Trump’s Strategy Includes Restricting Iran’s Support for ‘Hezbollah,’ Hamas

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attends a military parade marking National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2016. (Reuters)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attends a military parade marking National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2016. (Reuters)
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Trump’s Strategy Includes Restricting Iran’s Support for ‘Hezbollah,’ Hamas

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attends a military parade marking National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2016. (Reuters)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attends a military parade marking National Army Day in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2016. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump’s strategy to neutralize Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region includes curbing its support for terrorist organizations and militants in the Middle East and Afghanistan, a US official told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official at the US State Department said that the strategy included four key elements or objectives.

He pointed out that the first strategic goal is “to neutralize the destabilizing activities by Iran, especially its support for terrorism and insurgents, with a focus on its activities in the Middle East in particular and also in Afghanistan.”

Earlier this week, Trump announced the possibility of terminating the Iranian nuclear deal once and for all, because he was “tired of achieving benefits at [his] country’s expenses”. The European Union, for its part, called on the US Congress to maintain the agreement.

Trump’s new strategy - according to the US official - includes putting an end to Iran’s subversive activities in Syria and its support for terrorism through groups such as “Hezbollah”, Hamas, the Taliban and Iraqi Shi’ite factions, noting that Tehran was seeking to fuel ethnic and sectarian strife in Iraq.

The US president said on Monday that a total termination of the Iran nuclear deal was a very real possibility.

“It might be a total termination. That’s a very real possibility,” Trump said before a Cabinet meeting.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday welcomed European support for the nuclear deal between his country and international powers.

Rouhani said in a statement on the Iranian presidency website that the consensus on the support for the agreement, especially by the Europeans, “is an important political achievement for Iran,” according to the German news agency.

Following a closed-door meeting on Monday, EU foreign ministers appealed to the US Congress to maintain the nuclear deal with Iran and avoid a return to the sanctions option.

“This agreement is necessary for the security of the region,” EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said, without elaborating on the role the EU could play in countering Iran’s regional activities.



7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.