#Trump declines approval of Taiwan military aid package: report, U.S. President Donald Trump declined to approve US$400 million in military aid to Taiwan in recent months while negotiating on trade and a potential summit with Beijing, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The decision would mark a sharp departure from U.S. policy toward the democratic island, which faces a constant threat of invasion by China.

A White House official told the Post that the aid package decision was not yet final.

Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are set to speak Friday, their second call since the 79-year-old Republican returned to the White House. The telephone talks come as the two sides seek a compromise on tariffs and a deal on video-sharing app TikTok.

While the United States stopped recognizing Taiwan in the late 1970s in favor of China, Washington has remained Taipei’s most important backer and biggest supplier of military aid.

Under former president Joe Biden, Washington approved more than US$2 billion in military aid packages for Taiwan. But Trump “does not support sending weapons without payment, a preference also on display with Ukraine,” the Post noted.

It said that U.S. and Taiwanese defence officials met in Anchorage, Alaska in August and discussed a package of weapons sales “which could total in the billions of dollars,” including drones, missiles and sensors to monitor the island’s coastline.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January, there have been growing jitters in Taipei over the strength of the Taiwan-U.S. relationship and Washington’s willingness to defend the island if China were to attack.

Visiting Taiwan in late August, the head of the U.S. Senate armed services committee said he was determined the United States and Taiwan remain “the best of friends.”

“It is our determination and our intention that Taiwan remain free and make its own decisions,” Republican Senator Roger Wicker said after talks with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.

“Part of maintaining the freedoms that we have is enhanced cooperation militarily, enhanced cooperation with our defence industrial base, making the best use of those funds.”

#Ukraine hits Russian oil #refinery deep behind front, Ukrainian drones on Thursday hit a major Russian oil refinery some 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) from the front line, triggering a fire, officials from both countries said.

The strike is the latest in a wave of drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure as Kyiv seeks to knock out Russia’s vital energy revenues that fund its army.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU security agency said its drones had hit “the heart” of a refinery in the central Bashkortostan region run by state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.

Unverified images on Russian social media showed a fire at the facility and a plume of dark smoke rising above it.

Russia typically does not confirm successful Ukrainian strikes, but Radiy Khabirov, the Russian head of the region, said Thursday the refinery had been hit.

“Two drones attacked the facility. There were no fatalities or people wounded. Passive and active defences were activated and the site’s security opened fire to neutralize them,” he said on social media on Thursday morning.

“We are assessing the state of the damage and currently extinguishing the fire,” he added.

Strikes over the summer months have knocked out a notable portion of Russia’s refining capacity.

Though there are no official estimates as to the extent of the damage, fuel prices have surged across the country and petrol shortages have been recorded in many regions.

The Kremlin extended a ban on petrol exports in a bid to keep prices on the domestic market in check.

Gazprom Neft said earlier Thursday it was delaying planned maintenance work at one site in order not to exacerbate the fuel crisis.

U.S. President Donald Trump is also seeking to hobble Russia’s potential to earn from its energy sales, ramping up tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil, threatening China and urging Europe to do the same.

Retreating Alsek Glacier reveals new island in southeast #Alaska, Mauri S. Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College in Massachusetts, had anticipated for some time that the Alsek Glacier in southeast Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve would detach from the land mass referred to as Prow Knob. As the glacier has retreated, it has eroded a basin now filled by Alsek Lake, which is fed by the nearby Alsek River, glacier melt and icebergs, he said.

Pelto for years has used satellite imagery as part of his work chronicling changes in glaciers, and he had been checking images of the area at least once a month as he watched for the separation to occur, he said. It appears to have happened sometime between late July and early August.

Glacier Bay has over 1,000 glaciers, according to the park. While many glaciers in Alaska are retreating, not many new islands of size are revealed by their retreat, Pelto said. Prow Knob is roughly 2 square miles (5 square kilometres), and its highest point is just over 1,000 feet (304.8 metres), he said.

Imagery from the early 1980s, shared by NASA Earth Observatory, shows the Alsek Glacier largely surrounding Prow Knob, with Alsek Lake on one side. The glacier at that time shared a connection with Grand Plateau Glacier, the images show.

Over time, the lake has expanded as the glaciers have retreated. Alsek Lake is one of three lakes next to glaciers in the region that has seen marked growth since the 1980s, Pelto said.

Becky Bohrer, The Associated Press

16-year-old with a loaded gun threatened to shoot up his New York City high school, police say.

The 16-year-old student posted the threat to Instagram around 10:15 a.m. while in class at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. A person who saw the post alerted the FBI, which then contacted the NYPD, Tisch said.

Officers went to the school, located the student and found a 9mm handgun in his backpack that was loaded with 13 rounds of ammunition, Tisch said. Unlike some other New York City public schools, Cardozo High School does not screen students for weapons, she said.

“We are so grateful that this incident did not end tragically,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference announcing the arrest.

Police did not publicly identify the 16-year-old by name because he is a minor, Tisch said, adding that he had no prior criminal history. A message seeking information about the charges he faces was left for the Queens district attorney’s office.

According to Tisch, the threatening post showed what appeared to be school work on a desk, and the caption included a slang term for anger or frustration and read, in part: “vow to shoot the school up.” Location data showed that it was posted from the school, she said.

Police officers worked with school staff to locate the 16-year-old, removed him from his classroom without incident and took him to an empty conference room where they searched his backpack and found the gun, Tisch said. The boy also had three cell phones on him, she said, one in a school-issued locking pouch and two others.

Officers confirmed that the Instagram post came from the 16-year-old’s account by calling a phone number associated with it, Tisch said. When officers called the number, the commissioner said, one of the boy’s cellphones rang.

Adams, a former police captain, lamented the easy availability of guns, even as he touted the NYPD’s success in making gun-related arrests and driving shootings, murders and other crime lower.

“This was a failure of a society that allowed a 16-year-old to get so close to shooting up a school and potentially killing classmates and teachers,” Adams said. The boy, he said, “either would have ended up dead or in jail for many years” had he followed through on the threat.

Tisch said the swift law enforcement response and collaboration between the FBI, which received the tip, and the NYPD, which acted on it, was an example of the system working to prevent mayhem.

“I will be honest, as a mother of two young, school age boys, I am shaken,” Tisch said. “But, as your police commissioner, I am resolute in ensuring that the NYPD does everything in our power to keep our children safe.”

Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press

North Korea’s Kim oversees drone test, orders AI development, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a test of an attack drone and ordered greater research into possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the technology, state media said Friday.

Pictures shared by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) showed the unmanned vehicle taking off and then destroying a target.

State media said the exercise demonstrated the “excellent combat effectiveness of Kumsong-series tactical attack drones” and that Kim expressed “great satisfaction”.

Drones are emerging as a “major military activity asset, raising it as a top-priority and important task in modernizing the armed forces of the DPRK,” Kim reportedly said, using the acronym for North Korea.

He also ordered “efforts to rapidly developing the newly-introduced artificial intelligence technology” as well as the “expanding and strengthening” of drone production capabilities.

Analyst Hong Min at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification said Kim sees drone technology as critical to securing “great power status”.

“The drones raise concerns because they offer low-cost, high-efficiency threats: autonomous mission execution, improved accuracy and lethality, suitability for mass production, and enhanced tactical flexibility,” he added.

Pyongyang unveiled its first attack drones last year and experts have warned its new capability in this area could be linked to its budding alliance with Russia.

Analysts also say North Korean troops sent to fight for Russia will be gaining modern warfare experience -- including how drones are used on the battlefield.

South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said the North sent over 10,000 soldiers to Russia in 2024 -- primarily to the Kursk region -- along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems.

Around 600 North #Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, Seoul has said.

The Trump administration has singled out Chicago as its latest mark for immigration enforcement, using traffic stops in immigrant-heavy areas and targeting day labourers outside hardware stores.

“We will not back down,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted Thursday on X, recirculating dramatic footage of arrests at a suburban Chicago home days earlier.

Activists and local leaders are also defiant, trying to deter agents, warn residents and keep attention on a man killed by an immigration officer last week.
Focusing on day laborers

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new operation this month, the focus appeared to be on traffic stops in largely immigrant and Latino neighborhoods and suburbs. This week, activists say arrests of day labourers are also on the rise, echoing what immigration agents have done elsewhere.

Federal agents were spotted at roughly half a dozen Home Depot and Menards stores in the city and suburbs resulting in individual arrests, according to activists.

“Our neighbors who build, paint, fix and beautify this city have been the target of these unwarranted attacks,” said Miguel Alvelo Rivera with the Latino Union, which advocates for day labourers.

He spoke Thursday near a Home Depot in the heavily Latino and immigrant Brighton Park neighborhood where ICE agents were spotted a day earlier. The Chicago area has roughly 300 such workers, according to the Latino Union.

In immigrant and activist circles, the arrests are commonly referred to as abductions because many agents wear masks, drive unmarked vehicles and don’t have insignia on their clothes.

Giselle Maldonado, 23, said two of her uncles -- Gabriel Soto-Rivera, 40, and Eder Nicolas Jimenez Barrios, 37 -- were detained Monday by ICE on Chicago’s west side as they were driving to work as HVAC technicians. Her uncles have since told other family members that they believed they were being pulled over for a routine traffic stop.

Maldonado found out her uncles had been detained when her mother sent her videos of the encounter posted to TikTok. In the videos, an agent wearing a vest with the words “Police Federal Agent” can be seen speaking to someone in a vehicle.

Maldonado said she immediately thought of Gabriel’s two young children.

“Who’s going to be there for them?” she said. “They’re babies.”
Bike patrols and whistles

Known for organizing, Chicago’s activists have quickly dispatched volunteers to sightings of immigration agents. They record video and gather other information to notify the family of arrestees.

Activists circulate the licence plates of suspected ICE vehicles on social media and take part in disruptive demonstrations outside hotels where agents are believed to be staying. Bike patrols look out for agents, while some follow vehicles on foot and yell to warn those in the vicinity.

One neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side is making a lot of noise, literally.

When word of increased enforcement in Chicago ramped up, Baltazar Enriquez started buying orange emergency whistles so people could warn others of nearby ICE agents. He said they are reliable even when technology fails.

“If they hear that sound, they immediately start closing their doors, locking their gates,” he said of neighbors. “This has worked for us here. People are asking us, ‘Can I get a whistle?’ ”
Arrests in Chicago

The number of arrests in Chicago is difficult to track. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has offered details on only a few dozen, while an Illinois congresswoman briefed by ICE this week said the number was 250.

However, skepticism remains as some information circulated by ICE included out-of state-arrests. In at least one instance, a U.S. citizen was taken into custody.

Before dawn on Tuesday morning, federal agents, Noem and Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol agent central to a Los Angeles operation, stormed a home in suburban Elgin. They blew open a door as helicopters hovered.

Elected officials criticized the move as a stunt. DHS said five people were arrested. They were filmed in handcuffs for videos later posted to Noem’s social media accounts.

Joe Botello, who was born in Texas, told Chicago media outlets he was among the men kept in handcuffs until he showed identification. DHS confirmed he was in custody, but disputed the characterization as an arrest.

“No U.S. citizen was arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers’ safety while the operation in the house was underway,” DHS said.

Another man arrested at the same home was ordered released without bond Thursday as his case continues, with Magistrate Judge Keri Holleb Hotaling noting Carlos Augusto Gonzalez-Leon “has a criminal history of nothing.” In court records, federal officials said he was previously arrested and deported to Mexico at least three times between 2013 and 2022.

His lawyer, Daniel J. Hesler, described Gonzalez-Leon as a hard worker who is providing for his family in Mexico and his wife, who is in hospice care.
Criticism over fatal shooting grows

The death of a Mexican man at the hands of ICE agents has drawn questions from the president of Mexico and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Authorities say immigration agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who had entered the country illegally. They have said Silverio Villegas Gonzalez evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle. DHS said the officer fired because he feared for his life.

Noem praised the unnamed officer as brave, referring to Gonzalez as “a criminal illegal alien” who resisted arrest.

Many in the suburb of Franklin Park doubt authorities’ claims, remembering him at a vigil as a kind family man.

Gonzalez, who worked as a cook, had dropped off one of his children at day care that morning.

“He took the time to talk to the teachers about anything going on in the classroom. He was easy to get a hold of. He was always very respectful to the staff,” said Mary Meier, director of Small World Learning Center in Franklin Park.

The 38-year-old was from the state of Michoacan in western Mexico, according to the Consulate General of Mexico in Chicago, which said it would “closely monitor” the investigation.

Sophia Tareen And Christine Fernando, The Associated Press

‘Raped, jailed, tortured, left to die’: The hell of being gay in #Turkmenistan.

Two men who escaped one of the world’s most secretive and repressive states have told AFP how they were tortured, beaten and raped in Turkmenistan for the “crime” of being gay.

When the oil- and gas-rich Central Asian republic makes the headlines, it is usually for the eccentricities of its “National Leader” and “Hero Protector” Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

The dentist-turned-autocrat who writes poems about his horse -- and whose football team has never lost a game in the local league -- is a health freak. So much so that his son Serdar, the president, plans to “eradicate smoking” there by the end of the year.

But behind the monumental statues and the marble city of Arkadag built in Berdymukhamedov’s honour, opponents and minorities are mercilessly persecuted, say Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, none more so than LGBTQ people, who are often jailed or sent to psychiatric hospitals.

Arslan, who is now in hiding abroad, told AFP how he was raped five times in jail -- where HIV-positive prisoners are condemned to a slow death from lack of treatment -- while David was beaten and raped by his torturers, who wore gloves “to avoid touching my blood”.

Their rare testimonies, supported by official documents and confirmed by NGOs, reveal a hidden side of the reclusive regime, which tolerates no independent media or rights groups.

The authorities refuse to comment on all such allegations. But last year at the UN they insisted that “all discrimination” was illegal in Turkmenistan.

Homosexual relations are a crime, they said, because they run counter to the “traditional values” of the Turkmen people.

Arslan’s story

Arslan -- whose name AFP has been changed to protect him -- grew up in poverty in the second largest city of Turkmenabat, near the Uzbek border. “We had neither bread nor basic clothes,” said the 29-year-old, who comes from the Uzbek minority.

When he moved to the capital Ashgabat at 18, he was taken aback by the pomp of the white marble edifices built by the country’s first post-Soviet president Saparmurat Niyazov and Berdymukhamedov, who took power in 2006.

He also discovered a small gay community and formed a secret relationship with a man. But three years later he was arrested with about 10 other “suspected homosexuals”.

He believes his boyfriend was forced to denounce him.

Arslan was beaten by the police and jailed for two years for sodomy at a closed-door hearing in January 2018. He spent nine months in a penal colony before being pardoned.

Of the 72 men in his barracks, around 40 were there for their sexual orientation. One day, the leader of the barracks, a murderer -- “who was sleeping with lots of the prisoners” -- turned his attention to him, raping him repeatedly after plying him with sedatives.

“It was abominable,” said Arslan, who tried to kill himself by taking “a bunch of pills”. When he told the prison director about the rapes from hospital, “he laughed, saying I was there for that”.

After his release, Arslan got work and tried to rebuild his life, but the stigma was overwhelming. People recognized him and threatened him, “yelling at me in the street”.

He was twice sent to a psychiatric unit after being arrested again in 2021 and 2022. “They wanted to cure me because to them I have a disease.”

He decided to leave the country, but with authorities trying to curb a mass exodus of Turkmens fleeing hardship and repression, he was refused a passport.

Eventually after circumventing tight internet controls, he got help from the NGO EQUAL PostOst, which assists LGBTQ people in the former communist bloc, and was able to buy a passport.

“Everything is settled through corruption” in Turkmenistan, he said. Transparency International has declared the country one of the 15 most corrupt on the planet.

Finally he was finally able to flee to one of the few countries that allow Turkmens to enter without a visa.

Screams go unheard

David Omarov, 29, has been HIV-positive since he was a teenager, with education about the virus and preventive measures almost nonexistent in Turkmenistan.

From a middle-class background in the capital, his life was turned upside down in 2019 when he was summoned by the security services during one of the frequent crackdowns on LGBTQ people. He was held for several days and tortured to give the names of other men.

“They knew I was HIV-positive,” he told AFP.

“So they hit me with gloves and kicked me to avoid touching my blood. But I started bleeding profusely. Maybe that saved me.

“The worst is that no one hears your screams,” he said, adding that he was raped by his torturers but cannot yet bear to tell what they did to him. “Those are wounds that haven’t healed,” he said.

Omarov said Turkmenistan justifies the persecution as a defence of its “traditional values”.

“They’re folk fascists,” he said.

While Turkmenistan is predominantly Muslim, the government is secular, with huge emphasis on the veneration of Turkic folklore and traditions.

Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 68, and his son, Serdar, 43, are portrayed as guardians of this steppe culture with personality cults akin to those of Stalin or the Kims in North Korea.

They have also put the Turkmen Akhal-Teke horse and the Alabai dog on a pedestal as national symbols, dotting the country with statues of the animals.

Israel strikes five towns in south Lebanon. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a strike on Mais al-Jabal, a border town ravaged by the war last year between Israel and Hezbollah, where the health ministry said one person was injured.

Strikes also hit the towns of Debbin, Burj Qalawiya, Al-Shahabiya and Kfar Tibnit, the roads out of which were full of people fleeing ahead of the attacks, NNA said.

An AFP journalist near Debbin saw clouds of dark smoke rising from the town after the strikes.

Israel has kept up its strikes on southern Lebanon despite a truce signed in November that ended more than a year of hostilities and two months of open war with Hezbollah.

It has also maintained troops in five locations in the south of Lebanon it deems strategic.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the attacks and “the silence of the countries who had sponsored” the ceasefire, which he said “encourages further aggression”.

“The time has come to put an immediate end to these blatant violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty,” he said.

The Israeli military said it struck several weapons storage facilities belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force in southern Lebanon.

It said it would “continue to operate to eliminate any threat” to Israel.

The Israeli military had issued calls telling residents of the five southern towns to evacuate “immediately”, saying it would strike Hezbollah targets.

Ahead of Thursday’s strikes, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam had called for “maximum pressure” on Israel to stop its attacks on his country.
Hindering Hezbollah disarmament

The latest Israeli strikes came a day after Hezbollah commemorated a year since Israel blew up hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members, killing dozens and wounding thousands.

Israel and Hezbollah had already been engaged in cross-border fighting for nearly a year before the pager attack, which was one of a series of blows that drastically weakened the Iran-backed group, formerly Lebanon’s most powerful political force.

Under U.S. pressure, Beirut has ordered the Lebanese army to draw up a plan to disarm Hezbollah in areas near the Israeli border by the end of the year.

Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi said last week that Lebanon’s army would fully disarm the Iran-backed group near the border within three months.

But the army, which said Thursday’s strikes brought Israel’s ceasefire “violations” to 4,500, said the attacks risk slowing down Hezbollah’s disarmament.

“These assaults and violations obstruct the army’s deployment in the south, and their continuation will hinder the implementation of its plan starting from the area south of the Litani River,” the army said in a statement.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said “the renewed Israeli aggression on southern villages will not push our people to surrender or abandon their land”.

#Hezbollah, which has rejected Beirut’s plan, is currently preparing to commemorate the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in late September 2024.

Sally Rooney says she cannot ‘safely enter’ U.K. after supporting banned pro-Palestinian group.


Irish novelist Sally Rooney skipped an awards ceremony in London, saying that she risked being arrested under terror laws due to her support for the banned activist group Palestine Action.

Rooney’s editor Alex Bowler read her statement at the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday, where the author’s fourth book “Intermezzo” won the award for literature.

“I wish I could be here with you this evening to accept the honor in person,” her statement read, “but, because of my support for non-violent anti-war protest, I’m advised I can no longer safely enter the U.K. without potentially facing arrest.”

Rooney reiterated her “belief in the dignity and beauty of all human life, and my solidarity with the people of Palestine,” in the statement.

London’s Metropolitan Police told CNN in a statement Thursday it “wouldn’t comment on an individual at the point of arrest or prior to this.”

CNN has reached out to Rooney and Bowler for comment through Faber, her publisher.

Palestine Action is a U.K.-based organization that aims to disrupt the operations of weapons manufacturers connected to the Israeli government.

British authorities have had their eyes on the group since 2020, but its June 2025 action – when activists broke into Britain’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, vandalizing two Airbus Voyager refueling planes – led to its proscription.

Palestine Action is believed to be the first direct-action group to be designated a terrorist organization in the U.K. The ban means that showing support for the organization carries a maximum sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Civil liberties campaigners across the U.K. and beyond have condemned the designation, saying that applying terrorism laws to such a group risk chilling free speech and assembly and sets a dangerous precedent for protest rights.

Since its terror designation, more than 1,500 individuals have been arrested at solidarity protests across the U.K., many for holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

In August, Rooney also denounced the ban, writing an Irish Times column titled: “I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under U.K. law, so be it.”

She wrote that “an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public” and that she intended to take the residual fees from BBC adaptations of her first two novels to donate them toward “supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”

Israel has been facing growing international condemnation. A United Nations commission concluded this week that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies any accusations of genocide.

“If the British state considers this ‘terrorism,’” Rooney wrote, “then perhaps it should investigate the shady organizations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.”

CNN has reached out to the retailer WH Smith. A spokesperson for the BBC told CNN in a statement that Rooney does not currently receive payment directly from the BBC, “and she is not contracted by us.”
Longstanding critic

Rooney, best known for her novel “Normal People” and its subsequent adaptation for TV, has long criticized Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its pre-war blockade of Gaza.

In 2021, she refused to sell the Hebrew-language rights for her third novel “Beautiful World, Where Are You” to an Israeli publisher out of her support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led global campaign promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel.

The writer’s stance underlines Ireland’s longstanding support of the Palestinian cause.

Ireland is one of the most pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, a position born out of a shared experience of subjugation by an occupying state.

In January, the Irish government joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide, and the country appears close to passing a bill that will ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Nonetheless, Rooney has criticized Ireland’s government for not speaking out more forcefully in favor of protesters recently arrested in the UK.

“If the Government in Dublin truly believes that Israel is committing genocide,” Rooney said, “how can it look elsewhere while its nearest neighbor funds and supports that genocide and its own citizens are arrested simply for speaking out?”

CNN has reached out to Ireland’s Foreign Ministry for comment.

Saudi Arabia signs mutual defence pact with nuclear-armed #Pakistan after Israeli attack on Qatar.

ISLAMABAD — Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a mutual defence pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both -- a key accord in the wake of Israel’s strike on Qatar last week.

The kingdom has long had close economic, religious and security ties to Pakistan, including reportedly providing funding for Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program as it developed. Analysts -- and Pakistani diplomats in at least one case -- have suggested over the years that Saudi Arabia could be included under Islamabad’s nuclear umbrella, particularly as tensions have risen over Iran’s atomic program.

But the timing of the pact appeared to be a signal to Israel, long suspected to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state, which has conducted a sprawling military offensive since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel stretching across Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Qatar, Syria and Yemen.

Israel did not respond to requests for comment. The pact marks the first major defence decision by a Gulf Arab country since the Qatar attack. The United States, long the security guarantor for the Gulf Arab states, also did not respond to questions posed to the State Department.
A deal signed in Riyadh

Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed the pact on Wednesday with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

While not specifically discussing the bomb, the agreement states “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” according to statements issued by both Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

“This agreement ... aims to develop aspects of defence cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression,” the statement said.

A senior Saudi official, speaking on condition of anonymity to The Financial Times, seemed to suggest that Pakistan’s nuclear protection was a part of the deal, saying it “will utilize all defensive and military means deemed necessary depending on the specific threat.”

Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. diplomat with long experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan, expressed concern over the deal, saying it comes in “dangerous times.”

“Pakistan has nuclear weapons and delivery systems that can hit targets across the Middle East, including Israel. It also is developing systems that can reach targets in the U.S.,” Khalilzad wrote on X.
A long defence relationship

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a defence relationship stretching back decades, in part due to Islamabad’s willingness to defend the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina in the kingdom. Pakistani troops first traveled to Saudi Arabia in the late 1960s over concerns about Egypt’s war in Yemen at the time.

Those ties increased after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the kingdom’s fears of a confrontation with Tehran.

Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons program to counter India’s atomic bombs. The two neighbors have fought multiple wars against each other and again came close to open warfare after an attack on tourists in April in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India is believed to have an estimated 172 nuclear warheads, while Pakistan has 170, according to the U.S.-published Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

On Thursday, India’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged the Saudi-Pakistan pact and said it “will study the implications of this development for our national security as well as for regional and global stability.” Saudi Arabia also maintains close ties with India.
An interest in Pakistan’s program

Retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Feroz Hassan Khan, in his book on his country’s nuclear weapons program called “Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb,” said Saudi Arabia provided “generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue, especially when the country was under sanctions.”

Pakistan faced U.S. sanctions for years over its pursuit of the bomb -- and saw new ones imposed over its ballistic missile work at the end of the Biden administration.

In a 2007 U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, American diplomats in Saudi Arabia noted that their Pakistani counterparts had brought up the idea of the kingdom pursuing a weapons program alongside Islamabad in order to be the “physical protector” of the Mideast.

Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia did not respond to questions from The Associated Press on Thursday on whether the pact extended to Islamabad’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Pakistan “has historically maintained a deliberately ambiguous nuclear doctrine,” according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, noted on Thursday that Pakistan’s National Command Authority -- which oversees the country’s atomic weapons -- had not made any statement on the pact. However, he said he believed Pakistan capable of responding to Israel even without the deterrent effect of atomic weapons.

“Pakistan is more than confident that its conventional capability is adequate,” he said. “Pakistan’s military ... is adequate enough to improve the security of Saudi Arabia without having to resort to the nuclear option.”
How Iran ties in

Saudi Arabia has sought U.S. assistance to advance a civilian nuclear power program, in part with what had been a proposed diplomatic recognition deal with Israel prior to the 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the nearly two-year war in Gaza. That could allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium in the kingdom -- something that worries nonproliferation experts as spinning centrifuges opens the door to a possible weapons program.

That deal -- and a Saudi recognition of Israel -- seem further away than ever as the kingdom has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza and the crown prince has come out saying that Israel is committing a “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.

However, Prince Mohammed has also said the kingdom would pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran had one. Saudi Arabia already is believed to have a domestic ballistic missile program, which can be a delivery system for a nuclear weapon. Still, the kingdom is a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is not known to have move toward acquiring the bomb through its own work.

Before the signing of the defence pact with Pakistan, Iran dispatched Ali Larijani, a senior political figure who now serves as the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, to visit Saudi Arabia.

That may have seen the kingdom give a heads-up to Tehran about the pact as Saudi Arabia has had a Chinese-mediated detente with Iran since 2023.

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The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Vineeta Deepak in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Munir Ahmed And Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press