On February 15, 2026, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Radio Iran’s Pashto service that Kabul would be prepared to cooperate with the Islamic Republic in the event of a U.S. military attack — if Tehran formally requested assistance. He added that Iran had emerged victorious from its June 2025 war with Israel and would prevail again against Washington. The statement was extraordinary on its face: the world’s most prominent Sunni jihadist movement publicly offering military solidarity to a Shia theocracy it once nearly went to war with. Yet the declaration was less a rupture than a culmination — the latest expression of a pragmatic alignment that has been deepening for over a decade, driven not by ideological convergence but by shared adversaries, mutual dependence, and the strategic logic of survival under pressure.
Iran’s engagement with the Taliban has evolved from tactical coordination during the insurgency to a pragmatic working relationship since the group’s return to power in August 2021. Despite deep ideological differences and a history of confrontation, Tehran has prioritized strategic interests over sectarian or doctrinal considerations. This relationship has yielded tangible benefits for both sides, while remaining transactional, asymmetric, and subject to significant constraints.
In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. The allies quickly deposed the repressive Taliban regime and installed a western-backed government.
But by the time that Trump came to office in 2017, the war was at a stalemate. To make matters worse for the president, the US was spending US$27 billion (£21.3 billion) annually on military expenditure. Given this, Trump’s reflex was to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible.
However, the president’s national security team – largely comprised of former and current military generals who did not owe personal loyalty to Trump – persuaded him to increase the US’s commitment to Afghanistan. The new strategy also set the conditions for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.
The following year, angered by the lack of progress, Trump argued that the US should “get out” of Afghanistan as the strategy had been a “total failure”.
By this time, the US had talked directly to the Taliban, without the Afghan government in the room – a key Taliban demand. While the talks were designed to lead to intra-Afghan negotiations, it resulted in the Afghan republic being sidelined from the process.
Throughout these talks, Trump frequently threatened to withdraw from Afghanistan. US officials referred to this constant threat as the “Tweet of Damocles” – meaning at any point, the president would announce on Twitter that the US was departing Afghanistan.
The secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo – a diehard Trump loyalist – knew the president could pull the plug on the talks at any time. He therefore instructed lead US negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, to secure a deal at all costs.
As a former senior Pentagon official who was present at the talks told me, it became clear Pompeo and Khalilzad had “no red lines” as both believed that “any deal was better than no deal”.
Khalilzad abandoned the original Afghan-led process and worked to secure an agreement with the Taliban, which inevitably caused dismay within the sidelined Afghan government. Trump also largely refused to consult the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, about his plans.
Compounding matters, the US president made several public statements about his desire to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. This weakened Khalilzad’s position and encouraged the Taliban to remain resolute in negotiations.
The US-Taliban agreement, which was signed in Doha in February 2020, favoured the insurgents and damaged the Afghan government. Khalilzad had conceded to the Taliban’s key demand: the withdrawal of all US and coalition troops from the country, which was scheduled over 14 months.
In return, the Taliban promised to prevent terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan and agreed to hold talks with the Afghan government. If the Taliban did not adhere to these conditions, the US would – in theory – halt reducing its troop numbers.
“This was a terrible deal. It was deeply injurious to US interests, let alone ruinous to Afghan interests,” the former Pentagon official told me.
In the end, the Taliban failed to honour its counterterrorism commitments, and only half-heartedly pursued intra-Afghan talks.
The deal set the conditions for the insurgents to retake Kabul by force, although the disastrous withdrawal overseen by the administration of Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, in 2021 proved fatal for the Afghan government.
Trump’s Taliban deal excluded the US’s ally, conceded too much to an adversary, and was partly motivated by the perception of wasting American dollars in a far-off land. Unfortunately, these hallmarks are all too evident in the president’s stance on Ukraine.
The early signs of Trump’s approach to talks with Russia do not augur well for Ukraine or the western alliance. If Trump does secure a peace deal with Russia that mirrors the accord struck with the Taliban, not only will Ukraine lose out, but Russia may be emboldened to again pursue its expansionist agenda
And women continually suffer brutality from family members:
The Taliban does not collect any data on how many Afghan women are killed each year. The attorney general’s office, which used to collate this information, was abolished in 2023.
To measure what the state will not, reporters for Zan times, a collective of journalists who work under cover in Afghanistan, collected cases of women killed in 10 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces since the Taliban came to power in August 2021, drawing on 174 instances reported by local media, as well as 57 cases documented directly by the journalists but previously unreported. The investigation found women across Afghanistan are being killed at home by husbands, fathers, brothers, in a system that all but guarantees impunity for the crime. Many cases are never entered into official records.
A mural calling for women and children’s rights in Afghanistan in August 2022 in Bamian, west of Kabul, a year after the Taliban takeover. Photograph: Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images
The team documented 231 cases, of which 53 were declared suicide. The provinces with the highest recorded tolls were Jawzjan (36), Herat (32), Badakhshan (28) and Ghazni (26). The age of victims ranged from girls as young as five to women of 65. Seven out of 10 victims – 165 of 231 – were housewives with no independent income or institutional standing to pursue a domestic violence case. Most of the cases occurred in the victim’s home. Across the dataset, only 58 arrests were recorded. More than one in five were officially declared suicide, even when there was significant evidence of foul play. Only one in four of the 231 killings resulted in any arrest, but even in these cases, the suspect was often released – sometimes just one day after being detained.
The reporters found a number of deaths that according to family or witnesses had resulted from domestic violence, but were being officially recorded as suicides.
Freshta Emady, whose family and friends believe she was killed by her husband
A healthcare worker in Jawzjan said that many of the dead women that came to hospital and were labelled suicides had clearly been beaten, their bodies covered in wounds and bruises.
Freshta Emady, 33, a UN agency employee in Kabul, was found dead in her home on 31 May. Her husband reportedly told Taliban police she had killed herself, citing a psychiatric condition.
Her family and friends, however, believe she was killed by her husband. Five people who knew her said Freshta, who had been married off at 17, had spent 15 years being beaten, choked and controlled. A colleague said Freshta had described her husband repeatedly strangling her and telling her, “I’ll cut your throat.”
Russell Vought has infected the mind of AOC sufficiently to make her laugh at the era during Covid when she stood with others to protest the callous, unlawful, behaviour of police aggression toward many black people.
She accepted she was ‘too woke’ then, saddling this Vought invented term on herself and all other brave and caring people of that time and who continue to battle on against the Kafkaesque Russell Vought death cult.
George Floyd (1973–2020) The death of George Floyd focused global attention on institutional racism and policy brutality. His life was marked by poverty, addiction, and bad decisions.
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to remarks during a swearing-in ceremony for Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. ……….
……….In the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared as the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C……….
1. Vought went from the mail room to becoming the chief antagonist of his own party…….
4. Vought played a surprising role in popularizing the phrase “woke and weaponized.”
In 2021, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America, a think tank devoted to keeping the MAGA movement alive and preparing for a second Trump presidency. According to previously unreported recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought accepted an assignment from Trump to come up with a way for conservatives to counter Black Lives Matter. He popularized the concept of “woke and weaponized” government — a phrase embraced by GOP politicians and activists to disparagingly label policies, people and even agencies that didn’t fit with the MAGA agenda.
“If you’re watching television and the words ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you can know that this is coming … from the strategies we’re putting out,” Vought boasted in a recording obtained by ProPublica.
When Vought’s think tank released a federal budget blueprint in 2022, calling for $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, the word “woke” appeared 77 times across its 103 pages.
To hear Russell Vought speak out of the mouth of a young,potental Democratic presidential candidate, confirming ‘wokeness’ was a true descriptor of the Black Lives Matter movement, was a devastating moment to observe.
If leaders of DSA, an organization of which I am also a member, want to continue to grow as an electoral political home for people who believe these ideas are not only possible, but also worth pursuing, they must know that they are subject to the same lessons they are teaching establishment Democrats right now: do not laugh off the political demands of those who put you in office. For all of what their constituents, canvassers and staffers did as part of a fight on our behalf, is it worth treating years-long radical, Black and multiracial pursuits of freedom as mere pandemic pandemonium? No, it’s not. But more than what we are called by any of them is what we continue to call ourselves. Our own histories, convictions and clarity, not politicians, lead the way.
A little-known network of cameras is at the centre of a growing US surveillance row, with viral TikTok and Instagram posts drawing the attention of law enforcement ahead of a nationwide protest campaign.
The technology behind the controversy is known as Flock cameras, and government intelligence bulletins show just how closely authorities are now watching the backlash.
What Are Flock Cameras and How Do They Work?
Flock cameras are automated licence plate reader (ALPR) systems designed to capture images of vehicles and read their number plates. The technology records information about vehicle sightings, including when and where a vehicle was detected, allowing authorised users to search the data during investigations.
Flock Safety has deployed its technology across communities in the US, where police departments use ALPR cameras as an investigative tool. The technology has also prompted concerns over privacy and data retention, as well as how vehicle-location information can be accessed and shared.
The debate has intensified as the number of Flock cameras has grown. The Guardian reported in July that it had identified at least 33 incidents in which Flock cameras were damaged, vandalised or destroyed across 23 states.
Military families and Congress members are sounding the alarm about an intensifying mental health crisis onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment at sea tied to the war with Iran.
Two leading specialist military papers, the Navy Times and the Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and mental stresses on the Lincoln reach breaking point. The crew is in its ninth month at sea, and has spent 250 days consecutively without making land – a record for an aircraft carrier in modern times.
Worried families vented their anxieties about loved ones onboard the Lincoln at an emotional town hall meeting with navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported. One spouse among the 200 or so family members said that her husband had texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”.
The families’ worries were expressed directly to navy leadership, represented at the town hall by the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, and other top officials.
A woman at the meeting told Cao that the navy had “broken trust between us and the leadership”, the paper reported.
The Navy Times gave details of thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the current deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had tried to jump overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended.
“He’s scared. He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out his 13-year career is ruined, just like that,” she said.
The paper quoted another sailor’s wife who was involved in a separate incident on board the Lincoln in which he prevented a fellow crew member from jumping, grabbing them and bringing them back on deck.
Mike Levin, a Democratic member of congress from California, has sounded the alarm over conditions onboard the warship, which is in its fifth month of combat operations against Iran. He described the lot of the crew on X as “moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry down for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, a meal that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. No soap, deodorant, or toothpaste.”
Jason Crow, a Democratic congress member from Colorado, who is a former army ranger having served in Aghanistan and Iraq, has warned that the strain on service members and their families on the Lincoln is “building week by week”.
BRUSSELS — NATO countries finalized a €27 billion deal to overhaul the alliance’s military fuel transport system, the organization announced Wednesday.
“The 27-billion-euro investment will modernise NATO’s existing fuel storage and distribution infrastructure,” the alliance said in a statement. “It will support new facilities, including pipelines, in the eastern and south-eastern part of the Alliance and ensure NATO forces have the energy supplies they need for warfighting readiness.”
NATO’s 32 ambassadors signed off on the deal, part of its effort to prepare for a potential war with Russia, during their last regular meeting ahead of the summer break, two NATO diplomats said, after Turkey dropped its last-minute bid to hold up the compromise. Both diplomats were granted anonymity to speak freely about the classified talks.
The military alliance also agreed to raise its common funding budget to “up to EUR 6.5 billion” for next year, and signed off on its investment priorities for the next five years. For 2026, allies had agreed on a budget of €5.3 billion.
Countries have held negotiations for months on the revamp of the alliance’s 10,000-kilometer Cold War-era pipeline network, which is designed to connect NATO’s existing system in Western Europe to newer alliance member countries in the east and north.
The project, touted as NATO’s largest-ever and most expensive commonly funded scheme, could take up to 30 years to complete and covers dozens of projects, ranging from pipeline upgrades to energy storage sites.
“A stronger NATO is in the pipeline,” said one of the diplomats.
Catering truck and decoy jet: Secret mission to protect Trump from Iranian threat
The Washington Post reveals: US officials used a decoy Air Force One and a catering truck to secretly move Donald Trump onto a military jet in Turkey following an Iranian assassination threat.
A credible Iranian assassination plot aimed at US President Donald Trump prompted an unprecedented covert operation last month in which he was secretly flown out of Turkey aboard an alternate military aircraft while the White House falsely maintained he was traveling on Air Force One, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
The covert relocation – which remained completely undisclosed until now – was executed without the knowledge of embedded reporters or several White House staffers who believed they were traveling on the same aircraft as the president, according to operational documentation reviewed by The Post, a US official familiar with the mission, and another source knowledgeable about presidential travel arrangements.
Publicly, administration officials maintained that Trump departed Turkey on July 8 aboard the legacy Air Force One. Trump previously stated on social media that he would utilize the “former Air Force One” rather than the Boeing 747-8 gifted to the US by Qatar, an aircraft whose security measures faced public scrutiny and which Trump indicated would undergo further defensive enhancements.
While in Ankara, Trump walked onto the legacy Air Force One jumbo jet in full view of news cameras. Minutes later, however, he was covertly transferred to a smaller Air Force C-32A transport plane using an airport catering truck normally reserved for loading inflight meals, according to the US official and supporting records reviewed by The Post. That maneuver effectively turned the primary Air Force One into a “decoy” carrying journalists and White House personnel, the official noted.
Trump had been attending a NATO summit in Ankara with international leaders. The operation transpired the night after American forces launched renewed airstrikes against Iranian targets on Trump’s orders following a collapse in talks between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending their months-long conflict.
The maneuver effectively masked Trump’s true location from the public and numerous senior U.S. officials for hours. Weeks later, it remains unclear how widely the administration disclosed the security operation internally.
When presented with detailed reporting and questions, White House communications director Steven Cheung released a statement defending the Qatari-provided plane.
“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” Cheung stated, adding, “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats.”
Billionaire to invest £35bn in small modular nuclear reactors rollout across UK
Consortium led by Michał Sołowow planning enough SMRs to power equivalent of 8m homes for more than 60 years
Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondentThu 2 Jul 2026 10.11 BSTShare
A consortium led by the billionaire industrialist Michał Sołowow has announced plans to build 14 small modular nuclear reactors on three sites across the UK, including the location of a former nuclear plant in Gloucestershire.
The Polish entrepreneur and rally driver plans to use £35bn of private capital to roll out enough small modular reactors (SMRs) to power the equivalent of 8m UK homes for more than 60 years, or even power datacentre investments alongside Google.
Sołowow’s nuclear development company, SGE, plans to make the “significant investment” of between £2.2bn to £2.5bn in each 300 megawatt reactor alongside a string of industrial partners including the US manufacturer GE Vernova and Japanese industrial conglomerate Hitachi, which are responsible for the design.
The consortium, known as SGE SMR, hopes to secure three sites for the boiling water reactors (BWRs) by this time next year as well as a government support contract which would guarantee a “competitive” price for its electricity once it starts generating in 2034.
It has not disclosed which sites it hopes to use for the GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 design, or which energy company would be the operator. However, the Guardian understands the consortium has submitted an application to use the Oldbury site in south Gloucestershire which was earmarked earlier this year for the development of SMRs under the government’s advanced nuclear framework.
Ed Miliband has unveiled plans that could make it easier to build nuclear power plants closer to homes and on sensitive nature sites, as he attempts to speed up the development of energy infrastructure.
The energy secretary set out changes to nuclear regulation, to be carried out this year, which would mean a “win-win for building critical infrastructure while protecting nature and the environment”.
However, ministers were quickly accused of “irresponsible deregulation” and putting nature at risk.
The shake-up means the government will implement the recommendations of a review completed last year by the nuclear regulatory taskforce review, which was led by the former Office of Fair Trading boss John Fingleton.
It said an overhaul of the “overly complex” and “bureaucratic” system which “favoured process over safe outcomes” was needed.
Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “As the current Middle East conflict shows, we need to go further and faster to build the clean energy we need to get off volatile fossil fuel markets and deliver energy security for our country.
“A crucial part of this is ensuring that we speed up the building of infrastructure in a way that reduces costs as well as delivering better outcomes for nature.”
The nuclear regulatory taskforce was set up by Keir Starmer in February after the government promised to rip up “archaic rules” and slash regulations to “get Britain building”.
The Fingleton review said: “Several changes are required to remove legislative and policy bottlenecks and accelerate project delivery.
“Outdated policies that restrict site selection must be reformed, specifically by revising the semi-urban population density criteria and default outline planning zones.” The criteria aims to avoid siting nuclear plants near areas with large local populations.
The government said the introduction of the regulatory reforms meant it was likely to be the last time that this type of mini-nuclear power plant needed to go through such a lengthy process.
The UK government has announced significant planning reforms to accelerate the construction of nuclear power plants, particularly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs). These changes have implications for the data centre industry, where demand for reliable, inexpensive, abundant power has become a key issue for owners and operators.
Changing Government policies are designed to provide greater flexibility in site selection, reduce bureaucratic delays, and support the country’s transition to a more sustainable energy mix.
SMRs and AMRs are positioned as the future of nuclear power due to their reduced construction time and adaptability compared to traditional, large-scale reactors. The government emphasised these smaller reactors can be deployed in a broader range of locations, including closer to high-demand users such as data centres.
A statement from the Government noted previous policies had restricted technology investment, and that the reformed policies would support advancement, as well as jobs and cheap energy supply.
“Investors want to get on and build reliable, cheap nuclear power, which will in turn support critical modern infrastructure, such as supercomputers to power the UK’s ambitions – but they have been held back,” said the Government.
The UK Government added the plans announced will shake up the planning rules to make it easier to build nuclear across the country, delivering jobs, cheaper bills in the long term, and more money in people’s back pockets.
Greater Flexibility in Site Selection
The National Policy Statement for Nuclear Energy Generation allows developers to identify their preferred sites for nuclear projects, rather than limiting them to pre-approved locations. This will help to prevent projects from being hindered by outdated site restrictions and allow data centre operators to explore colocation with nuclear facilities for direct energy supply.
The new policy also removes arbitrary expiry deadlines, providing investors and developers with greater certainty and flexibility, which encourages long-term planning and investment.
Changing these rules is expected to benefit data centres by promoting reliable and abundant energy to power both traditional and AI data centres. This can help to reduce the risk of outages and downtime, which is critical given the increasing reliance on digital infrastructure. SMRs and AMRs can help to alleviate the pressure that data centres place on local energy grids while reducing transmission fees and operational costs.
Nuclear power is also a low-carbon energy source, aligning with technology company commitments to sustainability and reduced environmental impact.
Chad is one of those African countries that fills out the “Africa Bingo Card”: Colonialism, Corruption, Civil Wars, Rebellions, Tribalism, Religious Tension, Autocracy, Western Puppeteering, & Famine. Chad, the 5th largest African country, is three times
Chad, Africa’s fifth-largest country by area, sits at a crossroads of civilizations where the Sahara Desert meets the tropical savanna and the vast inland waters of Lake Chad converge. Its history stretches back over nine thousand years to some of the earliest known African civilizations, encompasses powerful medieval empires that rivaled any in the world, and continues through a turbulent modern era marked by colonialism, civil conflict, and the transformative discovery of oil. The name Chad itself derives from the Kanuri word tsade, meaning “large body of water,” a reference to the great lake that has sustained human life in this region since time immemorial.
………………
Chad’s history is a testament to the endurance of human civilization in one of the planet’s most challenging environments. From the ancient Sao artisans who shaped terracotta by the shores of a great lake to the Kanem-Bornu emperors who built one of Africa’s most durable political systems, from the colonial cotton farmers who toiled under French exploitation to the modern Chadians navigating the complexities of oil wealth and democratic aspiration, this nation’s story is woven into the very fabric of African and world history. Understanding Chad means understanding the deep connections between environment, power, culture, and resilience that define the human experience in the heart of Africa.
How conflict in Libya facilitated transnational expansion of migrant smuggling and trafficking
How the Libyan conflict transformed human trafficking routes in West Africa, and why Europe’s response has so far failed.
Explainer
Published 21 February 2025 —12 minute READ
Migrant smuggling and trafficking has flourished through Libya since its 2011 conflict. This article explains how this happened and why European policies aimed at addressing the issue are inadequate.
Migrant smuggling generally refers to the movement of people with their consent; while Trafficking in Persons (TIP) refers to the movement of people against their will – though the distinction is not clear cut and journeys often combine elements of the two. In particular, women have been disproportionately impacted by trafficking.
The three phases
In the first of three phases, the Libyan conflict led to the emergence of armed factions and an economy dominated by violence that has fostered migrant smuggling and trafficking. This led to a smuggling boom in Niger and Nigeria, supporting economic growth in Niger and worsening violence in Nigeria. Increased flows of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers through Libya further expanded the conflict economy
The mutually beneficial corruption arrangement between the rival Haftar and Dbeibah camps that has kept Libya from returning to civil war could be undone by a third force usually left out of political calculations: the citizens of Libya.
For nearly six years, Libya’s eastern and western power centers have preserved an uneasy equilibrium. Haftar’s family controls the east, much of the south, and the military forces surrounding much of the key oil infrastructure. Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and the armed groups aligned with his GNU control Tripoli and the western state apparatus. Neither side has been able to eliminate the other, but both have profited from a division that allows them to distribute government positions, contracts and oil revenues without submitting to a national election.
The Trump administration is now trying to convert that informal accommodation into a formal power-sharing structure. The deal would preserve Dbeibah’s control of the government but give Saddam Haftar (General Khalifa Haftar’s son) control over a new presidential body. Washington has also pushed the rival administrations toward a unified budget and closer military coordination while encouraging U.S. oil companies to expand their presence around Africa’s largest proven crude reserves. In theory, this would give ruling families what they want most: continued access to the state without an election that could remove either of them.
The Armed Forces of the General Command of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar have announced the creation of a joint force with the Chadian Army to secure the border between the two countries.
The new structure will reportedly be placed under the supervision of the deputy commander of Eastern forces, Saddam Haftar, the same sources said.
According to reports, Saddam Haftar has instructed the Border Guards and Desert Patrols Administration, linked to the “Subul Al-Salam” battalion, to launch field operations within the framework of the joint mechanism. Haftar’s War Information Division confirmed that the initiative aims to strengthen security cooperation between Libya and Chad, targeting criminal groups, smuggling networks and armed gangs operating in desert areas.
The announcement comes amid major changes within the eastern Libyan military hierarchy. Major General Ahmed Al-Dressi has been appointed Chief of Staff of the Ground Forces, replacing Saddam Haftar, who has now been promoted to Deputy Commander-in-Chief.
According to media supportive of the Haftar camp, this internal reshuffle is part of an effort to consolidate the chain of command.
The creation of the joint force also coincides with a shift in the regional security landscape. Local sources report attempts by several Chadian rebel movements present in southern Libya to regroup, raising concerns in N’Djamena and eastern Libya. Chadian authorities regularly warn against the use of Libyan territory by armed factions seeking to reorganise.
This dynamic is unfolding against a backdrop of heightened instability in Sudan, where ongoing clashes between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces continue to destabilise border regions.
This situation is pushing countries in the region to reinforce their security mechanisms and develop bilateral cooperation frameworks to contain the risk of spillover.
Khalifa Haftar was a key military figure during the Chadian–Libyan War in the 1980s, serving under Muammar Gaddafi. He commanded Libyan forces in Chad but was captured in 1987, leading to a significant embarrassment for Gaddafi. Majalla Wikipedia
Abu Dhabi’s military and political influence in Libya is starting to cause friction with major regional partners.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have issued a stark warning to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, signalling that his alleged role in facilitating Emirati military support to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) could trigger a major rupture with Cairo, as reported by Middle East Eye and agencies on January 22.
The pressure campaign is part of a coordinated Egyptian-Saudi effort to choke off supply lines that are sustaining the RSF. These routes, some of which pass through eastern Libya, have become a focal point for Cairo and Riyadh.
The message was delivered earlier in January during a visit to Cairo by Saddam Haftar, Khalifa Haftar’s son and deputy commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army. While Libyan and Egyptian media described the meetings as routine military talks, Egyptian officials privately presented evidence that fuel, weapons and equipment had been transferred from Libya to RSF forces, allegedly with Emirati backing.
And let us not forget how Haftar invited notorious Russian Wagner mercenaries into Libya, and they provided weapons for the RSF slaughters in Sudan:
Russian army officials in Libya after Haftar invite
Russian military officials including the country’s deputy defence minister arrived in eastern Libya after being invited by warlord Khalifa Haftar, who has received support from Wagner mercenaries.
Russian military officials including Moscow’s deputy defence minister arrived in Libya on Tuesday after receiving an invitation from pro-Moscow warlord Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, who backs the country’s eastern administration, is close to Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group, whose troops guard military and oil infrastructure in the divided country.
Libya is split between the United Nations-supported government of Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah in Tripoli, and a Haftar-backed administration in the east.
A UN report in 2020 said up to 1,200 Wagner fighters were backing Haftar, who at the time was trying to seize Tripoli. His offensive lasted more than a year but was unsuccessful.
Experts say hundreds of Wagner fighters remain in the north African country.
Tuesday’s visit came alongside a renewed focus on Russian activities in Africa, after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin announced in a video published Monday that his group was making Africa “freer” and suggested he was on the continent.
José Eliezer Martinez-Andino, a young Honduran man and Raleigh resident who was deported last spring, has now returned to the U.S.
Martinez-Andino boarded a plane at Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras on Wednesday. However, his destination was not Raleigh-Durham International – according to his lawyers, he boarded a flight to Harlingen, Texas.
“We have spoken to José since he arrived on August 5, and he is very glad to be back on U.S. soil where he can have the opportunity to seek legal relief again,” said Allison Chan, an immigration attorney representing Martinez-Andino.
Chan, an attorney at Margaret W. Wong & Associates law firm in Raleigh, did not comment further on whose custody her client is under or how soon he could be released.
Martinez-Andino had been living in Raleigh with close relatives since the summer of 2025 and is also the father of a three-year-old who was born in the U.S. The 20-year-old was detained in March this year while traveling on a cross-country trip to Seattle.
He was detained by immigration enforcement officials in multiple facilities in Montana and Arizona, where he said he was pressured to sign voluntary departure forms. He was flown out to Honduras in mid-April and since then had been residing in his hometown of Tela in the coastal state of Atlantida.
Martinez-Andino also possessed Special Juvenile Immigrant Status (SIJS), which is a legal status granted to young people under the age of 21 who have been neglected, abused and/or abandoned by a parent. He had crossed the border into Texas as an unaccompanied minor at the age of 14 and in 2023, a judge granted him SIJS and deferred action while he was living with a cousin in San Antonio.
U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell ordered the Department of Homeland Security in June for Martinez-Andino to be returned to the U.S. and for his legal status to be restored.
In a June interview with WUNC, attorney Allison Chan said she expected her client’s return to be “an uphill battle.”
Martinez-Andino is just one of many young people with SIJS who have been deported since President Trump’s immigration crackdown began last year. According to a letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s office earlier this year, ICE detained 265 and deported 132 young people with SIJS in 2025.
The accusation is of abusing his power over federal funds and failing to faithfully execute the law. Her filing alleges the Trump administration canceled funding for Democratic-led states on political criteria, including how they voted in the 2024 election.
……….Kamlager-Dove’s office says 79 projects in California are at risk of losing funding. Vought faces impeachment articles, but the filing does not remove him from office; it puts Congress’ power over spending and the administration’s handling of federal funds at the center of a growing constitutional dispute.
See also ProPublica article, some of Vought actions during 2025:
Russell Vought Samuel Corum/Pool via CNP/MediaPunch/Reuters
What You Should Know About Russ Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies. Here are some key things to know about the D.C. insider who wants to take a hatchet to the federal government.
October 20, 2025, 6:00 amChange AppearanceAutoLightDark
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On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which quickly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s top budget adviser. More than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies, and he’s a big reason the second Trump administration has been more effective at accomplishing its goals than the first. In the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared as the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C.
Vought’s title is director of the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB directorship is one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, and Vought has used his position to wage a quiet war to change the shape of the entire U.S. government. In Vought’s hands, OMB has acted as a choke point for the funding that Congress approves and agencies rely on to run the government. While he tends to operate behind the scenes as much as possible, his influence in Trump’s second administration is so pronounced that people have described him as akin to a shadow president.
Here are some of the key things you should know about Vought. Read ProPublica’s full investigation here. (Vought declined to be interviewed for the article. A spokesperson for him at OMB would not comment on the record in response to a detailed list of questions.)
1. Vought went from the mail room to becoming the chief antagonist of his own party.
A native of Trumbull, Connecticut, and the son of an electrician father and a mother who spent decades in public education before helping to launch a Christian school, Vought got his first job in D.C. politics working in the mail room for Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a fierce budget hawk known for criticizing members of his own party for breaking what he viewed as core conservative principles.
As Vought rose through the GOP ranks, eventually going on to advise then-Rep. Mike Pence, he grew disillusioned with members of his party who claimed to care about balanced budgets and spending cuts yet voted to approve bills loaded with pork-barrel spending and corporate giveaways.
In 2010, he quit Congress and helped launch an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation think tank called Heritage Action for America, which was tasked with strong-arming congressional Republicans to act more conservatively.
“I think he thought the Republican leadership was a bigger impediment to conservative causes than Democrats were,” a former Capitol Hill colleague of Vought’s said.
2. OMB’s massive power supercharges Vought’s influence.
While the Office of Management and Budget is part of the White House, Vought is a member of Trump’s cabinet along with the secretary of defense and attorney general. OMB director has little of the cachet of those jobs, but it plays a vital role. Every penny appropriated by Congress first passes through the OMB. It also reviews all significant regulations proposed by federal agencies, vets executive orders before the president signs them and issues workplace policies for more than 2 million federal employees.
“Every goddam thing in the executive branch goes through OMB,” explained Sam Bagenstos, a former OMB official during the Biden administration.
3. Vought’s early work at OMB helped lead to Trump’s first impeachment.
This isn’t Vought’s first stint as OMB director; he held the same position during the first Trump administration.
In 2019, after the Trump White House pressured Ukraine’s government to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, it asked Vought, then acting director, to freeze $214 million in congressionally approved security assistance for Ukraine. He obliged.
This impoundment, later deemed illegal by the Government Accountability Office, would trigger congressional investigations and, ultimately, Trump’s first impeachment. During that process, Vought refused to cooperate with investigators, calling the probe a “sham process that is designed to relitigate the last election.”
After the attempt to freeze the Ukraine funds ultimately failed, Vought and Mark Paoletta, an attorney and close ally of Vought’s, spent the years between Trump’s presidencies developing a legal argument that not only are such impoundments legal, but there is a long history of presidents using the power. (Legal experts have disputed Vought’s version of that history.)
4. Vought played a surprising role in popularizing the phrase “woke and weaponized.”
In 2021, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America, a think tank devoted to keeping the MAGA movement alive and preparing for a second Trump presidency. According to previously unreported recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought accepted an assignment from Trump to come up with a way for conservatives to counter Black Lives Matter. He popularized the concept of “woke and weaponized” government — a phrase embraced by GOP politicians and activists to disparagingly label policies, people and even agencies that didn’t fit with the MAGA agenda.
“If you’re watching television and the words ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you can know that this is coming … from the strategies we’re putting out,” Vought boasted in a recording obtained by ProPublica.
When Vought’s think tank released a federal budget blueprint in 2022, calling for $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, the word “woke” appeared 77 times across its 103 pages.
5. Vought’s vision for what would become Project 2025 began during Trump’s first term.
In 2017, while an adviser at OMB, Vought played a lead role in trying to implement a Trump executive order that called for a top-to-bottom reorganization of the federal government. A former OMB senior staffer said Vought initially wanted to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to fold the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, along with food stamps programs, into a new Department of Welfare. “They wanted to call it that because they think it sounds bad,” a former OMB analyst said. “There were very few, if any, debates where Russ wouldn’t take the most extreme option available to him, the most conservative, the most budget-cutting.”
Trump’s Cabinet secretaries at the time resisted wholesale cuts, and few of the plans reached fruition. But Vought’s suggestions now read like a guide to the second Trump administration, which has gutted both USAID and the CFPB and is hollowing out the Department of Education.
“I didn’t realize it then,” the former OMB staffer said, “but I was writing the first draft of Project 2025.”
6. Vought’s role shows Project 2025 has indeed shaped the administration.
Vought was a key figure in the work of Project 2025, the coalition of conservative groups that created a roadmap and recruited future appointees for the next Republican administration. He led Project 2025’s transition portion, which included writing some 350 executive orders, regulations and other plans to more fully empower the president. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” Vought said in a private 2024 speech.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed to have nothing to do with Project 2025. His campaign aides criticized the initiative, and news reports suggested that Project 2025 leaders would be blacklisted from working in the Trump White House.
But Vought deftly navigated the controversy, and Trump brought him back to OMB.Meanwhile, the administration has moved quickly to fulfill many of Project 2025’s policy objectives. Early on in this month’s government shutdown, when Trump announced that he would soon meet with Vought to decide which “Democrat Agencies” to temporarily or permanently cut, he referred to his budget director as “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”
7. Elon Musk and DOGE often acted at Vought’s direction, insiders say.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s wealthiest person, may have grabbed the headlines as his Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to budgets and staffing. But court records, interviews and other accounts from people close to Vought show that DOGE’s efforts were guided, more than previously known, by the OMB director.
“I can’t imagine that the DOGE team knew to target all these little parts of the government without Russ pointing them there,” a former OMB branch chief told ProPublica.
In May, an official with Citizens for Renewing America, a group founded by Vought, credited Vought with steering DOGE’s cuts. “DOGE is underneath the OMB,” the official said, according to a video of her remarks. “Honestly, a lot of what Elon began pinpointing … was at the direction of Russ.”
An administration official who has worked with Vought and Musk told ProPublica that DOGE showed Vought that it was possible to ignore legal challenges and take dramatic action. “He has the benefit of Elon softening everyone up,” the official said. “Elon terrified the shit out of people. He broke the status quo.”
8. Vought has used OMB to try to pressure Democrats into reaching a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown.
Vought has frozen $26 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and clean energy projects in blue states in the days after the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. The government has also followed through on Vought’s earlier threat to fire a massive number of civil servants if the shutdown were not averted.
“We work for the president of the United States,” a senior agency official who regularly deals with the OMB told ProPublica. But right now, he added, “it feels like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making power to an extent that he is the commander in chief.”
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