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Rejected Rohingya Boat Sighted off Indonesia Coast

A group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province before being turned back to sea. amanda jufrian / AFP
A group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province before being turned back to sea. amanda jufrian / AFP
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Rejected Rohingya Boat Sighted off Indonesia Coast

A group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province before being turned back to sea. amanda jufrian / AFP
A group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province before being turned back to sea. amanda jufrian / AFP

A boat carrying Rohingya refugees that was forced back to sea earlier this week was sighted Saturday several miles off the coast of Indonesia's westernmost region, according to a local commander.
The group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province on Thursday, but residents told them not to land.
The boat traveled to another location in Aceh where a second group of residents again turned them back to sea late Thursday.
A naval commander in Aceh's Lhoksemauwe city told AFP on Saturday that the boat was spotted "this morning" and "looks similar" to the one turned back on Thursday, adding that it was heading east.
"At the moment (the boat) is not visible. Maybe it's beyond the horizon," Andi Susanto said.
"We are still observing the situation and ready to help if needed," he added.
The whereabouts of the boat had remained unknown after it was turned away Thursday night.
The commander said the boat was believed to be a few miles off the coast in waters around North Aceh district.
"The permission for the ship's arrival on the beach is not our authority. As in previous cases, it was handled by the local government with the coastal community and UNHCR (UN refugee agency)," said Susanto.
Thousands from the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority risk their lives each year to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia via long and treacherous sea journeys, often in flimsy boats.
In a statement Friday, UNHCR called on Indonesia to facilitate the boat's landing and provide life-saving assistance to the refugees.
Indonesia, which is not a signatory to a 1951 refugee convention, says it is not compelled to accept arriving Rohingya refugees.
Locals have complained of lacking the resources to absorb hundreds of refugees into their communities.
Nearly 600 Rohingya refugees have reached western Indonesia this week, with 196 arriving on Tuesday and 147 on Wednesday, according to local officials.
More than 2,000 Rohingya are believed to have attempted journeys to Southeast Asian countries in 2022, according to the UN agency.
Nearly 200 Rohingya died or went missing last year while attempting hazardous sea crossings, it estimated.

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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.