Russian Forces Pound Avdiivka for Fourth Straight Day

Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
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Russian Forces Pound Avdiivka for Fourth Straight Day

Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)

Russian forces pounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday.

In attacks elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile strike killed one person in the city of Pokrovsk, also in the east, while a drone attack in the south killed a women and seriously injured her husband.

"The fighting has been going on for four consecutive days," Vitaliy Barabash, head of the city's military administration, told Ukrainian national television.

"They have substantial reserves of personnel and equipment. Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer center."

Russia has focused its campaign along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russia's representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, said the intensified battles in the east signified a new stage in its campaign.

"Russian troops have, for several days now, switched over to active combat action practically throughout the entire front line," Nebenzia told a session of the UN Security Council, Reuters reported.

"The so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive can therefore be considered finished."

Russian forces abandoned the western bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region late last year, but continue to shell towns there from positions on the eastern bank.



US Revokes Plea Deal with 9/11 Mastermind

The mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
The mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
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US Revokes Plea Deal with 9/11 Mastermind

The mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
The mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

The US on Friday revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin relieved the senior official in charge of military commissions, Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case.

The plea agreement would have seen the suspect avoid the death sentence.

In a memo released Friday evening, Austin said, “In light of the significance of the decision, I have determined that the authority to make a decision on accepting the plea agreements is mine.”

He added, “I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.”

The three agreements were signed with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.

The deals sparked anger among family members of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 when hearing that the agreements would exempt the defendants from the death penalty.

In his order, Austin said he relieved Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case. Escallier oversaw the cases in her capacity as the Department of Defense's Convening Authority for Military Commissions.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements...,” Austin wrote in his memo.