Global Pulse

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  • Bodies retrieved from Indonesian volcano after eruption kills 3 hikers

    Bodies retrieved from Indonesian volcano after eruption kills 3 hikers

    On Indonesia’s remote Halmahera Island, search and rescue teams have recovered the bodies of all three hikers who were killed by an unexpected volcanic eruption at Mount Dukono, ending a days-long high-risk recovery operation that unfolded amid continuing volcanic activity. According to Indonesian disaster management officials, the remains of two Singaporean hikers, aged 27 and 30, were located on Sunday, just two days after the group was trapped by the volcano’s sudden outburst. Their bodies were found only meters away from where an Indonesian female hiker, the first victim recovered, was pulled from volcanic debris on Saturday. All three members of the ill-fated group were within 50 meters of the volcano’s main crater rim when the eruption struck.

    Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, explained that thick, compact layers of volcanic ash and debris had buried the two Singaporean hikers, creating major obstacles for rescuers that slowed recovery efforts dramatically. “The bodies were buried under deep, densely packed volcanic material that is difficult to dig through,” Muhari said in a press statement. “Rescue teams must proceed cautiously to ensure safety.”

    The three deaths came after the group of 20 hikers deliberately ignored official safety restrictions to climb the 1,355-meter active volcano, located in Indonesia’s North Maluku province. Mount Dukono erupted in the early hours of Friday, blasting a dense column of ash 10 kilometers into the sky and leaving the unauthorized group stranded. Seventeen members of the party were evacuated safely within hours of the eruption, including seven other Singaporean nationals. Ten of the evacuated hikers sustained minor burn injuries, while two were cleared to assist rescuers, providing critical information that guided the search for the missing.

    The recovery mission was carried out by nearly 100 personnel, who faced two major ongoing threats: the island’s extremely rugged, remote terrain and repeated volcanic activity that continued to disrupt operations days after the initial eruption. Iwan Ramdani, head of the local search and rescue department, confirmed that volcanology experts monitored conditions around the clock throughout Sunday’s recovery work, as the volcano continued to spew ash, superheated rock fragments and glowing molten material. “The search operation was repeatedly disrupted by Mount Dukono’s continued volcanic activity,” Ramdani noted. “Teams must be extremely careful during the evacuation process.”

    After all three remains were recovered, they were first moved to a local emergency response outpost before being transferred to Tobelo Regional Hospital for official identification and processing by authorities. With all victims accounted for, the National Disaster Management Agency announced the official closure of the search and rescue operation.

    In the wake of the fatal incident, authorities have issued a renewed warning to local communities, tourists and tour operators to comply with all volcanic safety regulations and steer clear of officially restricted hazard zones. Indonesia’s volcanology agency has long maintained a total ban on all human activity within a 4-kilometer radius of Mount Dukono’s crater, a restriction put in place to protect visitors from the volcano’s frequent active periods.

    Mount Dukono is one of more than 120 active volcanoes across Indonesia, a Southeast Asian nation that sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” — a geologically active zone of fault lines and volcanic formations that circles the entire Pacific Basin, leaving the country extremely prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

  • Russia accuses Ukraine of violating U.S.-brokered three-day truce

    Russia accuses Ukraine of violating U.S.-brokered three-day truce

    Hours after a U.S.-brokered three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine entered into force on Saturday, mutual accusations of violations have thrown the temporary truce into chaos, marking a rocky start to the pause in fighting announced by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Trump announced Friday that both Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to his request for a ceasefire running from Saturday to Monday, timed to coincide with Russia’s May 9 Victory Day holiday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The agreement also included a planned prisoner swap, with Trump framing the pause in hostilities as a potential turning point, saying it could become the “beginning of the end” of the full-scale war that has dragged on for years.

    The ceasefire quickly saw outbreaks of violence, however, with both sides trading blame for breaches. On Sunday, Russian officials issued sweeping claims of widespread Ukrainian violations. Russia’s Ministry of Defense alleged Kyiv had committed more than 1,000 breaches of the truce terms, according to Russian state media, which cited the ministry’s daily Sunday briefing. The defense ministry claimed Ukrainian forces targeted both civilian sites across multiple Russian regions and Russian military positions along the front line, adding that Russian armed forces had launched “responded in kind” to the Ukrainian attacks.

    In the Russian-occupied portion of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo — the Moscow-appointed leader of the area — said two local residents had been injured by Ukrainian cross-border shelling.

    Ukrainian officials have not explicitly accused Moscow of violating the truce, but have confirmed multiple deadly and damaging Russian strikes across Ukrainian territory over the 24-hour period ending Sunday. In Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, governor Ivan Fedorov confirmed one civilian was killed and three more were wounded in combined artillery and drone attacks.

    Ukraine’s Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported seven wounded civilians from Russian strikes over the same period. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, regional head Oleh Syniehubov reported late Saturday that five people were injured after a Russian drone strike hit a nine-story apartment building in the city’s industrial district.

    Ukraine’s air force announced Sunday that its air defense units had intercepted and destroyed all 27 of the strike and decoy drones Russian forces launched overnight, a major success for Kyiv’s air defense network.

    Tensions around the Victory Day holiday have added a layer of political theatre to the truce. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously suggested Russian authorities were on edge about possible Ukrainian drone attacks over Moscow’s May 9 parade on Red Square, saying Russian officials “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” during the event. Following Trump’s ceasefire announcement, Zelenskyy issued a mocking statement saying Ukraine would temporarily refrain from striking Red Square to allow the parade to proceed without disruption. The Kremlin dismissed the comment as a “silly joke.”

    This development comes as the international community continues to monitor shifts in the conflict, with the temporary ceasefire raising tentative hopes for de-escalation even as violence continues on the ground.

  • Bolivia’s fuel shortages and ‘junk gasoline’ drive a surge in electric cars

    Bolivia’s fuel shortages and ‘junk gasoline’ drive a surge in electric cars

    Against a backdrop of persistent gasoline shortages, skyrocketing fuel prices and a damaging fuel quality scandal, a small but fast-growing group of Bolivians are trading their fossil fuel-powered vehicles for electric alternatives, turning a national energy crisis into a quiet shift toward sustainable transportation.

    Simón Huanca, a 53-year-old Indigenous artisan, was one of the early adopters. Fed up with long waits at gas stations and soaring fuel costs that ate into his income, he imported an electric vehicle from China to get around El Alto, Bolivia’s high-altitude urban center. The car now serves double duty: it carries his family around the city and transports alpaca wool to his weaving workshop. To offset the lack of public charging infrastructure, Huanca installed a private charger in his own garage — a necessary workaround, given that just three public stations serve the entire 1.6 million-person metropolitan area covering El Alto and neighboring La Paz. “Since last year, I’ve been looking to switch to an electric car to cut down on running costs,” Huanca explained during a drive through one of the city’s working-class neighborhoods.

    Bolivia’s energy crisis began to escalate in 2023 under former president Luis Arce. For years, the government maintained a costly policy: it purchased fuel at global market rates and sold it to domestic consumers for half the price, an attempt to keep living costs affordable for ordinary Bolivians. But the policy became unsustainable: Bolivia imports 55% of its gasoline and 80% of its diesel, and a shrinking supply of foreign currency left the state unable to continue covering the gap. The subsidy drained more than $2 billion from public coffers every year, and long lines at gas stations became a daily sight across the country.

    Just one month after taking office in December, new President Rodrigo Paz repealed the decades-old subsidy. The immediate result was a near doubling of gasoline prices that hit household budgets hard across the nation. Weeks later, transport operators began reporting that low-quality fuel was damaging their vehicles’ engines. The administration blamed contamination left over from the previous government, claiming that state-owned oil giant Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos had distributed so-called “junk gasoline” contaminated with gum and manganese that had lingered in unused storage tanks. The scandal sparked widespread strikes and protests from transportation workers, and forced the resignation of two top executives at the state oil company.

    For many Bolivians, the risk of further price hikes tied to global volatility from the Iran conflict was the final push to switch. Ever Vera, a 54-year-old lawyer who made the transition to electric, acknowledged the upfront cost of more than $36,000, but said the investment has already paid off. “I no longer waste valuable working hours searching for fuel or paying for vehicle repairs caused by bad gasoline,” Vera noted.

    Official data from Bolivia’s Single Registry for Tax Administration shows the shift is accelerating: the total number of registered electric vehicles in the country has jumped more than sixfold from 500 to 3,352 over the past five years. The sharpest surge has come in the last two years, directly coinciding with the deepening fuel crisis. Even with this rapid growth, electric vehicles still make up less than 0.13% of the estimated 2.6 million total vehicles registered in Bolivia, a nation of nearly 12 million people. The vast majority of electric vehicles on Bolivian roads are imported from China, with the United States a distant second.

    Freddy Koch, an electromobility expert with independent nonprofit Swisscontact, described the growth trajectory as exponential. While early adopters are mostly wealthier Bolivians who can afford the upfront investment, Koch expects electric vehicles to gain mass appeal quickly, predicting the total number could triple in just two to three years. Policy changes have also supported the boom: President Paz has eliminated all import tariffs on automobiles, a move that expanded the pool of importers and increased competition, driving down the cost of bringing electric vehicles into the country.

    The rising demand has also created new economic opportunities for local workers. Marcelo Laura, a 38-year-old electrician, recently carved out a lucrative new niche installing private charging stations for residential and commercial customers, filling a gap left by the lack of public infrastructure. “There still aren’t nearly enough public charging stations,” Laura said. “A year ago, I would never have imagined that electric cars would become this popular this quickly in Bolivia.”

  • Death toll rises to 14 in Pakistan suicide attack. Pakistan Taliban splinter group claims blast

    Death toll rises to 14 in Pakistan suicide attack. Pakistan Taliban splinter group claims blast

    In the early hours of Sunday, Pakistani authorities confirmed a grim update to a devastating weekend attack: the death toll from a suicide bombing targeting a security outpost in the country’s northwest has climbed to 14 police officers, with a breakaway Taliban-aligned militant faction claiming credit for the violence. The assault unfolded late Saturday near the town of Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that sits along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan, according to senior police commander Sajjad Khan.

    Khan detailed that the attack combined multiple layers of assault: a suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives detonated the device close to the security post, before several armed gunmen moved on the position. The blast and subsequent incursion sparked a fierce, close-quarters gunfight between the attackers and responding officers. Some law enforcement personnel were killed during the exchange of fire, while others lost their lives when the security post’s structure collapsed under the force of the explosion.

    Rescue teams launched a protracted search operation spanning multiple hours, deploying heavy construction equipment to clear rubble and recover the remains of fallen officers. Khan confirmed that three additional officers were injured in the attack, and that Pakistani security forces have already initiated a manhunt to locate and apprehend any surviving perpetrators linked to the assault.

    Shortly after the attack, a newly established militant organization calling itself Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan issued a statement to journalists claiming responsibility for the bombing. While the group frames itself as an independent coalition formed by breakaway factions of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – Pakistan’s primary domestic Taliban insurgent group – Pakistani government officials have long alleged that Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen operates as a front organization for the TTP to obscure its direct involvement in attacks.

    The bombing comes amid a marked resurgence of militant violence across Pakistan over the past several years, with the vast majority of major attacks attributed to the TTP. The TTP is a distinct insurgent group aligned with the Afghan Taliban, which regained national control of Afghanistan following the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021. The Pakistani government has repeatedly leveled accusations that the Afghan Taliban administration provides safe haven and logistical support to TTP fighters operating from Afghan territory, claims that Kabul has consistently denied.

    Cross-border tensions between the two neighboring countries have simmered at dangerous levels for months, with open armed clashes between Pakistani and Afghan forces claiming hundreds of lives on both sides since late February. In an attempt to de-escalate the standoff, senior diplomatic and security officials from both nations held peace talks mediated by China in early April. While the talks succeeded in reducing the intensity of cross-border violence, sporadic small-scale clashes have continued along the shared border in the weeks since the diplomatic meeting.

  • The British military says a ship caught fire after being hit off the coast of Qatar

    The British military says a ship caught fire after being hit off the coast of Qatar

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A new flare-up of maritime violence has hit the Persian Gulf, with British military officials confirming that a commercial bulk carrier suffered a projectile strike and subsequent fire off Qatar’s northeastern coast on Sunday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO), the body that monitors security for international shipping in the region, confirmed the incident took place roughly 23 nautical miles, or 43 kilometers, northeast of Doha, Qatar’s capital. Following the impact, a small blaze broke out aboard the vessel, but crews were able to quickly contain and extinguish the fire, with no injuries or fatalities reported among the ship’s crew as of Sunday’s update.

    This attack marks the latest in a string of maritime assaults that have rocked the already unstable Persian Gulf region, coming into effect after a fragile temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran failed to resolve long-simmering hostilities. Just over 48 hours before the Qatar coast incident, the U.S. military launched strikes against two Iranian-owned oil tankers, with U.S. officials claiming the vessels were attempting to violate a Washington-imposed naval blockade on Iranian commercial ports.

    In response to that U.S. action, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy issued a sharp warning, stating that any future attack on Iranian oil tankers or other commercial vessels operating under Iranian jurisdiction will be met with an overwhelming, heavy retaliatory strike targeting U.S. military bases in the Middle East and enemy commercial and military ships operating in the region.

    Tensions have remained elevated in the region since the United States and Israel launched a joint military campaign against Iran on February 28. In the wake of that campaign, Iran has severely restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical strategic waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily global oil supplies. The restriction has triggered a sharp spike in global fuel prices and sent volatility through international financial and energy markets.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly issued public threats to resume full-scale bombing campaign against Iran unless the Iranian government agrees to a deal that would fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Tehran’s nuclear development program, further raising the stakes for a potential wider regional conflict.

  • Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Spain’s Canary Islands

    Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Spain’s Canary Islands

    A cruise ship grappling with a fatal hantavirus outbreak that has claimed three lives reached waters off Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday, kicking off a tightly controlled evacuation operation for most of the nearly 150 people on board after weeks of sailing across the Atlantic.

    The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, operated by expedition cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions, was escorted into the port of Granadilla de Abona by a Spanish Civil Guard patrol vessel, AFP correspondents on site confirmed, with vessel tracking data from VesselFinder independently verifying its arrival.

    Three passengers — a married Dutch couple and a German national — have already died from the rare viral infection, which is most commonly spread through rodent populations. Alarmingly, tests have confirmed the presence of Andes virus, the only strain of hantavirus capable of human-to-human transmission, among confirmed cases, prompting coordinated international public health monitoring.

    Speaking ahead of the ship’s arrival, World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness Maria Van Kerkhove classified every person on board the vessel as a “high-risk contact” for exposure. However, she and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — who traveled to Spain to oversee the evacuation response — repeatedly emphasized that the overall risk to the general public and residents of the Canary Islands remains very low.

    In a public letter to the people of Tenerife, Tedros sought to quash comparisons to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, writing, “This is not another Covid.” He added that he was confident Spanish authorities, who have been preparing for the operation for days, would carry it out successfully, noting “Spain is ready and prepared.”

    On the ground Sunday morning, AFP reporters observed white medical screening tents erected along the quay, with local police securing a restricted perimeter around the evacuation zone. Despite the high-profile public health response, daily life across Tenerife remained largely uninterrupted: residents swam at nearby beaches, shoppers visited local markets, and patrons gathered at outdoor cafe terraces. Local lottery vendor David Parada noted that while there was quiet underlying worry, most residents did not appear overly alarmed by the ship’s arrival.

    Regional authorities opted against allowing the vessel to dock permanently, a precautionary measure that means the MV Hondius will remain anchored offshore while the evacuation is carried out Sunday and Monday. Weather conditions only permit the operation during this narrow window, public health officials confirmed. Evacuation began around 7:00 GMT Sunday, with all passengers and a small core crew set to disembark before the ship sails onward to the Netherlands. Once they leave the vessel, evacuees will be transported directly to chartered aircraft organized by nationality for repatriation.

    As of Friday, the WHO had confirmed six cases of hantavirus out of eight initial suspected cases on board, with no new suspected cases remaining. The ship had previously sailed from Cape Verde, where three infected passengers were evacuated earlier this month. The voyage began back on April 1, when the MV Hondius departed Ushuaia, Argentina for an Atlantic crossing to Cape Verde. Local Argentine health officials have concluded that the first infected passenger had an “almost zero chance” of contracting the virus in Ushuaia, based on the pathogen’s incubation period and other available data.

    Health agencies across the globe have launched contact tracing operations for passengers who left the ship at earlier stops, as well as anyone who has had close contact with known infected people. A KLM flight attendant who had brief exposure to one infected passenger and developed mild symptoms tested negative for the virus, the WHO confirmed Friday. That infected passenger, the wife of the first fatality in the outbreak, was removed from a Johannesburg-to-Amsterdam flight before takeoff on April 25 and died the next day in a South African hospital.

    In Spain, a woman who was on that same flight and developed symptoms has been placed in isolation in a hospital in the eastern part of the country while awaiting test results. Two Singaporean passengers who were on the MV Hondius tested negative but remain in quarantine as a precaution, Singaporean health authorities announced Friday. British health officials also reported a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, a remote Atlantic island settlement home to roughly 220 residents.

  • Militia kill at least 69 in NE DR Congo: local, security sources

    Militia kill at least 69 in NE DR Congo: local, security sources

    A brutal militia assault in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s restless northeastern province of Ituri has claimed the lives of at least 69 people, according to local and security sources who spoke to Agence France-Presse on Saturday. The massacre marks just the latest in a prolonged string of violent incidents that have rocked the gold-rich border region, which has grappled with years of destabilizing armed conflict.

    The attack, carried out by gunmen aligned with the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco) militia, was actually carried out at the end of April, sources confirmed. Ongoing instability driven by the persistent presence of Codeco fighters in the area prevented recovery teams from reaching the site to retrieve victims’ remains for multiple days, delaying the announcement of the full death toll.

    While security sources have confirmed a confirmed death toll of 69, Dieudonne Losa, a local civil protection official, told AFP the actual number of fatalities exceeds 70. A full accounting of victims is still ongoing as access to the area remains restricted.

    Codeco frames itself as a defender of the rights of the Lendu community, a population primarily made up of agricultural farmers, in long-running tensions with the Hema community, whose members largely work as pastoral herders. A second armed faction, the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP), operates in the province and says it advocates for the Hema community.

    The two groups are only among several armed actors active in the region. One of the most prominent is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a faction formed by exiled Ugandan rebels that has sworn loyalty to the Islamic State group. Just two days before Saturday’s announcement of the Codeco attack, local and security sources reported that ADF fighters had killed at least 36 people across two days of assaults in Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province.

    Since 2021, the Ugandan People’s Defence Force has operated alongside the Congolese national military in northern North Kivu and across Ituri to coordinate counter-insurgency operations against the ADF. A notable complicating dynamic in the conflict is that the Congolese army has occasionally deployed Codeco fighters as auxiliary forces in its operations against other armed groups.

    Earlier on Saturday, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) issued a public warning of an accelerating “deadly” wave of attacks targeting civilian populations across the country’s unstable eastern borderlands. “Dozens of civilians have been killed in recent days” across Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, the UN mission said, declining to share further details on the incidents at the time of the statement.

    Eastern DRC, a region teeming with valuable untapped mineral reserves, has been engulfed in overlapping cycles of armed conflict for nearly 30 years, involving dozens of militias, rebel factions, and national military forces. Civilians have consistently borne the brunt of the violence, with thousands displaced annually and hundreds killed in targeted attacks across the region.

  • Israeli settlers force Palestinian family to exhume father’s body in West Bank

    Israeli settlers force Palestinian family to exhume father’s body in West Bank

    In a shocking incident that has drawn widespread international rebuke, a Palestinian family was compelled by Israeli settlers to disinter the body of their late father from a West Bank cemetery on Friday, deepening ongoing concerns over escalating settler violence in the occupied territory. The confrontation unfolded near the recently reestablished Israeli settlement of Sa-Nur, located close to the city of Jenin. Settlers claimed the burial site, situated roughly 300 meters from the settlement outpost, violated their unstated proximity rules – a demand that ignored the fact the family of the deceased, Hussein Asasa, had secured all required Israeli government permits for the burial.

    According to reporting from Israeli outlet Haaretz, settlers immediately began digging at the cemetery shortly after the funeral ceremony concluded, triggering tense physical confrontations between the settlers and local Palestinian residents who gathered to protect the grave. The Israeli military confirmed it dispatched forces to the scene, where personnel seized the digging tools the settlers had brought to excavate the site. Despite this intervention, the Asasa family ultimately said they had no choice but to remove the body themselves and reburry it at a separate cemetery, all under armed Israeli military escort. During the traumatic process, settlers pelted the grieving family with stones as they carried out the exhumation.

    The United Nations’ top human rights official in Palestine condemned the act in stark terms. Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories, called the incident appalling, noting it was a clear example of the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians unfolding across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). “It spares no one, dead or alive,” Sunghay said of the ongoing pattern of abuse.

    Settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank is not a new development, but experts and local authorities have documented a dramatic surge in attacks since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023. Today, settlers carry out near-daily assaults on Palestinian villages and population centers, ranging from property vandalism and arson to forced displacement and violent physical attacks, many of which involve the use of firearms.

    Just last month, a deadly settler attack on a school northeast of Ramallah left two Palestinians dead, including a 15-year-old teenage student. Data collected by the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscores the scale of the escalating violence: since October 2023, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers, with 15 of those fatalities recorded in the current year alone. The incident has renewed international calls for accountability for settler violence and protections for Palestinian civilians living under occupation.

  • Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 3 police officers in attack on security post in northwest Pakistan

    Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 3 police officers in attack on security post in northwest Pakistan

    On a late Saturday evening in northwest Pakistan, a coordinated militant assault combining a suicide car bombing and armed gunfire left at least three police officers dead, local law enforcement confirmed. The violence unfolded in Bannu district, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along Pakistan’s volatile border with Afghanistan.

    According to senior local police official Zahid Khan, the attackers first detonated a vehicle packed with high explosives close to a security outpost. The powerful blast triggered multiple secondary explosions, reducing the security post and several adjacent civilian homes to rubble. Immediately after the detonation, several gunmen opened fire on security personnel, sparking a prolonged, intense firefight that was still ongoing as initial reports were compiled.

    Khan noted that an unconfirmed number of additional officers have been injured, with some believed trapped beneath the collapsed debris of the buildings. Rescue and security teams have since secured the perimeter of the attack site, working to clear rubble and neutralize remaining threats, though full casualty counts have not yet been finalized.

    As of Sunday morning, no militant organization had issued a public statement claiming credit for the attack. Security analysts however quickly pointed to long-running militant networks operating in the region as the prime suspects. Suspicion is widely expected to fall on Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, and its affiliated militant factions. The TTP, which is operationally separate from but closely aligned with the Afghan Taliban that retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, has carried out dozens of similar attacks on Pakistani security targets in recent years.

    Pakistan has faced a marked upward spike in militant violence across its northwestern border regions since 2021, marking one of the most serious security challenges for the country’s government in the last decade.

  • Rwanda-backed rebels accuse the US of falling short as a peace mediator in Congo’s conflict

    Rwanda-backed rebels accuse the US of falling short as a peace mediator in Congo’s conflict

    In a scathing rebuke of Washington’s role as a peace broker in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a coalition of Congolese rebels led by the Congo River Alliance has accused the Trump administration of failing to uphold impartial mediation amid ongoing bloodshed in the country’s mineral-rich eastern region. The open criticism, delivered via a formal letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by the Associated Press on Saturday, comes months after a high-profile U.S.-brokered peace agreement between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, a deal the Trump administration has repeatedly touted as a landmark diplomatic success.

    The 2024 accord, hailed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump after negotiations with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was designed not only to end decades of cyclic conflict in eastern Congo but also to lay the groundwork for a trilateral economic partnership that would open the region’s untapped rare earth mineral reserves to American government access and private sector investment. Despite Trump’s repeated claims of a diplomatic win, active hostilities have continued unabated across eastern Congo, with armed factions and government forces trading blame for repeated violations of the ceasefire terms.

    The rebel coalition, which includes the Rwanda-backed M23 movement — the most powerful armed group operating in eastern Congo — argues that Washington has consistently turned a blind eye to alleged peace commitment violations by the Tshisekedi administration in Kinshasa, while disproportionately targeting opponents of the Congolese government and Rwandan entities with punitive sanctions. Last week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, accusing him of funding and supporting rebel activities; earlier this year, Washington also blacklisted Rwanda’s military and four senior Rwandan officials over their documented support for M23. The letter charges that no comparable punitive measures or even public warnings have been issued against Tshisekedi’s government for its own breaches of the peace deal.

    “Your administration has neither imposed any sanctions nor issued even a simple warning to the leaders in Kinshasa, whose intransigent and arrogant attitude calls into question the impartiality and neutrality of the American Facilitator/Mediator,” the letter reads. It adds that the lack of consistent corrective action undermines confidence in U.S. mediation, noting that “the absence of clearly identifiable corrective measures fuels questions regarding the facilitation’s ability to preserve, over time, the requirements of impartiality and neutrality that are essential to its credibility.”

    Long-standing instability has plagued eastern Congo for generations, driven in large part by competition over control of the region’s vast deposits of critical minerals that underpin global technology and clean energy supply chains. More than 100 armed factions operate in the area, with M23 emerging as the most militarily capable. U.N. estimates show the group has grown from just a few hundred fighters in 2021 to roughly 6,500 today, a rapid expansion that the DRC government, U.S., and United Nations experts attribute to ongoing military support from Rwanda — a claim Rwanda has repeatedly denied. M23 launched a major offensive across eastern Congo in early 2024, seizing the regional capital Goma and other key population centers before the U.S.-brokered deal was reached.

    Independent regional conflict experts agree that while U.S. mediation reduced cross-border tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, it has failed to curb the escalating ground conflict. “While U.S. mediation has helped cool regional tension it has not stopped the escalating fighting on the ground,” Kristof Titeca, a University of Antwerp professor specializing in Central African governance and conflict, told the AP. The rebel letter’s public criticism adds new pressure on the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts in the Great Lakes region, at a time when Washington is pushing to advance American economic interests in the region’s critical mineral sector. The Associated Press contributed reporting from Bonn, Germany, for this story.