Five Things to Know, Oct. 9, 2023
1. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel after the attack by Hamas that has left more than 1,000 dead on both sides. Americans were reported to be among those killed and missing. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.
2. Israel says it has brought in special forces to try to wrest control of four sites from Hamas fighters after the militant group launched its unprecedented incursion into Israel. On Sunday, Israel formally declared war and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas for Saturday’s surprise attack. The Israeli military tried to crush fighters still in southern towns and intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The toll passed 1,100 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.
3. Recent satellite photos show a sharp increase in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border, indicating the North is supplying munitions to Russia, according to a U.S. think tank. Speculation about a possible North Korean plan to refill Russia's munition stores drained in its protracted war with Ukraine flared last month, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit key military sites. Foreign officials suspect Kim is seeking sophisticated Russian weapons technologies in return for the munition to boost his nuclear program.
4. A contingent of reinforcements have taken up positions in Kosovo, where NATO is bolstering its peacekeeping mission as tensions have ratcheted up in the country. Britain on Friday sent the first of 200 soldiers to Kosovo, a deployment that was made at the request of U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme allied commander.
5. To Rep. Mike Collins, China is a bigger threat to the United States than Russia. So the Georgia Republican has voted against providing military aid to Ukraine as he advocates for doing more to arm Taiwan, the self-governed island that’s at risk of military aggression from Beijing. For Collins and other Republican lawmakers, Taiwan and Ukraine are effectively rivals for a limited pool of U.S. military assistance. But that’s not necessarily how Taiwan and many of its supporters see it. They view Taiwan’s fate as closely linked to that of Ukraine as it struggles to push back a Russian invasion.