Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera reported on displaced Palestinians returning to their homes during the ceasefire eight months ago on the way to Gaza City. He is reporting on the countless Palestinians who are currently attempting to flee the city while being forced to do so by Israel.
Published On 18 Sep 2025
Published On 18 Sep 2025
According to a study, Russia and North Korea have a lopsided agreement, with Moscow receiving far more support for its conflict in Ukraine than Pyongyang’s.
According to a report released by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation on Thursday, North Korea has been providing Russia with up to $ 9.8 billion in weapons and fighters since 2023, according to Unequal Partnership. The gains made by Pyongyang could be as little as $457 million to $1.19 billion, according to estimates.
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The study examines North Korea’s and Russia’s growing military ties. The pair’s landmark mutual defense pact, which raised questions in the West, was signed last year.
However, the report notes that relations have “taken on a distinctly asymmetric character,” despite the fact that it also mentions the “remarkable momentum” of them.
Millions of artillery shells, rockets, and mortar rounds have been shipped by North Korea, as well as hundreds of artillery launchers and systems. Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, reportedly contributed about 15, 000 soldiers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report.
Russia has only provided a small amount of aid, mostly consisting of food, fuel, air defense systems, and possibly some fighter jets.
Financial transactions appear largely locked within the Russian banking system, according to the report, which finds no significant inflows of hard currency into North Korea.
The foundation claimed that Pyongyang’s strategic gains come from closer alignment with a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as from closer economic reliance on its weapons.
The partnership poses a growing security risk, according to the study. It calls for more stringent regulations on dual-use technology, closer cooperation with South Korea and Japan, closing energy gaps, and strengthening diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.
Although it’s not known how many North Korean soldiers died in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, South Korean newspaper NK News reports that about 2, 000 North Korean soldiers have died so far.
The North Korean leader met with the families of dead soldiers last month, offering condolences for their “unforgettable pain” and promising the bereaved “a beautiful life,” according to state media.
Since Kim and Vladimir Putin signed the military alliance in 2024, Kim and Putin have experienced significant increases in ties.
Authorities in southern Pennsylvania said the attacker was shot down before the incident occurred on Wednesday, killing three police officers and injuring two others.
In recent years, Pennsylvania and the US police had one of the deadliest days.
What we know is as follows:
On Wednesday, about 2 p.m. (18:00 GMT), a shooting occurred at a farmhouse off a quiet country road a few miles from an old mill town.
The officers were present to execute a warrant, according to the police. The state police commissioner, Christopher Paris, stated at a press conference that the investigation was being completed the day before, but he gave no other details.
According to Paris, “that investigation’s general heading would be domestic-related.”
On a rural road, an emergency response took place. With about 30 police vehicles blocking off-street, officers were keeping people well back from the scene.
North Codorus Township, a farming community in York County, was the location of the shooting along Haar Road.
Authorities said it is close to the Maryland border and is located about 115 miles (185 kilometers) west of Philadelphia.
A school district in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, a town with about 2,500 residents, was given a temporary shelter-in-place order as a result of the shooting. Later, officials made it clear that no schools were impacted.
According to a report from CNN quoting law enforcement officials who were in close contact with the investigation, the suspect was the ex-boyfriend of the woman who resided in the farmhouse where the shooting took place. The woman had alerted local police a day earlier after seeing the accused in a nearby cornfield, according to the officials.
According to the report, the police made an arrest warrant but were unable to identify the suspected attacker.
The victims’ families were not immediately provided by authorities.
According to Paris, two surviving officers were taken to York, Pennsylvania’s WellSpan York Hospital, where they are currently in critical but stable condition.
An officer was seen being flown by a medical helicopter in the scene’s images.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro stated in a press release that “this day is absolutely tragic and devastating for York County and the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Three priceless souls who served this county, this commonwealth, and this nation have perished in our hearts.
Shapiro said, “We need to do better as a society to stop this kind of violence.”
Pennsylvania law enforcement experienced one of the darkest days in recent years. Three Pittsburgh police officers were killed in an ambush in 2009 when a man wearing a bulletproof vest was intervening to a domestic dispute.
More recently, a man who was armed with a pistol and zip ties stormed a hospital’s intensive care unit, killing both the suspect and the officer in a shootout that left both the suspect and the officer dead.
The killings rank among the most notoriously violent police incidents nationwide since the attacks of September 11, 2001. In separate incidents in July 2016, four officers were killed in Lakewood, Washington, in November 2009, and four were killed in Oakland, California, in March 2009. In addition, three were killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and five were killed in Dallas, Texas in April of this year.
A beaming Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, joined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday to sign a “strategic mutual defence agreement” (SMDA), which includes a red carpet, a red carpet, and full royal protocol.
Observers say it is a landmark moment in the decades-old alliance between the two nations whose ties stretch back nearly eight decades.
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The signing ceremony at the Royal Court in Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh was witnessed by senior officials from Saudi Arabia, the custodian of two of Islam’s holiest sites, alongside representatives from Pakistan, the Muslim world’s only nuclear power.
The timing of the agreement is crucial. Two years of Israeli aggression, including its war against Gaza and strikes against neighboring states, culminated last week with Israel’s attack on Doha, Qatar’s capital, which borders Saudi Arabia.
But it also comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, after a short but intense conflict in May in which they struck each other’s military bases over four days, taking South Asia to the brink of a full-fledged war between nuclear-armed neighbours.
The agreement with Saudi Arabia, according to Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs, “reflects the shared commitment” of both countries to improve regional peace and enhance security,” while also promising to “strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression.”
According to the ministry, “the agreement stipulates that any aggression against either country shall be regarded as an aggression against both.”
Asfandyar Mir, a senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Stimson Center, described the pact as a “watershed” for both countries.
Prior to the Cold War, Pakistan and the United States had mutual defense agreements, but they were broken by the 1970s. Pakistan doesn’t have a formal mutual defense pact with China, Mir reported to Al Jazeera despite intensive defense cooperation.
Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, said the deal could serve as a template for Pakistan to engage in similar bilateral defence cooperation with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, two key Gulf partners.
This agreement will strengthen and formalize multi-pronged defense cooperation that is already in place, according to Faisal, and it will look into new avenues for expanding it through joint training, defense production, and potential expansion of Pakistani troops contingent in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to recognise Pakistan after its independence in August 1947. A “Treaty of Friendship” between the two countries, which laid the groundwork for decades of strategic, political, military, and economic cooperation, was signed in 1951.
Saudi personnel have been trained both in the Gulf and in Pakistan through Pakistani armed forces’ periodic deployments to the kingdom.
According to official records, Pakistan has trained more than 8, 000 Saudis since 1967. By ensuring the “deputation of Pakistan Armed Forces personnel and military training” in Saudi Arabia, an 1982 agreement added to this cooperation.
The Middle East’s geopolitical chessboard is changing, so the most recent pact arrives. The fallout from Israel’s war on Gaza and its strikes on regional neighbours has made Gulf states uneasy, many of which still rely heavily on United States security guarantees, even as Washington remains Israel’s closest ally.
Qatar, which Israel attacked on September 9 because it hosted Hamas leaders, serves as US Central Command’s (Centcom) forward headquarters.
Around 40, 000 to 50, 000 US troops are stationed in large bases and smaller forward sites in the Middle East as of mid-2025, including Prince Sultan Air Base outside Riyadh, among them.
While Saudi officials say the deal with Pakistan has been in the works for at least a year, Sahar Khan, an independent security analyst in Washington, DC, said its language will raise eyebrows in the US.
President Joe Biden’s administration imposed sanctions on Pakistani citizens and businesses on seven occasions during its eight years of office, starting in 2021 and 2025. Additionally, officials from the Obama administration publicly expressed concerns about the potential for US nuclear weapons to be carried by the missiles Pakistan was building.
“Pakistan already has a credibility problem in Washington, and this agreement won’t reduce it”, Khan told Al Jazeera.
Khan stated that Pakistan’s clarification that its nuclear and missile programs are centered on India is important, and that while its bilateral ties with Saudi Arabia are strong, it won’t fight Saudi wars but will only offer pertinent support.
Earlier this year, in June, Israel waged a 12-day war with Iran, targeting nuclear facilities as well as senior civilian and military leaders. The assault was supported by American bomber jets, which dropped massive bunker bombs on Fordow, one of Iran’s most important nuclear sites.
At least five Hamas members and a Qatari security official were killed when Israel struck a building in a leafy Doha neighborhood, which houses embassies, supermarkets, and schools.
The Doha attack triggered an emergency meeting of Arab and Islamic nations. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (GCC) nations) have announced they will activate a joint defense mechanism.
According to Faisal, these developments should be taken into account when evaluating the Pakistan-Saudi pact.
“These events have exacerbated security anxieties of the Gulf states while jeopardising confidence in the US security umbrella as the ultimate shield. Regional nations like Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkiye have the potential to become natural partners as Gulf states seek to strengthen their security, he said.
Khan, however, noted that “such kinds of agreements take months, if not years, to negotiate,” even though the timing of the pact does suggest a connection to Israel’s most recent attack on Qatar.
Yet, the Stimson Center’s Mir pointed out that the agreement would also test how both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia manage their exposure to the other’s tensions with countries with which they have otherwise cautiously managed relations, or are even friends with.
Pakistan now runs the risk of becoming entangled in Saudi Arabia’s regional rivalries, particularly Iran, he said. “Saudi Arabia has resolutely fought Pakistan’s disputes,” he said. “This includes our disagreements with India and, possibly, with the Taliban-led Afghanistan.
India, Pakistan’s nuclear-armed adversary, will also be closely monitoring the defense deal.
After the Pahalgam attack, when 26 civilians were killed by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir, India and Pakistan’s relationship, which the latter rejected, deteriorated further in April.
Days later, in May, the two countries fought a four-day skirmish, targeting each other’s military bases with missiles and drones in their most serious escalation in nearly three decades before a ceasefire on May 10 that US President Donald Trump claims he brokered.
Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for the Indian government, said on Thursday that the Indian government was aware of the signing of the pact during a weekly news conference.
We will examine the effects of this development on both regional and global stability as well as our national security. The government remains committed to protecting India’s national interests and ensuring comprehensive national security in all domains”, Jaiswal said.
However, this agreement, according to Sydney-based Faisal, could restore the Pakistan-Saudi relationship, which has historically been defined by Saudi financial bailouts for a struggling Pakistani economy, even as Riyadh and India have forged closer ties.
According to him, “Pakistan’s relative position has improved, and new opportunities have opened for expanding the Pak-Saudi cooperation on bilateral defense and regional security issues.”
With Pakistan’s economy faltering and increasingly dependent on Saudi aid during the last decade, India had been steadily deepening its own relationship with Riyadh. This April, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his third trip to Saudi Arabia in a decade.
In spite of Indian attempts to distance nations from Pakistan, Mir claimed the new pact demonstrates that Saudi Arabia still believes in its relationship with Pakistan and that Islamabad is not isolated in its immediate vicinity.
“At precisely the moment when Pakistan is faced with the threat of Indian military action”, he said, “Pakistan has secured a strong collective defence agreement from Saudi Arabia. Therefore, future India-Pakistan dynamics are much more complex.
Saudi Arabia has long expressed interest in acquiring nuclear technology for civilian use, to diversify from fossil fuels.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, the head of Saudi energy, reiterated in January that Riyadh is committed to enriching and selling uranium, a crucial component of nuclear programs.
Saudi Arabia has also made it abundantly clear that it does not intend to pursue nuclear weapons.
In his 2024 book War, American journalist Bob Woodward recounted a conversation in which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed reportedly told US Senator Lindsey Graham that Riyadh planned to enrich uranium only for energy purposes.
Salman responded to Graham’s question about the possibility of a Saudi bomb in Woodward’s essay:
I can’t make a bomb without uranium. I will just buy one from Pakistan”.
The scope of the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia agreement is still ambiguous, according to Khan, the analyst.
“It is important to note that Pakistan has previously signed defense agreements, but none of those have resulted in nuclear guarantees or the formation of a “nuclear umbrella.” There is nothing in this agreement that indicates a formation of a nuclear umbrella or any extended deterrence”, she said.
Mir cautioned against the risk of even strong alliances.
According to him, the pact will “start a new alliance politics” regarding topics like deterrence, resource commitment, operational details, and other issues. However, he added, that does not diminish the political significance of this pact being struck.
“Both countries benefit greatly from this,” he said.
Faisal also agreed, noting that while the agreement specifies that an aggression against one nation is a conflict of interest, it is likely more of a political statement than a joint defense commitment for the time being.
Israeli bombings occurred close to two of Gaza’s most recently operating hospitals, according to video. At least 15 Palestinians perished outside al-Shifa, and several more perished in an attack carried out close to al-Ahli.
Published On 18 Sep 2025