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Azerbaijan Holds First Joint Drills with Türkiye since Karabakh Victory

Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
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Azerbaijan Holds First Joint Drills with Türkiye since Karabakh Victory

Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)

Azerbaijan said on Monday it had begun a series of joint military exercises with close ally Türkiye, the first since Baku retook the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month, prompting most of the territory's ethnic Armenians to flee.
Azerbaijan's defense ministry said in a statement that up to 3,000 military personnel were participating in exercises named for the founder of modern Türkiye, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Reuters said.
It said the drills were being held across Azerbaijan, including in Baku, the Nakhichevan exclave which borders Türkiye, and in what the ministry called the "liberated territories" of Karabakh.
Türkiye has close linguistic and cultural links to Azerbaijan, and offered Baku military and political support during its three decade-long conflict with Armenia, with which Ankara has no formal diplomatic relations.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently signaled willingness to sign a peace treaty formally ending their conflict following Azerbaijan's victory in Karabakh and the exodus of almost all the region's 120,000 ethnic Armenians.
The foreign ministers of the two countries, along with those of Türkiye, Iran and Russia, were due to hold talks hosted by Tehran on Monday on progress towards a peace agreement.
However, Baku this month accused Yerevan of undermining the peace process with "aggressive rhetoric".
Armenia describes the Karabakh Armenians' flight as ethnic cleansing driven by the threat of violence after a nine-month blockade of essential supplies, the latest chapter in a conflict between Christian Armenians and Turkic Muslim Azeris that goes back more than a century.
Azerbaijan says the Karabakh Armenian civilians were welcome to stay and be integrated in Azerbaijani society, but left voluntarily.

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World

UN: Over 370 Afghan Civilians Killed in Pakistan Conflict in Three Months

Victims of a strike on a drug rehab center in Kabul are burried in a mass grave on Badam Bagh Hilltop on March 26. Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File
Victims of a strike on a drug rehab center in Kabul are burried in a mass grave on Badam Bagh Hilltop on March 26. Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File
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UN: Over 370 Afghan Civilians Killed in Pakistan Conflict in Three Months

Victims of a strike on a drug rehab center in Kabul are burried in a mass grave on Badam Bagh Hilltop on March 26. Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File
Victims of a strike on a drug rehab center in Kabul are burried in a mass grave on Badam Bagh Hilltop on March 26. Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File

At least 372 Afghan civilians were killed in conflict between government forces and Pakistan in the first three months of the year, the United Nations reported on Tuesday, with more than half the deaths attributed to airstrikes on a drug rehab facility in Kabul.

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have been fraught since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, and exploded into what Pakistan's defense minister called "open war" in February.

Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban government of sheltering militants behind a surge in attacks -- particularly the Pakistan Taliban, who have waged a violent campaign for years.

Afghan officials deny the charge and counter that Pakistan harbors hostile groups and does not respect its sovereignty.

"Between 1 January and 31 March 2026, UNAMA documented a total of 372 civilians killed and 397 injured as a result of cross-border armed violence" between Afghanistan's security forces and Pakistani military forces, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

In a written response to the report, Islamabad said 130 Pakistani civilians and security personnel were killed since the beginning of this year.

On Monday, Pakistan's foreign ministry summoned Kabul's top envoy to Islamabad, saying a suicide attack that killed 15 people, mostly police officers, at the weekend was "masterminded by terrorists residing in Afghanistan".

Long-running cross-border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan escalated in October last year, leaving dozens dead, but after subsiding, they resumed at the end of February.

The UN mission, which has a mandate to monitor civilian casualties only in Afghanistan, said its report was based on checks with three independent sources.

The latest three-month figure is higher than any toll for the period recorded by UNAMA since 2011.

According to the report, 13 women, 46 children (31 boys and 16 girls) and 313 men were killed in Afghanistan between January 1 and March 31.

- NGO worker killed -

"The leading cause of civilian casualties was airstrikes (64 percent) with the remaining caused by indirect cross-border firing" and one "targeted killing" of an NGO worker, the UN said.

The high proportion of men was attributed to the March 16 strikes on a Kabul drug treatment hospital which admitted only male patients. At least 269 people were killed and 122 wounded.

Many bodies "could not be identified because they were reduced to dismembered body parts", while others were unrecognizable "due to extensive burns", the report said.

"The real figure may be significantly higher," the UN added.

The Taliban government reported more than 400 civilians killed in that incident.

In a written response included in the report, Pakistan insisted "no hospital, drug rehabilitation center, or civilian facility was targeted".

"Pakistan's actions were directed solely against terrorist and military infrastructure," Islamabad said.

The UN mission urged Afghan authorities to "compile a record of the missing" from the hospital strike to help their relatives find answers about their fate.

UNAMA also called on the warring parties to respect international law by refraining from targeting health facilities or from firing shells or grenades into areas populated by civilians.

The report recounted the death of a female Afghan employee of an NGO in Nuristan on March 19 during the Eid al-Fitr holiday -- even though a ceasefire had been agreed a day earlier.

As she tried to return home with her husband and three children, "Pakistani military forces began firing at their vehicle", the UN said.

They stepped out of the car to cross the river and reach a safer area when "the NGO worker was shot in her right side and fell into the water and drowned with her three-year-old son".

Since talks in early April in China, Pakistan and Afghanistan have committed to avoiding any escalation, according to Beijing.

Incidents have decreased without stopping entirely.

On April 27, seven civilians were killed and 85 wounded by shelling that hit, among other places, a university in Asadabad, according to Afghan authorities. 

World

Russia, Ukraine Resume Strikes as Truce Expires, One Dead

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack in Kyiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack in Kyiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
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Russia, Ukraine Resume Strikes as Truce Expires, One Dead

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack in Kyiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian drone attack in Kyiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Russia resumed strikes on Ukraine as a three-day truce expired on Tuesday, attacking the capital with drones and killing one person in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian authorities said.

The Russian military meanwhile said it had shot down 27 Ukrainian drones after the ceasefire expired.

US President Donald Trump had announced the truce on Friday, hours before Russia's World War II victory celebrations, saying he hoped it would mark "the beginning of the end" of the four-year-old conflict.

But even before it expired, the two countries had traded accusations of attacks on civilians that violated the truce.

As the ceasefire ended on Tuesday, Kyiv came under drone attacks, according to Ukrainian authorities.

"Enemy UAVs are currently over Kyiv. Please stay safe until the alert is cleared," the head of the capital's military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, posted on Telegram.

The alert siren was the first confirmed in the capital since Friday, before the ceasefire came into force.

Kyiv's regional military administration told residents to remain in shelters and said its air defenses could be operating in the area.

Russian strikes in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded at least four others, regional military authorities said.

The strikes killed a man and wounded a woman in the area of Synelnykove in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the head of the regional military administration Oleksandr Ganzha posted on Telegram.

He added three others were wounded in strikes elsewhere in Dnipropetrovsk.

On the Russian side, "air defense duty assets intercepted and destroyed 27 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles" over the Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov regions from midnight to 7:00 am Moscow time (2100 to 0400 GMT), Russia's defense ministry said in a statement.

- 'No silence at front' -

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said Monday that fighting with Russia was ongoing despite the truce, accusing Moscow of not wanting to end the war started by President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

"Today there was no silence at the front, there was fighting. We have recorded all of this," Zelensky said in his daily address in the final hours of the truce.

Zelensky also said it was "clear that the war in Iran is now drawing the most attention from America".

Negotiations on the Russia-Ukraine war have so far led nowhere, and have been largely sidelined by the Iran conflict -- though Trump's ceasefire announcement had raised some hope that US-led talks to end Russia's invasion could be resumed.

World

Planes with Hantavirus Cruise Passengers Land in the Netherlands; Hospital Quarantines 12

12 May 2026, Netherlands, Eindhoven: Crew members of the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship arrive at Eindhoven airport. (dpa)
12 May 2026, Netherlands, Eindhoven: Crew members of the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship arrive at Eindhoven airport. (dpa)
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Planes with Hantavirus Cruise Passengers Land in the Netherlands; Hospital Quarantines 12

12 May 2026, Netherlands, Eindhoven: Crew members of the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship arrive at Eindhoven airport. (dpa)
12 May 2026, Netherlands, Eindhoven: Crew members of the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship arrive at Eindhoven airport. (dpa)

Two planes with 28 passengers from ‌the MV Hondius cruise ship, which was hit by a hantavirus outbreak, landed in the Netherlands on Tuesday and a Dutch hospital treating a hantavirus patient quarantined 12 staffers in a preventative measure.

The planes landed at Eindhoven Airport shortly after midnight, carrying eight Dutch nationals. Other passengers of different nationalities will continue on to their home countries from the Netherlands, authorities previously said.

The Dutch hospital staff members were placed into preventive quarantine for six weeks after blood and urine were handled without updated and more strict protocols, the Radboudumc hospital in the city of Nijmegen ‌said, adding ‌that the infection risk is very low and patient ‌care ⁠continues uninterrupted.

Radboudumc admitted ⁠a Hondius passenger infected with hantavirus on May 7.

"We will carefully investigate the course of events to learn from this so that it can be prevented in the future," said Bertine Lahuis, the chair of the hospital's executive board.

Meanwhile, the Hondius set sail for the Netherlands late on Monday evening with 25 crew as well as a ⁠doctor and a nurse. All passengers have disembarked the ‌ship. It is expected to arrive in ‌the Netherlands by May 17, ship owner Oceanwide Expeditions said.

Three people - a Dutch ‌couple and a German national - have died since the start of ‌the outbreak on the ship, which is usually spread by wild rodents but can also be transmitted person-to-person in rare cases of close contact.

The World Health Organization on Monday said there were now seven confirmed cases of the ‌Andes strain of the hantavirus and two other suspected cases - one person who died before being tested, and ⁠one on ⁠Tristan da Cunha, a remote South Atlantic island where there were no tests available.

The confirmed cases include a French passenger, who tested positive after the ship docked in the Canary Islands on Sunday. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on Monday said the passenger was in stable condition after her health had briefly worsened.

"Our compatriot who tested positive for Hantavirus is still in intensive care in a stable condition," he said.

One of 14 Spaniards quarantining at a military hospital in Madrid has tested positive for the virus, the Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement on Monday evening, adding that the patient presented no symptoms and further tests were being done before a definitive result was announced.