The governments of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have agreed to a ceasefire following a border clash over access to water resources that led to dozens of people being killed and many more injured.  The agreement was signed on 1 May during negotiations...

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have clashed over access to water resources along the northern border lying between the Sogdia Province of Tajikistan and the Batken Region of Kyrgyzstan.  The conflict began on 28 April, with the press department of the T...

The United States Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines told the White House-hosted Leaders Summit on Climate on 22 April that climate change “must be at the centre of a country’s national security and foreign policy”. Haines said climate change “needs to be fully integrated with every aspect of our analysis in order to allow us not only to monitor the threat but also critically think to ensure that policymakers understand the implication of climate change on seemingly unrelated policies”.  Notably, the summit included a specif...

The European Parliament (EP) approved on 28 April the European Union’s long-standing proposed Terrorist Content Online Regulation. With the EP’s adoption, the legislation is scheduled to enter into force 20 days after its forthcoming publication in...

As US and coalition troops begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban continues to intensify, with the first three months of the year seeing a sharp increase in the number of enemy-initated attacks (EIAs) compared to the same period last year.  In his latest quarterly report to the US Congress, US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko quoted the Pentagon as saying that while the number of EIAs registered between 1 January and 31 March decreased...

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is deliberating a plan for the regional group to deploy a military force to Mozambique to help stabilise the northern Cabo Delgado province where Islamist insurgents are overwhelming security forces...

Ethiopia’s general election, originally scheduled for August 2020 but delayed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, is set for 5 June. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is looking to secure a mandate for his Prosperity Party (PP), formed in November 2019 out of the parties in Ethiopia’s former ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), with the exception of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), with which he went to war in November 2020.  The conditions for holding the polls are worse than in 2020. Despite limited...

A second report into the circumstances leading to the loss of the Royal Norwegian Navy (RNoN) guided-missile frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad has concluded that the ship could have been saved if the crew had been better trained in damage control procedures and more familiar with the ship’s stability characteristics.    The Norwegian frigate HNoMS   Helge Ingstad  takes on water after colliding with the tanker   Sola TS  on 8 November 2018 in the Hjeltefjord near Bergen.  (MARIT HOMMEDAL/AFP via Getty Ima...

Russia has issued an international notice to pilots (NOTAM) creating no fly zones over Crimea and parts of the Black Sea from 20–24 April in order to practise convoy protection and surface attack drills. ”The area has been declared temporarily dang...

Russia has continued its build up of amphibious forces in the Black Sea for upcoming exercises with the passage of four Project 775 Ropucha-class large landing ships through the Bosphorus on 17 April.    The Russian Northern Fleet Project 775 Ropucha-class large landing ship  Kondopoga  is pictured transiting the Bosphorus en route to the Black Sea on 17 April.  (Devrim Yaylali)    The four ships –  Kaliningrad  and  Korolev  from the Baltic Fleet, and  Kondopoga  and  Aleksan...

In a statement released on 13 April, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned that Myanmar was moving towards a “full blown conflict”. The comments followed the killing of at least 82 people when security forces opened fir...

A team from the US Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR’s) Naval Air Traffic Management Systems Program Office (PMA-213) has completed certification of the precision approach and landing system (PALS) fitted to the UK Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth ahead of the ship’s first operational deployment in late May.    An F-35B prepares to land aboard the RN carrier HMS   Queen Elizabeth  . In March, the Naval Air Traffic Management Systems Program Office completed a critical step in readying the ship for its fir...

The US intelligence community is not optimistic about the prospects of the Afghan government and the Taliban reaching a peace deal anytime soon to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan.  “We assess that prospects for a peace deal will remai...

The US intelligence community has put what it described as China’s ‘push for global power’ at the top of its latest annual report on worldwide threats to the national security of the United States.  Released on 13 April by the Office of the Direct...

Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency, quoting Turkish diplomatic sources, reported on 15 April that the deployment of two US Navy (USN) warships to the Black Sea scheduled for 14 and 15 April had been cancelled. Ankara had not been informed of any po...

US President Joe Biden announced on 14 April that he plans to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan before 11 September, almost 20 years after the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States that resulted in the country engaging in its longest-running war.  “After consulting with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the [US] Congress and the vice president, as well as with [Afghan President] Mr [Ashraf] Ghani and many others ar...

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose by 29% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2020, according to a 14 April report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).  In its latest ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’ report, the UN mission said it documented 1,783 civilian casualties (573 killed and 1,210 injured), adding that of particular concern is the 37% rise in the number of women killed and injured, as well as a 23% increase in child casualties.  Afghan security officials ins...

The Philippines has increased the number of maritime assets deployed to areas it claims in the disputed South China Sea (SCS) amid what Manila described as a “continuous swarming” in the West Philippine Sea of Chinese coastguard and “maritime militia” vessels.    PLAN Jiangdao (Type 056/056A)-class corvette   Baise  was spotted by the Philippine’s NTF-WPS near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea on 11 April.  (NTF-WPS)  The state-owned Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported on 13 April that the Phil...

Russian threat capabilities against Ukraine were added to on 7 April when Moscow’s Ministry of Defence announced that more than 10 amphibious landing and artillery ships are to be transferred from the Caspian Flotilla to the Black Sea Fleet headqua...

Kelvin Wong, unmanned systems editor has confirmed the use of the Chinese-made CH-3A tactical UAV in Myanmar. The latest open-source intelligence from Janes follows. Key pointsMyanmar’s military junta has begun to use its unmanned aerial vehicles to support its operations against protest movements.A rare sighting of the Chinese-made CH-3A tactical UAV over Mandalay has enabled Janes to confirm that it is in operational use in Myanmar following years of speculation.  Popular unrest in central Myanmar has been steadily increasing in the two month...