The CIA and State Department have reportedly tried to pressure governments into kicking out the contractors
The Biden administration has attempted to pressure African nations into expelling the Wagner private military company, with the firm’s presence in Sudan and Libya “at the top of every meeting” between American and Egyptian officials, the Associated Press reported.
CIA Director William Burns focused on the group during recent trips to Egypt and Libya, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed Wagner with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi during a jaunt to Cairo last month, the news agency reported on Saturday.
“Wagner obsesses [the American officials],” said an Egyptian senior government official. “It is at the top of every meeting.”
Egypt is a key conduit for American policy, with the Biden administration going as far as using Cairo to pass messages to Moscow, rather than communicating through direct channels. According to the report, the Egyptians reached out to their Sudanese and Libyan counterparts to relay Washington’s displeasure with Wagner.
Abbas Kamel, the director of Egypt’s Intelligence Directorate Agency, urged the head of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan to address Wagner’s “use of Sudan as a base” for operations in Central Africa, a Sudanese official said. Burns himself visited Libya to speak to the country’s competing governments, discussing Wagner with Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar, the report claimed.
Egypt reportedly asked that Haftar not station Wagner soldiers near its borders, while the US demanded that Wagner fighters be removed from their posts safeguarding Libyan oil facilities.
Founded in 2014, Wagner has mainly operated as a security contractor in Africa and the Middle East. The precise details of its deployments are not made public, although Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has confirmed that his forces fought in Libya. He denied involvement in Sudan when asked by American journalists last year, saying at the time that he was “not aware of any evidence that the Wagner Group exists,” and that he had personally donated humanitarian aid to the conflict-stricken country.
“Who arranged wars and revolutions in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Mozambique, Central Africa, and so on?” he told RT last month. “Some of these countries later turned to the Wagner PMC, which put an end to these wars with an iron fist.”
The US declared the Wagner Group a “transnational criminal organization” last month, after Wagner forces notched up a series of victories against the Ukrainian military in Donbass.
Despite Washington’s apparent “obsession” with the group, “there is no evidence yet that the Biden administration’s pressure has yielded results in either Sudan or Libya,” the AP report noted.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Unit says Iran will consider the Israeli regime’s shelters “legitimate targets” if residential areas in the country come under attack.
In a post published on social media platform X on Tuesday, the IRGC said that any strikes on residential areas in Iran would give Iran’s armed forces the right to attack Israeli shelters in the occupied lands.
The IRGC stated that it has intelligence on the blueprints and the exact locations of these shelters.
Iran began its Operation True Promise 4 after the US and Israel launched their joint military aggression against the Islamic Republic in late February by assassinating Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and several senior Iranian officials.
In its latest wave of attacks, the IRGC said it rained down missiles on the Israeli regime’s “secure” intelligence facilities in Tel Aviv.
Iranian armed forces have also pounded American military bases and ...
In a fresh wave of retaliatory strikes, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) targeted the Israeli regime’s “secure” intelligence facilities in Tel Aviv.
The IRGC’s Public Relations Department said in a statement on Tuesday that it had carried out the 79th wave of its ongoing retaliatory Operation True Promise 4 against the Israeli and American targets.
Deploying powerful Kheybar Shekan, Emad, and Sejjil missiles alongside IRGC Aerospace Force kamikaze drones, the operation successfully breached the regime's multi-layered air defense systems, the statement said.
The missiles, it stated, targeted Israel’s intelligence facilities in northern and central Tel Aviv, as well as military commercial and support centers in Ramat Gan and the Negev.
The missiles also hit Israel’s southern military logistics and command headquarters in Beersheba.
The missile strikes triggered widespread panic across Israel and forced the suspension of a Knesset (parliament) session on Tuesday.
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The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announces staging the 78th wave of its underway retaliatory Operation True Promise 4, targeting such highly sensitive Israeli targets as Dimona, Tel Aviv, and Eilat as well as several US military bases in the region.
In a statement on Tuesday, the IRGC described the latest phase of the operation as a significant development featuring missiles raining down on enemy targets as the nation was leveling momentous support behind the Islamic Republic by attending millions-strong rallies with "clenched fists."
'A distinct record'
The latest phase, it noted, "has set a distinct record in the timeline of the war."
According to the statement, targets in the occupied port of Eilat, Dimona, a heavily fortified city that hosts the Israeli regime's notorious nuclear reactor in its vicinity, and northern Tel Aviv were struck using Emad and multi-warhead Qadr missile systems along with attack drones.
This was the second time the Corps was hitting Dimona, ...
