The US on Wednesday, for the second time in recent weeks, carried out strikes against a weapon storage facility in eastern Syria that the Pentagon said was used by Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and affiliated groups.
As tensions soar over the Israel-Hamas conflict, US and coalition troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria by Iran-backed forces since the start of last month. Forty-five US troops have sustained traumatic brain injuries or minor wounds.
The strikes were conducted by two F-15 jets and were in response to the recent attacks against US forces, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
Photo: AP
The attacks against US troops must stop, he added.
“If attacks by Iran’s proxies against US forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people,” Austin added.
The US has occasionally carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed forces in the region after they attack US forces.
On Oct. 26, US forces attacked two facilities used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and groups it backs.
The US has 900 troops in Syria, and 2,500 more in neighboring Iraq, on a mission to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group, which in 2014 seized large swathes of both countries but was later defeated.
In related news, Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza City yesterday as soldiers battled street-by-street with Hamas militants, and tens of thousands of Palestinians desperate for safety fled their homes southward in the besieged territory.
After more than a month of intense bombardment, hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped in a “dire humanitarian situation” in battle zones without enough food and water, the UN said.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Wednesday said that his forces were “tightening the stranglehold” around Gaza City, as they pressed an offensive launched in response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that killed 1,400 people in Israel, mainly civilians.
The militants also took more than 240 people hostage, among them babies and elderly people.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says has killed more than 10,500 people, many of them children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza.
A source close to Hamas said that talks are underway for the release of a dozen hostages, including six US citizens, in return for a three-day ceasefire.
UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned Israel over its bombardment and its orders to Gazans to flee southward.
“The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians,” he told reporters at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only way route out of Gaza not controlled by Israel.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS