MIZOZO UCHAMBUZI

  Itamar Ben-Gvir seemed to mock the recent strike against the Islamic Republic Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir speaks to the press in Jerusalem, February 5, 2024. ©  Amir Levy / Getty Images One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key allies has been accused of damaging Israel with just one word, after making a social media post about the alleged strike on an Iranian airfield.  Iran has brushed off reports of explosions in the skies over Isfahan on Friday, while West Jerusalem declined to comment. Both countries thus seemed to have the perfect excuse not to escalate their conflict any further, when Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir chimed in. “Lame,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter) in Hebrew, suggesting not only that Israel was behind the strike but that it had been ineffective. “Never before has a minister done such heavy damage to the country’s security, its image, an...

  Kiev urgently needs a new US aid package or it will likely break under Russian pressure, William Burns says FILE PHOTO: CIA Director William Burns. ©  Kevin Dietsch / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP Ukrainian defenses could completely collapse under a Russian onslaught as early as this year unless the US approves a new aid package for Kiev, CIA Director William Burns has claimed. His comments come after US House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that the chamber would vote on the long-delayed measure later this week. Speaking at the Bush Center’s 2024 Forum on Leadership on Thursday, Burns stressed the urgency of the US approving a $61 billion security aid package for Ukraine. The bill has been held up for months in Congress due to Republican opposition demanding more efforts to enhance security on the Mexican border. Burns urged lawmakers to break the gridlock on aid as soon as possible. “With the bo...

  Both Tehran and West Jerusalem have downplayed the event FILE PHOTO: Iranian missiles on exhibit at a park in Tehran, Iran. ©  Majid Saeedi / Getty Images Explosions near the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning were Israeli strikes on a military airfield, the New York Times claimed on Friday, citing anonymous sources. Neither Israel nor Iran has officially commented on the incident. Israel vowed to “respond” to last Saturday’s drone and missile strike by Iran, itself reprisal for the April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed several senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Residents of the Iranian cities of Isfahan and Tabriz reported a series of blasts early on Friday. According to the NYT, three Iranian officials said the military airbase near Isfahan was hit. The Fars News agency reported that the explosions were heard near the city’s civili...

  Moscow has no reason to believe Ukraine will keep its promises, the Russian foreign minister has said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks to the media. ©  Sputnik / Alexey Filippov Russia has no intention of ceasing hostilities with Ukraine even if the two countries engage in peace talks, as Kiev has proven itself to be an unreliable actor, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. In an interview with Russian media on Friday, the diplomat stressed that Moscow does not trust the leadership in Kiev. “We have said that we are ready for the negotiations, but – unlike the Istanbul story – we will not make any pauses in the fighting during the negotiations. The process must go on,” he said. The two sides have not directly talked to each other since their sit-down in Istanbul in late March 2022. Russia, which initially expressed satisfaction with results of the meeting and withdrew its forces from the outskirts o...

  A man wearing a fake explosive vest threatened to blow himself up inside Tehran’s diplomatic mission in Paris FILE PHOTO: French police stand guard outside the Iranian Embassy in Paris. ©  STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP Police in Paris have arrested a man who entered the Iranian consulate and threatened to blow himself up. The man, who reportedly started fires near the same consulate last year, surrendered to officers after an hours-long standoff. The suspect entered the building at around 11am local time, carrying what appeared to be a grenade and an explosive vest, the Paris prosecutor’s office told Le Parisien. He emerged several hours later and was taken into custody, after police determined that his explosive devices were fake, the office said. Prosecutors described the suspect as a 60-year-old Frenchman of Iranian origin, A witness told BFMTV that the man had threatened to blow himself up inside the consulate, and...

  The conflict could drag Europe “into its depths,” the Hungarian prime minister has warned FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ©  Global Look Press / Meng Dingbo The leaders of the EU and NATO are potentially ready to deploy forces to Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday. Brussels sees the conflict between Moscow and Kiev as its “own” and is failing to consider the risks arising from its ever-deeper involvement, he warned. The mood of EU leaders is “one of war,” Orban told a gathering of his Fidesz Party ahead of the EU Parliament elections. “There is a pro-war majority in Brussels today,” he said, adding that the bloc’s politics “are dominated by the logic of war.” EU politicians are already so invested in the conflict that they fail to see the flaws in their strategy, the prime minister argued. Despite all the “money and weapons, the situation is not improving [for Kiev], in...

  An increasingly multipolar world means Washington’s influence over the continent will wane as alternative strategic partners emerge By Dr Westen K. Shilaho , scholar of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg FILE PHOTO: Outgoing Africa Command commander US General William Ward (2nd L) and his successor US General Carter Ham (R) take part in the AFRICOM change of command ceremony in Sindelfingen near Stuttgart, Germany. ©  Mandel Ngan-Pool / Getty Images Justified Accord 2024, the US Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) largest exercise in East Africa, ran from February 26 to March 7 and was hosted in Kenya, Djibouti and Rwanda. The Africa-US joint military exercises have been in existence for years and are portrayed as crucial to the security and stability of the continent. They are also presented as integral to addressing terrorism, and other transnational crimes in Africa and beyond. T...

  Mikhail Podoliak has argued that the West should be emboldened to send more arms to Ukraine after it thwarted Iran’s attack on Israel FILE PHOTO: Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. ©  Emin Sansar / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Kiev expects a surge in supply of Western arms in the coming weeks, after an Iranian attack on Israel supposedly demonstrated the technological superiority of the US and its allies, Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky’s most senior adviser has said. Tehran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel last weekend in what it said was retaliation for an Israeli airstrike on its consulate in Damascus earlier this month. According to Israel, the barrage caused only minor damage, as the US and other Western countries helped it intercept most of the Iranian weapons. Prior to the strike, Western media said Iran was carefully calibrating its operation...

  Italian police worry about radicalization among Muslims in Rome and elsewhere FILE PHOTO: Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, at Largo Preneste in Rome, Italy. ©  Antonio Masiello / Getty Images Italian security services are monitoring 53 “unofficial” Muslim prayer sites in Rome, concerned about radicalization and terrorism, according to a news report. Improvised prayer spaces have proliferated as the number of Muslim immigrants in the Italian capital grew, opening up in warehouses, garages, apartments, and basements. The authorities tolerate them, even though some are technically illegal. “These hidden places of worship are where radicalization lurks and where, camouflaged among the faithful, those lone wolves who have too often become martyrs of the holy war hide,” the newspaper ll Tempo  said on Friday. The number of underground mosques under surveillance has nearly doubled from 30...

  Finland’s prime minister claims that Moscow has used asylum seekers from the Middle East against the EU Construction works at the Finnish-Russian border in Imatra, Finland, April 14, 2023. ©  Jakob Johannsen / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images Russia has engineered the influx of migrants from third countries in order to undermine the EU, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday. He stressed the need to strengthen the border with Russia, which has been closed for several months.  Petteri made the comments during a visit to Finland’s eastern border at Imatra, along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  “We have to find common solutions to stop this phenomenon when Russia has used illegal immigrants against us. We are preparing our own legislation but we also need EU-level measures,” Orpo told reporters. He previously said the threat from the situation at the border was “evident,...

The Tu-223M crash site. ©  Telegram / Stavropol Region Governor Vladimir Vladimirov A Tupolev Tu-22M3 supersonic aircraft came down in Stavropol Region after a combat mission, the ministry said on Friday  A Tupolev Tu-22M3 supersonic long-range bomber belonging to Russia's Air Force has crashed over the country's southern Stavropol region, the Defense Ministry reported on Friday. The incident, thought to have been caused by a technical failure,  occurred as the aircraft was returning to its home base after a combat mission. It was not carrying munitions at the time of the crash. One member of the crew was killed and two ejected to safety, regional governor Vladimir Vladimirov reported. A fourth crew member remains unaccounted for. Several videos are circulating online that purport to show the moment of the crash. A Tu-22 can be seen in them spiraling in the air and falling down, with fire erupting from its tail se...

  TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Iranian foreign minister warned the Zionist regime at a speech at the United Nations that any hostile Israeli action will trigger Iran’s “decisive and proper response” in such a way that Tel Aviv will regret its actions. Addressing an open debate of the UN Security Council on "the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question", held in New York on Thursday night, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Tehran has made “an unchangeable decision” to show decisive response to any Israeli military adventurism against Iran’s centers, assets and interests. What follows is the full text of his speech: “In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent the Most Merciful Mr. President, Over the past months, the Security Council has held several meetings to deal with various types of war crimes and genocide by the Israeli regime against Gaza, which despite the adoption of three resolutions and a press statement requesting an...