LONDON- Britain will likely follow the United States in reducing troop levels in Afghanistan but it will continue to work with its government and the U.S. to protect the country’s security, Britain’s Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday President Donald Trump would sharply reduce the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by mid-January.

Wallace said the Americans were not totally pulling out at this stage, and neither was Britain.

But he said: “I expect if they (the U.S.) are reducing at some stage, we will come down.”

Wallace said Britain had limited scope to act independently of its largest ally, but an increased funding settlement he had agreed with the finance ministry would in the future give the country greater options.

Some countries, member of the G20, have exported more than US$17bn worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since it became involved in the conflict in Yemen in 2015 but have given only a third of that amount in aid to people caught in the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, Oxfam said today.

The G20 heads of state are due to meet virtually later this week at a summit hosted by Saudi Arabia. Arms sales to the Gulf nation could come under fresh scrutiny as the US president-elect, Joe Biden, is on the record as saying he would stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia that fuel the war in Yemen.

After five years of conflict, Yemen was already suffering the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis with 10 million people going hungry, the largest cholera outbreak on record and only half of hospitals fully functioning. Oxfam reported in August that there has been one air raid every ten days on hospitals, clinics, wells and water tanks throughout the war.

The death toll in the powerful earthquake that levelled buildings across Greece and Turkey has risen to 26.

The quake struck late Friday afternoon, causing a mini-tsunami on the Aegean island of Samos and a sea surge that turned streets into rushing rivers in a town on Turkey's west coast.

The US Geological Survey said the 7.0 magnitude tremor hit 14 kilometres (nine miles) off the Greek town of Karlovasi on Samos.

The quake was felt in both Istanbul and Athens.

Much of the damage occurred in and around Turkey's Aegean resort city of Izmir, which has three million residents and is filled with high-rise apartment blocks.

Aerial footage showed entire city blocks turned to rubble.

On October 24, Greek City Times website revealed that the Turkish regime is preparing to send its terrorist mercenaries from Idlib to the border with Greece in light of the growing tension between Ankara and Athens.

The website said that a leaked conversation among the Idlib-based  terrorists revealed that Turkey has already started this new scheme and that the news of the possibility of war between Turkey and Greece is spreading among the terrorists who are ready to go to fight alongside the Turkish regime.

STOCKHOLM- The Swedish "Nordic Monitor" website has unveiled new proof about the close connection between the Turkish regime and terrorist organizations, especially Daesh (ISIS),  and about recruiting terrorists by this regime to implement its own agendas and aspirations whether in Turkey or abroad, including chasing its opponents and political rivals. 

In a report published on Friday, the website said that the Turkish regime recruited a Daesh terrorist called Abdulkadir Masharipov, who carried out a bloody New Year’s Eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub in 2017 killing 39 people, for revenge against Turkish preacher Fathalla Gulen, who is known of his strong opposition of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rule.

The British newspaper “Independent” revealed that it had obtained certificates, documents and statements confirming the Turkish regime's efforts to fuel the new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region by sending terrorist mercenaries to this region.

Hundreds of Syrians are said to be fighting in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, driven there by the need to earn money. All had been allegedly hired by a private Turkish security firm to fight with Azerbaijani forces against ethnic Armenians over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

More details are available in the following link:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/armenia-azerbaijan-syria-war-fighting-mercenary-russia-b912446.html

Inas Abdulkareem