International
Hezbollah targets Israeli troops after attacks on Lebanon
Hezbollah targets Israeli troops after attacks on Lebanon
BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it launched an “aerial attack with an assault drone on the newly established headquarters of the Israeli army’s Western Brigade south of the Ya’ara settlement” on Wednesday that “accurately struck the positions of officers and soldiers.”
The group said the assault was a response to an “Israeli attack on Tuesday night against a truck on the Baalbek-Homs international road.” The truck was reportedly loaded with ammunition and military logistical equipment. One person was “slightly injured” in that attack, the Ministry of Health’s Emergency Center said.
A security source said the vehicle was part of a three-truck convoy but only one was hit by the strike, adding: “The truck caught fire and explosions were heard coming from it.”
Hezbollah imposed a security cordon around the scene of the attack and prevented residents from approaching. Many people living nearby left the area temporarily out of fear for their safety.
Less than 10 hours before the attack on the truck, Hezbollah member Mohammed Hassan Taha, from the city of Baalbek, and three Palestinian members of the Islamic Jihad movement were killed by Israeli forces in a combat-drone strike on their vehicle while they were traveling from Syria to Lebanon. The incident happened on the Damascus-to-Beirut road at a checkpoint near Al-Zabadani junction.
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The Israeli army said it “struck Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon.” Reconnaissance aircraft and combat drones remain active around the clock each day, hunting for Hezbollah members.
The drone attack that killed Taha was at least the third Israeli assassination of its kind in the area in the past two months. Previous targets have included Yasser Qarnabesh, a former assistant to Hezbollah’s secretary-general, and Syrian businessman Baraa Al-Qaterji.
Further evidence on Wednesday of escalating tensions included at least four Israeli airstrikes that targeted areas on the outskirts of Toumat Niha in Western Bekaa, and the launch of rockets toward the Lebanese border town of Aitaroun. Another town close to the border, Markaba, was reportedly hit by phosphorus bombs.
Israeli shelling also caused fires in olive groves and other agricultural areas in Al-Jabeen and the Tair Harfa triangle. Lebanese Civil Defense teams fought the blazes with support from the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Eleven months of Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon have left dozens of front-line towns scorched, entire neighborhoods razed, more than 110,000 residents displaced, and farmers unable to tend their lands.
Health Ministry figures indicate that the death toll in Lebanon during the conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah is at least 564, mostly Hezbollah leaders and members, and 1,848 people have been wounded.
On the Israeli side, 24 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed and hundreds of people injured, according to media reports.
Hezbollah targets Israeli troops after attacks on Lebanon
ARAB NEWS
International
Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act, deports over 200 gang members
Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act, deports over 200 gang members
US President Donald Trump issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, accusing Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
He announced that members of the gang will be deported for engaging in “irregular warfare” against the United States. The Alien Enemies Act was last used during WWII to imprison Japanese-American civilians.
On Saturday evening, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, DC, issued a 14-day freeze to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, pending more legal arguments.
After lawyers informed him that planes carrying deportees had already taken off, Judge Boasberg issued a verbal order for the planes to return, according to US media, though this command was not included in his written ruling.
According to Reuters, the written notice was filed in the court docket at 19:25 EDT on Saturday (00:25 GMT on Sunday), but it is unknown when the flights carrying the alleged gang members left the United States.
In a court filing on Sunday, Department of Justice lawyers stated that the order did not apply since the deportees “had already been removed from United States territory”.
The Justice Department has appealed the judge’s decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was participating in the case against the Trump administration, stated that the court order may have been breached.
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The case presents constitutional issues because, under the US system of checks and balances, government entities are expected to follow a federal judge’s decision.
Venezuela denounced Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, claiming it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of Nazi concentration camps.”
Rights organisations blasted Trump, accusing him of utilising a 227-year-old legislation to sidestep due process.
Amnesty International USA commented on X that the deportations were “yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting” of Venezuelans “based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation”.
Bukele, a Trump ally, stated that the detainees were promptly taken to El Salvador’s renowned mega-jail, the Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot).
The Salvadoran president stated that they will be imprisoned there “for a period of one year,” which might be “renewable.”
El Salvador’s Cecot jail is part of Bukele’s efforts to combat organised crime in the country.
Human rights groups have accused the newly built maximum-security institution, which can accommodate up to 40,000 people, of mistreating inmates.
The agreement between the United States and El Salvador is an indication of improved diplomatic relations.
El Salvador was the second country Rubio visited as the US’s top diplomat.
During that trip in February, Bukele made an initial offer to accept US deportees, claiming it would help finance the enormous Cecot facility.
The newest deportations during Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-standing campaign against illegal immigration in the United States.
In January, Trump signed an executive order designating Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations.
He won over voters during the campaign, in part, by threatening to carry out the greatest deportation operation in US history.
While illegal border crossings have dropped to their lowest levels in decades since Trump took office, the Republican president has allegedly been upset by the slow pace of deportations thus far.
Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act, deports over 200 gang members
International
Peace deal must bar Ukraine from Nato, Russian official says
Peace deal must bar Ukraine from Nato, Russian official says
Russia will seek guarantees that Nato will exclude Ukraine from membership and that Ukraine will remain neutral in any peace deal, a Russian deputy foreign minister said.
“We will demand that ironclad security guarantees become part of this agreement,” Alexander Grushko told Russian media outlet Izvestia.
“Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of Nato countries to accept it into the alliance,” he said.
It comes as US President Donald Trump has said he will speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as talks continue over a possible ceasefire in the three-year war in Ukraine.
Speaking on Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump said: “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”
“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” Trump said when asked about concessions.
Trump added that he was already discussing “dividing up certain assets” between Russia and Ukraine.
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The US and Ukraine have agreed to propose a 30-day ceasefire to Russia.
While Putin said that he supported a ceasefire, he also set out a list of tough conditions for achieving peace.
One of the areas of contention is Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a military incursion last August and captured some territory.
Putin has claimed Russia is fully back in control of Kursk, and said Ukrainian troops there “have been isolated”.
He has also raised numerous questions about how a ceasefire could be monitored and policed along the frontline in the east.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of trying to “sabotage” diplomatic efforts to secure an immediate ceasefire.
US envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin on Thursday in Moscow, earlier declined to answer a question on how Russian-occupied land in Ukraine could be addressed in a potential deal, during an interview with CNN. Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukraine.
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022, on “day one” of a new administration.
Less than a month after he was inaugurated, Trump had call with Putin that reportedly spanned 90 minutes about immediately starting negotiations on ending the war.
Peace deal must bar Ukraine from Nato, Russian official says
BBC
International
US strikes in Yemen kill 31 as Trump vows to end Huthi attacks
US strikes in Yemen kill 31 as Trump vows to end Huthi attacks
The first US strikes against Yemen’s Huthis since Donald Trump took office killed 31 people, the rebels said Sunday, with the US president warning “hell will rain down upon” the Iran-backed group if it did not stop attacking shipping.
The Huthis, who have attacked Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, said children were among those killed.
An AFP photographer in the rebel-held capital Sanaa heard explosions and saw plumes of smoke rising.
Attacks on Sanaa, as well as on areas in Saada, Al-Bayda and Radaa, killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, “most of whom were children and women”, Huthi health ministry spokesperson Anis Al-Asbahi said.
Footage on Huthi media showed children and a woman among those being treated in a hospital emergency room, including a dazed girl with blackened legs wrapped in bandages.
Trump, in a post on social media, vowed to “use overwhelming lethal force” to end the Huthi attacks, which the rebels say are in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Gaza war.
“To all Huthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” he said.
Trump also issued a stern warning to the group’s main backer.
“To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he said.
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“Do NOT threaten the American People, their President… or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
The Huthis vowed the strikes “will not pass without response”, while Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi condemned the deaths and said Washington had “no authority” to dictate Tehran’s foreign policy.
The Huthi Ansarullah website slammed what it called Washington’s “criminal brutality”.
US Central Command, which posted videos of fighter jets taking off and a bomb demolishing a compound, said “precision strikes” were launched to “defend American interests, deter enemies, and restore freedom of navigation”.
- ‘Escalation with escalation’ –
“Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to confront escalation with escalation,” the Huthi political bureau said.
The rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.
They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Huthis had “attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023”.
The campaign put a major strain on the vital route, which normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies to take a costly detour around southern Africa.
The Palestinian group Hamas, which has praised the Huthi support, lashed out at the US strikes, branding them “a stark violation of international law and an assault on the country’s sovereignty and stability”.
Iran “strongly condemned the brutal air strikes” in a statement, denouncing them as a “gross violation of the principles of the UN Charter”.
The head of the country’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said: “Iran will not wage war, but if anyone threatens, it will give appropriate, decisive and conclusive responses.
- ‘Political dialogue’ –
The United States has launched several rounds of strikes on Huthi targets.
After halting their attacks when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in January, the Huthis announced on Tuesday that they would resume them until Israel lifted its blockade of aid to the devastated Palestinian territory.
Trump’s statement did not reference the dispute over Israel, but focused on previous Huthi attacks on merchant shipping.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration reclassified the Huthis as a “foreign terrorist organisation”, banning any US interaction with it.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Moscow is close to Tehran.
“Continued Huthi attacks on US military and commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea will not be tolerated,” Rubio told Lavrov, according to the State Department.
Russia’s foreign ministry said that “Lavrov stressed the need for an immediate cessation of the use of force and the importance for all sides to engage in political dialogue… (to) prevent further bloodshed”.
The Huthis captured Sanaa in 2014 and were poised to overrun most of the rest of the country before a Saudi-led coalition intervened.
The war devastated the already impoverished nation.
US strikes in Yemen kill 31 as Trump vows to end Huthi attacks
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