McMaster Stresses US Determination to Confront Iran’s ‘Proxies’

National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster. Reuters file photo
National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster. Reuters file photo
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McMaster Stresses US Determination to Confront Iran’s ‘Proxies’

National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster. Reuters file photo
National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster. Reuters file photo

US National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster has said that Washington is determined to confront Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah.

In an interview with Alhurra news network, McMaster also accused Iran of taking advantage of divisions within the Kurdish Regional Government, to promote its own interests.

“The most dangerous course of action to take is to not confront Hezbollah, to not confront these Iranian proxies who are propping up the (Bashar) Assad regime, and helping that regime continue to murder its own people. To not confront Iran's support for Houthis in Yemen in a way that was perpetuating that civil war there,” he said.

“What is most important, not just for the United States but for all nations, is to confront the scourge of Hezbollah and to confront the scourge of the Iranians and the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] who sustain Hezbollah's operations,” McMaster told Alhurra.

He also said that Iran played a role in the aftermath of the independence referendum held in Iraq’s Kurdistan region last month.

“The role that they placed is they took advantage of divisions within the Kurdish Regional Government … and what they have done is tried to advance their interest.”

McMaster expressed US concern over the tension between Baghdad and the Kurdistan region’s capital Erbil.

“The United States is very committed to a unified, strong Iraq,” he said.

“We're also committed to a strong Kurdish region within a unified Iraq. So, what we're very concerned about is violence that could continue, that could place in jeopardy all these gains against ISIS in recent months,” the National Security Adviser added.

“When you look at what is necessary to bring communities together, to end the cycle of violence, it is very difficult to imagine how Assad could be part of that. I mean, especially with the blood that's on his hands. And how he has had a hand in destroying his own country, and creating so much human suffering,” McMaster said in response to a question on a political solution in Syria.

He said Assad has used "some of the most heinous weapons on Earth to commit mass murder against his own people. So what is, I think, necessary is to have the right leadership internationally, and then ultimately within Syria, that can — that can achieve the kind of accommodation, the kind of reconciliation that's necessary.”



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.