Author: Gulf News Week

Latest Assault Heightens Tensions with Afghanistan, Accused of Harboring Militant Group PESHAWAR: Militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed six Pakistani soldiers in an attack on a northwestern checkpoint late Monday, officials said, marking the latest violence to shake the volatile border region near Afghanistan. The assault in Kurram district involved a “heavy exchange of fire” after more than a dozen insurgents targeted the security post, a local official told AFP. Four soldiers were wounded and two attackers were also killed in the clash, the source added. Pakistan has witnessed a significant uptick in militant violence along its western frontier…

Read More

The ruling comes months after the Tufts doctoral student was freed from ICE detention where she was held for opposing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.The United States government must restore Rumeysa Ozturk’s student visa record, a federal court has ruled, months after the Tufts student was released from immigration detention where she was being held for speaking out against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.United States District Judge Denise Casper delivered an interim ruling on Monday that US President Donald Trump’s administration must restore Ozturk’s name to a database of foreign students administered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), known…

Read More

Israel says it targeted Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, adding pressure to a US-brokered ceasefire.Israel’s military has carried out waves of air attacks in southern Lebanon, causing damage to several homes, according to Lebanese state media, as anger mounts over repeated Israeli violations of a ceasefire with Hezbollah agreed upon last year.Lebanon’s National News Agency reported late on Monday that Israeli jets targeted Mount Safi, the town of Jbaa, the Zefta Valley, and the area between Azza and Rumin Arki in “several waves”.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Waymo runs into safety concerns and competition as it expands…

Read More

STC says Aden, the base of the Saudi-backed and internationally-recognised government, also under their control.Yemen’s main southern separatist group has claimed broad control of the southern part of the country, marking a major shift in power for the area.Amr al-Bidh, a senior official of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the group had extended its presence in all southern provinces – including the port of Aden, the base of the internationally-recognised government over the past decade – following a military operation codenamed “Promising Future” launched last week.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1…

Read More

The project, set to be completed in six years, is the first of its kind between the two Gulf nations.Saudi Arabia and Qatar have signed a formal agreement to construct high-speed rail connecting their capitals, the first project of its kind between the two Gulf states that were once deeply at odds.According to a statement in official Saudi media on Monday, the “high-speed electric passenger railway” would connect Riyadh’s King Salman International Airport with Doha’s Hamad International Airport.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Qatari PM hopes ‘momentum’ now to end Israel’s Gaza war; Hamas deliberateslist 2 of 3The…

Read More

The agency’s commissioner-general condemns raid as a direct violation of international law.Israeli forces have raided the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem, seizing items and replacing the UN flag with Israel’s flag.In a statement on X, the agency’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said Israeli police, accompanied by municipal officials, forcibly entered its compound in Sheikh Jarrah early on Monday morning.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Syria’s Prison of Secrets: The Search for Sednaya’s Missinglist 2 of 4How US pressure is squeezing Venezuela’s already fragile economylist 3 of 4After…

Read More

When al-Assad fell, Mohamad Yamen finally felt free. On the first anniversary, he speaks of his hopes for the future.Damascus, Syria – In 2013, Mohamad Yamen, then nine years old, fled from the Damascus suburb of Jobar with his family.The Assad regime flattened Jobar, making it uninhabitable. Yamen and his parents moved to the Abbasiyyin neighbourhood of Damascus, where he continued his studies and dreamed of moving to Spain.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4How opposition forces toppled Syria’s Assad a year agolist 2 of 4Baraa in Syrialist 3 of 4One year since the fall of Bashar al-Assad: A…

Read More

Israel’s prime minister has said the duo will discuss ‘difficult’ phase two of Gaza ceasefire, which concerns governance of the enclave.United States President Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on December 29, according to an Israeli government spokesperson.The announcement on Monday did not provide any further details of the planned meeting, which the pair had tentatively announced last week.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Netanyahu will win again, because in Israel, ‘there is none like him’list 2 of 3Five key takeaways from Trump’s National Security Strategylist 3 of 3Gaza ceasefire deal…

Read More

Heglig is Sudan’s largest oil field and also the main processing facility for neighbouring South Sudan’s oil exports.The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) says it has seized control of the strategic Heglig oilfield in Sudan’s South Kordofan province.The claim early on Monday was supported later by a statement issued by the military government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) saying it had withdrawn from the area. The takeover comes as the RSF, embroiled in a two-and-a-half-year conflict with the SAF, pushes to expand eastwards and southwards from the western Darfur region, over which it took full control last month.Recommended Stories list of…

Read More

Massacres at the start of the war in Sudan should have shocked the world into action. They didn’t. And so more massacres followed.Over the last two months in Darfur, Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have committed horrifying atrocities in the city of el-Fasher. There, they have fired on and killed civilians already shattered by more than 500 days of siege; people already so starved they have been forced to eat animal feed.People who have managed to escape – often walking to the town of Tawila, 60km (37 miles) southwest of el-Fasher – are deeply traumatised. The killings have been…

Read More