US, Gulf allies brace for Iran terror attacks as Tehran vows to avenge Soleimani killing

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on Jan. 3 last year after his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad airport. (AFP/File)
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Updated 01 January 2021
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US, Gulf allies brace for Iran terror attacks as Tehran vows to avenge Soleimani killing

  • Analyst: Iranian terror strike against the US or one of its allies in the Gulf or in Yemen is “highly possible.”

JEDDAH: The US and its Gulf allies have been warned to prepare for Iran-led terror attacks after Tehran ramped up threats of revenge on the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani.

With tensions between the US and Iran escalating in the region, Esmail Qaani, chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Soleimani’s successor, on Thursday threatened to take revenge and kill US President Donald Trump and other officials.
 
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on Jan. 3 last year after his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad airport.

Amid a series of veiled threats from Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday accused the US president of making up excuses to attack Iran and warned that Washington “would pay for any possible adventure” in the region, while Iran’s judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, said that “not even Trump is immune from justice.”

Commenting on the threats, Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri, a political analyst and international relations scholar, said that an Iranian terror strike against the US or one of its allies in the Gulf or in Yemen is “highly possible.”

However, he said that any attack would be limited due to US readiness to counter the Tehran regime.

Al-Shehri told Arab News that the US, more than any other global power, needed to step up its deterrent action to halt Iran’s aggressive behavior.

The US has been suffering from Iranian terrorist actions since 1977, when its embassy in Tehran was taken over by an Iranian militia group, he said.
 
“The US silence for over 40 years has allowed Iran to grow, develop militias and terrorist cells, and even improve its relations with several countries, which are now supporting Tehran in carrying out terrorism and challenging the US.”

He warned that US “lenience” would help Iran continue its threats to the region and the world, “especially on the nuclear level.”
 
Al-Shehri said that Iran’s threats are directed at its allies in the region and Iran’s revolutionary media channels.
 
“If you ask me whose words we should take seriously, I would say Qaani’s. He is Tehran’s spearhead and the one who controls everything in the country.”
 
He added that Qaani should be held accountable for his threats against the US president and for hinting at terrorist action inside the US.   

US Central Command said on Wednesday that it had sent two B-52 bombers to the Middle East “to underscore the US commitment to regional security.”

Two days earlier, a US Navy nuclear submarine passed through the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Arabian Gulf in the latest show of military strength from Washington.

Al-Shehri said: “If US forces don’t take action today against Iran, they will never do so, especially with the change in the US administration and the current situation in the world.”

He added: “It is now the perfect time to punish Iran for all its terror activities.”
 
Al-Shehri said that Tehran is trying to put pressure on US decision-makers, especially the new administration.

“It wants to tell Joe Biden’s administration that the best way to deal with Tehran is to placate it,” the political analyst said.

“Biden is not likely to be another Obama, but he certainly will not be another Trump in confronting Tehran,” Al-Shehri said.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been escalating since 2018, when Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions.
 


Germany joins US, UK in making diplomatic contact with Syria’s HTS

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Germany joins US, UK in making diplomatic contact with Syria’s HTS

BERLIN: Germany plans talks with representatives of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said, joining the United States and Britain in establishing contact with the Islamist group after it led the overthrow of Syria’s Bashar Assad.
German diplomats’ first talks with representatives of the HTS-appointed interim government will focus on a transitional process for Syria and the protection of minorities, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said.
“The possibilities of a diplomatic presence in Damascus are also being explored there,” the spokesperson added in a statement, reiterating that Berlin was monitoring HTS closely in light of its roots in Al-Qaeda ideology.
“As far as one can tell, they have acted prudently so far,” the spokesperson said of the group, whose rebels led the ouster of Assad earlier this month, ending 13 years of war.
The conflict triggered the movement of some one million Syrian refugees to Germany. Its end has stoked debate in the country on asylum procedures, now paused for Syrians pending an assessment of the situation in their home country.
Germany is liaising closely with its partners, including the US, France and Britain, as well as Arab states, on Syria, the German ministry spokesperson said.

Israeli airstrikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, tanks push south

Updated 17 December 2024
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Israeli airstrikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, tanks push south

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians on Tuesday, at least 10 of them in one house in Gaza City, medics said as tanks pushed deeper toward the western area of Rafah in the south.
Medics said the Israeli airstrike on the house in the Daraj suburb of Gaza City destroyed the building and damaged nearby houses. Four other people were killed in two separate airstrikes in the city and the town of Beit Lahiya north of the enclave said medics, medics added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli tanks pushed deeper toward the western area of Mawasi, known as a humanitarian-designated area, residents said.
Heavy fire from tanks rolling into the area forced dozens of families sheltering there to flee northwards toward Khan Younis.
The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel then launched an air and land offensive that has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.


Israeli defence minister says Israel will have freedom of action in Gaza after defeating Hamas

Updated 17 December 2024
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Israeli defence minister says Israel will have freedom of action in Gaza after defeating Hamas

DUBAI: Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Monday Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action after defeating Hamas in the enclave.


At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, US advocacy group head says

Updated 17 December 2024
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At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, US advocacy group head says

  • Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system

WASHINGTON: The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar Assad.
Mouaz Moustafa, speaking to Reuters in a telephone interview from Damascus, said the site at al Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of the Syrian capital, was one of five mass graves that he had identified over the years.
“One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate” of the number of bodies buried at the site, said Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “It’s a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate.”
Moustafa said that he is sure there are more mass graves than the five sites, and that along with Syrians victims included US and British citizens and other foreigners.
Reuters was unable to confirm Moustafa’s allegations.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.
Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system.
Assad repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.
Syria’s UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He assumed the role in January — while Assad was still in power — but told reporters last week that he was awaiting instructions from the new authorities and would “keep defending and working for the Syrian people.”
Moustafa arrived in Syria after Assad flew to Russia and his government collapsed in the face of a lightning offensive by rebels that ended his family’s more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule.
He spoke to Reuters after he was interviewed at the site in al Qutayfah by Britain’s Channel 4 News for a report on the alleged mass grave there.
He said the intelligence branch of the Syrian air force was “in charge of bodies going from military hospitals, where bodies were collected after they’d been tortured to death, to different intelligence branches, and then they would be sent to a mass grave location.”
Corpses also were transported to sites by the Damascus municipal funeral office whose personnel helped unload them from refrigerated tractor-trailers, he said.
“We were able to talk to the people who worked on these mass graves that had on their own escaped Syria or that we helped to escape,” said Moustafa.
His group has spoken to bulldozer drivers compelled to dig graves and “many times on orders, squished the bodies down to fit them in and then cover them with dirt,” he said.
Moustafa expressed concern that graves sites were unsecured and said they needed to be preserved to safeguard evidence for investigations.

 


Syria’s Golani says rebel factions to be ‘disbanded’, calls for lifting sanctions

Updated 17 December 2024
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Syria’s Golani says rebel factions to be ‘disbanded’, calls for lifting sanctions

  • “Syria must remain united, and there must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice,” said Jolani

DAMASCUS: The leader of the Islamist group that toppled Bashar Assad said Monday that armed factions in war-torn Syria would be “disbanded” and their fighters placed under the defense ministry, and called for sanctions to be lifted so refugees can return.
Syrian president Assad was toppled by a lightning 11-day rebel offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS), whose fighters and allies swept down from northwest Syria and entered the capital on December 8.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani said Monday on the group’s Telegram channel that all the rebel factions “would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry.”
“All will be subject to the law,” said Golani, who now uses his real name, Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
He also emphasized the need for unity in a country home to different ethnic minority groups and religions, while speaking to members of the Druze community — a branch of Shiite Islam making up about 3 percent of Syria’s pre-war population.
“Syria must remain united,” he said. “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice.”
Several countries and organizations have welcomed Assad’s fall but said they were waiting to see how the new authorities would treat minorities in the country.
During a second meeting with a delegation of British diplomats, the HTS leader also spoke “of the importance of restoring relations” with London.
He stressed the need to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country,” according to remarks reported on his group’s Telegram channel.
HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a terrorist organization by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.
Since the toppling of Assad, it has insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected.