5 shot at adult education facility in Sweden, police say
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(LONDON) — At least five people were shot on Tuesday at an adult education facility in Orebro, Sweden, police said.
“The extent of the injuries is unclear,” police said. “The operation is still ongoing.”
Police said the shooter may be among the injured being treated at the hospital, but said “nothing is clear yet.” Five people have been taken to the hospital. Officials cannot confirm if anyone has died, and no ages of the victims have been given yet.
Officials said in a statement they were urging the public to stay away from the Risbergska Skolan, a municipal education center in the Vasthaga area of Orebro. The school is for students over 20 years old, according to its website.
Law enforcement in the Bergslagen region began at about 1 p.m. local time to post a series of short statements, saying initially that a “major operation” was underway and the school was under threat of “deadly violence.”
Police set up an information point for relatives to gather, and students were sent to nearby facilities.
“The danger is not over,” Police said at about 2 p.m. “The public MUST continue to stay away from Västhaga.”
The school is about 200 km, or about 125 miles, west of Stockholm, the capital.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence said on Monday that at least 30 North Korean soldiers were killed and wounded in weekend battles in Russia’s western Kursk region, prompting commanders to send reinforcements to frontline units.
“North Korean army units are being re-equipped after losses in assaults” around the villages of Plekhovo, Vorozhba and Martynovka in the Kursk region, the GUR wrote in a post to its official Telegram channel.
On Dec. 14 and 15, the GUR said, “units of the DPRK army suffered significant losses — at least 30 soldiers were killed and wounded,” using the acronym for the country’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
At least three North Korean troops went missing around the village of Kurilovka in Kursk, the post added.
“Due to losses, the assault groups are being replenished with fresh personnel, in particular from the 94th separate brigade of the DPRK army, to continue active combat operations in the area,” the GUR wrote.
Pyongyang is believed to have sent up to 12,000 troops to Russia in recent months, according to a November briefing by Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder. Their focus is believed to be the Kursk region of western Russia, where Ukrainian forces seized ground in a surprise August offensive.
Sources told ABC News in November that North Koreans may be among the approximately 50,000 troops being readied for a significant counteroffensive in Kursk.
Russian leaders have said they will not consider any peace talks while Kursk remains partially occupied, though officials in Kyiv frame their retention of Russian territory as important negotiating leverage.
North Korea’s provision of troops marked a new level of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. The two neighbors have drawn closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with North Korea already providing Moscow with artillery munitions and ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Kyiv has “preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults — a significant number of them.”
“The Russians include them in combined units and use them in operations in the Kursk region,” Zelenskyy said in a statement posted to his Telegram page. “So far, only there. But we have information suggesting their use could extend to other parts of the frontline. There are also already noticeable losses in this category.”
“We will defend ourselves, including against these North Koreans,” Zelenskyy added. “And we will continue to act in coordination with all our partners to stop this war — to stop it decisively, with guaranteed peace.”
(ALLAHABAD, INDIA) — At least seven people were killed and around 10 injured in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the world’s biggest gatherings that occurs every 12 years, authorities said.
The Maha Kumbh Mela takes place every dozen years in the Indian city of Prayagraj, about 90 miles west of the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, when an estimated 100 million people gather to bathe in holy river waters at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers. It is considered one of the most auspicious and holy dates on the Hindu calendar.
The stampede began in the early hours Wednesday morning, according to Indian officials. The death toll and numbers of those injured is expected to rise.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the panic at the festival but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the incident “extremely sad” and extended his condolences to those affected.
“My deepest condolences to the devotees who have lost their loved ones. Along with this, I wish for the speedy recovery of all the injured,” Modi said in a post on X.
Modi added that he is in touch with his chief minister and other related authorities regarding the incident.
Authorities are expecting more than 100 million people to visit Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh Mela — meaning “Festival of the Sacred Pitcher” — on Wednesday for the holy dip. It is regarded as a significant and auspicious day for Hindus due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.
Authorities have built a gigantic tent city on the banks of the rivers to accommodate the millions of pilgrims and tourists attending the festival — equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets, roads, electricity, water, communication towers and 11 hospitals, according to the Associated Press.
An estimated 50,000 security personnel are also stationed in the city to help keep the peace as well as manage the tens of millions of people in the crowds.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian and Prashun Mazumdar contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday that the international community was “surprised to see that the opposition forces moved as quickly as they did” in Syria as President Bashar Assad’s government collapsed in the face of a surprise rebel offensive.
“Everybody expected to see a much more stiff resistance from Assad’s forces,” Austin said while in Japan, during what is expected to be his last trip to the Indo-Pacific region as defense secretary.
The speed of developments, he added, “was surprising, I think, to most everybody in the international community.”
Damascus’ fall to rebel forces on Sunday marked “a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their country,” President Joe Biden said in a post to X, adding, “It is also a moment of risk and uncertainty.”
U.S. forces are already moving to suppress any hint of an ISIS resurgence in central and eastern Syria, where hundreds of American personnel have been active for several years alongside Kurdish forces to defeat the remnants of the jihadist group.
U.S. forces launched 75 strikes on ISIS targets in central Syria on Sunday to “disrupt, degrade and defeat” the group, the head of the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
Austin said the strikes were designed “to keep the pressure on ISIS.”
“As this unfolds, there’s a potential that elements in the area, such as ISIS, could try to take advantage of this opportunity and regain capability,” he explained.
“We’ve been tracking ISIS as a part of our ‘Defeat ISIS’ campaign for some time, as you know, and we’ve seen cells trying to strengthen and develop additional capability out in the Vidalia Desert and those strikes were focused on those cells,” Austin said.
U.S. forces are “still evaluating the results, but I think that we’re going to find that we’ve been pretty successful,” Austin said.
