Ousted Bangladeshi PM blames US for her removal from power

Special Ousted Bangladeshi PM blames US for her removal from power
Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina weeps while she visits a metro station in Mirpur vandalized by students during the anti-quota protests in July. (File/Bangladesh Prime Minister's Office))
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Updated 11 August 2024
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Ousted Bangladeshi PM blames US for her removal from power

Ousted Bangladeshi PM blames US for her removal from power
  • Sheikh Hasina was one of the world’s longest-ruling female leaders
  • In new statement, she claimed US wanted control of Bangladeshi island

NEW DELHI: Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently taking refuge in India, has accused the US of playing a role in her removal from power as she promised a prompt return to Dhaka.

Hasina was forced to resign and fled to neighboring India on Aug. 5, following weeks of nationwide demonstrations and a deadly crackdown on protesters, which emboldened a student-led movement to oust her regime after 15 years of uninterrupted rule.

The 76-year-old said Washington was to blame for her ouster in a message issued for supporters of her Awami League party, which appears to be her first statement since she left Dhaka.

“I resigned, so that I did not have to see the procession of dead bodies. They wanted to come to power over the dead bodies of students, but I did not allow it. I resigned from the premiership. I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal,” she said in a statement, which was first reported by India’s English-language daily The Economic Times.  

“I beseech the people of my land, ‘Please do not be manipulated by radicals.’”

Hasina was referring to St. Martin’s Island, Bangladesh’s sole coral reef island located in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal, alluding to years-old rumors claiming that the US was seeking control over the island to turn it into a military airbase.  

The US Embassy in Dhaka did not immediately respond to Arab News’ request for comment on Sunday.

“If I had remained in the country, more lives would have been lost, more resources would have been destroyed. I made the extremely difficult decision to exit. I became your leader because you chose me, you were my strength,” Hasina said.

“With the grace of almighty Allah, I will return soon. The Awami League has stood up again and again. I shall forever pray for the future of Bangladesh, the nation which my great father strived for. The country for which my father and family gave their lives.”

Hasina, 76, was one of the world’s longest-ruling female leaders and has played a pivotal role in Bangladesh’s politics, a nation of about 170 million people that declared its independence in 1971.

She is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s charismatic founding leader, who was killed in 1975 in a military coup when Hasina was 28. She served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001 and regained power in 2009.

Under her leadership, Bangladesh became one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, with World Bank estimates showing that more than 25 million people in the country have been lifted out of poverty in the last two decades.

But critics say she has grown increasingly autocratic and called her a threat to the country’s democracy, with many saying that the sudden collapse of Hasina’s government had reflected a broader discontent against her rule.

The student-led demonstrations that began peacefully in July were against a quota system for government jobs, which was widely criticized for favoring those with connections to the ruling party.

The rallies then turned violent as security forces clashed with protesters, leading to the killings of at least 300 people and the arrests of around 11,000 others, triggering new protests that culminated in a civil disobedience movement that forced Hasina’s resignation.


US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed
Updated 15 sec ago
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US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

US Attorney General Bondi tells Fox News many judges need to be removed

WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Thursday many of the judges who have recently ruled against the administration of President Donald Trump need to be removed.
“These judges obviously cannot be impartial. They cannot be objective,” Bondi said during an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show.
“They are district judges trying to control our entire country, our entire country, and they are trying to obstruct Donald Trump’s agenda.”


Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats
Updated 11 min 11 sec ago
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Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday slammed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an “imbecile” following the American’s warning to Caracas against attacking its oil-rich neighbor Guyana.
“There goes the imbecile Marco Rubio threatening Venezuela from Guyana. No one threatens Venezuela because this is the homeland of the liberators,” Maduro said.


German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
Updated 27 min 24 sec ago
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German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
  • Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022

BERLIN: A Russian reconnaissance aircraft approached northeastern Germany on Thursday before it was escorted away by fighter jets, the German air force said.
The air force said on its Whatsapp communication channel that its Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) was activated at the Laage air base near Rostock, on the Baltic coast in the northeast.
“The reason was an unknown aeroplane over the Baltic Sea, which was flying without a flight plan or activated transponder,” the air force said in the message, which confirmed an earlier press report in Bild.
German Eurofighter jets were scrambled to identify the Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane, which was subsequently “escorted” back toward the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, from where it was first tracked.
Bild said the Russian aircraft was found early Thursday east of the German Baltic island Rugen from where it was heading toward “German air space.”
The fact that the aircraft’s transponder was deactivated presented “a considerable danger to civilian air traffic,” Bild said.
Military sources quoted by Bild said that Russian reconnaissance planes were occasionally identified off the German coast.
Many NATO nations have a QRA system to help protect their air space.
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
 


Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
Updated 36 min 40 sec ago
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Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
  • A government accountability group sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping

WASHINGTON: A US judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to preserve messages sent on the Signal messaging app discussing attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen that became public after they were inadvertently shared with a journalist.
The order from US District Judge James Boasberg requires federal agencies whose leaders participated in the chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, to maintain all messages sent through Signal from March 11 until March 15, the period during which an editor for The Atlantic magazine documented activity in the chat.
A lawyer for the Trump administration earlier said federal agencies were already working to determine what records still existed so they could be preserved.
American Oversight, a government accountability group, sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping law.
“We are grateful for the judge’s bench ruling to halt any further destruction of these critical records. The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete,” Chioma Chukwu, American Oversight’s interim executive director, said in a statement.

Text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen are shown during a US House of Representatives hearing on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)


The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Atlantic magazine published on Wednesday messages it said were exchanged in the group after Trump administration officials said they were not classified in an attempt to play down the impact of the breach.
The messages revealed discussions among senior national security officials about planned military strikes targeting the Houthi militant group. Hegseth shared information about the timing of attacks on March 15, including one aimed at someone identified in the chat as a terrorist, hours before the attack began, according to the report.
The existence of the group chat, and the inadvertent disclosure of messages to a journalist, has sparked a brewing controversy over the Trump administration’s treatment of sensitive military and intelligence information.
The lawsuit was unrelated to the national security implications of the disclosure and instead focused on American Oversight’s claim that the messages should count as government records that agencies are legally required to preserve.


Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
Updated 51 min 41 sec ago
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Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
  • Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions, analysts say

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions and coming close to assassinating the president with a roadside bomb last week.

The extremist group was on the defensive in 2022 and 2023 after a concerted military push by the government and its international partners.

However, analysts say those gains are being reversed at a time when support from the US and African Union is looking increasingly shaky.

The group has seized key locations in Middle and Lower Shabelle, coastal regions on either side of the capital Mogadishu.

And a bomb blast that narrowly missed the convoy of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 18 showed that Al-Shabab again poses a significant risk in the capital itself.

On Wednesday, Somali officials said the group had taken control of the center of a key town in Middle Shabelle, Masaajid Cali Gaduud.

That came just a day after the president traveled to the region in a high-profile bid to push back the militants.

“There were explosions and heavy gunfire this morning,” Abdulkadi Hassan, resident of a nearby village, said by phone.

“The Somali government forces and local community militias have retreated from the town, and Al-Shabab are now in control.”

Analyst Matt Bryden, co-founder of research group Sahan and an expert on the conflict, said this was typical of recent clashes.

He said the government had lost strategic chokepoints, including three of four bridges in Lower Shabelle.

“We see the evidence of an army in disarray and in retreat,” said Bryden.

He said the government was enlisting clan militias, police and prison guards — “throwing everything it has into the war effort.”

“People in Mogadishu also are beginning to fear the government is not capable of securing the city and that there’s a chance of Al-Shabab fully encircling or possibly even at one stage overrunning the city,” said Bryden.

The president has remained defiant, establishing a temporary headquarters in Cadale, about 220 km north of Mogadishu.

“The war will not stop; we are not coming back from where we are now, and we will attain the victory we seek,” Mohamud told troops gathered at nearby Adale earlier this week.

However, the government faces the threat of reduced international support.

African Union-led forces began supporting the Somali government in 2007, eventually becoming the largest multilateral peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 20,000 troops at its peak.

Although renewed under a new name, the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, in January, Washington has yet to confirm its crucial financial contribution.

“Security assistance for the government is being cut, particularly the American assistance, but probably European contributions will shrink as well,” said Bryden.

“The combination of these factors raises the possibility that from July, but possibly even sooner, the balance of forces will shift increasingly toward Al-Shabab,” he said.

Other analysts say Al-Shabab is still far from threatening the capital, and its advances come from the government taking its eye off the ball.

“The government’s been more focused on politics, on other issues,” said Omar Mahmood of International Crisis Group.

He said Al-Shabab had been exploiting local clan grievances in Middle Shabelle and a broader uncertainty around the president’s struggles to introduce direct elections.

“The country is not united right now ... and part of this has to do with politics around the constitution and electoral plans that the government is trying to institute,” said Mahmood.

Al-Shabab “probably saw this as an opportune time to strike ... But this is a long-standing war. I see it as closer to a stalemate than anything else.

“I don’t see this narrative where there’s this march toward Mogadishu right now,” he said.