The US has stepped up pressure on its Middle East allies to expel the Wagner Group — a military contractor owned by an oligarch with close ties to Russia’s President — from chaos-stricken Libya and Sudan, where it has expanded in recent years, regional officials told The Associated Press.
The US effort described by officials comes as President Joe Biden's administration is making a broad push against the mercenaries. The US has slapped new sanctions on the Wagner Group in recent months over its expanding role in Russia's war in Ukraine.
The group does not announce its operations, but its presence is known from reports on the ground and other evidence.
In Sudan, it was originally associated with former strongman Omar Al Bashir and now works with the military leaders who replaced him. In Libya, it is associated with eastern Libya-based military commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
Wagner has sent thousands of operatives to African and Middle East countries including Mali, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Syria.
“Wagner tends to target countries with natural resources that can be used for Moscow’s objectives -— gold mines in Sudan, for example, where the resulting gold can be sold in ways that circumvent Western sanctions,” said Catrina Doxsee, an expert on Wagner at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The group’s role in Libya and Sudan was central to talks between CIA Director William Burns and officials in Egypt and Libya in January. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also discussed the group with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in a late-January trip to Cairo, Egyptian officials said.
The group and Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin have been under US sanctions since 2017, and the Biden administration in December announced new export restrictions on its access to technology and supplies, designating it as a “significant transnational criminal organisation”.
Sudan
Wagner started operating in Sudan in 2017, providing military training to intelligence and special forces, and to the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, according to Sudanese officials and documents shared with the AP.
Wagner mercenaries are not operating in a combat role in Sudan, officials said. The group, which has dozens of operatives in the country, provides military and intelligence training, as well as surveillance and protection of sites and top officials.
Sudanese military leaders appear to have given Wagner control of gold mines in return. The documents show the group has received mining rights through front companies with ties to Sudan’s powerful military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Two companies have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for acting as fronts for Wagner’s mining activities.
The main camp of Wagner mercenaries is in the contested village of Am Dafok on the border between the Central African Republic and Sudan, according to the Darfur Bar Association, a legal group that focuses on human rights.
Libya
In Libya, Mr Burns held talks in Tripoli with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, head of one of Libya's two rival governments.
The CIA director also met with Mr Haftar in eastern Libya, according to Libyan officials.
UN experts said Wagner mercenaries have been present Libya since 2018, helping Mr Haftar's forces in their fight against Islamist militants in the east. The group was also involved in his failed offensive on Tripoli in April 2019.
Since the 2020 ceasefire, Wagner's activities have centred around oil facilities in central Libya, and they have continued providing military training to Mr Haftar's forces, Libyan officials said. It is not clear how many Wagner mercenaries are still in Libya.
US officials have demanded that mercenaries be pulled out of oil facilities, another Libyan official said.
Mr Haftar did not offer any commitments, but asked for assurances that Turkey and the militias it backed in western Libya would not attack his forces in the coastal city of Sirte and other areas in the central part of the country.
Egypt, which has close ties with Mr Haftar, has demanded that Wagner not be stationed close to its borders.
There is no evidence yet that the Biden administration’s pressure has yielded results in either Sudan or Libya, observers said.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Jumanji: The Next Level
Director: Jake Kasdan
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Nick Jonas
Two out of five stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
ESSENTIALS
The flights
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The trip
From US$1,830 per deluxe cabin, twin share, for the one-night Spirit of the Water itinerary and US$4,630 per deluxe cabin for the Peruvian Highlands itinerary, inclusive of meals, and beverages. Surcharges apply for some excursions.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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THREE
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The specs: 2018 BMW R nineT Scrambler
Price, base / as tested Dh57,000
Engine 1,170cc air/oil-cooled flat twin four-stroke engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 110hp) @ 7,750rpm
Torque 116Nm @ 6,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.3L / 100km
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The biog
Title: General Practitioner with a speciality in cardiology
Previous jobs: Worked in well-known hospitals Jaslok and Breach Candy in Mumbai, India
Education: Medical degree from the Government Medical College in Nagpur
How it all began: opened his first clinic in Ajman in 1993
Family: a 90-year-old mother, wife and two daughters
Remembers a time when medicines from India were purchased per kilo
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Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
The specs: 2018 Opel Mokka X
Price, as tested: Dh84,000
Engine: 1.4L, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: Six-speed auto
Power: 142hp at 4,900rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 1,850rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L / 100km
RESULT
Bournemouth 0 Southampton 3 (Djenepo (37', Redmond 45' 1, 59')
Man of the match Nathan Redmond (Southampton)
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
