Fears of Middle East War Grow After Hamas Leader's Killing

Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
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Fears of Middle East War Grow After Hamas Leader's Killing

Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)

Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.

The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.

The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, according to AFP.

Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Lebanon's Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.

With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.

An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, the Pentagon said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.

On Friday, thousands of people in Qatar attended funeral prayers for Haniyeh, who was buried north of the capital Doha two days after his death.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said he was killed by a "short-range projectile" fired "from outside the accommodation area" where he was staying.

Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of the Qatar-based Haniyeh is among a series of tit-for-tat attacks since April that had already heightened fears of a regional conflagration.

His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing the Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.

Haniyeh's deputy was killed in south Beirut early this year in a strike which a US defence official said Israel carried out.

In another high-profile killing, Israel's army on Thursday confirmed that an air strike in July killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza.

Israel "delivered crushing blows to all our enemies", said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.

"The risk that the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising," British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and called for an international coalition to support "Israel's defense against Iran and its proxies", Gallant's office said.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack.

Hamas officials but also some analysts, and protesters in Israel, have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

Far-right members crucial to Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose any truce.

The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate."

It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.

Since October Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border in support of Hamas.

The strike on Shukr changed the calculus, Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Saturday.

"We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response," said the mission, quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

"Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets."

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said a Hezbollah member was killed in an "Israeli drone" strike on a vehicle in south Lebanon on Saturday.

Late on Friday, a source close to Hezbollah said Israel carried out strikes on a convoy of trucks entering Lebanon from Syria.



Syrian Soldiers Distance Themselves from Assad in Return for Promised Amnesty

Members of Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, line up to register with Syrian opposition forces as part of an "identification and reconciliation process" in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Members of Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, line up to register with Syrian opposition forces as part of an "identification and reconciliation process" in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Syrian Soldiers Distance Themselves from Assad in Return for Promised Amnesty

Members of Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, line up to register with Syrian opposition forces as part of an "identification and reconciliation process" in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Members of Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, line up to register with Syrian opposition forces as part of an "identification and reconciliation process" in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Hundreds of former Syrian soldiers on Saturday reported to the country's new rulers for the first time since Bashar Assad was ousted to answer questions about whether they may have been involved in crimes against civilians in exchange for a promised amnesty and return to civilian life.

The former soldiers trooped to what used to be the head office in Damascus of Assad's Baath party that had ruled Syria for six decades. They were met with interrogators, former insurgents who stormed Damascus on Dec. 8, and given a list of questions and a registration number. They were free to leave.

Some members of the defunct military and security services waiting outside the building told The Associated Press that they had joined Assad's forces because it meant a stable monthly income and free medical care.

The fall of Assad took many by surprise as tens of thousands of soldiers and members of security services failed to stop the advancing insurgents. Now in control of the country, and Assad in exile in Russia, the new authorities are investigating atrocities by Assad’s forces, mass graves and an array of prisons run by the military, intelligence and security agencies notorious for systematic torture, mass executions and brutal conditions.

Lt. Col. Walid Abd Rabbo, who works with the new Interior Ministry, said the army has been dissolved and the interim government has not decided yet on whether those “whose hands are not tainted in blood” can apply to join the military again. The new leaders have vowed to punish those responsible for crimes against Syrians under Assad.

Several locations for the interrogation and registration of former soldiers were opened in other parts of Syria in recent days.

“Today I am coming for the reconciliation and don’t know what will happen next,” said Abdul-Rahman Ali, 43, who last served in the northern city of Aleppo until it was captured by insurgents in early December.

“We received orders to leave everything and withdraw,” he said. “I dropped my weapon and put on civilian clothes,” he said, adding that he walked 14 hours until he reached the central town of Salamiyeh, from where he took a bus to Damascus.

Ali, who was making 700,000 pounds ($45) a month in Assad's army, said he would serve his country again.

Inside the building, men stood in short lines in front of four rooms where interrogators asked each a list of questions on a paper.

“I see regret in their eyes,” an interrogator told AP as he questioned a soldier who now works at a shawarma restaurant in the Damascus suburb of Harasta. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to media.

The interrogator asked the soldier where his rifle is and the man responded that he left it at the base where he served. He then asked for and was handed the soldier's military ID.

“He has become a civilian,” the interrogator said, adding that the authorities will carry out their own investigation before questioning the same soldier again within weeks to make sure there are no changes in the answers that he gave on Saturday.

The interrogator said after nearly two hours that he had quizzed 20 soldiers and the numbers are expected to increase in the coming days.