After discovering that Sudan’s military used chemical weapons last year to combat paramilitary forces, the United States will impose sanctions on the country.
According to US Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce, the country is “calling on the Government of Sudan to cease all use of chemical weapons and uphold its obligations” under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
According to Bruce, sanctions will be imposed on the US Congress on or around June 6 after the State Department’s decision has been made public.
Sudan exports to the US will be restricted, as will access to US government lines of credit be impeded. Sudanese government forces did not provide any additional information in its statement regarding when and where they used the chemical weapons.
The government’s forces used chemical weapons on at least two occasions against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in remote areas of Sudan, according to a report from The New York Times in January. Unnamed US officials, who claimed the weapon may have been chlorine gas, which can cause severe respiratory pain and death, were cited in the report.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s army and the RSF have been at odds with one another because of a power conflict.
In Sudan, thousands of people have died and 13 million have been displaced as a result of the conflict, which has also led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world and a famine.
The US has also previously criticized the RSF and its allies for carrying out genocide, and sanctioned senior figures like General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the organization’s head.
In Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 118-103 with the help of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 38 points and Jalen Williams had 26.
Going into Game 3 on Saturday in Minneapolis, the Thunder are 2-0 up in the best-of-seven series.
Gilgeous-Alexander has scored 30 or more points in five games straight and was given the trophy prior to Thursday’s game.
With just one turnover, he added eight assists and three steals, which tied his career playoff-high.
The win was led by Chet Holmgren by 22 points.
In Game 2, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shoots at Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert [Alonzo Adams/Imagn Images/Reuters]
Anthony Edwards of Minnesota finished with 32 points on only one of nine three-point attempts. He also collected six assists and nine rebounds.
In Game 2, Julius Randle, who helped Minnesota a first-half lead with a string of three-pointers, finished with just six points. He did not play in the fourth quarter and only made two of his 11 attempts from the floor, skipping all three of his three three-point attempts.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 17 points and Naz Reid added 10 points and eight rebounds.
With only more than three minutes left, the Timberwolves jumped out to within 10 points after leading by as much as 24 at the end of the third quarter.
The Thunder, however, had to come as far as Minnesota could before they could because they had to respond inconsequentially.
In the third quarter, Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, right, shoots at Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, left, and second-round pick Shai Gilgeous-Alexander [Brett Rojo-Imagn Images/Reuters]
In the third inning, Oklahoma City again increased the pressure on defense.
Six minutes into the fourth quarter, the Thunder extended their lead to 24 before the final whistle by missing seven consecutive shots and making five turnovers.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who had a difficult start in Game 1, was much more effective in Game 2, going a long way to missing a shot in Game 2 with less than five minutes to go.
After attempting just 13 shots on Tuesday in a 114-88 loss, Edwards said he needed to shoot more in Game 2. On Thursday, he started the offensive aggressively, making 10 shots in the first quarter and adding three assists.
With only more than two minutes left in the half, the Timberwolves had a strong second-half lead.
During a 7-2 run to give the Thunder an eight-point lead into halftime, Gilgeous-Alexander scored all of their points. In the closing seconds of his game, he drew a foul on Jaden McDaniels and made two free throws.
Despite only shooting four of their 20 from beyond the arc in the first half, the Thunder held a 58-50 lead at the break.
Gilgeous-Alexander receives the Michael Jordan Trophy in honor of winning the 2024-2019 NBA Most Valuable Player award [Alonzo Adams/Imagn Images/Reuters]
Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister, has recently had an unusually busy schedule with an unrecognized government.
He has hosted his counterpart from Pakistan, spoken on the phone with India’s foreign minister, and jetted to Iran and China. He also had a second encounter with the Pakistani foreign minister in Beijing. He joined Pakistani and Chinese delegations for trilateral discussions on Wednesday.
This, even though the ruling Taliban have historically had tense relations with most of these countries, and currently have taut ties with Pakistan, a one-time ally with whom trust is at an all-time low.
Analysts claim that this diplomatic overdrive suggests that the movement is far from a pariah on the global stage even though neither the UN nor any of its member states formally acknowledge the Taliban.
Why, then, are several nations in the Afghan region preparing to negotiate diplomatically with the Taliban while avoiding formal recognition?
We unpack the Taliban’s latest high-level regional engagements and look at why India, Pakistan and Iran are all trying to befriend Afghanistan’s rulers, four years after they marched on Kabul and grabbed power.
In recent weeks, who did Muttaqi meet or speak with?
A timeline of recent diplomatic contacts between Afghanistan and the United States:
April 19: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar travels with a high-level delegation to Kabul to meet Muttaqi and other Afghan officials. According to a statement from the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two sides had a discussion over Pakistan’s continued diplomatic relations with Afghan refugees.
On the eve of India’s attack on Pakistan, which led to four days of missile and drone attacks between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, Dar and Muttaqi spoke once more on May 6. The exchange of fire took place after India accused Pakistan of being involved in the April 22 Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 26 people dead.
S. Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, and Muttaqi speak in a phone conversation on May 15 to thank the Taliban for their support of the Pahalgam attacks.
May 17: Muttaqi travels to Tehran, where he meets with President Massoud Pazeshkian and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi for the Tehran Dialogue Forum.
May 21: Muttaqi visits Beijing. In an effort to boost trade and security between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China, trilateral discussions are ongoing.
Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, described the organization as a “reality of today’s Afghanistan” because it “controls all of the country’s territory and borders.”
“The regional countries know this fact and, as such, they engage with the Islamic Emirate at various levels, which is a pragmatic and rational approach in my view”, he told Al Jazeera, referring to the name by which the Taliban refers to the current Afghan state.
He continued, arguing that formal recognition of the Taliban government “must not be further delayed.” “We believe that we can find solutions to problems through engagement,” he continued.
Our region should adhere to the statement, “Our region has its own goals and interests.”
Why is India warming up to the Taliban?
It’s a unlikely partnership. The Indian government refused to cooperate with the Afghan group during its initial rule, which was then only recognized by Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
India, which had supported the earlier Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah, shut down its embassy in Kabul once the Taliban came to power: It viewed the Taliban as a proxy of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, which had supported the mujahideen against Moscow.
Instead, New Delhi backed the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban opposition group.
India reopened its Kabul embassy in 2001 following the Taliban’s defeat, and the country invested more than $3 billion in projects in infrastructure, health, education, and water, according to its Ministry of External Affairs.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri meets Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Muttaqi in Dubai in January]File: @MEAIndia/X]
However, the Taliban and its allies, including the Haqqani group, have frequently launched deadly attacks on the country’s embassy and consulates.
New Delhi evacuated its embassy and once more refused to acknowledge the group after the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021. However, unlike during the Taliban’s first stint in power, India built diplomatic contacts with the group – first behind closed doors, then, increasingly, publicly.
According to analysts, India understood that its regional rival, Pakistan, had given in to its own influence in Afghanistan by refusing to engage with the Taliban earlier.
India reopened its embassy in Kabul in June 2022, less than a year after the Taliban’s return to power, by putting together a team of “technical experts” to oversee it. In November 2024, the Taliban appointed an acting consul at the Afghan consulate in Mumbai.
Then, in January, Muttaqi and Vikram Misri, both Indian Foreign Ministers, flew to Dubai for a meeting, marking the highest level of direct contact between New Delhi and the Taliban thus far.
The New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation’s deputy director, Kabir Taneja, claims that India was never going to have a choice if it didn’t deal with “whatever political reality sets in Kabul.”
“No one is pleased per se that the reality is the Taliban”, Taneja told Al Jazeera. Since the Taliban took control, India’s “decades-long” efforts to foster goodwill with the Afghan people have not been completely undone.
The Darul Uloom Deoband seminary, which is the Taliban’s ideological center, is located in India, he added. “These are ties with the country and its actors that cannot be vanquished, and have to be dealt with realistically and practically”, he added.
What is the calculus of Pakistan?
Pakistan, one of the Taliban’s most prominent supporters, saw its relationship with the organization decline recently.
Since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, Pakistan has seen a surge in violent attacks, which Islamabad attributes to armed groups, such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistan denies that the Taliban government has any right to keep them in Afghanistan and that the TTP has access to Afghan territory.
The Pakistan Taliban, which first emerged in 2007 as part of the US-led “war on terror,” has for a while long violently upheld Islamabad’s authority. Though distinct from the Afghan Taliban, the two are seen as ideologically aligned.
Rabia Akhtar, director of the University of Lahore’s Center for Security, Strategy, and Policy Research, claims that Dar’s visit to Kabul and subsequent communication with Muttaqi represent a “tactical, ad hoc thaw” rather than a significant change in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations.
Islamabad became more and more concerned about the possibility that New Delhi might use its territory against Pakistan during the recent India-Pakistan crisis, she suggested.  , “This has increased Islamabad’s urgency to secure its western border”, Akhtar told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s earlier this year decision to expel Afghan refugees, many of whom have lived there their entire lives, and frequent border closures that cause disruption to trade are also sources of tension in the relationship.
According to Akhtar, the refugees question may be a significant factor in how international relations develop in the future.
“While Pakistan has pushed for repatriation of undocumented Afghans, Kabul views such deportations as punitive”, she said. That’s a good sign if the dialogue shows that both sides are aware that conflict is unsustainable, especially in the face of shifting regional patterns and economic pressures.
A “blame game,” according to Shaheen of the Taliban, is not in anyone’s interests, and Kabul wants good relations with Islamabad to be “reciprocated.”
“We have taken practical steps as far as it concerns us”, he said, noting that Afghanistan had started building checkpoints “along the line adjacent to Pakistan in order to prevent any one from crossing”.
Their security forces are in charge of their internal security, not us, they say.
At the trilateral talks in Beijing on Wednesday, China claimed that Islamabad and Kabul had agreed in principle to improve diplomatic ties and that they would send their respective ambassadors as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, Akhtar does not expect the “core mistrust” between the two neighbours, particularly over alleged TTP sanctuaries, to “go away any time soon”.
Instead of focusing on structural reconciliation, Akhtar argued, “We should look at this shift as part of Pakistan’s broader crisis management system after the India-Pak crisis.”
What do Iran’s ties to the Taliban demand?
Like India, Tehran refused to recognise the Taliban when it was first in power, while backing the Northern Alliance, especially after the 1998 killing of Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif by Taliban fighters.
On its eastern border, Iran amassed tens of thousands of soldiers, almost waging a war with the Taliban.
Iran was said to be quietly engaging with the Taliban and offering only limited assistance in an effort to counteract American influence and defend its own strategic interests in the wake of the US’s extensive military presence in the region following 9/11.
Since the Taliban took back reins of the country nearly four years ago, Iran again showed willingness to build ties with rulers in Kabul on a number of security, humanitarian and trade-related matters, analysts say.
According to Shaheen, the Taliban’s representative in Doha, both Iran and India previously believed the organization to be “under the influence of Pakistan.”
They now realize that this is not the case. In view of this ground reality, they have adopted a new realistic and pragmatic approach, which is good for everyone”, he said.
The meeting between Muttaqi and Pezeshkian, according to Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, doesn’t “signify an imminent official recognition.” Given its “key interests” in Afghanistan, he claimed, “pragmatic considerations” have prompted Iran to engage with the Taliban.
“Security-wise, Tehran wants allies in containing the ISIS]ISIL] local chapter. He told Al Jazeera that Tehran has also been trying to improve trade relations with Afghanistan, which is currently one of its major trading partners.
At least 94 people were killed in the twin suicide bombings in Kerman in January 2024, making it one of Iran’s deadliest attacks in decades. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), an Afghanistan-based offshoot of ISIL, claimed responsibility.
ISKP has carried out numerous high-profile attacks throughout Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s rule in recent years.
In addition to the “transboundary water flowing from the Helmand River,” Bahiss added that Tehran also needed a “willing partner” to deal with Iran’s estimated 780, 000 Afghan refugees.
In May 2023, tensions between the two neighbours flared, leading to border clashes in which two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter were killed.
On Friday, May 23, 2018, this is how things are going.
Fighting
As 35 drones targeted the city were downed on Thursday, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian drones disrupted air traffic around Moscow, grounding aircraft at several major airports.
A total of 46 Ukrainian drones were launched against Russia’s capital, according to the ministry and the mayor of Moscow, and another 70 were launched against other targets nationwide.
According to the air force of Ukraine, 128 of the 128 drones were launched overnight by Russia, with 112 of them being shot down, jammed, or lost while en route to their targets.
In a “massive” Ukrainian strike on the town of Lgov in the Kursk region of Russia, according to Russia, 12 civilians were seriously hurt.
It was unlikely that Ukraine would be able to reclaim its former top military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who was known for his clashes with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from 1991 until the 2014 Russian invasion, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi. He claimed it might not be possible to maintain Ukraine’s borders until Russia launches a full-scale invasion in 2022.
Zaluzhnyi stated at a forum in Kyiv, “I hope there are not people in this room who still hope for some kind of miracle or lucky sign that will bring peace to Ukraine, the borders of 1991 or 2022, and that there will be great happiness afterwards.”
Russia reported that Ukraine had provided a list of names for a prisoner-of-war swap. At a meeting last week between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul, the leaders of both countries agreed to swap 1, 000 prisoners for each side in order to put an end to the conflict.
Regional security
Along its 1, 340 km (832 miles) joint border with Russia, Finland said it is closely monitoring a Russian military development. 1, 000 migrants crossed its border without visas in December 2023, prompting Finland to close the border with its neighbor.
Economy
The G7’s finance ministers discussed further sanctions against Russia if it doesn’t achieve a ceasefire with Ukraine following a meeting in Canada this week. Additionally, they added that they will work to make sure that “no nations or entities” that contributed to “Russia’s war machine” are benefited from Ukraine’s reconstruction.
Moscow is attempting to prevent foreign companies that have left Russia after the Ukrainian invasion of 2022 from obtaining “buyback” options for assets that were left behind. According to a number of conditions, the bill before Russia’s legislature allows “Russian citizens and companies to refuse to return assets to foreign investors.”
Former head of public security in Mexico must pay more than $748 million to his country of origin for his alleged involvement in government corruption, according to a Florida court order.
The Mexican government’s civil case was first filed in September 2021 when the court’s decision came to an end on Thursday.
Genaro Garcia Luna, who was Mexico’s security chief from 2006 to 2012, was the subject of the case. Garcia Luna, who allegedly accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, is currently serving more than 38 years in prison in the United States.
The Mexican government alleges that Garcia Luna also allegedly snatched millions of dollars from the taxpayer, and it has made a pledge to recoup the loss by pleading guilty in Miami, Florida, where some of the illegal activity is said to have occurred.
Garcia Luna’s wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra, was ordered to pay $1.7 billion on Thursday by Judge Lisa Walsh in Miami-Dade County, along with other payments. The total was roughly $2.4 billion.
The Mexican government accused Garcia Luna, his wife, and their co-defendants of having “concealed funds stolen from the government” and smuggling the money to countries like Barbados and the US in its initial complaint from 2021.
The defendant GARCIA LUNA used the funds improperly taken from the MEXICAN government to create a money-laundering empire, according to the complaint.
It claimed that Garcia Luna and his associates used those funds to finance “lavish lifestyles,” including Mustangs from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as real estate holdings and bank accounts.
Garcia Luna is guilty, reads on a sign, in New York on February 21, 2023 [John Minchillo/AP Photo]
Garcia Luna was also charged with corruption in a separate case, with US authorities alleging that he pocketed millions of dollars while serving as president because he helped organize the Sinaloa cartel.
According to US prosecutors, Garcia Luna allegedly obtained information through his work with the Mexican federal police and as its security chief that he later used to inform them of investigations and the movements of rival criminal organizations.
Garcia Luna was also accused of aiding the cartel in moving its cocaine shipments to countries like the US, occasionally employing federal police in Mexico as bodyguards, and even allowing cartel members to wear official uniforms.
In exchange, the cartel is accused of leaving money for him in a variety of hiding places, including a French restaurant close to the US embassy in Mexico City. Some $100 bill bundles totaled up to $10,000.
Garcia Luna relocated to the US after leaving the company in 2012. He has entered a not-guilty plea to the charges against him. His attorneys have characterized him as a prosperous businessman who lives in Florida.
Garcia Luna was found guilty in February 2023 of drug-related charges, including conspiracy to import cocaine and conspiracy to sell it overseas. He was given a decade-long prison sentence in October of that year.
However, the Mexican government claimed in its civil lawsuit that Garcia Luna also spearheaded a “government-contracting scheme” that included phony bid-tampering and dishonest financial transactions.
Deals were also made regarding surveillance and communication equipment. According to a report from the Associated Press, some of these contracts were inflated and falsified.
