Source: Agence France Presse
The official website of the Kataeb Party leader
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Wednesday 26 July 2023 10:46:03
Taiwan staged its first-ever military drill at Taoyuan International Airport on Wednesday, briefly halting commercial traffic as soldiers practiced defending the facility against a simulated attack by Beijing.
The exercise is part of Taiwan’s week-long massive wargames -- the annual “Han Kuang” (Han Glory) drills -- which this year has included protecting civilian airports as Beijing ramps up military and political pressures on the island.
This is the first such drill held at Taiwan’s biggest airport near the capital since it opened in 1979.
Military expert Alexander Huang said Taiwan is drawing experiences from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which last year fended off a seizure by Russian paratroopers at the Antonov airport just outside Kyiv.
“Seizing an adversary’s airport is key to sending in large numbers of assault forces via air transport in an invasion operation,” Huang, at Taipei’s Tamkang University, said.
“In addition to familiarizing our forces with command and control, this drill can also signal to potential enemies that we are getting ourselves prepared for such contingency,” he told AFP.
As air traffic was halted for about 30 minutes, dozens of soldiers fought off “enemies” landing on the airport’s tarmac from attack helicopters.
Airport police and firefighters also joined the operation, which the government said is aimed at combining civilian and military forces to protect critical infrastructure.
China, which regards Taiwan as its territory, has upped the pressure in recent years, with near-daily warplane incursions and Chinese vessels deployed around the island’s waters.
Taiwan has always held frequent military drills, but in recent months increased the civilian component. This week, as the army holds various exercises across the island, local governments are also holding air raid drills in different cities.
“We need to start from the concept of a ‘whole-society defense,’ to integrate and utilize the resources of the military, central government, local governments and civilian sectors, and to coordinate all units to work together,” said Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, during her visit to a drill at an oil refinery in Taoyuan.
Dressed in fatigues and wearing a mask -- she was diagnosed with Covid this week, though has mild symptoms -- Tsai watched on as soldiers fended off “attack agents” that parachuted out of helicopters.
“The protection of the oil refinery was incorporated into this Han Kuang exercise to simulate possible attacks or disasters to establish comprehensive contingency measures, and effectively protect our critical infrastructure,” Tsai said.
A drill was initially scheduled at an airport in Taiwan’s southeast Taitung Tuesday, but was cancelled due to Typhoon Doksuri.
The official website of the Kataeb Party leader