BEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon expressed concerns Tuesday over the militant Hezbollah group’s growing role in the new Cabinet, saying it does not contribute to stability.
Hezbollah, which also takes part in elections, has named a health minister and two other posts in Lebanon’s Cabinet. US officials have called on Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s new government to ensure the group does not receive support from public resources.
At a meeting with Hariri on Tuesday, Ambassador Elizabeth Richard said the Iran-backed Hezbollah continues to violate Lebanon’s policy of non-involvement in regional conflicts by fighting in “at least three countries.” She was apparently referring to Syria, where the group fights alongside the government, and Iraq and Yemen, where Iran supports local armed groups.
“I was also very frank with the prime minister about US concern over the growing role in the Cabinet of an organization that continues to maintain a militia that is not under the control of the government,” Richard told reporters after the meeting.
She added that Hezbollah continues to make its own “national security decisions” that “endanger the rest of the country.”
The US views Hezbollah as a terrorist group, but is a strong supporter of Lebanon’s national army, supplying it with arms worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. Last week, the American Embassy said the US had delivered laser-guided rockets valued at more than $16 million to the Lebanese army.
Richard said last year alone, the United States provided more than $825 million in assistance, an increase from the year before. She said the US has also supported education and development programs to help Lebanese communities “deal with the unprecedented demands placed on them when their Syrian neighbors fled.”
Lebanon is home to about a million Syrian refugees — a quarter of the tiny Mediterranean country’s population — putting pressure on its crumbling infrastructure.
Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh Gharib briefed President Michel Aoun and Hariri on Tuesday about his visit to Syria the previous day, telling reporters that Syrian officials “were very positive and showed interest in facilitating” refugees’ return.
US voices concern over Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese Cabinet
US voices concern over Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese Cabinet
- Hezbollah, which also takes part in elections, has named a health minister and two other posts in Lebanon’s Cabinet
UN’s Guterres supports Arab-led efforts to mobilize support for Gaza’s reconstruction
Egypt presented a plan for reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday at an Arab League summit in Cairo. The plan, seen by Reuters, aims to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a Middle East “Riviera” in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking at the Cairo summit, Guterres also called for the resumption “without delay” of negotiations on continuing a ceasefire in Gaza, and he expressed concern over an escalation of violence in the West Bank.
Palestinian president meets Syrian counterpart for first time since Assad’s fall
- Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmad Al-Sharaa meet in Cairo on sidelines of emergency Arab summit
- Both leaders oppose Israeli policies that threaten to further encroach on their territory
LONDON: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has met the president of the Syrian Arab Republic for the first time since the change of power in Damascus last December.
Abbas and Ahmad Al-Sharaa met in Cairo on the sidelines of an emergency Arab summit that will focus on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and oppose US President Donald Trump’s proposal to displace Palestinians in Gaza and “take over” the enclave.
Abbas and Al-Sharaa discussed the latest developments in the occupied West Bank and stressed that the Gaza Strip was an integral part of Palestine’s territory.
Abbas said that the priorities were to maintain the ceasefire in Gaza, provide aid, and for Israeli forces to withdraw from the enclave, according to the Palestine News Agency.
Both Abbas and Al-Sharaa are opposing Israeli policies that threaten to further encroach on their territory. The Israeli government’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps, and its plans to annex part of the territory jeopardize the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
Following the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in December, Israeli forces have occupied parts of the southern Syrian region, including the strategically important summit of Mount Hermon, shattering a decades-long agreement.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, the secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Diab Al-Louh, the Palestinian ambassador to Egypt, were also present at the meeting.
Sudan’s RSF signs ‘transitional constitution’: alliance member
- “The constitutional document was signed in Nairobi last night by all parties involved in the signing of the founding charter,” said Ahmed Tuqud Lisan
- The next step would be to form the government, which will “be announced inside Sudan“
NAIROBI: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies have signed a constitution paving the way for the formation of a parallel government, a member of its coalition said Tuesday.
“The constitutional document was signed in Nairobi last night by all parties involved in the signing of the founding charter,” Ahmed Tuqud Lisan, a member of the preparatory committee of the Sudan Founding Alliance told AFP.
For nearly two years, the RSF and the regular army have been in a devastating war that has uprooted more than 12 million people and caused what the United Nations calls the world’s worst hunger and displacement crises.
Last week, the RSF and its alliance of political and military partners signed a charter vowing to establish a “government of peace and unity” in rebel-controlled areas of Sudan.
The “transitional constitution” signed on Monday documents the “tasks of the transitional period, the decentralized governing system and the structures of the executive authority,” Lisan said.
The next step would be to form the government, which will “be announced inside Sudan,” he added.
Kenya has been criticized for hosting the RSF and its allies, with Sudan’s army-aligned government recalling its ambassador in protest last month.
Sudan’s foreign ministry accused Kenyan President William Ruto of acting on “his commercial and personal interests with the militia’s regional sponsors.”
The RSF’s constitution, seen by AFP, was signed by 24 signatories including RSF deputy Abdel Rahim Dagalo.
The war between the RSF and the army has torn the country in two, with the army controlling the north and east, while the RSF holds nearly all of the western region of Darfur and swathes of the south.
Lebanon state media say one dead in Israel strike on south
- “An enemy drone launched a strike” targeting a vehicle in Tyre district
- On Friday, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah weapons smuggler in a strike on eastern Lebanon the previous day
BEIRUT: Lebanese official media said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south on Tuesday killed one person, the latest deadly raid amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An enemy drone launched a strike” targeting a vehicle in Tyre district, killing one person, the National News Agency said.
It published an image of a burning, mangled car.
A November 27 truce agreement largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war during which Israel sent in ground troops.
Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanese territory since the deal took effect.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah weapons smuggler in a strike on eastern Lebanon the previous day.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces struck a Hezbollah observation post in the south and on Wednesday it said it targeted a “significant” Hezbollah militant in the east.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel was due to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems “strategic.”
The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Last week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would remain indefinitely in what he called a “buffer zone” in south Lebanon.
Syrian forces launch sweep as Assad loyalists accused of attacks
- Bursts of gunfire were heard through the night as government security forces deployed in the Datour district of Latakia
- The two members of the defense ministry had been killed in Al-Datour by “groups of Assad militia remnants“
DAMASCUS/AMMAN: Syrian Arab Republic authorities launched a security sweep in the city of Latakia on Tuesday, residents said, after two members of their forces were killed in an attack blamed by state media on remnants of Bashar Assad’s ousted government.
Bursts of gunfire were heard through the night as government security forces deployed in the Datour district of Latakia, part of the coastal region where Assad had drawn support from the Alawite community to which his family belongs.
The coastal region has emerged as one of the main security challenges for interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s new administration, which has deployed many of its forces into the area since Assad was deposed in December.
A senior security official in the area told Reuters there had been an increase in hit-and-run attacks on security patrols and checkpoints in several towns in Latakia province over the last two weeks, blamed on former army personnel in hiding.
The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a security source, reported that the two members of the defense ministry had been killed in Al-Datour by “groups of Assad militia remnants,” and that security forces had mounted a campaign to arrest them.
One Datour resident told Reuters there had been heavy gunfire in the early hours and that security forces in numerous of vehicles had surrounded the neighborhood, before the situation calmed down in the morning.
The senior security source blamed attacks in the Latakia region on a proliferation of arms in the hands of former security and army personnel who had refused to enter into reconciliation agreements with the new authorities.
The source said that Alawite elders have in some cases cooperated with security forces to hand over former personnel suspected of committing crimes during the Assad era, keen to stave off crack downs and potential civil unrest.
Last week, a police station was attacked during confrontations in Assad’s ancestral town of Qardaha, located in the mountains some 25 km (16 miles) to the east of Latakia.
Qardaha residents and activists said that the incident began when members of security forces tried to enter a house without permission, sparking opposition from residents. One person was killed by gunfire, with locals accusing the security forces of the shooting, two residents and Alawite activists said.
A statement issued at the time by the Latakia security chief made no mention of the shooting. It accused groups whom it said opposed the imposition of security of trying to prevent security forces from setting up a check point and attacking the police station.
Community sheikhs and notables from Qardaha issued a videoed statement after the incident accusing “strangers” of trying to “exploit gaps between the people of Qardaha and the authorities with the aim of disrupting” security.
They declared support for any step taken by the authorities with their agreement to preserve security and lives.
