BEIRUT: Hundreds of members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were seriously wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded, a security source told Reuters.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
The explosions took place amid heightened violence between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted last October in the worst such escalation in years.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military to Reuters enquiries about the detonations.
A Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut amid widespread panic. Residents said explosions were taking place even 30 minutes after the initial blasts. The security source added that devices were also exploding in the south of Lebanon.
Groups of people huddled at the entrance of buildings to check on people they knew who may have been wounded, the Reuters journalist said.
Regional broadcasters carrying CCTV footage which showed what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to a grocery store cashier where an individual was paying spontaneously exploding. In other footage, an explosion appeared to knock out someone standing at a fruit stand at a market area.
Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming into for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire constantly ever since, while avoiding a major escalation as war rages in Gaza to the south.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by the hostilties.
Hundreds of Hezbollah members wounded in Lebanon when pagers explode, security source says
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Hundreds of Hezbollah members wounded in Lebanon when pagers explode, security source says
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupts again, spews giant ash plumes
- An avalanche of searing gas clouds mixed with rocks and lava travels up to 5 kilometers down the slopes of the mountain
- Lewotobi Laki Laki, a 1,584-meter volcano on the remote island of Flores, has been at the highest alert level since it erupted on June 18
Another eruption Friday evening had sent clouds of ash up to 10 kilometers high and had lit up the night sky with glowing lava and bolts of lightning. The two eruptions happened in a span of less than five hours.
Indonesia’s Geology Agency recorded an avalanche of searing gas clouds mixed with rocks and lava traveling up to 5 kilometers down the slopes of the mountain. Drone observations showed deep movement of magma, setting off tremors that registered on seismic monitors.
Volcanic material, including hot thumb-sized gravel, was thrown up to 8 kilometers from the crater, covering nearby villages and towns with thick volcanic residue, the agency said. It asked residents to be vigilant about heavy rainfall that could trigger lava flows in rivers originating from the volcano.
Saturday’s eruption was one of Indonesia’s largest since 2010 when Mount Merapi, the country’s most volatile volcano, erupted on the densely populated island of Java. That eruption killed more than 350 people and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate.
It also came less than a month after a major eruption on July 7 forced the delay or cancelation of dozens of flights at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport, and covered roads and rice fields with thick, gray mud and rocks.
Lewotobi Laki Laki, a 1,584-meter volcano on the remote island of Flores, has been at the highest alert level since it erupted on June 18, and an exclusion zone has been doubled to a 7-kilometer radius as eruptions became more frequent.
The Indonesian government has permanently relocated thousands of residents after a series of eruptions there killed nine people and destroyed thousands of homes in November.
Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 280 million people with frequent seismic activity. It has 120 active volcanoes and sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
Three cars of a passenger train derail in Pakistan, injuring 27 people
- Emergency responders, paramedics were quickly dispatched to site, all injured were listed in stable condition
- An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the accident, railways spokesperson Babar Raza says
LAHORE: Three cars of a passenger train derailed near Lahore in eastern Pakistan on Friday, injuring at least 27 people, including women and children, officials said.
The Islamabad Express was en route to Lahore when three of its cars went off the tracks in the town of Kala Shah Kaku, railways spokesperson Babar Raza told reporters.
He said emergency responders and paramedics were quickly dispatched to the site, and all the injured were listed in stable condition.
Raza did not provide further details but said an investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the accident.
Train accidents are relatively common in Pakistan, where the railway system has suffered from decades of underinvestment, outdated tracks, and aging signal infrastructure.
In 2023, at least 30 people were killed when a passenger train derailed in the southern city of Nawabshah in Sindh province.
Police hunt for former US soldier suspected in Montana bar shooting that killed four
- Officers search a mountainous area west of the small town of Anaconda for the 45-year-old suspect, Michael Paul Brown
- As reports of the shooting spread through town, business owners locked their doors and sheltered inside with customers
A shooting at a Montana bar Friday left four people dead, and law enforcement officers were searching for a suspect described by his niece as a former US soldier who struggled to get help for mental health problems.
Officers searched a mountainous area west of the small town of Anaconda for the 45-year-old suspect, Michael Paul Brown. He lived next door to the site of the 10:30 a.m. shooting at the Owl Bar, according to public records and bar owner David Gwerder.
The bartender and three patrons were killed, said Gwerder, who was not there at the time. He believed the four victims were the only ones present during the shooting, and was not aware of any prior conflicts between them and Brown.
“He knew everybody that was in that bar. I guarantee you that,” Gwerder said. “He didn’t have any running dispute with any of them. I just think he snapped.”
Brown’s home was cleared by a SWAT team and he was last seen in the Stump Town area, just west of Anaconda, authorities said.
More than a dozen officers from local and state police converged on that area, locking it down so no one was allowed in or out. A helicopter also hovered over a nearby mountainside as officers moved among the trees, said Randy Clark, a retired police officer who lives there.
Brown was believed to be armed, the Montana Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Brown served in the US Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005, according to Lt. Col. Ruth Castro, an Army spokesperson. Brown was in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to March 2009, Castro said. He left military service in the rank of sergeant.
His niece, Clare Boyle, said on Friday that her uncle has been mentally sick for years and that she and other family members have tried repeatedly to seek help.
“This isn’t just a drunk/high man going wild,” she wrote in a Facebook message. “It’s a sick man who doesn’t know who he is sometimes and frequently doesn’t know where or when he is either.”
As reports of the shooting spread through town, business owners locked their doors and sheltered inside with customers.
Anaconda is about 120 kilometers southeast of Missoula in a valley hemmed in by mountains. A town of about 9,000 people, it was founded by copper barons who profited off nearby mines in the late 1800s. A smelter stack that’s no longer operational looms over the valley. The Montana Division of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the shooting.
The owner of the Firefly Cafe in Anaconda said she locked up her business at about 11 a.m. Friday after getting alerted to the shooting by a friend.
“We are Montana, so guns are not new to us,” Cafe owner Barbie Nelson said. “For our town to be locked down, everybody’s pretty rattled.”
Jordanian army foils drug smuggling attempt
- Smugglers use drones to smuggles drugs into the kingdom
DUBAI: The Jordanian army’s Northern Military Zone on Friday thwarted an attempt to smuggle drugs that was loaded a drone.
Border soldiers units tracked and monitored the drone, followed the rules of engagement, and dumped its package inside Jordanian territory, state news agency Petra reported, quoting a military source.
The confiscated goods were handed over to authorities, the report added.
From January until mid-July, Jordanian armed forces have intercepted an average of 51 drones each month, nearly two per day, all carrying narcotics destined for the kingdom.
Over 14.1 million narcotic pills, 92.1kg of illegal drugs and more than 10,600 slabs of hashish have been confiscated over the past six months, with a street value worth tens of millions of US dollars.
Pakistan says decision to roll back digital tax on foreign retailers to boost e-commerce sector
- Government introduced a five percent levy on foreign digital platforms in the federal budget
- Local retailers link the tax reversal to US trade deal, say the decision favors global tech giants
KARACHI: A senior Pakistani finance official said on Friday the government had decided to roll back a recently imposed digital tax on foreign retailers in an effort to promote e-commerce in the country.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the government’s tax collection body, reversed this week a set of measures introduced in the federal budget that were aimed at regulating cross-border online purchases and affected international firms like China’s Temu, Shein and AliExpress.
These included a five percent fixed tax on digital platforms and a sharp reduction in the duty-free threshold for imported parcels, slashing it from Rs5,000 ($18) to Rs500 ($1.8).
“The government plans to continue expanding the e-commerce sector by keeping the market open to international players,” Finance Adviser Khurram Schehzad told Arab News.
The move has sparked backlash from local retailers, who argue that the policy puts them at a disadvantage.
“The removal of the five percent levy on foreign goods is likely to negatively affect domestic sellers, including small businesses and established retailers,” Asfandyar Farrukh, Chairman of the Chainstore Association of Pakistan (CAP), said.
According to CAP, foreign platforms, primarily those belonging to China, are sending as many as 30,000 parcels daily to Pakistani consumers, up from just 1,000 two years ago. Internal courier company data shared by CAP shows this as a nearly 2,900 percent surge in parcel volumes.
Farrukh also questioned the timing and motivation behind the policy reversal, linking it to Pakistan’s recent trade negotiations with the United States.
“The government’s decision to withdraw the digital proceeds levy appears to have been heavily influenced by the US trade deal,” he said, pointing out that American tech giants such as Google and Meta were also affected by the tax and are now exempt.
“The five percent levy should have been maintained on foreign goods, even if removed for services, where it arguably didn’t apply.”
Still, Farrukh acknowledged parallel budgetary measures, such as the reduction in the duty-free threshold and stricter customs enforcement, may temper some of the impact.
“Authorities are now more vigilant in ensuring that foreign e-commerce goods aren’t under-invoiced to evade taxes at import,” he added.
Economist Shankar Talreja echoed some of these concerns.
“This tax withdrawal encourages the use of imported products at the cost of domestic manufacturing,” he said. “It promotes a trading culture rather than production.”
Talreja, who heads research at Karachi-based Topline Securities, added the domestic industry is losing competitiveness as local products are taxed through sales and income levies, while foreign goods bypass the same regulatory burden.
He agreed with the CAP chairman about the circumstances of the tax withdrawal.
“The government, according to reports, reversed the tax under pressure from trade talks with the US,” he said.
Pakistan’s retail sector includes about five million shops generating an estimated Rs20 trillion ($71 billion) annually, but only 10 percent of this comes from the tax-compliant formal sector that CAP represents.
Temu did not respond to Arab News’s request for comment. Shein and AliExpress could not immediately be reached.
