Defence`s Feeds

"Africa matters" was the message that Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III delivered during a speech in Luanda, Angola, this morning.

The Philippines is in the process of crafting a more assertive strategy for waters it claims in the disputed South China Sea, a Navy commander said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan's Taliban says it has captured 200 suspected militants for staging deadly cross-border attacks against Pakistan and has implemented other "concrete steps" to "neutralize" the terrorist activity, VOA learned from Pakistani officials privy to the process.

The United States and Germany added to calls for international observers to be allowed into the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Azerbaijan said Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers were killed in an operation to retake the area from ethnic Armenian separatists.

The U.S. State Department says it will work with allies and partners on an international monitoring mission after nearly half the population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled following an offensive by Azerbaijan that gave Baku complete control of the breakaway region.

Negotiations over a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan are continuing, even as refugees continue to stream into Armenia following Azerbaijan's military assault on the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last week.

Azerbaijan's State Border Service (DSX) said on September 27 that it has detained billionaire Ruben Vardanian, a former Russian citizen of Armenian descent, who served as prime minister in the de facto government of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for less than four months before he was dismissed from the post in February.

Nearly half of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have fled the enclave in fear of reprisal from Azerbaijan, Armenia says, as part of an exodus caused by a military operation that brought the mountainous region back under Azerbaijan's control.

A UN-appointed independent human rights expert on Wednesday called on Azerbaijan to "guarantee the rights of ethnic Armenians" in the Karabakh region and ensure that civilians who remain "are respected and protected in line with its international obligations."

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process on Wednesday expressed deep concern over the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

France's ambassador to Niger left the country early on Wednesday morning, around one month after the military government ordered his expulsion and days after President Emmanuel Macron said the diplomat would be pulled out and French troops withdrawn.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who declined to attend a United States-Pacific islands summit earlier this week, said Washington should show respect to the region's leaders rather than lecturing them.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Japan National Police Agency (NPA), and Japan National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) published a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) today about malicious activity by People's Republic of China (PRC)-linked cyber actors known as BlackTech, which have demonstrated capabilities to modify router firmware without detection

Countries up and down the Western Hemisphere are looking to eliminate weaknesses in their cyber infrastructure that could give potential adversaries, including China and Russia, the ability to do extensive damage by exploiting a single vulnerability.

Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, in consultation with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, announced the designation of Israel into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).

The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the elite force will use the newly-launched Nour-3 imaging satellite for military intelligence purposes.

The Noor-3 (lit. 'Light-3') space satellite was blasted off into orbit aboard a Qased ('lit. Messenger') carrier rocket on Wednesday. Previous satellites in the series were met with mockery and derision from Pentagon officials, but the ridicule soon stopped after Iran showed off the spacecraft's impressive capabilities.

The United States has imposed sanctions on entities in Iran, Hong Kong, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates that the U.S. Treasury Department says comprise a network for the procurement of parts for Iran's drone program.

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned five entities and two individuals based in Iran, the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) involved in the procurement of sensitive parts for Iran's one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program.

Army Pvt. Travis T. King has been released to U.S. custody after a multiweek diplomatic effort to secure his return from North Korea, senior U.S. officials announced today.