Source: AFP
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
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
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
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
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“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
A Future Without Hezbollah
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
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
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 Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
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
Monday 5 September 2022 17:24:00
United States Simulates Bombing Mission over Middle East amid Iran Tensions
The US said Monday that two long-distance warplanes flew across the Middle East as part of a simulated international bombing exercise amid tense haggling on restoring a nuclear deal with Iran.
Top US general Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich said the “Bomber Task Force” simulation on Sunday showed that the US and its allies can “rapidly inject overwhelming combat power into the region on demand.”
“Threats to the US and our partners will not go unanswered,” added Grynkewich, commander of the combined forces air component of US Central Command, an area that covers Northeast Africa, the Middle East and as far as Central and South Asia.
The general did not name potential adversaries but the US is locked in intense negotiations over reviving a deal to limit Iran's nuclear program.
The US said last week that Iran's response to the latest proposed deal was “not constructive”.
Iran's foreign ministry said Monday that it had not received any official US reaction to its demands.
European-brokered talks on restoring the 2015 accord -- abandoned by the US in 2018 -- have been ongoing in Vienna since April last year, but have repeatedly stalled.
The European Union has said that a text put to Iran last month was the final one.
The US air force has recently hit Iranian-backed militia in Syria while Grynkewich said last month that the US was “committed to regional stability whether that means deterring Iran, (or) countering violent extremist organisations.”
A Central Command statement said fighter jets from Britain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia escorted the two B-52H Stratofortresses from the US Global Strike Command on Sunday.
In the fourth exercise of its kind this year, the planes started at the Fairford air base in England and flew above the eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea “before departing the region”, the statement said.
US ground and naval units as well as 16 other nations, including Canada, provided logistical support, the US military said. The US army “simulated firepower from the ground”.
Central Command chief, General Michael 'Erik' Kurilla, said: “We have the ability to put a significant measure of combat power in the air alongside our partners very quickly. We can do the same on the ground and at sea.”
