DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Iran likely suffered another failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket in recent days attempting to reinvigorate a program criticized by the West, even as Tehran faces last-minute negotiations with world powers to save its tattered nuclear deal in Vienna.
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies seen by The Associated Press show scorch marks at a launch pad at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s rural Semnan province on Sunday. A rocket stand on the pad appears scorched and damaged, with vehicles surrounding it. An object, possibly part of the gantry, sits near it.
Successful launches typically don’t damage rocket gantries because they are lowered prior to takeoff. Iran also usually immediately trumpets launches that reach space on its state-run television channels, and it has a history of not acknowledging failed attempts.
Separate images from Planet Labs PBC suggest the attempted launch likely occurred sometime after Friday. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the US military.
The rocket involved appears to have been Iran’s Zuljanah satellite launch vehicle, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who first noticed the attempted launch with colleagues.
The gantry apparently damaged in the launch resembled another that was previously used in a successful launch last year of a Zuljanah, named after a horse of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a key figure in the Shiite faith who was massacred with his fighters at Karbala in the 7th century.
It remains unclear what could have caused the blast. The first two stages of a Zuljanah are solid fuel, but its final stage is liquid and would have needed to be fueled on the launch pad, Lewis said.
“This just looks like it got interrupted, like something exploded,” Lewis told the AP.
Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The program has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, another satellite-carrying rocket. A separate fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time.
The launch pad used in the latest launch remains scarred from an explosion in August 2019 that even drew the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He later tweeted what appeared to be a classified surveillance image of the launch failure.
The successive failures raised suspicion of outside interference in Iran’s program, something Trump himself hinted at by tweeting at the time that the US “was not involved in the catastrophic accident.” There’s been no evidence offered, however, to show foul play in any of the failures, and space launches remain challenging even for the world’s most-successful programs.
Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in April 2020 revealed its own secret space program by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The head of the US Space Command later dismissed the satellite as “a tumbling webcam in space” that wouldn’t provide Iran vital intelligence — though it showed Tehran’s ability to successfully get into orbit.
This launch, however, comes as Western diplomats warn time is ticking down to restore Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, setting the stage for years of tensions and mysterious attacks across the wider Mideast.
The US has alleged such satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
Today, Tehran enriches uranium up to 60 percent purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent and far greater than the nuclear deal’s 3.67 percent cap. Its stockpile of enriched uranium also continues to grow and international inspectors face challenges in monitoring its advances.
While Iran’s former President Hassan Rouhani dialed back the country’s space program for fears of alienating the West, new hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has instead focused on jumpstarting the program. Iran has a series of satellites it plans to launch and Iran’s Supreme Council of Space recently met for the first time in 11 years.
Satellite photos show Iran had another failed space launch
https://arab.news/p9p6k
Satellite photos show Iran had another failed space launch
- Separate images from Planet Labs PBC suggest the attempted launch likely occurred sometime after Friday
Algeria slams French ‘interference’ over jailing of writer
- The Algerian foreign ministry said Macron “unduly and falsely” presented Sansal’s detention “as a matter of freedom of expression, which it isn’t in the eyes of the law of a sovereign and independent state”
ALGIERS: Algeria accused France on Tuesday of “unacceptable and blatant interference” after President Emmanuel Macron said Algiers was “dishonoring itself” by keeping French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal behind bars on national security charges.
Sansal, a literary figure who has been critical of the Algerian authorities, was arrested at Algiers airport in November and has been kept in custody despite calls from Paris for his release.
In its response, the Algerian foreign ministry said Macron’s comments “can only be rejected and condemned for they are blatant and unacceptable interference in an internal Algerian affair.”
Sansal’s arrest came amid growing tensions between France and Algeria over a range of issues.
“Algeria, which we love so much and with which we share so many children and so many stories, is dishonoring itself by preventing a seriously ill man from receiving treatment,” Macron said in a speech on Monday.
He described the 75-year-old, who acquired French citizenship last year, as a “freedom fighter.”
The Algerian foreign ministry said Macron “unduly and falsely” presented Sansal’s detention “as a matter of freedom of expression, which it isn’t in the eyes of the law of a sovereign and independent state.”
“It essentially stems from challenging the territorial integrity of the country, an offense punishable by Algerian law,” it added.
According to Paris newspaper Le Monde, Sansal’s arrest was linked to statements to a far-right French media outlet in which he repeated Morocco’s claim that its territory was truncated in favor of Algeria under French colonial rule.
In a speech in late December, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called him an “imposter” sent by France to make such claims.
Sansal is known for his strong stances against both authoritarianism and Islamism, as well as being a forthright campaigner on freedom of expression issues.
In 2015, he won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy for his book “2084: The End of the World,” a dystopian novel set in an Islamist totalitarian world in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
Algeria had already withdrawn its ambassador over the summer after the French government supported a Moroccan offer of autonomy for the disputed Western Sahara in place of the self-determination referendum stipulated by a 1991 UN Security Council resolution.
Orthodox Christians mark a somber Christmas in Gaza
- In the courtyard of the church, which was partially destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, the destruction that has devastated much of Gaza is clear in the surrounding bombed-out buildings
GAZA CITY: Orthodox Christians marked a somber Christmas on Tuesday in the war-torn Gaza Strip, with worshippers saying there would be no gifts for children and no joy during this year’s holiday.
In the richly decorated Church of Saint Porphyrius in the heart of Gaza City, as fighting raged across the Palestinian territory, around a dozen members of the Orthodox Christian community gathered for the annual morning service.
Sitting in the wooden pews, older men and women joined Archbishop Alexios of Tiberias in lighting candles and praying for friends and family and for an end to the now 15-month-old war.
Around 1,100 Christians from various denominations remain in Gaza amid the fighting, sparked by militant Palestinian group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Holidays are limited to prayers only, with no gifts for children, no joy or any signs of joy for children on this holiday,” Ramez Al-Suri told AFP.
“We hope and ask all countries to help bring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
“We have been at war for 15 months and we in the Christian community always ask for peace and all our prayers are for love and peace for all and for the war to end as soon as possible,”
he said.
In the courtyard of the church, which was partially destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, the destruction that has devastated much of Gaza is
clear in the surrounding bombed-out buildings.
Standing outside the church, Fuad Ayyad said “we wake up every minute to bombing, massacres, genocide or the martyrdom of a citizen.”
In the 2023 strike that hit the church, 18 Palestinian Christians were killed, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
“Today we welcome the holiday with joy, but a diminished joy as Christians,” Ayyad said, adding, “sadness remains present and dominant within the Western and Eastern churches and within the Palestinian community whether Muslim or Christian.”
On Dec. 25, when the Catholic and other churches celebrated Christmas, Pope Francis called in his annual address for “arms to be silenced” around the world and appealed for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.
He also denounced the “extremely grave” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli data.
Since then, Israel’s military offensive has killed 45,885 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Gaza officials say children killed as Israel hits Khan Yunis
- Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area
- Two people were killed when a strike hit a car in Khan Yunis
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza health officials said a wave of Israeli strikes hit the territory’s southern district of Khan Yunis on Tuesday evening, killing a dozen people, seven of them children.
At least five strikes targeted parts of Khan Yunis, including one in the Al-Mawasi area where thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in tents along the coast.
Four children were killed when a drone strike hit their tent in the Al-Mawasi area, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry reported.
A witness told AFP that several tents caught fire from the strike, which also wounded more than 20 people.
Five people, including three children, were killed and several wounded in a strike on a house in Khan Yunis, Gaza’s civil defense agency said.
Two people were killed when a strike hit a car in Khan Yunis, while another two were killed when an apartment was hit.
There was no immediate comment from the military about the latest strikes.
They came as mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States brokered negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Doha on a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
In recent months, the Israeli military has focused its offensive on northern districts of Gaza, particularly the town of Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp.
“We won’t stop. We will bring them (Hamas) to the point where they understand that they must return all hostages,” Israel’s army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told troops during a visit to Jabalia late on Monday.
“They see, every single day, what you are doing to them, and they understand that this is becoming unbearable,” he said, according to a statement released by the military.
During their October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the war, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 45,885 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Harris will travel to Asia, Mideast and Europe during her final week in office
- Harris plans to visit Changi Naval Base in Singapore and meet with leaders of the city-state
- The next stop is Bahrain, where Harris will visit the headquarters of the US 5th Fleet
WASHINGTON: Vice President Kamala Harris plans to close out her term with an around-the-world trip making stops in Singapore, Bahrain and Germany, her office said.
The trip, which is scheduled to last from Jan. 13 to Jan. 17, will be a final opportunity for Harris to address US foreign policy challenges before Donald Trump takes office. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is expected to join the vice president.
Although she has not disclosed her next steps after losing the presidential election, the expansive travel suggests that Harris might want to continue playing a role on the global stage. There’s also speculation that Harris could run for governor of her home state of California.
Dean Lieberman, Harris’ deputy national security adviser, said in a written statement that “the vice president felt it important to spend some of her final days in office thanking and engaging directly with US servicemembers deployed overseas, which as she has said, has been one of her greatest privileges as vice president.”
There are US troops based at all three of Harris’ stops.
Harris plans to visit Changi Naval Base in Singapore and meet with leaders of the city-state. Singapore’s location in the Indo-Pacific region makes it a key partner for addressing issues involving China, including freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
The next stop is Bahrain, where Harris will visit the headquarters of the US 5th Fleet. The fleet has been engaged in efforts to protect Israel from Iranian attacks and regional shipping activity from the Houthis in Yemen.
Harris’ final stop will be Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, home to a deployment of US Air Force fighter jets. She plans to talk about the importance of NATO in deterring Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Harris has previously visited Germany and Singapore. Bahrain will be the 22nd country she’s visited during her term.
“The vice president continues to believe in a strong US global leadership role because it benefits the security and prosperity of the American people, and she will reaffirm this throughout her trip,” Lieberman said.
Israeli forces kill 31 Palestinians in Gaza onslaught, 3 in West Bank
- Qatar confirms ‘technical meetings’ on ceasefire ongoing
CAIRO, DOHA: The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that 31 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 45,885 as the war entered its 16th month.
The ministry also said that at least 109,196 people had been wounded in the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian group’s Oct, 7, 2023 attack.
Separately, Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in stepped-up operations across the occupied West Bank following the killing of three Israelis near a Jewish settlement. The Palestinian Health Ministry said an 18-year-old was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Tamun, a town northeast of Nablus city, while a 40-year-old was shot dead in the nearby village of Taluza.
FASTFACT
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45,885 Palestinians and wounded 109,196 since Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli military said that after a clash with militants in the Tamun area, its war planes struck and killed two fighters. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA also reported a second Palestinian killed in a strike in Tamun.
The Israeli military said a third militant was killed in a firefight in Taluza and several were arrested in various incidents. Hamas’s armed Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the man killed in Taluza was one of its fighters.
WAFA meanwhile reported revenge attacks by Jewish settlers, who it said had set fire to a vehicle overnight and attacked a Palestinian village.
It said the Israeli military was setting up more checkpoints and road closures, and conducting increased incursions and raids.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities renewed a closure order for Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the West Bank.
Israeli soldiers posted the extension order on the entrance of the building housing Al Jazeera’s offices in central Ramallah.
The extension applies from Dec. 22 and lasts 45 days. In September, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah office and issued an initial 45-day closure order.
Talks aimed at cementing a truce in Gaza are ongoing, with “technical meetings” taking place between the parties, mediator Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said.
“The technical meetings are still happening between both sides,” ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said, referring to meetings with lower-level officials on the details of an agreement. “There are no principal meetings taking place at the moment.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end the devastating conflict in Gaza.
Ansari said there were “a lot of issues that are being discussed” in the ongoing meetings, but refused to go into details “to protect the integrity of the negotiations.”
Hamas said at the end of last week that indirect negotiations in Doha had resumed, while Israel said it had authorized negotiators to continue the talks in the Qatari capital.
A previous round of mediation in December ended with both sides blaming the other for the impasse.
