Category World News

A day after a wave of Israeli raids rocked the south of Lebanon, President Joseph Aoun reported to have met with a delegation from the UN Security Council (UNSC) to discuss the rising tensions with Israel and efforts to disarm Hezbollah.

Aoun urged the UNSC team to press Israel to abide by a ceasefire that it had violated almost daily on November 2024 and to leave southern Lebanon.

In remarks made by the NNA, Aoun said, “We look forward to pressure from your side.”

Aoun previously stated that the UN delegation would travel to southern Lebanon to check “the situation on the ground,” which included meetings with prime minister Nawaf Salam and parliament speaker Nabih Berri. According to Aoun, the trip would allow the delegation to “see the real picture of what is happening there” as the army implements a plan to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons.

Hezbollah is angered by the UN’s visit, which comes amid flimsy indications of potential deeper ties between Lebanon and Israel.

Hezbollah’s chief Naim Qassem criticized the two states’ first direct discussions on Wednesday as a “free concession” to Israel, which Lebanon technically is still at war with.

Qassem claimed that the civilian-led discussions violate the Lebanese government’s policy, which should be ensuring state sovereignty, in comments made by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper.

Qassem called Israel an “expansionist” and claimed that it had carried out “constant” attacks and refused to abide by the ceasefire agreement signed last year with Hezbollah.

Qassem stated that the US has no business interfering with internal Lebanese issues, including the country’s defense strategy or Hezbollah’s efforts to disarm the country. “This aggression is not due to Hezbollah’s weapons, but rather aims to gradually occupy Lebanon and establish a “Great Israel” through Lebanon,” Qassem continued.

Salam, for his part, defended the “positive” discussions with Israel, which were held during a meeting of the military committee monitoring their ceasefire, saying they were only concerned with putting the 2024 truce into effect.

Negotiations are “under fire,” right?

Israel’s military continued the negotiations with additional attacks in southern Lebanon despite the apparent diplomatic opening. It launched its latest of hundreds of attacks on southern Lebanese villages on Thursday, breaking the 2024 truce and causing the deaths of dozens of civilians and destroying important infrastructure, all of which were attributed to Hezbollah.

Zeina Khodr, a correspondent for Al Jazeera in Beirut, claimed that the strikes “will continue until Hezbollah is completely disarmed.”

Hezbollah has publicly resisted disarming it, but the organization has continued to bombard and occupy Lebanon.

Qassem asserted in recent days that the armed group has the authority to respond to the country’s top military official’s assassination last month in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah has “the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that,” according to Qassem, calling Haytham Ali Tabatabai’s killing “a blatant aggression and a heinous crime.”

The “language of negotiation”

The government’s negotiations with Israel, which are scheduled to resume on December 19, are seen by Aoun’s Information Minister Paul Morcos as the only way to progress, according to Morcos. There is negotiation as the only option. At a cabinet meeting, Aoun, a former commander of the Lebanese army, said, “This is the reality, and this is what history has taught us about wars,” Morcos claimed.

There would be no concession to Lebanon’s sovereignty, according to Morcos, and Aoun stressed the necessity for “the language of negotiation, not the language of war,” to prevail.

Lebanon was tasked with putting an end to armed groups’ hostilities in the wake of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, with Lebanon tasked with putting an end to Israeli military action.

Despite the terms of the agreement, Israeli forces are still occupying at least five positions in Lebanese territory and have not withdrawn. More than 300 people have been killed in near-daily attacks across Lebanon, including at least 127 civilians, according to the UN.

The likelihood of a US attack on Venezuela seems to be getting more and more likely as the US naval deployments in the Caribbean get worse and rhetoric gets worse.

Since early September, the US has carried out military strikes on at least 21 Venezuelan boats it claims are trafficking drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 87 people. The Trump administration cites a threat to national security as justification for the attacks, according to the Trump administration. However, it has not provided any proof of drug trafficking, and experts claim that Venezuela is not the main hub for the flow of drugs, such as cocaine, into the US.

US President Donald Trump has given conflicting messages about whether he plans a ground operation inside Venezuela. He has denied that he was considering strikes inside the country while also denying that he has ruled and not yet. However, he has authorized CIA operations there.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims Trump’s real objective is to force a regime change by removing him from power, and warned that the country would resist any such attempt.

What we know is as follows:

How was Venezuela susceptible to US attacks?

Analysts say the US has several military options for striking Venezuela, most of which employ air and maritime power rather than ground troops.

The US has recently deployed a sizable air and naval force to the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the area close to Venezuela’s coast.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated to Al Jazeera that “the pieces are in place for an air and missile attack.”

“The first strike will likely be long-range missiles launched from air and sea because Venezuela has relatively strong air defences”, he said.

Analysts believe that targeting alleged cartel-linked infrastructure would be easier to justify internationally and to arrive at a conclusion quickly given the Trump administration’s rhetoric’s growing focus on the Maduro government, which it claims has links to drug gangs in Venezuela.

A ground invasion has been ruled out by almost all experts.

“I don’t really see that an attack is likely at all at this stage”, Elias Ferrer, founder of Orinoco Research and the lead editor of the Venezuelan media organisation Guacamaya, said.

Because the region’s ground forces are insufficiently strong for an invasion, Cancian said, “There will be no boots on the ground.”

Additionally, a large-scale land operation would likely face significant challenges domestically and be deeply unpopular.

“Any move toward overt ground operations would encounter significant legal barriers, congressional pushback, and the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan – all of which make a full occupation extremely unlikely”, Salvador Santino Regilme, a political scientist who leads the international relations programme at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera.

Not a binary choice between “no attack” and an invasion a la the way of Iraq, he said, “an analysis should be made in terms of a spectrum of limited but potentially escalating uses of force.”

An “Iraq-style invasion” refers to a massive ground invasion that is followed by a US-led occupation, the dismantling of state institutions, and a never-ending nation-building effort. This type of intervention would require the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, years of counterinsurgency operations, and significant political and financial investment.

What might Venezuela’s US attack entail?

Analysts warn that a military strike is far more likely to cause instability for the country than it does for policymakers in Washington.

Ferrer described the idea of an attack as opening a “Pandora’s box”.

Armed actors have the power to take control of some areas of the country, whether they’re politically motivated or just organized crime, because both the military and paramilitary actors have that power in a conflict. Not just the outcome, either. But you open up all of those possibilities”.

Ferrer warned that the political opposition would be one of the least likely to suffer in such a setting.

The Venezuelan opposition is one of the most likely losers from this scenario, he said, only because they don’t have strong ties to the armed and security forces or have strong ties to them.

Indeed, some analysts argue that even a limited US strike would likely strengthen the Maduro government in the short term.

According to Santino Regilme, “external aggression frequently results in a rally-around-the-flag effect and gives incumbents a potent pretext to criminalize dissent as treason.”

The opposition, which is already dispersed and socially uneven, would likely split more between those who support US pressure and those who fear being permanently discredited as foreign proxies, he added.

“Comparative experiences in Iraq, Libya, and other cases of externally driven regime change suggest that coercive intervention rarely produces stable democracy”, Santino Regilme explained.

Senior Venezuelan officials have taken a standoffish position in the face of mounting tensions. They publicly call for peace, but they also refer to any potential US action as a violation of international law.

“They]the US] think that with a bombing they’ll end everything. “Here, in this nation” On state television in early November, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello made fun of himself.

Maduro struck a similar tone earlier this month.

He declared, “We want peace, but peace with sovereignty, equality, and freedom.” We oppose peace in colonies and between slaves.

What is the US’s primary strategy?

The retired Marine Corps colonel from CSIS, Cancian, claimed that the US is working with the CIA to undermine Venezuela’s military’s loyalty to the Maduro government.

“The United States may tell these forces that they will be left alone if they remain in garrison during any fighting”, Cancian explained.

He claimed that during Desert Storm, the US carried out similar actions. A US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the Gulf War of 1991.

In that conflict, US officials quietly signalled to certain Iraqi units that if they stayed in their barracks and did not resist, they would not be targeted – an approach that helped limit resistance during the ground offensive.

Cancian claims that the Venezuelan government has removed any military-related opposition.

There is therefore a high likelihood that the military and security forces will engage in combat, he added.

So how could Venezuela’s military respond to an attack?

Ferrer argued that everything depends on what the US sends them before an attack. What’s actually more intriguing is the kind of deal being tried by the US,” she said. How is it trying to involve or marginalise the armed forces and the security forces”?

Is it telling them, “Hey guys, you can stay in control of these businesses, these ministries – the generals can keep their posts,” he asked? Or will it engage in “de-Baathification” in Iraq, where all officers are fired and all soldiers are fired to purge the armed forces of pro-Maduro elements?

Marginalising the armed forces could trigger more, not less, violence, Ferrer warned.

You might have pockets of conflict that are occurring throughout the nation, not necessarily a coup or civil war that involve the entire nation. If the armed forces are marginalized, he continued, “that’s definitely a possibility.”

What might Venezuelans do as a general?

The picture is complicated, according to analysts. “Ordinary Venezuelans have already endured a prolonged socioeconomic collapse, hyperinflation, widespread shortages, international sanctions and one of the largest displacement crises in the world”, Santino Regilme said.

In 2025, a recent study found that about 28 to 30 percent of Venezuelans needed humanitarian aid.

A US attack, in contrast, “would likely be seen less as a moment of “liberation” and more as yet another layer of insecurity, one that threatens what is left of basic services like food and medicine.”

“Public opinion research shows deep distrust both toward the government and toward foreign military intervention, suggesting that popular reactions would be heterogeneous, ambivalent, and heavily shaped by class, geography, and political identity”, Santino Regilme added.

What would the international partners of Venezuela say?

Regional and international actors’ responses are likely to reflect their current strategic alliances with Caracas.

According to analysts, China, now one of Venezuela’s largest creditors and economic partners, is expected to maintain firm diplomatic support for Maduro, but its ability to shape events on the ground would be limited if open conflict erupted.

We are aware that China’s influence would be diminished in the event of an armed conflict between Venezuela and the US, according to Carlos Pina, a political analyst from Venezuela.

Russia, on the other hand, has a closer military stance toward Venezuela. Moscow has supplied advanced weapons systems, trained Venezuelan personnel, and maintained intelligence cooperation for years.

The use of military equipment that this Eurasian nation has sold to Caracas would be linked to Moscow’s [role],” said Pina.

In any case, both nations would continue to support Maduro politically. As the expert noted, “the diplomatic support of these countries for Nicolas Maduro would be undisputed”.

Could the US take aim at other nations?

Analysts warn that Venezuela’s US aggression might have regional effects.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday this week, Trump warned that any country producing narcotics would be a potential target, and singled out Colombia for producing cocaine, which ends up in the US.

Therefore, according to experts, what is happening right now with Venezuela could serve as a general framework for defining regional domestic political crises as “narco-terrorist” threats, a term that could serve as a justification for military action under the auspices of counterterrorism or law enforcement.

According to Santino Regilme, “what is being tested around Venezuela is less a single country policy than a broader template, where complex domestic crises are reframed as “narco-terrorist” threats that justify extraterritorial use of force under the banners of law enforcement and counterterrorism.”

If applied to other countries in the region, he warned, this model could “further erode the already fragile constraints on the use of force in international law and weaken regional mechanisms that seek negotiated political settlements”.

A young Maqbool Fida Husain, who was barely in his 20s, made his way to Bombay, the Indian financial capital, in the 1930s, from Indore city, which was 600 kilometers (370 miles) away.

His dream was to make films. He started painting billboards for the burgeoning Bollywood film industry after finding it difficult to survive in the city.

A decade later, as newly independent India was finding its footing, Husain became a part of a group of artists who laid the foundations of modern art in the country. He later became one of the most well-known and renowned Indian modern artists of the 20th century, frequently referred to as “India’s Picasso.”

But despite the global renown and the numerous awards – internationally and at home in India – Husain found himself the target of a concerted hate campaign by a rising Hindu majoritarian movement starting in the 1990s, forcing him to flee.

Famous works by Husain have found permanent homes in Doha, Qatar’s capital, since the artist was granted citizenship in 2010, nearly 20 years after he fled into exile and 14 years after his death in London.

Lawh Wa Qalam: MF Husain Museum inaugurated

The board and the pen, or Lawh Wa Qalam, was inaugurated by Qatar last month, which honors Husain’s life and work that spanned more than six decades.

“Maqbool Fida Husain is a legendary artist – a true master whose artistic works transcend borders and connect cultures, histories, and identities”, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the chair of Qatar Foundation, said during the museum’s inauguration.

The celebrated artist’s final works, along with his other works, including photography, films, and poetry, are displayed in the new museum, which is located in Doha’s sprawling Education City.

At least 35 paintings, which were completed as part of his Arab Civilisation series before Husain died in 2011, are on display in the building.

Husain incorporated Arabic script and calligraphy into his bold modern style to illustrate the significance of the early Islamic military victory in The Battle of Badr. Arab Astronomy, another painting, honours scholars who mapped the heavens.

Seeroo fi al ardh (meaning “travel through the earth”, in Arabic), a multimedia art installation that opened in 2019, now forms part of the museum. Through the lens of the Arab region, the installation examines the evolution of human civilization.

“From the outset, one of the biggest questions for us was how to represent the range of Husain’s practice without reducing it to a simple linear story at Lawh Wa Qalam”, Noof Mohammed, museum curator, told Al Jazeera.

One of his most ambitious career stages was the one that we wanted to concentrate on presenting in Doha, which we wanted to do primarily. Projects like Seeroo fi al ardh and the Arab Civilisation series show him working on a scale and clarity that deserve to be seen together, and that shaped how we approached the narrative”.

The museum, which is spread over 290 square meters (3, 000 square feet), also houses his personal belongings, including Indian passport books, which he gave up in 2010.

“We were lucky that Husain made Qatar his home, where he was able to produce a lot of artwork that is part of the collection in the museum”, Kholoud Al-Ali, executive director of community engagement and programming at Qatar Foundation, said.

The Education City of the Qatar Foundation is home to some of the best educational institutions, including Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as a hub for contemporary Arab art. The campus boasts more than 100 public art installations, including those by Damien Hirst and Faraj Daham.

Al-Ali told Al Jazeera, “This museum is going to be an addition to the Education City ecosystem, a place where students, researchers, and anyone interested in art can find essentially what they’re looking for.”

confined to his home

By the time Husain had moved to Doha, he had long secured his place as one of the world’s biggest figures – and as a lightning rod for criticism from the Hindu far-right in India.

His paintings, which were exhibited at international fairs like the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil alongside the renowned Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, broke auction records throughout the 20th century.

Husain was a versatile artist working across multiple mediums: Films, photography, tapestry and poetry.

In 1967, he directed the experimental film Through the Eyes of a Painter, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. He also directed Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities and Gaj Gamini, starring his muse, Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit.

Husain had a cult following and was adored by the press for decades. He developed a celebrity-like reputation by walking barefoot. The Calcutta Club, an elite British-era social club based in the Indian city of Kolkata, once came in for heavy criticism when it refused Husain entry for not wearing shoes.

Hindu right at attack

But by the mid-1990s, Husain’s portrayal of nude Hindu deities, some of them drawn in the 1970s, stirred controversy. He was accused of insulting Hindu sentiments and making up.

Multiple criminal police complaints were filed against the artist after a magazine, Vichar Mimansa, published his painting depicting Hindu deity Saraswati in the nude in 1996. A new wave of lawsuits resulted from a painting of Bharat Mata (Mother India) as a naked woman eight years later. He apologised, but that did not deter the torrent of hate and legal cases.

His Mumbai home was ransacked in 1998, and hundreds of police complaints were made all over the country. His exhibitions were vandalised in India and abroad, forcing Husain, in his 80s, to leave India in 2006 for safety.

The Supreme Court of India ruled that Husain’s Bharat Mata painting was a work of art in 2008, and the case was quashed. India has a tradition of graphic sexual iconography in temples, the top court reminded petitioners.

Husain felt uneasy about returning to India, where anti-Muslim rants were becoming more common. He died in 2011 in London at the age of 95.

Husain’s attacks weren’t isolated. The right to freedom of speech and expression in India has been declining since the rise of the Hindu right in the 1990s.

Numerous filmmakers, authors, and artists have been the target of increasing anti-Hindu nationalist attacks. Bollywood star Aamir Khan faced boycott calls from Hindu groups over his work and past media interviews, during which he expressed concerns about rising religious intolerance.

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, came to power ten years ago, hundreds of Muslims have been lynched by Hindu vigilantes, hundreds of houses have been destroyed in violation of ‘bulldozer justice’ without the proper process, and a number of legal and institutional measures have been put in place, negatively affecting the minority community.

In January this year, a Delhi court ordered the seizure of “offensive” paintings by Husain. Hindu organizations threatened to obstruct the late painter’s Mumbai auction. The event eventually went ahead without incident under tight security.

His departure from India is tragic, and it is a sign of the kind of censorship and repression of speech and expression that has become much more prevalent, according to Sonal Khullar, an art historian from the University of Pennsylvania.

Khullar, who featured Husain in her 2015 book Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity and Modernism in India, 1930-1990, said the attack on Husain was due to both his Muslim heritage and the secular ethos that informed his work.

“I think it really came down to what this artist was able to represent in India, whether you understood him to represent Muslim peoples, societies, or whether you understood him to represent a secular ethos,” he said. And I think that’s what came under an attack”, she told Al Jazeera.

The architecture of the museum

The architecture of the museum was inspired by Husain’s sketch dubbed Lawh wa Qalam. The multiple influences that inspired Husain are reflected in the building design.

“For instance, the blue tile used in the building has its origins in Central Asia, and it has become an important part of the architectural language”, said Martand Khosla, the architect of the museum.

Given Husain’s impact on the Indian cultural landscape, Khosla claims the project was extremely personal.

“We grew up seeing his work … at airports, at convention centres and inside people’s homes”, he recalled. He continues to be significant. So in that sense, it was a real privilege to be able to come and build a museum for him”.

Husain’s work

Husain was one of the most well-known contemporary Indian artists, with between 30 000 and 40 000 pieces of art.

His paintings portrayed Indian icons such as Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India’s independence struggle, to mythologies such as the Mahabharata with motifs of rural and urban life.

According to Khullar, the art historian, “Many of his early paintings seemed to make references to both wall paintings from the country of India, the ones you would find in the caves of Ajanta and those you would see in village homes.”

Painter Akhilesh Singh, who wrote Husain’s biography, Maqbool, said the turning point of his career was Between the Spider and the Lamp, which portrays five women figures standing with a lamp and a spider coming down from the roof.

It is considered to be the most significant piece of contemporary Indian art, according to Singh. It was modernist yet rooted in the folk tradition of India, he told Al Jazeera, adding that it defined Husain’s style.

Husain’s artwork was a break from the revivalist nationalism of the past that had triggered the creation of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Secular ethos was the language of his writing, which incorporated elements of Western modernism with elements of Indian culture, history, and folk traditions.

His first solo art exhibition was held in Zurich five years after India’s independence. His work was showcased across Western cities over the following decades, earning him acclaim worldwide.

Singh, the biographer, said Husain’s peers moved abroad, but he stayed in India.

Singh told Al Jazeera, “He helped to establish the entire contemporary art scene of the nation,” adding that he occasionally donated his own paintings to start galleries.

His contribution to Indian art was recognised by the government. In 1991, he was honored with the second-highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan, among other things. He was also nominated to the upper house of parliament in 1986.

Early life and the future

In the state of Maharashtra in western India, Husain was born into a Sulaymani Bohra Muslim family in 1915. But early in his life, he was drawn towards art while studying calligraphy at a madrasa in Vadodara, located in present-day Gujarat state.

He relocated to Indore, in central India, where his father worked in a textile mill after his mother passed away.

In Indore, he was introduced to the images of Hindu deities and other figures from Indian mythology by an art teacher at the Indore School of Art, which he attended, said Singh, his biographer.

Husain departed Indore for Mumbai in 1933, according to Singh, while India was still under British colonial rule.

“He went to Bombay to pursue filmmaking. He believed that film offered more opportunities for expression. But he couldn’t find any entry. He then began to paint movie banners, according to Singh, an internationally renowned painter who resides in Bhopal, India.

Husain had to juggle jobs, also working in a toy factory, to earn additional income before he got a start in the art world. His first painting was sold for 10 rupees in 1934, which is still only 11 cents, according to the current exchange rates.

By the late 1940s, he had established himself as an avant garde artist known for his bold and bright colour on canvas. In 1947, Husain and Francis Newton Souza and Sayed Haider Raza co-founded the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group.

In addition to his provocative art with erotic and unconventional themes, Souza, who later worked in New York and London, was well-known.

But to those who knew him well, Husain was more than just an artist. The legendary artist and Singh’s father were close friends. “He treated me like his son”, Singh told Al Jazeera. Early in the morning, he brought a Jalebi (Indian sweet) to our Indore home, according to him.

Singh recalled how, in the early 2000s, Husain once invited him to London. Husain drove Singh around London in his Rolls-Royce while making breakfast there. “He enjoyed every moment of his life”, Singh said of Husain.

Husain continued to love his motherland despite giving up his Indian passport. “This is just a piece of paper. He said after giving his Indian passport in 2010, “India is my motherland, and I simply cannot leave that country.”

Singh said that while in exile, Husain wanted to visit three Indian cities – Varanasi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. “‘ He told me from exile, “I will come any time,” Singh said. “But he died before he could undertake his journey back to his homeland”.

That Husain was forced to spend his final years in exile remains a blot on India, said Khullar, the art scholar.

One could say that for a certain segment of society, in general, for India itself, is a loss due to a figure like Husain, who was a figure of the Indian art world, which he founded in 1947.

“It’s a dark time, and people are afraid”, she said.

Husain himself, however, never let the attacks deter him from pursuing his art. He spent time in exile working on art projects in Dubai and Qatar.

“He laughed off the controversies. He never touched on the past. He was a man of the future and always looked forward”, Singh said.

The museum serves as a tribute to the board and the pen, an outlet for current and upcoming generations to admire Husain’s wizardry, and a place for that ethos as well.

Vladimir Putin, the top buyer of Russian arms and seaborne oil, was welcomed by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi as negotiations raged. India is negotiating with the United States to lower tariffs on Russian oil as a result of the visit.

The US Justice Department announced on Thursday morning that Virginia resident Brian Cole, 30, has been detained for planting two pipe bombs in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, during the Capitol riots.

What is known about Cole’s arrest, as shown here.

Brian Cole, who is he?

According to the Justice Department, Cole resides in Prince William County in Virginia.

West of Washington, DC, Prince William County is located 36 miles away.

In northern Virginia, Cole works in the office of a bail bondsman, according to an FBI affidavit from December 3. A bail bondsman, also known as a bond agent, is a person or business that guarantees a defendant’s willingness to appear in court hearings after being released from jail.

Cole, along with his mother and “other family members,” reside in a single-family home in Woodbridge. He is described as wearing corrective eyeglasses and standing at 168 cm.

What is Cole facing?

In interstate commerce, Cole is accused of moving IEDs (also known as moving goods between states) with the intent to kill, hurt, or intimidate any person, or otherwise unlawfully to damage, destroy, or damage any building, vehicle, or other real or personal property.

Additionally, Cole is accused of attempting to use explosives and fire to cause malicious harm.

A pipe bomb is what?

Any homemade or custom-made bomb that has been developed and used outside of conventional military production is a type of IED.

A plastic, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe is typically packed with a dangerous substance, typically a powder or a chemical, with each end secured with a cap or plug. Typically, pipe bombs have a remote trigger, timer, or fuse.

What is said to have happened to Cole?

US law enforcement on January 6, 2021, received a notification that an IED might have been placed close to the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters in Washington, DC, around 1 p.m. (18:00 GMT).

A second IED was discovered a few blocks away from the RNC’s headquarters in Washington, DC, about 15 minutes later.

Both IEDs were pipe bombs made of red and black 14-gauge electrical wires connected by alligator clips to a nine-volt battery and connector, as well as paper clips, homemade black powder, and steel wool.

The RNC and DNC are state-wide political party organizations that raise money for their respective political parties across the country.

Both bombs were deactivated before they detonated by USCP members in the Hazardous Devices Section.

Are we aware of Cole’s motivation?

No. The motive behind Cole’s actions has not yet been revealed by authorities.

How was Cole found out?

The same person who was wearing a mask to conceal his face was responsible for the two bombs, according to surveillance footage from the nearby streets. He has now been identified as Cole.

The FBI determined that the suspect was about 5 feet, 7 inches (170cm) tall based on the video footage in January 2021.

The FBI offered a $500, 000 reward for information about the suspect after it released the surveillance footage online in March 2021. In the years that followed, the agency received countless tips.

In the course of its years-long investigation, the FBI claimed to have received tens of tip tips about him.

Around the time the bombs were planted, the FBI then compared Cole’s cellphone records to those in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Additionally, they provided additional information about where he had made the purchases and linked him to those made through bank and credit card data from 2019 and 2020.

“We do not forget, give up, or give in,” he said. Our team continued to churn through large amounts of data and tips that we used to identify this suspect, even though it had been nearly five years, according to FBI deputy assistant director Darren Cox.

What happened on January 6, 2021?

In an effort to prevent the 2020 election results from being certified, thousands of people marched on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. They were fueled by false accusations that Democratic candidate Joe Biden had won the previous November presidential election.

More than 2, 000 rioters smashed windows, damaged furniture and equipment, stole items, and forced their way inside the Capitol building.

At least five people died as a result of the violence, including police officers.

More than 950 people were detained in connection with the riot, and some of them were charged with seditious conspiracy, a rare but serious offence.

Prison sentences for dozens of people were typically three to seven years in prison.

However, some far-right extremists received longer prison terms, lasting between 15 and 22 years.

Trump signed a presidential proclamation pardoning or commuting sentences for 1,500 defendants in January 2025, shortly before his second term as president.

These people have been destroyed, he said at the time. They have done something outrageous to these people. In our nation’s history, it has hardly ever been like it.

What follows?

Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that additional charges may be brought against Cole in connection with the investigation into the riots that occurred on January 6.

He will appear in court in Washington, DC, for a hearing later this week, according to local media.

Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister of Pakistan, has stated that Bangladesh, China, and Islamabad’s recent trilateral agreement could be “extended” to include other regional countries and beyond.

He addressed the Islamabad Conclave forum on Wednesday, saying, “We have opposed zero-sum approaches and consistently stressed the need for cooperation rather than confrontation.”

The proposal amounts to the establishment of a second bloc with a focus on South Asia, with China being added, at a time when the region’s main grouping, the SAARC, has become almost ineffective due to rising India-Pakistan tensions in recent years.

In a trilateral dialogue that was “not directed at any third party,” diplomats from China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh held in June, focusing on regional stability, economic growth, and improving people’s lives.

Dar’s remarks come in the wake of growing regional tensions, including Pakistan’s decades-long conflict with India. In May, the two nuclear-armed neighbors engaged in a brief four-day airstrike, further straining relations.

In addition, since former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in August of last year, ties between Dhaka and New Delhi have deteriorated significantly. Hasina fled to India after being ousted during a popular uprising, and New Delhi has so far refused to send her back to Bangladesh, where she was found guilty of crimes against humanity and given a death sentence.

Will the majority of the other South Asian countries, which include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan, and Afghanistan, agree to a new regional grouping that appears to be aimed at limiting or cutting India out of the region?

What information is necessary here:

What is the proposal from Pakistan?

The trilateral initiative with Bangladesh and China was intended to “foster mutual collaboration” in areas of shared interest, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dar, who is also Pakistan’s foreign minister. It should also be “expanded and duplicated” to include more nations and regions.

He addressed the conclave in Islamabad, “As I have previously stated, there could be groups with variable geometry on issues from economy to technology to connectivity.”

You know where I’m referring to, he said, in an ostensible reference to India, and our own national development needs and regional priorities cannot and should not be held hostage to anyone’s rigidity.

Regarding the tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi, Dar cited the “structured dialogue” process that has existed between India and Pakistan as “for more than 11 years” and claimed that other regional states have had “seesaw relationships with our neighbor India”.

Pakistan’s foreign minister said that it wants to have a “South Asia where relationships and cooperation replace divisions, economies grow in synergy, disputes are settled peacefully in accordance with international legitimacy, and peace is maintained with dignity and honor.”

The proposal is likely “more aspirational than operational,” according to academic Rabia Akhtar.

At a time when SAARC is still paralyzed, Akhtar, director of the University of Lahore’s Center for Security, Strategy, and Policy Research (CSSPR), told Al Jazeera, “But it signals Pakistan’s intention to diversify and reimagine regional cooperation mechanisms.”

What does SAARC, a regional organization, stand for?

At a summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, SAARC was founded in 1985.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka were the organization’s seven founding members. Afghanistan joined in 2007 as the organization’s eighth member.

The SAARC’s goals, according to its website, include promoting economic growth and cultural development while improving South Asians’ welfare and quality of life.

Despite its lofty ambitions, the organization has struggled to reach its goals over the past 40 years, in large part due to the decades-long tensions between India and Pakistan, which have waged three major wars since 1947, when they were separated from the British and were also at the same time as the subcontinent split.

After India pulled out, the 19th SAARC summit, which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad, was indefinitely postponed due to a deadly attack in Kashmir, which Pakistan claimed was responsible for.

SAARC cannot advance without the two largest members’ political will to break regional cooperation from bilateral disputes, according to CSSPR’s Akhtar.

2014 was the last regional body summit held in Kathmandu, Nepal. However, according to analysts, SAARC has the potential to be useful if India and Pakistan permit it to continue to exist.

What makes SAARC significant?

South Asia is the most densely populated region in the world because SAARC countries account for more than two billion of the world’s population by 2025.

However, the World Bank claims that South Asia’s trade is sluggish, accounting for only about 5% of the region’s total trade, or $ 23 billion. In contrast, trade between ASEAN member states, a group of 11 Southeast Asian countries with around 700 million people, accounts for 25% of their international trade, according to the Washington-based organization.

According to the World Bank, South Asian countries could exchange goods worth $67 billion, three times their current trade, if barriers were to be reduced.

Particularly, trade between India and Pakistan is still weak. Official trade between the two neighbors reached a paltry $ 2.41 billion in the fiscal year 2017-2018. Unofficial trade between them, which is routed through other countries, is more lucrative, at about $10 billion, according to experts, but it has increased, halving to $1.2 billion by 2024.

One of the main causes of the region’s weak trade links is the lack of regional connectivity.

A Motor Vehicles Agreement, which would have allowed cars and trucks to travel across South Asia as well as they can in Europe, was set to be signed by the grouping in 2014. In response to India’s tensions, Pakistan, however, halted that agreement and a separate one on regional railroad collaboration.

Since then, the grouping’s ability to co-exist has been limited to a few occasions, such as when member states established an emergency fund and set aside $ 7.7 billion to combat the public health crisis.

SAARC could in theory be revived if the two nations [India and Pakistan] were able to identify even flimsy ways for cooperating in the service of broader regional interests, according to analyst Farwa Aamer.

However, such a breakthrough seems unlikely to occur in the current political climate, according to Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI).

Pakistan is not the first country to try to erode SAARC’s regional partnerships. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal&nbsp, a group known as the BBIN after the nation’s initials, signed a similar agreement after SAARC failed to approve a regional transport pact.

Aamer cited the presence of India in other regional organizations like the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are included in BIMSTEC.

However, according to Aamer, “regional multilateralism will continue to predominate” over “regional multilateralism” in the “near to medium term.” Because working with just one or two nations at once tends to “offer more flexibility, clearer incentives, and a greater likelihood of producing tangible outcomes,” she said.

Will Pakistan’s proposal succeed?

According to academic Akhtar, the success of the proposal will depend on two things.

“First, whether prospective states find smaller, issue-focused groupings useful in a time when traditional architectures are in decline, and second, whether participation does not cause political friction with India.”

According to Akhtar, several South Asian nations may show a tinge of interest in Pakistan’s proposed regional initiative, but progress toward formal participation is anticipated to remain constrained.

“I believe that countries like Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, and others may be open to exploratory engagement, particularly in terms of connectivity, climate adaptation, and economic resilience,” she said.

Akhtar noted, however, that India’s regional sensibilities and its wider geopolitical rivalry with Pakistan and China “mean that actual membership uptake will be cautious.”

However, Aamer of ASPI believes Pakistan’s position was “strategically coherent.”

She continued, “The country is in a moment of diplomatic agility,” adding that it has maintained strong ties with China while fostering rekindled and strengthened ties with the Gulf and the United States.