Russian spy ship fire exposes poor state of Mediterranean fleet, say experts
Incident reveals Russia’s maritime presence in the area is in a state of disrepair and disarray, argue western sources
A fire onboard a Russian spy ship off the coast of Syria has underlined the poor state of the Russian navy as its toehold in the Mediterranean hangs in the balance, analysts and western security services say.
The 55-year-old Kildin got into trouble off the Syrian coast last Thursday, when flames and thick black smoke could be seen billowing from its funnel and it hoisted two black balls up its mast, signifying that the crew no longer had control of the vessel.
The ship notified a nearby Togolese-flagged cargo freighter, the Milla Moon, that it was unable to steer and warned it to stay at least 2km away. The Russian crew assembled on the Kildin’s aft deck and uncovered the lifeboats, but did not ask for help, and after five hours fighting the fire the Kildin restarted its engines and got under way again.
According to western security services, the ship was in the eastern Mediterranean to monitor events in Syria after the fall in December of the Moscow ally Bashar al-Assad, as the Russian navy began to move military equipment out of the part of the Tartus port it controls.
The western sources argued that the Kildin fire, after another blaze two months earlier on the Russian missile frigate the Admiral Gorshkov, revealed Russia’s maritime presence in the area to be in a state of disrepair and disarray. They said that, at the same time that the Kildin was in distress, two other Russian naval vessels, the landing ships Ivan Gren and the Aleksandr Otrakovsky were also adrift temporarily without control of navigation.
Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that mishaps on Russian naval vessels were nothing new, and not confined to the Mediterranean.
“The Russian navy has historically struggled with maintenance and readiness issues. Fires are not uncommon. Operations are undoubtedly taking a toll on an ageing Russian fleet, which lacks sufficient maintenance and support facilities,” Kofman said.
Those problems could become much more severe if the new rulers in Damascus, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), deprive Russia of the use of the Tartus base. So far, Moscow has kept a toehold in post-Assad Syria, at Tartus and the Khmeimim airbase, but the new government’s longer-term intentions are unclear in regard to the forces that helped keep the Assad regime in power for decades.
Last week, the HTS cancelled a 2019 contract with a Russian company, ending its control of the Tartus commercial port, which Moscow had hoped would be a $500m hub for exporting Russian agricultural products to the wider Middle East. That was a bad omen for the naval base, said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow on sea power at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) in London.
“The cancellation of the commercial arrangement is the writing on the wall for the navy, given how hand-in-hand the commercial and the strategic positions were,” Kaushal said.
The loss of Tartus would turn chronic problems in the Russian fleet into a crisis, he argued.
“The Russian navy, post cold war, wasn’t really built for endurance,” Kaushal said. “They built smaller vessels that they could build more rapidly, and packed them very heavily with missiles. That is very useful if you’re defending your own coastal waters but [over longer distances] the smaller the vessel, the more acute the maintenance problems.”
He added: “This is, and always has been, an issue for the Russians, but the issue will become much more significant in light of the potential loss of Tartus.”
Moscow is looking for alternatives in the Mediterranean, but all the options are problematic, according to a Rusi paper this month by Kaushal and Cmdr Edward Black, a former Royal Navy mine clearance diving officer now a visiting fellow at the institute.
Algeria is a longstanding Russian ally, but Moscow’s activities in Mali, where Wagner group mercenaries prop up a military junta, have driven a wedge between the two countries.
In Sudan’s civil war, Russia switched allegiances last year from the Rapid Support Forces to the Sudan Armed Forces, in a move most observers believe to be aimed at securing the use of Port Sudan on the Red Sea. However, access from there to the Mediterranean is dependent on use of the Suez canal, and negotiations with the Sudanese authorities have floundered.
A third option would be eastern Libya, where two ports, Tobruk and Benghazi, are under the sway of a Russian-backed general, Khalifa Haftar, and there are already an estimated 2,000 Russian mercenaries in the region.
A Russian base in Libya is the most likely alternative to Tartus, the Rusi study suggests, but it pointed out that it would make Russia’s ailing Mediterranean fleet a hostage to Haftar and his future choice of allies, and is therefore fraught with political risk for Moscow.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/russian-spy-ship-fire-exposes-poor-state-of-mediterranean-fleet-say-experts
Syria’s leader, Russia’s Putin make first contact since al-Assad’s fall
Moscow helped keep Bashar al-Assad in power when it intervened militarily in Syria’s war in 2015, launching devastating strikes on rebel-held areas.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has spoken to Syria’s interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, the first such top-level contact since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Rebels led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group ousted Moscow’s close ally in December after a lightning offensive, and questions have remained over the fate of Russia’s two military bases in the war-torn country.
During the phone call on Wednesday, al-Sharaa emphasised “the strong strategic ties between the two countries and Syria’s openness to all parties” in a way that serves “the interests of the Syrian people and strengthens Syria’s stability and security”, a statement by the Syrian presidency said.
It also said Putin extended “an official invitation to Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani to visit Russia”.
“The Russian side emphasised its principled position in support of the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian state,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Moscow helped keep al-Assad in power when it intervened militarily in Syria’s war in 2015, launching devastating air strikes on rebel-held areas.
When rebels swept into Damascus in December, Russia granted the former president asylum, angering many Syrians, including the country’s new rulers.
Russia is seeking to secure its naval base in Tartus and its airbase at Khmeimim – both on Syria’s Mediterranean coast and Moscow’s only military bases outside the former Soviet Union – with the new Syrian authorities.
Last month, there were reports that Syria had demanded the return of al-Assad in exchange for allowing Moscow to maintain its military bases.
The bases have proven vital to Russia’s international ambitions, serving as a launchpad for operations in support of al-Assad as well as staging grounds for Moscow to project influence across the Mediterranean region and Africa.
Egypt, Jordan, and the US aid game
Forced to choose between aid cuts and taking displaced Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan may look for aid elsewhere.
US President Donald Trump’s comments on ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza and forcing them into Egypt and Jordan could lead to a radical reshaping of regional alliances, analysts tell Al Jazeera.
Trump repeated his intentions after meeting with King Abdullah II on Tuesday. He had previously indicated that he would use US aid to both countries as leverage to try to force them to go along with his idea.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II seemed to attempt to placate Trump by flattering him and making a pledge to accept 2,000 sick children from Gaza into Jordan.
“I finally see somebody that can take us across the finish line to bring stability, peace and prosperity to all of us in the region,” the Hashemite monarch told Trump. Trump called the line “music to my ears”.
Cairo and Amman have both fervently rejected Trump’s comments on numerous occasions and Egypt will host an emergency Arab Summit on February 27 to form an Arab-led plan to counter Trump’s broadly sketched plan.
Egypt has received more than $87bn in US foreign aid since 1946, though military and economic assistance increased significantly after Egypt signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979.
The current $1.4bn in annual military aid that the US gives Egypt started in 1979 after the Camp David Accords were signed between Egypt and Israel.
Today, Egypt is one of the highest recipients of US foreign aid in the Middle East after Israel.
US foreign aid also plays a significant role in Jordan.
Israel and Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Treaty in 1994, establishing diplomatic, tourism and trade relations between the two countries that laid the groundwork for Jordan to receive billions of dollars in US aid as debt relief.
The US now gives Jordan $1.72bn a year in bilateral foreign assistance.
Jordan is reeling from cuts of $770m in economic aid from USAID, which helped fund some Jordanian ministries, like Education and Public Works, and supported the country’s water security.
This funding is a major part of making Egypt and Jordan’s economies function, but it also helps the US’s regional agenda.
Jordan “has long served as a pro-West partner and continues to play a stabilising role, buffering Israel from Iran and its proxies, hosting refugees, combatting terrorism and extremism and serving as a strong and reliable ally to Western powers,” Dima Toukan, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera.
Egypt offers the US facilitations in the region, “including the movement of US military assets across the region through preferential passage of the Suez Canal and overflights of Egypt’s territory”, according to an Egyptian government-sponsored article in Foreign Policy.
All US military aid finances Egypt’s purchase of weapons systems from US defence contractors, according to a congressional report, making military aid to Egypt an indirect form of subsidy for US defence contractors.
“As a main lever of soft power, aid allows the US a significant margin to exercise influence, manage its image and cultivate common interest,” Toukan said.
Big hole in the budget
The prospect of Trump forcing through his plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza evokes stability concerns in Egypt, according to analysts.
For Jordan, those fears are “existential” the analysts said. Much of Jordan’s population is already of Palestinian origin and for Jordan to take in another million would deeply affect demographics and questions of national identity for many in the country.
To avoid being forced into it, Egypt and Jordan might start to look elsewhere for funding, like their allies in the Gulf or even US competitors for global influence – like Russia and China.
“If the US insists on withdrawing aid, other groups and countries will certainly want to fill this gap,” Toukan told Al Jazeera.
China’s influence in Egypt has grown in the last decade and 2025 has been called the “Year of Egyptian-Chinese Partnership” by the two states.
GCC states – who oppose Trump’s ethnic cleansing suggestion and who enjoy close relations with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s President Abdelfattah el-Sisi – may also decide that filling in the funding gaps is in their interests.
But even if that were the case, it is unlikely the billion-dollar hole in their coffers will be fully covered, possibly forcing them to “implement deeply unpopular austerity measures that predictably lead to protests,” Geoffrey Hughes, author of the book, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy, told Al Jazeera.
“It will also directly hit the security apparatus and all the harder since so much aid is routed through the military and police now.”
House Democrats create a Trump-focused ‘rapid response task force’
House Democrats are ramping up their efforts to respond to President Donald Trump's sweeping overhaul of the federal government by creating a task force that could lead to lawsuits against the administration.
The new "Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group" is part of a "multifaceted struggle to protect and defend everyday Americans from the harm being inflicted by this administration," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday in a letter to colleagues.
The task force will be chaired by Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), a top Jeffries ally who serves in the extended leadership circle. Its co-chairs will be other Democratic committee heads including Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) of Appropriations, Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.) of Oversight and Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) of Judiciary.
Democrats have faced some pressure from their base and a flood of calls to their offices demanding they mount a more determined resistance to Trump and his allies. Jeffries has been laying out a plan for the party's opposition, and Democrats are expected to use their limited leverage in government funding talks that will play out over the coming month. But their ability to influence policy is still limited by the party's minority status in both the House and Senate.
Sudan says plan for first Russian naval base in Africa will go ahead
Two countries’ foreign ministers meet in Moscow and agree there are no obstacles to long-delayed plan
A plan for Russia to establish its first naval base in Africa will go ahead, Sudan’s foreign minister has confirmed, after years of delays over the Red Sea military port.
If the agreement is implemented, Russia would join the US and China in the region. They have bases to the south in Djibouti.
The announcement came during a visit by the foreign minister, Ali Youssef Ahmed al-Sharif, to Moscow where he met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. After their meeting, Sharif said the two countries were in “complete agreement” on establishing a Russian base “and there are no obstacles”.
The Red Sea is one of the world’s most strategically important waterways, connecting the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. About 12% of global trade passes through it.
Sudan first floated the idea of allowing Russia to have a naval facility on its coast in 2017 during a trip to Sochi by Omar al-Bashir, the then president, who was ousted in a 2019 coup. A deal was eventually signed in 2020 that reportedly permitted Russia to keep up to four navy ships, including nuclear-powered ones, in Sudan for a period of 25 years.
At the time, a draft agreement said the bases were for logistical purposes and were “defensive and not aimed against other countries”.
After the meeting with Lavrov, Sharif said a new deal was not required as “there was a deal signed [in 2020] and there is no disagreement”, adding that it only had to be ratified by both sides.
Sudan’s military and civilian leaders dragged their feet on moving ahead with the deal due to lingering differences over its terms. The civil war that started in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces further complicated relations between Russia and Sudan, as the Wagner group threw its weight behind the RSF while the Kremlin appeared to back the Sudanese army.
“Russia was playing both sides,” said Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank and the author of a book on Moscow’s engagements with Africa. Since the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner group’s leader, the Kremlin had “incrementally” deepened ties with the Sudanese army, Ramani added.
Last April, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, visited Sudan and pledged “uncapped” support for its army. Russia has also backed Sudan at the UN security council, where it vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, a move the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, called a disgrace.
Sudan’s army has won a string of battles against the RSF in recent months and is increasingly confident of a decisive victory over the paramilitary group, whose leaders the US has accused of genocide. In January the US imposed sanctions on Sudan’s army leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for “choosing war over good-faith negotiation”.
Aid organisations have said Sudan is the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with the largest internally displaced population and fears that famine has broken out in parts of the country.
The announcement comes weeks after Moscow’s ally in the Middle East, Bashar al-Assad, was overthrown in an armed rebellion in Syria, casting doubt on the future of the Russia’s Tartus naval base in the eastern Mediterranean.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/13/sudan-first-russian-naval-base-in-africa-go-ahead
Four years ago today, on February 13, 2021, Senate Republicans acquitted former president Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial. Although 57 senators, including 7 Republicans, voted to convict Trump for launching the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, that vote did not reach the threshold of 67 votes—two thirds of the Senate—necessary to convict a president in an impeachment trial.
After the trial, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) explained his refusal to convict by saying he did not believe the Senate could convict an ex-president, although McConnell had been instrumental in delaying the impeachment trial until Trump was out of office, perhaps out of concern about dividing the Republican Party between pro-Trump MAGAs and his own establishment wing. McConnell acquitted Trump but, after the vote, blamed Trump alone for the events of January 6, calling his behavior “unconscionable” but adding: “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
Four years later, Trump is back in the White House, and today McConnell provided the only Republican vote against confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the secretary of health and human services, just as yesterday he provided the only Republican vote against the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
Of Kennedy’s confirmation, Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) said to his colleagues: “It’s truly astounding that the Senate stands on the brink of confirming Mr. Kennedy to lead America’s public health agencies. And if the Senate weren’t gripped in this soon-to-be infamous period of total capitulation, I don’t think this nominee would have made it as far as a hearing…. If I’d told you a couple of years ago, ‘There’s a guy who’s been nominated to run public health nationwide. His job will be to protect American families from death and disease. He’s going to run the whole public health system: Medicare, Medicaid, the C[enters] for D[isease] C[ontrol and Prevention], the N[ational] I[nstitutes of] H[ealth]—all of it. He’ll decide how we protect the country from infectious disease, he’ll set the rules for every hospital in the country, he’ll decide what healthcare and medicines get covered by Medicare, he’ll manage our response in the event of a pandemic.’ And then I told you,… ‘Well,... there are a few concerns about this nominee. First of all, zero relevant experience. He’s a trial lawyer, a politician from a famous family. No medical or scientific background, he’s never run a hospital or a health system or anything like that. Second of all… he’s said some pretty wild stuff about public health, over and over and over again, like: he proposed that Covid-19 might be ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews. Ethnically targeted to spare Jews. He said Lyme disease was a military bioweapon. For years he’s been persuading American families against routine childhood immunizations. He’s compared the work of the CDC to ‘Nazi death camps.’... If a couple of years ago I told you all that, and I told you that the Senate was about to put America’s health in this man’s hands, you’d probably tell me the Senate has lost its mind.”
All the Senate Republicans but McConnell voted to confirm Kennedy.
But while Senate Republicans are enabling the Trump administration, a significant revolt against it took place today in New York City and Washington, D.C., when at least six prosecutors resigned in protest after Emil Bove III, the acting deputy attorney general of the Department of Justice, ordered them to dismiss corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams.
In September 2024, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted Adams on five counts of wire fraud, campaign finance offenses, and bribery. According to then–U.S. attorney Damian Williams, “Adams abused his position as this City’s highest elected official…to take bribes and solicit illegal campaign contributions. By allegedly taking improper and illegal benefits from foreign nationals—including to allow a Manhattan skyscraper to open without a fire inspection—Adams put the interests of his benefactors, including a foreign official, above those of his constituents.”
But on February 10, 2025, Bove directed acting interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, who was elevated by the Trump administration just last month, to dismiss the charges against Adams. That same day, Adams told top New York City officials to stay out of the way of immigration enforcement and to refrain from criticizing President Trump.
Yesterday, February 12, Sassoon wrote an 8-page letter of protest to Attorney General Pam Bondi about the order to drop charges against Adams, but to keep open the possibility of future prosecution. She noted that “the evidence against Adams…proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed federal crimes” and suggested that Bove and the Trump administration proposed “dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws.” “[T]he rule of law depends upon the evenhanded administration of justice,” Sassoon wrote, and the “legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence.”
“But Adams has argued in substance—and Mr. Bove appears prepared to concede—that Adams should receive leniency for federal crimes solely because he occupies an important public position and can use that position to assist in the Administration's policy priorities.” Sassoon called Adams’s offer of help to the Trump administration “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for the dismissal of his case.” She recounted a meeting on January 31 with Bove, Adams’s lawyers, and members of her office, in which Adams’s lawyers repeatedly offered an exchange, “indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.” Bove ordered the confiscation of notes of the meeting taken by a member of Sassoon’s team.
“Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged,” Sassoon wrote, “I cannot agree to seek a dismissal.” She continued: “I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seeming collaboration with Adams’s counsel….” But if Attorney General Bondi was unwilling to meet or reconsider the dismissal, Sassoon wrote, she was “prepared to offer my resignation.”
Today, in a defensive 8-page letter, Bove attacked Sassoon and accepted her resignation, claiming she was “pursuing a politically motivated prosecution,” and dismissed her suggestion “that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution in a manner inconsistent with the politics of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General.”
Bove transferred the Adams case to the Public Integrity Section (PIN) in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Rather than dismiss the case, the chief of the Public Integrity Section and the senior career official in the Criminal Division, as well as three of the deputy chiefs at PIN, also resigned. A fourth was giving birth, but Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported that she was expected to resign when she was able.
Today, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro sued the Trump administration to guarantee the release of more than $3 billion allocated to Pennsylvania’s state agencies. Shapiro noted that multiple federal judges have ordered administration officials to release the funding they have impounded, but that funding has not been restored. The lawsuit details the programs funded with federal money, including repairing abandoned mining lands and contaminated waterways, plugging abandoned oil and gas wells, upgrading energy efficiency for up to 28,000 low-income households to lower utility bills, and so on.
The lawsuit reiterates that “unilaterally suspending funds…violates the U.S. Constitution,” which gives Congress alone the power to write the laws that appropriate funding.
Also today, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to disburse the foreign aid it has impounded. As Lindsay Whitehurst and Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press note, the judge rejected the administration's argument that it impounded funds to review each program. He said officials “have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shockwave and upended reliance interests for thousands of agreements with businesses, nonprofits, and organizations around the country, was a rational precursor to reviewing programs.”
Trump’s Gaza plan unites jihadist and far-right circles, experts warn
Trump’s threat to take over Gaza is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements
As Donald Trump continues to threaten to take control over the Gaza Strip, an unlikely consensus has emerged across hardcore jihadist and far-right circles: both strongly oppose any new US military actions in the territory.
Now experts are warning that Trump’s plan is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements with track records of domestic terrorist attacks.
What initially began as an impromptu proposal during a White House visit with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, now appears to be the makings of serious policy: the president wants to turn Gaza into a sort of American resort on the Mediterranean, despite widespread condemnation from the global community.
“We’re going to take it,” said Trump last week. “We’re going to hold it.”
The United Nations chief called Trump’s plan “ethnic cleansing” while two key regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have outright rejected it. Since the 7 October attacks in 2023, at least 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza (many of whom are women and children) have died.
But any hypothetical takeover of war-torn Gaza – still teaming with thousands of Hamas fighters – undoubtedly requires American troops to be deployed to the Middle East on a mission of occupation for the first time since the failed Iraq war. Of course, the Islamic State (IS), originally an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, was spawned out of that conflict.
Already, some of its propagandists and supporters are vowing to fight Trump’s plans for Gaza.
“Islamic State knew that the [Americans] will takeover Gaza and displace the Palestinian [Muslims] to Sinai and other nearby countries and now we have Trump [infidel] who is talking about taking Gaza and displacing its population,” said one IS propagandist on an internal RocketChat, the group’s choice encrypted messaging service that it uses for recruitment.
Trump is demanding that Egypt and Jordan, along with the other Arab League countries, take in Palestinian refugees he intends to displace during his rebuilding of Gaza.
Another IS propaganda image spreading online through its media wing shows a picture of Trump pointing to Gaza on a map with the message: “The [infidels] will never succeed.”
“It is a Jewish project under American sponsorship that aims to fire the last bullet of mercy on the so-called ‘issue’ of the Arab-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli conflict,” wrote another unknown IS operative about Trump’s plans, in one of its recent monthly magazines to followers.
Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism and a research fellow at the Soufan Center, pointed out that “Islamic State supporters have taken to social media and messaging applications to capitalize on these comments and frame them as confirming the organization’s already-developing narratives about US support for Israel and its policies”.
Webber says it’s a continuation of a highly successful campaign after 7 October to “tap into sentiments stirred up by the Israeli military response to Hamas’s attack to gain support, recruit, fundraise and incite violence”.
He also noted that IS has newly active cells all over the world and has made concerted efforts to inspire followers in the US, such as the recent mass casualty event in New Orleans over the holidays.
“The recent statement provides fodder for [IS] to continue leveraging this potent issue,” said Webber.
On the other side of the spectrum, white nationalists of almost every ilk have gone against the Trump administration’s designs on Gaza. For accelerationist neo-Nazis, the kinds that preach coordinated bombings and other attacks to bring down the US government, they are undoubtedly inspired by their antisemitic hatred for Israel.
“TRUMP TO SEND WHITES TO DIE FOR JEWS IN OCCUPATION OF GAZA,” said one prominent neo-Nazi account on Telegram in a post with over 2,000 views. “At present, our race is under the direction of hostile foreign tribes.”
That account promised to “organize our people” against any Gaza war and the government.
“They still want to genocide western white men,” said another user in response to that post. “Don’t be fooled by certain concessions the system will try to make.”
“They still very much hate you, but need you to fight their war.”
Many have also pointed out that if any potential occupation of Gaza looks anything similar to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, it means the deaths of American soldiers.
“If Trump actually tries to follow through, there will be a war in which Americans will be expected to fight,” said one of the most influential neo-Nazi accounts on Telegram. “Are you going to go fight and die so Trump can give Gaza to Israel?”
Joshua Fisher-Birch, a terrorism analyst at the non-profit Counter Extremism Project, said that a prospective Gaza occupation has angered the far right “more than any other issue has in 2025 so far”.
“White supremacist online propagandists have reacted to Trump’s idea to take over Gaza with disgust and have stated that it is an act of betrayal,” he said. “The proposal is being portrayed as Trump sending white Americans to die on behalf of Israel.”
One common theme emerging is that veterans of the “war on terror”, some of whom are operating these far-right Telegram accounts, are denouncing wars in far-off countries.
“Our war is here,” said one popular far-right account that is run by a US military veteran. “Not in Ukraine, not in Gaza, but right here on the North American continent.”
Fisher-Birch said he had seen that account and those of other veterans who are deeply unhappy.
“Several Telegram channels run by individuals who claim to be [global war on terrorism] veterans have condemned Trump’s Gaza takeover plan,” he said. “Other channels have stated that the extreme risks associated with the plan are a good reason why white men should avoid the military and seek training elsewhere.”
Berlin is warning Vice President JD Vance against interfering in German politics ahead of an upcoming election after he said that European governments, including Germany’s, should work with anti-immigrant, far-right parties.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said that Vance’s comments earlier Friday were one-sided interference ahead of an election slated to take place in less than two weeks.
“This perhaps shows that it has been a good idea so far not to interfere in the internal affairs of a friendly country because sometimes you don’t have a full overview of a political debate,” Hebestreit said during a news conference, later adding: “As a government spokesman, I do not think it is right for someone from a friendly foreign country to interfere so intensively one-sided in the middle of an election campaign.”
In his speech to the Munich Security Conference, Vance sought to characterize these parties — including Alternative for Germany (AFD) — as a product of legitimate concerns from voters about migration into Europe.
Vance also referenced Germany’s refusal to form governments with the AfD, often referred to as a “fire wall” against extremism in the country.
“What no democracy … will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered. Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters,” Vance said. “There’s no room for fire walls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t.”
US vice-president told litany of tales of Europe’s rights infringements in speech to leaders at defence gathering
In JD Vance’s confrontational and pugnacious speech at the Munich Security Conference, the vice-president ran through a series of examples to highlight his claims that Europe has gone off the rails. Here, we look at what he said – and whether it stacks up.
United Kingdom
Speaking about “our very dear friends, the United Kingdom”, Vance claimed a “backslide away from conscience rights” had “placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs”.
The British government, he said, had charged Adam Smith-Conner, a physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the “heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own”.
Vance claimed that Conner told an “unmoved” law enforcement officer that he was praying for an unborn son that he and a former girlfriend had aborted years before. “Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new ‘buffer zones law’, which criminalises silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 metres of an abortion facility,” Vance said. “He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.”
Fact check
Smith-Connor was convicted of breaching a safe zone in October last year, after refusing repeated requests to move away from outside an abortion clinic in Bournemouth in November 2022.
The 51-year-old told the council the day before he would be carrying out a silent vigil as he had on previous occasions. On the day, a community officer spoke to him for an hour and 40 minutes and asked him to leave – but he refused. Smith-Connor was handed a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay more than £9,000 costs after the case was brought by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
Smith-Connor is receiving legal support from Alliance Defending Freedom International, an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group which states that it “champions religious freedom through … advocacy efforts”. ADF International said it would be supporting Smith-Connor to appeal against the decision in July.
Smith-Connor’s case was brought after a public space protection order was introduced outside the Bournemouth clinic in October 2022, which banned activity including protests, harassment and vigils.
October last year saw the introduction of the Public Order Act 2023 in England and Wales, which introduced buffer zones of 150 metres around abortion clinics to stop women being harassed with leaflets, shown pictures of foetuses, or having to pass by vigils.
Scotland
The Scottish government was said to have begun distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay “within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law”. He went on: “The government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.”
Fact check
The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act, introduced last year, introduced safe access zones within 200 metres of abortion clinics, banning harassing, alarming or distressing actions.
“Silent prayer” is listed among the banned activities to prevent mass silent vigils which have been used by large groups of US anti-abortion protesters such as 40 Days for Life who gather outside clinics to pressure women entering not to have an abortion.
A Conservative US TikToker erroneously claimed that silent prayer at home could break the law in Scotland. However the law states that the actions are banned if they are likely to cause alarm or distress to someone accessing abortion services. Silent prayer in a home which caused no distress and alarm to other would not fall under this category.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The vice-president’s claim is incorrect. Private prayer at home is not prohibited within safe access zones and no letter has ever suggested it was.”
Romania
Vance told the Munich security conference that a former European commissioner had “sounded delighted” that an “entire election” in Romania had been annulled. Vance added: “He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too … But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”
Fact check
The US vice-president was referring to comments by the former European commissioner Thierry Breton. The former French minister had been speaking after the decision by Romania’s constitutional court in December to annul the early results of the country’s presidential election.
The court had intervened after declassified intelligence documents pointed to what was described as a massive and “highly organised” campaign for the independent candidate Călin Georgescu, on the TikTok platform which was probably orchestrated by a “state actor”. Georgescu has committed to stop all Romanian political and military support for Ukraine if elected.
Commenting on the case, Breton had said: “Let’s keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe when they are at risk of being circumvented … We did it in Romania, and we will obviously do it if necessary in Germany.”
Elon Musk intervened at the time on X, referring to “the staggering absurdity of Thierry Breton as the tyrant of Europe”. Breton responded: “Tyrant of Europe? Wow! But No Elon Musk: the EU has NO mechanism to nullify any election anywhere in EU. Not at all what is said in the video below related only to the application of the [Digital Services Act] and its moderation obligations. Lost in translation… or another fake news?”
Brussels
Vance said that in Brussels “EU Commission commissars” had warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest at “the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content”. In Germany, he claimed police had carried out “raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny’ on the internet”.
Fact check
Under the Digital Services Act, the European Commission can ask a digital services coordinator in an EU member state to ask a judge to assess an application for a temporary restriction on access within the EU to a large online platform or search engine. The commission does also have the power to bypass the judge-led process in an “urgent situation”. The commission has said that such an extreme measure must “follow the due process” and “would be limited in time”.
Restrictions on services can only be enforced where there is evidence of criminal offences involving threat to people’s life or safety. Should the commission use its enforcement powers, its decisions are subject to judicial redress at the European court of justice.
German police carried out raids last March on the homes of people suspected of posting misogynistic hate speech on the internet, including those advocating rape or sexual assault. Police raided homes and interrogated 45 suspects in 11 states. None of the suspects were detained.
Sweden
Vance said “the government” had “convicted a Christian activist for participating in Qur’an burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder”. He went on: “And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant – and I’m quoting – a ‘free pass’ to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.”
Fact check
Salwan Najem was given a suspended sentence and a fine by a court over statements he made in connection with four incidents of Qur’an burning in Stockholm. He had carried out the book burning with Salwan Momika, who was subsequently shot dead during a TikTok broadcast last month. Najem, who came to Sweden from Iraq in 1998 and has been a Swedish citizen since June 2005, told the court that his actions were legitimate criticisms of religion protected by Sweden’s freedom of expression laws. Göran Lundahl, the judge in the case, said freedom of expression did not constitute a “free pass to do or say anything”.
Germany
Vance cited the recent attack in Munich as reason for a “new direction”, suggesting the attack was typical. “An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rammed a car into a crowd and shatters a community”, he said.
Fact check
German police and prosecutors have said that an Afghan suspect in a car ramming in central Munich that injured at least 36 people was believed to have had an “Islamist” motive and will answer to charges of attempted murder. They have not found links to a jihadist organisation such as the Islamic State group nor any accomplices.
According to the latest EU terrorism situation and trend report from Europol, there were a total of 120 terrorist attacks (98 completed, nine failed and 13 foiled) in seven EU member states in 2023. The highest number of terrorist attacks were perpetrated by separatist terrorists (70, all completed), followed by leftwing and anarchist actors (32, of which 23 completed). There were 14 jihadist terrorist attacks of which five were completed. Two rightwing terrorist attacks were foiled.
The meeting with Alice Weidel, head of the anti-immigration, nationalist Alternative for Germany party, was a major step for her movement, which major parties have sought to bar from coalitions.
Vance is the most senior U.S. official ever to meet with a leader from the party. He also met in recent days with the leaders of Germany’s two other major parties, which are locked in competition ahead of Feb. 23 elections, in which the Alternative for Germany party might break through a post-World War II taboo and join a ruling coalition for the first time.
