Armed drone attack wounds three in Iraq’s Irbil

Multiple attacks have taken place in the last several months in Irbil and in the autonomous Kurdistan region. (File/AFP)
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Updated 09 June 2022
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Armed drone attack wounds three in Iraq’s Irbil

  • Three people were wounded after an armed drone struck a road in the suburbs of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Irbil, security services said

IRBIL: Three people were wounded Wednesday evening after an armed drone struck a road in the suburbs of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Irbil, security services said.
“Several vehicles were damaged” in the attack, the Kurdistan Autonomous Counter-Terrorism Agency said in a statement, which took place on the road that connects Irbil to Pirmam to its northeast.
The attack, which was not immediately claimed, took place three kilometers from the construction site of the new US consulate on the outskirts of central Irbil.
The consulate of the United Arab Emirates also lies just a few hundred meters from where the strike took place.
Multiple attacks have taken place in the last several months in Irbil and in the autonomous Kurdistan region.
The most significant was in March, when Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have hit an Israeli “strategic center” in Irbil with 12 ballistic missiles.
Iraqi Kurdistan authorities deny any Israeli presence on their soil.
The strikes caused no casualties but inflicted serious material damage.
Unclaimed rocket attacks have also targeted and hit oil refineries in the Irbil region, causing minor property damage.


Jordan’s foreign minister fears ‘abyss of full-scale regional war’

Updated 6 sec ago
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Jordan’s foreign minister fears ‘abyss of full-scale regional war’

  • 2,083 dead: The toll of Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the past year
  • Safadi stresses Jordan’s support for Lebanese government

BEIRUT: Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi, who also serves as foreign minister, has said that Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon is pushing the Middle East into the “abyss of full-scale regional war.”

Safadi was speaking at a news conference following a meeting with Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, in Beirut.

Safadi’s remarks came as Lebanon commemorated the first anniversary of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.

As of Oct. 7, the death toll had reached 2,083, including children, women, and high-ranking Hezbollah field commanders, along with casualties from the Lebanese army and Hezbollah-affiliated groups, medical staff, paramedics, firefighters, and journalists.

Additionally, there have been 9,869 people injured.

Safadi said that Jordan backed the Lebanese government’s initiative to elect a new president and its commitment to implement the UN Security Council resolution that ended Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006 and aimed to keep southern Lebanon under the control of the Lebanese military and UN peacekeepers.

Safadi reaffirmed Jordan’s unwavering commitment to supporting Lebanon’s security, sovereignty, and the well-being of its citizens.

He spoke of Jordan’s readiness to assist Lebanon in facing the aftermath of recent attacks, which he characterized as a flagrant violation of international law and Lebanese sovereignty.

Safadi reiterated Jordan’s support for Lebanese efforts to strengthen its national institutions and make sovereign decisions.

He asserted that Jordan “will not allow itself to become a battleground for any party, nor tolerate any breaches of its airspace or sovereignty that threaten the security of its citizens.”

He added: “We have delivered this unequivocal message to both Iran and Israel.”

Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said that directives had been issued to enhance security measures.

Transport Minister Ali Hamieh said: “The ministry does not grant permission for any aircraft to land at Beirut International Airport — which remains operational — without prior approval from the military.”

He added that “all warships or vessels involved in military operations must secure a permit from the Joint Maritime Chamber — comprising the army, general security, internal security forces, state security, and other relevant agencies — before they are permitted to dock at any seaport.”

Hamieh emphasized the importance of “conducting security checks on all individuals and trucks at land crossings.”

He said Mikati “is dedicated to keeping Lebanon’s land, sea, and air crossings open to facilitate humanitarian aid and bolster the economy, reaffirming that Lebanon remains accessible to all nations, with reinforced security protocols in place.”

The Israeli army announced on Monday “the start of a focused and specific ground operation in southern Lebanon, with the Galilee Brigade 91 joining the operations.”

Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a building belonging to the Federation of Municipalities of Bint Jbeil District in the town of Barashi, resulting in the deaths of 10 firefighters from the Islamic Health Organization, which is associated with Hezbollah.

Destructive airstrikes also continued in the southern suburbs of Beirut, as well as in the south region and the Bekaa Valley.

A spokesperson for the Israeli army told residents of 25 southern villages on Monday to evacuate the area, reminding those who had left their homes and villages not to “return until further notice, to ensure their safety.”

Israeli warnings also extended to anyone attempting “to repair the border road between Lebanon and Syria at the Masnaa point that was bombed by Israeli raids last week.”

Israel also warned “any party trying to approach the building that targeted the Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Hashem Safieddine, in the deepest tunnels under it last Friday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, not to approach it to rescue him and those buried with him under it.”

Safieddine was regarded as one of the most prominent candidates to succeed killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Thick black smoke filled the sky over the southern suburbs following a night of intense violence marked by Israeli airstrikes that destroyed several residential buildings.

Israeli warplanes conducted over 30 airstrikes within half an hour on villages and towns in the Tyre district, along with numerous strikes in the central and eastern sectors, extending to the Nabatieh Governorate and the Jezzine District.

A raid on a residence in Srifa resulted in the deaths of four people, including a chief warrant officer in the Lebanese army, while a raid on a house in Kherbet Selem led to one fatality, and a strike on a house in Qaliya in Western Bekaa to the deaths of two people.

Hezbollah expanded the scope of its military operations on Monday against northern Israel by launching attacks on the city of Haifa and its residential neighborhoods.

The group reported that it struck the Carmel base in southern Haifa using Fadi missiles.

Hezbollah also targeted the settlement of Kiryat Shmona while extending its reach to the settlement of Dan near the occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli media reported that missiles had exploded in locations within Haifa — including a residence and a restaurant — resulting in significant material damage.

Channel 14 in Israel reported that several injured people from Haifa were transported to Rambam Hospital.

Israeli media reported in the afternoon that 60 missiles had been launched from Lebanon in the space of 90 minutes toward northern Israel. Hezbollah indicated that the settlements of Karmiel and Kfar Vradim had been targeted.


Praising Hamas, West Bank rally celebrates ‘resistance’ on October 7

Updated 4 min ago
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Praising Hamas, West Bank rally celebrates ‘resistance’ on October 7

  • Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Waving Hamas flags and carrying portraits of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, hundreds rallied in support of the Palestinian struggle in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah Monday, the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel.
About 400 Palestinian protesters of all ages and representing various political factions marched in the de-facto Palestinian capital, which is controlled by long-time Hamas rival the Palestinian Authority, an AFP correspondent reported.
Activists organized the rally on the first anniversary of Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel under the slogan “we will not lose faith in the revolution.”
Beyond the characteristic yellow and green flags of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, protesters also waved the flags of Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
Hezbollah, as well as the pro-Iran Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Houthis in Yemen, have sporadically fired rockets and missiles at Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
Demonstrators also chanted “salute from Ramallah to Hezbollah soldiers,” and “put the sword against the sword, we are the men of Mohammed Deif,” in reference to Hamas’s military chief.
Israel says it killed Deif — nicknamed “the cat with nine lives” — in a strike in July, which Hamas denies.
Other participants held up a box shaped like a coffin that bore the words “International Law” and “Arab League” on its sides.
“We came to remember our martyrs, wish recovery for our wounded, and congratulate the resistance (to Israel), whether Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, or Yemeni, for their struggles over the past year,” Jamila Johar told AFP, saying he was “hoping for victory.”
Others praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel outright.
“We came to raise our voices and say that the Palestinian struggle continues, and that the 7th of October took us from a phase of humiliation to a phase of dignity and pride,” said a man who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Similarly, Afaf Ghatasha, who identified herself simply as a member of the Palestinian People’s Party, said October 7 “changed the course of the Palestinian cause, the region, and the world.”
“We came to say that the world will not find stability until the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is established,” she added.
The Israeli military has been fighting against Hamas in Gaza since its unprecedented attack on Israel a year ago, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
 

 


Hezbollah missiles hit Haifa, Israel steps up bombings in south Lebanon

Smoke billows amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon, October 7,
Updated 6 min 3 sec ago
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Hezbollah missiles hit Haifa, Israel steps up bombings in south Lebanon

  • Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon
  • Also on Monday, around 100 Israeli fighters carried out a wave of strikes, hitting 120 targets in southern Lebanon within the space of an hour

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third largest city Haifa on Monday as Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
Hezbollah said it targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles later in the day. Israel’s military said around 135 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday as of 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Ten people were reported injured in the Haifa area and two others further south in central Israel.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon, and that two Israeli soldiers were killed in border-area combat, taking the military death toll inside Lebanon so far to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 10 firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building in the border-area town of Bint Jbeil, and that other aerial attacks on Sunday killed 22 people in southern and eastern Lebanese towns.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation as “localized, limited and targeted” but it has steadily increased in scale since it began last week.
On Monday, the military said soldiers from its 91st Division had moved into southern Lebanon after a year of operations in northern Israel, where Israeli forces have been engaged in cross-border fire with Hezbollah for the past year.
Last week, the military said regular armored and infantry units had moved into Lebanon after commando units crossed the border a day earlier.
It has not said precisely where the troops are operating but it has said there were no plans to send them deep into Lebanon and that their aim was to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded.
Also on Monday, around 100 Israeli fighters carried out a wave of strikes, hitting 120 targets in southern Lebanon within the space of an hour, including Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control, and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiralling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel’s superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. One possible target is Iran’s oil facilities.
Rockets hit Haifa
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, also a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them. “Fallen projectiles were identified in the area. The incident is under review.”
It said 15 other rockets were fired inland at Tiberias in Israel’s northern Galilee region, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the Tiberias area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement which controls northern Yemen has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with a surprise attack on Israel a year ago, meanwhile targeted Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, the group said, setting off sirens in central areas of the country.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long vaunted military and intelligence apparatus after a series of deadly blows to the command structure of Hezbollah, Iran’s most formidable Middle East proxy force, in Lebanon in recent weeks.
“Our counterattack on our enemies in Iran’s axis of evil is necessary for securing our future and ensuring our security,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a special cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Netanyahu said.
Israel-Hezbollah conflict spreads
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon and as the bombing campaign intensifies, many are afraid their country will face the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel’s air and ground onslaught there.
Israeli forces also issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to stay away from a swathe of the southern Lebanese coast, saying its navy would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 in solidarity with Hamas. After a year of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel mostly limited to the frontier region, the conflict has significantly escalated in Lebanon.
Israelis marked the first anniversary of the Hamas attack with ceremonies and protests on Monday including a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff.
In their shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, shattered many citizens’ sense of security and sent their faith in its leaders to new lows.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.


President vows to ‘cleanse Tunisia of all the corrupt and schemers’

Updated 19 min 22 sec ago
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President vows to ‘cleanse Tunisia of all the corrupt and schemers’

TUNIS: Tunisia’s incumbent president said he would wait for official results before declaring victory while acknowledging exit polls showing him winning by a landslide in an election Sunday marred by earlier arrests of his opponents.

President Kais Saied’s supporters jubilantly honked and celebrated after voting ended, and public television broadcast images of the president pledging to pursue traitors and those acting against Tunisia, much like he has done throughout his tenure.

“We’re going to cleanse the country of all the corrupt and schemers,” Saied said at his campaign headquarters.

Tunisia’s public television broadcast exit polls from Sigma Conseil. This independent firm has historically published figures not far off official tallies, showing Saied winning more than 89 percent of the vote over imprisoned businessman Ayachi Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, a leftist who supported Saied before running against him.

In the North African country known as the birthplace of the Arab Spring, much of the opposition chose to boycott the election. 

They called it a sham, with Saied’s leading critics imprisoned alongside journalists, lawyers, activists, and leading civil society figures. 

They emphasized the low turnout in Sunday’s election. 

When polling stations closed, only 2.7 million voters, 27.7 percent of the electorate, had cast ballots — far fewer than the 49 percent who participated in the first round of the last presidential race in 2019.

Supporters of the president — who rode anti-establishment backlash to win a first term five years ago — said his second win would send a clear message to the political class that preceded his ascendance.

“We’re tired of the governance we had before. We want a leader who wants to work for Tunisia. This country was on the road to ruin,” said Layla Baccouchi, a Saied supporter.

Celebrating the exit polls at his campaign’s office in the capital, the president warned of “foreign interference” and pledged to “build our country.’’

Hatem Nafti, a political commentator, said Saied would use reelection as a carte blanche for further crackdowns and to “justify more repression.”

“He has promised to get rid of traitors and enemies of Tunisia,” he said. “He will harden his rule.”

In the years since 2011, Tunisia enshrined a new democratic constitution, created a Truth and Dignity Commission to bring justice to citizens tortured under the former regime, and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise. 

But its new leaders could not buoy its struggling economy and quickly became unpopular amid constant political infighting and episodes of violence.

Observers judged the country’s first two post-Arab Spring elections as free and fair.


Hezbollah tells fighters not to attack Israeli troops near peacekeepers

Updated 47 min 33 sec ago
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Hezbollah tells fighters not to attack Israeli troops near peacekeepers

  • UNIFIL warned that Israel’s operations near their position at Maroun Al-Ras were ‘extremely dangerous’ and compromised their safety
  • Hezbollah has accused Israel of ‘trying to use UNIFIL forces as human shields’

BEIRUT, Lebanon: The Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on Monday it ordered its fighters not to attack Israeli troops who recently moved behind a UN peacekeeping position near a Lebanese border village.
The statement came a day after UNIFIL had warned Israel’s operations near their position at Maroun Al-Ras were “extremely dangerous” and compromised their safety, adding it had repeatedly informed Israel of their concerns.
Hezbollah said it reported “unusual movement of Israeli enemy forces behind a UNIFIL position, on the outskirts of the border village of Maroun Al-Ras.”
It ordered fighters “not to take action... to preserve the lives of the peacekeepers,” quoting a field commander in its statement.
The group accused Israel of “trying to use UNIFIL forces as human shields.”
Contacted by AFP, UNIFIL did not immediately respond.
On Saturday, UNIFIL said it remained in all positions near the border despite what it said was an Israeli request to “relocate.”
Last week, Israel said it would start carrying out limited ground incursions into south Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it has clashed with Israeli troops in the Maroun Al-Ras area and confronted attempted infiltrations there several times this week.
Israel has intensified its campaign against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since September 23, killing more than 1,110 people and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in a country already mired in economic crisis.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.