WASHINGTON: Shortly after an airstrike widely attributed to Israel destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria, the United States had an urgent message for Iran: We had nothing to do with it.
But that may not be enough for the US to avoid retaliation targeting its forces in the region. A top US commander warned on Wednesday of danger to American troops.
And if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent broadening of targeted strikes on adversaries around the region to include Iranian security operatives and leaders deepens regional hostilities, analysts say, it’s not clear the United States can avoid being pulled into deeper regional conflict as well.
The Biden administration insists it had no advance knowledge of the airstrike Monday. But the United States is closely tied to Israel’s military regardless. The US remains Israel’s indispensable ally and unstinting supplier of weapons, responsible for some 70 percent of Israeli weapon imports and an estimated 15 percent of Israel’s defense budget. That includes providing the kind of advanced aircraft and munitions that appear to have been employed in the attack.
Israel hasn’t acknowledged a role in the airstrike, but Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that the US has assessed Israel was responsible.
Multiple arms of Iran’s government served notice that they would hold the United States accountable for the fiery attack. The strike, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killed senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for Syria and Lebanon, an officer of the powerful Iran-allied Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and others.
American forces in Syria and Iraq already are frequent targets when Iran and its regional allies seek retaliation for strikes by Israelis, notes Charles Lister, the Syria program director for the Middle East Institute.
“What the Iranians have always done for years when they have felt most aggressively targeted by Israel is not to hit back at Israelis, but Americans,” seeing them as soft targets in the region, Lister said.
On Wednesday in Washington, the top US Air Force commander for the Middle East, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said Iran’s assertion that the US bears responsibility for Israeli actions could bring an end to a pause in militia attacks on US forces that has lasted since early February.
He said he sees no specific threat to US troops right now, but “I am concerned because of the Iranian rhetoric talking about the US, that there could be a risk to our forces.”
US officials have recorded more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on US forces at bases in those countries since war between Hamas and Israel began on Oct. 7.
One, in late January, killed three US service members and injured dozens more at a base in Jordan.
In retaliation, the US launched a massive air assault, hitting more than 85 targets at seven locations in Iraq and Syria, including command and control headquarters, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. There have been no publicly reported attacks on US troops in the region since that response.
Grynkewich told reporters the US is watching and listening carefully to what Iran is saying and doing to evaluate how Tehran might respond.
Analysts and diplomats cite a range of ways Iran could retaliate.
Since Oct. 7, Iran and the regional militias allied to it in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen have followed a strategy of calibrated attacks that stop short of triggering an all-out conflict that could subject Iran’s homeland forces or Hezbollah to full-blown war with Israel or the United States.
Beyond strikes on US troops, possibilities for Iranian retaliation could include a limited missile strike directly from Iranian soil to Israel, Lister said. That would reciprocate for Israel’s strike on what under international law was sovereign Iranian soil, at the Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.
A concentrated attack on a US position abroad on the scale of the 1983 attack on the US Embassy in Beirut is possible, but seems unlikely given the scale of US retaliation that would draw, analysts say. Iran also could escalate an existing effort to kill Trump-era officials behind the United States’ 2020 drone killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
How far any other retaliation and potential escalation goes may depend on two things out of US control: Whether Iran wants to keep regional hostilities at their current level or escalate, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s far-right government does.
Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, said analysts in Iran are among those trying to read Netanyahu’s mind since the attack, struggling to choose between two competing narratives for Israel’s objective.
“One perceives Israel’s actions as a deliberate provocation of war that Iran should respond to with restraint,” Toossi wrote in the US-based think tank’s journal. “The other suggests that Israel is capitalizing on Iran’s typically restrained responses,” and that failing to respond in kind will only embolden Israel.
Ultimately, Iran’s sense that it is already winning its strategic goals as the Hamas-Israel war continues — elevating the Palestinian cause and costing Israel friends globally — may go the furthest in persuading Iranian leaders not to risk open warfare with Israel or US in whatever response they make to Monday’s airstrike, some analysts and diplomats say.
Shira Efron, a director of policy research at the US-based Israel Policy Forum, rejected suggestions that Netanyahu was actively trying with attacks like the one in Damascus to draw the US into a potentially decisive conflict alongside Israel against their common rivals, at least for now.
“First, the risk of escalation has increased. No doubt,” Efron said.
“I don’t think Netanyahu is interested in full-blown war though,” she said. “And whereas in the past Israel was thought to be interested in drawing the US into a greater conflict, even if the desire still exists in some circles, it is not more than wishful thinking at the moment.”
US President Joe Biden is facing pressure from the other direction.
So far he’s resisting calls from growing numbers of Democratic lawmakers and voters to limit the flow of American arms to Israel as a way to press Netanyahu to ease Israeli military killing of civilians in Gaza and to heed other US appeals.
As criticism has grown of US military support of Israel’s war in Gaza, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has increasingly pointed to Israel’s longer-term need for weapons — to defend itself against Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The US is ″always concerned about anything that would be escalatory,” Miller said after the attack in Damascus. “It has been one of the goals of this administration since October 7th to keep the conflict from spreading, recognizing that Israel has the right to defend itself from adversaries that are sworn to its destruction.”
Israel for years has hit at Iranian proxies and their sites in the region, knocking back their ability to build strength and cause trouble for Israelis.
Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, one of a network of Iran-aligned militias in the region, that shattered Israel’s sense of security, Netanyahu’s government has increasingly added Iranian security operatives and leaders to target lists in the region, Lister notes.
The US military already has deepened engagement from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea since the Hamas-Israel war opened — deploying aircraft carriers to the region to discourage rear-guard attacks against Israel, opening airstrikes to quell attacks on shipping by Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen.
It is also moving to build a pier off Gaza to try to get more aid to Palestinian civilians despite obstacles that include Israel’s restrictions and attacks on aid deliveries.
US braces for retaliation after attack on Iran consulate — even as it says it wasn’t involved
https://arab.news/6pzvm
US braces for retaliation after attack on Iran consulate — even as it says it wasn’t involved
- Multiple arms of Iran’s government served notice that they would hold the United States accountable for the fiery attack
Families hold funerals for Air India crash victims
- Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing
- There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed
Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad.
“My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?” said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery efforts.
There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground.
“How will they react when they open the gate? But we’ll have to do it,” Leuva said at the mortuary on Saturday.
One victim’s relative who did not want to be named said they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it.
Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.
Mourning relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning.
“This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,” Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital, said late Saturday.
The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical care.
Indian authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India’s Dreamliners.
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would “give an in-depth insight” into what went wrong.
Just one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.
Among the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had traveled to India to scatter his wife’s ashes following her death weeks earlier.
“I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,” said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London’s Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.
“We don’t have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling,” she added.
While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport.
“The airline staff had already closed the check-in,” said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan.
“At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn’t have missed our flight,” she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Spaniards packing water pistols blame impact of mass tourism for housing crunch
- Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms
- Spaniards have staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents
BARCELONA: In Barcelona’s residential Gràcia neighborhood known for its quaint squares, Txema Escorsa feels he is being left behind.
The friendly faces of neighbors in his apartment building have been replaced by a non-stop flow of hard-partying foreigners, and his teacher’s salary can’t keep pace with the rising rent.
“It is tough for me to imagine what to do next,” he told The Associated Press in the living room of his two-bedroom apartment. “If I leave, will I be contributing to Barcelona losing its essence that comes from its locals? But there comes a time when I’m fed up.”
Escorsa, 33, is just one of many residents who believe tourism has gone too far in the city famed for Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade, running roughshod over communities and exacerbating a housing crisis.
It’s not just a Spanish problem. Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters plan to take to the streets on Sunday.
Similar demonstrations are slated in several other Spanish cities, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal’s capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.
’Very likely water pistols will be back’
A poll in June 2022 found just 2 percent of Spaniards thought housing was a national problem. Three years later, almost a third of those surveyed said it is now a leading concern. (Both polls were of 4,000 people, with a margin of error of 1.6 percent)
Spaniards have staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents. When thousands marched through the streets of Spain’s capital in April, some held homemade signs saying “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”
Last year, Barcelona seemed to reach a tipping point when a rally in favor of “degrowing tourism” ended with some protesters shooting water pistols at unsuspecting tourists. Images of those incidents went around the world, and more such scenes are expected on Sunday.
“It is very likely the water pistols will be back,” said Daniel Pardo, one of the organizers of the Barcelona protest. “In fact, we encourage people to bring their own.”
Spain, with a population of 48 million, hosted a record 94 million international visitors in 2024, compared with 83 million in 2019, making it one of the most-visited countries in the world. It could receive as many as 100 million tourists this year, according to studies cited by Spain’s economy minister.
Blocking tourist rentals
Spain’s municipal and federal authorities are striving to show they hear the public outcry and are taking appropriate action to put the tourism industry on notice, despite the fact it contributes 12 percent of national GDP.
Almost two-thirds of those who took part in a poll conducted last year in Barcelona said tourist apartments led to bothersome behavior. Two months later, the city stunned Airbnb and other services who help rent properties to tourists by announcing the elimination of all 10,000 short-term rental licenses in the city by 2028.
A survey by Spain’s public opinion office last year showed more than three-quarters of respondents favored tighter regulations on tourist apartments. Spain’s left-wing government approved regulations making it easier for owners of apartments to block others from renting to tourists in their building, as well as approving measures to allow cities like Barcelona to cap rents. And last month, it ordered Airbnb to remove almost 66,000 holiday rentals from the platform which it said had violated local rules.
Spain’s Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy told AP that the tourism sector “cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people,” which enshrines their right to housing and well-being.
Carlos Cuerpo, the economy minister, said in a separate AP interview that the government is aware it must tackle the unwanted side effects of mass tourism.
“These record numbers in terms of tourism also pose challenges, and we need to deal with those challenges also for our own population,” Cuerpo said.
‘Brewing for decades’
The short-term rental industry believes it is being treated unfairly.
“I think a lot of our politicians have found an easy scapegoat to blame for the inefficiencies of their policies in terms of housing and tourism over the last 10, 15, 20 years,” Airbnb’s general director for Spain and Portugal, Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago told the AP. “If you look at the over-tourism problem in Spain, it has been brewing for decades, and probably since the 60s.”
He says hotels are still the leading accommodation for tourists. In Barcelona, hotels accounted for 20 million tourists in 2024, compared with 12 million who used homes, according to local data.
Rodríguez de Santiago notes the contradiction of Barcelona’s Mayor Jaume Collboni backing the expansion of the city’s international airport — announced this week — while still planning to wipe out the tourist apartments.
That argument either hasn’t trickled down to the ordinary residents of Barcelona, or isn’t resonating.
Escorsa, the teacher in Barcelona, doesn’t just oppose Airbnb in his home city; he has ceased to use it even when traveling elsewhere, out of principle.
“In the end, you realize that this is taking away housing from people,” he said.
4 years after Haiti’s president was killed, the investigation drags on
- The investigation was repeatedly halted by the resignation of judges who feared for their lives
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Not one suspect imprisoned in Haiti has faced trial after being charged in the killing of President Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his home in the nation’s capital nearly four years ago.
Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation defined by outbursts and tense exchanges between suspects and judges.
“You failed in your mission. And you are not ashamed to declare yourself innocent,” Judge Claude Jean said in a booming voice as he stood and faced a Haitian policeman responsible for protecting the president, who was shot 12 times in Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021.
Jean is one of six Haitian judges investigating whether there is enough evidence to warrant a trial for the 20 suspects held in the troubled Caribbean country. Authorities said some of the suspects envisioned a coup, not an assassination, leading to lucrative contracts under a new administration.
The suspects include 17 former soldiers from Colombia and three Haitian officials: an ex-mayor, a former policeman and a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee who worked on an anti-corruption unit. Missing are several key Haitian suspects who escaped last year after a powerful gang federation raided Haiti’s two biggest prisons, including Dimitri Hérard, ex-head of security at Haiti’s National Palace.
Three other suspects, all Colombians, were killed hours after Moïse was slain, while a key suspect in the case, Haitian Superior Court Judge Windelle Coq Thélot, died in January while still a fugitive.
Courthouse under siege
The investigation was repeatedly halted by the resignation of judges who feared for their lives. Defense attorneys then appealed after the court ruled there was sufficient evidence for trial. Jean and five other judges are now tasked with restarting the inquiry. But determining complicity among 51 suspects is only one of numerous challenges.
Last year, powerful gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects. The hearings were suspended until the government rented a home in Pacot, a neighborhood once considered safe enough for the French embassy. But gangs controlling 85 percent of Haiti’s capital recently attacked and forced the government to move again.
The hearings restarted in May, this time in a private home in Pétion-Ville, a community trying to defend itself from gangs seeking full control of Port-au-Prince.
‘Nothing we could do’
As a fan swirled lazily in the background, Judge Phemond Damicy grilled Ronald Guerrier in late May.
One of several police officers tasked with protecting the president, Guerrier insisted he never entered Moïse’s home and couldn’t fight the intruders because he was dazed by a stun grenade.
“The attackers were dressed all in black. They wore balaclavas and blinded us with their flashlights. I couldn’t identify anyone,” Guerrier testified, adding they used a megaphone to claim they were US Drug Enforcement Administration agents. “The attackers operated as if they were entering their own home. It seemed they knew the place perfectly.”
Damicy asked if they shot at drones that Guerrier said were buzzing above the president’s home.
“The attackers covered the entire area with their fire,” Guerrier replied. “There was nothing we could do.”
Damicy grew exasperated. “Under no circumstances should an enemy cross you with impunity to commit his crime,” he said. “In your place, I would fire on the enemy. I would even die, if necessary.”
‘I don’t know’
Inside the investigation’s heavily guarded, stone-and-concrete headquarters in a leafy residential community, raised voices have dominated tense interrogations.
One judge stood and thundered a question about a gun: “On the day of the death of President Jovenel Moïse, were you in possession of a Galil?”
In another outburst in March, a judge repeatedly pressed Joseph Badio, the former Ministry of Justice official who spent two years on the run, about his call to former Prime Minister Ariel Henry after the assassination. At the time, Henry had only been nominated as prime minister by Moïse.
“You can say whatever you want with your mouth,” Badio told the judge, who ordered him to sit as he rose while speaking. “There is no prohibition for me to communicate with anyone I want.”
The tension has carried over into interrogations of the Colombian suspects, who maintain they were hired by a Miami-based security firm to provide security for power and water treatment plants and diplomatic officials, as well as train Haitian police and soldiers.
The Colombians have denied involvement, while their attorney, Nathalie Delisca, said there has been no presumption of innocence during the interrogations.
“The treatment inflicted on the detainees was inhumane,” she said, alleging mistreatment by authorities after their arrest.
The former soldiers said they were beaten, threatened with death, forced to sign documents in a language they don’t understand and barred from communicating with their lawyers and families for long stretches.
“I have been subjected to degrading treatment. I have been subjected to physical and psychological torture,” Jheyner Alberto Carmona Flores said during a recent hearing.
He spoke Spanish in a clear and loud voice, sometimes correcting an interpreter translating his testimony into French.
“I have no involvement because I don’t know when or where the president was assassinated,” Carmona Flores said, claiming he was summoned to provide security at the perimeter of Moïse’s house and did not know the president had been fatally shot.
Working under threat
While the case in Haiti has stalled, the US has charged 11 extradited suspects, with five already pleading guilty to conspiring to kill Moïse.
Five other suspects are awaiting trial, which is now scheduled for March 2026.
They include Anthony “Tony” Intriago, owner of Miami-based CTU Security, and Haitian-Americans James Solages, a key suspect, and Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a pastor, doctor and failed businessman who envisioned himself as Haiti’s new leader.
Moïse’s widow, Martine Moïse, is expected to testify in the US case. She was injured in the attack and accused by a Haitian judge of complicity and criminal association, which her attorneys deny.
Court documents say the plan was to detain Jovenel Moïse and whisk him away, but changed after the suspects failed to find a plane or sufficient weapons. A day before Moïse died, Solages falsely told other suspects it was a CIA operation and the mission was to kill the president, the documents allege.
Bruner Ulysse, a lawyer and history professor in Haiti, lamented how the local investigation has highlighted what he called “profound challenges” in Haiti’s judicial system.
“While international efforts have yielded some results, the quest for justice in Haiti remains elusive,” Ulysse said. “Judges, prosecutors and lawyers operate under constant threat.”
Former French president Sarkozy stripped of Legion of Honour
- The right-wing ex-president ruled France from 2007-2012
- He has been beset by legal problems since leaving office
PARIS: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour – the country’s highest distinction – following a conviction for graft, according to a decree published Sunday.
The right-wing ex-president ruled France from 2007-2012 and has been beset by legal problems since leaving office following a bruising presidential election defeat.
An appeals court last year upheld former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction for illegal attempts to secure favors from a judge and ordered him to wear an electronic ankle bracelet instead of serving a one-year jail sentence.
The decision to revoke his award had since been expected, according to the rules of the order, despite current French President Emmanuel Macron saying he was opposed to the move.
Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the award after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in August 1945 for high treason and conspiring with the enemy.
Sarkozy, whose electronic tag was removed this month, is using his last remaining legal avenue, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, to defend himself against the conviction.
He is currently on trial in a separate case on charges of accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The court is to give a verdict in September with prosecutors asking for a seven-year prison term for Sarkozy, who denies the charges.
Despite his legal problems, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the right and is known to regularly meet with Macron.
Cambodia seeks ICJ help over Thai border dispute: PM
- Thailand has tightened border controls with Cambodia in recent days
- While Cambodia ordered troops on Friday to stay on “full alert”
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia has asked the International Court of Justice to help resolve a Thai border dispute that turned into a bloody military clash last month, Prime Minister Hun Manet said Sunday.
One Cambodian soldier was killed on May 28 as troops exchanged fire in a disputed area known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet.
The Thai and Cambodian armies both said they had acted in self-defense, but agreed to reposition their soldiers to avoid confrontations.
Thailand has tightened border controls with Cambodia in recent days, while Cambodia ordered troops on Friday to stay on “full alert” and banned Thai dramas from TV and cinemas.
Hun Manet said in a Facebook post on Sunday that “Cambodia submitted an official letter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to seek a resolution on the border dispute” in four areas — the site of last month’s clash and three ancient temples.
“Cambodia chooses international law and peace,” the Cambodian leader said.
“Cambodia only needs justice, fairness and clarity in border demarcation and delimitation with our neighboring countries, so that our future generations will not continue to have issues with each other.”
Hun Manet said Friday his government was waiting to hear from Thailand whether it would join Cambodia in its bid to refer the dispute to the ICJ.
The row dates back to the drawing of the countries’ 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier in the early 20th century during the French occupation of Indochina.
Cambodia has previously sought help from the ICJ in a territorial dispute over a border temple.
The court ruled the area belonged to Cambodia, but Thailand said it did not accept the court’s jurisdiction.
Violence sparked by the dispute has led to 28 deaths in the region since 2008.
Officials from the two countries met in Phnom Penh on Saturday over the border spat and Thailand’s foreign ministry said the meeting had “made progress in building mutual understanding.”
More meetings are due on Sunday.
