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Violence Escalates between Israel, Lebanon’s Hezbollah

Smoke billows across the horizon along the hills in southern Lebanon from Israeli bombardment from a position along the border in northern Israel on December 10, 2023. (AFP)
Smoke billows across the horizon along the hills in southern Lebanon from Israeli bombardment from a position along the border in northern Israel on December 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Violence Escalates between Israel, Lebanon’s Hezbollah

Smoke billows across the horizon along the hills in southern Lebanon from Israeli bombardment from a position along the border in northern Israel on December 10, 2023. (AFP)
Smoke billows across the horizon along the hills in southern Lebanon from Israeli bombardment from a position along the border in northern Israel on December 10, 2023. (AFP)

Violence escalated at Lebanon's border with Israel on Sunday as Hezbollah launched explosive drones and powerful missiles at Israeli positions and Israeli air strikes rocked several towns and villages in south Lebanon.

Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the war in Gaza erupted two months ago, in their worst hostilities since a 2006 conflict. The violence has largely been contained to the border area.

Israeli attacks in south Lebanon included air strikes on the town of Aitaroun which destroyed and damaged numerous houses, Lebanon's National News Agency said. It did not say if there were any casualties.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senior Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah, in a statement sent to Reuters, said Israeli air strikes were a "new escalation" to which the group was responding with new types of attacks, be it "in the nature of the weapons (used) or the targeted sites".

The Israeli army earlier said "suspicious aerial targets" had crossed from Lebanon and two were intercepted. Two Israeli soldiers were moderately wounded and a number of others lightly injured from shrapnel and smoke inhalation, it said.

Israeli fighter jets carried out "an extensive series of strikes on Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanese territory", it said. Sirens sounded in Israel at several locations at the border.

In Beirut, residents saw what appeared to be two warplanes streaking across a clear blue sky, leaving vapor trails behind them.

Hezbollah statements say its attacks aim to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Ali Damoush said in a speech on Sunday the group would continue in its effort to "exhaust the enemy, and will not stop unless the aggression against Gaza and Lebanon stops".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Beirut would be turned "into Gaza" if Hezbollah started an all-out war.

In one of several attacks announced by Hezbollah on Sunday, the group said it had launched the explosive drones at an Israeli command position near Ya'ara. In another, Hezbollah said it had fired Burkan (Volcano) missiles, which carry hundreds of kilograms of explosives.

Israeli air strikes were also reported on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Yaroun, not far from the location of another of the Israeli positions Hezbollah said it had targeted on Sunday.

Those air strikes broke windows of houses, shops and a school in the nearby village of Rmeich, Toni Elias, a priest in Rmeich, told Reuters by phone.

Violence at the border has killed more than 120 people in Lebanon, including 85 Hezbollah fighters and 16 civilians. In Israel, the hostilities have killed seven soldiers and four civilians.

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Arab World

Arrest Warrant Issued against Iraq’s Maysan Provincial Chairman for Refusing to Shut Crossing with Iran

Maysan Provincial Council Chairman Mustafa Duair al-Muhammadawi. (Social media)
Maysan Provincial Council Chairman Mustafa Duair al-Muhammadawi. (Social media)
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Arrest Warrant Issued against Iraq’s Maysan Provincial Chairman for Refusing to Shut Crossing with Iran

Maysan Provincial Council Chairman Mustafa Duair al-Muhammadawi. (Social media)
Maysan Provincial Council Chairman Mustafa Duair al-Muhammadawi. (Social media)

An Iraqi court issued an arrest warrant for Maysan Provincial Council Chairman Mustafa Duair al-Muhammadawi over his refusal to close the al-Sheeb border crossing with Iran.

The Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported on Monday that the Third Al-Karkh Investigation Court issued the warrant against the council chief in accordance with the Penal Code.

A court document showed that the warrant stems from a complaint filed by the Office of the Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, following statements by al-Muhammadawi threatening civil disobedience and roadblocks, alongside a three-day ultimatum for the government to reopen the border crossing.

Al-Zaidi's office had on Sunday ordered a probe into the chairman’s statements that had been deemed as “harmful”. In a statement, it stressed that the move underscores the need to respect the law.

The arrest warrant was issued in accordance with the provisions of "Article 224 - Second Section" of the "amended Iraqi Penal Code No. 111 of 1969," which carries a penalty of up to "life imprisonment; a punishment applied to anyone who resorts to violence, threats, or any other illegal means against the head of state or whoever acts in his place."

A member of the pro-Iran Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, al-Muhammadawi had given the government until Thursday to reopen the crossing.

During a press conference at the crossing, he threatened to "declare civil disobedience and block all roads linking Maysan to other Iraqi cities if the demand to open the crossing is not met."

He also threatened to "secede the Maysan governorate from Iraq if its demands are not fulfilled and the movement of trade and passengers is not restored."

He said that the technical justifications cited by the government for the closure "inflicted severe harm on the governorate's residents, drove up the prices of goods and construction materials, crippled commercial activity, and disrupted travel for medical patients."

Dozens of truck drivers in Maysan staged a protest on Sunday against the closure of the crossing. Al-Muhammadawi also took part.

Baghdad decided last Tuesday to close the Sheeb crossing until further notice. Government spokesperson Haider Al-Aboudi said the decision stemmed from an inability to complete the technical, technological, and developmental requirements necessary to operate the facility.

However, the Prime Minister's Advisor for Tribal and Marsh Affairs, Abdul Amir Al-Taiban, said the closure was due to the smuggling of narcotics and counterfeit currency from Iran.

The Iranian Embassy in Iraq slammed his remarks as "false allegations" and demanded that relevant Iraqi authorities take a stand against statements it claimed harm bilateral relations.

Arab World

Yemen’s Ibb Becomes Houthis’ Main Source for Recruits

Houthi supporters during a rally in Sanaa. (EPA)
Houthi supporters during a rally in Sanaa. (EPA)
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Yemen’s Ibb Becomes Houthis’ Main Source for Recruits

Houthi supporters during a rally in Sanaa. (EPA)
Houthi supporters during a rally in Sanaa. (EPA)

The terrorist Houthi militia is depleting the population in Yemen's Ibb governorate by thrusting them onto the Taiz fronts, while expanding its use of local military sites and mountain ridges as ballistic missile launchpads, deepening the risks facing residents.

Local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group has dispatched new military reinforcements from Ibb toward the Taiz fronts for the third time in less than a month. This reflects its ongoing reliance on recruiting the residents to offset human losses and replenish frontlines with new fighters as it faces mounting difficulties in mobilizing more residents and tribes across its territories.

Meanwhile, thousands of families are left to endure the loss of their sons and breadwinners, alongside the broader economic and social fallout of the continuous deployment of young men into combat.

Informed sources said that Ibb has become the primary source of fighters relied upon by Houthis to reinforce the Taiz fronts, followed by Dhamar, the Houthi-held capital Sanaa and its countryside, and the Amran governorate.

A young man from Ibb city, who escaped from a Taiz combat front days ago, recounted the recruitment tactics used by the militia to enlist youth and deploy them into battle under misleading slogans.

He revealed that he joined a military training course after being misled into believing it was preparation to confront Israel, only to find himself dispatched to Taiz to fight residents of a neighboring governorate who share fraternal bonds with the people of Ibb.

“They told us that the fighting in Taiz was part of the training and that we would later head to Palestine. Days passed and none of that happened,” he recalled.

Ibb has also been used as a launchpad for attacks on Taiz and other regions, said residents and local sources.

Activists warned that persisting with these policies threatens to spill the conflict's repercussions from the battlefields into the social fabric of both Ibb and Taiz, whose populations are bound by proximity, history, and shared interests.

Transforming these organic bonds into channels for mobilization and combat compounds local suffering, exposes more families to bereavement, and stokes divisions within communities, they said.

The activists called on notables and families in Ibb to resist Houthi recruitment drives and protect their sons from being lured to the frontlines, warning against the exploitation of ideological slogans to enlist youth and thrust them into clashes where families and local communities ultimately bear the human and social toll.

They also stressed the need of preventing residential areas and their vicinities from being transformed into military installations and ballistic missile launch sites, given the potential dangers such actions pose to civilians and their property.

Arab World

Iraq PM Dismisses Shatri as Head of Intelligence

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (INA)
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (INA)
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Iraq PM Dismisses Shatri as Head of Intelligence

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (INA)
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. (INA)

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi dismissed on Monday Hamid al-Shatri as chief of national intelligence.

The PM will assume the position in an acting role until a replacement is appointed.

Al-Shatri was appointed to his position on December 19, 2024, by then PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

Al-Shatri was born in Dhi Qar in southern Iraq. He held several positions, including Director General of Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, a role he assumed in January 2021.

In November 2021, he was appointed deputy head of the National Security service, later becoming its head - a position he held until July 2023, when he was transferred to the National Security advisory.