TEHRAN: Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said on Wednesday that it launched a military satellite into orbit amid wider tensions with the United States, a successful launch after months of failures.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the launch of the satellite, which the Guard called “Noor,” or light. The US State Department and the Pentagon, which say that such launches advance Iran’s ballistic missile program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On its official website, the Guard said the satellite successfully reached an orbit of 425 kilometers (264 miles) above the Earth’s surface.
The two-stage satellite launch took off from Iran’s Central Desert, the Guard said, without elaborating. The paramilitary force said it used a Ghased, or “messenger,” satellite carrier to put the device into space, a previously unheard-of system.
The launch comes amid tensions between Tehran and Washington over its collapsing nuclear deal and after a US drone strike killed Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January.
Iran has suffered several failed satellite launches in recent months.
On Sunday, the Guard acknowledged it had a tense encounter with US warships in the Arabian Gulf last week, but alleged without offering evidence that American forces sparked the incident.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launch satellite amid US tensions
https://arab.news/2s7v4
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launch satellite amid US tensions
- On its official website, the Guard said the satellite successfully reached an orbit of 425 kilometers (264 miles) above the Earth’s surface
- Iran has suffered several failed satellite launches in recent months
Western Libya forces kill notorious migrant smuggler, security agency says
- The Security Threats Combating Agency raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi
- Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018
BENGHAZI: Western Libyan security forces said on Friday they had killed a notorious migrant smuggler in the coastal city of Sabratha after “criminal gangs” affiliated with him attacked one of their checkpoints overnight.
The Security Threats Combating Agency, a security agency under western Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, said they raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi, also known as “Al-Amu.”
Dabbashi’s brother was arrested and six members of the force were wounded in the fighting, the agency said in the statement on its Facebook page.
Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018. Washington described him as the “leader of one of two powerful migrant smuggling organizations” based in Sabratha and said he had “used his organization to rob and enslave migrants before allowing them to leave for Italy.”
Human trafficking is rife in Libya, which has been divided between rival armed factions since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The proliferation of smuggling gangs and the absence of a strong central authority have made the country one of the main staging points for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
Dbeibah was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021, but significant parts of western Libya remain outside his control. Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity, or GNU, is not recognized by rival authorities in the east.
An armed alliance affiliated with an earlier UN-backed government in Tripoli – the Government of National Accord – had taken on Dabbashi’s forces in a three-week battle in 2017 that killed and wounded dozens and damaged residential areas and Sabratha’s Roman ruins.
