in with the united states major general hussein said he says the u.s. escalation in the region represented what he called a decisive moment for the islamic revolution iran's u.n. mission also accused washington of trying to deliberately provoke a confrontation by claiming to have a threat to the region. joining us from iran where it seems like things are heating up should we be concerned about the latest comments from the head of the revolutionary guard. well a lot of what major general hussein salami said is a more. energized wording for stated policy or for things that have been said before by president hassan rouhani by the supreme leader himself he reiterated a lot of points that we have that the country has to be ready for a confrontation with the united states but he also said that they were being ostentatious that they were behaving in an ostentatious way largely echoing what

the supreme leader said in his speech on tuesday that america's part is worse than it's bite but he did say something that had a tactical edge to it he said that the enemy has come to the battlefield this time with all of its capabilities at its disposal and that that is why it is a decisive moment for ron so the middle east has seen a build up of american military hardware in the past on several occasions the 1st time in recent memory where the sole focus seems to be the nation of iran but the government maintains that this is largely of. a public propaganda stunt to intimidate iran and other countries in the region and to that end the permanent mission of iran at the united nations in new york put out a statement saying that the removal of its staff from its embassy and consulates in iraq was a move again as part of a propaganda war to spark some stop of some type of possible confrontation between iran and the united states the statement said the decision was

a result of false propaganda to start a possible confrontation so iran very much sticking to its guns maintaining that this is all just part of a way to carry out psychological warfare and intimidated iranian people all right thank you. still ahead on al-jazeera china hits back against what it calls unilateral u.s. action against tech giant weiwei plus a police officer i saw men with guns they told me the job they called me for was to fight y.b.'s kenyans say they were tricked into fighting for al shabab. how low the weather's looking pretty good for japan over the next couple days we have got cloud just spinning out of the yellow sea out of the a china sea that will eventually fade its way to the far south of the country at

the moment some bits and pieces of fair weather clouds they stretch their way across the korean peninsula but they make the most of the sunshine that you do get because this area cloud will if they can operate will increase it will make its way further east with as we go through the next couple of days or 24 therefore tokyo this woman that the across the korean peninsula go on into sats day we'll see that rain started to fade its way into cuba shoot clouding over in tokyo sendai should be dry and bright for a good pass over the top 21 celsius here so that was the weather well that's spilling out of that eastern side of china see some rain just coming into central and eastern parts of china that a push is why over towards shanghai and beyond as we go on into saturday the southeast but the studies on several temperatures they have to 32 celsius in hong kong quite a key southerly wind filtering its way in here you'll notice they want to sunshine the showers across the philippines i think more in the way of sunshine and then showers the showers a stand across much of malaysia i want to show is into northern parts of indonesia

but by a large it's the can pretty sunny. northern iraq. a story soon transformed by a chance encounter. i witnessed documentary.

hello again the top stories on al-jazeera this hour the. civilians have been killed and so do you eat coalition air strikes in and around the capital. residential neighborhoods were bombed the coalition targeted military positions on weapons storage facilities. talks between opposition coalition and the military council have been suspended for 3 days this follows an increase in violence the negotiators are trying to decide who should head the council that will oversee the transition. out of egypt the military there is saying they've killed 47 fighters in a series of operations in the north in the center of the sinai hundreds of explosive devices and other weapons were seized more than 150 people were arrested in that operation. because government says hardline buddhist groups are being investigated over recent wave of anti muslim attacks at least 31 people have

appeared in court in connection with the raids that's muslim businesses targeted in days of violence. a press conference on wednesday updating the security situation in the shrine where the government says. all have been no further attacks since the beginning of the week and that is essentially because there's been a curfew in place and that has kept a lid on the violence for the greater challenge of course but your language to try and find some sort of long term solution to bring these factions fractured communities back together but it was not in this one and i asked one of the ministers in the government here who for the 1st time we've heard this from the government blamed for this nationalist extremist groups provoking misapplying. your saw ensure that those people who are behind these were arrested and put it

yesterday also last night did there's peace in this country nothing has happened. so we've be feeding again hold it we feel that these are organized attacks on muslim business houses premises that are happening and we will ensure that it does not happen well it's quite interesting it remains tense and particularly here in the northwestern part of sri lanka which is where all of the attacks at the beginning of this week were censored censored and what the minister says he's quite interesting because it's you go to a lot of the villages here or to particularly sinhalese buddhist majority believe here and there is this sense of resentment against muslim communities muslim communities that live nearby and that resentment has been given an outlet really by the easter sunday attacks a sort of an excuse that some of the international screws have been looking for looking for perhaps to target muslim groups and when you speak to some of the

buddhist villagers some of the in these small communities they'll say that the muslims aren't integrating they'll say that they're not a normal part of sri lankan society and unfortunate this sort of view is quite common and i think the government fears that it's being given fuel by the nationalist extremist groups police in kenya have charged several suspects in connection with a january attack in nairobi in which $21.00 people were killed many of the accused are kenyans involved with the somali based arm group al-shabaab al-jazeera has spoken to other kenyans who have returned from somalia and say they were forcefully recruited and used as fighters and sex slaves catherine sawyer reports in the coastal town of malindi. a mother's pain this woman whose identity with he didn't want safety says her son disappeared 2 years ago was a casual work was promised a better job erik rutins. the offer was $200.00

a month 4 times more than he was being paid the next time she heard about her son 8 months later he was dead just thought he had been killed in somalia while trying to escape and al shabaab camp were living too and i bet i knew. i wanted to bury my son but i could not even get his corpse that is what hurts me the most i wanted to report to do police but i have seen how they harassed my neighbor whose son came back she's in a support group of mothers whose children joined the group some of the young women here have come home from somalia my red should be younger offers them counseling i'm sure you want to come out. to associate with them if they feel isolated then there will not be peace they potentially could be violent in another secret location we meet this man who say they're risking their lives just by talking to us they returned after 4 years they talk of combat training hard labor and sex slavery

liberal who got cool as us and when they got there i saw men with guns they told me the job they'd called me for was to fight i asked about my from maybe they said they were to kill them and for sure the whole time i was there there was sent part of my story home but i later came to recruit but like many other retired nis there in hiding ignoring a government amnesty program that security analysts say has largely fails. many of those who have gone to somalia to join al-shabaab from areas such as this one other calls they say they were promised good jobs and money some of those who have retired and have been rejected by their family most are in hiding human rights campaigners say hundreds of kenyans have willingly or been duped to join also. as fighters porters and whites he says after kenyan troops went into somalia in 2011 to fight the group as part of an african union force alongside somali security forces. since then al-shabaab has carried out

a series of attacks including this one on the hotel an office complex in nairobi in january when 21 people were killed. it's very difficult for our government to understand our stories that's why many of us will not surrender to the police if you report your presence you put a spotlight on yourself and if any crime like the dusit attack happens you'll be the 1st one they come looking for those we talked to in my life is tough they still have no jobs and are struggling to deal with the horrors they say they witnessed in somalia while at the same time trying to regain the trust of relatives and neighbors catherine saw my lindy on the kenyan coast the death toll from tuesday's ambush on soldiers from measure has now risen to 28 it's not clear who is behind the attack near the village of tonga tongo that's close to the border with mali but several armed groups are active in that area 11 soldiers were initially reported missing but their bodies have now been found the future is

a former leader of the now disbanded at how basque separatist group has been arrested known by his alias just return error spain's interior ministry says he was detained in a joint mission with france they'd been looking for him since 2002 and he was eventually tracked down in the french alps he's accused of crimes against humanity yet the group killed more than 850 people during its decades long campaign for an independent state. china has vowed to defend its companies after a u.s. government decision to place weiwei in 70 if its affiliates on a trade blacklist calling it unreasonable washington believes equipment produced by the chinese company could be used to spy on the u.s. why way has repeatedly denied the allegations adrian brown reports from a tech trade show intention. what you see here is at the heart of the trade dispute between china and the united states the 2 countries are competing to be

world leaders in artificial intelligence robotics and 5 g. technology. showcasing its achievements while away china's national tech champions its expansion plans in the united states now see over after the u.s. put the firm and its affiliates on a trading blacklist and issue too sensitive for this company official to discuss the market the country operates the company so sorry. but he's confident while away will still thrive in other markets so now laid her weave your fire level. we hope we can cooperate each other based other countries while away officials had anticipated this move and on thursday the firm issued a statement saying the transactions wouldn't improve safety or security in the united states and would only harm consumers and companies it doesn't bode well for the faltering trade talks between the 2 countries u.s.

firms are present here the mood among one technology representative surprisingly upbeat is it very hard to sell u.s. technology in china today because of the trade i don't think i saw in soviet years sunny's is open for the all the difference to you know the goods products here and our attorneys. customers is what i think the. american. pronounce is. the theme of this exhibition is artificial intelligence in china the technology is widely used in surveillance and facial recognition cameras. especially in the far western province of shinji where they monitor track and rate members of a largely muslim group known as the week goes this company manufactures many of those cameras and has been promoting its expertise here but officials didn't want

to tell you the reason you can't even use the u.s. government has once more targeted one of china's most successful companies leaving executives at other technology firms wondering who will be next adrian brown al-jazeera in t.n. jin ne china. former australian prime minister bob hawke has died at 89 he led the country on the labor party from 1983 to 1991 as that comes just 2 days before the country's federal election a former trade union leader bob hawke served 4 terms as prime minister and was considered a reformer as government introduced a universal public health service and environmental protections for the great barrier reef and forests in tasmania. well the. most loved the native animals wildlife off already say they're under threat from a fatal and painful disease the population in one national park has declined by 94

percent in just 6 years. reports from australia southern state of tasmania see how these back legs or only snakes are under attack from a contagious parasite called suck up to my left untreated the results a horrendous. the mind works with a community action group to try and tackle the disease we've seen them disappear in the hundreds just in this area admittedly this is the worst area probably but it's not on a slide it into this area his name is directed to national park and the surrounding forests a ground 0 for the worst recorded outbreak the one about population in this national park declined by 94 percent in just 6 years because of mine which. in an attempt to save the population volunteers placed flaps outside. then put a sheep lice treatment on them every week. strain scientists are working on more

effective medicines at the moment if we want to treat a woman from an angel while on that we have to use treatments so we have to deliver every week and it's really challenging to do that consistently so what we're trying to look at as a longer lasting single treatment that can protect individuals for up to peps 3 months. down a step and runs a century on the mainland and doesn't believe treatments work with help from a university she's been testing what she calls borrow hospitals built over a one bats natural borrow it enables one to be treated with pills while they are fed we know it works we use it here for the last 2 years if we could recreate that over and over again in the different states managed by the people who currently put their energy towards mange wombats in the wrong way the results would speak for themselves donna believes innovation is the only way to save strategy as one that's

from the disease in the last decade it has escalated every single year the amount of area is. just continuing creases on the critically endangered list within 20 is no doubt in my mind the strain government has no national major monitoring program but says the disease is being adequately controlled however few states have darter populations and that's heartening the concern of wildlife carers dry ambrose al-jazeera has made. and you can watch one film the one by drew ambrose which will 1st air at 2230 g.m.t. thursday right here on al-jazeera. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera this hour in yemen saudi u.a.e. coalition air strikes have killed at least 6 civilians in and around the capital sanaa residential neighborhoods were bombed but the coalition insists it targeted

hoofy military positions as well as weapons storage facilities there are also reports of airstrikes and what they targeting the rebels are abuse a yemeni journalist from some heart he explains what happened it is very clear that what happened the this morning here in sanaa i was a response to that through the whole drone attacks on the. oil facilities in riyadh it is very clear but unfortunately it was. blind completely blind response because the result it only in killing women and children in there is a digital area egypt's military says it's killed $47.00 fighters and multiple operations in north and central sinai hundreds of explosive devices and other weapons were seized more than 150 people were arrested. iran's foreign minister

says u.s. sanctions are unacceptable and uncalled for but insists his country is committed to the 2050 nuclear deal how much of god's a reef is in tokyo for a meeting with prime minister shinzo of japan is a u.s. ally that depends on iranian oil earlier this month the u.s. government ended waivers that allowed japan and others to buy oil from iran washington has tightened sanctions on tehran and deployed worship's to the gulf region in recent days. sudan's military has suspended talks with protest leaders for 3 days the opposition alliance or its alliance rather which has been demanding civilian rule has called the decision regrettable at least 4 people were killed in violence on monday and protesters are demanding accountability. because government says hardline buddhist groups are under investigation over a recent wave of anti muslim attacks at least 31 people have appeared in court in connection with those attacks. those are the latest headlines on al-jazeera inside

story is coming up next they with us. 1st 2 of its oil tankers were attacked then saudi arabia saw some of its vital all pumping stations targeted by could feed rooms as tensions running high in the gulf what's really behind this series of attacks and could it escalate into a bigger confrontation this is inside story. hello welcome to the program i'm adrian finnegan it's the 2nd attack in less than

48 hours to saudi oil pumping stations were targeted on tuesday west of the capital riyadh hooty rebels say they carried out the strikes to warn the kingdom against what they describe as its aggression in yemen saudi arabia state owned energy company around cope has stopped for the moment pumping oil through a major pipeline the incidents come off the 2 saudi oil tankers were damaged in an attack off the coast of the emirates of fujairah the government has also said that 4 ships were targeted off its coast loot the say the drone attack was the biggest since the war in yemen began in 2015. this 100. 7 drones belonging to the air force of yemen attacked pumping stations relating to the strategic pipeline that carries oil from east to west in saudi arabia it was a successful operation we found assistance from people living in saudi arabia and

we had excellent intelligence the attack is seriously damaged the economy of the enemy of saudi arabia's minister of energy khaled al finally has condemned the quote cowardly attack in a statement he said this act of terrorism and sabotage in addition to recent acts in the arabian gulf to not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies in the global economy these attacks prove again that it's important for us to face terrorist entities including the who thing militias in yemen that are backed by iran and this is what the u.s. ambassador to saudi arabia john abizaid had to say we need to do a thorough investigation to understand what happened why it happened and then come up with a reasonable responses short of war it's not in iran's interest it's not in our interest it's not in saudi arabia's interest to have a conflict with the attacks come as tensions running high between the u.s. and iran washington has announced that it aims to cut iran's oil exports to 0 at

this boosted its military presence in the gulf in response to what it calls iranian threats but both sides have played down the possibility of an armed conflict iran's supreme leader ali harmony said that no war is going to happen but is also ruled out to go see asians with the u.s. over turf iran's nuclear program as for the u.s. secretary of state mike pompei o said we fundamentally do not seek a war with iran that steering a visit to russia on tuesday. well let's bring in our guests for today's program we're joined from sun up in yemen by out of the yemeni journalist and filmmaker via skype from reston virginia trita parsi professor of middle east politics at georgetown university and author of losing an enemy obama iran and the triumph of diplomacy and from oxford in the u.k. some of the romani university of oxford ph d. candidate regular contributor for the diplomats and washington post gentlemen good

to have you with us on inside story samuel let's start with you we'll talk geopolitics for most of the program but 1st i want to clear up a few things about these these incidents how were such relatively slow and still fee aircraft able to fly so far into saudi arabia undetected at a time of war what does this say about saudi air defenses i think this shows a bit about saudi air defenses but also it shows the degree to which the saudis have underestimated the improvements in the ballistic missile technologies and drone technology that they have these have made over the past $6.00 to $8.00 months so now they would have the ability to launch just sites that radius of niagara kilometers with a remarkable degree of precision so in july of 2018 they tried to attack in the bab amanda and they were unable to organize a major oil spill or anything of that level but the a shell of their intent and their ability to strike then in january they launched. attacks on the yemeni intelligence ministers i was after the sas nation which is

a lot more targeted a lot more imprisoned by i don't think the saudi air defenses have improved at the at the same level i think they've actually been quite complacent about the degree to which is applying the hoody to the degree to which the hoody capabilities are improving so i this was almost a wake up call and a shock for this that is partially a complacency as much as you do you see improvements in the who didn't knowledge it possible you concur with that what does this drone attack tell us about the who these level of technical sophistication is it technology that they could have built and flown on their own or would they have needed outside help. it seems unlikely that they would have been able to do this entirely on their own although i think we also have to take into account that or against yemen by the saudi authorities have been done with tremendous incompetence from the very very outset so for the saudis to suffer. and loss like this is not in and of itself uncharacteristic in this war

but it is quite clear and it's not usual as well as what was on both sides will try to advance their technologies and improve on them and clearly this does appear to have bounced. out to be in the. sunnah what are we to make of the fact that the it was economic interests that the who thiis targeted and not civilian areas in saudi arabia obit targets that were a similar distance to riyadh from the yemen border. well. first of all yemen is aggression and blockade for more than 4 years which means that we have now the worst humanitarian crisis in the world so this was. a response to that that aggression and the blockade because you know when we say when we talk

about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world we mean we talk about 250000 people who are killed most of them are women and children at home the schools hospitals whippings the funerals the funds and if we where and we talk also about 3w3w yemen 3000000 yemenis homeless yemenis we also talk about about 11000000 who are now facing a main famine when i mean when i say off i mean i don't mean where there is a drought in yemen no it's saudi made from in saudi made the starvation that that is used as a weapon of war so we are talking about all these things we are also talking about about there about 100000 people who already died now all because of this vision we also talked about the borders that are closed and.

i get where you're what you're saying here but i want to focus for the meantime on the hooty response to all of this on the at the attacks or the attack on the oil installations in saudi arabia the fact that they were economic targets not civilian targets. yes this is very this is the not only the this is the body see all of the . truth you hear from the very beginning they never tell you to civilians in any place they already launched many ballastic. short and long range and they never have a targeted civilians now they die getting the economy interest because they already they already declare that that we are not going to do is stand. by and watch our people being starved and being and being killed and we don't do anything of course

they know that the oil the saudi oil is that is behind all these things behind the problems behind what a crime is behind the starvation and because behind this worst humanitarian crisis which is described by the united nations as the worst in the world so they tell you that the economic interest in deliberately yes ramadi you talked about the shock in saudi arabia after these these drone strikes the latest drone strikes you think saudi arabia's reconsidering its position regarding the war in yemen after 4 years it's pretty clear that they they don't have the ability to defeat the hooty east neither can they prevent whose the attacks on their own soil i think that this is a moment to reassess and for saudi arabia but it should not be viewed as a moment of or transparent because if you look at the saudi response today they are continuing with even more intensified said over strikes on al dalet i think that this will just reduce the saudi's trust the hoodies and she's already extremely low

so the yemeni government choose may well not withdraw from the day that her data could ultimately end up being a renewed scene of warfare saudi arabia will likely appeal theon ited states a point to the fact that the hoody threats about targeting dubai abu dabi and riyadh are actually serious now and who these could disable international oil markets so they could try to lobby members of congress to soften their opposition. to the movement of arms to saudi arabia so i think that this will in general lead to a more aggressive saudi position in terms of airstrikes and add not only the push back that some people might be intending here even though there are strikes and clearly enabling and causing hoody lashon and the fact that they haven't really achieved anything substantial in this war since they recaptured aden from the hoodies in late 2015 are let's broaden the discussion out hit policy and the attacks on the other stations in saudi arabia and the subatomic of the tank is near that the strait of hormuz connected and what are we to make of the rainy and denials of involvement in either of those incidents well certainly on the surface mindful of

the timing i can understand why there would be speculation that this has something to do with the fact that the u.s. is now aggressively pushing to push out all of iraq's oil from its national market and replace it with saudi and american oil that's understandable but we also have other factors that we have to take into account you have a government in saudi arabia that asks for more than 10 years push the united states to go to war with iraq you have a former secretary of defense bill gates saying that the saudis want to fight the iranians to the last american you have a sacred national security adviser in the white house who has a history of fabricating evidence in order to get the united states into or and was a key architect that you draw for given all of that i think you have to look at these things that on a surface level looks like potentially being connected but also realizing that there are very powerful elements that want to go into war with you brought in who

are more than happy and have a track record to fabricate false flag operations in order to get that war so we have to keep that in mind as well because in some ways the timing is perhaps a little bit too coincidental. to be iran's ambassador to the u.k. says that the islamic republic isn't involved in any attempt to destabilize the region the who thieves have claimed responsibility for the drone attack the u.a.e. as yet hasn't said who it believes was behind the sabotage incident while iran says it took some suspects that it was israel and if it wasn't iran who was it what was their motive i think talking about the iran here is here and bit tickler in in this issue that drones. talking about iran is sort of their side stepping from the problem of yemen because now.