WASHINGTON: Israel’s suspected killing of Hamas’ political leader in the heart of Tehran, coming after a week in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahupromised US lawmakers he would continue his war against Hamas until “total victory,” points to an Israeli leader ever more openly at odds with Biden administration efforts to calm the region through diplomacy.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking on an Asia trip, was left to tell reporters there that Americans had not been aware of or involved in the attack on Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, whose roles included overseeing Hamas’ side in US-led mediation to bring a ceasefire and release of hostages in the Gaza war.
The US remains focused on a ceasefire in the 9-month-old Israeli war in Gaza “as the best way to bring the temperature down everywhere,” Blinken said after Haniyeh’s killing.
The targeting, and timing, of the overnight strike may have all but destroyed US hopes for now.
“I just don’t see how a ceasefire is feasible right now with the assassination of the person you would have been negotiating with,” said Vali Nasr, a former US diplomat now at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
If the expected cycles of retaliation and counter-retaliation ahead start unspooling as feared, Haniyeh’s killing could mark the end of Biden administration’s hopes of restraining escalatory actions as Israel targets what Netanyahu calls Iran’s “axis of terror,” in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
And with the US political campaign entering its final months, it will be more difficult for the Biden administration to break away — if it wants to — from an ally it is bound to through historical, security, economic and political ties.
The killing of Haniyeh, and another suspected Israeli strike on a senior Hezbollah leader in the Lebanese capital of Beirut hours earlier, came on the heels of Netanyahu’s return home from a nearly weeklong trip to the US, his first foreign trip of the war.
The Biden administration had said it hoped to use the visit to overcome some of the remaining obstacles in negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza and to free Israeli, American and other foreign hostages held by Hamas and other militants.
President Joe Biden has been Israel’s most vital backer in the war, keeping up shipments of arms and other military aid while defending Israel against any international action over the deaths of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the Israeli offensive.
But Biden has also put his political weight behind efforts to secure the ceasefire and hostage release, including publicly declaring that the two sides had both agreed to a framework and urging them to seal the deal.
Netanyahu told a joint meeting of Congress during his visit that Israel was determined to win nothing less than “total victory” against Hamas. Asked directly by journalists on the point later, he said that Israel hoped for a ceasefire soon and was working for one.
Following the visit, Biden administration officials dodged questions about reports that Israel’s far-right government had newly raised additional conditions for any ceasefire deals.
Haniyeh had been openly living in Doha, Qatar, for the months since the Oct. 7 attack. But he wasn’t attacked until he was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s president. Nasr said Iran will see it as a direct Israeli attack on its sovereignty, and respond.
“If you wanted to have a ceasefire, if Haniyeh was in your sights, you might have said, ‘I’ll kill him in a few months. Not now,” said Nasr, who said it suggested overt undermining of ceasefire negotiations by Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s far-right government says Israel is fighting in Gaza to destroy Iran-allied Hamas as a military and governing power there. Israel warns that it is also prepared to expand its fight further to include an offensive in Lebanon, if necessary to stop what have been near-daily exchanges of rocket fire between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel.
Hezbollah is by far the most powerful of the Iran-allied groups in the Middle East. Analysts and diplomats warn of any such expansion of hostilities touching off uncontrollable conflicts throughout the region that would draw in the United States as Israel’s ally. The US, France and others have urged Israel and Iran and its allies to resolve tensions through negotiations.
In a letter to foreign diplomats made public Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Israel “is not interested in all-out war,” but that the only way to avoid it would be to implement a 2006 UN resolution calling for a demilitarized zone along Israel’s border with Lebanon and an end of hostilities with Hezbollah.
US national security adviser John Kirby, who earlier this week called fears of major escalation from the killing of the Hezbollah official in Beirut “exaggerated,” told reporters that the news of the more momentous strike on the Hamas leader in Tehran “doesn’t help ... with the temperature going down in the region. We’re obviously concerned.”
At the same time, Kirby said, “We also haven’t seen any indication...that this process has been completely torpedoed. We still believe that this is a worthy endeavor...and a deal can be had.” The US had a team in the region Wednesday for negotiations, he said.
“We don’t want to see an escalation. And everything we’ve been doing since the 7th of October has been trying to manage that risk,” he said.
Killing of Hamas political leader points to diverging paths for Israel, US, on ceasefire
https://arab.news/g9fvf
Killing of Hamas political leader points to diverging paths for Israel, US, on ceasefire
- The US remains focused on a ceasefire in the 9-month-old Israeli war in Gaza “as the best way to bring the temperature down everywhere,” Blinken said
- “I just don’t see how a ceasefire is feasible right now with the assassination of the person you would have been negotiating with,” said Vali Nasr, a former US diplomat
Iraq, US agree on phased pullout of coalition troops
- Pullout to be completed from Bagdad and other parts of federal Iraq by September 2025 and from Kurdistan by September 2026, says Iraq defense chief
- The US has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the international coalition against the Daesh group
BAGHDAD: Iraq and the United States have agreed on a phased pullout of the US-led anti-jihadist coalition but have yet to sign a final agreement, the Iraqi defense minister said Sunday.
The US has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the international coalition against the Daesh group.
They have been engaged in months of talks with Baghdad on a withdrawal of forces, but fell short of announcing any timeline so far.
On Sunday, Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet Al-Abbassi told pan-Arab television channel Al-Hadath that the coalition would pull out from bases in Baghdad and other parts of federal Iraq by September 2025 and from the autonomous northern Kurdistan region by September 2026.
The pullout is “two-phased” and “maybe we will sign the agreement within the next few days,” Abbassi said.
He added that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had said in a meeting that “two years were not enough” to carry out the withdrawal.
“We refused his proposal regarding an (extra) third year,” Abbassi said.
Coalition forces have been targeted dozens of times with drones and rocket fire in both Iraq and Syria, as violence related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza since early October has drawn in Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East.
US forces have carried out multiple retaliatory strikes against these groups in both countries.
The Daesh group seized parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, and was defeated by Baghdad three years later and in Syria in 2019.
But jihadist fighters continue to operate in remote desert areas although they no longer control any territory.
Iraqi security forces say they are capable of tackling Daesh remnants unassisted, as the group poses no significant threat.
Israeli strikes in central Syria kill seven: war monitor
- In the most high-profile attack on Syria since the war in Gaza began, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in April, a strike that Iran said killed seven military advisers, including three senior commanders
DAMASCUS: Israeli strikes in central Syria killed at least seven people late Sunday, including three civilians, a war monitor reported.
Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes there, targeting pro-Iranian groups in particular.
“The number of dead in the Israeli strikes on the Masyaf region stands at seven, namely three civilians, including a man and his son who were in a car, and four unidentified soldiers,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of sources inside the country.
The attack also wounded at least 15 others and destroyed military facilities in the area, the Observatory said.
“Thirteen violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centers in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present,” the group said in an earlier statement.
The Syrian state news agency Sana had previously reported five killed and 19 wounded near Masyaf, citing a medical source.
“Around 11:20 p.m. (2020 GMT) on Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the northwest of Lebanon targeting a number of military sites in the central region,” Sana reported, citing a military source.
“Our air defense shot down some missiles.”
Israeli air raids in Syria have intensified since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there.
At the end of August, three pro-Iranian fighters were killed in the central region of Homs in strikes attributed to Israel, the Observatory said.
A few days later, the Israeli military said it had killed an unspecified number of fighters belonging to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad in a strike in Syria near the Lebanese border.
Algeria’s president joins opponents in claiming election irregularities after being named the winner
Algeria’s president joins opponents in claiming election irregularities after being named the winner
- The tally reported on Sunday gave Tebboune a total vote share that was far more than the 87 percent that Vladimir Putin won in Russia’s March elections and the 92 percent that Ilham Aliyev got in Azerbaijan’s February contest
ALGIERS, Algeria: After being declared the winner of Algeria’s election, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune joined his two challengers in criticizing the country’s election authority for announcing results that contradicted earlier turnout figures and local tallies.
The claims of irregularities mar what had earlier appeared to be a landslide victory for the 78-year-old head of state.
The country’s independent election authority on Sunday announced that Tebboune had won 94.7 percent of Saturday’s vote, far outpacing his challengers Islamist Abdelali Hassani Cherif, who received only 3.2 percent and socialist Youcef Aouchiche, who got just 2.2 percent.
Hours later, Tebboune joined his opponents in questioning the reported results with the three campaigns jointly issuing a statement accusing the country’s election chairman of announcing contradictory results.
In a country where elections have historically been carefully choreographed affairs, such astonishing questions about irregularities shocked Algerians who expected Tebboune to win in a relatively uneventful fashion.
It’s unclear what will follow all three candidates casting doubt on irregularities and whether they will prompt legal challenges or delay the final certification of the result.
The tally reported on Sunday gave Tebboune a total vote share that was far more than the 87 percent that Vladimir Putin won in Russia’s March elections and the 92 percent that Ilham Aliyev got in Azerbaijan’s February contest.
But efforts from Tebboune and members of his government to encourage voter turnout to project legitimacy appeared to have fallen short, with less than one out of every four voters participating.
Election officials on Sunday reported 5.6 million of the country’s roughly 24 million voters had turned out to vote. Such high abstention rates, which remain unofficial, would surpass the 2019 presidential election when 39.9 percent of the electorate participated.
Officials did not explain why they had earlier announced 48 percent voter turnout at the time of polls closing. Before the three candidates joined in questioning the discrepancy, both of Tebboune’s challengers raised questions about it, citing their own tallies.
Aouchiche called it “strange.” Ahmed Sadok, Cherif’s campaign manager, blasted delays and the way the figure was calculated.
“It’s a shame. It’s an attack on the image of Algeria, which will become the laughing stock of nations,” Sadok said earlier in the day.
He also said there had been a failure to deliver vote-sorting records to the candidates’ representatives and that said the party had recorded instances of proxy group voting and pressure put on poll workers to inflate certain figures.
Claims of irregularities cap off an election season that outraged activists and civil society groups. Human rights advocates railed against the campaign season’s repressive atmosphere and the harassment and prosecutions of those involved in opposition parties, media organizations and civil society groups.
Some denounced this election as a rubber stamp exercise that can only entrench the status quo. Amnesty International last week condemned Algeria’s “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association in the run up to the country’s presidential elections.”
Before the candidates questioned the results, Tebboune’s supporters and detractors each had drawn conclusions from the results.
Pro-Tebboune university professor Abdellaoui Djazouli said on public television that the result was a resounding endorsement of Tebboune’s program.
“The president has more legitimacy to continue his action to better establish his project for the new Algeria,” he said on public television.
But his runaway victory fueled criticism from pro-democracy activists who have long seen elections as tools that the country’s political elites have used to give off an appearance of popular support.
Many said the loudest message to come out of the election came from those who chose to abstain out of fear that the election would only entrench and legitimize “le pouvoir” — a term used to describe the military-backed elites who run the country.
“The vast majority of the Algerian people have just given ‘le pouvoir’ a lesson in democracy,” said Nassira Amour, a teacher and leading figure from Algeria’s pro-democracy movement.
“The majority did not vote ... This electoral masquerade is a victory for the Hirak,” Amour added, referencing the pro-democracy movement that swept the country in 2019.
That year, after Hirak protesters flooded the streets of Algerian cities, the military ousted President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after two decades in power. The interim government that replaced him heeded calls from military leaders to hold elections later that year, angering protesters who saw expediting elections as a way to calm discontent and sidestep demands for civilian-led, non-military rule.
Tebboune, considered the military’s candidate, won his first-term in a widely boycotted election during which crowds sacked voting stations and police broke up demonstrations. Despite his early overtures and pledges to listen and usher in a “New Algeria,” Hirak protesters continued weekly demonstrations demanding deeper reforms.
Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area and, with almost 45 million people, it’s the continent’s second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world’s population.
14 killed in a car crash in war-torn Yemen, state media report
- The crashes claim thousands of lives every year and are mostly caused by speeding, bad roads, or poor enforcement of traffic laws
SANAA, Yemen: A passenger bus overturned while driving Sunday in a mountainous area in southwestern Yemen, killing at least 14 people, state-run media reported.
The vehicle was traveling on a highway overlooking a rocky area in the Maqatra district when it suffered a mechanical failure and tumbled to the ground, according to the state-run SABA news agency.
The bus was transporting 14 passengers from the southern province of Aden, the seat of the internationally recognized government, to the southwestern province of Taiz, the agency reported.
It said only one person survived the crash and was taken to hospital for treatment.
Deadly traffic crashes are not uncommon in Yemen, where a decade of civil war wrecked the country’s infrastructure. The crashes claim thousands of lives every year and are mostly caused by speeding, bad roads, or poor enforcement of traffic laws.
Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the US, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants. In recent years the situation has deteriorated and the conflict has largely turned into a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Algeria’s Tebboune: reassuring to some but criticized over rights, freedoms
- Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter
- Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests
ALGIERS: Abdelmadjid Tebboune, re-elected for a second five-year term, has sought to reshape his bureaucratic image into that of a reassuring figure, though his record remains tarnished by criticism over freedoms and human rights.
He was re-elected Sunday with almost 95 percent of the vote and a “provisional average turnout” of 48 percent, according to the electoral authority ANIE.
He was facing moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, who won 3.17 percent of the vote, and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41, who won 2.16 percent.
Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests.
The demonstrations, which began in February of that year and led to the ousting of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, under whom Tebboune served in various ministerial roles, sought a sweeping political overhaul.
With a calm demeanour and, to some, an affable appearance, Tebboune attempted to appease the protests, pardoning a few dozen jailed activists.
He has claimed to uphold the Hirak’s “blessed” spirit, which he says freed the North African country from an oppressive past.
Yet he oversaw the imprisonment of hundreds of other activists, banned the movement’s weekly rallies, and cracked down on dissent with support from the military.
Five years on, Tebboune’s tenure still reflects “a democratic deficit,” said Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center.
Algerian authorities “have maintained their repression of civic space by continuing their brutal crackdown on human rights,” Amnesty International said.
The London-based rights group denounced “a zero-tolerance approach to dissenting opinions” in “a climate of fear and censorship.”
Tebboune, however, has avoided addressing such accusations, instead touting his social and economic credentials and pledging more if re-elected.
The incumbent president frequently refers to Bouteflika’s final years in power as the “mafia decade,” when control of Algeria’s energy wealth was concentrated in the hands of a “gang.”
During his tenure, several key figures from that era, including Bouteflika’s brother Said, were convicted on corruption charges and imprisoned.
Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter.
He has capitalized on this by promising free housing, more jobs, a higher minimum wage and increased social pensions.
During campaigning, Tebboune aimed to appear close to the people, even wearing traditional Tuareg clothing while rallying in the southern Sahara region.
He has also courted the young vote — about a third of registered voters — and pledged to create 450,000 jobs and increase monthly unemployment benefits if re-elected.
In March, he expressed pride in being called “ammi Tebboune” (“Uncle Tebboune“), deeming it even “a paternal relationship.”
Running as an independent, Tebboune has sought to distance himself from political parties, which have lost credibility among many Algerians.
His supporters say he has revived the presidency, which became largely invisible under Bouteflika after his 2013 stroke.
“The presidency has shifted from being a phantom institution to a real center of power,” said the analyst Abidi.
However, critics argue that Tebboune rose to power with military backing.
Like Bouteflika, he serves as defense minister and supreme commander of the armed forces and has never challenged the military’s political role, calling it “the backbone of the state.”
He is often seen with chief of staff Said Chengriha at public events.
A graduate of the National School of Administration, Tebboune climbed the ranks in the 1980s as a prefect in several provinces, eventually becoming part of the state apparatus that the Hirak protests later wanted to be reformed.
In 1991, he served as minister of local communities under president Chadli Bendjedid, who was ousted in early 1992 as the Algerian civil war began.
Dubbed the Black Decade, the war saw the military step in to halt legislative elections after the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round and vowed to establish religious rule.
Tebboune largely disappeared from the political scene during the war, which ended in 2002, but returned when Bouteflika was elected in 1999, briefly serving as communications minister.
He held various other portfolios until 2002, followed by a decade-long hiatus.
Tebboune returned in 2012 as housing minister and became prime minister in 2017, though he was dismissed after only three months, allegedly confronting oligarchs close to Bouteflika.
Many of those oligarchs were later jailed for corruption during Tebboune’s presidency.
Once a heavy smoker with a thin moustache, Tebboune, now married with three sons and two daughters, quit smoking in 2020 after contracting Covid-19 and spending two months hospitalized in Germany.
He returned to Germany in 2021 for foot surgery.
