistan is not the head of the government but instead the chief of the army. Since Gen Asim Munir took over as Pakistan's army chief more than two years ago, he has been accused of quietly consolidating greater power without even having to topple the country's civilian rulers. As he kept himself largely out of the limelight, he consolidated an iron grip over the army's ranks and bent government policy and even the supreme court to his will. Yet in recent weeks, as arch-enemies Pakistan and India have come closer to all-out war than they have in decades, all eyes have been on Munir. After India launched its most intensive airstrikes on Pakistan since the 1971 war in the early hours of Wednesday, hitting nine targets and killing 31 people including children, Pakistan has vowed to respond to this 'act of war'. India's initial strikes on Wednesday were a direct retaliation for an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir late last month, in which militants killed 25 Hindu tourists and a tour guide. Pakistan's military was swiftly granted complete authorisation by the government to decide how respond to the Indian attack. The decisions for any retaliation plan will now be largely shaped by Munir. On Saturday morning, after India was accused of firing missiles at three Pakistani military bases, Pakistan said they had begun their counterattack. One figure familiar with discussions being held by senior Pakistani military leadership said: 'The message from the Pakistan side it is that they are going to hit back very strongly to the Indian provocation.' It was verified by another senior security source in Pakistan. 'It will come in a big way. When we do it, everyone will know. Munir is waiting for the right time for the big blow to be delivered,' he said. Munir is known to cut an unusual figure for an army chief. Rather than coming from an elite military family, his fled to India during partition and his father was a teacher. Munir entered the army through the officers' training school rather than the more prestigious route of Pakistan's military academy. However, he worked his way up the ranks quickly, becoming the director of military intelligence in 2016, followed by the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), one of the most powerful military roles, in 2018. It was here he fell foul of the then-prime minister, Imran Khan. After Munir reportedly briefed Khan that his new wife-to-be was allegedly implicated in corruption, Khan furiously removed Munir from his post as ISI chief in 2019, beginning a highly acrimonious battle between Khan and the powerful generals. However, Munir was moved to another senior military post and was selected by the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, to become the new army chief in 2022. By this time, Khan had succeeded in turning large swathes of the country against the military, which for decades had commanded a devout loyalty among the masses. As Khan, the country's most popular political leader, was jailed and the 2024 election was marred with allegations of rigging against Khan's party, it was widely felt the crackdown was the work of Munir, who also ruthlessly purged the military of all Khan loyalists. Yet some analysts said that the recent aggression from India may have presented Munir with an opportunity. As hyper-nationalist fervour has gripped Pakistan, with calls for all-out war with India, the military has been back in favour, with calls for Munir to stand up for the whole of Pakistan. Aqil Shah, a professor on south Asian affairs at Georgetown University, said: 'As army chief, he has already been quite brutal – Khan in jail, the election rigged, civilians facing military trial – which has dented his reputation. But a military response that is seen as appropriate to this crisis could reduce the stain of political repression and allow him to burnish his credentials as an army chief who stood up to arch enemy India.' Munir's own ideology on India is known to be hardline. Like many in the army, he subscribes to the 'two nation theory': that the Muslims of Pakistan fundamentally cannot live in the same country as Hindus. In comments made last month, which were seen as highly antagonistic to India, he said that 'our religions are different, our cultures are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different'. He has also proved bullish and unyielding in the face of antagonism and militant activity from neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan, launching retaliatory cross-border strikes on both countries in the past year. The retired general Muhammad Saeed, the former chief of general staff (CGS), said: 'I have served with him for many years, I know Gen Asim Munir is a fearless man. The government has given the nod to him to plan the response [to India] but it won't be only his decision. When he makes the plan, he will go in all guns blazing.' In terms of their military might along the contested border, and despite India's army being double the size of Pakistan – about 1.2 million active Indian personnel compared with about 650,000 for Pakistan – the two sides are 'fairly evenly balanced', said Sushant Singh, an author and political science lecturer at Yale who spent two decades in the Indian army. Singh emphasised that, since 2020, India had deployed huge amounts of military personnel and resources towards its mountainous border with China, after the India-China border crisis swiftly escalated. India has also had issues with the modernisation of its armed forces and faced a systematic recruitment problem, leading to a shortfall of soldiers. 'Despite its size, India doesn't have the kind of dominance where you would expect India to easily ride roughshod over Pakistan or declare a quick win,' said Singh. While Pakistan's rank and file is widely seen, even among Indian generals, to be disciplined and high-performing, Singh said the issue had always lain at the top: 'The major problem is that Pakistan's senior military leadership is heavily politicised and has often acted out of ideology or religious conservatism or even delusional behaviour.' 'Gen Munir is clearly under a lot of political pressure,' he added. 'There is also pressure from the co-commanders for him to act strongly so as to be able to demonstrate and restore the credibility of the army as an institution.' The question of who would have the edge in any confrontation is also a question of equipment. In recent years, India has been shifting away from its reliance on Russian weapons to buying western equipment, including elite French Rafale jet planes and F-16 jets from the US. Pakistan now buys 80% of its military arsenal from China. According to reports, as tensions with India rose last month, China rushed 100 more of its powerful new PL-15 missiles to Pakistan, which it usually keeps for its own inventory and does not export. On Friday, the Pakistan army claimed it used the PL-15 missiles to bring down several Indian jets during Wednesday's strikes. Shuja Nawaz, the author of Crossed Swords and a known expert on Pakistan's military, said this showed that 'China is not only helping Pakistan, but it but is using it as a kind of testing ground for its weaponry against India.' For Nawaz, the use of precision strikes and unmanned drones on both sides made this conflict unlike any other in India and Pakistan's bitter history, and made the chance of escalation even higher. 'Munir really doesn't have an opportunity to play a very long game in the current situation. He has to prove fairly quickly that he and the military are prepared and that they will defend the country,' he said. The chances of a nuclear escalation had also never been higher, he said. 'India and Pakistan don't fight long wars, they fight short wars. And they throw everything that they have in the shop window into battle. My biggest fear is that Pakistan utilises what they call tactical nuclear weapons – and then all hell breaks loose.'
LBCI
09-05-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Drone strikes hit Port Sudan for the sixth straight day
Drone strikes hit Port Sudan for a sixth straight day Friday, an army source said, blaming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the regular army since April 2023. "Our air defenses intercepted some of the enemy drones which were targeting sites in the city," the source said, speaking anonymously. Witnesses reported strikes across Port Sudan, the seat of the army-backed government and the country's main aid hub. AFP
