Top Republicans express concern over Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Germany
Two top US Republican lawmakers expressed concern on Saturday about the Pentagon’s decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Nato ally Germany.
“We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a US brigade from Germany,” senator Roger Wicker and representative Mike Rogers said in a joint statement.
Wicker, of Mississippi, and Rogers, of Alabama, chair the Senate and House armed services committees, respectively. Their statement comes a day after the Pentagon announced the withdrawal and said the move was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months.
Donald Trump threatened the withdrawal earlier this week after German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that the Iranians were “humiliating” the United States in talks to end the war and that he couldn’t see Washington’s exit strategy.
Responding to Trump’s withdrawal announcement, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said: “It was foreseeable that the US would withdraw troops from Europe, including Germany.”
Nato spokesperson Allison Hart said on Saturday that the alliance was “working with the US to understand the details of their decision on force posture in Germany”.
For their part, Wicker and Rogers said that any significant change to the US military’s presence in Europe must be reviewed and coordinated with Congress and US allies.
“We expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for US deterrence and transatlantic security,” they said.
Even if Nato allies raise defence spending to 5% of GDP, building the capabilities to take over conventional deterrence will take time, and prematurely cutting US forces in Europe “risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to [Russian president] Vladimir Putin”, they added.
Key events
The senior Republican lawmakers, US Senator Roger Wicker and congressman Mike Rogers, also rushed to defend Germany in their startling joint statement a little earlier decrying the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw around 5,000 troops from Germany, following up on huffy threats.
“Germany has stepped up in response to President Trump’s call for great burden sharing, significantly increasing defense spending and providing seamless access, basing and overflight for US forces in support of Operation Epic Fury,” the two said, using the administration’s label for its offensive military attacks when it started the US-Israel war on Iran.
Their statement, posted to X, added: “Rather than withdrawing forces from the [European] continent altogether, it is in America’s interest to maintain a strong deterrent in Europe by moving these 5,000 US forces to the east.
“Allies there have made substantial investments in to host US troops, reducing costs for the US taxpayer while strengthening NATO’s front line to help deter a far more costly conflict from ever beginning.”
Iraq can restore oil output and exports to normal levels within seven days of the end of the crisis over the strait of Hormuz, deputy oil minister Basim Mohammed said on Saturday.
He said production currently stood at 1.5m barrels per day, with about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) exported via Ceyhan in Turkey, while two tankers had been prepared and two more were expected depending on security conditions in the strait, which Tehran has largely closed during the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Top Republicans express concern over Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Germany
Two top US Republican lawmakers expressed concern on Saturday about the Pentagon’s decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Nato ally Germany.
“We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a US brigade from Germany,” senator Roger Wicker and representative Mike Rogers said in a joint statement.
Wicker, of Mississippi, and Rogers, of Alabama, chair the Senate and House armed services committees, respectively. Their statement comes a day after the Pentagon announced the withdrawal and said the move was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months.
Donald Trump threatened the withdrawal earlier this week after German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that the Iranians were “humiliating” the United States in talks to end the war and that he couldn’t see Washington’s exit strategy.
Responding to Trump’s withdrawal announcement, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said: “It was foreseeable that the US would withdraw troops from Europe, including Germany.”
Nato spokesperson Allison Hart said on Saturday that the alliance was “working with the US to understand the details of their decision on force posture in Germany”.
For their part, Wicker and Rogers said that any significant change to the US military’s presence in Europe must be reviewed and coordinated with Congress and US allies.
“We expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for US deterrence and transatlantic security,” they said.
Even if Nato allies raise defence spending to 5% of GDP, building the capabilities to take over conventional deterrence will take time, and prematurely cutting US forces in Europe “risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to [Russian president] Vladimir Putin”, they added.
Lebanon death toll two months into Israeli attacks reaches 2,659, public health ministry says
Lebanon’s public health ministry has published the latest casualty figures since Israel renewed its attacks on Lebanon on 2 March.
Israeli attacks have killed 2,659 people and wounded 8,183 across Lebanon, the ministry said.
It added that in the past 24-hour reporting period, 41 people had been killed and 11 others wounded in Israeli raids.
Spanish foreign minister says Israel’s detention of activist is ‘illegal’ and a ‘kidnapping’
The Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, condemned the “illegal detention” and “kidnapping” of a Spanish activist who was arrested by Israel when a Gaza aid flotilla was stopped in international waters.
Albares has called for the immediate release of Saif Abu Keshek, who is under Israeli detention along with Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila.
The Israeli foreign ministry said earlier today that both men had been brought to Israel for questioning. They were detained along with more than 170 others from the flotilla when its vessels were intercepted off the coast of Crete on Wednesday. The other activists have since been released.
Speaking to Spanish RAC 1 radio, Albares said Keshek’s arrest was an “illegal detention outside the jurisdiction of Israel” and demanded that he be released “immediately”.
“Of course it is a kidnapping,” he added.
The polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has denounced the “ongoing disintegration” of Nato amid a rift within the alliance over the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote on X.
His remarks came hours after the US announced its decision to withdraw approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, following a spat between US president Donald Trump and German chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said on Monday that Iran was “humiliating” Washington.
Trump also voiced his anger at Italy and Spain over their refusal to allow US military planes to use their bases, saying he “probably will” pull American forces out of these countries.
“Italy has not been of any help to us, and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
Edward Helmore
Spirit Airlines ceases operations and US transportation secretary announces measures to help passengers
The US secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, has announced a series of measures to help Spirit Airlines passengers following the low-cost airline’s collapse early on Saturday after running out of cash and the failure of rescue talks with the Trump administration.
Spirit once operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed about 17,000 people, but early on Saturday it announced that after 34 years in business it had “with great disappointment … started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately”.
The company had struggled to make a deal with its creditors and secure funding to maintain operations after shuttling in and out of bankruptcy twice in recent years. But the sharp rise in jet fuel prices since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran effectively sealed the fate of the airline.
Read the full report here:
The official Lebanese National News Agency has reported three more deaths from Israeli airstrikes in the southern Nabatieh district.
This brings today’s death toll in southern Lebanon to at least 10.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it launched drone attacks against “a gathering of Israeli enemy army soldiers” in the town of Bayada in southern Lebanon, according to a statement on its Telegram channel. The group said it carried out the strikes “in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire and the attacks that targeted villages in southern Lebanon”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued its own statement on the Hezbollah attacks, saying: “Shortly ago, the air force successfully intercepted a rocket launched toward IDF forces operating in southern Lebanon.
“In several additional incidents today, the terrorist organisation Hezbollah launched rockets and explosive drones that fell near the area where IDF forces are operating in southern Lebanon, with no casualties.”
Trump says US navy like ‘pirates’ while seizing a ship in Iranian blockade
Donald Trump has said the US navy acted “like pirates” as he described an operation seizing a ship amid the tit-for-tat American blockade of Iranian ports.
“We … land on top of it and we took over the ship. We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” said Trump at a rally in Florida on Friday.
“We’re like pirates,” he added to cheers from the crowd. “We’re sort of like pirates. But we’re not playing games.”
Trump’s comparison of US naval activity to piracy comes as legal experts raise alarms about Iran’s blockade of the vital strait of Hormuz and its plans to charge a fee for ships passing through it.
Read the full report here:
As we reported earlier, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said suspicious activity had been reported near the port of Mukalla in Yemen.
UKMTO said a bulk carrier reported a suspicious approach by a skiff accompanied by a fishing vessel 84 nautical miles south-west of the port of Mukalla on the southern Yemen coast.
It remains unclear whether the UKMTO report is connected to the Yemen coast guard’s statement.
The Yemen coast guard said the tanker’s location had been identified and efforts were under way to track the ship, take necessary measures to recover it and ensure the safety of its crew, according to Reuters.
Yemen says oil tanker hijacked by armed men off Shabwa coast – Reuters
Yemen’s coast guard said an oil tanker had been hijacked off the coast of Shabwa by unidentified armed men who boarded the vessel, Reuters reported.
They seized control of M/T Eureka and steered it towards the Gulf of Aden in the direction of Somali waters.
We will bring you more as we get it.
The UAE’s aviation authority says air traffic in the country has returned to normal, after precautionary measures implemented on 28 February at the start of the Iran war were lifted.
The decision followed a comprehensive assessment of operational and security conditions in coordination with relevant entities, the General Civil Aviation Authority said.
Qatar Airways, meanwhile, said it would resume passenger flights to Baghdad, Basra and Erbil airports in Iraq.
Kevin Rawlinson
Some UK pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be stopped, the prime minister has warned, as Britain’s most senior police officer said the threat to the Jewish community was greater than it had ever been.
Keir Starmer indicated he wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to “tougher action” as he sought to allay the fears of British Jews after a series of attacks on their communities in recent weeks.
“When you see, when you hear some of those chants – ‘globalise the intifada’ the one that I would pick out – then clearly there should be tougher action in relation to that,” Starmer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
While he said he would not interfere in day-to-day policing, he said “there are instances” in which he would support stopping some protests altogether.
The prime minister’s comments came as Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said a “dangerous and troubling” mix of hate crimes, terrorism and the involvement of hostile states was coming together in the UK to create a terrifying atmosphere for British Jews.
Israeli militants step up West Bank school attacks
Emma Graham-Harrison
The Israeli reservist shot 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan in the head just outside the western gate of the Mughayyir boys’ secondary school, where he was studying in ninth grade.
Aws collapsed instantly, bleeding heavily. More shots rang out as his friends ran to his side, picked up his now-limp body and rushed him out of the line of fire, their path along the school wall marked by a trail of their classmate’s blood.
Footage from inside the building showed terrified children and teachers crouched in stairwells, shouting at others to get down. Another video captured the shooter, a reservist in partial military uniform, taking aim at the school from the hillside above.
A few minutes later the same man killed the younger brother of an English teacher Waheed Abu Naim, whose family live beside the school. Jihad Abu Naim was 36; his wife is heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child, a girl due this month.
Aws and Abu Naim were shot dead on 21 April amid a wave of settler violence in the occupied West Bank, much of which has targeted schools and students in the territory.
Read on here:
As we reported earlier, the IDF said it has carried out 50 strikes on Lebanon in the past day despite the supposed ceasefire. Here are some the latest images from Lebanon:
‘We love our Americans’: the German town rocked by Trump’s plan to withdraw US troops
Deborah Cole
Despite Donald Trump’s frequent bluster, Nadine Firmont said the US president’s move to pull American troops out of Germany had hit her town like a bombshell.
“I have to tell you I was honestly shocked,” said Firmont, 45, who works at a high school in Landstuhl, south-west Germany, the heart of the largest American military community outside the US.
Even with previous drawdowns and discussions of US redeployments, Trump’s angry outburst carried a blunt menace that startled Firmont and her neighbours.
Late on Friday, the Pentagon announced it would reduce its troop numbers in Germany by 5,000 personnel – just under 15% of its presence in the country – in part by not deploying a battalion the Biden administration had planned to relocate there later this year.
Ever since the march of Gen George Patton’s Third Army into the nearby city of Kaiserslautern in spring 1945, Americans have been woven into the fabric of life here.
Read on here:
Two Gaza aid flotilla activists brought to Israel for questioning, says Israeli foreign ministry
Two activists who participated in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla have been brought to Israel for questioning, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Two of the flotilla leaders, Thiago Ávila from Brazil and Saif Abu Keshek from Spain, “will be transferred for questioning by law enforcement authorities”, the ministry said on X.
It added that the two men “will receive a consular visit from the representatives of their respective countries in Israel”.
Twenty-two vessels were intercepted off the coast of Crete on Wednesday evening while travelling as part of the Global Sumud flotilla in an attempt to transport aid to Gaza.
All but two of the roughly 175 activists from the flotilla, which left Italy on Monday, have been released after being detained by Israeli forces. Flotilla organisers have said the detention of the two men was illegal and asked international governments to pressure Israel for their immediate release.
Three Australian activists say they have launched a hunger strike in Crete, after being left there by Israeli authorities following the interception of the flotilla. Ethan Floyd, Neve O’Connor and Zack Schofield said they and their colleagues were subjected to mistreatment while held for two days onboard an Israeli vessel.
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