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Israel steps up Syria strikes, says Turkey aims for ‘protectorate’

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Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria, declaring the attacks a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus as it accused their ally Turkey on Thursday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate.

Later on Thursday, Turkey said Israel must withdraw from Syria and stop harming stabilization efforts there, Reuters reported.

“Israel has become the greatest threat to regional security” and is a “strategic destabilizer, causing chaos and feeding terrorism,” the Foreign Ministry in Ankara said.

“Therefore, in order to establish security throughout the region, Israel must first abandon its expansionist policies, withdraw from the territories it occupies, and stop undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria,” it said.

The strikes, targeting a site near Damascus and air bases, put renewed focus on Israeli concerns about the Islamists who deposed Bashar al-Assad in December, with Israeli officials viewing them as a rising threat at their border.

Also suspicious of Ankara’s sway over Damascus, Israel has been working to advance its goals in Syria since Assad was toppled, seizing ground in the southwest, declaring a willingness to protect the Druze minority, lobbying Washington for a weak state, and blowing up much of the Syrian military’s heavy weapons and equipment in the days after Assad fell.

The Israeli army said its forces operating in the southwest overnight killed several militants who opened fire on them. They were on a targeted mission at the time beyond the separation zone where they are deployed inside Syria, it said.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said Israeli shelling had killed nine people in the area, during what it described as the deepest incursion yet by Israeli troops in the area.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the airstrikes late on Wednesday evening were “a clear message and a warning for the future – we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed.”

Katz said in a statement that Israel’s armed forces would remain in buffer zones within Syria and act against threats to its security, warning Syria’s government it would pay a heavy price if it allowed forces hostile to Israel to enter.

Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in the new Syria, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there, in Lebanon and other regions.

“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he told a press conference in Paris.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the Israeli strikes were an unjustified escalation aimed at destabilising the country, calling on the international community to put pressure on Israel to “stop its aggression.”

Later on Thursday, Israeli strikes targeted the town of Kiswah, south of Damascus, according to Syria’s state news agency. There were no immediate reports of casualties and no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting the foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

AIR BASE DESTROYED

The latest strikes were some of the most intense Israeli attacks in Syria since Assad was toppled.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Israel struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window, resulting in the near-complete destruction of the Hama air base and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.

The Israeli military said it had struck remaining military capabilities at air bases in Hama and Homs provinces, in addition to remaining military infrastructure in the Damascus area, where Syrian media and officials said the vicinity of a scientific research facility was hit.

In Hama, a Syrian military source told Reuters a dozen strikes demolished the runways, tower, arms depots and hangars at the military airport. “Israel has completely destroyed Hama air base to ensure it is not used,” the source said.

Israel also said on Wednesday it targeted the T4 air base in Homs province, which it has repeatedly hit over the past week.

In the incident in southwestern Syria, the Israeli military said its forces were operating in the Tasil area, “confiscating weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure” when several militants fired on them.

Residents of the Tasil area reached by phone said a group of armed locals were killed after confronting an Israeli army contingent that had arrived in the area to destroy a former Syrian army encampment.

The Israeli military said there were no casualties among its forces who “responded with fire and eliminated several armed terrorists from the ground and air.”

“The presence of weapons in southern Syria constitutes a threat to the State of Israel,” it said. “The IDF will not allow a military threat to exist in Syria and will act against it.”

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Iran, US continue escalating attacks, recriminations over peace deal

US Central Command said earlier that its forces had carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday.

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Iran and the US continued their attacks in the Gulf as each accused the ​other of violating an increasingly precarious interim deal signed less than two weeks ago to end their four-month-old war, Reuters reported.

Shortly after President Donald Trump warned the US might “militarily complete the job”, Iran early on Sunday ‌launched missiles and drones on US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, continuing a series of escalating attacks.

Beyond the Gulf, Israel said it had struck Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon as fighting continued in an area Tehran says is key to its peace deal with Washington.

The U.S. military said earlier it had struck Iran again, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran had largely cut off for most of ​the conflict.

The 14-point U.S.-Iran interim agreement was meant to halt the fighting, which the US and Israel started on February 28, and reopen the strait to shipping while ​talks proceeded on more deep-seated issues, such as Iran’s nuclear programme.

One round of mediated talks, led by Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, ⁠was held in Switzerland a week ago and Washington then waived sanctions on Tehran, but the fighting and recriminations have since resumed and intensified.

“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be ​reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” Trump posted on social media. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

About an hour after Trump’s post, ​the Kuwaiti army said its air defences were responding to “hostile” missile and drone attacks, while sirens sounded in Bahrain, according to that country’s interior ministry.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its navy and air forces had launched missile and drone operations targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain in response to recent US strikes against Iran, read the report.

The Guards said in a statement the US strikes had violated the ceasefire and “will result in the complete halt of all diplomatic processes”, according to state-run Press ​TV. The IRGC navy command said American bases in the region “will experience hell in the coming days”.

A US official, confirming the attacks on US facilities, told Reuters there were no reported US casualties or major damage to US ​sites in the Middle East but that the situation was still unfolding.

Hours later, alarms sounded for a second time in Bahrain, and the foreign ministry there condemned the attacks as a deliberate and repeated violation of the kingdom’s sovereignty ‌and security. It ⁠urged the U.N. Security Council to hold an urgent session to hold Iran accountable.

US Central Command said earlier that its forces had carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by an Iranian drone on Saturday.

“Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to,” Central Command said in a statement, adding that its strikes were “in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping” and targeted Iranian military surveillance, communications, air defence, drone storage and mine-laying facilities.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said explosions were heard in Sirik in southern Iran, without providing details. The Guards said “America’s blind shots at ​Sirik will not resolve our dominance over the Strait ​of Hormuz. But our shots at violators will ⁠remind the rest of the vessels of the clear passage route.”

Saturday’s tanker attack in the strait followed one on a cargo ship on Thursday that triggered the latest escalation. Iran is seeking to assert control over the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies before the war and which had just begun ​to reopen after months of disruption, Reuters reported.

Hundreds of ships, including tankers laden with oil, have been blockaded inside the Gulf since war broke out. As they began ​leaving through the strait over ⁠the past two weeks, oil prices have tumbled close to pre-war levels on the surge in supply.

Washington has been promoting a southern lane along the coast of Oman, while Tehran, which ultimately aims to charge fees for use of the strait, wants ships to use a northern route through its waters and under its control.

In Lebanon, Israel said on Sunday it had killed Hezbollah militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and struck a rocket launcher in the ⁠Nabatieh area.

Iran ​accuses the US of violating its commitment under the peace deal to sustaining a ceasefire in Lebanon, which US ally Israel invaded ​in March in pursuit of Hezbollah.

Israel, which is not a party to the US-Iran deal, and Lebanon have repeatedly agreed to US-brokered ceasefires, the latest on Friday. But these have had only limited effect, with Israel insisting it will not withdraw from Lebanese territory it ​has seized and Hezbollah repeatedly rejecting calls to give up its arms as long as Israeli troops remain in place.

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US strikes Iran in response to attack on cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. did not immediately respond to Iran’s report of striking American targets, a tactic that has sought to undermine U.S. allies in the region during the conflict.

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The U.S. military attacked Iran on Friday in response to an Iranian drone strike on a cargo ​ship in the Strait of Hormuz, with each country accusing the other of violating terms of a ceasefire agreed on last week, Reuters reported.

U.S. Central Command said aircraft struck missile and drone ‌storage locations and coastal radar sites, later publishing a grainy black-and-white video of an explosion labeled “unclassified.” A U.S. official reported the operation had concluded.

Iran said a projectile struck the area around a pier in Sirik in southern Iran, and that Iranian naval forces responded by striking U.S. military targets in the region. Tehran did not provide details about what may have been hit.

Elsewhere, however, there were signs of progress in ending the four-month-old conflict, as Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement to end the fighting between Israel ​and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Both sides framed the deal as an initial step that calls for Hezbollah to disarm and Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon, but it was not clear how it would ​be enforced. Hezbollah said it would not cooperate.

Tehran has said it would control the Strait of Hormuz and warned Gulf ⁠states not to side with Washington after Thursday’s attack on a cargo ship traveling near Oman’s coast. President Donald Trump blamed the attack on Iran and said it violated last week’s interim agreement.

“The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by ​Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” U.S. Central Command said in its statement announcing strikes, which it called “a powerful response to yesterday’s attack on a commercial ship that was transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

The U.S. military said it ​would continue to provide “safe passage coordination and support” to commercial vessels transiting the strait.

Vice President JD Vance, once seen as a skeptic on U.S. intervention in Iran but now a Trump administration point person on the conflict, said the Americans have honored the ceasefire deal, also known as a memorandum of understanding.

“Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,” ​Vance said on X.

Iranian state media, citing an unnamed military source, reported the strike at the port of Sirik after an explosion was heard there. The source said several warning shots had been fired from Sirik ​toward vessels that violated Strait of Hormuz regulations about five hours earlier, adding two warning missiles had also been launched from the nearby Karpan area toward the strategic waterway, read the report.

On Saturday, Iran’s Mehr news agency cited the head of ports at ‌eastern Hormozgan as ⁠saying that there was no damage to the port of Sirik after the attack by the U.S. The official said the port was operating normally with no damage reported to facilities and equipment.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that in response its navy “struck the locations where the terrorist U.S. military is stationed in the region” and warned that any further U.S. attacks would be met with a broader response, according to the statement carried on state media.

The ceasefire agreement gives Iran control over ship traffic in the strait, the Guards said.

“However, the United States, by provoking various fronts, sought to violate this commitment, and the necessary response was given and will continue to be given. ​If the aggression is repeated, our response will ​be broader than this,” the Revolutionary Guards said.

The U.S. did not immediately respond to Iran’s report of striking American targets, a tactic that has sought to undermine U.S. allies in the region during the conflict.

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said in response to the latest strikes that Trump has failed to show a ​commitment to the principles of negotiation or ceasefire.

“This reckless violation of the ceasefire will, as always, lead to retreat and regret on their part,” Azizi posted ​on X.

Before the renewed outbreak ⁠of violence, oil prices fell about 3% on Friday, on course for steep weekly losses, in response to oil tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on February 28, Reuters reported.

Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf, the world’s biggest oil port, after a nearly four-month halt, shipping data showed.

Fertilizer shipments through the strait have also picked up, helping to ⁠assuage concerns ​about a spike in global food prices.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — wrapping up a tour of the Gulf to reassure regional allies ​about the interim pact — issued a joint statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council calling for “free, unconditional, and unrestricted navigation” in the strait without tolls or “attempts to assert control.”

Iran’s foreign ministry said the strait should be governed by Iran and Oman, while Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser ​to Iran’s supreme leader, warned Washington’s Gulf allies their survival depended on Tehran’s tolerance.

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Iran’s Pezeshkian says without missiles his country would be ‘just like Gaza’

The Iranian president stressed that Tehran’s defensive capabilities are not open to negotiation.

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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has defended Iran’s ballistic missile program, saying the country would have suffered the same fate as Gaza without its missile capabilities.

Speaking during a visit to Pakistan, which has played a mediating role in discussions between Tehran and Washington aimed at securing a lasting end to the Middle East conflict, Pezeshkian said Iran’s missiles serve as a critical deterrent.

“If the missiles we have for our defense did not exist, Israel and the United States would have ploughed Iran just like Gaza, showing no mercy to either the old or the young,” he said.

The Iranian president stressed that Tehran’s defensive capabilities are not open to negotiation.

“We will never negotiate with anyone, under any circumstances, ever, about our defensive capabilities,” he added.

Before the recent conflict, the United States had pushed for Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for regional armed groups to be included in talks over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump has recently signaled a more flexible position on the missile issue. Speaking at the G7 summit in France last week, Trump said, “If other countries have them, it’s a little unfair for them not to have some,” referring to missile capabilities.

 
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