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Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/30/israels-war-on-gaza-live-who-says-polio-vaccination-to-start-on-sunday

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/26/israels-war-on-gaza-live-panicked-patients-flee-al-aqsa-martyrs-hospital

Reinforcements sent by Moscow failed to stop a Ukrainian surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region during its second week, creating a dilemma for the Kremlin – to further tap Russia’s invasion force in Ukraine by diverting more battalions to defend Russia, or to throw new conscripts into the war. Moscow has so far kept regular recruits into the armed forces on rotation at home, sending only contract soldiers to the bloody battlefields of Ukraine. But the Kursk offensive has changed that delicate political balance. Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised the potential political backlash of sending conscripts to Ukraine in the early days of the invasion. “I emphasise that conscript soldiers are not participating in hostilities,” Putin said in a televised message in March 2022, in response to concerns from the mothers of enlisted men. “There will be no additional call-up of reservists.” He deployed conscripts in border regions by allowing the Federal Security Service (FSB) to enrol them, a move that may remain legally controversial. On August 10, four days after the Ukrainian incursion, Russian mothers began to complain that their sons were in active combat. “Oksana Deeva, the mother of a conscript who found himself in the Kursk region, published a petition for the return of conscripts from combat zones. Almost three thousand people signed it in three days,” wrote Okno, an independent Russian news publication. On Monday, the commander of a Chechen special forces volunteer battalion, Akhmat, lashed back at what he called “sobs and outbursts”. “No one will die who is not destined to die, but if you die defending [Russia] and your faith in God, you will go to heaven,” said Apty Alaudinov in a televised message. Putin has remained silent on the issue. Soldiers’ mothers organisations have political power in Russia, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. “Mothers’ organisations have been able to steer large Russian social movements in the past, as with the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers (later renamed the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers), which rallied around issues with Soviet conscripts in the late 1980s and early 1990s and successfully called for greater transparency in the Soviet military.” In the early days of the invasion, Putin assured conscripts’ family members that professional soldiers would carry the brunt of the fighting. But heavy casualties among special forces and other experienced units have increasingly forced Putin to offer felons pardons, immigrants legal residence and non-ethnic Russians high sign-up bonuses in return for service in Ukraine. Ukraine’s audacious move Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine’s incursion had in places advanced 35km inside Russia, taking control of 1,293 square kilometres (500 square miles) on Tuesday, versus 1,000sq km (386sq miles) a week earlier, and 93 settlements, versus 74 the week before. The ISW on Saturday estimated the contested area in Kursk at 28km (17 miles) deep and 56km (35 miles) wide. The ISW also assessed that Russian forces had occupied 1,175sq km. (454sq miles) of Ukrainian territory since the beginning of the year. If accurate, this means Ukraine has captured more Russian land in a fortnight than Russia had captured in Ukraine in eight months. The capture of 19 Russian settlements in the past week is a tempo unmatched by Russian forces still on the offensive in east Ukraine, who made several marginal advances. The greatest Russian success of the past week came west of Avdiivka, a town Russia seized in February. It has since formed a salient 30km (19 miles) west of the town. Russian forces are believed to be aiming to capture Pokrovsk, 16km (10 miles) further west. In the past week, they seized Zavitne and Novozhelanne and claimed half a dozen more settlements, whose capture remained unconfirmed. Yet Ukraine’s success remains far greater, not just in territorial terms, but because it has recaptured the battlefield initiative in a sector of the front. On its own turf, Ukraine remains reactive and defensive. “This operations by the Ukrainians has caught everybody by surprise including all of us, not only the fact that it happened and where it happened, but also how successful it has been,” Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges told Times Radio. He attributed that success to “good analysis” by the Ukrainians, but also to Ukraine’s ability to “degrade or neutralise Russian drones by creating, it seems like, some sort of a counter-drone bubble.” Russia has been using Iranian-designed Shahed drones to hit front lines as well as cities in Ukraine, and has recently copied Ukraine’s tactic of using smaller, first-person view (FPV) drones to spy on enemy formations. Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/22/russia-faces-manpower-woes-after-failing-to-stop-ukraines-kursk-incursion

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/22/israels-war-on-gaza-live-mass-exodus-as-israel-expands-ground-invasion

Police say they arrested two suspects while hunt for other suspects is also launched A woman has allegedly been subjected to gang rape in Painsra town of Faisalabad, Geo News reported on Saturday. Police said the woman filed a case at the Thekriwala police station, following which they arrested two suspects while hunt for the other suspects was also launched. As per police, the victim, who is a resident of Lahore, came to Faisalabad to meet her friend Muhammad Waseem. The incident took place when the woman stayed at house of the friend’s acquaintance near a bus station, after failing to find a bus, as she wanted to leave for Lahore, they said. In the first information report (FIR), the victim said she went to meet Waseem on August 14 in the evening in Painsra. However, she mentioned that they both had an argument after which Waseem left for his house, leaving the victim alone. “I went to Waseem’s house myself and asked him to drop me to the bus station. However, we couldn’t find a bus and went back to Painsra Chowk where we had an argument again,” she said. The victim, in the FIR, said that Waseem then called his friend Abdul Raheem and requested him to give him accommodation for two hours till the bus came. The woman said a suspect, Imran alias Mani, accompanied by three to four accomplices entered the Abdul Raheem’s house, thrashed Waseem and tied him in another room. Then, she alleged, Imran and his accomplices gang raped her. She also alleged that the suspects had snatched their mobile phones as well. She suspected that Abdul Raheem and Waseem were also involved in the crime, the victim said, requesting the authorities to bring the culprits to justice. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1220783-woman-subjected-to-gang-rape-in-faisalabad

Bodies decomposing in the street. Bullet-marked civilian cars lining the road. Half of Lenin’s face blown away from the statue on the square. Streets littered with shrapnel. Locals huddling in a bomb shelter. The smell of death, in buildings torn open. It is a scene achingly familiar to Ukraine, yet until now alien to Russia. But the border town of Sudzha was assaulted by Ukraine eleven days ago and claimed by President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday as under their control. When Russian President Vladimir Putin began his war of choice two years ago, Russia did not expect to get invaded back. CNN crossed into Russia accompanied by the Ukrainian military, past the border post torn to shreds by Ukraine’s first attack. With the skyline ahead occasionally marred by black smoke from explosions, the road itself was surreally calm. On either side, tranquil fields once protected by a Cold War superpower that had not seen an invasion since the Nazis. The turnoff into Sudzha was marked with a huge Orthodox Christian cross, upon which was written “God save and protect us.” Yards away lay the wreckage of two tanks and other armor from the intense fighting days earlier. The town’s streets were mostly vacant, yet echoed with the storm raging around them. Small arms fire and outgoing artillery broke the silence, but at a distance. Our Ukrainian escort said the Russian attack drones that had blighted Ukraine’s progress on the front lines in the past months were simply too busy at the frontline battles to harass Kyiv’s forces at the border and in Sudzha. Their conspicuous absence, and that of Russian air power, suggested a possible improvement in Ukraine’s capabilities for this surprise assault. The ubiquity of Western-supplied armored vehicles on the roads into Russia showed Ukraine was throwing resources it had long claimed it lacked into this fight. Sudzha was not completely deserted. At one large building, outside the basement entrance, a large cardboard hand-written sign announced, “Here are peaceful people in the basement, no military.” Inna, 68, sat outside. There were 60 other civilians downstairs, she said. “They brought a lot of boxes, their food,” she said of the Ukrainian forces. In the basement was a scene we have witnessed in dozens of Ukrainian towns over the past two years, and still as saddening in Russia. At the entrance to the shelter was Stanislav, who stroked his gray beard when asked how life was. “See, this is not life. It is existing. It is not life.” In the dark, subterranean dank were the infirm, isolated, and confused. One elderly woman, still in her wig and bright red summer dress, rocked slightly as she intoned: “And now I don’t know how it will end. At least a truce so we can live peacefully. We don’t need anything. It’s my crutch, I can’t walk. It’s very hard.” Flies buzzed around her face, in humid gloom. In the next room, the light flickered on a family of six. The man said, “A week. No news. We don’t know what’s happening around us.” His son sat silent next to him, his white face stony. At the end of the corridor, talking to one of our Ukrainian escorts was Yefimov, who said he was in his 90s. His daughter, niece and grandchildren are married to Ukrainian men and live in Ukraine, yet he cannot reach them. “To Ukraine,” he said, when asked where he wanted to flee. “You are the first to mention it. People talked about it but you are the first to come.” The idea of evacuation would be arduous for many here in peacetime. On the street outside is Nina, 74, searching for her medication. The shops are shredded and pharmacies closed. She insists she does not want to leave, with the same passionate defense of her right to live where she always has as so many Ukrainian women of her age, in similar scarred towns. “If I wanted to I would. Why would I leave where I lived 50 years? My daughter and mother are in the graveyard and my son was born (here), my grandkids…  I live on my land. I don’t know where I live. I don’t know whose land this is, I don’t understand anything.” It is unclear how and where this fast, successful and surprise assault ends, or when Russian forces arrive. Yet they will be too late to reverse another dent in Russia’s pride since it began an invasion meant to take only a matter of days in February 2022. Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/16/europe/sudzha-russia-ukraine-streets-intl-latam/index.html

Read less 40 UpdatesAuto-updates Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/17/israel-war-on-gaza-live-israeli-attacks-continue-as-focus-on-truce-talks

Terrorist was involved in attacks on forces the killing of former members who had surrendered, say sources Shambeen alias Shahak, a wanted terrorist from Balochistan, was killed by his own accomplice, Geo News reported on Tuesday, citing security sources. The terrorist, according to the sources, belonged to a banned militant organisation, Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) and was involved in several terror activities, including attacks on forces. “Shambeen alias Shahak was involved in attacks on forces as well as the killing of former members who had surrendered, the sources added. The killed terrorist was also directly involved in numerous attacks on security forces in Balochistan. Is killing a result of infighting? Responding to a question about whether his killing points towards internal fights between the militant groups, Brigadier (retd) Waqar Hassan told Geo News that these terrorist organisations operating in Pakistan, whether they are doing so in the name of Islam or as nationalist groups, are all basically “criminal mafia” and there is no ideology. It is, he added, mainly to create chaos and extortion of money. “The infighting has been going on for a long time,” he said, detailing the surrenders made by ex-members of banned militant organisations, Gulzar Imam Shambay and Sarfraz Bangulzai last year. The cracks within these organisations are a result of our intelligence’s efforts and infighting due to money. “The main reason for infighting is the division of money given to them as funds,” he said. These organisations will hopefully stop operating if the intensity of infighting increases. Balochistan, which remains a target of terrorist activities, has witnessed several attacks on civilians and security forces. Among the 92% fatalities recorded as a result of terrorist attacks, the province suffered 25% of all deaths in the second quarter of 2024, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa saw 67% lives lost to terrorism. Source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1219530-blf-terrorist-gunned-down-by-comrade

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/13/russia-ukraine-live-news-russia-hits-back-at-ukrainian-forces-in-kursk

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/8/13/israels-war-on-gaza-live-10-killed-in-israeli-bombing-of-khan-younis-home