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An Iran-backed Iraqi militia suspected of a drone strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers says it has suspended operations against US forces. Kataib Hezbollah, which is part of an umbrella group that claimed Sunday's attack, said this was "to prevent embarrassment of the Iraqi government".

Dozens of protesters calling for a cease fire in the Middle East interrupted Vice President Kamala Harris' event in San Jose on Monday as she attempted to talk about reproductive rights with actress Sophia Bush. 'We want a cease fire now,' the protesters shouted as some waved the flag of Palestine. The vice president was greeted by dozen of protesters when she arrived at the Mexican Heritage Plaza. San Jose Police got into a scuffle with some outside the event, according to local reports. 'Biden, Harris, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide,' the protesters chanted. Harris was interrupted...

In a press briefing on Jan. 17, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said, “I’m not aware of any US forces on the ground.” ... Troops are on the ground in Yemen, according to a report from the White House. When asked if there was a presence there, the Pentagon refused to acknowledge the reality earlier in January. “A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS,” the White House told Congress in a December 7 report. In a press briefing on Jan. 17, Pentagon...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening held a press conference, discussing the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on South Africa's lawsuit against Israel. "'Our decisive victory is what is most important. Continue with all your strength, so that our victory will be as decisive as possible,'" Netanyahu began, quoting fallen IDF soldier Master sergeant (res.) Elkana Vizel. Vizel, a father of four and a reservist, fell in Gaza this week while defending his country. "During this difficult week, we lost heroic soldiers," Netanyahu continued. "I reiterate to you, citizens of Israel, our obligation to fulfill their...

....The Biden administration, a strong supporter of UNRWA, said on Friday it is taking the allegations seriously. ... .. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is slated to hold a hearing on Tuesday about UNRWA’s ties to Hamas and the Oct. 7 attacks...

Since Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, tensions and hostilities across the Middle East have reached fever pitch. And with such a complex regional crisis playing out, it should not come as a surprise that the Biden administration is reconsidering its military priorities in the region.It should be cause for significant concern, however, that this could involve a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. While no definitive decision has been made to leave, four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is no...

For the second time in less than a month, senior Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers have been killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria. Iran's unofficial Mehr news agency said, "The Revolutionary Guards' Syria intel chief, his deputy, and two other Guards members were martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel." Updated reports say that five IRGC officers, plus some of their Syrian counterparts, were killed in the attack. The icons are already circulating. The intelligence chief, Sadegh Omidzadeh, was a close associate of Brigadier General Sayyed Reza Mousavi, the IRGC commander in Syria, who, along with...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An Israeli strike on the Syrian capital on Saturday destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least four Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state media reported. The Syrian army said the building in the tightly guarded western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh was entirely destroyed, adding that the Israeli air force fired the missiles while flying over Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israeli military did not comment on the strike. A few hours later, an Israeli drone strike on a car near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two Hezbollah members...

Iranian TV Show Celebrates Car Ramming Attack In Ra’anana, In Which An Elderly Israeli Woman Was Murdered And Schoolchildren Were Injured: 'They Were Flattened Like Asphalt, Some Of Them Had To Be Scraped Off The Road With A Spatula.' January 16, 2024. Iranian TV host Mohammad Tadi celebrated a car-ramming attack in the city of Ra’anana on his January 15, 2024, show on Channel 2 (Iran). He said that news of the attack in which an Israeli elderly woman was murdered, and several schoolchildren were severely injured, was “very happy.” Tadi stated that victims had to be scraped off the...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

Civilians were killed in attack condemned by U.S., France but not yet acknowledged by IsraelIran fired missiles late Monday at what it claimed were Israeli "spy headquarters" near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria. Four civilians were killed and six injured after missiles hit an upscale area near the consulate in Erbil, the seat of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to the security council of the Kurdish regional government. Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement that it had hit a headquarters...

The Houthis don’t seem to have been dissuaded from attacks on US targets thus far. In the last couple days they have launched attacks on a US commercial vessel and at a US Navy destroyer. Fortunately, the missile aimed at the destroyer was shot down. Today, the US hit another target inside Yemen as the Houthis were preparing another strike. The strikes on Tuesday were aimed at four missiles that were being prepared to be fired from their launchers and posed an imminent threat to merchant vessels and Navy ships, the command said in a statement…Residents in the area said...

NEW YORK — A Corpus Christi man pleaded guilty Wednesday to plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, agreeing to hire what he thought was a drug dealer in Mexico last year for $1.5 million to carry out the attack with explosives at a Washington restaurant. Manssor Arbabsiar, 58, entered the plea to two conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where Judge John F. Keenan repeatedly asked Arbabsiar whether he intended to kill the ambassador. Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport, said he did. Sentencing was set for...

CORPUS CHRISTI — A day after learning of the arrest of a former Corpus Christi resident involved in an alleged international terror plot to assassinate an ambassador, local and federal authorities met to strengthen communications. When federal agents announced Tuesday they had arrested Mansour Arbabsiar, 56, it was the first local authorities had heard about the case, said Sheriff Jim Kaelin. Arbabsiar had previous arrests in Nueces County during nearly 20 years living in the area. That meant arrest records and personal details were on file in the county's warehouse. But no one from any federal agency ever asked for...

Americans were stunned on October 11 when the Justice Department unsealed its complaint against Mansour Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old used-car dealer from Corpus Christi now in federal custody, and Ali Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. Shakuri remains inside Iran. The pair have been charged with conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir. As disclosed by the Treasury Department, the plot was coordinated by Arbabsiar’s cousin, Abdul Reza Shahlai, a top Quds Force functionary whom the Treasury designated in 2008 as one of several “individuals and entities fueling violence in Iraq.” Shahlai was...

In May 2011, discussions began secretly in Mexico between a known Los Zetas associate and Quds Force operative Manssor Arbabsiar. The discussion would lead to planning a C-4 detonation at a Washington, D.C. restaurant frequented by Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. The Quds Force operative did not know that he was being recorded in a DEA operation. Over the course of a few months, several clandestine meetings in Mexico planned strikes against the Israeli Embassy in Washington, plus and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina. New opium trafficking lanes between the Middle East and Mexico were also charted. In July...

The two Navy SEALs who went missing off the coast of Somalia last week were helping seize Iranian weapons bound for the Houthis, the US said in a statement on Tuesday. The Navy SEALs carried out a "complex boarding" of a dhow, operating out of the USS Lewis B. Puller and assisted by helicopters and unmanned aerial drones, CENTCOM said. (excerpt) Among what was seized were propulsion, guidance, and warheads for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as air-defense-associated components, it said. (excerpt) The Associated Press earlier reported, citing unnamed US officials, that the pair were climbing...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

In what is a massive escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, Iran reportedly bombed a U.S. consulate in Northern Iraq on Monday. Several videos have gone viral claiming to show the moment of impact, though confirmation of their authenticity is still being gathered. The consulate was just one of eight different locations targeted, according to sources inside Iraq. Several explosions were reported near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, an Iraqi security source told ABC News.The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps quickly took responsibility for the attacks, saying it was targeting the "headquarters of spies" and "anti-Iranian terrorist gatherings in...

Multiple loud explosions have been heard near Erbil, Iraq, very close to an area where an airport houses US forces With sirens sounding in the US consultate in Erbil