Lebanese Presidency: US to Help Lebanon with Electricity

A passenger plane flies over Beirut, Lebanon, a capital in darkness because of a power outage, March 29, 2021.(AP)
A passenger plane flies over Beirut, Lebanon, a capital in darkness because of a power outage, March 29, 2021.(AP)
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Lebanese Presidency: US to Help Lebanon with Electricity

A passenger plane flies over Beirut, Lebanon, a capital in darkness because of a power outage, March 29, 2021.(AP)
A passenger plane flies over Beirut, Lebanon, a capital in darkness because of a power outage, March 29, 2021.(AP)

The Lebanese presidency said on Thursday that the United States has decided to assist Lebanon with electricity provision as the country struggles with crippling fuel shortages.

It said the US ambassador informed President Michel Aoun of the decision through a phone call on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the US Embassy in Lebanon.

The plan would provide Egyptian natural gas to Jordan for generation into additional electricity that can be transmitted to Lebanon via Syria, as well as facilitate the transfer of natural gas to Lebanon.

Negotiations are continuing with the World Bank to finance the cost of the gas, the presidency statement said.



Iraq Says Kurdish Separatist Group in Türkiye Attacked Iraqi Border Guards, Killing 2

A member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) carries an automatic rifle on a road in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. (AFP)
A member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) carries an automatic rifle on a road in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. (AFP)
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Iraq Says Kurdish Separatist Group in Türkiye Attacked Iraqi Border Guards, Killing 2

A member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) carries an automatic rifle on a road in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. (AFP)
A member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) carries an automatic rifle on a road in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. (AFP)

Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Friday in a statement that two members of the Iraqi border guards were killed and another wounded in an attack that it said was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the area of Zakho, in northwestern Iraq near the borders with Türkiye and Syria.

Iraq last year officially banned the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Türkiye since the 1980s and is considered by Ankara to be a terrorist group.

A security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment said the PKK has previously targeted military points of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi border guards.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is set to visit Baghdad on Sunday, where he is expected to discuss regional security issues and Turkish military operations against the PKK and affiliated groups.

The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have controlled northeast Syria for the past decade, is under attack by the Syrian National Army, an umbrella organization of Turkish-backed armed groups, which regards the SDF as an extension of the PKK.