Former US Military Intelligence Official Says He Resigned Over Gaza War 

Israeli tanks maneuver along the border with the Gaza Strip, near the Palestinian city of Jabalia (background), as seen from the Israeli side of the border, southern Israel, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
Israeli tanks maneuver along the border with the Gaza Strip, near the Palestinian city of Jabalia (background), as seen from the Israeli side of the border, southern Israel, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
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Former US Military Intelligence Official Says He Resigned Over Gaza War 

Israeli tanks maneuver along the border with the Gaza Strip, near the Palestinian city of Jabalia (background), as seen from the Israeli side of the border, southern Israel, 13 May 2024. (EPA)
Israeli tanks maneuver along the border with the Gaza Strip, near the Palestinian city of Jabalia (background), as seen from the Israeli side of the border, southern Israel, 13 May 2024. (EPA)

A former US military intelligence official released a letter on Monday that explained to his colleagues at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that his November resignation was in fact due to "moral injury" stemming from US support for Israel's war in Gaza and the harm caused to Palestinians.

Harrison Mann, an Army major, would be the first known DIA official to quit over US support to Israel. A US airman fatally set himself on fire in February outside Israel's embassy in Washington and other military personnel have protested.

Mann said he kept quiet about his motives for resigning for months out of fear.

"I was afraid. Afraid of violating our professional norms. Afraid of disappointing officers I respect. Afraid you would feel betrayed. I'm sure some of you will feel that way reading this," Mann wrote in a letter shared with colleagues last month and published on his LinkedIn profile on Monday.

A DIA official confirmed to Reuters that Mann worked at the agency.

"Employee resignations are a routine occurrence at DIA as they are at other employers, and employees resign their positions for any number of reasons and motivations," the official said, without elaborating.

Mann's case differs from other US government officials, including several State Department officials, who publicly deplored US policy as they resigned rather than waiting months to explain their departure.

Man said he felt shame and guilt for helping advance US policy that he said contributed to the mass killing of Palestinians.

"At some point — whatever the justification — you're either advancing a policy that enables the mass starvation of children, or you're not," Mann wrote.

Israel is retaliating against Hamas over an Oct. 7 attack in which Israel says the militants killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry. There has been increasing concern about the lack of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza by Israel, and growing US and international warnings about the risk of famine.

The high death toll has fueled pro-Palestinian protests that have swept college campuses across the United States and pushed Democrats in key battleground states to vote "uncommitted" to signal their unhappiness ahead of this year's presidential election.

President Joe Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel, put a hold on one package of arms, in a major policy shift that became public last week, and his administration said the US was reviewing others.

The Biden administration on Friday said Israel's use of US-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its military operation in Gaza, in its strongest criticism to date of Israel.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."