The gloucestershire old spots, one of britains most famous pig breeds, from extinction. And coming up in the sport on bbc news chris latham wins a bronze for britain in the mens scratch race at the world track cycling championships, bringing gbs medal tally to two in two days. Good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. The syrian president , bashar al assad, says claims that his armed forces were behind a chemical weapons attack on a rebel town last week are a 100 fabrication. Instead, he claimed america had worked Hand In Glove with Terrorist Groups to stage the attack as a pretext for american air strikes. And he questioned whether tv images of dead children were real. A warning that our report from James Robbins contains distressing images. Nine days ago, these pictures shocked the world. Children and babies struggling for breath after a suspected chemical weapons attack on the rebel held town of khan sheikhoun. Other pictures, to horror flick to broadcast, Should Fire Crews H
Nothing has changed our policy more than 9 11. It was a major shift, we have been reacting to that event ever sense. We created the department of homeland security, the National Director of intelligence, invaded afghanistan and iraq. This war fight effectively . It is unlike any other battle that we have ever fought. What i want to do this morning is set the frame for where we are at and where we should go. More than a dozen years after the event, how are we doing, what are the challenges, how do we move forward. The central challenge that we have is we are still trying to accomplish two things. It is still a war, people forget that. Al qaeda declared war on us in they have not changed their mind. The only thing stopping them from attacking us is our ability to stop them. That has not changed. The organization, the groups have metastasized and changed, we have grown in some way stronger than others. Theational security in u. S. , the dod, cia, the primary thing you are thinking about i
So there have been islamist insurgents in the south east who are allied to islamic state, and in the south west, who have come from mali and they re allied to al-anda. and thousands of people have either been killed orforced to flee their homes. now, what these people have seen is that in neighbouring mali, the military rulers there have pulled in the russians and they feel that it s been more effective, because mali pushed out french troops, they pushed out the un peacekeepers, and they said what they want is a fighting force that s more aggressive and that will fight the islamist insurgents, and they feel they have that in russia. and russia has also done this elsewhere on the continent. so the central african republic s president really owes his existence, the fact he is still in power, to russian troops, because he brought them in and they fought insurgents there. so basically, the people in niger are thinking, well, the russian fighting forces from wagner are proving to be far mor
What is behind that amount of support and, really, maybe even a desire for russia to get involved in niger? i think we ve got to be cautious. to some extent, that might have been choreographed in some way. there s a degree of stage management because, obviously, russian flags don t come from nowhere. but i do think there is a genuine push from people to move towards russia. and the idea is that people are frustrated about what they see as the french, and the failure of the french, the fact that the french were the colonial power and that they never really left. and that ultimately, there has been an insurgency on a number of fronts in niger, and the western push has not stopped it. so there have been islamist insurgents in the south east who are allied to islamic state, and in the south west, who have come from mali and they re allied to al-anda.
Who have come from mali and are allied to al-anda. and thousands of people have either been killed orforced to flee their homes. now, what these people have seen is that in neighbouring mali, the military rulers there have pulled in the russians and they feel that it s been more effective, because mali pushed out french troops, they pushed out the un peacekeepers, and said what they want is a fighting force of more aggressive troops that will fight the islamist insurgents, and they feel they have that in russia. and russia has also done this elsewhere on the continent. so the central african republic s president really owes his existence, the fact he is still in power, to russian troops, because he brought them in and they fought insurgents there. so basically, the people in nigerare thinking, well, the russian fighting forces from wagner are proving to be far more effective in battling these insurgents. and, alexis, you ve done some