Israeli strike kills three Palestinians in West Bank’s Jenin

Israel’s prime minister and defence minister praise the attack as Hamas calls for Israeli ‘crimes’ to stop.

Save

Share

Israeli soldiers remove the body of a killed Palestinian from a house under construction in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on August 28, 2026 [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]

By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and Reuters

Published On 28 Aug 202628 Aug 2026

The Israeli army has killed three Palestinians in Jenin in a rare air strike in the occupied West Bank, amid growing tensions in the territory.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it “eliminated” three people on Friday, one a Palestinian it described as a Hamas operative as well as two of his accomplices.

Recommended Stories

list of 3 items

• list 1 of 3Israeli army, settlers kill 2 Palestinians in separate West Bank incidents
• list 2 of 3Over 100 ex-diplomats urge France, UK to sanction Israel over Palestine
• list 3 of 3Israeli army and settlers injure several Palestinians across West Bank

end of list

Hamas condemned the strike but did not claim the person targeted – whom the Israeli military identified as Qais Bitawi – as a member. Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement Bitawi was a senior operative of its armed wing.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military said the strike targeted a car carrying the men.

The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service said Israeli ground troops ⁠raided the site of the drone strike, briefly detained medics and ⁠prevented them from transporting those wounded or killed to hospital.

The Red Crescent said its personnel were also detained after arriving at the scene.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that the Israeli drone strike had targeted a house under construction in the western area of Jenin City, and that three Palestinians were killed instantly.

Photos from the AFP news agency showed Israeli soldiers removing a body from a house under construction on the outskirts of Jenin.

People gather in a building, following an Israeli military air strike, in Jenin, on Friday [Mohammed Torokman/Reuters]

‘Stop these crimes and end impunity’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the strike in a post on X, calling it a “successful thwarting” of the three targeted individuals.

After the attack, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz congratulated the military, police and Shin Bet for the strike and said the Jenin camp has been “evacuated of residents”. He added that the Israeli military is now “permanently stationed there, like other terrorist camps” in the West Bank.

Hamas condemned the strike in a statement mourning “the martyrs who fell in the occupation’s bombing of Jenin,” saying that Palestinians “will continue to cling to their land and rights”.

The group called on the international community “to take immediate action to stop these crimes and end impunity” and hold Israel “fully responsible for the repercussions”.

The occupied West Bank, home to the Palestinian Authority, has seen soaring violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers but has recently avoided Israeli military strikes that have devastated the Gaza Strip since the genocidal war began on October 7, 2023.

Military raids on Palestinian towns in the West Bank are common, but Israel last carried out a strike there in February 2025.

Friday’s strike in Jenin comes as separate Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least five people, and as Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for the United States-led Board of Peace, warned that the failure of both sides to adhere to the roadmap for peace “threatens a collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza”.

Chris Hedges: How the Media Sells Genocide

Consortium News
Volume 31, Number 236 — Friday, August 28, 2026


Chris Hedges: How the Media Sells Genocide


Western media, by employing double standards, censorship, deceptive language, amplifying Israeli lies and dehumanizing Palestinians, facilitates the genocide in Gaza



Joy to the World – by Mr. Fish.

By Chris Hedges
ScheerPost

The Western media manufactures consent for genocide. It normalizes Israel’s decades-long military occupation and apartheid. It erases Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. It perpetuates the fallacy of Israeli victimhood. It betrays, discredits and demonizes the work of Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, at least 220 of whom have been killed by Israel between Oct. 7, 2023, and August 2025. It supinely accepts draconian Israeli censorship. It acquiesces with tepid letters of protest at Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters in Gaza — an effort by Israel to mask its war crimes. It amplifies Israeli lies, from beheaded babies to widespread sexual assault of Israeli women on Oct. 7, to obfuscate the truth.

When writing about Gaza, verbs are in the passive tense. There is no subject. No one is accountable. Genocide, it seems, is an act of God. No different from an earthquake or tsunami. Clichés and opaque adjectives such as the “cycle of violence” or “clashes” distort and falsify reality.

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” George Orwell warned.

Terms such as “genocide,” “atrocity,” “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territories” magically disappear from media reports on Palestinians, whose resistance is routinely described as “savage” and “barbaric.” New York Times reporters are instructed by editors to avoid terms such as “Palestine,” “genocide,” “carnage,” “refugee camp,” “slaughter” and “massacre,” when referencing Palestinians.

The media slavishly regurgitates what Israel feeds it. Saturation bombing becomes “surgical air strikes.” Israel’s weaponization of famine becomes a “food shortage.” The killing of unarmed civilians — including children — becomes “clashes.” The hilltop fortress-like compounds of Jewish colonists becomes “neighborhoods.” Extrajudicial assassination of a journalist or a doctor becomes “died.”

Ruins of Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip, destroyed by Israeli bombardments, Feb. 23, 2025. (Jaber Jehad Badwan / Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)

Genocide, referred to as the “Israel-Hamas war” is justified as “self-defense,” part of the mantra of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” When schools, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, mosques, churches and other civilian targets are obliterated, they are labeled “Hamas command centers” or targeted because Hamas is “using civilians as human shields” — something Israel does routinely, when the army binds detained Palestinians and forces them to enter potentially booby-trapped buildings and tunnels ahead of Israeli troops.

When Israelis are held by Hamas, they are “hostages,” even if they serve in the military. When Palestinians — including children — are held without charges or trial and disappeared into Israeli detention centers, where torture is “widespread” and “systematic,” they are “prisoners.”

Missile attacks on tent cities or hospitals are blamed on Palestinian armed groups firing errant rockets. If Israel acknowledges the attacks — which very rarely happens — they are described as a “tragic mistake.”

Civil institutions in Gaza are characterized as “Hamas-run” to cast doubt on the veracity of what they report. The New York Times routinely qualifies announcements from the Gaza Health Ministry by noting it “does not distinguish between civilians and combatants,” masking the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.

The result is some of the most convoluted writing in the history of journalism, including the Nov. 5, 2023 New York Times headline that reads: “Explosions Gazans Say Was Airstrike Leaves Many Casualties in Dense Neighborhood.”

“When Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, along with Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, and freelancers Moaz Abu Taha, and Mariam Dagga — who had worked with several media outlets, including the Associated Press — were killed in a “double tap” strike — designed to kill first responders arriving to treat casualties from initial strikes — at Nasser Medical Complex, how did Western news agencies respond?” I asked in my column The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.

A hospital bed at the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza. (WHO)


“Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted what it says was a Hamas camera,” the Associated Press reported.

“IDF claims hospital strike was aimed at Hamas camera,” announced CNN.

The camera belonged to Reuters, which said Israel was “fully aware” the news agency was filming from the hospital.

“When Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif and three other journalists were killed on Aug. 10 in their media tent near Al Shifa Hospital, how was it reported in the Western press?” I asked.

“Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist It Says Was Hamas Leader,” Reuters titled its story, despite the fact al-Sharif was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize.

The German newspaper Bild, published a front page story headlined: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.”

Demonstrators carry memorial portraits of Palestinian journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Khaled El-Shawa, and Saleh Al-Jafarawi in Madrid on May 17, 2026, during a march marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba. (Barcex / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)


“The linguistic gymnastics employed by the media went as far as redefining words, making them meaningless,” writes Assal Rad in Don’t Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide:


“Mainstream media failed to describe Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire with the language of violation. Instead, the coverage followed the same patterns of rationalizing Israel’s attacks and uncritically parroting Israel’s claims to justify its actions. As Palestinians continued to be killed — during a ‘ceasefire’ — and the flow of aid did not reach the level of need or what was agreed to, Western media framed these flagrant violations as ‘tests’ or ‘challenges’ to a ‘shaky ceasefire.’ As leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International warned that the genocide was, in fact, not over, legacy media continued to frame it as a war with a ‘fragile ceasefire.’”

Words matter. Words justify actions. If there is no genocide, if Israel is defending itself in a war, the U.S. and Israel’s European allies have the right to provide tens of billions of dollars in military aid. If this is a war begun by Hamas on Oct. 7 then it is possible to lament the obliteration of Gaza and mass slaughter by Israel as the regrettable result of the Hamas attack.

This corruption of language is designed, as Orwell noted, to defend the indefensible:


“Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.”

Adam Johnson in How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, examined over 12,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments aired on CNN and MSNBC. His carefully researched book is a damning indictment of the “liberal” media’s justification of the genocide.

CNN and The New York Times instructed their editors and journalists that attacks could only be attributed to Israel after confirmation from the IDF and GPS coordinates. Johnson quotes a source at CNN:


“Whether it’s in the newsroom or in the field, we couldn’t credit anything to Israel unless we were held to this impossibly high bar of having to call it an “explosion,” until we geolocated the site of the explosion, sent the coordinates to the Israelis and asked them for comment.”

You can see an interview with Johnson about his book at The Electronic Intifada here.

CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review to the network’s Jerusalem bureau prior to airing. The CNN bureau, like all news bureaus in Israel, is required to abide by restrictions imposed by Israeli military censors.

The very few Palestinians who appear on CNN and other legacy media outlets, are routinely asked — usually before they are even permitted on air — if they “condemn” Hamas. Guests who express even tepid criticism of Israel are asked whether Israel “has a right to exist.”

No one is ever asked if they condemn Zionism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide or Israel’s 100 year war on Palestine. Nor are they asked if the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves — which under international law they do, including with weapons.

Our domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, “prisoners of the language of power.” They dutifully parrot the official lexicon. This makes them not only propagandists, but accomplices to genocide.

Those who protest the genocide, including students on university campuses — many of whom are Jewish — are smeared as “Hamas supporters” and “antisemites.” Journalists ferret out Zionist students, usually found ensconced in campus Hillel houses, who claim to be “fearful for their safety,” because of the protests. The media pays little attention to the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry or the repression meted out to student protestors, which includes not only police brutality and 3,000 detainments and arrests, but suspensions, probations, expulsions, withholding of diplomas and the firing of sympathetic faculty.

Protest in Thomas Paine Park in New York City against the detention of pro-Palestine activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil in March. (SWinxy / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)


Slogans which call for Palestinian liberation — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — along with the Palestinian flag, have been criminalized.

The message is clear: Jewish lives matter. Palestinian lives do not.

“The reports of UN agencies, of respected human rights monitors, of medical journals, and of professional medical personnel, are generally treated with respect and given prominence in the mainstream media,” writes the historian Rashid Khalidi in the introduction to Robin Anderson’s book, The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza:


“Not in this war: instead, if such sources are cited at all, equal media treatment is given to the outrageous slanders and calumnies against these organizations and individuals, smears that are produced in profusion by Israel’s legion of professional propagandists and its myriad of defenders in the US. Besides smearing critics of Israel’s genocide as supporters of Hamas or terrorist sympathizers, the main weapon in their arsenal of defamation is their systematic and outrageous misuse of the deadly accusation of antisemitism.”

The massive defections of readers and viewers from mainstream media to social media platforms that do not filter news through the Israel lobby, the U.S. government or corporations, are a stark indicator of the media’s bankruptcy. The response to these defections has been “platformicide” — the use of algorithms, shadow banning, restriction of live streaming capabilities and the closing of accounts by social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok, to dramatically reduce the reach of reporting on Palestine.

This censorship is part of a coordinated effort to hide the horror of the genocide from the public.

By constantly referencing Oct. 7, the Western media decontextualizes the genocide. It ignores Israel’s 19-year siege of Gaza. Oct. 7 is characterized in the Western media as “unprovoked.” Israel’s massacres of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in the winter of 2008 and 2009, along with its attacks on Gaza in 2012, 2014 and during the Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019 are ignored.

The 1948 Nakba — when European Zionists seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, violently expelled 750,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages and killed 15,000 Palestinians — is rarely referenced. Seventy percent of those driven from their homes in 1948 were forced into Gaza.

The Zionist project is predicated on fostering historical amnesia.

“Once Hamas was established as a brutal, terrorist group whose members gleefully tortured, dismembered, and beheaded babies without conscience, no further explanation was needed,” writes Anderson in her book. “The media simply avoided reporting Israel’s history of violence and as a result, establishment media also avoided the conditions of everyday life for Palestinians.”

The fiction that there is currently a ceasefire in Gaza — Israel has killed at least 1,286 Palestinians and injured 4,257 since it supposedly went into effect — has become the excuse used by Western media to turn its back on Gaza. This genocide denial has characterized the coverage since its inception. It masks not only Israel’s crimes, but Israel’s stated intention to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza. It effectively neuters international law. And it makes a mockery of the profession of journalism.

When the last act of ethnic cleansing happens, Western media will, I am sure, continue to bombard us with Israeli agitprop, euphemisms and clichés.

It will justify the genocide until the end.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

This article is from Scheerpost.

AN OLD STORY FROM CIRCA 2023 - THE BANGLADESHI WORKERS MINISTER

 

OutSyed The Box

Friday, August 28, 2026

AN OLD STORY FROM CIRCA 2023 - THE BANGLADESHI WORKERS MINISTER

 

The following is an old story. From around 2023 - THREE YEARS ago, But considering yesterday's blockbuster news this old story from 2023 is being viralled again. So remember that ALL the news, events mentioned herein are THREE YEARS old.  I am sort of redoing it, using pseudonyms.  RULE NO 1 - NO NAMES.

How Congress Party's S------n Became Billionaire In Foreign Workers Scandal : RM38 Million Cash , 200kg Gold Seized & RM 500 Million Account Frozen

According to those FINANCE GUYS, S------n, the Member of Parliament for Tapong since 2008, was appointed as the Secretary in the Congress Party Federal Territory by former Party president Sam Value in 1997. He had also served as deputy ministers under the Bodohwi and Bossku administrations. It was not until 2020 that he was made a full minister – Minister of Bangladeshi Workers – that came with “golden opportunities”.

Born and raised in gang-infested Centul, it wasn’t hard for S------n to click with the big boss of the Congress Party, a component party of the corrupted Barisan Rasuah coalition. After all, Sam Value was the infamous Godfather of Indian gangsters in the 1980s and 1990s, who served under the Mahazalim leadership during his 22 years rule (1981-2003).

When a Tamil Daily exposed in 2017 how S------n stole from the rental collection of the state Congress Party building, the then-Deputy Youth and Sports Minister brought mobsters to the media office and beat up its General Manager and staff. The attacks saw journalists and employees of the newspaper company left bleeding, injured and even suffered some broken teeth.

But unlike Bollywood films, there was no happy ending for the poor owner and staff of the Tamil Daily. The despicable Congress Party leader was as untouchable as Prime Minister Bossku, who himself had stolen billions in the Wan Em DB scandal before he lost power in the May 2018 General Election, and whose party – Dumbno – had ruled the country almost uninterrupted since independence in 1957.

Also known as “Ganja S------n”, he was never arrested, let alone prosecuted, but was let go with a slap on the wrist. As Bangla Workers Minister under the illegitimate backdoor PM MY (March 2020-August 2021) and PM Penyu (August 2021-November 2022), the Congress Party deputy president boldly enriched himself through corruption and money laundering.

In fact, S------n was so corrupt that he actually did not deny the involvement of Congress Party members in the misappropriation of funds from “PenjanaKayaRaya” involving a total of RM100 million. The programme-turned-scandal, under Prime Minister MY’s National Economic Recovery Plan, offered financial incentives of between RM600 and RM1,000 to employers for each employee or apprentice employed for up to six months.

But the biggest dirty money machine was the hiring of foreign workers into the country. On June 16, 2022, S------n said that Bangladesh and Malaysia had agreed to a limit of 25 agencies to recruit Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia. However, the next day, Bangladesh’s Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad rubbished the statement.

Mr Imran had also clarified that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by both countries did not mention anything about 25 agencies. Worse, despite admitting that there was a surplus of illegal Bangladeshi workers in the country, S------n had pushed to bring in more Bangladeshi. And the disgraced Bangla Workers Minister deliberately set a limit of 25 agencies to create monopoly.

The clueless, incompetent and corrupt regime of Prime Minister MY saw the cost of hiring foreign workers shoot up from about RM16,000 to RM20,000 per worker because various agencies involved had to “share the money at different levels”. The cost of hiring was incredibly ridiculous that Bangladesh refused to send any workers in 2020 – till a transparent system was in place.

The Bangladeshi government wanted the Malaysian government to connect to their online system to detect irregularities, but was declined. If the Malaysian labour market is allowed to link directly to the Bangladeshi system, it would kill syndicates and middlemen, ending the monopoly and corruption. It’s not rocket science why S------n rejected it – he was on top of the food chain of the lucrative market.

To get an idea of how the business has made S------n and his cronies mega rich, look no further than the latest operation that was carried out by a Multi-Agency Task Force (MATF) led by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on Monday (July 24). Over RM38 million cash and 200kg of gold worth over RM60 million was seized along with 17 luxury vehicles such as Ferrari and Maserati.

Involving the police, Immigration Department, Customs Department, Bank Negara Malaysia (Central Bank), Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) as well as Cyber Security Malaysia (CSM), the special operation saw raids carried out in 34 locations in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor involving 315 officers. The man behind the crimes is “Dato Kilam”, the proxy and bag carrier for S------n.

Dato Kilam, also commonly known as “Dato Kilam”, was the trusted lieutenant of the former Bangla Workers Minister entrusted to launder dirty money from the Bangladeshi recruitment business. Also known for distributing Indian movies and bringing in artists from India to perform Tamil concerts in Malaysia, Kilam has finally been arrested and grilled by the MACC.

Also arrested was businessman-cum-politician “Datuk S------n Accomplice”, who is linked to former ruling party Berdua, and a “Newspaper Owner” (owner of Tamil Daily No. 2). More than 30 suspects have been identified by the anti-corruption agency, busting a syndicate involved in corruption, smuggling, money laundering and illegal tax evasion.

Crucially, the MACC has also frozen funds amounting to RM500 million linked to Kilam. If this crook has in his possession RM500 million, can you imagine the real wealth of ex-minister S------n? There’s a reason why S------n was known as “Ganja S------n”. In 2021, Kilam was exposed by a local newspaper as not only a criminal involved in illegal smuggling business, but was also a drug dealer.

Yes, the Congress Party gangster did not become a multi-millionaire from his venture into agriculture business – coconut cultivation – as he would like the people to believe. Rather, it was his venture into illegal businesses, using Dato Kilam as his proxy and cover, and links to underground Mafia that made him super-rich, so much so he believed he could buy his way out with money.

However, the arrogant politician will not be able to count on Dato Sri Rawana to bail him out this time. S------n was a traitor – one of the Barisan Rasuah MPs who had signed the Statutory Declaration to support rival Berdua president MY as prime minister after the 15th General Election produced a hung Parliament.

Not only S------n had betrayed the leadership of Dumbno president Dato 47 DNAA, but he has shown that he was an untrustworthy ally of the Dato Sri Rawana-led Gomen. In December 2022, he deliberately went out for lunch and did not return for the counting of votes in the deputy speaker election, causing Alice Wonderland of Pakatoons to receive only 146 votes instead of 148 two-thirds majority votes.

Like former premier Bossku, who is serving 12 years in prison and fined RM210 million for abuse of power, criminal breach of trust (CBT) and money laundering, S------n is another shameless crook who did not blink twice about stealing RM19 million disbursed for a chilli planting programme to Yayasan SayaKaya, a foundation led by himself.

Source : THOSE FINANCE GUYS

S-400’s “Dark Turn”: Russia is Firing Air-Defense Missiles at Ukraine, Former IAF Vice Chief Explains Why

S-400’s “Dark Turn”: Russia is Firing Air-Defense Missiles at Ukraine, Former IAF Vice Chief Explains Why

By Sakshi Tiwari
-August 28, 2026



After being hailed as the “star performer” during last year’s intense Indo-Pakistan clash, the S-400 Triumf is undergoing a striking transformation. Ukrainian Intelligence has disclosed that Russia has adapted the S-400 to launch devastating ground attacks on Ukraine.

Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence (DIU) disclosed that the Russian Armed Forces have modified up to 17 S-400 launchers to launch strikes against Ukraine.

“As of today, the Russian command uses five special missile groups that are deployed in the Bryansk and Rostov regions of the Russian Federation. The total number of converted launchers of this anti-aircraft missile system, which the enemy can use to strike, is up to 17 units,” the agency told Ukrainian outlet UNIAN.

The DIU identified the munition used with the launcher as the RM-48U guided missile and noted a sharp surge in its use, particularly against the capital city, Kyiv.

While Moscow used just 15 RM-48U missiles per month in the six-month period between January and June, it used 46 in the first 20 days of July, the DIU claimed.

Officials have reportedly linked the uptick in use of RM-48U launched from S-400s to a broader uptick in ballistic missile attacks.

“The decision to increase the number of RM-48U applications is associated with their lower cost compared to Iskander-M missiles, as well as a significant stock of these missiles—about 400 units,” the DIU stated.


The timing appears to be deliberate as Russia has intensified ballistic strikes to exploit gaps in Ukrainian air defenses caused by shortages of Patriot interceptors.

The RM-48U is a Russian missile derived from decommissioned surface-to-air missiles, primarily from the 48N6 missile family. It flies a ballistic trajectory when used offensively and could serve as both a strike weapon and a decoy. It can carry high-explosive fragmentation warheads weighing about 150–180 kilograms, as per Ukrainian media.

Russian S-400 Triumf-Wikimedia Commons

Notably, the RM-48U has a smaller warhead, a shorter effective range in many configurations, and poorer accuracy against ground targets than advanced Russian ballistic missiles, such as the Iskander.

Ukrainian officials believe using RM-48U missiles is a cost-effective way to increase the volume and complexity of attacks on Ukraine, particularly because they serve both as limited-strike weapons and as decoys or saturators that force Ukraine to expend scarce, expensive interceptors.

“The RM-48U is essentially a repurposed member of the 48N6 family originally associated with the S-400. Rather than letting older air-defense missiles sit in storage or reach the end of their useful life, Russia is converting them into ground-attack weapons,” Indian Air Force (IAF) veteran, Air Marshal Anil Khosla (retd) told the EurAsian Times, when asked about the surge in use of these missiles.


“Modification makes RM-48U particularly attractive for mass attacks where Russia doesn’t necessarily need every individual missile to be an Iskander. Russia already has the S-400 launcher architecture. It doesn’t have to develop an entirely new missile-launching system from scratch,” he added.

This suggests Moscow is likely using these missiles in a supplementary role, prioritizing other lethal Iskander missiles for precision attacks on high-value targets.

Since RM-48Us follow a ballistic trajectory, Ukraine would probably be forced to use high-end interceptors against them amid dwindling stockpiles.


Producing these missiles is far cheaper and less constrained than scaling true operational-tactical ballistic missiles. In fact, reports suggest that Russia has sharply ramped up production—from over 200 in 2025 to a planned 480 or more in 2026.


Speaking of the numbers, Air Marshal Khosla said, “17 launchers doesn’t mean only 17 missiles. A launcher can fire repeatedly. In this case, the number of launchers required would depend on the RM-48U stockpile, which is estimated to be over 40.”

Notably, the latest development suggests that S-400 is more than just an air defense system. “The conversion essentially turns an existing air-defense asset into a ground-strike asset. Russia appears to be building depth in its ballistic strike arsenal. Russia isn’t replacing Iskander with RM-48U. It’s trying to make the ballistic-missile pool larger by converting its enormous legacy air-defense missile inventory into offensive ballistic missiles,” Air Marshal Khosla told the EurAsian Times.

This turns the S-400, which has been extensively used by Russia to protect key military sites and strategic assets from the Ukrainian onslaught, from a shield to a sword.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Moscow has turned to its air defense launchers to strike Ukraine—it was using potent 48N6DM launched from an S-400 to strike Ukrainian cities from Belarusian territory as far back as 2023, as the EurAsian Times had reported at the time.

S-400 “Killed It” During Indo-Pakistan Conflict

The S-400 is one of the most prized possessions of the Russian military, extensively used for air defense against Ukrainian missile and drone strikes. Previous reports suggested that Russia was pulling out these systems and deploying them to Moscow and a handful of other strategic sites in a bid to fortify them in the face of an unrelenting Ukrainian onslaught.

The S-400’s global reputation, however, was cemented during the intense four-day fighting that erupted in South Asia in May 2025.

Serving as the outermost layer of India’s air-defense network, the S-400 kept Pakistani aircraft deep inside their own territory and forced them to fly low, according to a EurAsian Times correspondent who reported from Adampur in May 2025, where S-400s are deployed.

Shopping For Authentic South Asian Apparel

Indian officials have credited the system with destroying a Saab Erieye-2000 airborne early-warning aircraft—the PAF’s “eye in the sky”—and, more critically, shooting down a JF-17 Thunder, as we reported in detail earlier.

Animesh Patni, a Group Captain in the Indian Air Force who was in charge of the S-400 air defense system, tracked a JF-17 200 kilometers away on May 10, 2025—the last day of the conflict.

He immediately activated the S-400’s primary long-range air-search radar and quickly obtained a solid lock on a target more than 200 kilometers away, deep in Pakistani territory. This was the first real lock the S-400 achieved in India, and it was deployed in combat for the first time since its delivery.

Subsequently, a massive 25-foot missile, costing about $1.5 million, roared off, lighting up the sky with a loud thud and shaking the ground. A few seconds later, Patni succinctly announced a successful strike with the global Air Force call-out, “Splash.”

IAF Chief A.P. Singh later said in October 2025 that this was the longest-ever kill by India.

“This was the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill,” Singh said, adding that the S-400’s 40N6 missile, with a 380-km reach, kept Pakistani aircraft outside their weapons’ release range,” the IAF chief said. “Pakistan was unable to operate even within its own territory.”

Indian PM Narendra Modi posing at Adampur Air Base after the Indo-Pakistan conflict 2025, with an S-400 in the background (Via X)


At one point during the conflict, Pakistani media claimed that a PAF JF-17 took out an S-400 battery at Adampur Air Base using a CM-400AKG hypersonic missile. However, these claims were later dispelled as “fake news” by India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB).

At the time, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said that “Pakistan has attempted to execute a continued malicious misinformation campaign, with claims of destruction of the Indian S-400 system, destruction of airfields at Surat and Sirsa… India unequivocally rejects these false claims being spread by Pakistan.”

Not just that, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Adampur Air Base—a frontline facility that bore the brunt of Pakistan’s attacks—after the ceasefire. The PM addressed the troops at the base, with the S-400 in the background, officially debunking the Pakistani media’s claim.

Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com

 

Which countries have citizens killed or missing after Nepal-Tibet flash flood?

Hundreds of foreigners were in area to work, take guided treks or make pilgrimages when disaster struck

•  

  Nepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updates

Associated Press

Fri 28 Aug 2026 20.55 AEST

Prefer the Guardian on Google

Flash floods at the Nepal-Tibet border have killed at least 543 people and more than 1,500 are missing. Hundreds were foreigners in the area to work, take guided treks or make pilgrimages.

Thousands have been rescued, with some of the injured taken to hospitals in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. The number of missing may vary because of progress in the ongoing rescue efforts and differences in how data has been collected and verified among agencies.

Here is how different countries have been affected.

Nepal

Nepal’s disaster management authority said on Friday the death toll in that country had risen to 538, with 977 people missing. The authority said 3,253 people had been rescued by helicopter, and more than 150 of the injured were taken to hospitals in Kathmandu and the districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading.

Local reports cited the National Emergency Operation Centre as saying on Thursday that the missing included 113 Nepali tourists, 85 personnel from the army and police, 161 residents from the Rasuwa district and one from the Nuwakot district.

Timeline of how deadly Nepal and Tibet flash flood unfolded – explainer

China

State media reported on Friday that at least five people had died and 558 were missing in Gyirong County, Tibet. The state broadcaster CCTV reported that 260 of the 558 missing people were foreigners. In addition, nearly 100 Chinese citizens were missing on the Nepal side, China’s foreign ministry said.

India

India’s foreign ministry said 288 Indian nationals remained uncontactable, including 73 people who were working on a power project. Nepali officials said many Indian tourists were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus.

US

The US state department said 90 of its citizens were unaccounted for in China and Nepal, but that it was not aware of any US deaths. Three Americans have been rescued.

Malaysia

Officials said 51 Malaysians were missing.

Barrier lake forms at base of mountains near Nepal border

Ukraine

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said 55 Ukrainians were missing. The number includes two tourist groups, of 47 and seven people respectively, in addition to one Ukrainian woman travelling with a foreign tour group.

Australia

The Australian government said 39 Australians were missing.

Britain

Officials said 33 of the missing were from Britain.

Canada

The Nepal tourism board (NTB) said 25 of the missing were from Canada.

Nepal-Tibet flash flood: death toll rises above 540 as rescue operations resume – latest updates

Read more

South Korea

South Korean government officials said nine citizens working on the construction of a hydropower plant in Nepal were missing.

Singapore

Eight Singaporeans were missing, according to the NTB.

Germany

The NTB said eight tourists from Germany were missing.

Russia

The Russian embassy in Nepal said eight of its citizens were missing.

South Africa

The NTB said six South Africans were missing.

Latvia

The NTB said six tourists from Latvia were missing.

Japan

Japanese media said five Japanese tourists were missing, made up of a couple and their children.

New Zealand

Five people from New Zealand were missing, the NTB said.

France

The NTB said four French citizens were missing.

Belgium

The NTB said three people from Belgium were missing.

Spain

The NTB said three visitors from Spain were missing.

Others

The NTB said two people each from Italy, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Ireland and the Netherlands were missing. It said 10 others – one each from Belarus, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, the Philippines, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Serbia and Sweden – were also missing.