Israeli soldiers were captured on video firing towards a group of foreign diplomats on a visit to Jenin in the occupied West Bank, forcing them to run to their vehicles and flee the area. The military claims the group deviated from an “approved route” and the shots were only a “warning.”
Published On 21 May 202521 May 2025
Video from Sudan showed soldiers celebrating as the army declared Khartoum state "completely free of rebels".
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Decorated veteran Ben Roberts-Smith failed to have reports that he ‘murdered four Afghan men’ quashed.
Australia’s most decorated living war veteran has lost an appeal against a civil court ruling that implicated him in war crimes while serving in Afghanistan.
Australia’s Federal Court dismissed the appeal lodged by Ben Roberts-Smith on Friday, in the latest setback for the 46-year-old’s fight to salvage a reputation tattered by reports that he took part in the murder of four unarmed Afghan prisoners.
Three federal court judges unanimously rejected his appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2023, which said Roberts-Smith was not defamed by newspaper articles published in 2018 that accused him of a range of war crimes.
In the earlier ruling, a judge had found that the accusations were substantially true to a civil standard and Roberts-Smith was responsible for four of the six unlawful deaths of noncombatants he had been accused of.
Delivering the appeal court’s verdict, Justice Nye Perram explained that the reasons for the decision are being withheld due to national security implications that the government must consider.
The marathon 110-day trial is estimated to have cost 25 million Australian dollars ($16m) in legal fees that Roberts-Smith will likely be liable to pay.
He has however said he will fight to clear his name in Australia’s High Court, his last avenue of legal appeal.
“I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious spiteful allegations,” Roberts-Smith said in a statement. “We will immediately seek to challenge this judgement in the High Court of Australia.”
Tory Maguire, an executive of Nine Entertainment that published the articles Roberts-Smith claimed were untrue, welcomed the ruling as an “emphatic win”.
“Today is also a great day for investigative journalism and underscores why it remains highly valued by the Australian people,” Maguire said.
Australia deployed 39,000 troops to Afghanistan over two decades as part of United States and NATO-led operations against the Taliban and other armed groups.
Perth-born Roberts-Smith, a former SAS corporal, had won the Victoria Cross – Australia’s highest military honour – for “conspicuous gallantry” in Afghanistan while on the hunt for a senior Taliban commander.
An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation.
It’s not clear whether Roberts-Smith was one of them.
Police have been working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times said in a series of reports in 2018 that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed Afghan civilian off a cliff and ordered subordinates to shoot him.
He was also said to have taken part in the machine-gunning of a man with a prosthetic leg, which was later brought back to an army bar and used as a drinking vessel.
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.
An al-Qaeda affiliate has claimed it killed 200 soldiers in an attack on a Burkina Faso army base this week, according to an NGO that tracks armed groups’ online activity.
The base in the northern town of Djibo came under attack on Sunday morning, and a police station and market were also targeted, security sources told the news agency Reuters. Although there was no official toll, three Djibo residents told Reuters that dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed.
Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the death toll. A Burkina Faso military source told Al Jazeera that the armed group was exaggerating the number of casualties.
The United States-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of armed groups, said Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) made the claim in a formal statement.
“The operation comes amid increased JNIM activity in Burkina Faso over the past month inflicting a high number of casualties,” SITE said.
The organisation previously said Ousmane Dicko, head of JNIM in Burkina Faso, had appeared in a video urging residents of Djibo to leave the town for their own safety.
Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said the attack took place over a number of days.
“One of the major military outposts that was supposed to protect this town of about 200,000 people was razed to the ground, such was the firepower of the armed groups,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Senegal, Dakar.
“This is one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso, and it comes just as Ibrahim Traore [Burkina Faso’s military leader] has been saying that the country has been gaining territory, encouraging people to go back to their homes, but this latest attack proves the opposite,” said Haque.
A video circulating on social media from the al-Qaeda affiliate warned people to leave their homes and said it would seize more territories.
“What we’re seeing here is the pivot point where these armed groups that normally attack villages are now trying to take over towns. It’s a major blow for Burkina Faso’s armed forces,” Haque said, noting the attacks come just as Traore was visiting Russia, asking President Vladimir Putin for more training and arms to fight off armed groups.
JNIM claimed responsibility for another assault this week targeting a military post in Burkina Faso’s northern Loroum province in which the group said 60 soldiers were killed, according to SITE.
The attacks highlight the difficulties the three Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, ruled by military leaders, are facing in containing the armed groups.
Burkina Faso authorities have not commented on the latest attacks.
A notable attack occurred in the Burkina town of Sole, where JNIM fighters raided the army military post and killed soldiers, SITE Intelligence said, without specifying on which day it took place.
A Military government took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide stability, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.