Six members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly been killed at a base which also houses US forces
Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum report for the Guardian:
Shaadi Muqtasen’s family live in the centre of old Hebron, one of the most heavily contested, heavily militarised places in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. For Palestinian residents there, life all but stopped when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
Continue reading...Less well-off residents in the southern city of Antakya feel left out of the city’s rebuilding efforts
• Read more: A year in the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake – a photo essay
Rows of bright white marble gravestones dot a hillside on the outskirts of Antakya, some bearing the words “martyr of the earthquake”. The final resting place for the city’s dead will soon be overshadowed by tower blocks for those who survived. Bright yellow cranes jut into the skyline on the next hillside, slowly birthing a cluster of concrete skeletons, new government housing for some of the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes when deadly earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria last February.
“No one can bring back what was lost, as we lost everything,” said İsa Akbaba, who lost seven members of his extended family along with his home.
Continue reading...Joint operation to further disable militias follows attacks on US and international interests amid war in Gaza
The United States and Britain struck at least 30 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in another wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have attacked US and international interests in response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Ships and fighter jets on Saturday launched strikes against the Houthis. It followed an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday targeting other Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops – William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett – in Jordan last weekend.
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At least 13 Iranian-backed fighters have been killed in strikes in eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said.
The airstrikes destroyed 17 positions sheltering Iranian militias in Al-Mayadeen and Al-Bokamal near the border between Syria and Iraq, in addition to airstrikes targeting positions near Deir ez-Zor city, it said.
Continue reading...The carefully planned raids were the largest yet against Iran’s proxies and are likely to continue until threats to US personnel are neutralised
US retaliation, when it came, was broad and deep, and telegraphed five days in advance.
The White House, the Pentagon and state department had spent the best part of a week talking about the response to Sunday’s drone attack on a US base in northern Jordan, which killed three Americans and wounded more than 30.
Continue reading...President says ‘If you harm an American, we will respond’ as US forces strike in what is expected to be first of multiple attacks
Joe Biden has warned “if you harm an American, we will respond” as US forces attacked more than 80 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The US president said the strikes had been launched in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops in Jordan, adding: “Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing.”
Continue reading...Defence minister Yoav Gallant’s announcement comes despite presence of more than 1 million civilians in city
Saudi Arabia would be willing to accept a political commitment from Israel to create a Palestinian state, rather than anything more binding, in a bid to get a defence pact with Washington approved before the US presidential election, three sources have told Reuters. The news agency reports:
Months of US-led diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel and recognise the country for the first time were shelved by Riyadh in October in the face of mounting Arab anger over the war in Gaza.
But Saudi Arabia is increasingly keen to shore up its security and ward off threats from rival Iran so the kingdom can forge ahead with its ambitious plan to transform its economy and attract huge foreign investment, two regional sources said.
Continue reading...Strikes expected to take place in Syria and possibly Iraq, after three US soldiers were killed at a base in Jordan
The US has ordered a series of reprisal strikes to be launched over more than one day against an Iranian-backed militia, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.
Austin said all drones in the region attacking the US were of Iranian origin. The retaliatory strikes are expected to hit militia in Syria and possibly Iraq, though Austin did not specify the timing or precise location.
Continue reading...Tehran warns Washington but regime unsure of degree of support for interventionist foreign policy
Iran has told the US via intermediaries that if it strikes Iranian soil directly, Tehran will itself hit back at American assets in the Middle East, drawing the two sides into a direct conflict.
The warning comes as Iran waits on high alert to see how Joe Biden responds to the death of three US servicemen deemed by Washington to have been killed by a Tehran-backed militia based in Syria.
Continue reading...Denial comes after Palestinian Red Crescent Society says hospital in Khan Younis is under attack; White House declines to give further details of response
The Wafa Palestinian news agency reports that “dozens of Palestinian civilians” have been killed today by Israeli airstrikes, including “intense and fierce airstrikes at the city of Rafah”, which is in the south of the Gaza Strip and is one of the areas Israel’s military has repeatedly told Palestinians to flee to for safety.
Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah for Al Jazeera, said the strike in Rafah caused “a great deal of panic and concern as people believe the military operation is expanding step by step”. He said a house was destroyed and a number of people were reported dead, as “the Israeli military continues bombing, killing and maiming Palestinians across Gaza”.
Continue reading...White House spokesman says Biden mulling options as media reports suggest the drone that killed three US service people was confused with a US drone
Medical sources in the West Bank have said that the man killed by Israeli military fire in the village of Yamoun, near Jenin, was 21-year-old Tair Hamo, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported.
As we reported earlier, the Israeli military carried out raids on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin overnight, as well as a nearby town and village.
If we don’t want another October 7, we need to go back home and control [Gaza]. We need to find a legal way to voluntarily emigrate [Palestinians] and impose death sentences on terrorists … I turn to you, prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu: this is time for brave decisions.
Continue reading...Strikes reportedly hit farm housing members of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed factions
Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people, two days after regional tensions rose again when three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a military outpost in Jordan.
The Israeli strikes, which also left an unspecified number injured, were not regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria.
Continue reading...The group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a US military base in Jordan is a loose coalition of Iranian-backed militias
Three US service personnel were killed and 34 wounded on Sunday after a drone hit a residential quarters at a military outpost in Jordan known as Tower 22, which lies on the border between Iraq and Syria.
It is the first time US soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after an estimated 150 attacks by Iranian-based militias on American bases in Iraq and Syria since 7 October.
Continue reading...Iranian backed militia took credit for attack that injured 34 troops and killed first US soldiers in battle since start of the Gaza conflict
The spectre of a direct US-Iranian military conflict drew closer on Sunday when the US president Joe Biden announced three US servicemen have been killed and more than 34 injured following a drone attack on a US service base on the border of Jordan and Syria. Biden blamed Iranian backed militia mainly based in Iraq for the “despicable” attack and vowed revenge.
Responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Tower 22, a military outpost on the Jordanian Syrian Iraqi borders was claimed by the Iranian backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, and the US made no attempt to disguise its belief that Iran was ultimately responsible.
Continue reading...Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has lost four members in strike on Syrian capital
A suspected Israeli strike killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ espionage chief for Syria and three other guard members on Saturday, Iran has said, in an attack that destroyed much of a multistorey residential building in Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people were killed in the Israeli strike on the upmarket Mazzeh neighbourhood in the Syrian capital.
Continue reading...Officials vow revenge after Sayyed Razi Mousavi, top member of Revolutionary Guards, reportedly killed
An Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighbourhood on Monday killed a high-ranking Iranian general, Iranian state media has said.
Iranian officials and allied militant groups in the region vowed revenge for the killing but did not immediately launch any retaliatory strike.
Continue reading...However, human rights group says UK lagging behind other western nations in repatriating families who lived under IS
Britain has agreed to repatriate a woman and five children from camps in Syria, the second time the UK has allowed an adult to return since the end of the ground war against Islamic State more than four years ago.
The release was announced by the Kurdish administration that controls north-east Syria – but a human rights group and a former minister accused the UK of lagging behind other western nations in allowing families who lived under IS to return.
Continue reading...Airstrikes near Damascus follow end to seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip
Two Iranian Revolutionary Guards members serving as military advisers in Syria have been killed in an Israeli attack, Iranian state media has said.
Strikes near the Syrian capital of Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Continue reading...Three others also subject to warrants over use of sarin gas in two attacks in Syria in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people
A French court has issued an international arrest warrant for the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for complicity in war crimes against humanity linked to chemical weapon attacks on civilians.
Three others – including Assad’s brother Maher, head of an elite army unit – are also subject to warrants over the use of banned sarin gas in two attacks in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.
Continue reading...Defence secretary says US will defend its personnel and interests in the region amid surge in attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria
The United States carried out strikes against two Iran-linked sites in Syria on Sunday in response to attacks on American forces, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said.
It is the third time in less than three weeks that the US military has targeted locations in Syria it said were tied to Iran, which supports armed groups that Washington blames for a spike in attacks on its forces in the Middle East.
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