The outpost that was hit had not been the target of previous attacks and thus its air defenses were not as strong as U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria that have been under constant threat of attack since October, the official said. The air defense system heading to the outpost is designed to intercept drones.
About 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel are stationed at the outpost, known as Tower 22, according to the Defense Department.
The Pentagon said Monday that the number of wounded had risen to more than 40 after a drone strike hit their sleeping quarters in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday.
“People were actually in their beds when the drone impacted,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Monday.
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the military base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan on Oct. 12, 2023.
Planet Labs PBC / AP
Singh said the attack was inconsistent with prior strikes because it hit living quarters and was early in the morning. The Defense Department is investigating how the drone evaded air defenses, she said.
“We are trying to figure out how a one-way attack drone was able to evade air defenses and was able to kill three of our service members and injure dozens more,” she said.
Tower 22 did not have the same air defenses as the special forces base located about 15 miles north in al-Tanf, Syria, which has been under frequent attack. The deadly attack on Tower 22 was the first time a drone had landed on the Jordanian side of the border.
Since Oct. 17, there have been at least 165 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria and now Jordan by Iranian-backed groups.
While the scale and target of Biden’s promised response is not yet clear, any unilateral move is likely to draw blowback from key allies in the Middle East who worry about sparking a regional war.
Turkey, a key NATO ally, has denounced Israel’s campaign in Gaza, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the U.K. and the U.S. of trying to turn the Red Sea into a “sea of blood.”
“Turkey does not want to be drawn into this conflict because it shares a border with Iran,” said Selin Nasi, a visiting fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. “If the U.S. as its main ally in NATO gets involved in this military conflict directly then Turkey has to choose a side, and that will mean it’s harder to maintain a balanced approach — like it has done with the war in Ukraine.”
The challenge for Biden is how to retaliate without risking escalation by Iran and its partners in the region. Conversely, doing nothing — especially after having said he would avenge the deaths of the three U.S. soldiers — would leave him vulnerable to a charge of weakness from Trump.
“Iran’s leadership probably calculates that the United States will be reticent to fulsomely respond in any manner that would risk escalation of tensions in the Middle East and spark the region-wide [conflict] the Biden administration has admirably tried to prevent the past three months,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer.
But the U.S. may have “to undertake a more fulsome response to restore deterrence,” he added.
Jamie Dettmer, Jeremy Van der Haegen and Laura Kayali contributed reporting.
IRAN has attacked targets inside Pakistan as the Middle East’s warzone spills out.
Pakistan‘s Foreign Ministry tonight claimed two children were killed in “unprovoked violation” of the country’s airspace.
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Tensions have been flaring in the Middle East amid Houthi (pictured) attacksCredit: Getty
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Pakistan claimed Iranian military violated the country’s airspaceCredit: Rex
Iranian state media previously confirmed the strike on bases of a Sunni militant group – before later withdrawing reports.
The attack further raises tensions in a Middle East already roiled by Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It also threatens the relations between Iran and Pakistan, which long have eyed each other with suspicion.
Iran‘s Foreign Ministry statement said Pakistan strongly condemned the attack on its Balochistan province.
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“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and can have serious consequences,” it warned.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran which resulted in death of two innocent children while injuring three girls,” the statement read.
“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and can have serious consequences.”
It added: “Pakistan has always said terrorism is a common threat to all countries in the region that requires coordinated action.
“Such unilateral acts are not in conformity with good neighbourly relations and can seriously undermine bilateral trust and confidence.”
Two Pakistani security officials said the Iranian strikes damaged a mosque in Baluchistan’s Panjgur district, about 30 miles inside Pakistan from the Iranian border.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to reporters.
Iran has fought in border areas against the militants, but a missile and drone attack on Pakistan is unprecedented.
The warped terrorist army claimed responsibility for the brazen ambush which killed four, injured six others and sparked fury over the concerning escalation.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement on Monday that missiles were used to destroy the “spy headquarters” of Israel in Iraq, targeting “anti-Iranian terrorist groups” amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Chilling video showed the moment a huge blaze engulfed the sky above Erbil, the Kurdish region of Iraq, where the rockets landed.
The IRGC claimed to have hit the HQ of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, close to the US consulate.
They also claimed to have blasted “terrorist operations” in Syria, destroying them.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani claimed that Tehran was exercising it’s “legal right to deter national security threats” in the fatal ambush.
“After the enemy miscalculated by targeting the Islamic Republic, Iran retaliated with its high intelligence capability in a precise and targeted operation against the culprits’ headquarters,” Kanaani said.
Iraq slammed the attacks today and said it would rail against Iran with all possible legal measures, including with a complaint to the UN security council.
The war between Israel and Hamas following from the October 7 massacre has seen Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon dragged into fighting in the Middle East.
It comes after high profile Iranian general Razi Mousavi was recently killed in Syria and two Hamas and Hezbollah commanders were also taken out – both with close links to Tehran.
The drone reportedly fired two rockets at a building in Bagdad, Iraq’s capital, with Iraqi officials slamming the attack and vowing retaliation.
The US strike came after Iranian-backed militias working in the area carried out more than 100 attacks on bases housing US troops in both Iraq and Syria.
The United States has 900 troops deployed in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State militants.
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Yemen’s Houthis, pictured waving a Palestinian flag and holding up their firearms, have aligned with HamasCredit: Reuters
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Iranian protesters burn an Israeli flag at a recent anti-Israel rallyCredit: Getty
An Israeli attack on the Syrian capital of Damascus on Saturday destroyed a residential building where Iran-aligned paramilitary leaders were meeting.
Precision-targeted Israeli missiles destroyed a multi-story building in the western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh, Reuters reported. The structure was occupied by Iranian advisers assisting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s administration, according to the report.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based non-profit, said at least five people were killed in the missile attack.
An official of an Iran-aligned group in the region told the Associated Press that the building was used by officials of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and claimed that 10 people were either killed or wounded in the attack.
The lastest Israeli attack signifies yet another escalation of already heightened tensions in the region.
Israel has intensified its airstrikes against Palestinian targets, Lebanese operatives and Iran-linked targets in Syria following the October 7 attacks by Hamas. On December 25, an Israeli airstrike in Damascus killed Iranian general Seyed Razi Mousavi, a veteran of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria.
In recent weeks, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border have increased as a result of rockets fired from Syria into northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Western warplanes and guided missiles roared through the skies over Yemen in the early hours of Friday in a dramatic response to the worsening crisis engulfing the region, where the U.S. and its allies are facing a direct confrontation with Iranian-backed militants.
The strikes against Houthi fighters are a response to weeks of fighting in the Red Sea, where the group has attempted to attack or hijack dozens of civilian cargo ships and tankers in what it calls retribution for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Washington launched the massive aerial bombardment of the group’s military stores and drone launch sites in partnership with British forces, and with the support of a growing coalition that includes Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Bahrain.
Tensions between Tehran and the West have boiled over in the weeks since its ally, Hamas, launched its October 7 attack on Israel, while Hezbollah, the military group that controls much of southern Lebanon, has stepped up rocket launches across the border. Along with Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis form part of the Iranian-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ opposed to both the U.S. and Israel.
Now, the prospect of a full-blown conflict in one of the most politically fragile and strategically important parts of the world is spooking security analysts and energy markets alike.
Escalation fears
Houthi leaders responded to the strikes, which saw American and British forces hit more than 60 targets in 16 locations, with characteristic bravado. They warned the U.S. and U.K. will “have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences” for what they called a “blatant aggression.”
“We will confront America, kneel it down, and burn its battleships and all its bases and everyone who cooperates with it, no matter what the cost,” threatened Abdulsalam Jahaf, a member of the group’s security council.
However, following the overnight operation, Camille Lons, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said there may now be “a period of calm because it may take Iran some time to replenish the Houthis stocks” before they are able to resume high-intensity attacks on Red Sea shipping. But, she cautioned, their motivation to continue to target shipping will likely be unaltered.
The Western strikes are “unlikely to immediately halt Houthi aggression,” agreed Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for the Near East. “That will almost certainly mean having to continue to respond to Houthi strikes, and potentially with increasing aggression.”
“The Houthis view themselves as having little to lose, emboldened militarily by Iranian provisions of support and confident the U.S. will not entertain a ground war,” he said.
Iran also upped the ante earlier this week by boarding and commandeering a Greek-operated oil tanker that was loaded with Iraqi crude destined for Turkey, intercepting it as it transited the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel, the St. Nikolas, was previously apprehended for violating sanctions on Iranian oil and its cargo was confiscated and sold off by the U.S. Treasury Department. Its Greek captain and crew of 18 Filipino nationals are now in Iranian custody, with the incident marking a sharp escalation in the threats facing maritime traffic.
Israeli connection
Washington and London are striving to distinguish their bid to deter the Houthis in the Red Sea from the war in Gaza, fearful that merging the two will hand Tehran a propaganda advantage in the Middle East. The Houthis and Iran are keen to accomplish the reverse.
The Houthi leadership claims its attacks on maritime traffic are aimed at pressuring Israel to halt its bombing of the Gaza Strip and it insists it is only targeting commercial vessels linked to Israel or destined to dock at the Israeli port of Eilat, a point contested by Western powers.
“The Houthis claim that their attacks on military and civilian vessels are somehow tied to the ongoing conflict in Gaza — that is completely baseless and illegitimate. The Houthis also claim to be targeting specifically Israeli-owned ships or ships bound for Israel. That is simply not true, they are firing indiscriminately on vessels with global ties,” a senior U.S. official briefing reporters in Washington said Friday.
Wider Near East crisis
The Red Sea isn’t the only hotspot where American and European forces and their allies are facing off against Iran and its partners.
In November, U.S. F-15 fighter jets hit a weapons storage facility in eastern Syria that the Pentagon says was used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Shia militants it supports in the war-torn country. The response came after dozens of American troops were reportedly injured in attacks in Iraq and Syria linked back to Tehran.
Israel’s war with Hamas has also risked spreading, after a blast killed one of the militant group’s commanders in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, earlier in January. Hezbollah vowed a swift response and tensions have soared along the border between the two countries, with Israeli civilians evacuated from their homes in towns and villages close to the frontier.
All of that contributes to an increasingly volatile environment that has neighboring countries worried, said Christian Koch, director at the Saudi Arabia-based Gulf Research Center.
“There’s a lot at stake at the moment and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and others are extremely worried about further escalation and then being subject to retaliation,” he said. “Now, the danger of regional escalation has been heightened further, which could mean that Iran will get further involved in the conflict, and this is a dangerous spiral downwards.”
While long-planned efforts to normalize ties between the Saudis and Israel collapsed in the wake of the October 7 attack and the subsequent military response, Riyadh has pushed forward with a policy of de-escalation with the Houthis after a decade of violent conflict, and sought an almost unprecedented rapprochement with Iran.
“Saudi Arabia has had one objective, which is to prevent this from escalating into a wider regional war,” said Tobias Borck, an expert on Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute. “It has attempted over the last few years to bring its intervention in the war in Yemen to a close, including through negotiations with the Houthis and actually from all we know from the outside, [they] are reasonably close to an agreement.”
The Western coalition is therefore a source of anxiety, rather than relief, for Gulf States.
“Saudi Arabia and UAE are staying out of this coalition because mainly they don’t want to have the Houthis attack them as they had been for years and years with cruise missiles,” said retired U.S. General Mark Kimmitt, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. However, American or European boots on the ground are unlikely to be necessary, he added, because “our capabilities these days to find, fix and attack even mobile missile launchers is pretty well refined.”
Far-reaching consequences
At the intersection of Europe and Asia, the Red Sea is a vital thoroughfare for energy and international trade. Maritime traffic through the region has already dropped by 20 percent, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Slaars, the joint commander of French forces in the region, told reporters on Thursday.
According to data published this week by the German IfW Kiel institute, global trade fell by 1.3 percent from November to December, with the Houthi attacks likely to have been a contributing factor.
The volume of containers in the Red Sea also plummeted and is currently almost 70 percent below usual, the institute said. In December, that caused freight costs and transportation time to rise and imports and exports from the EU to be “significantly lower” than in November.
In one indication of the impact on industrial supply chains, U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla said Friday it would shut its factory in Germany for two weeks.
Around 12 percent of the world’s oil and 8 percent of its gas normally flow through the waterway, as well as hundreds of cargo ships. Oil prices climbed more than 2.5 percent following the strikes, fueling market concerns of the impact a wider conflict could have on oil supplies from the region, especially those being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, linking the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and the world’s most important oil chokepoint.
The Houthi attacks on the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways, have already caused major shipping companies, including oil giant BP, to halt shipments through the Red Sea, opting for a lengthy detour around the Cape of Good Hope instead.
According to Borck, the impact on energy prices has been limited so far but will depend on what happens next.
“We need to look for two actors’ actions here. One is the Houthis, how they respond, and the other one is, of course, looking at how Iran responds,” he said. While Tehran has the “nuclear option” of closing the Strait of Hormuz altogether, it’s unlikely to do so at this stage.
“I don’t think the Strait of Hormuz is next. I think there would be quite a few steps on the escalation ladder first,” he added.
But Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at Brussels’ Bruegel think tank, warned that a growing confrontation with Iran could lead to tougher enforcement of sanctions on its oil exports. The West has turned a blind eye to Tehran’s increasing sales to China in the wake of the war in Ukraine, which has relieved some pressure on global energy markets.
A crackdown, he believes, “could see global oil prices rising substantially, pushing inflation higher and further complicating the efforts of central banks to bring it under control.”
However, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could help compensate for such a move by ramping up their own production — provided they’re willing to risk the ire of Iran.
Gabriel Gavin reported from Yerevan, Armenia. Antonia Zimmermann from Brussels and Jamie Dettmer from Tel-Aviv.
Laura Kayali contributed reporting from Paris.
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Gabriel Gavin, Antonia Zimmermann and Jamie Dettmer
Turkey carried out airstrikes against Kurdish militants in neighboring Syria and Iraq in response to another attack on Turkish military bases in Iraq.
Turkish jets destroyed 29 bunkers, shelters, caves and oil facilities across the Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil regions in northern Iraq and northern Syria, according to Turkey’s defense ministry. The ministry said the sites belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-Kurdish group at the forefront of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State (ISIS).
Turkey considers both the PKK and YPG to be terrorist organizations and regularly bombs their enclaves in Syria and Iraq. The latest attack came hours after PKK fighters assaulted a Turkish army base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Friday. The militant group killed nine Turkish soldiers and wounded another four, losing 15 of its men in the process, according to the defense ministry.
“We will fight to the end against the PKK terrorist organization within and outside our borders,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, said on Saturday, offering his condolences to the soldiers’ families.
The Turkish military has been present in northern Iraq since April 2022, as part of Operation Claw-Lock. The mission aims to dismantle the PKK’s foothold there and prevent it from launching cross-border guerrilla raids into Turkey. But Ankara has struggled to protect its bases, with deadly attacks now occurring every few weeks.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad has repeatedly called for Ankara’s withdrawal, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed to stay until the mission is complete.
On October 7, Hamas fighters launched a bloody attack against Israel, using paragliders, speedboats and underground tunnels to carry out an offensive that killed almost 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken back to the Gaza Strip as prisoners.
Almost three months on, Israel’s massive military retaliation is reverberating around the region, with explosions in Lebanon and rebels from Yemen attacking shipping in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Western countries are pumping military aid into Israel while deploying fleets to protect commercial shipping — risking confrontation with the Iranian navy.
That’s in line with a grim prediction made last year by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who said that Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza meant an “expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” and that further escalation across the Middle East should be expected.
What’s happening?
The Israel Defense Forces are still fighting fierce battles for control of the Gaza Strip in what officials say is a mission to destroy Hamas. Troops have already occupied much of the north of the 365-square-kilometer territory, home to around 2.3 million Palestinians, and are now stepping up their assault in the south.
Entire neighborhoods of densely-populated Gaza City have been levelled by intense Israeli shelling, rocket attacks and air strikes, rendering them uninhabitable. Although independent observers have been largely shut out, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claims more than 22,300 people have been killed, while the U.N. says 1.9 million people have been displaced.
On a visit to the front lines, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that his country is in the fight for the long haul. “The feeling that we will stop soon is incorrect. Without a clear victory, we will not be able to live in the Middle East,” he said.
As the Gaza ground war intensifies, Hamas and its allies are increasingly looking to take the conflict to a far broader arena in order to put pressure on Israel.
According to Seth Frantzman, a regional analyst with the Jerusalem Post and adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “Iran is certainly making a play here in terms of trying to isolate Israel [and] the U.S. and weaken U.S. influence, also showing that Israel doesn’t have the deterrence capabilities that it may have had in the past or at least thought it had.”
Northern front
On Tuesday a blast ripped through an office in Dahieh, a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut — 130 kilometers from the border with Israel. Hamas confirmed that one of its most senior leaders, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in the strike.
Government officials in Jerusalem have refused to confirm Israeli forces were behind the killing, while simultaneously presenting it as a “surgical strike against the Hamas leadership” and insisting it was not an attack against Lebanon itself, despite a warning from Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the incident risked dragging his country into a wider regional war.
Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have spiked in recent weeks, with fighters loyal to Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist militant group that controls the south of the country, firing hundreds of rockets across the frontier. Along with Hamas, Hezbollah is part of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” that aims to destroy the state of Israel.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry said the death of al-Arouri, the most senior Hamas official confirmed to have died since October 7, will only embolden resistance against Israel, not only in the Palestinian territories but also in the wider Middle East.
The Israel Defense Forces are still fighting fierce battles for control of the Gaza Strip in what officials say is a mission to destroy Hamas | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
“We’re talking about the death of a senior Hamas leader, not from Hezbollah or the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards. Is it Iran who’s going to respond? Hezbollah? Hamas with rockets? Or will there be no response, with the various players waiting for the next assassination?” asked Héloïse Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.
In a much-anticipated speech on Wednesday evening, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemned the killing but did not announce a military response.
Red Sea boils over
For months now, sailors navigating the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb Strait that links Europe to Asia have faced a growing threat of drone strikes, missile attacks and even hijackings by Iran-backed Houthi militants operating off the coast of Yemen.
The Houthi movement, a Shia militant group supported by Iran in the Yemeni civil war against Saudi Arabia and its local allies, insists it is only targeting shipping with links to Israel in a bid to pressure it to end the war in Gaza. However, the busy trade route from the Suez Canal through the Red Sea has seen dozens of commercial vessels targeted or delayed, forcing Western nations to intervene.
Over the weekend, the U.S. Navy said it had intercepted two anti-ship missiles and sunk three boats carrying Houthi fighters in what it said was a hijacking attempt against the Maersk Hangzhou, a container ship. Danish shipping giant Maersk said Tuesday that it would “pause all transits through the Red Sea until further notice,” following a number of other cargo liners; energy giant BP is also suspending travel through the region.
On Wednesday the Houthis targeted a CMA CGM Tage container ship bound for Israel, according to the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea. “Any U.S. attack will not pass without a response or punishment,” he added.
“The sensible decision is one that the vast majority of shippers I think are now coming to, [which] is to transit through round the Cape of Good Hope,” said Marco Forgione, director general at the Institute of Export & International Trade. “But that in itself is not without heavy impact, it’s up to two weeks additional sailing time, adds over £1 million to the journey, and there are risks, particularly in West Africa, of piracy as well.”
However, John Stawpert, a senior manager at the International Chamber of Shipping, noted that while “there has been disruption” and an “understandable nervousness about transiting these routes … trade is continuing to flow.”
“A major contributory factor to that has been the presence of military assets committed to defending shipping from these attacks,” he said.
The impacts of the disruption, especially price hikes hitting consumers, will be seen “in the next couple of weeks,” according to Forgione. Oil and gas markets also risk taking a hit — the price of benchmark Brent crude rose by 3 percent to $78.22 a barrel on Wednesday. Almost 10 percent of the world’s oil and 7 percent of its gas flows through the Red Sea.
Western response
On Wednesday evening, the U.S., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom issued an ultimatum calling the Houthi attacks “illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing,” but with only vague threats of action.
“We call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways,” the statement said.
The Houthi movement insists it is only targeting shipping with links to Israel in a bid to pressure it to end the war in Gaza | Houthi Movement via Getty Images
Despite the tepid language, the U.S. has already struck back at militants from Iranian-backed groups such as Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria after they carried out drone attacks that injured U.S. personnel.
The assumption in London is that airstrikes against the Houthis — if it came to that — would be U.S.-led with the U.K. as a partner. Other nations might also chip in.
Two French officials said Paris is not considering air strikes. The country’s position is to stick to self-defense, and that hasn’t changed, one of them said. French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu confirmed that assessment, saying on Tuesday that “we’re continuing to act in self-defense.”
“Would France, which is so proud of its third way and its position as a balancing power, be prepared to join an American-British coalition?” asked Fayet, the think tank researcher.
Iran looms large
Iran’s efforts to leverage its proxies in a below-the-radar battle against both Israel and the West appear to be well underway, and the conflict has already scuppered a long-awaited security deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“Since 1979, Iran has been conducting asymmetrical proxy terrorism where they try to advance their foreign policy objectives while displacing the consequences, the counterpunches, onto someone else — usually Arabs,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of Washington’s Center on Military and Political Power. “An increasingly effective regional security architecture, of the kind the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are trying to build, is a nightmare for Iran which, like a bully on the playground, wants to keep all the other kids divided and distracted.”
Despite Iran’s fiery rhetoric, it has stopped short of declaring all-out war on its enemies or inflicting massive casualties on Western forces in the region — which experts say reflects the fact it would be outgunned in a conventional conflict.
“Neither Iran nor the U.S. nor Israel is ready for that big war,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Middle East Institute’s Iran program. “Israel is a nuclear state, Iran is a nuclear threshold state — and the U.S. speaks for itself on this front.”
Israel might be betting on a long fight in Gaza, but Iran is trying to make the conflict a global one, he added. “Nobody wants a war, so both sides have been gambling on the long term, hoping to kill the other guy through a thousand cuts.”
Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.
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Gabriel Gavin, Antonia Zimmermann and Laura Kayali
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, both on trips to the Mideast, warned on Saturday against the Israel-Hamas war escalating into a regional conflict as hostilities increased following the killing this week of a top Hamas official.
“It is absolutely imperative to ensure Lebanon is not drawn into a regional conflict,” Borrell told a press conference in Beirut, according to Reuters and Agence France-Presse. “I’m also sending this message to Israel: No one will win from a regional conflict,” he said,.
Blinken met on Saturday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as part of a new diplomatic tour of the Middle East. Blinken “emphasized the need to prevent the conflict from spreading, secure the release of hostages, expand humanitarian assistance and reduce civilian casualties,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in comments to Reuters.
Borrell said he agreed with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati to work on “de-escalation and long-term stability,” during a meeting that touched on southern Lebanon, the Gaza war and Syria.
He also sounded the alarm about a “worrying intensification of exchange of fire” at the United Nations demarcation between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line.
“The priority is to avoid regional escalation and to advance diplomatic efforts with a view to creating the conditions to reach a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine and in the region,” said Borrell in a post on X.
Fears that the Israel-Hamas conflict will spread to neighboring countries have grown as the Gaza Strip death toll of nearly 23,000 keeps rising after three months of Israel’s heavy military retaliation to a Hamas massacre in early October that killed over 1,200 people and led to the hostage-taking of nearly 250 others.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Saturday fired dozens of rockets at Israel after a strike earlier this week killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri. Houthi militants, meanwhile, have increased their attacks of commercial ships in the Red Sea.
As war in Gaza rages, Israel is continuing its campaign against Syrian military and Hezbollah targets, sparking fears of regional spillover.
Israel has launched attacks on positions in Syria and Lebanon, as part of its ongoing campaign against opposing militaries and armed forces in the Middle East.
“The [Israeli army] struck military infrastructure belonging to the Syrian Army,” the Israeli military said in a post on the social media platform X on Tuesday.
“[Israeli military] fighter jets also struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon,” it added, promising it would “continue to operate against any threat to Israel’s sovereignty”.
Israel’s military has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Hezbollah and has launched repeated air raids on Syria since its war on Gaza began on October 7, raising fears of the conflict spilling over into the wider region.
In response to yesterday’s launches toward Israeli territory, the IDF struck military infrastructure belonging to the Syrian Army.
IDF fighter jets also struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon.
The latest attacks, which occurred between Monday and Tuesday, marked a spike in tensions between Israel and neighbours it has said have links to its enemy, Iran.
Earlier on Tuesday, Syrian state news agency SANA said pre-dawn Israeli attacks came from the direction of the Golan Heights.
The air raids targeted “a number of sites in the Damascus countryside”, SANA reported, citing an unnamed military source as saying only “material damage” had been caused.
Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that one position targeted near the town of Kanaker housed members from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the AFP news agency reported.
Parts of the southern Lebanese city of Yaroun also came under fire, the Israeli military said on Tuesday, after Hezbollah announced it had fired on Israeli units near the northern Israeli village of Sarit.
Iran links
“What Israel is facing at the moment is fighters in various countries in the region that are mostly backed by Iran,” said Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat, reporting from Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Syria and Iran are regional allies, with President Bashar al-Assad having received staunch support from Tehran during the war in Syria. Since its formation in 1982, Iran-backed Hezbollah has grown into a powerful “state within a state” in Lebanon, and has also backed Hamas in Gaza.
“Of course the biggest threat so far has been from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon that has been firing every single day,” Khairat said. “This is just showing that despite [Israel’s] continued war in Gaza, these attacks are going to continue.
“Certainly there has been a call amongst those in the [Israeli] military to start to look to redirect their efforts especially along that northern border, with Israel itself saying that if diplomatic efforts don’t work then it wouldn’t be afraid to consider other military action against Lebanon,” our correspondent added.
Tuesday’s attacks follow closely on the heels of an Israeli air raid near Aleppo at the end of December, which caused some material damage, according to the Syrian Ministry of Defence.
Since the Syrian war began, Israel has launched hundreds of air raids on Syrian territory, both on Syrian military and Hezbollah targets. Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
In December, an Israeli air raid outside Damascus killed Razi Moussavi, a senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
Reports from Iran’s news agency INRA said that Mousavi had been part of an entourage accompanying IRGC General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport when he was killed by a US drone attack almost exactly four years ago.
Idlib, Syria ــ A couple and three of their children were killed in Russian air raids targeting a house in a farm near the town of Armenaz in western Idlib on Monday evening, according to the Syrian Civil Defence.
Another child, the sole survivor, was injured.
“We live in this small region of Syria as legitimate targets to satisfy the criminal instincts of both Russia and the Assad regime,” said Walid Ahmed Murad, 32, who lost his sister, her husband, and their children in the Alata farm air raid. He was referring to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Murad told Al Jazeera that his sister Fatima and her husband Anas had fled Aleppo six years ago after the Assad regime took control, only to return to their hometown in Jabal Zawiya in Idlib countryside before moving to the farm three days ago for job opportunities in sheep farming.
“They were very happy to find work that could help them live under their difficult economic conditions,” Murad said. The three children who died — Amina, Khalid, and Mohammed —”were among the kindest children you could meet, and I will miss them forever,” he said. Hamza, his sister’s fourth child and the only one still alive, is in critical condition.
Earlier in the day, another civilian was killed, and five others were injured, including three children, in a missile attack by Syrian regime forces on civilian homes, a rural school, public facilities and agricultural lands in the city of Sarmin in eastern Idlib.
The Syrian Civil Defence, a volunteer emergency rescue group also known as the White Helmets, said that since the beginning of 2023 until December 17, their teams have responded to 1,232 attacks by Syrian regime forces, Russian forces, and their allied militias.
These attacks resulted in the death of 161 people, including 46 children and 23 women, while 681 people were injured, of which 214 were children and 95 were women.
Idlib, the last province controlled by opposition fighters in Syria, is governed by a March 5, 2020 ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia. However, this agreement is occasionally violated by Syrian government forces and Russia.
“Today’s massacre is evidence that Russia can never be on the side of peace and a party that brings security to Syrians. The international community must put an end to Russian terrorism that transcends borders,” said Nada al-Rashid, a board member of the Syrian Civil Defence.
Al-Rashid told Al Jazeera that villages in eastern and southern Idlib are systematically targeted by regime forces, undermining stability in the region and imposing a state of terror and fear, leading to displacement waves.
“The continued massacres by the Assad regime and Russia against Syrians increase the danger of living in dozens of cities and towns, imposing a reality of continuous suffering, especially in the harsh winter that ravages camps lacking the basic necessities of life, weak infrastructure, and a clear decline in humanitarian response,” al-Rashid said.
Hopes for accountability
While much of the world marks Christmas and prepares for the New Year, these celebrations are absent for the people of northwest Syria due to continuous bombing and the deteriorating economic situation in an area with a population of 4.5 million, including 1.9 million living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, according to the latest statistics from United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Russia celebrates Christmas in its criminal way by killing children and women in Idlib,” said Obadah al-Daher, 21, a displaced civilian from Maarat al-Numan city living in the town of al-Dana town near the Syria-Turkey border.
Al-Daher enters his fourth year today away from his land and home after leaving them at the beginning of 2020 following a military campaign led by the Syrian regime, supported by Russia and Iranian militias.
The campaign resulted in the control of Maarat al-Numan city and its countryside, leading to the displacement of most residents to northern Idlib.
“With the beginning of each year, we hope to return to our homes and for the Assad regime and Russia to be held accountable for the crimes they committed and continue to against us,” al-Daher said.
U.S. Army soldiers watch as fellow Coalition soldiers pass by near the entrance to the International Zone on May 30, 2021 in Baghdad, Iraq.
John Moore | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The U.S. military carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that left one U.S. service member in critical condition and wounded two other U.S. personnel, officials said.
The back-and-forth clash was the latest demonstration of how the Israel-Hamas war is rippling across the Middle East, creating turmoil that has turned U.S. troops at bases in Iraq and Syria into targets.
Iran-aligned groups in Iraq and Syria oppose Israel’s campaign in Gaza and hold the United States partly responsible.
At President Joe Biden’s direction, the U.S. military carried out the strikes in Iraq at 1:45 GMT, likely killing “a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants” and destroying multiple facilities used by the group, the U.S. military said.
“These strikes are intended to hold accountable those elements directly responsible for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and Syria and degrade their ability to continue attacks. We will always protect our forces,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, in a statement.
A U.S. base in Iraq’s Erbil that houses U.S. forces came under attack from a one-way drone earlier on Monday, leading to the latest U.S. casualties.
The base has been repeatedly targeted. Reuters reported on another significant drone attack in October on the barracks at the Erbil base on Oct. 26, which penetrated U.S. air defenses but failed to detonate.
The Pentagon did not disclose details about the identity of the service member who was critically wounded or offer more details on the injuries sustained in the attack. It also did not offer details on how this drone appeared to penetrate the base’s air defenses.
“My prayers are with the brave Americans who were injured,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The White House National Security Council said Biden was briefed on the attack on Monday and ordered the Pentagon to prepare response options against those responsible.
“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
Still, it is unclear if the latest U.S. retaliation will deter future action against U.S. forces, who are deployed in Iraq and Syria to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State militants.
The U.S. military has already come under attack at least 100 times in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, usually with a mix of rockets and one-way attack drones.
The U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad also came under mortar fire earlier in December, the first time it had been attacked in more than a year, in a major escalation.
That includes setting up a U.S.-led maritime coalition to safeguard Red Sea commerce following a series of drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.
The Pentagon said on Thursday that more than 20 countries have agreed to participate in the new U.S.-led coalition, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian.
BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
RAF pilots are reportedly carrying out secret spy missions to track down Iran-backed terror groups smuggling weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah.
Brit fighter jets are said to be now focused on the movements of suspected rockets and missiles from Iraq and Syria into the hands of Iran’s proxy forces to be used against Israel.
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RAF Typhoons have a new mission – spying on the movements of weapons by Iran-backed terror groupsCredit: PA
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Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel, raising questions on where there supply comes fromCredit: AFP
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Experts have long said Iran was supplying rockets and missiles to Hamas via tunnels and the seaCredit: Israel Defense Forces
After years of trying to track down remnants of the Islamic State, The Times claims that the Typhoons have a new mission – surveilling Iran’s nefarious activities across the Middle East.
A military source revealed: “We suspect these could be some Iranian-backed militia groups manoeuvring weapons through Iraq and Syria to bolster up Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
Since Israel declared war on Hamas following their bloody October 7 massacres, Iran-backed terror groups in Lebanon and Yemen have repeatedly threatened to open up new fronts in the conflict.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels are part of Iran’s self-styled “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and have been striking both Israeli and US targets in “solidarity” with Hamas.
Meanwhile, Hamas has been able to unleash thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, which has raised questions over where their supply has come from.
Experts have long believed Hamas’s weapons arsenal has been smuggled from Iran into Gaza through their maze of terror tunnels and the sea.
Meanwhile, a military source also told The Times that the RAF pilots are now also responsible for helping to find the Iran-backed terror groups responsible for firing at US bases.
Washington has complained that Tehran is stepping up its attacks on American targets using its regional proxies in revenge for Israel’s relentless bombardment and offensive inside Gaza.
White House spokesman John Kirby has accused Iran of “actively facilitating” the assaults and “spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict”.
In recent weeks, the US revealed 78 drone and rocket attacks have been carried out against US facilities, of which 37 were in Iraq and 41 in Syria.
On Friday morning, a multi-rocket attack targeted the US Embassy in Baghdad causing minor damage and no casualties.
It was the first confirmed attack on the embassy in Iraq’s capital since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.
It comes as official sources revealed that US President Joe Biden will allow Israel until the end of the year to wrap up its war on Hamas.
Israel is currently ramping up its air and ground offensive in Gaza – which has so far wiped out about half of the terror group’s mid-level commanders.
Lt Col Lerner said: “He is the person that financed it [the October 7 attack], organised it, planned it, and gave the green light to go and kill and butcher, massacre, abduct, rape and behead Israelis.
“He’s at the top of our list. We intend on catching up with him and killing him in action.”
The UN estimates 1.9 million people have been displaced by the fighting so far and Israel’s new military evacuation orders are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas.
Most are lacking access to food, water and medicine after months of Israel’s bombardment and siege, which has made much-needed aid deliveries inside the Strip almost impossible.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the territory has surpassed 17,100 – 70 per cent of which are women and children, with another 46,000 wounded.
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Biden told Israel they have until the end of the year to finish its offensive in GazaCredit: AFP
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70 per cent of those killed in Gaza are said to be women and childrenCredit: Rex
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The IDF is advancing deep into Khan Younis in southern Gaza
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Hamas has taunted Israel with a picture of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar
Several U.S. service members were injured in a ballistic missile attack by Iranian-backed militias on Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Monday.
The attack Sunday night on U.S. and coalition forces involved a close-range ballistic missile and resulted in eight injuries and minor infrastructural damage, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement.
U.S. military responded with a retaliatory strike, which was not pre-planned, killing several Iranian-backed militia personnel, CBS News learned.
“Immediately following the attack, a U.S. military AC-130 aircraft in the area conducted a self-defense strike against an Iranian-backed militia vehicle and a number of Iranian-backed militia personnel involved in this attack,” Ryder said in his statement.
In a tweet, U.S. Central Command said the U.S. gunship “maintained visual confirmation of the individuals from the time of the launch to the time of engagement.”
The U.S. conducted further “precision strikes” against two facilities in Iraq early Wednesday morning local time, CENTCOM said in a statement.
“The strikes were in direct response to the attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups, including the one in Iraq on November 21, which involved use of close-range ballistic missiles,” the statement read.
The U.S. service members wounded in the attack are still being evaluated, a Pentagon official told CBS News, adding that this was the 66th attack against American-affiliated military bases in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken exchanges challenge coins with the U.S. Marine Corps embassy security guard detachment in Baghdad, Iraq, on Nov. 5, 2023.
While Iranian-backed groups have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria with a mix of drones and rockets, this was the first time a short-range missile was used to attack American troops since Oct. 17, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Of the 66 attacks in the last month, 32 were in Iraq and 34 in Syria, Singh said. The attacks have resulted in approximately 62 U.S. personnel injuries, Singh added — they do not include the injuries from Sunday’s attack.
“These groups in Iraq and Syria, that are attacking U.S. interests, have made their own decisions,” Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian told CBS News last week when pushed on whether Iran backs militant groups in the Middle East.
“We have not taken anything off the table or ruled anything out,” Singh said when asked if the U.S. will launch preemptive strikes to avoid further attacks. “We feel that we have taken appropriate action to decimate some of their facilities and some of their weapons, but again, we always reserve the right to respond at the time and place of our choosing.”
Last month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that “the United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop.”
— Eleanor Watson and Mary Walsh contributed reporting.
At his Anaheim, Calif., bakery, Maher Nakhal honors a traditional sweet treat: Bouza, a style of ice cream that was first served in Damascus, Syria more than 500 years ago. Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti delves into the closely-guarded recipe, and the labor involved in creating the ice cream’s unique texture.
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Idlib, Syria – In a small house in northwestern Syria, Muhammad Haninun is glued to his mobile phone, following the latest Israeli attacks taking place in Gaza.
For more than a month, he has watched videos of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of civilians trying to escape the bombing. All the while, the events bring back clear memories of what he endured 75 years ago.
The 80-year-old cannot help but think about the similarities between what he is seeing in Gaza and what he experienced when he and his family were displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, in 1948 when Israel was created and more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly uprooted from their land and thousands were killed.
“The Palestinian tragedy is happening again,” Haninun said. “The people in Gaza are facing war without receiving any help the same as we did before.”
Muhammad Haninun, 80, pictured with his six-year-old grandson Mahmoud, is determined to return to Palestine one day [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
‘A cracked record’
Since October 7, when the armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, breached the separation wall that surrounds Gaza and attacked southern Israel, Western countries, led by the United States, hastened to condemn the movement that has been running the besieged Gaza Strip since 2006.
The condemnation was followed by Western financial and military support for Israel, which has been relentlessly bombing Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, for 35 days. Since October 7, at least 10,812 Palestinians, including 4,412 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel.
Similarly, during the first half of the 20th century, Britain provided military support in the form of protection and weapons to Zionists, encouraged Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine and allowed them to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes as they built a new state for themselves.
In November 1948, Israelis used aircraft to bomb the northern village of Tarshiha in the countryside of Acre, destroying three houses – including Haninun’s family home – and killing seven of his relatives.
“Before that, we had evacuated our homes several times for two or three days and returned. We did not take anything,” he recalled. “We thought we would return, especially since we were not able to recover the dead from under the rubble.”
But they never could.
Haninun, then five years old, and four members of his family were forced to move between seven cities in Lebanon and Syria before they were allowed to stay in a refugee camp in Aleppo, a “tragic” setting with a small room for each family, no kitchen, bathroom or running water and shared toilets.
He remembers Arab radio stations and governments promising Palestinians a quick return – after seven days, then after seven weeks, then after seven months, until more than seven decades had passed.
“This cracked record has been playing since 1948, when people were fleeing from one village to another, only to face massacres afterwards, because the enemy viewed ‘others’ as animals, and killing them just like killing cattle – and this logic is still the same today.”
Haninun moved to the Syrian capital, Damascus, to study history. After this, he worked as a teacher in Aleppo, living in the camp there, until the Syrian war forced him to flee to Idlib in 2014. But what he still longs for is the chance, one day, to return to Palestine – and to his roots.
“There is still hope,” Haninun said. “If I die before I return to Palestine, I will tell my children and grandchildren that you have a right to that land and we are its true owners.”
Scouts gather in downtown Idlib to show support for Gaza [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
Strengthening the Palestinian cause
On Thursday, the Ain Jalut Scouts and the Syrian Private Scouts marched through downtown Idlib, just one of the many activities held in the area over the past few weeks in support of Gaza.
Ayman Muhammad, 40, a displaced Palestinian residing in the northwestern Syrian city and the scout leader of the Ain Jalut group, told Al Jazeera that the injustice that Palestinians have endured for 75 years is the motivation for staging protests as well as fundraising and providing support via social media.
Israel’s war on Gaza has strengthened the Palestinian cause, Muhammad believes. “Today, the West and the East, from one end to the other, stand with the Palestinian people against the aggression.”
During October, major cities around the world witnessed demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people participating to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine.
Palestinians in Idlib cannot stand by and watch, Muhammad said. Despite the difficult economic and security conditions in Idlib, he added, members of the Palestinian community and Syrian supporters here have managed to collect about $400,000 in donations for Gaza.
Syrian activists also participated in demonstrations in support of Palestine despite bombing by government forces and Russian warplanes targeting gatherings in the country’s last rebel stronghold.
For Palestinians in northern Syria who are living through Syria’s war, the Syrian revolution and the Palestinian cause are now inseparable, Muhammad believes. “Victory will come for both causes because the right will not be lost as long as we demand it,” he said.
For the second time in two weeks, the United States carried out airstrikes against what the Pentagon says is an Iran-linked weapons warehouse in Syria. Nancy Cordes has our report with more on this ongoing escalation that the Pentagon says has become more dangerous.
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Last winter, Europeans faced exorbitant energy bills as the Continent rapidly weaned itself off Russian gas. This year the EU is better prepared — but now a second war also threatens to roil its energy markets.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas threatens to disrupt Europe’s relationships with the Middle East, or even draw Iran into direct confrontation with Israel and its Western partners. While markets are relatively calm for now, either of those scenarios could cause chaos.
Nevertheless, Europe is “equipped to face oil and diesel global market tightness,” Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson told POLITICO in an interview. Officials have learned lessons from Russia’s war on Ukraine, and are working to build “a good understanding of all our vulnerabilities to best address them and how we can be prepared for any incidents or emergencies.”
EU officials have held a slew of meetings with oil-producing nations in recent weeks, both old friends like Norway and emerging partners such as Algeria and Nigeria, to get ahead of any potential disruptions, she said.
“After the Gaza crisis unfolded, we are faced with two conflicts in the European neighborhood. The Eastern Mediterranean is an important theater for European energy security, as Europe’s energy transition is still entangled in geopolitical uncertainties,” Simson said, attributing the lack of drama in the markets to “the preparedness and crisis management that the EU put in place to respond to Russia’s energy blackmail.”
Fighting in Gaza and, to a lesser extent, along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has had only a limited impact on oil markets. Prices initially rose on the news of the attack by Hamas militants on October 7 and Israel’s massive response, but key crude benchmark Brent dropped back by 4.2 percent this week to around $81 per barrel, around the levels seen before the start of the violence.
Markets have avoided a repeat of 1973, when the Yom Kippur War between Israel and its neighbors prompted the big Arab producers, led by Saudi Arabia, to embargo their exports to Israel’s allies. Gulf country relations with Israel have improved markedly in the past 50 years: The UAE and Bahrain recognized its sovereignty under the 2020 Abraham Accords, while Saudi Arabia is in negotiations to do the same.
Traders are therefore betting that as long as the conflict doesn’t expand, supplies of oil will remain more or less stable, said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at energy intelligence firm Kpler.
The risk stems more from Iran, he said. In the worst case, an expansion of the conflict could cause Iran to disrupt shipping from Gulf Arab countries through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s own crude oil, while sanctioned by the West, is exported in large quantities to China. “If Israel starts to strike the Iranian territory and Iran as a consequence needs to export less, then China doesn’t have enough crude and needs to buy from somewhere else,” sending global prices rocketing, Katona said. “It’s an entire spiral that gets triggered immediately.”
While Iran’s theocratic leadership has consistently vowed to destroy the state of Israel and publicly endorsed Hamas’ attacks last month, it denies involvement in their planning and execution. The Israel Defense Forces say they have carried out strikes on militant groups in Syria with close links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but have so far stopped short of hitting targets inside Iran itself.
Lessons learned
Gas markets felt a more immediate impact from the war. Israel turned off the taps at its Tamar offshore gas field in the hours following Hamas’ surprise attack, amid reports that it was a target for rocket attacks. While Israel produces only relatively small quantities of natural gas — around 21 billion cubic meters last year, compared to Russia’s 618 billion — it is a key exporter to neighboring Egypt, and the downtime worsened regular rolling power outages there. The flow has since been resumed, albeit in smaller quantities.
Any escalation with Iran could affect gas as well as oil markets, given a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and a sixth of its oil is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. “If things stay as they are there’s no problem, but if there’s a war where Iran was included and they [block trade through] the Hormuz strait then prices will go up for sure,” said one EU diplomat with knowledge of internal energy strategy talks, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
However, “all the big players want to avoid escalation, Iran wants to avoid this” because of threat of sanctions, the envoy insisted.
Absent that dire scenario, the impact on EU gas markets is likely to be limited, says Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at commodities intelligence company ICIS — but more because of the last conflict than the most recent one.
“From a European gas pricing perspective, we’re still looking relatively OK and that’s been driven largely by weak demand. Many industrial consumers continue to use noticeably less gas than they did prior to the energy crisis last year, so consumption in Europe has remained low,” he said.
According to the European Commission, member states collectively shaved almost 20 percent from their natural gas use in the run-up to last winter, with industry slowing output and renewable power playing a much larger role in electricity generation. Despite that, consumption actually rose in October for the first time since the start of the war, in an early sign that businesses could be tentatively trying to restore lost productivity.
But even though the bloc’s gas reserves are more than 99 percent full ahead of schedule, prices have still remained stubbornly high across the Continent compared to other regions. That means Europeans are more at risk of short-term spikes in the cost of energy, with industry potentially having to slow down again if bills become unaffordable.
“We are in a much better situation than in 2022,” said Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at the Bruegel energy think tank. “We have more heat pumps, power plants are back in the picture that we didn’t have available last year, and we’ve built more liquified natural gas terminals.” However, he warned, if member states lose focus on reducing demand and try to give their own industries a head start with subsidies, that could spark a wasteful race “that is essentially to everyone’s detriment.”
At the same time, winter in Europe isn’t what it used to be. Record-breaking temperatures have been recorded across the globe for the past four months, according to an EU Copernicus satellite monitoring report published this week, while last winter was the second-warmest ever recorded on the Continent. While that might be good news for conflict-prone fossil fuel supplies in the short term, it’s probably bad news for just about everything else in the not-so-much-longer term.
