Militant group suspected of attack that killed three US troops pauses operations
A militant group that’s among those suspected of an attack that killed three US soldiers is pausing operations to “prevent embarrassment” to the Iraqi government.
Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of several factions American officials believe may have carried out the drone attack in Jordan.
Three army reservists died and more than 40 were injured in Sunday’s attack on the US base, with President Joe Biden promising to respond.
Middle East latest: Iraqi militant group vows to suspend attacks on US forces
The group announced in a statement “the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government”.
US forces in the Middle East have faced dozens of attacks blamed on Iran-backed militia since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Map of Jordan
Kata’ib Hezbollah is an elite armed faction that’s close to Iran, and was founded in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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 it 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 a great concern the alarming security developments in the region” and called for “an end to the cycle of violence”.
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How will the US avoid escalation?
However, US officials are believed to be still determining exactly who attacked the Tower 22 base in northeastern Jordan.
The base includes engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops, with about 350 US army and air force personnel deployed.
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(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Biden said on Tuesday he’d 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.
Experts 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 of his response, but added: “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
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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.
It’s said to comprise 67 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and one 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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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