عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Israeli Airstrike Kills Senior Hezbollah Commander in Southern Lebanon, Official Says 

Smoke billows from Israeli bombardment in the Khiyam plains near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon on January 8, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
Smoke billows from Israeli bombardment in the Khiyam plains near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon on January 8, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
TT
TT

Israeli Airstrike Kills Senior Hezbollah Commander in Southern Lebanon, Official Says 

Smoke billows from Israeli bombardment in the Khiyam plains near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon on January 8, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
Smoke billows from Israeli bombardment in the Khiyam plains near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon on January 8, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in a strike in south Lebanon on Monday, sources familiar with the group's operations said, inflicting a heavy blow after three months of hostilities at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier.

Wissam Tawil was a commander of Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces and the most senior Hezbollah officer killed so far in the conflict, a senior source in Lebanon said, adding he played a leading role in directing its operations in the south.

More than 130 Hezbollah fighters including Radwan members have been killed in hostilities since the group's Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, igniting a conflict that has rippled around the region.

It has marked the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah since they went to war in 2006, with Hezbollah firing guided rockets and other weapons at Israeli positions and Israel launching air and artillery strikes.

Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the frontier have fled, and the fighting has raised concern of an even wider conflict.

Tawil and another Hezbollah fighter were killed when the car they were in was struck in the village of Majdal Selm, some 6 km (3.7 miles) from the border, three sources in Lebanon said.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Hezbollah circulated photographs of Tawil with leaders of the heavily armed, Shiite group including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Imad Mughniyeh, its military commander who was killed in Syria in 2008.

Another photo showed him sitting next to the late leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad four years ago.

The senior source said Tawil's death marked a big blow given his experience including deployments with Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq.

Hezbollah says its current campaign against Israel aims to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by an Israeli offensive since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. The hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have largely been contained to areas near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Tensions spiked higher last week when an Israeli strike killed deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut's southern suburbs, an area controlled by Hezbollah. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its responsibility for that attack.

Hezbollah said on Saturday it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to Arouri's killing.

Other members of the Radwan force killed during the hostilities include Abbas Raad, son of leading Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad. He was killed in an Israeli strike in November.

Nasrallah warned Israel in two televised addresses last week not to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon. "Whoever thinks of war with us - in one word, he will regret it," he said.

On Sunday, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said the group did not want to "initiate total war, but if Israel decides to wage total war on us then we in the field will respond with total war without hesitation and with all we have".

Nineteen Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria since the hostilities erupted.

The Hamas-Israel war has drawn in Iran-aligned groups across the region, with the Houthi militias in Yemen firing on ships in the Red Sea and launching missiles and drones at Israel, and Tehran-backed militias in Iraq attacking US forces in Iraq and Syria. 

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
TT
TT

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
TT
TT

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.