Israeli jets blasted a Palestinian militant group's base in Lebanon early yesterday, lightly wounding two guerrillas, hours after rockets hit a northern Israeli border town.
In their deepest strike into Lebanon in 18 months, the Israeli planes attacked a base south of Beirut of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small, Syrian-backed group that has been fighting the Jewish state for decades.
"This is in response to the firing of projectile rockets last night toward Israeli communities," the Israeli military said, referring to the attack on the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona that damaged property but did not inflict casualties.
PHOTO: AP
The Israeli military said it viewed such attacks with "extreme severity" and held Lebanon responsible.
Later yesterday, Israeli warplanes flew low over southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley in presumed reconnaissance flights that drew anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army, Lebanese security officials said.
Major General Udi Adam, head of the Israeli army's northern command, warned Israel would retaliate if there were any more rocket fire from Lebanon.
"The main message that we passed, and we are trying to give, is that the Lebanese government must take responsibility for what happens in its territory," Adam said.
"If Kiryat Shmona residents don't sleep quietly, then the residents of Beirut won't sleep quietly. This is an unequivocal message."
Witnesses reported warplanes roared over the PFLP-GC guerrilla base at Naameh, a hilltop base overlooking the Mediterranean 7km south of Beirut, and the sound of two booms were heard.
Lebanese army troops at a checkpoint near Naameh confirmed the airstrike and sealed off the area.
The PFLP-GC commander in Lebanon, Anwar Raja, said that two guerrillas were slightly wounded in the strike, which caused "limited" material damage and shattered the windows of nearby houses.
He denied that the PFLP-GC was responsible for the firing of Katyushas on northern Israel.
A photographer at the site said that the strike targeted an entrance to a tunnel, leaving it almost blocked by stones and rubble. The PFLP-GC base consists of a maze of concrete fortified tunnels in a hill.
Israeli warplanes struck the same base in June last year in retaliation for a rocket attack on an Israeli naval boat. Jets also staged a "mock raid" -- low runs without dropping bombs -- on the same base a month later.
Yesterday's air raid was the second on Naameh since the Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.
The airstrike was launched after three rockets landed in a residential area of Kiryat Shmona. The Israeli army said the rockets damaged some property but caused no injuries.
Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group and the mainstream Fatah Palestinian faction denied involvement in firing late Tuesday on Kiryat Shmona.
It was not clear whether the explosions were caused by katyusha rockets or mortar fire, but Israel's Channel Two television showed the remains of what appeared to be a katyusha, along with pictures of holes in the ground and in the side of a home.
Last month, Israeli fighter jets attacked a command post of the Hezbollah guerrilla group in south Lebanon -- a day after Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks wounded 11 Israeli soldiers and damaged a house in an Israeli border community.
While fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border has dropped since the Israeli troop withdrawal in 2000, the area remains tense and Hezbollah frequently targets Israeli troops in the disputed Chebaa Farms area. But attacks on Israelis also were blamed on radical Palestinian groups, who remains active in southern Lebanon.
The PFLP-GC's commander, Ahmed Jibril, whose group refuses to recognize Israel, has his headquarters in Damascus. But his group maintains military bases in Lebanon, where it is accused of taking orders from Syria in support of its policies in Lebanon.
Relations between the two Arab neighbors have been tense in recent months after the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon after international pressure and street protests in Beirut in the aftermath of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image