WASHINGTON: The United States assesses there is still a threat of a new attack on Israel by Iran or its proxies, the Pentagon said Monday, after Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a rocket and drone barrage over the weekend.
Iran and its regional allies have threatened to attack Israel in response to high-profile killings in Tehran and Beirut late last month, and Hezbollah said its recent strikes on Israel were in response to one of those assassinations.
“We continue to assess that there is a threat of attack, and we... remain well-postured to be able to support Israel’s defense as well as to protect our forces should they be attacked,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it launched air strikes on Hezbollah targets that posed an imminent threat, with around 100 fighter jets striking more than 270 targets, most of them short-range rockets aimed at northern Israel.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli strikes came half an hour before his group launched more than 300 Katyusha rockets at 11 Israeli military sites, and that drones then targeted deeper inside the country, in response to the killing of senior commander Fuad Shukr in July.
Ryder said that the US was not involved in the preemptive strikes or in shooting down the projectiles, but that it did “provide some intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance support — ISR — in terms of tracking incoming Lebanese Hezbollah attacks.”
He also said that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has ordered the presence of two carrier strike groups to remain in the region” as part of support for Israel.
The Pentagon said last week that the USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying destroyers had arrived in the region.
It was due to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt, but Austin’s order means both carriers will be in the Middle East for the time being.
Top US military officer General Charles “CQ” Brown meanwhile met on Monday with Israeli security officials including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said that “Iran’s aggression has reached an all-time high.”
“To counter this, we must work together to achieve and project groundbreaking capabilities in all arenas,” Gallant said, according to an Israeli statement on the meeting.
Brown is on a multi-country trip to the Middle East that has also taken him to Jordan and Egypt.
US says still a threat of Iran, proxies attacking Israel
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US says still a threat of Iran, proxies attacking Israel
- “We continue to assess that there is a threat of attack" Pentagon spokesman says
Houthis abduct another Yemeni employee of US Embassy in Sanaa
- Armed Houthis, including Zaynabiyat policewomen, stormed the house of Mohammed Abdullah Shammakh
- Shammakh was in a nearby market purchasing items for his family when the raid occurred
AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia has abducted a Yemeni employee of the US Embassy in Sanaa, becoming the latest known victim of the Houthis’ crackdown on aid and civil society workers in Yemeni areas under their control.
A group of armed Houthis, including Zaynabiyat policewomen, have stormed the house of Mohammed Abdullah Shammakh, an administrative officer at the US Embassy in Sanaa, and abducted him after searching it, according to his friend and Yemeni journalist Sami Ghaleb.
Ghaleb, who spoke with residents of Sanaa’s Al-Ziraah neighborhood, where the abducted man lived, told Arab News on Thursday that the Houthis raided the three-story building on Oct. 10 and instructed its occupants, including children and women, to go to the roofs.
They then confined them, before storming Shammakh’s apartment and conducting a search.
Shammakh was in a nearby market purchasing items for his family when the raid occurred and was taken aback when he observed the Houthis occupying his residence, his friend said.
When he returned home, the Houthis abducted him, leaving behind a chaotic house and a terrified family, according to Ghaled.
“He’s more like a family member than a friend. He is a great person, like his father, lovable and helpful, and he assists his neighbors,” said Ghaled, who published an article on his news site, www.alndaa.net, in which he urged the Houthis to release him and other abducted individuals.
“You are responsible for these heinous violations, and no one in the historic capital is willing to listen to your ridiculous argument. These are simply helpless employees,” Ghaled wrote on his website on Wednesday.
The US Embassy in Yemen, which is now based in Riyadh, responded to Arab News’ request for comment on the abduction of its employee in Sanaa by saying: “We are aware of that report but cannot confirm if it is true at this time.”
The US Embassy in Yemen has been closed since early 2015, and the diplomatic mission has been relocated to Riyadh, months after the Houthis seized power.
In 2021, the Houthis raided the US Embassy compound in Sanaa, abducting Yemeni employees from the building and also abducting other former and current embassy employees from their Sanaa homes.
According to lawyers in Sanaa, the Houthis recently referred six abducted US Embassy employees to court and intend to try them on espionage charges.
Over the past four months, the Houthis have abducted more than 70 Yemeni workers from UN agencies, international human rights and aid organizations, and foreign diplomatic missions, accusing them of spying for US and Israeli intelligence agencies.
Relatives of some of those abducted have told Arab News that the Houthis have denied their requests to visit them in detention, call them, or provide information about their conditions.
On Wednesday, the office of the UN Yemen envoy, Hans Grundberg, said that he discussed efforts to release the UN workers abducted by the Houthis with Nada Al-Nashif, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, and reiterated his appeal to the Houthis to release them.
“The UN remains steadfast in demanding their immediate and unconditional release,” Grundberg’s office said.
Middle East conflicts to leave ‘lasting scars’: IMF
- IMF lowers its predicted growth for the Middle East and Central Asia to 2.1 percent for 2024
- IMF forecasts for Lebanon, where conflict with Israel has sharply escalated this month, have been suspended
DUBAI: Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan will take decades to recover from the conflicts raging on their soil, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday after downgrading the region’s growth forecast.
Israel’s military actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Sudan’s civil war would have enduring impacts, the IMF said.
“The damage caused by these conflicts will leave lasting scars at their epicenters for decades,” the global lender said in a statement.
The IMF has lowered its predicted growth for the Middle East and Central Asia to 2.1 percent for 2024, a drop of 0.6 percent due to the wars and lower oil production.
Depending on the conflicts, growth should rise to 4.0 percent next year, according to the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook which was compiled in September.
“This year has been challenging with conflicts causing devastating human suffering and lasting economic damage,” Jihad Azour, the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department director, told reporters in Dubai.
“The recent escalation in Lebanon has greatly increased the uncertainty in the whole MENA region.”
IMF forecasts for Lebanon, where conflict with Israel has sharply escalated this month, have been suspended. But “conservative” estimates show a 9.0-10 percent contraction this year, Azour said.
“The impact (on Lebanon) will be severe and it will depend how long this conflict will last,” said the former Lebanese finance minister.
Saudi-led oil cuts through the OPEC+ group, aimed at propping up prices, “are contributing to sluggish near-term growth in many economies,” the IMF said.
For the region’s oil exporters, “medium-term growth is projected to moderate, as economic diversification reforms will take time to yield results,” it added.
Downside risks continue to dominate, the lender said, including fluctuating commodity prices, conflicts and climate shocks.
Syria state media report Israel strikes on town near Lebanon border
DAMASCUS: Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border on Thursday, the latest in a series of raids in the area.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the Qusayr area in the southern Homs countryside,” causing “material damage to the industrial city and some residential neighborhoods,” the official SANA news agency said.
Doctors Without Borders surgeon detained by Israel in north Gaza hospital raid
- Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on Oct. 26, MSF said
GENEVA: Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.
Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on Oct. 26, MSF said.
“We are extremely alarmed by the detention of our colleague,” it said.
“We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel
- Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling
DUBAI: Israel’s military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian armed group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms.
Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Earlier in October, the Israeli military also said it foiled a weapon smuggling attempt from Egypt after downing a drone carrying guns and bullets.
