Iran promises ‘decisive’ response to any US attack over drone strike which killed three soldiers in Jordan
Iran has promised a “decisive” response to any US attack on the Islamic Republic or its “interests” following a fatal drone strike on an American base in Jordan.
It comes after US President Joe Biden said he had made a decision on how America would respond to Sunday’s attack on its Tower 22 military site – but did not provide details on what it would be.
Three soldiers were killed and more than 40 others injured in the drone strike.
Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraq-based militant group thought to have ties to Iran, is one of several factions American officials believe may be responsible.
On Tuesday, the group – which has previously defied statements by Iraqi ministers urging an end to attacks on US forces – announced it was pausing operations to “prevent embarrassment” to the government.
Middle East latest: Iraqi militant group vows to suspend attacks on US forces
The Iranian warnings came from Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, who gave a briefing to Iranian journalists late on Tuesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
“The Islamic Republic would decisively respond to any attack on the county, its interests and nationals under any pretexts,” IRNA quoted Mr Iravani as saying.
He described any possible Iranian retaliation as a “strong response”, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, Revolutionary Guard commander General Hossein Salami, who answers to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also said at an event on Wednesday that Iran had “no fear of war”.
“Sometimes, our enemies raise the threat and nowadays, we hear some threats in between words by American officials,” he said.
“We tell them that you have experienced us and we know each other. We do not leave any threat without an answer. We are not after war, but we have no fear of war.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Biden ‘has decided’ on response to drone attack
US forces in the Middle East have faced a string of attacks blamed on Iran-backed militia since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
American officials are believed to be still determining exactly who attacked the Tower 22 base.
The military site includes engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops, with about 350 US army and air force personnel deployed.
Kata’ib Hezbollah, an elite armed faction that is close to Iran, and was founded in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is one of several groups under suspicion by US officials.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
How will the US avoid escalation?
It views American troops as foreign occupiers and, while it technically answers to Iraq’s prime minister, it has until now defied government statements urging an end to attacks on US forces.
The US designated Kata’ib Hezbollah a terrorist organisation in 2009, and an American drone strike killed its leader Abu Mahdi al Muhandis in 2020 at Baghdad airport.
An Iraqi government spokesman said on Monday it was “monitoring with great concern the alarming security developments in the region” and called for “an end to the cycle of violence”.
Read more:
Who are the Iran-backed militia groups carrying out attacks?
The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict
British warship shoots down Houthi drone
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Biden said on Tuesday he had made up his mind on how to respond to the deaths of soldiers William Jerome Rivers, 46, Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23.
Commentators have said he faces one of the most important decisions of his presidency – how to respond robustly without triggering a wider conflict in an already extremely tense region.
Mr Biden did not give any details about how he planned to respond but added: “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
US weighs up drone strike response
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the retaliation could come in phases.
“It’s very possible that what you’ll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action, but potentially multiple actions over a period of time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
Meanwhile, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said commanders were still looking into reports that failure to shoot down the drone as it approached the base may have been a human error.
US officials, speaking anonymously, have said it could have been mistaken for a returning drone of their own.
There have been 166 attacks on US military installations since 18 October, shortly after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on 7 October, according to a US military official.
They are said to include 67 attacks in Iraq, 98 in Syria and the one at Tower 22 in Jordan.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
Read more from Sky News:
Mass displacement in Gaza – people unsure where to go
Donald Trump picks vaccine sceptic as health secretary
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway