Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
While both Ukraine and Russia have sustained large amounts of helicopter losses due to dense traditional frontline air defenses, in some cases, drones, and attacks on bases, the U.S. Army is taking a measured approach in applying lessons learned to the future of its own rotary-wing fleet, a top commander told us. Maj. Gen. Claire Gill, commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence is adamant that not everything that happens in Ukraine applies to the U.S. Army and it’s absolutely critical that only the right lessons should be heeded.
“When we talk about Ukraine, there are a lot of lessons to be learned,” Gill told us on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, D.C.. “We focus on the right lessons to be learned.”
“There are some differences between positional warfare with drones – they’re doing World War One with drones right now in Ukraine – and the way that the United States Army fights, particularly as a member of the combined arms team and as a member of the joint force,” he added. “So, there are a lot of things that we should pay attention to there, but they’re not flying at night. They don’t plan like we plan. They don’t bring all the collective elements that we could bring to bear when we execute our operations.”
Paratroopers assigned to “Cavemen” Bravo Company, 2-82 Aviation Regiment, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division prepare and take off for night flight on April 24, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Vincent Levelev) Staff Sgt. Vincent Levelev
Ukraine and Russia are likely using deception as part of their operations, “but…using the night, using the terrain, using the degraded visual environment, we’ve got some pretty exquisite capabilities, and some well-trained folks, as do the Ukrainians,” Gill noted.
Gill is less convinced about Russian training.
“On the Russian side, I’ve seen some shoot downs that make me wonder, flying around the daytime, at altitude, flying the same routes. That just makes me think you can’t equate the way that they’re flying with the way that we might fly. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity there for us to learn some things, but not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“This is something when I talk to young aviators about what we should take away from some of the decisions that are being made in terms of divesting aircraft out of the army and investing in [unmanned aerial systems] UAS,” Gill added. “We have to make changes, right? We have to see the world the way it is. I know we’re not done with rotorcraft like I told you. Everything that we’re flying right now is going to be on the ramp for a long time.”
The Army’s AH-64E Apaches will be operating for years to come, a top general says. (US Army)
The fate of helicopters in Ukraine has hammered home the need for missions to be mapped out with excrutiating detail before launching, Brig. Gen. Philip C Baker, the Army’s aviation future capabilities director, told us.
“We’ve got to have that ability to have really good planning tools going into mission sets,” Baker explained. “And planning tools is really driven by our data integration across all of our combat systems, intel, maneuver, fires. So when you look at NGC2 [Next Generation Command and Control] that provides us an integrated data path to bring in as much of information early on to planning, so our crews, both manned and unmanned, can plan them out right mission sets so they understand enemy, they understand the electronic spectrum, they understand weather, they understand all that before they go in.”
Soldiers testing the Next Generation Command and Control system. (Army)
In addition, “when you look at the battlefield data and the speed of data that passes around the battlefield, we’ve got to be able to have that inside of our operation cells, and we’ve got to have that inside of our aircraft. And so we’re doing a lot this year onboarding new communication capability onto platforms that will bring into our experiment in March, that brings in satellite-based communication, that brings in mesh networks onto platforms to be able to drive that data flow onto platforms inside of our operation cells.”
Having standoff munitions capabilities is also key, Baker posited, pointing to the Army’s developing launched effects effort, a broad term that the U.S. military currently uses to refer to uncrewed aerial systems configured for different missions, like reconnaissance or acting as loitering munitions, which can be fired from other aerial platforms, as well as ones on the ground or at sea. For the Army, one example of a longer-range weapon being fielded for Army helicopters is the Israeli-designed Spike-NLOS. It gives Apaches the ability to hit moving targets far away with exacting precision. Far longer-ranged launched effects will also become available, including those that can decoy, jam, and attack targets many dozens, or even hundreds of miles away.
“The role of launched effects is to provide that standoff capability, not like a Hellfire at eight kilometers, but multiple, multiple kilometers out, so we can make contact with the enemy early, understand what the enemy is doing, and then have an effect on the enemy,” Baker suggested. “So that’s really the role of launched effects.”
New and improved sensors will also help rotary-wing aircraft survive by making them better able to operate in a degraded visual environment, Baker added.
“As we bring new sensors onto the aircraft, we want to be able to truly operate in those environments that give us the highest capability and survivability,” Baker pointed out. “So during darkness hours, during dust, during, you know, the environment where we need we can operate not in daytime. So we’re bringing on sensor capability to our platforms that allow us to even enhance our ability to operate at night.”
Asked about what the right lessons from Ukraine are, especially for a potential fight against a peer adversary like China, Baker said they are “really tied to that standoff range. We know standoff is going to be critical to be able to stay outside of weapon engagement zones so we can operate kind of a sanctuary.”
The Army also wants “to rely on that data network to be able to pass information quickly so we can strike quickly and affect the enemy,” Baker added.
Lessons learned from Ukraine are informing how the Army is developing the Valor, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, program executive officer of aviation, told TWZ.
“I would offer, from equipment perspective and a sustainment perspective, you can look at the equipment decisions that we’re making on MV-75 and tie them directly to these lessons learned, how we integrate launch effects, how we integrate networks, how we integrate the survivability on the platform, the survivability off board the platform, and just the aircraft survivability itself. I think we’re absolutely integrating those into our design efforts today, as we’re headed toward the critical design review that’s coming up in the spring.”
The U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) tiltrotors will be designated MV-75s, the service announced today at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual Mission Solutions Summit. (Bell) Bell
With many Russian helicopters being lost from attacks on their bases, Maj. Gen. Lori Robinson, Commanding General of Army Aviation and Missile Command, said it will be important to keep an eye on the skies.
“I think the right lesson is that everyone does have to look up,” Robinson told us. “And that includes your sustainment footprint on the ground. So we’re looking into how to make that mobile. We don’t have a mound of stuff on the ground. And then every soldier out there, whether you’re in the aircraft or you’re sustaining the aircraft on the ground, is going to have to be aware of what is above them.”
When it comes to thinking about lessons learned from Ukraine, Gill said one thing stands out. While crewed rotary wing aviation will be in the mix for years to come, uncrewed systems will ultimately be at the pointy tip of the spear.
“The Army made a decision to move toward unmanned capability,” he noted. “And so I think the lesson that I take from Ukraine and this nature of warfare is you lead with unmanned systems, right? So whether you want to create an effect, whether you want to create a diversion, whether you want to find something, and then you introduce people. When you need humans to do the things that humans are really good at doing,”
Statement appears to signal about-face from US president, who previously backed Hamas’s crackdown on Gaza gangs.
Published On 16 Oct 202516 Oct 2025
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United States President Donald Trump has threatened to break the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas if the Palestinian group continues to target gangs and alleged Israeli collaborators in Gaza.
“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Thursday. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The statement appears to signal an about-face from Trump, who earlier this week expressed support for Hamas’s crackdown on gangs in the Palestinian territory.
“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad, very, very bad gangs,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “And they did take them out, and they killed a number of gang members. And that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you. That’s OK.”
The United Nations estimates more than $70bn is needed to rebuild Gaza.
From the air, it looks like a city erased. Entire neighbourhoods have vanished from the map two years since Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza began. What were once homes, schools, hospitals, factories and power plants have been reduced to debris and dust. Thousands of Palestinians are now returning to ruins or rubble in a place that has lost the very fabric of daily life.
Economists estimate the cost of rebuilding at tens of billions of dollars – far beyond the capacity of Gaza’s shattered economy.
What is behind the $20bn lifeline to Argentina?
Plus, the European Union invests $13bn in South Africa.
1 of 2 | Premier of Ontario Doug Ford pictured June 25 in Boston, Mass. This week, Ford said he got assurances from Stellantis the company will not permanently shutter its Ontario-based Jeep facility after Stellantis announced a major U.S. investment and plans to reopen old plants in America. Photo Provided by CJ Gunther/EPA
Oct. 16 (UPI) — Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford said he received an assurance from Jeep maker Stellantis’ Canadian chief the company will keep its Canadian plant open for future manufacturing.
Ford said Wednesday that the company’s Brampton auto plant will continue running despite Tuesday’s revelation that Jeep Compass production will shift to an American facility.
“I want to keep the Brampton plant open, no matter what,” Ford said following talks with Stellantis Canada president Jeff Hines. “He’s given me his word, they are going to keep it open.”
Stellantis, the parent company of multiple auto brands including Jeep and Chrysler, announced this week plans to invest billions in the United States to reopen facilities and add roughly 5,000 U.S. jobs plants in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana over the next four years.
It was set to move forward with production later this year.
“Our government will continue to use every tool we have, including through our $20 million investment in POWER Centers to support displaced workers, including through retraining to re-enter the workforce as quickly as possible,” Ford posted Wednesday on X.
On Tuesday, Ford spoke with Canada’s Stellantis chief who reportedly said the company is “going to postpone it for a year” and claimed Stellantis will “find a new model” to build at the Canadian site.
“They are going to see what products they are going to put in there,” said Ford.
Ford, the leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party, added plans exist to add a third shift to a Windsor plant to possibly transfer up to 3,000 or less workers.
A Stellantis spokesperson pointed to its 100-year history in Canada and said Britain’s fellow commonwealth nation was “very important” to Jeep’s parent owner.
“We have plans for Brampton and will share them upon further discussions with the Canadian government,” the company stated.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Industry Minister Melanie Joly reminded CEO Antonio Filosa in a letter that Stellantis made critical commitments to Canadians.
“While the current U.S. tariff environment is creating complex challenges, Stellantis has made important commitments to Canada and to its workforce,” Joly wrote.
Joly said if Stellantis chooses not “to respect its obligations,” the Canadian government would “act in the interests of all Canadians and hold the company to full account, and exercise all options, including legal.”
Israel says Hamas is failing to meet commitments under Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan, while Hamas says Israel’s destruction makes recovering captives’ bodies nearly impossible. With 11,000 Palestinians also still under rubble, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh says tensions threaten the fragile truce.
After days of cross-border fighting, Pakistan and Afghan Taliban authorities agreed a temporary ceasefire. The clashes have left dozens dead and injured. So, what’s behind the worst violence between the countries in years?
Christopher Berry (left) and Christopher Cash (right)
Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry were accused of collecting insider information about UK politics and government policy, and passing it to a Chinese intelligence agent, who then forwarded it to Cai Qi, one of the most senior politicians in China. Cai is often referred to as President Xi Jinping’s right-hand man.
Both Mr Cash and Mr Berry completely denied the charge under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case against the pair last month after deciding the evidence did not show China was a threat to national security.
The two men met while teaching in China.
Mr Berry stayed behind, but Mr Cash, whose other love was politics, got a job in the House of Commons – first as a researcher and then as the director of the China Research Group, working closely with MPs like Tom Tugendhat, Alicia Kearns and Neil O’Brien.
Christopher Berry
Christopher Berry in China
In a statement released through his solicitor, Mr Cash told the BBC: “I have, for a long time, been concerned by the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the United Kingdom and, prior to these false allegations, was working to inform Parliamentarians and the public about those risks.”
Mr Cash and Mr Berry would talk and exchange messages between Westminster and China, according to the first of three witness statements by the deputy national security adviser Matt Collins to the CPS – released by the government on Wednesday.
For example, according to Mr Collins’ statement, Mr Cash told Mr Berry in June 2022 that he thought Jeremy Hunt would pull out of the Tory leadership race.
In July 2022, he allegedly sent a voice note saying that Tugendhat would almost certainly get a job in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet. Both these pieces of information ended up in reports that Mr Berry submitted to a man called “Alex”, who the prosecution said was a Chinese intelligence agent.
In his statement, Mr Cash said he was aware “a small amount of the information” he was sending to Mr Berry was being passed on. But he thought Mr Berry was working for “a strategic advisory company” helping clients “invest in the UK”.
Mr Cash said the information he gave Mr Berry was publicly available or “just political gossip that formed part of the everyday Westminster rumour mill”.
In a statement given to BBC News via his lawyer on Thursday, Mr Berry gives a similar account.
He said his reports were “provided to a Chinese company which I believed had clients wishing to develop trading links with the UK”.
Those reports “contained no classified information”, Mr Berry said, and “concerned economic and commercial issues widely discussed in the UK at the time and drew on information freely in the public domain, together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be inaccurate”.
Council on Geostrategy
Christopher Cash (far right) in a meeting in the House of Commons with Alicia Kearns MP
Some of the information was not for passing on. In the note to Mr Berry about Hunt, Mr Cash wrote: “v v confidential (defo don’t share with your new employer)”. Despite that, it was included in one of Mr Berry’s reports, according to one of Mr Collins’ statements.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry communicated using encrypted messaging apps.
Mr Collins’ first statement says that, after one exchange in December 2022, Mr Berry told “Alex” that the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly did not think sanctions would be effective in blocking imports from Xinjiang, the province where there are human rights abuses of the Uyghur population.
There were also a series of exchanges about meetings between Tugendhat, Kearns and Taiwanese defence officials, according to Mr Collins.
All of these exchanges ended up in a series of reports that Mr Berry submitted to “Alex” with titles like “Taiwan-perception-within-parliament” and “Import_of_Products_of Forced_Labour_from Xinjiang”.
Those reports then ended up with Cai Qi, and he seems to have been so pleased about the information that, in July 2022, Mr Berry met Cai. Mr Cash sent him a message saying: “You’re in spy territory now.”
According to Mr Berry, Cai asked “specific questions about each MP within the Conservative leadership election one-by-one”, Mr Collins said in his statement.
Reuters
Cai Qi, seen waving, is sometimes referred to as President Xi’s right-hand man
At times – according to Mr Collins – “Alex” “tasked” Mr Berry with collecting specific information. On one occasion, the turnaround time was just 13 hours, he said in his first statement.
But both men categorically deny knowingly spying for China.
“I routinely spoke [to] and shared information with Christopher Berry about Chinese and British Politics,” he said in the statement given to BBC News on Wednesday night.
“He was my friend and these were matters we were both passionately interested in. I believed him to be as critical and concerned about the Chinese Communist Party as I was.
“It was inconceivable to me that he would deliberately pass on any information to Chinese intelligence, even if that information was not sensitive.”
Mr Cash said he had been “placed in an impossible position” by the release of Mr Collins’ statements, which were “devoid of the context that would have been given at trial”, where they would have been subject to a “root and branch challenge”.
He insisted that the assessments “would not have withstood the scrutiny of a public trial”.
Mr Berry said he had “consistently denied any wrongdoing” but had found himself “subjected to a trial by media” and caught in the middle of various groups seeking “to use the case to their political advantage”.
He said he did not accept that, by making the reports, he was “providing information to the Chinese intelligence services, nor is it tenable that the provision of such material could, in any sense, be considered for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state”.
He added: “This would have been one of many issues raised with the jury during a trial.”
Money sent home from abroad to Guatemala could see record growth in 2025, surpassing $24.5 billion, according to statistics from Guatemala’s central bank.
We got an up-close look at General Atomics’ Mojave, which is working as a lead-in for Gray Eagle STOL at the Association of the U.S. Army’s major symposium outside of Washington, D.C. this week. Gray Eagle STOL will bring a vast array of capabilities and future adaptability into a package that can takeoff from short, rough fields and even amphibious assault ships. You can read all about Gray Eagle STOL in our recent feature here.
From the show floor, Chris MacFarland, vice president of Army Strategic Development from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI), gives us the full walk-around tour of the aircraft and what it will bring to the table.
Despite a ceasefire deal with Israel, Palestinians across the devastated Gaza Strip continue to go hungry as food supplies remain critically low and aid fails to reach those who need it most.
As per the ceasefire agreement, Israel was supposed to allow 600 humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza per day. However, Israel has since reduced the limit to 300 trucks per day, citing delays in retrieving bodies of Israeli captives buried under the rubble by Israeli attacks.
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According to the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, which monitors humanitarian aid being offloaded, collected, delivered and intercepted on its way into Gaza, from October 10-16, only 216 trucks have reached their intended destinations inside Gaza.
According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.
‘Palestinians want food’
While some food aid has trickled in over the past few days, medical equipment, therapeutic nutrition and medicines are still in extremely short supply, despite being desperately needed by the most impoverished, particularly malnourished children.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said some commercial trucks have entered Gaza over the past few days, but most Palestinians do not have the ability to buy any of the items they are bringing in as they have spent all of their savings in the past two years.
So far, what has arrived in the trucks includes “wheat, rice, sugar, oil, fuel and cooking gas”, she said.
While food distribution points are expected to open for parcels and other humanitarian aid, people in Gaza have yet to receive them. “Palestinians want food, they want shelter, they want medicine,” Khoudary said.
She added that even 600 trucks a day would be insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza’s entire population.
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, on October 7, 2025 [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]
Food ‘is not a bargaining chip’
The UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has urged Israel to open more border crossings for humanitarian aid.
“We need more crossings open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing remaining obstacles. Throughout this crisis, we have insisted that withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip. Facilitation of aid is a legal obligation,” Fletcher said.
Since the ceasefire began, 137 World Food Programme trucks have entered Gaza as of October 14, delivering supplies to bakeries and supporting nutrition and food distribution programmes.
With the ceasefire in effect, WFP is now scaling up.
🔹137 trucks have already entered #Gaza — supporting bakeries, nutrition, and food distributions.
🔹170,000+ MT of food ready to move, enough to feed 2M people.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the primary and largest organisation providing aid to Palestinians – has faced significant restrictions imposed by Israel.
The agency, which was responsible for delivering food, medical care, education and emergency assistance, says it has enough food aid in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt to supply the people in Gaza for three months.
(Al Jazeera)
This includes food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for 2.1 million, and shelter supplies sufficient for up to 1.3 million individuals.
However, despite the ceasefire, Israeli authorities are continuing to block them from entering.
UNRWA has enough food outside #Gaza to supply people there for three months, amid desperate need. Our teams stand ready to deliver it.
But despite the #ceasefire, the Israeli Authorities’ block on UNRWA bringing any supplies into Gaza still continues after over 7 months.
As of October 12, at least 463 people, including 157 children, have died from starvation amid Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nearly one in four children suffers from severe acute malnutrition.
After prolonged starvation, food must be reintroduced carefully under medical supervision to avoid re-feeding syndrome, a potentially fatal condition in which sudden intake of nutrients causes dangerous shifts in electrolytes, affecting the heart, nerves and muscles. A larger supply of nutritional aid, given safely, could dramatically save lives.
(Al Jazeera)
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 90 percent of children in Gaza less than two years of age consume fewer than two food groups each day, which doesn’t include protein-rich foods.
At least 290,000 children between the ages of six months and 5 years, and 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require feeding and micronutrient supplies.
In addition to this, there are an estimated 132,000 cases of children less than the age of five, and 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women projected to be suffering from acute malnutrition by June 2026, if immediate food aid isn’t made available.
Muslims are protesting across India against arrests, raids and home demolitions over the phrase ‘I love Muhammad’. Al Jazeera’s Yashraj Sharma explains what happened and why religious expression is increasingly under threat under Prime Minister Modi’s government.
The proposal, which forms part of the ‘European Drone Defence Initiative’, is one of several flagship EU projects to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Moscow.
Published On 16 Oct 202516 Oct 2025
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The European Commission is in discussions to adopt a new counter-drone initiative to protect European Union airspace from Russian violations, as it seeks to strengthen border security with its own advanced drone technology after a string of drone incursions were reported in a host of EU and NATO member countries over the past month.
The proposal, which was included in a defence policy “roadmap” presented on Thursday, will aim for the new anti-drone capabilities to reach initial capacity by the end of next year and become fully operational by the end of 2027, according to a draft of the document.
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It will then be presented to EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, European Commission Executive Vice President for Security Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that it was time for Europe to build a “drone wall” to protect its eastern flank, hours after some 20 Russian drones reportedly entered the airspace of EU and NATO member Poland.
The concept has since morphed into a broader “European Drone Defence Initiative” including a continent-wide web of anti-drone systems in an effort to win support from EU capitals.
The drone initiative is one of several flagship EU projects aiming to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Russia as its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine grinds on.
In the meantime, as a counterpoint, Russia’s federal security chief said on Thursday that Moscow has no doubt about NATO’s security services’ involvement in incidents with alleged Russian drones over EU territory, Russian news agency RIA Novosti cited him as saying.
Following the drone incursion into Poland, other incidents were reported at airports and military installations in several other countries further west, including Denmark, Estonia and Germany, although there has not been confirmation that the drones were sent by the Kremlin.
For its part, NATO has launched a new mission and beefed up forces on its eastern border, but it is playing catch-up as it tries to tap Ukraine’s experience and get to grips with the drone threat from Moscow.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that NATO was now “testing integrated systems that will help us detect, track and neutralise aerial threats” for use on the bloc’s eastern flank.
Ukrainian officials say Russia’s incursions into other countries’ airspace are deliberate.
“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said last month after the drones were spotted in Poland.
Other NATO allies have also claimed the incursions were deliberate.
However, experts in drone warfare say it is still possible that the incursions were not deliberate.
Russia has denied deliberately attacking any of the European countries, instead accusing them of making false allegations to cause tensions.
While Brussels wants to have the drone project fully up and running by the end of 2027, there is scepticism from some EU countries and fears that the bloc is treading on NATO’s toes.
“We are not doubling the work that NATO is doing; actually, we are complementing each other,” said Kallas.
Hackers took over the PA system at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, broadcasting a pro-Palestine message and insults against the leaders of the US and Israel. Similar incidents were reported at three Canadian airports on the same day.
Oct. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to halt firings of workers amid the shutdown, according to two labor unions that brought the lawsuit against the federal government.
The Trump administration on Friday announced that it has begun laying off 4,100 federal workers as the federal purse has run dry with Congress since Oct. 1, failing to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.
On Sept. 30, ahead of the shutdown and amid Trump administration threats to institute mass firings if the government shuttered, the American Federation of Government Employees, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the layoffs.
Then on Oct. 4, the union filed a motion for a temporary restraining order.
On Wednesday, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the unions, issuing the temporary restraining order they sought, stating that the reduction-in-force notices issued to the more than 4,000 federal employees were likely illegal, exceeded the Trump administration’s authority and were capricious.
In her order, the appointee of President Bill Clinton described Trump’s mass firings amid a government shutdown as “unprecedented.”
Illston outlined how some employees could not even find out if they had been fired because the notices were sent to government email accounts, which they may not have access to because of the shutdown.
Those who do receive the notices are then unable to prepare for their terminations because human resources staff have been furloughed, she said, adding that in one case at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human resources staff were brought back into the office to issue the layoff notices only to then be directed to lay themselves off.
She then said, citing a social media post from the president on the second day of the shutdown, saying he had a meeting with Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, to determine which of the many “Democrat Agencies” to cut that Trump intended to make the cut as retribution over the Democrats opposing the funding measure.
“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party,” Illston wrote. “But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing.”
Illston gave the administration two days to provide the court with more information on the issued notices.
“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, said in a statement.
“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy.”
As the order was issued, Vought said that he expects thousands of federal workers to be fired in the coming days.
“Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they have articulated as in the 4,000 number of people,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. “But that’s just a snapshot, and I think it’ll get much higher. And we’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout the shutdown.”
The government shut down at the start of this month amid a political stalemate in Congress, as the Republicans do not have enough votes to pass their stopgap bill without Democrats crossing the aisle.
Democrats said they will only support a stopgap bill that extends and restores Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, arguing that failing to do so would raise healthcare costs for some 20 million Americans.
Republicans — who control the House, Senate and the presidency — are seeking a so-called clean funding bill that includes no changes. They argue that the Democrats are fighting to provide undocumented migrants with taxpayer-funded healthcare, even though federal law does not permit them to receive Medicaid or ACA premium tax credits.
The parties continue to trade blame for the shutdown as it extends for more than two weeks, with some 750,000 federal workers furloughed.
Thousands of people in southern Tunisia joined a rally demanding the closure of a state-run phosphate plant blamed for cancers, respiratory illnesses, and a mass poisoning that hospitalised more than 120 people.
Raducanu won 28 matches this year and reached the semi-finals in Washington, but her most impressive week was at the Miami Open in March.
The British number one reached the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 event, beating eighth seed Emma Navarro on the way before losing in three sets to fourth-ranked Pegula.
She was coached by Mark Petchey from Miami until Wimbledon, with Roig taking over in time for the US Open.
The initial agreement with Rafael Nadal’s former coach was until the end of the season but the partnership will continue, with a training block pencilled in for the end of the year.
Raducanu told BBC Sport her three-day trial with Roig after Wimbledon was like a “black ops mission” as they tried to keep the meeting secret.
She came very close to beating world number one Aryna Sabalenka at their first tournament together in Cincinnati in August.
Roig was also with Raducanu in New York, where she reached the third round before being beaten by 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina.
Oct. 16 (UPI) — Brown University has rejected a Department of Education proposal offering priority access to federal funds in exchange for agreeing to terms that critics say target left-leaning ideology in higher education.
On Oct. 1, the Trump administration sent nine universities a 10-part “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that reportedly demands reforms to hiring practices and student grading and a pledge to prohibit transgender women from using women’s changing rooms.
It also requires the creation of a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” among other changes, including a tuition freeze for five years.
Brown University President Christina Paxson rejected the offer in a letter addressed to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, writing she was “concerned that the Compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission.”
Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has targeted dozens of universities, particularly so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocation of resources and threats over a range of allegations, from anti-Semitism to having diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Critics have accused Trump of trying to coerce schools under threat of stringent punishments — from losing their accreditation to paying hefty fines sometimes in excess of $1 billion — to adopt his far-right policies.
In late July, Brown reached a $50 million settlement with the federal government over 10 years to unfreeze federal funding and to resolve federal allegations of violating anti-discrimination laws.
As part of the agreement, which also unfroze federal funds, Brown agreed to adhere to government requirements concerning male and female athletics, codify its commitment to ensuring a “thriving Jewish community” and maintain nondiscrimination compliance, among others.
In her letter Wednesday, Paxson said the July agreement includes several of the principles included in the compact while also affirming “the governments lack of authority to dictate our curriculum or the content of academic speech.”
“While we value our long-held and well-regarded partnership with the federal government, Brown is respectfully declining to join the Compact,” she said. “We remain committed to the July agreement and its preservation of Brown’s core values in ways that the Compact — in any form — fundamentally would not.”
Brown’s rejection comes days after MIT similarly declined to join the compact.
“America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote in a letter to the Department of Education on Friday.
“Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”
Conservatives and the Trump administration have alleged that university are founts of left-wing indoctrination that exclude right-leaning thought. However, critics have described the Trump administration’s attempt to address these concerns as government overreach and a violation of free speech rights.
“The White House’s new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education raises red flags,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement earlier this month.
“As Fire has long argued, campus reform is necessary. But overreaching government coercion that tries to end-run around the First Amendment to impose an official orthodoxy is unacceptable.”
“A government that can reward colleges and universities for speech it favors today can punish them for speech it dislikes tomorrow,” FIRE continued. “That’s not reform. That’s government-funded orthodoxy.”
Meanwhile, Trump over the weekend suggested that more universities would be invited to join the compact, saying in an online statement that “those Institutions that want to quickly return to the Pursuit of Truth and Achievement, they are invited to enter into the forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
In the statement, he railed against universities, saying “much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST and ANTI_AMERICAN Ideology that serves as justification for discriminatory practices by Universities that are Unconstitutional and Unlawful”
After terrorists chased her from her home in Lungu village of Sokoto State, Saratu now sits in Jabo town, devastated after losing three of her own and two orphaned grandchildren who never made it out. The terrorists stormed their village in Sabon Birni, North West Nigeria. She ran barefoot to the bush, clutching a small wrapper, and never returned. For Saratu and countless others across the region, the statistics of killings, kidnappings, and cattle rustling are not just numbers. They are ruptured families, stolen futures, and a daily struggle to live with dignity in the reported violence.
Amidst shattered livelihoods and decades-long insecurity, people in Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto states have continued to push back with resilience that helps them survive, facing the violence that pushes them out of their houses and farmlands.
HumAngle interviewed locals across the states, documenting what drives the violence, how the communities struggle to cope, and what a credible path to peace might look like. Those interviewed included traditional rulers, religious leaders, women’s associations, vigilante groups, civil society activists, and members of both herding and farming communities who shared experiences, human costs, and grassroots resilience.
For about one and a half decades, these people have been engulfed in a violence that ravaged many parts of the northwestern region. What began as disputes between farmers and herders has mutated into cattle rustling, mass killing and the scourge of kidnapping for ransom. These conflicts have seeped into every facet of their lives, displacing families, crippling agriculture, eroding trust, and gnawing at the very fabric of society.
Taxed by fear
Sokoto’s geographical misfortune is evident on a map. Nestled against the volatile Zamfara State and sharing a porous frontier with the Niger Republic, the state’s rural local government areas (LGAs) have become easy targets for well-armed groups.
Sabon Birni and Isa LGAs, the worst affected, live under the shadow of Bello Turji, a notorious non-state armed group leader imposing “taxes” on villages, a perverse form of governance enforced through violence.
In Tangaza, Gudu, Binji, and Silami, locals now face an even deadlier menace. Their ungoverned frontiers with the Niger Republic have opened the door to the Lakurawa, a transnational terror group turning the borderland into its strongest foothold. Exploiting weak state security and the grinding poverty that traps many young men, the Lakurawa has embedded itself in local communities, luring recruits with promises of power, protection, or survival.
What began as a shadowy infiltration has evolved into a full-blown insurgency. Today, the group wages a campaign of killings, livestock raids, and mass intimidation on both sides of the border, leaving residents of Sokoto and neighbouring Nigerien villages in constant fear.
The human toll is staggering. Farming, the lifeline of most families, has been disrupted. Thousands of cattle have been stolen. In Sabon Birni alone, an estimated 600,000 cattle and five million small ruminants were rustled between 2019 and 2024, while vast tracts of farmland remain in accessible. For those farmers who manage to reach their fields, access often comes at a heavy price.
Kidnappings have become routine. In the same Sabon Birni, reports suggest that more than ₦160 billion was paid in ransoms and so-called protection levies over the same five-year period.
According to Shu’aibu Gwanda Gobir, a community leader, about 528 villages were once under the control of armed groups. A day after the brutal killing of the Sarkin Gobir of Gatawa District, Isa Bawa, in August 2024, gunmen kidnapped 192 people in the Sabon Birnin area. At the time, over 600 people were already being held captive.
Children have been driven out of classrooms; many are now in displacement camps, while countless others roam the streets, begging in the city of Sokoto.
Women recount harrowing tales of sexual violence, their trauma lingering long after the attacks, and hunger and malnutrition stalk villages already stripped of livelihoods, leaving communities in a state of protracted vulnerability.
For farming and herding families, the cost is measured not only in stolen cattle and abandoned fields but also in fractured trust, deepening poverty, and a sense of being abandoned by the state.
Beneath this devastation, communities are not merely passive victims; they also fight back for survival. According to Magajin Balle, the village head of Balle in Gudu LGA, “in some areas, youths patrol their own streets with locally purchased weapons. Vigilante networks such as the Vigilante Group of Nigeria and ‘Yansakai’ militias provide a semblance of security. Communities pool money to support local defenders.”
Elsewhere, however, resilience takes different forms. In rural parts of Isa LGA, attempts are made to negotiate fragile truces (Sulhu) with gang leaders. In rural areas of Balle, where Lakurawa terrorists have entrenched a stronghold, residents have been forced to submit to the directives of the group.
Armed groups continue to unleash relentless violence across Sokoto State, defying local resilience efforts. In recent weeks, waves of attacks have swept through Shagari, Isa, Sabon Birni, and Raba LGAs, with outlying villages in Dange-Shuni now also under siege. Entire communities have been uprooted, with women and children bearing the brunt.
Many families are forced into a cycle of displacement, seeking safety in nearby towns before returning to their homes by day, while others have fled entirely. Thousands are now sheltering in Jabo, Dange-Shuni, and Rara, or across the border in Guidan Roumdji of the Niger Republic, highlighting the deepening humanitarian crisis.
Tension has also heightened in Shagari LGA’s rural areas after a series of attacks in Aske Dodo, Tungar Barke, Jandutse, Lungu, and Ayeri by armed groups, leaving several dead, scores abducted, and hundreds displaced to Jabo, Kajiji, and Shagari in search of refuge. According to a BBC report, this led to women seeking shelter in Shagari town to stage a protest against the government.
In Raba LGA, over 500 people were forced to flee from their homes across six communities on August 26. Most of them are women and children, now crowded into a school and market square in Rara village, where they seek safety and shelter.
Women and children from the villages of Kwaren Lohwa and Dabagi wait for a lift to Dange, where they will spend the night to escape violent armed groups before returning to their villages in the morning. Photo: Labbo Abdullahi/HumAngle.
In Sabon Birni and Isa LGAs, communities remain trapped between violence and hunger. This September, armed groups unleashed deadly assaults like never before, while floods destroyed roads, bridges and crops, cutting residents off from aid. With no safe passage and livelihoods washed away, many fled across the border into Niger in search of refuge. “People are being squeezed from both sides by the gunmen and by the floods,” says Sa’idu Bargaja, a lawmaker representing the Isa-Sabon Birni constituency. It is, he says, a crisis that leaves no room for escape.
In Shagari LGA, the anguish of displacement is written into women’s lives like Saratu Sode of the Lungu community. Now taking refuge in Jabo, she describes how violence has torn apart her family and her village.
“We fled when word spread that gunmen were coming. Those who could not escape that night were caught. Two of our neighbours were attacked; one was hacked with a machete and is in hospital, and the other was shot dead. Three of my relatives were seized before they could run, and they are still in captivity,” she recounts.
“Three of my children and two of my orphaned grandchildren, whose father was killed during an earlier attack, are not with me. I don’t know where they are. They might have been killed, or they may be in the hands of armed groups.”
Her neighbour, Hadiza from the Aske Dodo community, shares a similar story. Forced from her home three times, she now shelters in an abandoned building in Jabo. “On the last occasion, we woke in the night to the news that someone nearby had been slaughtered. At dawn, we fled. Our children no longer go to school. Our husbands have abandoned their farms, fleeing to save their lives. I do not sleep at night,” she says.
Their voices echo a broader crisis in Sokoto’s rural communities, where waves of armed violence have left families fractured, livelihoods destroyed, and children robbed of education. Beyond the numbers of the dead and displaced, the stories of women like Saratu and Hadiza lay bare the daily reality: survival in a landscape where the state is absent, safety is fragile, and tomorrow is uncertain.
Hadiza from the Aske Dodo community shelters in an abandoned building in Jabo. Photo: Labbo Abdullahi/HumAngle.
Magajin Tsamaye, a village head in Sabon Birni, told HumAngle that peace deals and levies payments are not the best strategies. He urges the government to reform the social justice system and tackle root causes like illiteracy and youth unemployment. “People should be less fearful of death,” Magaji bluntly added, “so they can boldly repel attacks.”
Fighting without surrender
Kebbi’s experience mirrors Sokoto’s in many ways, but with one critical difference: communities here largely reject paying taxes to armed groups. While the LGAs of Fakai, Danko Wasagu, Zuru, Augie, and Yauri, which border the dens of armed groups in Sokoto, Zamfara, and Niger, face sporadic raids and kidnappings, an ethos of resistance endures.
In Augie, Arewa, and, to a lesser extent, Dandi, Bunza, Bagudo, Maiyama, Koko, and Fakai, the shadow of the Lakurawa looms large. Their presence causes sudden waves of violence that leave communities unsettled, never knowing when the next strike might come.
These unpredictable and ruthless raids have turned daily life into a gamble of survival. Farmers abandon fields, traders fear the open road, and entire villages, especially in Arewa and Augie, live with the gnawing uncertainty that their relative calm could be shattered at any moment. This unpredictability, the incessant rhythm of violence, cements Lakurawa’s grip.
In this year’s rainy season, vast tracts of land in Kebbi State have not been tilted because the Lakurawa declared them no-go zones. In the remote areas of Augie and Arewa LGAs, the group has marked out areas as “buffer zones,” warning through local agents that any farmer seen nearby would be punished.
“In the remote villages of Garu, Kunchin Baba, Gumki, and Gumundai, farmers now live under these restrictions,” said a man known as Bello Manager, the Commandant of the Vigilante Group of Niger in the Arewa LGA.
“Farmers are forbidden not only from cultivating their land but also from adapting to change. The militants have blocked the sale of farming bulls for power tillers; machines many had hoped would ease labour shortages, and in some cases seized and destroyed the tillers outright,” the Bello added.
A resident of Goru, speaking to BBC Hausa on condition of anonymity, said: “The majority of communities where the Lakurawa have established a stronghold are living in fear and uncertainty. These include Goru, Malam Yauro, Goru Babba, Goru Karama, Gorun Bagiga, Gumki and Faske. In these places, the Lakurawa force herders to pay ₦10,000 per cow; they have banned women from farming, and traditional rulers are forbidden from wearing turbans. Across all these areas, there is no visible sign of state presence.”
This ban is devastating for communities already struggling with the steady depletion of oxen used for ploughing and harrowing. What should have been a season of renewal is turning instead into a season of fear and enforced stagnation.
In Bunza LGA, the Lakurawa have tightened their grip, launching repeated assaults and livestock raids that have crippled livelihoods and deepened fear. In just the past seven months, more than 1,000 head of cattle have been rustled beyond several cattle they extort as so-called zakat.
“The scale of the theft underscores the vulnerability of even the most prominent figures. Victims include retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Abubakar Tilli, who lost 110 cattle; Bello Mamuda, former chairman of Bunza, who lost 67; and a former member of the House of Assembly representing Bunza, whose herd of 49 was stolen. Altogether, over 1,000 cattle have been stolen by the Lakurawa in Bunza over the past seven months,” Yau Gumundai, a local in the area, told HumAngle.
But the damage goes beyond statistics. Markets have emptied, families have scattered, and fear has become part of daily life. “Recently, there has been an intensification of Lakurawa assaults in Bunza and neighbouring Dandi,” Gumundai explains.
“Their last attack in Bunza was on Friday, Sept. 19, when they opened fire at a security checkpoint. People fled the market in panic, leaving behind their belongings. Many were injured. They keep us in constant fear.”
The attacks illustrate a grim pattern: armed groups now challenge not only ordinary citizens but also security forces and political elites. As livestock raiding evolves from economic plunder into a tool of terror, communities in not only Bunza but also many other LGAs of Kebbi State are left with dwindling livelihoods, deepening insecurity, and a gnawing uncertainty about whether the state can protect them.
Local security has become a sophisticated patchwork of formal and informal alliances. Security outfits work hand-in-hand with trade unions; from motor transport workers to petroleum marketers to monitor public spaces, track suspicious movements, and alert communities. In every LGA, from ward level upwards, volunteer patrols are organised. Wealthy residents and the poor pool resources to fund the patrols in shifts from dawn to dusk.
While the rural communities of Tangaza and Gudu in Sokoto State have succumbed and remain defenceless, an investigation by HumAngle found that, in the face of Lakurawa incursions and raids, the people of Augie in Kebbi refuse to stand idle.
Until recently, as Lakurawa incursions continue, particularly in Arewa, Augie, and Bunza LGAs, locals argued that collaborative vigilance in Kebbi was what prevented the violence of armed groups from reaching the scale seen in Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina. But it is also draining; financially, psychologically, and militarily, particularly now that communities face mobile insurgents armed with military-grade weapons, including PKTs, RPGs, GPMGs, AAs, and AK-49s.
Living and negotiating with the enemy
While Sokoto is taxed by fear, some of the most striking community-led peace deals have emerged in Zamfara.
In Kaura Namoda, Maru, Bungudu, and elsewhere, communities have brokered localised truces with armed groups. The terms vary; in some cases, farmers pay “levies” to cultivate land; in others, both sides settle for a “peace” that often turns cold. When such agreements hold, people return to their fields, markets reopen, and a fragile semblance of regular life returns.
But peace is never absolute. A deal with one gang does not protect against another, and breaches, whether through real provocations or whispered rumours, collapse months of careful dialogue. The Yansakai’s actions, sometimes indiscriminate and retaliatory, also undermine trust.
A resident of Nasarawa Burkulu and a member of Miyetti Allah, speaking to HumAngle on condition of anonymity, paints a chilling picture of life under sustained attack in Bukkuyum LGA. He says that from the first assault in 2019 through to September 2025, thousands have been kidnapped, tens of thousands of ruminants rustled, and hundreds killed, while whole villages have at times fallen under the control of armed groups.
“Between 2019 and today, over 3,000 people have been taken, 30,000 livestock stolen, and more than 1,000 people brutally killed in Bukkuyum LGA,” the local told HumAngle. “Several settlements towards the Anka-Bukkuyum boundary: Ruwan Rani, Yashi, Zauna, Bardi, Kwali, Bunkasau, Kamaru, Gasa Hula, and Rafin Maiki are flooded with armed men, some of whom appear to be recent arrivals. Many villages are effectively under siege.”
The human consequences are stark. “In these communities, most men have fled their homes,” the source added. “Women and children run into the bush when armed men arrive at night.” The testimony underlines how insecurity has hollowed out normal life: farms lie untended, markets are disrupted, and entire families live in constant fear.
Another local source described the trauma of abduction, detailing how unarmed citizens were held captive for more than four months. Also a victim of abduction, the source was released only after her parents paid ₦430,000 in ransom.
“In captivity we were dehumanised,” she recalled. “I watched people being murdered in front of me. Returning home brought stigma; I often wished for death because I felt my life was worthless.”
These accounts expose a sustained campaign that is not merely criminal theft and occasional violence but a strategy that displaces communities, destroys livelihoods and inflicts deep psychological wounds. They also raise urgent questions about the state’s capacity to protect civilians in areas where armed groups can operate with impunity.
Armed groups continue to ravage communities, where killings and kidnappings for ransom have become routine. The crisis, analysts and statesmen say, has worsened under the so-called Sulhu dialogue strategy in Kaduna’s Birnin Gwari and Katsina, pushing armed groups into Zamfara in unprecedented numbers.
“Dialogue in Birnin Gwari has led to the intensification of violence in Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kebbi, as many members of armed groups move into areas not under the Sulhu regime,” says Murtala Rufa’i, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.
“The truces struck with armed groups in Kaduna displaced hundreds of armed groups’ members into rural Zamfara and adjacent Sokoto, leaving villages under relentless assault while towns such as Gummi, Bukkuyum, and Garin Gaura in Zamfara, and Kebbe and Shagari in Sokoto, are overwhelmed by displaced families,” says Hon. Suleman Muhammad Abubakar, lawmaker representing the Gummi-Bukkuyum constituency.
The human toll is devastating. “Recently, a canoe carrying people fleeing Gummi and nearby villages capsized, killing 15,” Abubakar recounts. “They were escaping the siege of armed groups who had poured into Gummi and Bukkuyum after leaving Birnin Gwari, a direct consequence of the dialogue policy.”
Despite this, there is an undercurrent of hope, as locals express the readiness of many communities to reintegrate repentant members of armed groups, provided the process is genuine and inclusive. Traditional authorities still hold moral sway, and even some armed groups’ leaders enforce discipline within their ranks to preserve deals.
Locals recommend empowering these traditional and religious actors, strengthening rural education, and ensuring government services reach neglected areas. “Peace is possible,” says village head of Birnin Magaji, “but only if we all talk honestly, and to everyone who holds a gun.”
Conflict on the city’s edge
Katsina’s pain is sharpened by geography. Not only does it border Zamfara and Sokoto, but its northern frontier touches the Niger Republic, a corridor for illicit arms. Some of the region’s most feared warlords, such as Dogo Gide and Ado Aleru, frequent the state, and in specific communities, non-state armed groups effectively govern in place of the state.
Rural violence’s evolution in Katsina follows a now-familiar pattern: resource conflict between herders and farmers, worsened by climate change and land encroachment, spiralling into cattle rustling, then into the kidnapping economy. Today, it is a fully fledged industry, drawing in disenfranchised youth as foot soldiers.
In Kankara District, Ibro Gwani and Rabi Usman Mani of Dannakwabo account for an unending ordeal of violence in Katsina State.
From 2011 to 2025, the district was scarred by killings, abductions and violent attacks that have left families shattered and entire communities traumatised.
Since the devastating blow of Dec. 11, 2020, which left over 300 boys kidnapped, waves of killings, abductions, and displacements have continued.
Ibro Gwani, for instance, was kidnapped three times for which he paid a ransom of ₦10 million. “I know that one of our community leaders, Mai Unguwa Babangida Lauwal, was kidnapped and had to pay ₦4 million,” Gwani adds.
Rabi Usman Dannakwabo was also abducted alongside her husband, Usman Mani Dannakwabo, who is a police officer.
“Residents have been murdered in their homes, on their farms, on village roads and even on playgrounds. I know of dozens of men, women and children who have been shot dead,” she says. “Some of our relatives had also been gunned down, hacked with machetes, and some, including myself and my husband, have been dragged into captivity, many of us never return.”
The state government’s measures, from negotiations to fuel sales bans to military offensives, have had mixed results. While initial gains were sometimes significant, armed groups adapted swiftly, exploiting sophisticated communications technology and local networks and even controlling the sale of scarce commodities in some areas.
Communities often choose confrontation over negotiation. Informal militias are armed and funded by locals, and private gun ownership for self-defence is widespread. But there are costs: accusations of abuses by community militias against innocent Fulani have driven some into the arms of the very armed groups they once feared.
Past state-led dialogues faltered, partly due to the exclusion of affected communities from the process. A local tells HumAngle that effective dialogue should emphasise the need for inclusive engagement, economic empowerment, better governance, and border control to stem the flow of weapons.
Despite earlier peace deals, armed groups shatter the calm with fresh and increasingly brutal assaults. One of the most recent was on August 19, when gunmen stormed Unguwan Mantau in Malumfashi LGA. At dawn, they attacked a village mosque filled with worshippers. Young and old men were bowed in prayer when the shooting began, leaving many dead and others injured and rushed to the hospital.
The recent downward spiral in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations would have been hard to imagine when Pakistani military and civilian leaders welcomed the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021.
A Taliban government, Islamabad believed, would be friendly to Pakistan and would become a bulwark against any security threats to the country. After all, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services had for more than two decades supported the Afghan Taliban movement.
Between 2001 and 2021, this meant a contradictory foreign policy. On the one hand, by supporting the United States’ military intervention in Afghanistan, Pakistan recognised the US-backed governments that ruled the country. At the same time, Pakistan covertly tolerated – and even enabled – the resurgence of the Taliban inside Pakistani territory, which also included co-habitation with other Pakistani militant groups.
Yet, that relationship has now collapsed as Pakistani airforce struck targets in Kabul for the first time ever this week.
An apparent disconnect in their mutual expectations, and disrespect for each other’s capabilities, makes it harder for them to resurrect what they once had.
What is at stake for both countries?
The Pakistani security establishment, comprised of the army and the country’s powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is responsible for devising and driving the nation’s Afghan policy.
Historically, the army has also exercised significant power over the civilian administrations, even when Pakistan has not been under military rule.
Pakistan has faced a surge of unprecedented attacks against its security forces since 2021, coinciding with the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. More than 2,400 deaths were recorded for the first three quarters of 2025, towering over last year’s figure of approximately 2,500 people killed in attacks across Pakistan.
Pakistan has blamed a majority of attacks on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the so-called Pakistan Taliban, whose leaders are now based in Afghanistan. TTP members hail largely from the tribal areas of Pakistan, along the Afghan border.
Pakistan had hoped that TTP leaders would leave Afghanistan once the Pakistan-friendly Taliban government was established in Kabul. Some TTP fighters reportedly did return home, but this did not translate into a decline in violence. The TTP demands a localised implementation of Islamic law and the reinstatement of the former semi-autonomous status of tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
For Pakistan, confronting a deadly and persistent uprising at home has become a national security crisis. Pakistan is, meanwhile, also reeling from several other intersecting crises: a stunted economy, geopolitical tensions with archrival India – marked by the recent conflict in May – as well as a growing domestic political discontent, and natural disasters.
Taliban leaders in Afghanistan insist that the TTP is a domestic challenge for Pakistan to address. In 2022, shortly after forming an interim administration, the Taliban government mediated talks between TTP leaders and the Pakistani army in Kabul. After initial indications of progress, underpinned by a temporary ceasefire, the talks collapsed.
For the Taliban government, which is heavily sanctioned and isolated from international financial institutions, the realities of ruling a vastly underdeveloped and economically poor country are stark. Over four years since taking power, Russia is the only country that has formally recognised the Taliban administration, though a growing number of countries – China, India and Iran among them – have, in effect, acknowledged the group as Afghanistan’s rulers and are hosting their diplomatic representatives.
Afghans are suffering from the near-collapse of the economy, and public sector institutions – such as health and education services – are on the brink of a complete breakdown. Faced with severe food insecurity and humanitarian challenges, common Afghans suffer as United Nations-led aid agencies face funding cuts. A prolonged conflict with Pakistan is likely to further deepen these challenges.
Can both sides return to their past friendship?
Both sides appear, at the moment, to be digging their heels in. Though they have agreed to temporary ceasefires, neither side wants to look weak by admitting it needs to back down.
Official Pakistani government statements now refer to the Taliban government – whose return to power in Kabul was once celebrated – as a “regime”, calling for a more “inclusive” administration in Afghanistan. They warn of continuing attacks within Afghan territories if the Taliban fail to act against the TTP.
To be sure, Pakistan possesses a substantially more powerful military, technologically advanced weaponry, and considerable geopolitical leverage against the Taliban government. There is also a renewed sense of self-confidence as Pakistan considers it successfully fought the recent war with India in May 2025, including by downing multiple Indian jets.
Since the 1980s, it has hosted millions of Afghan refugees, a generation of whom were educated and have built livelihoods in Pakistani cities. This, according to Pakistani leaders and some public opinion, should mean that Afghans must bear goodwill towards Pakistan. Forcing out Afghan refugees will be a key leverage Pakistan would want to use against the Taliban government.
Fundamentally, Pakistani leaders view their country as a serious and powerful entity with strong global alliances – one that any Afghan government, especially one led by a group supported by Pakistan, should respect and cooperate with.
The Taliban, on the other hand, view themselves as victorious, battle-hardened fighters who waged a long and successful war against foreign occupation by a global superpower. Hence, a potential conflict imposed by a neighbour would be a lesser mission.
Taliban spokesmen are pushing back against Pakistani officials’ recent narrative, underlining the significance of the ongoing information war on both sides. They have alleged, for instance, that Pakistan’s tribal border areas shelter ISIS/ISIL fighters with tacit backing from elements of the Pakistani army.
Nonetheless, as a landlocked country, Afghanistan is heavily dependent on trade routes via Pakistan, which remain shut due to ongoing tensions, resulting in major losses for traders on both sides. The Taliban government lacks air defence systems, radars or modern weaponry to counter any further incursions by Pakistani drones and jets.
The path to de-escalation
The Pakistani army continues to frame its fight against TTP as part of the wider confrontation with India. It has alleged, without evidence, that the armed group is backed by New Delhi. Pakistan also expects the Taliban to disown and distance themselves from the TTP and instead align themselves with Islamabad.
However, the TTP and Taliban share long-term camaraderie, ideological compatibility and social bonds that go beyond stringent organisational peculiarities. For the Taliban, a conflict with the TTP could also risk creating space for minacious actors such as the ISIL-Khorasan armed group.
And while Pakistan is stronger militarily, the Taliban have their own tools that could hurt Islamabad.
What if the Taliban’s Kandahar-based supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, were to issue a fatwa for jihad against Pakistan’s security establishment? The TTP leadership had already pledged allegiance to Akhunzada in 2021. But the Taliban’s top leader is also held in high religious regard by a large segment of Pakistani religious school students and religious leaders, and a call against Islamabad from Akhunzada could lead to serious internal security challenges for Pakistan.
Islamist political groups in Pakistan would also not support an all-out war with the Taliban. Meanwhile, any sustained Pakistani attacks against Afghanistan will likely bolster domestic support for the incumbent Taliban administration, even when there is palpable resentment among Afghans against the Taliban.
To prevent further escalation and seek meaningful political dialogue, there is an urgent need for a trusted mediation actor capable of sustainable engagement. This role is best suited for Middle Eastern and Muslim nations trusted by both sides, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
There is evidence that this is a fruitful pathway. Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi confirmed in a news conference in New Delhi last week that the Taliban ceased retaliatory attacks against Pakistan after Qatar and Saudi Arabia mediated.
But first, there needs to be a real desire for peace from the leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Even as Afghan and Pakistani officials hurl warnings at each other, and their forces engage in repeated bouts of cross-border fire, both countries are acutely aware that war will cost them heavily.
However, this does not mean that relations will return to the erstwhile bilateral warmth anytime soon or that miscalculations cannot happen.
Geography and history bind Afghans and Pakistanis into interdependence, which needs to be capitalised upon.
Governments need to stop hoping in vain for the success of failed approaches that have been tried for decades. Afghan leaders must work at developing amicability with Pakistan. Pakistani leaders need to reciprocate by conceiving a wholesome foreign policy towards Afghanistan, which is not coloured by rivalry with India.
The world does not need yet another war in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. It can never bear better dividends than peace.
Money sent home from abroad to Guatemala could see record growth in 2025, surpassing $24.5 billion, according to statistics from Guatemala’s central bank.
