Russia sends more troops to Belarus as fears of new attacks grow
Ukraine says Belarus could be used as a staging post by Moscow for an offensive from the north, opening up a new front.
In this handout photo taken from a video released by the Russian defense ministry on December 28, Russian troops take part in drills at an unspecified location in Belarus [File: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP]
Published On 6 Jan 20236 Jan 2023
A train carrying Russian troops and equipment has arrived in Belarus amid concerns that Moscow could use its ally’s territory to attack Ukraine from the north.
The Belarusian defense ministry confirmed the arrival of the contingent on Friday and said President Alexander Lukashenko had visited a military base where Russian troops are already stationed.
The Belarusian defense ministry said the goal of creating a joint force was “strengthening the protection and defense of the Union State [of Russia and Belarus]”.
“Personnel, weapons, military and special equipment of the armed forces of the Russian Federation will continue to arrive in the Republic of Belarus,” the statement said.
The two countries are preparing for joint air force exercises, the ministry said, without providing any further details.
The Belarusian government has repeatedly said the country will not join Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But Moscow deployed thousands of forces to Belarusian territory under the pretext of military drills before launching its offensive and then funnelinghttps://youtu.be/FU8N-CxkIRM troops into Ukraine when its invasion began on February 24.
According to Kyiv, Russia continues to use Belarusian airspace for drone and missile attacks.
Any new attack on Ukraine from Belarus would open a major new front in the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people.
Lukashenko has blamed Western nations for the war, accusing them of seeking confrontation with Russia and provoking the ongoing bloodshed.
The 67-year-old says Ukraine has the power to end the conflict by accepting Moscow’s demands – namely the loss of partly-occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.
January 6 Capitol riot: Charges, convictions, trials two years on
More than 950 people are charged with federal crimes, some already convicted of the serious charges of sedition for trying to overthrow the government.
Published On 6 Jan 20236 Jan 2023
Two years ago, on January 6, 2021, a crowd of thousands attacked the United States Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, spurred on by false claims the election had been “rigged” against Republican incumbent Donald Trump.
More than 2,000 people entered the Capitol building, smashing windows, ransacking offices, defecating in public spaces, and searching for members of Congress. The assault was ultimately unsuccessful but it has set off alarm bells about the stability of US democracy and the growing influence of anti-democratic elements within the Republican Party.
On the second anniversary of the riot, President Joe Biden is set to hold a White House ceremony in the East Room Friday to commemorate the deadly events that unfolded that day.
The US continues to grapple with the fallout from the attack. More than 950 people have been charged with federal crimes relating to the riot, with some facing accusations of seditious conspiracy – a rare but serious offense.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday said that 192 of those defendants have been sentenced to time behind bars and 484 have pleaded guilty to various crimes.
An investigative committee in the US House of Representatives recommended criminal charges last month for key political figures linked to the attack, including Trump who was presiding at the time and encouraged the rioters.
Al Jazeera looks at what has happened to some of the most high-profile instigators of and participants in the January 6 attack.
Former US President Donald Trump arrives for the New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago estate on December 31 [Lynne Sladky/AP]
Donald Trump: criminal referrals to the Department of Justice
The former Republican president has refused to concede the 2020 election, turning his false claims of election fraud into a rallying cry for some in his party.
But those claims have come with repercussions. The former president had already been impeached and acquitted once in his presidency in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He was impeached a second time for “inciting” the January 6 riot. It had caused legislators and the then-vice president to go into hiding and left an estimated 140 police officers injured. A Senate report last June documented seven deaths connected to the attack, including three members of law enforcement. Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment.
Trump was also front and center during the House’s January 6 investigation. The committee in charge of the investigation subpoenaed the former president to testify, but he refused.
But using hundreds of interviews, including with some of Trump’s closest advisers, the committee compiled an 845-page report detailing the former president’s activities on and around January 6.
It also sent non-binding criminal referrals to the US Department of Justice, including four charges against Trump which included assisting or inciting an insurrection. The committee has since disbanded, in anticipation of a Republican majority taking control of the House.
Trump has continued to spread the “stolen election” lie and has used his heft in the party to elevate candidates who mirror his false claims, with mixed results. Many election deniers fared poorly in the 2022 midterm elections. Trump also faces several continuing legal investigations, including cases in Georgia and New York.
The former president announced in November that he would compete for the White House again in 2024.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November, setting what prosecutors hope will be a precedent for other January 6 trials [File: Susan Walsh/AP Photo]
Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers: guilty of seditious conspiracy
A number of far-right groups have gained attention for their roles in the January 6 attack. One of those groups is the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia that calls on its members to fulfill the oath US service members take: to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.
The group’s founder is Stewart Rhodes, a former US Army paratrooper and Yale-educated lawyer who often wears an eyepatch to cover an injury sustained during a firearm accident.
Rhodes and several of his fellow Oath Keepers were the first to face seditious conspiracy charges in relation to the January 6 attack. The serious but rarely used charge implies that a defendant conspired to overthrow the government, oppose its authority or hinder its laws.
The US Department of Justice alleged that the Oath Keepers were “prepared and willing to use force” to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. They argued that the January 6 attack was coordinated.
But Rhodes and his co-defendants denied those claims, testifying that there was no plan to enter the Capitol building.
On November 29, a jury found Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy, in one of the most significant convictions to stem from the Department of Justice’s investigations. Rhodes faced up to 20 years in prison as he awaited sentencing.
Another codefendant, Kelly Meggs, was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy while three other defendants – Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Thomas Caldwell – were acquitted of the charge.
All five were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding, with mixed verdicts on other charges.
Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was not present at the January 6 attack but encouraged his followers to ‘do what must be done [File: Allison Dinner/AP Photo]
Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys: on trial
The Oath Keepers trial was seen as a litmus test for another case against a far-right group, the Proud Boys.
The all-male group describes itself as “Western chauvinist” and is associated with white supremacy, anti-immigration sentiment, and misogyny.
On January 6, members of the Proud Boys were among those that stormed the US Capitol, though its leader, Enrique Tarrio, was not present. He had been barred from entering Washington, DC as a condition of his bail, after being arrested for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner.
Still, Department of Justice prosecutors have alleged he played an active role behind the scenes during the Capitol attack, encouraging his followers to subvert the democratic process and halt the peaceful transfer of power.
Tarrio faces seditious conspiracy charges alongside four other members: Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. All five have pleaded not guilty. They face potential prison sentences of up to 20 years. The trial is expected to take about six weeks from start to finish.
In December 2021, Matthew Greene became the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to conspiracy. Several of the group’s leaders have also submitted guilty pleas, including 43-year-old Jeremy Joseph Bertino, who also faced a seditious conspiracy charge.
Another top member of the Proud Boys, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting and impeding police officers in April 2022.
Jacob Chansley holds a US flag and megaphone outside the Senate chamber during the January 6 attack [File: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo]
Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman: 41 months
One of the most recognizable figures from the January 6 attack was Jacob Chansley, whose horned headdress and face paint earned him the nickname “QAnon shaman”.
Chansley was a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that an anonymous figure named Q has secret information about a deep-state “cabal” inside the US government. Trump figures into the conspiracy theory as a hero figure, capable of rooting out the cabal.
Photographed standing atop the Senate rostrum during the January 6 attack, Chansley was ultimately sentenced to 41 months in prison.
His sentence matched that of another participant, ex-mixed martial artist Scott Fairlamb, who was captured on film punching a police officer. He, too, received 41 months in prison in November 2021, one week before Chansley.
Prison officials have since diagnosed Chansley with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. Chansley had hoped that Trump would pardon him for his actions.
Guy Wesley Reffitt: seven years, three months
In March 2022, a Texas man named Guy Wesley Reffitt became the first participant to be convicted of storming the Capitol. It was the first victory for federal prosecutors pursuing hundreds of cases stemming from the riot.
While Reffitt did not personally enter the Capitol, the Department of Justice said he arrived “armed and determined to instigate violence” on the Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors allege he helped charge Capitol police officers outside the building, leading other rioters up the stairs to the Capitol doors. “We’re taking the Capitol before the day is over,” Reffitt reportedly said.
He was ultimately convicted of storming the Capitol with a loaded handgun, interfering with police officers guarding the building, and obstructing justice by threatening his two children to dissuade them from reporting him to law enforcement.
Reffitt was handed a sentence of seven years and three months.
Mexico: 29 people dead in operation to arrest son of ‘El Chapo’
Ten soldiers are among those killed during the arrest of drug kingpin’s son, which sparks violence by the cartel, the government says.
Published On 6 Jan 20236 Jan 2023
At least 29 people, including 10 soldiers, have been killed in an operation to arrest the son of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s government says after a shootout with cartel members.
Ovidio Guzman, nicknamed “El Raton”, or “The Mouse”, was rounded up early on Thursday in the northern state of Sinaloa and flown to Mexico City on a military plane.
“Ten members of the military … unfortunately lost their lives in the line of duty,” Defence Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval told reporters on Friday, adding 19 “lawbreakers” were also killed in the operation. Another 35 soldiers sustained gunshot wounds.
Members of the Sinaloa Cartel and their associates went on a rampage after Ovidio Guzman’s arrest, fighting security forces, setting vehicles on fire and blocking roads across the Pacific coastal state.
The violence was concentrated in and around Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, home of the powerful drug cartel, which “El Chapo” headed before his capture in 2016 and extradition to the United States in 2017.
Firefighters extinguish a vehicle set ablaze by drug cartel members in Mazatlan, Mexico, on January 5, 2023 [Stringer/Reuters]
Twenty-one other people were arrested during Thursday’s operations, Sandoval said during a news conference, adding there were no reports of any civilian deaths.
The arrest of Ovidio Guzman, 32, followed six months of intelligence work to track him down, the government said, and he is now being held at a maximum security federal prison.
Sandoval said a passenger plane that was just about to take off from Culiacan airport and two air force aircraft were hit as members of the Sinaloa Cartel launched the offensive to rescue Ovidio Guzman.
The air force planes “had to make an emergency landing” after receiving “a significant number of impacts”, Sandoval said. No one was injured.
Reporting from Mexico City, Al Jazeera’s John Holman said the situation in Culiacan appeared to have calmed down on Friday with vehicles driving on the streets again.
Asked whether the younger Guzman’s arrest would rein in the work of the drug cartels, Holman said past arrests of leaders have shown that “the strategy of knocking out kingpins and hoping that that means the whole structure falls apart has been shown to just not work.”
“What’s happened on various different occasions is either it just carries on, or the organizations splinter into different groups,” Holman said.
“El Chapo”, which means “Shorty”, is serving a life sentence in the US for trafficking hundreds of tonnes of drugs into the country over the course of 25 years.
However, his cartel remains one of the most powerful in Mexico, accused by Washington of exploiting an opioid epidemic by flooding communities with fentanyl, a synthetic drug about 50 times more potent than heroin.
Ovidio Guzman and one of his brothers are accused of overseeing nearly a dozen methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa as well as conspiring to distribute cocaine and marijuana, according to the US Department of State.
He also allegedly ordered the murders of informants, a drug trafficker, and a Mexican singer who refused to perform at his wedding, the department said.
Ovidio Guzman was arrested just days before US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City for two days of talks.
While Mexican officials have tried to downplay the timing of the operation, Al Jazeera’s Holman said many observers are skeptical. “Every time one of these big meetings happens, usually the Mexican government tries to get some sort of big win – either in terms of capturing drugs or trying to capture some sort of boss,” he said.
Two officers of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) were shot dead by unidentified assailants in Punjab’s Khanewal district, a senior police official confirmed on Tuesday.
The officers came under attack while having food at a roadside restaurant where they reportedly went to meet a man, said to be an informer.
One of the victims has been identified as Naveed Sadiq Sial, who was a director-rank officer while another was an inspector.
There were three suspects — one of them had tea with the officers while two were waiting in the parking lot on a motorcycle.
As the officers left after having tea with the suspect, two suspected attackers, reportedly accomplices of the one who had tea with them, opened fire on them.
According to initial investigations, it was a targeted attack.
