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  • Eritrea and Ethiopia shutter embassies as new Red Sea conflict looms

    Eritrea and Ethiopia shutter embassies as new Red Sea conflict looms

    A decades-long rivalry between Eritrea and Ethiopia has boiled over into a full breakdown of diplomatic relations, triggering grave concerns that a new conflict could ignite across the already volatile Red Sea region, drawing in multiple global and regional powers. The crisis erupted after an alleged drone strike targeted Ethiopian military headquarters in the capital Addis Ababa earlier this week, ending a period of relative calm in the city amid Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ongoing fight against a coalition of rebel movements across the country’s Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions.

    Following the explosion at the Ethiopian National Defence Force headquarters in Addis Ababa’s Tor Hayloch neighborhood, Western and regional officials confirmed to Middle East Eye that the strike was carried out by a drone. Ethiopian authorities quickly pinned blame on Asmara, accusing Eritrea of carrying out “direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence” in a formal government statement. In response, Addis Ababa announced the expulsion of 10 Eritrean diplomats and the permanent closure of its embassy in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital.

    Eritrean officials rejected Ethiopia’s accusations and reciprocated by cutting all diplomatic ties with Addis Ababa. In a statement from Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials accused Ethiopia of fueling internal unrest in Eritrea by arming, training, and hosting anti-government armed opposition groups with the explicit goal of forcing regime change in Asmara. “Ethiopia has pursued an agenda of incessant hostility” against Eritrea, the statement read.

    This diplomatic rupture caps months of steadily deteriorating relations between the two neighboring countries, a turnabout that surprised many observers after their unexpected alignment during Ethiopia’s 2020–2022 civil war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party of Ethiopia’s Tigray region. In the years since that conflict concluded, the old rivalry between the two states reemerged with renewed intensity. Ethiopia has laid claim to parts of Eritrea’s Red Sea coastline, and has repeatedly accused Asmara of covertly supporting the TPLF – a charge Eritrean officials have consistently denied.

    In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye last month from Asmara, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh framed Ethiopia’s territorial ambitions in stark terms, comparing Abiy Ahmed’s expansionist vision to Israel’s regional strategy. “[Abiy Ahmed] has a two-waters strategy like Israel. Only for him it is from the Nile River to the Red Sea,” Saleh said, drawing a parallel to Israel’s longstanding territorial vision stretching from the Gaza Strip to the Jordan River along the occupied West Bank frontier.

    The breakdown of diplomatic ties comes at an already precarious moment for the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region, with active conflicts already underway in Yemen and Sudan. Analysts and regional diplomats warn that the standoff between Eritrea and Ethiopia could easily widen into a larger conflict that draws in multiple outside powers, which are already aligned with different actors in the region’s existing disputes.

    The complex web of alliances raises the risk of escalation. The TPLF, which remains in open rebellion against Abiy Ahmed’s federal government, is already aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which is currently fighting Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. The RSF, which has been accused of genocide in Sudan, is backed by the United Arab Emirates and maintains training facilities inside Ethiopia. Eritrea, for its part, is aligned with Egypt and Saudi Arabia in their support for the SAF.

    Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed counts the UAE as one of his strongest international backers; the Gulf state has supplied Abiy’s forces with drones and other critical military equipment. Saleh also noted in his interview that Eritrea believes the UAE is cooperating with Israel against Asmara. This aligns with a long history of Israeli support for Ethiopia: dating back to the late 1970s and 1980s, Israel supplied arms to Ethiopia’s Marxist Derg government, which were used to wage war against Eritrean independence fighters.

  • Kushner’s financial stakes in Israeli defence firms raises conflict of interest concerns: Report

    Kushner’s financial stakes in Israeli defence firms raises conflict of interest concerns: Report

    A new investigative report by CNN has uncovered significant financial ties between former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner’s private investment firm, Affinity Partners, and a network of Israeli defense contractors that have supplied weapons and munitions for ongoing military operations across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The revelations raise serious ethical questions about potential personal profit from regional conflicts that Kushner has been officially tasked with mediating, as well as surprising financial links between Gulf Arab states and the Israeli defense sector.

    According to CNN’s reporting, the connection between Kushner’s investment vehicle and Israeli defense interests dates back to 2024, when Affinity Partners injected $128.5 million into Phoenix Financial, one of Israel’s largest diversified financial groups with holdings across insurance, pension management, and asset allocation. Just five days before the inauguration of the second Trump administration in January 2025, Kushner oversaw a doubling of Affinity’s stake in Phoenix, cementing the firm as Phoenix’s single largest shareholder. Kushner has previously referred to the Phoenix holding as Affinity’s “best investment.”

    Further investigation by CNN traced at least $456 million in Phoenix investments to nine separate firms directly connected to Israel’s defense industry. The largest of these holdings is a $265.1 million stake in Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest domestic arms manufacturer. Over the past 12 months alone, Elbit has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from Israel’s Ministry of Defense, including a $200 million deal for advanced airborne munitions and a $48 million contract to supply thousands of 155mm artillery shells. Multiple independent outlets including Middle East Eye have previously documented that Elbit’s weapon systems have been used in attacks that have resulted in Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.

    Phoenix’s defense sector investments extend well beyond Elbit Systems. The Israeli financial group holds an estimated $68 million stake in Next Vision, a manufacturer of optical cameras for military drones; $55 million in Bet Shemesh, a producer of aircraft engines for Israeli military warplanes; and $40 million in Reshef Technologies, which manufactures electronic fuses for artillery rounds. Reshef reported $165 million in new orders from the Israeli military in the period following the start of the current Gaza conflict. Phoenix also holds positions in other firms tied to Israeli military activity, including U.S.-based Caterpillar, whose heavy equipment has been linked to the demolition of Palestinian civilian infrastructure in Gaza and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as Israeli Shipyards and aerospace giant Boeing.

    In January 2025, Affinity Partners sold off one-third of its stake in Phoenix, generating a payout of $340 million for the firm. Even after the sale, Affinity remains Phoenix’s largest shareholder, holding a 7.4% stake valued at more than $1 billion, per CNN’s calculations.

    Kushner’s legal team has argued that he never directed Phoenix on how to allocate its investment capital. However, comments Kushner made to Forbes in September 2025 contradict that claim: he stated he maintained “a very active dialogue” with Phoenix’s leadership and met with the group’s executives on a regular basis.

    Beyond the ethical implications of the stake itself, the report reveals an unexpected flow of capital from Arab Gulf states into Israeli defense companies via Kushner’s firm. As of April 2026, Affinity Partners reports holding more than $6.1 billion in total assets, 99% of which come from non-U.S. investors. All publicly identified investors in the fund are Gulf Arab states: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund injected $2 billion into Affinity shortly after the end of the first Trump administration, while Qatar and the United Arab Emirates added a combined $1.5 billion in new capital in 2024.

    The connection between Kushner’s personal financial interests and his official diplomatic work is particularly striking given his long-standing role in Middle East peace negotiations. Kushner was the primary architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and three Arab states: Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE. He has long framed cross-border investment as a core tool to “incentivize” Arab and Muslim countries to normalize ties with Israel. Today, Kushner holds a seat on Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the body tasked with mediating a ceasefire in the Gaza war and overseeing post-conflict reconstruction of the enclave. He also developed the controversial “Gaza Riviera” plan, which proposes to redevelop Gaza as a global tourist hub after the conflict ends.

    Since Kushner holds no official public office in the second Trump administration, he is not legally required to disclose his personal financial holdings, leaving the full extent of his ties to Israeli defense firms outside of public scrutiny.

  • Seven killed in Syria after gunmen open fire on bus in Homs

    Seven killed in Syria after gunmen open fire on bus in Homs

    On a Wednesday evening, Syria faced a trio of interconnected security crises that have reignited fears of widespread instability across the country, just months after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024. The first and deadliest incident was a targeted ambush on a civilian bus traveling through the western countryside of Homs province, which left at least seven private sector employees dead and four more with severe injuries.

    According to local health authorities, the bus was carrying workers back to their homes after the end of their work shift when gunmen opened fire on the vehicle as it crossed the Masyaf Bridge. Maan Mahmoud Fahd, the director of Homs Grand Hospital, confirmed to Syria’s official state news agency Sana that four of the seven fatalities were pronounced dead immediately upon their arrival at the medical facility, having suffered catastrophic gunshot wounds to the head and torso. The remaining casualties were transferred to other medical centers across the Homs governorate for urgent treatment.

    Moments after reports of the shooting emerged, Syrian security units were deployed to the attack site to cordon off the area and launch a full criminal investigation. Brigadier General Bassem Mohammad Shaaban, commander of Homs Internal Security Forces, told reporters that forensic investigators have begun collecting physical evidence to track down the perpetrators and uncover their motive for the attack. As of the latest updates, no militant or opposition group has claimed responsibility for the shooting, and no suspects have been publicly named by authorities.

    Shaaban issued a firm promise that the attackers would face justice, stressing that the brutal act would not go unpunished. “We view this cowardly attack as an attempt to undermine security in Homs and destabilise the stability we have worked to consolidate,” he said. “We will not allow criminals to threaten the security of our people or undermine the stability the city is experiencing.”

    Brigadier General Munir al-Hariri, a veteran Syrian military analyst, told local broadcaster Syria TV that the attack most likely bears the hallmarks of operations carried out by former Assad regime loyalists, who have carried out a string of small-scale attacks across the country to undermine the new government’s efforts to restore order. Wednesday’s bus shooting is part of a growing wave of security incidents that have raised alarm across Syria since the transition of power last December. In August alone, two separate attacks targeting buses near the capital Damascus left 14 people injured: one targeted a convoy of internal security personnel, while the second was a hidden explosive device detonated on a public passenger bus in Jaramana, a town southeast of the capital.

    Simultaneously to the Homs shooting, a major explosion hit a key gas pressure-reduction station at the entrance of the Tishreen thermal power plant, located roughly 36 kilometers outside Damascus in the Damascus countryside. The blast sparked a massive blaze that injured two plant workers and severely damaged the two main gas pipelines supplying the facility, according to the Syrian Petroleum Company.

    The loss of gas input forced three major power plants – Tishreen, Deir Ali, and Nasiriyah – to shut down all operations immediately. The Syrian Electricity Company issued a public warning that the shutdown would lead to extended scheduled rolling blackouts across affected regions. Abdul Hamid Salat, head of the media department at Syria’s energy ministry, added that the cut in gas supplies also disrupted operations at critical water pumping and treatment facilities, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents across Damascus, its surrounding countryside, Daraa, Sweida, and Quneitra without consistent access to clean running water.

    Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir confirmed that civil defence teams managed to bring the large fire under control overnight Wednesday. Speaking to reporters from the blast site, al-Bashir said technical specialists would conduct a full inspection of the facility once cooling operations are complete to “precisely determine the causes and circumstances” of the explosion. Authorities have not yet ruled out any potential causes, including accidental technical failure, deliberate sabotage, or a targeted attack.

    The third incident unfolded on Thursday morning in southern Syria’s Quneitra governorate, when approximately 12 Israeli military vehicles entered the village of Saida al-Golan as local students were traveling to their schools. After a short presence in the area, Israeli forces withdrew back to positions in the Yarmouk Basin, and no reports have emerged of arrests, home searches, or additional casualties from the incursion. This incursion follows a pattern of increased Israeli military activity in southern Syria in recent weeks: on Tuesday, Syrian state media reported that Israeli troops carried out incursions into Quneitra, where they questioned and physically assaulted local shepherds.

    Local news outlet Al-Araby News also reported Thursday that an assassination attempt was carried out against a Syrian Ministry of Defence officer in Sanamen, a city located north of Daraa, though no further details on the officer’s condition or the perpetrators have been released.

    These concurrent crises come just days after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa revealed that ongoing negotiations with Israel over a new cross-border security framework had reached roughly 90 percent completion before Israel pulled back from the deal and introduced new, unagreed-upon conditions. Speaking at an Atlantic Council policy panel in New York last week, al-Sharaa noted that multiple rounds of negotiations had been held over the past year with diplomatic mediation from the United States, and that talks would continue moving forward.

    The string of back-to-back security incidents highlights the significant challenges the new Syrian government faces as it attempts to consolidate control, rein in armed factions, and restore basic public services across the country after decades of civil conflict and the recent collapse of the previous regime.

  • Leaving Iraq while bombing Iran

    Leaving Iraq while bombing Iran

    On September 30, the final contingent of American and coalition military personnel airlifted out of Iraq’s Erbil Air Base, with the Pentagon officially confirming an orderly full withdrawal. While the White House has framed the pullout as a major strategic victory, former President Donald Trump characterized the 20-year Iraqi intervention as a costly journey into chaos — a sweeping claim that, for once, aligns closer to on-the-ground reality than the sanitized official statements released by Washington.

    But before the foreign policy establishment rushes either to eulogize decades of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East or to celebrate its long-awaited end, one critical question demands answer: Is the United States actually stepping back from its decades-long entanglement in the region, or is it simply rearranging its military forces on the regional chessboard, while the costly, unwinnable conflict that has stretched across 20 years continues unabated? The evidence points overwhelmingly to the latter: the full troop exit from Iraq is a tangible milestone, but a true, comprehensive disengagement from the Middle East remains nowhere on the horizon.

    This is not the first time Washington has carried out a full troop withdrawal from Iraq. The first pullout came in December 2011, when the Obama administration formally wrapped up the war launched by George W. Bush in 2003, a conflict marketed as a mission to turn Iraq into a democratic beacon for the Middle East. Barely three years later, the rapid rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) dragged U.S. troops back into the country, turning what was billed as a temporary counter-terror deployment into a 12-year occupation.

    This pattern of intervention, declaration of victory, withdrawal, and renewed intervention has become painfully familiar. Washington enters the Middle East chasing ambitious grand strategies: containing Saddam Hussein, remaking the Arab political order, defeating global jihadism, rolling back Iranian influence. Every time, it learns the hard way that regional and local actors have their own competing priorities that do not align with U.S. blueprints. Washington then declares victory and withdraws, only for the power vacuum its presence left behind to become the pretext for a new round of intervention. More than 4,500 U.S. service members lost their lives in Iraq, yet after two decades of occupation, the region is no more stable, democratic, or aligned with U.S. interests than it was before the 2003 invasion.

    The core lesson of this decades-long quagmire is not, as hardline foreign policy hawks insist, that the U.S. withdrew too soon in 2011. It is that the United States never should have assumed that military force could impose a stable political order that Iraqis themselves were unwilling or unable to build.

    This repeated cycle highlights the fundamental disingenuousness of the current so-called disengagement. The current withdrawal, negotiated by the Biden administration in 2021, is being completed even as the U.S. is actively engaged in a conflict with Iran alongside Israel, a conflict that launched in early 2024. A genuine strategy of disengagement would involve stepping back from the region’s intractable internecine quarrels, not opening a new major front in the region’s largest ongoing conflict.

    Nor has the U.S. military footprint vanished from the region entirely. The joint anti-ISIS task force headquarters has simply been relocated across the border to Jordan. Hundreds of U.S. troops remain deployed in northeastern Syria, all major U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf remain operational, and U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups continue to patrol regional waters. What Washington frames as a full exit is in practice nothing more than a tactical redeployment: reducing the number of vulnerable U.S. targets in Iraq that could be attacked by Iran-aligned proxies, while increasing U.S. freedom of military action to directly counter Iran itself.

    While this may make sense as narrow military logic, it does not represent a new, less interventionist grand strategy. The long-standing bipartisan consensus that the Middle East remains a vital U.S. interest that must be policed by American military power remains completely unchallenged. Only the location of U.S. garrisons has changed.

    Critics of the withdrawal have already lined up with familiar arguments: they claim that Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, which have faced more than 1,000 Iranian drone and missile attacks since the start of the latest regional conflict, are being abandoned by the U.S. without adequate air defenses. They point out that Iran-aligned militias, which the Iraqi government once promised to disarm by the time of the U.S. withdrawal, are already celebrating the pullout. And they warn that Tehran will quickly move to fill the power vacuum left by departing U.S. troops.

    These concerns are not trivial, and the Kurdish people deserve far more than a perfunctory farewell press release from Washington. But they make the case for targeted diplomacy and defensive arms transfers, not a permanent U.S. military tripwire stationed in Erbil. Iraq is today a sovereign state with a large standing army, significant oil revenue, and an elected government that formally requested the U.S. military withdrawal. Its current leadership now speaks of building normal bilateral partnerships with the U.S. and other global powers — that is exactly how a sovereign, independent state ought to behave.

    As for Iranian influence, data shows that Tehran’s clout in Iraq grew most rapidly during the period when 150,000 U.S. troops were occupying the country. Today, Shiite Iraqi factions, Sunni Arab groups, Kurdish political movements, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all compete for influence over Iraq’s future. This competition predates the U.S. invasion by centuries, and it will continue long after American forces have departed. A regional balance of power forged by local actors, for all its mess and unpredictability, is far more stable and durable than any political order imposed from Washington.

    If this troop withdrawal from Iraq is to have any meaningful long-term impact, it should serve as the first step toward a full rethinking of U.S. Middle East policy, not merely a tactical retreat ahead of the next military campaign.

    A true reorientation would begin with recognizing that the Middle East is far less critical to U.S. national security than it was during the Cold War. The U.S. is now one of the world’s largest energy producers, and the vast majority of the region’s oil exports now flow to Asian markets rather than to North America.

    It would mean shifting Washington’s role from that of an occupying regional policeman to that of an offshore balancer: only intervening when a single hostile power threatens to seize control of the entire region, a threat that even a militarily active Iran cannot credibly pose at present. It would mean letting Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and Iran manage their own rivalries and bear the costs of their own security decisions.

    Most importantly, it would mean ending the ongoing conflict with Iran through diplomatic negotiation rather than continued military escalation. Without these broader shifts, the departure from Erbil will not be remembered as the end of America’s decades-long Middle Eastern quagmire. It will go down in history as just one more intermission before the next costly act of intervention.

  • Manchester City’s Emirati chair’s diplomatic immunity complicates legal action

    Manchester City’s Emirati chair’s diplomatic immunity complicates legal action

    A seismic judgment has landed in English top-flight football, after an independent commission commissioned by the Premier League found Manchester City, one of the world’s most commercially successful and successful on-field football clubs, guilty of 115 separate breaches of the league’s financial fair play rules between 2009 and 2018. The ruling uncovered that the club artificially inflated its total revenue by more than £900 billion ($1.1 billion) through a web of misleading business arrangements designed to bypass league-imposed spending caps. The commission’s official findings document that club owners deliberately hid the true financial position of the organization from both independent auditors and football governing bodies, using what the panel described as “sham” sponsorship contracts to mislabel direct owner investment as legitimate third-party commercial income. The commission also concluded that the club failed to follow required accounting and auditing standards, acted recklessly, and did not conduct its business with the utmost good faith that league rules require.

    The case first came to public attention in 2018, when German investigative news outlet Der Spiegel published a series of leaked internal emails and documents purportedly from senior Manchester City executives. The leaks exposed that the club inflated sponsorship revenue from two UAE-based state-backed firms, Etihad Airways and Etisalat, by disguising direct funding from owner Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) as third-party income.

    Amid the fallout from the ruling, new details have emerged about the diplomatic status of the club’s long-serving chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak. Documents confirm that al-Mubarak, who has led Manchester City’s board since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan purchased the club for $265 million in 2008, was granted diplomatic immunity by United Kingdom authorities in 2020. This legal status typically shields recipients from most criminal prosecution and many types of civil legal proceedings within UK jurisdiction. Al-Mubarak also serves as managing director and group chief executive officer of Mubadala, the $330 billion sovereign wealth fund majority-owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. In recognition of his work strengthening cultural and economic ties between the UK and UAE, al-Mubarak was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013. To date, no allegations of personal wrongdoing have been made against al-Mubarak.

    Sheikh Mansour, who currently serves as vice president and deputy prime minister of the UAE, has overseen an unprecedented transformation of Manchester City since his 2008 acquisition. Under Abu Dhabi ownership, the club has won eight Premier League titles, four FA Cups, seven League Cups, and a historic UEFA Champions League trophy, emerging as the most dominant English football club of the last 15 years.

    Manchester City has forcefully pushed back against the commission’s findings. The club issued a statement denying all charges, rejecting the independent panel’s conclusions, and confirming it will launch an appeal against the ruling to clear its name.

    If the guilty verdict is upheld on appeal, the consequences for Manchester City could be severe. Other Premier League clubs that believe they were harmed competitively and financially by City’s rule-breaking have indicated they may pursue civil legal action against the club. UK law enforcement could also open a formal criminal investigation if evidence of unlawful activity is uncovered.

    The case also carries diplomatic and political overtones for the UK, which has actively courted increased foreign investment from the UAE in recent years. Current UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who previously served as mayor of Manchester, has previously praised Manchester City’s ownership for the significant economic investment and regeneration it has delivered to East Manchester. In late July, Burnham held his first official phone call with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sheikh Mansour’s brother, as part of UK efforts to attract greater investment from Gulf allies.

  • Putin warns West that Russia is ready to use every weapon to protect Kaliningrad

    Putin warns West that Russia is ready to use every weapon to protect Kaliningrad

    Escalating tensions between Russia and the Western military alliance NATO have taken a sharp turn, after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stark warning that Moscow will deploy every weapon in its arsenal — including nuclear arms — if Russia faces a direct assault on its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

    Speaking at the annual Valdai Discussion Club, a high-profile Russian foreign policy forum, Putin pushed back against recent Western claims that Russia is planning for a large-scale war between 2029 and 2030, emphasizing that Moscow has no aggressive intentions toward Europe. “We are not threatening anyone. We do not intend to attack anyone in 2029, in 2030, in 2050,” he told attendees. “But if we come across an aggression we will have to respond. Citizens of European countries should be fully aware of that.”

    Kaliningrad, a strategically vital Russian territory sandwiched between NATO members Lithuania and Poland, has emerged as a major flashpoint in recent weeks. For days, Russian officials have leveled accusations that NATO is planning a naval and land blockade of the exclave, cutting it off from connections to mainland Russia. Putin doubled down on those warnings during his speech, noting that ongoing NATO naval drills in the Baltic Sea already pose a substantial threat to the region. “If it comes to a direct attack on the Russian Federation, in this case we are talking about Kaliningrad but possibly some other territories, of course the issue of use by the Russian Federation of all arms at the disposal of our country will inevitably and immediately be on the agenda,” he said.

    The warning comes amid a steady surge in hybrid warfare incidents across the Baltic region and Eastern Europe that Western nations have blamed on Moscow in recent months. Just last week, Poland reported that a Russian military helicopter strayed into Polish airspace near the Kaliningrad border, while Lithuanian officials stated that the country’s population feels “constantly threatened” by repeated Russian drone incursions. On Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that Germany is bracing for additional hybrid attacks — including major high-stakes incidents — after an explosive-laden drone was discovered in August on the tarmac of Leipzig Airport, near parking spots for Ukrainian cargo aircraft.

    In his wide-ranging address, Putin also revisited longstanding Russian justifications for the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, repeating his claim that Moscow was forced into action by Western provocation and had no other choice but to defend itself. He argued that recent Russian strikes on Ukrainian economic infrastructure were a direct retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries and Black Sea naval assets, noting “they started it” in response to global calls for a ceasefire. Putin admitted that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure had yielded limited results, cutting Russia’s gross domestic product by roughly 1 percent. Ukraine has countered that its strikes on Russian oil facilities are a targeted effort to disrupt the Kremlin’s ability to fund its ongoing war effort.

    Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure since the invasion began, ramping up deadly airstrikes on energy networks every winter ahead of cold weather. Just on Thursday, a key bridge in central Kyiv was struck by a Russian drone attack, marking the latest in a long string of assaults on critical civilian infrastructure.

    Putin also used the forum to criticize Western geopolitical dominance, claiming that while global conflicts will likely persist in the near term, tensions will ease as “Western hegemony” declines. He also warned of growing risks associated with the modernization of warfare, particularly the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems. “The automation and digitalisation of warfare leads to its gamification. This leads to degradation and sliding back of humanity to barbarity,” he said. Drawing a reference to Chekhov’s famous theatrical trope, he noted that if a gun is placed on stage at the start of a production, it will almost certainly fire by the final act — a parallel he drew to the global presence of mass destructive weapons that could “swipe away all life or at least push the Earth to catastrophic consequences.”

    NATO has moved quickly to de-escalate the situation, pushing back against Putin’s claims and dismissing the Kremlin’s nuclear threats as unnecessary and unhelpful. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reaffirmed Wednesday that none of the alliance’s military exercises or activities pose any offensive threat to Russia. Alliance officials have repeatedly stressed that NATO is a strictly defensive military bloc, and have called on Moscow to abandon its aggressive rhetorical posturing. “Nato is a defensive alliance. We have no intention to attack Russia,” a spokesperson repeated in the aftermath of Putin’s speech, urging dialogue to reduce regional tensions.

    Despite the alliance’s calming efforts, regional leaders remain on edge, as small-scale incursions and hybrid attacks continue to raise fears of broader escalation between the world’s largest nuclear power and the 32-member Western military alliance.

  • Cornell accuser was ‘failed’ by university health care system, lawyer says

    Cornell accuser was ‘failed’ by university health care system, lawyer says

    Two years after a 2024 alleged sexual assault at a Cornell University fraternity house, the prestigious Ivy League institution is facing intense public and legal scrutiny over its handling of the case, as a recently filed civil lawsuit and a reopened criminal probe have cast a harsh spotlight on systemic failures across campus medical and disciplinary systems.

    Jane Doe, the anonymous plaintiff in the new civil suit, has alleged that she was drugged with ketamine and raped by seven male students during the 2024 fraternity event. Her legal team has launched sharp criticism of both Cornell and local prosecutors, arguing that repeated institutional missteps have undermined efforts to hold the accused perpetrators accountable.

    Two days after the alleged attack, Doe visited Cornell’s on-campus health center to report she had developed a urinary tract infection following a traumatic incident. According to her attorney Thomas Giuffra, the treating physician failed to launch any appropriate follow-up evaluation, declining to order a rape kit, connect Doe with sexual assault-trained medical specialists, or conduct a physical exam to document potential injuries. Instead, Giuffra says the provider only advised Doe to seek talk therapy. The attorney called the medical encounter “yet another failure by Cornell,” noting that the missed opportunity to collect timely forensic evidence has irreparably harmed the case.

    Cornell declined to provide additional comment to the BBC when asked about the handling of Doe’s medical visit. After the suit was filed earlier this month, the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office announced it would reopen the criminal investigation it closed in 2024, when no charges were brought. DA Matthew Van Houten initially explained he declined to prosecute because he only accessed a partial statement that implied the encounter was consensual and no drugging had occurred. He now says he only recently obtained the full 120-page transcript of Doe’s Title IX interview, which confirms her sworn account of the non-consensual assault.

    Giuffra has pushed back against the DA’s explanation, accusing Van Houten of inconsistent storytelling and defensive attempts to save face amid growing public pressure. “The pattern I am seeing is that whenever evidence comes out supporting prosecution, he claims he never saw it,” Giuffra told the BBC. “His defensiveness and attempt to save face has not been impressive.” Van Houten, for his part, has said he will not be distracted by unfair criticism and remains focused on uncovering the full truth of the incident.

    Internal Title IX investigation documents obtained by the *New York Times* have provided the most detailed public timeline of Doe’s experience in the weeks following the alleged assault. The morning after the event, Doe returned to her sorority house and told her two roommates she had used drugs and had sexual contact with multiple men, though she did not initially label the encounter as assault or rape. Her roommates told investigators she appeared deeply disoriented and “in shock,” unable to fully process what had happened to her. As weeks passed, the documents show, Doe gradually came to terms with the trauma, text messaging one of the accused men in early November 2024 to clarify that 90% of the night’s events were non-consensual, writing that she had been given more ketamine (referred to as “key” in the text shorthand) than she could remember, and had repeatedly expressed discomfort before the assault.

    The accused man had already apologized to Doe via text in the weeks after the incident, acknowledging that he and other involved men felt “awful” that the situation had gotten out of hand while they were all intoxicated, admitting they failed to end the encounter early.

    Doe ultimately underwent a rape kit three weeks after the alleged attack, but by that point no usable DNA evidence could be recovered. Giuffra argues that if Cornell’s medical staff had ordered the kit during her initial health center visit in October, critical forensic evidence would still have been available for prosecution. He added that Doe’s gradual progression from shock and denial to recognition of her trauma matches standard psychological responses to sexual violence. Cornell has confirmed it turned over all internal investigation evidence to prosecutors, including a Snapchat group chat where fraternity members discussed the encounter with Doe.

    On the Ithaca campus, the reemergence of the high-profile case has left a palpable cloud of tension and discontent, multiple anonymous students and faculty told the BBC. One senior female student who was on campus in 2024 said current students continue to feel overwhelmed and disappointed by the university’s handling of the case, describing the campus atmosphere as being overshadowed by a “dark cloud.” A faculty member added that the overall campus mood is “dismal,” noting that most instructors are not trained to support students through traumatic incidents like this and feel unprepared to address the ongoing distress across the community.

    For anyone experiencing emotional distress related to sexual violence, support resources are available globally through Befrienders Worldwide, with additional services listed for UK residents on dedicated support portals.

  • ‘We are vulnerable’: Kurds fear renewed attacks as US‑led coalition departs Iraq

    ‘We are vulnerable’: Kurds fear renewed attacks as US‑led coalition departs Iraq

    Nearly 11 years after it first deployed to defeat the Islamic State group, the US-led counter-IS coalition formally concluded its combat mission in Iraq this week, marking a historic shift in regional security dynamics that has left the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq grappling with deep uncertainty over future threats.

    The drawdown, agreed upon by Baghdad and Washington in 2024, unfolded gradually over months: coalition forces withdrew from bases across Iraq, consolidated remaining troops in the Kurdistan Region, and finalized the full pullout by September 30. Before the final exit, roughly 1,500 coalition troops remained stationed at Erbil Air Base, a reduction from the 2,500 personnel deployed across Iraq before the 2024 drawdown agreement was reached. The mission first launched in 2014, when IS seized swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria and perpetrated widespread mass atrocities. While the militant group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, coalition troops stayed behind to assist local forces in containing the group’s scattered remnants.

    In the hours leading up to the full withdrawal, Erbil residents reported military aircraft circling overhead, and the first signs of shifting risk emerged quickly. On the night of September 28, three Iranian drones targeted a camp operated by an Iranian Kurdish opposition party in the town of Koya. Two days later, following the coalition’s official departure, Koya was struck by another drone — the first attack of its kind after the pullout was completed. These strikes have underscored a harsh reality: the Kurdistan Region remains highly exposed to cross-border drone and missile attacks amid the escalating ongoing conflict between Iran and the United States and Israel that began in February 2024.

    According to a September 27 statement from the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, the governing body of the autonomous region’s military forces, Iraqi Kurdistan has endured more than 1,000 drone and ballistic missile attacks since the outbreak of the Iran war, resulting in civilian casualties and extensive material damage. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani warned last week in comments to the Financial Times that the coalition’s exit, conducted without leaving a robust defensive air defense system in place, has created a dangerous gap in regional security. “The threat is real – we are vulnerable, we are being attacked,” Barzani said.

    The Peshmerga Ministry echoed this concern, noting that “the departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region in such a complex regional situation, without providing any defence system, is a cause for concern,” and called on the federal Iraqi government in Baghdad to “assume the duty of protecting the airspace of the Kurdistan Region when necessary.”

    Announcing the end of the mission, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the U.S. expects Iraqi security forces — including the Peshmerga — to take full ownership of securing Iraq and rooting out remaining IS cells. “The Department of Defense will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners,” he said.

    But these commitments have done little to ease anxiety among ordinary Iraqi Kurds. Nineteen-year-old Canel, an undergraduate student at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani, told Middle East Eye that he shares widespread fears of renewed instability. “The Kurdistan Region does not have the level of military equipment, air power and intelligence that the coalition provides,” he explained. “The presence of the coalition gave Kurds a feeling of safety, and I fear that without it, IS or another extremist threat could return and endanger the people of the Kurdistan Region again.” Those fears were amplified just days before the withdrawal, when two Kurdish teenagers were killed during clashes between IS cells and Iraqi Counterterrorism forces in the city of Pirde, located in Kirkuk Governorate, sparking large-scale Kurdish protests across the region.

    Senior KRG leaders have moved to reassure anxious residents. Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, wrote in a post on X Wednesday that the coalition’s departure would not “leave the Region vulnerable and threaten its very existence.” “I wish to reassure the beloved people of Kurdistan that there is strong coordination with the Federal Government of Iraq to confront any threat or danger,” he said.

    For its part, the federal Iraqi government in Baghdad has framed the coalition’s exit as a milestone of national sovereignty. Iraqi Air Force Commander Lieutenant-General Khalid al-Tamimi said that the Iraqi air force no longer requires U.S. support and can carry out all necessary security missions independently. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi similarly declared that Iraq will “assume full responsibility for its security and stability,” and announced that October 1, the day after the withdrawal was completed, would be celebrated annually as Sovereignty Day. The prime minister also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to disarming all unauthorized armed factions, saying “There shall be no weapons outside the framework of the law and no force outside state institutions.”

    However, many Kurdish officials and regional security experts reject Baghdad’s optimistic assessment, warning that critical capability gaps remain unaddressed at a moment of extreme regional volatility. Lieutenant-General Bakhtiar Mohammed Sadiq, secretary general of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, told Middle East Eye that while the 2024 US-Iraq Security Agreement governing the withdrawal is a standard, legitimate framework on paper, the timing is ill-suited to the current conflict between Iran and the U.S. “IS is not the only problem. There are other security threats. The capabilities of the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga are still not fully developed. Iraq has an air force, but it does not have all the capabilities it needs,” Sadiq explained. “More time is needed for advice and support – perhaps a couple of years. The coalition should continue providing capability support to the Peshmerga, including weapons, ammunition, training, intelligence, air support and counter-drone capabilities.”

    An anonymous coalition officer who worked on building up Peshmerga capacity told MEE that the withdrawal timeline was postponed multiple times before the Biden administration ultimately locked in the September 30 deadline. “The war in Iran and the course of the current administration have accelerated everything. Until a year ago, the idea was still to position the [coalition] headquarters in Erbil instead of Baghdad, and this was implemented. But due to the escalation and Iran’s effective targeting, Erbil is now disappearing from the equation,” the officer said. Sadiq added that with coalition forces now relocating to Kuwait and Jordan, the logic of a full exit from Iraq remains unclear: “If they are staying in the region, why can’t they remain in Iraq?”

    Noreldin Waisy, press secretary to Prime Minister Barzani, emphasized that the region’s security interests must be centered in any future defense arrangements with Baghdad. “It is clear to everyone that Iraq’s security situation remains fragile. Militias and armed groups have increasingly become a threat to Iraq’s internal security, as well as to the security of the Kurdistan Region,” Waisy said. “In any future security or defence arrangements with Iraq, the security interests of the Kurdistan Region must be fully taken into account, and the Kurdistan Region and the Peshmerga forces must be an integral and clearly defined part of these agreements.”

    Alex Plitsas, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Pentagon official who deployed twice to Iraq, told MEE that while the U.S. relationship with the KRG and Peshmerga remains enduring, the withdrawal creates a security vacuum that hostile actors are likely to exploit. “Iran has demonstrated a willingness to attack Kurdistan as part of its strategy to combat the United States by attacking allies in the region,” he noted.

    Hejar Berenji, U.S. representative for the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) — an opposition group whose camps have been targeted 163 times since the Iran war began — said that while Iran has used the presence of coalition troops as a pretext for strikes, the deployment was never the root cause of attacks on the region. Berenji pointed out that most Iranian strikes on Kurdistan have targeted exiled Iranian opposition groups, critical energy infrastructure, and Kurdish civilian institutions, not just U.S. military sites. “Therefore, coalition forces’ withdrawal is not a security guarantee. It is wrong to assume that removing coalition troops will, by itself, end the threat,” he said.
    Berenji also noted that while the Peshmerga confirms no replacement air defense system is being left behind after the withdrawal, Baghdad has delayed its planned disarmament of Iranian-backed factions from September 30, 2024 to June 2027. “Coalition forces and their defensive systems are leaving before that process is complete,” he said. “Further attacks are expected, although their timing and intensity cannot be established in advance. The practical questions are [about] who controls the missiles and drones, and what protection is actually operational for civilians and critical infrastructure. Ending the coalition mission is not the same as ending the danger facing the Kurdistan Region – mainly from Iran and its proxies.”

    Not all Kurdish leaders share this pessimism, however. Sirwan Barzani, a senior Peshmerga major-general and prominent Kurdish businessman, said he holds out hope that the exit of U.S. forces will remove Iran’s justification for strikes, bringing an end to attacks on the region. “There is no more excuse, there are no more Americans, so we hope there will be no drones and no rockets,” he told MEE.

  • RAF Fairford: Netanyahu claims Israel warned UK of ‘Iranian attack’

    RAF Fairford: Netanyahu claims Israel warned UK of ‘Iranian attack’

    A sharp diplomatic dispute has erupted between Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States following last Sunday’s suspicious incident near RAF Fairford, a joint US-UK military base in Gloucestershire, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made unevidenced accusations against British authorities in a recent Fox News interview.

    Netanyahu’s inflammatory remarks came less than 24 hours after one of his senior cabinet ministers launched a bigoted personal attack on UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, labeling her an “Islamist” in a post on X. In the interview, Netanyahu claimed Israel had shared advance intelligence with London warning of an impending Iranian-sponsored attack at the base, before attacking Britain for imposing sanctions on Israel shortly after receiving the information. He went on to claim British leaders had “caved” to what he called an “Islamist-Marxist alliance”, warning this collapse was a serious threat to the future of the Western bloc. To date, Netanyahu has not offered any public evidence to back up his core claims about the intelligence sharing or British capitulation.

    The chain of controversy stems from last weekend’s events, when British counter-terrorism police arrested five British men in their 20s on suspicion of planning terrorist activity near the base. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed this Wednesday that investigators have found “strong indications” pointing to Iranian involvement in the planned activity, though he stressed the investigation remains active, complex and ongoing. Following their arrest, all five suspects were released on bail this Monday. Forensic examinations of three white vans seized near the base turned up no viable explosive materials, and senior Whitehall officials have clarified the operation was not a pre-planned intelligence-led manhunt of the sort typically run jointly by Counter Terrorism Policing and MI5.

    The incident has already drawn sharp public comment from senior US officials. Former President Donald Trump claimed shortly after the arrests that US intelligence had been monitoring the suspects for a long period, and doubled down on this stance after the men were released on bail, saying he was caught off guard by the decision to release them and asserting US authorities would not have taken that step. He did however reiterate that US and UK law enforcement have cooperated closely on the case. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also weighed in, calling the potential plot a grave situation that clearly bore the fingerprints of a foreign state actor.

    Netanyahu’s broadside against British policy followed a separate controversial attack by Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs, who targeted Home Secretary Mahmood in a Wednesday X post. Chikli repeated the false framing that Mahmood is an Islamist, arguing that modern political Islam often hides behind polished, progressive rhetoric rather than traditional Islamist stereotypes, extending the same false labeling to another British elected official. He went on to claim BDS activists had seized control of British politics and warned they would drag the country into an irreversible crisis. The British government has not yet issued an official response to Chikli’s remarks, and Middle East Eye has confirmed it has reached out to the UK Foreign Office seeking comment on Netanyahu’s latest claims.

  • Carney hopes an oil pipeline can help Canada fight a trade war

    Carney hopes an oil pipeline can help Canada fight a trade war

    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has launched an ambitious push to reshape the nation’s energy economy, announcing Thursday that the 1,250-kilometer Pacific Link oil pipeline project will receive expedited federal approval and regulatory review under new government rules designed to cut through historic project delays.

    Carney framed the infrastructure initiative, which will run from Alberta’s oil-producing heartland to a new deep-water port on British Columbia’s Pacific coast, as a core national priority to break Canada’s overreliance on the United States as its sole major crude export market, a dynamic he called an avoidable economic vulnerability amid rising U.S. protectionism under the second Trump administration. Last year alone, 90% of Canada’s crude oil exports crossed the southern border to the U.S., a concentration the government aims to reduce to between 65% and 70% once Pacific Link is operational.

    “A pipeline to the west coast is part of our mission to transform our economy, to double our non-U.S. exports over the next decade,” Carney told reporters during a visit to Fort McMurray, Alberta. Beyond expanding market access, Carney said the project is a critical test of Ottawa’s commitment to delivering large-scale infrastructure for global investors, a promise he has made as part of a broader goal to establish Canada as a leading global energy superpower.

    When completed, the pipeline will transport roughly one million barrels of Alberta crude daily to the new Pacific coast terminal, which will include purpose-built marine berths capable of accommodating supertankers carrying up to two million barrels of oil. From the British Columbia port, cargoes will be shipped directly to fast-growing Asia-Pacific markets, including China, Japan, and South Korea, opening new revenue streams for Canadian energy producers that have long been cut off from these markets by limited export infrastructure.

    Economic projections from the federal government estimate the project will add up to C$30 billion ($21 billion) annually to Canada’s gross domestic product and create 140,000 jobs across construction and operations. The total capital cost of the project is currently estimated between C$35.2 billion and C$43.7 billion, and government officials told reporters on Thursday that successful execution of the fast-track process is expected to draw additional private sector interest from global investors.

    Pacific Link is the first major project to benefit from a 2025 law passed by Carney’s Liberal government that mandates federal regulators deliver a final approval or rejection decision within 12 months, a major reform designed to address Canada’s history of costly, multi-year regulatory delays that have sunk multiple major pipeline projects over the past two decades.

    Beyond economic strategy, the project is also a direct effort to address longstanding grievances in Alberta, where voters will head to the polls later this month for a contentious independence referendum. Carney called the pipeline “a demonstration of the power of Canada” when asked about his message to Albertans, who have long argued that federal policies have blocked their ability to develop and profit from their natural resource wealth.

    As with all major Canadian pipeline projects, Pacific Link is expected to face significant pushback from two key groups: environmental organizations, which have raised alarms about the project’s impact on coastal marine ecosystems and contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, and Indigenous communities whose traditional territories lie along the pipeline route. Carney countered that Ottawa has already held preliminary discussions with affected Indigenous groups and will launch intensive additional consultations in the coming months, while also noting structural concessions designed to win buy-in: a minimum 10% ownership stake in the project will be offered exclusively to Indigenous communities for purchase.

    To address environmental concerns, the governments of Canada and Alberta have paired the pipeline approval with major climate commitments. Alberta has agreed to develop what will be the world’s largest carbon capture and storage program to cut emissions from oil production, while Ottawa has increased funding for ocean protection and implemented new strict rules to safeguard marine life affected by increased tanker traffic, particularly the endangered Southern Resident killer whale population that inhabits British Columbia’s coastal waters.

    Currently, both the federal government and the government of Alberta back the project, with Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corporation already signed on as a private partner. Pembina holds a non-binding agreement for a 10% stake during construction and retains an option to acquire an additional 10% stake once the pipeline enters operation. If the project receives final approval, construction is on track to begin by 2032.