troops

Kazakhstan and Kosovo have also pledged to participate, while Egypt and Jordan will provide training for police officers.

Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged to send troops to Gaza, the commander of a newly created International Stabilization Force (ISF) has said during a meeting of United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace.

US Army General Jasper Jeffers, who has been appointed as the head of a future Gaza stabilisation force by Trump’s board, said on Thursday that the Indonesian contingent to the mission has “accepted the position of deputy commander”.

“With these first steps, we will help bring the security that Gaza needs,” Jeffers said during a meeting of the board in Washington, DC.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who was among several world leaders participating in the meeting, said his country would contribute up to 8,000 personnel to the planned force “to make this peace work” in the war-torn Palestinian territory, where Israel’s genocide has killed at least 72,000 people.

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country will also send an unspecified number of troops, including medical units, to Gaza, while Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that his country is ready to deploy police officers to Gaza.

Albania, whose prime minister recently made a two-day official visit to Israel, has also said it will contribute troops, while neighbouring countries Egypt and Jordan have said they will participate by training police officers.

Indonesia, which was one of the first countries to commit to sending troops, has sought to reassure potential critics that its participation is intended to ensure international law is upheld in Gaza, amid Israel’s genocidal onslaught.

‘Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations’

Indonesia’s foreign minister met with both United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour in New York on Wednesday, in advance of President Subianto’s participation in the Board of Peace meeting.

“Indonesia’s mandate [on troop deployment] is humanitarian in nature with a focus on protecting civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction as well as training and strengthening the capacity of the Palestinian Police,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a recent statement, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.

“Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations or any action leading to direct confrontation with any armed group,” the ministry said, responding to questions raised over its future role in Gaza by Amnesty International.

The head of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, has voiced concerns that Indonesia risked violating international law through its participation in the Board of Peace and the planned stabilisation force for Gaza.

Hamid warned that Indonesia’s deployment of troops to Gaza “means putting Indonesia at risk of participating in a mechanism that will strengthen violations of International Humanitarian Law”.

“The Peace Council does not include members from the most disadvantaged Palestinians, but instead includes members from Israel, which has for nearly eight decades carried out an illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people, even committing genocide in Gaza,” Hamid wrote last week in an open letter to the speaker of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia.

Palestinians have also voiced concerns that Trump’s Board of Peace will only further entrench Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to carve out more “buffer zones” and restrict the entry of food and other aid, months into a so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas, during which almost 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

The Gaza stabilisation force differs from other peacekeeping forces deployed by multilateral organisations such as the UN or the African Union.

In neighbouring Lebanon, more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 countries continue to participate in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was created in 1978.

Indonesia, along with Italy, is one of the largest contributors of troops to UNIFIL, which has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli forces, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the military will work with the country’s police force to counter ‘gang wars’ that threaten ‘our democracy’.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he will deploy the army to work alongside the police to tackle high levels of gang violence and other crimes in the country.

Ramaphosa said on Thursday that he had directed the chiefs of the police and army to draw up a plan on where “our security forces should be deployed within the next few days in the Western Cape and in Gauteng to deal with gang violence and illegal mining”.

“Organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development,” the president said in his annual state of the nation address.

“Children here in the Western Cape are caught in the crossfire of gang wars. People are chased out of their homes by illegal miners in Gauteng,” he told Parliament in his address.

“I will be deploying the South African National Defence Force to support the police,” he said.

South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with approximately 60 deaths each day involving killings in wars between drug gangs in areas of Cape Town and mass shootings linked to illegal mining in Johannesburg’s Gauteng province.

The South African leader said other measures to fight crime include recruiting 5,500 police officers and boosting intelligence while identifying priority crime syndicates.

“The cost of crime is measured in lives that are lost and futures that are cut short. It is felt also in the sense of fear that permeates our society and in the reluctance of businesses to invest,” Ramaphosa said.

Crime syndicates

Guns are the most commonly used weapon in South Africa, according to authorities, and illegal firearms are used in many crimes, despite the stringent rules governing gun ownership in the country.

Authorities in South Africa have also long struggled to prevent gangs of miners from entering some of the 6,000 closed or abandoned mines in the gold-rich nation to search for remaining reserves.

The government claims that the miners, referred to as “zama zamas”, or “hustlers” in Zulu, are typically armed, undocumented foreign nationals who are involved in crime syndicates.

In 2024 alone, South Africa lost more than $3bn in gold to the illegal mine trade, according to authorities.

Ramaphosa also said authorities would pursue criminal charges against municipal officials who fail to deliver water to communities where shortages are among the main issues that anger most voters.

“Water outages are a symptom of a local ⁠government system that is not working,” the president said of the worsening water crisis resulting from a drying climate and consistent failures to maintain ⁠water pipes.

“We will hold to account those who neglect their responsibility to ⁠supply water to our people,” he said.

Residents of the country’s biggest city, Johannesburg, held scattered protests this week after taps had been dry in some neighbourhoods for more than 20 days.

Ramaphosa also called out “powerful nations” who exert their “dominance and influence over less powerful states” and said South Africans could not consider themselves “free” as “long as the people of Palestine, Cuba, Sudan, Western Sahara and elsewhere suffer occupation, oppression and war”.

Ramaphosa, who became head of state in 2018, has led South Africa’s first-ever coalition government since ‌June 2024, when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since ending apartheid 30 years earlier.

The coalition, which includes the pro-business Democratic Alliance, has helped restore confidence in Africa’s largest economy.

But widespread, persistent unemployment has not improved, and the government is under pressure to show it can improve service delivery.

Syria’s defence ministry says its forces have taken control of the strategic base amid coordination with the US.

Syrian ⁠forces ⁠have taken control of the strategic al-Tanf military base near the border with Iraq and Jordan, the Syrian defence ministry has said, amid the withdrawal of a longstanding United States troop presence at the base.

The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Syrian Arab Army units had taken control of al-Tanf, securing the base and its surroundings, “through coordination between the Syrian and American sides”.

Army units had “begun deploying along the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian” border nearby, the ministry said, while border guards would be deployed in the coming days.

The base was established during Syria’s civil war in 2014 as a ‌key hub for operations by the global coalition against ISIL (ISIS), which at the time controlled large areas of Syria and Iraq until the group was vanquished in 2017.

The US withdrawal from the base comes months after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who the US once deemed a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”, joined the anti-ISIL coalition in November.

The US military has not officially commented on the pullout, but Trump has expressed an interest in withdrawing US troops from Syria since his first term.

Syrian government expands control

The pullout also follows ⁠a US-brokered deal to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces – a key US partner in the fight against ISIL – into Syrian government institutions, an agreement the US hailed as a major step towards national unity and ⁠reconciliation in Syria.

Last month, as al-Sharaa’s government pushed to expand its control over the country, Syrian government forces captured large areas of previously Kurdish-held territory in northeast Syria, amid deadly clashes with the SDF.

A ceasefire was later struck between the sides.

Amid the advance of Syrian forces, the US military has been transferring thousands of ISIL prisoners from jails previously run by the SDF in northeastern Syria, as the facilities were transferred to Syrian government control.

US drawdown

While the size of the US deployment in Syria has fluctuated over the years, with precise figures often unclear due to the classified nature of many operations, a Pentagon announcement in July 2025 said there were about 1,500 American soldiers in Syria.

The size of the deployment currently stands at 900, The Associated Press reported.

Earlier this month, an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground reported that US military personnel appeared to be drawing down their presence from watchtowers surrounding a military installation in the al-Shaddadi area in northeastern Hasakah province.

Soldiers were also seen lowering the US flag from one tower, while equipment used to manage aircraft takeoffs and landings at the base’s airstrip was no longer visible.

The US carried out a round of “large-scale” attacks against ISIL in Syria in January following an ambush that killed two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter in the city of Palmyra in December.

In recent months, Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea of supporting rebel fighters on Ethiopian soil.

Ethiopia’s ‌foreign minister has accused neighbouring Eritrea of military aggression and of supporting armed groups inside Ethiopian territory, amid growing tensions between the neighbours.

The two longstanding foes had waged war against each other between 1998 and 2000, but signed a peace deal in 2018 and became allies during Ethiopia’s two-year war against regional authorities in the northern Tigray region.

But Eritrea was not a party to the 2022 agreement that ended the Tigray conflict, and relations between the two nations have plunged into acrimony since then.

In recent months, Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea of supporting rebel fighters on Ethiopian soil – allegations Asmara denies.

In a letter dated Saturday, February 7, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos told his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh Mohammed that Eritrean forces had occupied Ethiopian territory along parts of their shared border for an extended period.

He also accused Eritrea of providing material support to armed groups operating inside Ethiopia.

“The incursion[s] of Eritrean troops further into Ethiopian territory … are not just provocations but acts of outright aggression,” his letter said.

Timothewos demanded that Asmara “withdraw its troops from Ethiopian territory and cease all forms of collaboration with rebel groups”.

He also said that Ethiopia remained open to dialogue if Eritrea respected its territorial integrity. He said Addis Ababa was willing to engage in good-faith negotiations on all matters of mutual interest, including maritime affairs and access to the Red Sea through the Eritrean port of Assab.

There was no immediate comment from Eritrea on the letter.

Eritrea, which gained independence in 1993 after decades of armed conflict with Ethiopia, has however, bristled at repeated public declarations by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that his landlocked country has a right to sea access. Many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view his comments as an implicit threat of military action.