Turkey reports casualties in ‘terrorist attack’ on aerospace facility
Ismail Kaplan/Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Turkey‘s interior minister reported deaths and injuries after a “terrorist attack” at Turkish Aerospace Industries facilities near the capital Ankara on Wednesday.
Three people were killed and 14 injured in the attack, Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X. Two attackers were “neutralized,” he added.
“I condemn this heinous attack,” Yerlikaya wrote. “Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
The Turkish Aerospace Industries site is some 25 miles outside Ankara.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
(CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO) — The family of Shanquella Robinson, the North Carolina woman who died while vacationing in Mexico in October 2022, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Robinson’s travel companions, who are referred to in the suit as “the Cabo Six,” alleging battery, negligence, conspiracy and emotional distress.
Robinson’s mother, Sallamondra Robinson, spoke out during a press conference on Tuesday, along with family attorney Sue-Ann Robinson, who has no relation to the Robinson family.
“I would like each and every one of you, if you can, anything you can do, step in and help us with justice,” Sallamondra Robinson said. “We need justice for Shanquella Robinson. It has been two years and there’s no reason that they have not been arrested yet.”
ABC News’ attempts to reach out directly to the individuals identified as the “Cabo Six” were unsuccessful. It is unclear if they have retained attorneys.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of Mecklenburg County on Monday, two years after Robinson’s death, was filed on behalf of Sallamondra Robinson, and also names the U.S. State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after federal prosecutors announced last year that they won’t be filing charges in this case, citing a lack of evidence.
“We are here today, not only to honor Shanquella Robinson and her family, but to call for action,” Sue-Ann Robinson said. “We demand, still again and until the end, that authorities take the necessary steps to investigate this case thoroughly and bring those responsible to justice … We will not rest until justice is served for Shanquella Robinson and her family..”
The complaint, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, claims that Sallamondra Robinson “suffered damages, in excess of $25,000 as a result of the wrongful death” and accuses the FBI of withholding records related to the investigation that the family sought to obtain through FOIA requests. The lawsuit also accuses the State Department and the FBI of negligence.
“The FBI’s standard practice is to decline to comment on pending litigation,” an FBI spokesperson told ABC News on Tuesday.
ABC News reached out to the State Department, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
Robinson, a 25-year-old Black woman from Charlotte, North Carolina, was found dead in the resort city of San Jose Del Cabo on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, on Oct. 29 2022 where she and six acquaintances traveled for vacation. According to the lawsuit, the six individuals “were believed to be friends” of Robinson’s.
Shortly after Robinson’s death, a viral video emerged on social media that appeared to show a woman – later identified as one of the “Cabo Six” – beating a naked Robinson in a room, while two spectators recorded the incident.
Sallamondra Robinson previously told ABC News that after her daughter’s death, she got a frantic telephone call from her acquaintances on the trip, claiming that she had died from alcohol poisoning. However, the Mexican Secretariat of Health’s autopsy report and death certificate for Shanquella Robinson, obtained by ABC News, lists her cause of death as “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation,” with no mention of alcohol.
The report, which was dated Nov. 4, 2022, also states that the approximate time between injury and death was 15 minutes, while a box asking whether the death was “accidental or violent” was ticked “yes.”
Following Robinson’s death, the FBI opened a probe into the incident, but the bureau announced in April 2023 that federal prosecutors would not seek charges related to Robinson’s death due to a lack of evidence.
U.S. Attorneys Sandra J. Hairston and Dena J. King, who represent the Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina, wrote in a statement that in every case considered for federal prosecution, the government must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt, that a federal crime was committed.”
“Based on the results of the autopsy and after a careful deliberation and review of the investigative materials by both U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, federal prosecutors informed Ms. Robinson’s family today that the available evidence does not support a federal prosecution,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Mexican authorities investigated the case as femicide, a form of gender-based violence and issued an arrest warrant on Nov. 22, 2023, in relation to Robinson’s death for an alleged perpetrator who was not named, a local prosecutor confirmed to ABC News.
Daniel de la Rosa Anaya, the local prosecutor for the state of Baja California Sur, told ABC News in November 2022, that the warrant was “issued for the crime of femicide,” adding that Mexico is “carrying out all the pertinent procedures such as the Interpol alert and the request for extradition to the United States of America.”
The Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur, whose office is investigating, confirmed to ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that the investigation is still open.
“We made the necessary procedures before the United States, it is the authority there that must proceed with the apprehension of the probable perpetrator or perpetrators and put them at the disposal of the Mexican authorities,” the statement said. “Until there is a final sentence, the investigation cannot be closed.”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin, Anne Laurent and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the parties named in the lawsuit.
(LONDON) — On the streets of Alfafar on Wednesday, cars and caravans were strewn like toys in the muddy aftermath of the floodwater that had rushed through the Spanish town.
Emergency crews descended on Wednesday on that town and others surrounding Valencia, wading through washed-out neighborhoods, searching homes and looking for missing people following devastating flooding, according to emergency officials.
More than 1,000 troops had been deployed to the province to help with the emergency response, the Military Emergencies Unit, a branch of the Spanish military, said on social media on Wednesday.
The flash floods were caused by heavy rain, which by Wednesday morning had begun “easing off,” according to the country’s meteorological agency
“[B]ut there is still an orange warning in inland Castellón until 2:00 p.m.,” the agency said. “Caution in the northeast of the peninsula and western Andalusia: very heavy showers are possible. Stay informed!”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — President Joe Biden will see out his term knowing that President-elect Donald Trump — a man he fought desperately hard to unseat in 2020 and called a “genuine danger to American security” — will succeed him.
Foreign policy has been central in Biden’s long political career. It will likewise form a major chunk of his legacy, as will the two wars — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Middle East conflagration sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — that erupted during his term.
Now less encumbered by political calculations — for himself or for Vice President Kamala Harris — and with only two months until Trump’s second inauguration, the outgoing president may have one last window to wield the power of the Oval Office in both theaters.
But with Trump looming above the outgoing Biden-Harris administration, American allies and enemies may be hesitant to engage with the outgoing administration.
European nations, for example, are already shifting focus to how best to court Trump, Leslie Vinjamuri of the British Chatham House think tank told ABC News.
“All these European leaders are very quickly reaching out,” she added. “They’re congratulating him. They want to talk with him. They want to work with him, because they understand that the stakes are extremely high and they clearly feel that by talking with him, they have an ability to influence policy and the outcome.”
“What they don’t want to do is to be seen to be making a deal with Joe Biden that undercuts whatever it is that Trump is going to do,” Vinjamuri added.
“It’s a very tricky position to be in, because if anything’s visible that cuts across what he wants to do, you as a leader risk being punished.”
Those at the top of American politics know that foreign policy success can accelerate careers and define legacies. Former President Richard Nixon infamously undermined President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War during the 1968 election campaign for fear it would reduce his chances of victory.
Though he has already secured his second term, Trump appears unlikely to help the Biden administration with any foreign policy “wins” in its closing days.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and room for maneuver — it’s highly unpredictable,” Vinjamuri said.
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine has dominated much of Biden’s presidency. He will leave office with Moscow’s forces holding large parts of Ukraine and still advancing, even if slowly and at huge cost.
“I think that now Biden can be much more decisive in support of Ukraine, especially when he sees that Trump will be the next president,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News.
“Biden has his hands completely untied,” Merezhko added. “Now Biden is thinking about his legacy.”
“He might even try to take some decisions which will make irreversible changes in support of Ukraine — for example, he might lift all the restrictions on the use of the Western weapons on the territory of Russia,” Merezhko said. “And he might start the process of inviting Ukraine to join NATO.”
Merezkho acknowledged that progress on the NATO front might be ambitious. “Yes, he doesn’t have much time,” he said. “But he — with [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken — might do something creative to help Ukraine.”
It appears unlikely that Biden’s final months will bring Kyiv any closer to NATO membership. Ukrainian leaders are still pushing for an invitation to join the alliance despite fierce opposition from Russia — and hesitance among key alliance members. Allies have repeatedly said that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” but even top officials in Kyiv acknowledge this cannot happen amid war with Moscow.
The outgoing president may at least be able to ring fence much-needed funding for Kyiv.
Matthew Savill of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., said Biden “might choose in his last months in office to use the remainder of the funding available for support to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority, amounting to over $5 billion.”
The Pentagon has already committed to rolling out new funding packages between now and January totaling some $9 billion. “That is consistent with how we’ve been doing this in the past,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told journalists last week. “It’s something that we’ve done on a pretty regular, almost weekly, basis.”
Biden has also reportedly already decided to allow non-combat American defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair U.S.-provided weaponry.
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that deeper sanctions on “Putin’s inner circle” are on Kyiv’s wish list, along with the delivery of all previously allocated aid, commitments for more, plus the end to restrictions on Western weapon use inside Russia.
Trump has suggested he would quickly end Russia’s invasion by threatening to cut off military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to hand Moscow direct or indirect control of swaths of occupied territory in the south and east of the country.
As such, his election has raised concerns in Ukraine of an imminent sellout.
Merezhko, though, stressed the unpredictability of the president-elect. “Trump might become even more critical of Russia to show that all suspicions about him are groundless,” he said.
“We know that Trump loves his country and seeks to protect its interests in accordance with his vision,” Cherniev said. “Therefore, we are confident that the U.S. will not leave us alone with Russia, since this is not in the interests of the U.S. and the free world.”
“However, much will depend on Putin’s willingness to make concessions and compromises,” he added. “If the Russian dictator does not show due flexibility, I think Trump will increase his support for Ukraine.”
As to potential tensions between Trump and Biden in the coming months, Merezhko said, “Competition between them will continue.”
“For us, it would be better if they compete amongst themselves on who will do more for Ukraine.”
European nations, meanwhile, will be bracing for Trump while hoping to influence the president-elect’s take on the war.
Vinjamuri, of the Chatham House think tank, said Europeans will also be working closely with the Biden administration “to put in place everything that they can to keep Europe and Ukraine in as good a place as possible before Jan. 20, when Trump comes in and tries to negotiate a peace deal.”
“That means that getting Ukraine in the best position on the ground, because when you start negotiating a peace, a lot of what gets locked in is based on what land people hold,” she said.
The Middle East
The Biden administration’s pre-election Middle East diplomatic push does not appear to have made significant breakthroughs in either Gaza or Lebanon. Fierce ground fighting and devastating Israeli airstrikes continue on both fronts, with the toll of civilian dead and displaced growing ever larger.
The regional war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw around 250 taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel’s military response in the strip has killed some 43,600 people and injured more than 102,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s airstrike and ground campaign in Lebanon has killed more than 3,000 since Oct. 8, 2023, Lebanese health officials say.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — one of his prime political rivals and an advocate for a cease-fire deal — on the eve of the U.S. election, reinforcing his position and entrenching his government’s commitment to what he has called “total victory.”
Hafed Al-Ghwell, senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News he has little expectation of peace during Biden’s final months. “I don’t think he has any incentive to do anything,” Hafed said.
“In the case of Israel and Palestine, Biden has taken not just a political stand but an ideological one, and there is no sign that he is going to change that,” Hafed added. “He has called himself a Zionist, and he had ample opportunity to stop this war. Even when the United Nations proposed a resolution to end the occupation, he didn’t support it.”
“It would be really controversial for an outgoing president to make any major decisions,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be confident in the new White House’s backing in his suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese groups, as well as in his wider showdown with Iran.
Netanyahu “probably feels like he has a free run,” Vinjamuri said. “Even if Biden tried to push him, I’m not so sure he would be responsive, because he knows that Trump is now coming into office.”
Hafed suggested Netanyahu’s domestic concerns, too, will be driving his policy in the coming months. “He knows that the minute this war stops, the Israeli public won’t want him around,” he said. “So, he will continue the war in Lebanon and probably threaten Iran, knowing he will have the full support of Trump.”
Burcu Ozcelik at RUSI said the extent of Trump’s influence over Netanyahu tops “a complex list of unknowns.”
“Trump in recent weeks indicated that he was prepared to give Israel freer rein, provided that the war ended by the time he entered office,” he added.
Those living in the region will be left grappling with the fallout, Hafed continued. “For the people of the Middle East, Biden’s legacy is one of a bloodbath,” he said. “The region is bitter and battered.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this article.
