TEHRAN: Dozens of Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, two European intelligence sources told Reuters, adding that they expected the imminent delivery of hundreds of the satellite-guided weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Russian defense ministry representatives are believed to have signed a contract on Dec. 13 in Tehran with Iranian officials for the Fath-360 and another ballistic missile system built by Iran’s government-owned Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) called the Ababil, according to the intelligence officials, who requested anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters.
Citing multiple confidential intelligence sources, the officials said that Russian personnel have visited Iran to learn how to operate the Fath-360 defense system, which launches missiles with a maximum range of 120 km (75 miles) and a warhead of 150 kg. One of the sources said that that “the only next possible” step after training would be actual delivery of the missiles to Russia.
Moscow possesses an array of its own ballistic missiles, but the supply of Fath-360s could allow Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets beyond the front line, while employing Iranian warheads for closer-range targets, a military expert said.
A spokesman for the US National Security Council said the United States and its NATO allies and G7 partners “are prepared to deliver a swift and severe response if Iran were to move forward with such transfers.”
It “would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” the spokesman said. “The White House has repeatedly warned of the deepening security partnership between Russia and Iran since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said in a statement that the Islamic Republic had forged a long-term strategic partnership with Russia in various areas, including military cooperation.
“Nevertheless, from an ethical standpoint, Iran refrains from transferring any weapons, including missiles, that could potentially be used in the conflict with Ukraine until it is over,” the statement said.
The White House declined to confirm that Iran was training Russian military personnel on the Fath-360 or that it was preparing to ship the weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.
The two intelligence sources gave no exact timeframe for the expected delivery of Fath-360 missiles to Russia but said it would be soon. They did not provide any intelligence on the status of the Abibal contract.
A third intelligence source from another European agency said it had also received information that Russia had sent soldiers to Iran to train in the use of Iranian ballistic missile systems, without providing further details.
Such training is standard practice for Iranian weapons supplied to Russia, said the third source, who also declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.
A senior Iranian official, who requested anonymity, said Iran had sold missiles and drones to Russia but has not provided Fath-360 missiles. There was no legal prohibition on Tehran selling such weapons to Russia, the source added.
“Iran and Russia engage in the mutual purchase of parts and military equipment. How each country uses this equipment is entirely their decision,” the official said, adding that Iran did not sell weapons to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
As part of the military cooperation, Iranian and Russian officials often traveled between the two states, the official added.
“Destabilizing actions“
Until now, Iran’s military support for Moscow has been limited mainly to unmanned Shahed attack drones, which carry a fraction of the explosives and are easier to shoot down because they are slower than ballistic missiles.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said in July 2023 that a new training system for the Fath 360 had been successfully tested by the country’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Force.
Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Air Power at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based defense think-tank, said: “Delivery of large numbers of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia would enable a further increase in pressure on already badly overstretched Ukrainian missile defense systems.”
“As ballistic threats, they could only be intercepted reliably by the upper tier of Ukrainian systems,” he said, referring to the most sophisticated air defenses Ukraine has such as the US-made Patriot and European SAMP/T systems.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense did not have any immediate comment.
In March, G7 leaders voiced concern at reports Iran was considering transferring ballistic missiles to Russia and warned in a statement that they would respond in a coordinated manner with significant measures against Iran.
The NSC spokesman, in response to Reuters questions, noted that Iran’s newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian “claimed he wanted to moderate Iran’s policies and engage with the world. Destabilizing actions like this fly in the face of that rhetoric.”
A British government spokesman expressed deep concern at the reports suggesting that Russian military personnel were being trained in Iran. “Iran must not proceed” with the transfer of ballistic missiles, he said.
UN Security Council restrictions on Iran’s export of some missiles, drones and other technologies expired in October 2023. However, the United States and European Union retained sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program amid concerns over exports of weapons to its proxies in the Middle East and to Russia.
Reuters reported in February on deepening military cooperation between Iran and Russia and on Moscow’s interest in Iranian surface-to-surface missiles.
Sources told the news agency at the time that around 400 Fateh-110 longer-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles had been delivered. But the European intelligence sources told Reuters that according to their information, no transfer had happened yet.
Ukrainian authorities have not publicly reported finding any Iranian missile remnants or debris during the war.
Iran to deliver hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia soon, intel sources say
https://arab.news/w25sb
Iran to deliver hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia soon, intel sources say
- Russian defense ministry representatives are believed to have signed a contract on Dec. 13 in Tehran with Iranian officials
Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians
“We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four
DAMASCUS: Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts.
The community center, funded by the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions.
“We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,” said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four. “There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income.”
But the center’s future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump’s decision to halt foreign aid.
The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide — from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions — just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar Assad last year.
UNHCR’s representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a “disaster” and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees.
“I think that we have been forced — here I use very deliberately the word forced — to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked,” he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus.
“It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return.”
BIG LOSS
A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42 percent of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers.
The UNHCR will also cut 30 percent of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20 percent unless it finds new funding.
Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR.
Already the center’s educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas.
Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been “lucky” to receive support for her autistic child at the center.
“They taught me how to deal with him,” said the mother of five.
Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011.
“(The center) made me feel like I am part of society,” said the 68-year-old.
Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: “If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do,” she said
UNHCR HELP ‘SELECTIVE’
Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump’s seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets.
But the new blows come at a particularly bad time.
Since former president Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates.
Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011.
“We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so,” Llosa said. “That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive.”
ESSENTIAL SUPPORT
Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024.
After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed — no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity.
He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother.
While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut.
“Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off,” he said.
“But I can’t pay back the debt,” he said, fearing the worst. “I’ll have to sell everything.”
Netanyahu admits Israel supporting anti-Hamas armed group in Gaza
- Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes the militant group Hamas, following comments by a former minister that Israel had transferred weapons to it.
Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Abu Shabab as the leader of a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks.”
Knesset member and ex-defense minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Netanyahu’s direction, was “giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons.”
“What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?” Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media on Thursday.
“It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers.”
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans across the border between Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
Some of the tribe’s members, he said, were involved in “all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that.”
Milshtein said that Abu Shabab had spent time in prison in Gaza and that his clan chiefs had recently denounced him as an Israeli “collaborator and a gangster.”
“It seems that actually the Shabak (Israeli security agency) or the (military) thought it was a wonderful idea to turn this militia, gang actually, into a proxy, to give them weapons and money and shelter” from army operations, Milshtein said.
He added that Hamas killed four members of the gang days ago.
The ECFR said Abu Shabab was “reported to have been previously jailed by Hamas for drug smuggling. His brother is said to have been killed by Hamas during a crackdown against the group’s attacks on UN aid convoys.”
Israel regularly accuses Hamas, with which it has been at war for nearly 20 months, of looting aid convoys in Gaza.
Hamas said the group had “chosen betrayal and theft as their path” and called on civilians to oppose them.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, said it had evidence of “clear coordination between these looting gangs, collaborators with the occupation (Israel), and the enemy army itself in the looting of aid and the fabrication of humanitarian crises that deepen the suffering of” Palestinians.
The Popular Forces, as Abu Shabab’s group calls itself, said on Facebook it had “never been, and will never be, a tool of the occupation.”
“Our weapons are simple, outdated, and came through the support of our own people,” it added.
Milshtein called Israel’s decision to arm a group such as Abu Shabab “a fantasy, not something that you can really describe as a strategy.”
“I really hope it will not end with catastrophe,” he said.
Gaza marks the start of Eid Al-Adha with outdoor prayers among the rubble and food growing ever scarcer
- Israeli offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians
- After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays with prayers outside destroyed mosques and homes early Friday, with little hope the war with Israel will end soon.
With much of Gaza in rubble, men and children were forced to hold the traditional Eid Al-Adha prayers in the open air and with food supplies dwindling, families were having to make do with what they could scrape together for the three-day feast.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. “There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses ... The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia. For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies.
Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.
The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians.
After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the UN several weeks ago. But the UN says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza’s people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation.
“This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,” Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview.
Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed according to Gaza hospital officials.
Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or at individuals approaching its troops in some cases.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the UN, said Friday that all its distribution centers were closed for the day due to the ongoing violence.
It urged people to stay away for their own safety, and said it would make an announcement later as to when they would resume distributing humanitarian aid.
Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee
Lebanese army warns Israeli airstrikes might force it to freeze cooperation with ceasefire committee
- The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them
BEIRUT: The Lebanese army condemned Friday Israel’s airstrikes on suburbs of Beirut, warning that such attacks are weakening the role of Lebanon’s armed forces that might eventually suspend cooperation with the committee monitoring the truce that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The army statement came hours after the Israeli military struck several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs that it said held underground facilities used by Hezbollah for drone production. The strikes, preceded by an Israeli warning to evacuate several buildings, came on the eve of Eid Al-Adha, a Muslim holiday.
The Lebanese army said it started coordinating with the committee observing the ceasefire after Israel’s military issued its warning and sent patrols to the areas that were to be struck to search them. It added that Israel rejected the suggestion.
The US-led committee that has been supervising the ceasefire that ended the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war in November is made up of Lebanon, Israel, France, the US and the UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
“The Israeli enemy violations of the deal and its refusal to respond to the committee is weakening the role of the committee and the army,” the Lebanese army said in its statement. It added such attacks by Israel could lead the army to freeze its cooperation with the committee “when it comes to searching posts.”
Since the Israel-Hezbollah war ended, Israel has carried out nearly daily airstrikes on parts of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah operatives. Beirut’s southern suburbs were struck on several occasions since then.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel began on Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began launching rockets across the border in support of its ally, Hamas, in Gaza. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling and the two were quickly locked in a low-level conflict that continued for nearly a year before escalating into full-scale war in September 2024.
It killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, while the Lebanese government said in April that Israeli strikes had killed another 190 people and wounded 485 since the ceasefire agreement.
There has been increasing pressure on Hezbollah, both domestic and international, to give up its remaining arsenal, but officials with the group have said they will not do so until Israel stops its airstrikes and withdraws from five points it is still occupying along the border in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah says that it has ended its military presence along the border with Israel south of the Litani River, in accordance with terms of the ceasefire deal.
Israel warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed
- The strikes came around an hour after Israel’s military spokesman issued an evacuation call
- “There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel,” Katz said
BEIRUT: Israel warned Friday that it will keep striking Lebanon until militant group Hezbollah has been disarmed, hours after it hit south Beirut in what Lebanese leaders called a major violation of a November ceasefire.
An Israeli military evacuation call issued ahead of Thursday’s strikes sent huge numbers of residents of the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, long a bastion of Iran-backed Hezbollah, fleeing for their lives.
The attack on what the Israeli military said was Hezbollah’s underground drone factories came on the eve of Eid Al-Adha, one of the main religious festivals of the Muslim calendar.
The strikes came around an hour after Israel’s military spokesman issued an evacuation call, and sent plumes of smoke billowing over Beirut.
The attack came six months after a ceasefire agreement was sealed in a bid to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
“There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“Agreements must be honored and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force.”
Under the ceasefire brokered by the United States and France, Lebanon committed to disarming Hezbollah, which was once reputed to be more heavily armed than the state itself.
Hezbollah sparked months of deadly hostilities by launching cross-border attacks on northern Israel in what it described as an act of solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack.
The war left Hezbollah massively weakened, with a string of top commanders including its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah killed and weapons caches dotted around Lebanon incinerated.
Israel has carried out repeated strikes on south Lebanon since the truce, but strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs have been rare.
“Following Hezbollah’s extensive use of UAVs as a central component of its terrorist attacks on the State of Israel, the terrorist organization is operating to increase production of UAVs for the next war,” the military said, calling the activities “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Under the truce, Hezbollah fighters were to withdraw north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.
Israel was to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon but it has kept some in five areas it deems “strategic.”
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south and removing Hezbollah infrastructure, with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam saying Thursday that it had dismantled “more than 500 military positions and arms depots” in the area.
Following the strike on Thursday, Lebanon’s leaders accused Israel of a “flagrant” ceasefire violation by launching strikes ahead of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
President Joseph Aoun voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression” and “flagrant violation of an international accord... on the eve of a sacred religious festival.”
The prime minister too issued a statement condemning the strikes as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
One resident of southern Beirut described grabbing her children and fleeing her home after receiving an ominous warning before the strikes.
“I got a phone call from a stranger who said he was from the Israeli army,” said the woman, Violette, who declined to give her last name.
Israel also issued an evacuation warning for the Lebanese village of Ain Qana, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border.
The Israeli military then launched a strike on a building there that it alleged was a Hezbollah base, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.
