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Morocco earthquake kills more than 2,000 people, survivors sleep rough

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Moroccan earthquake survivors huddled for a night in the open on the High Atlas Mountains on Saturday, a day after the country’s deadliest quake in more than six decades killed more than 2,000 people and laid waste to villages, Reuters reported.

Neighbours were still searching for survivors buried on the slopes, where houses of mud brick, stone and rough wood were cracked open and mosque minarets toppled by the quake that struck late on Friday. The historic old city of Marrakech also suffered extensive damage.

The Interior Ministry said 2,012 people had been killed and 2,059 injured, including 1,404 in critical condition. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 6.8 with an epicentre some 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech.

In the village of Amizmiz near the epicentre, rescue workers picked through rubble with their bare hands. Fallen masonry blocked narrow streets. Outside a hospital, around 10 bodies lay covered in blankets as grieving relatives stood nearby, read the report.

“When I felt the earth shaking beneath my feet and the house leaning, I rushed to get my kids out. But my neighbours couldn’t,” said Mohamed Azaw. “Unfortunately no one was found alive in that family. The father and son were found dead and they are still looking for the mother and the daughter.”

Rescuers stood atop the pancaked floors of one building in Amizmiz, bits of carpet and furniture protruding from the rubble. A long queue formed outside the only open shop as people sought supplies. Underlining the challenges facing rescuers, fallen boulders blocked a road from Amizmiz to a nearby village.

Nearly all the houses in the area of Asni, some 40 km south of Marrakech, were damaged, and villagers were preparing to spend the night outside. Food was in short supply as roofs had collapsed on kitchens, said villager Mohamed Ouhammo.

Montasir Itri, a resident of Asni, said the search was on for survivors.

“Our neighbours are under the rubble and people are working hard to rescue them using available means in the village,” he said.

The village of Tansghart in the Ansi area, on the side of a valley where the road from Marrakech rises up into the High Atlas, was the worst hit of any Reuters saw. Its once-pretty houses, clinging to a steep hillside, were cracked open by the shaking ground. Those still standing were missing chunks of wall or plaster. Two mosque minarets had fallen.

Abdellatif Ait Bella, a labourer, lay on the ground, barely able to move or speak, his head bandaged from wounds caused by falling debris.

“We have no house to take him to and have had no food since yesterday,” said his wife Saida Bodchich, fearing for the future of their family of six with their sole breadwinner so badly hurt. “We can rely on nobody but God.”

The village is already mourning ten deaths including two teenage girls, an inhabitant said.

Tremors were felt as far away as Huelva and Jaen in southern Spain. The World Health Organization said more than 300,000 people were affected in Marrakech and surrounding areas, Reuters reported.

Street camera footage in Marrakech showed the moment the earth began to shake, as men suddenly looked around and jumped up, and others ran for shelter into an alleyway and then fled as dust and debris tumbled around them.

In the heart of the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, a mosque minaret had fallen in Jemaa al-Fna Square. Some houses in the tightly packed old city collapsed and people used their hands to remove debris while they waited for heavy equipment, said resident Id Waaziz Hassan.

Morocco declared three days of national mourning, during which the national flag will be flown at half staff throughout the country, the royal court said on Saturday.

According to Reuters the Moroccan armed forces will deploy rescue teams to provide affected areas with clean drinking water, food supplies, tents and blankets, it added.

Turkey, where powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people, was among nations expressing solidarity and offering to provide support.

Algeria, which broke off ties with Morocco in 2021 after escalating tensions between the countries focused on the Western Sahara conflict, said it would open airspace for humanitarian and medical flights.

The quake was recorded at a depth of 18.5 km, typically more destructive than deeper quakes of the same magnitude. It was Morocco’s deadliest earthquake since 1960 when a quake was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Mohammad Kashani, associate professor of structural and earthquake engineering at the University of Southampton, compared scenes of the aftermath to images from Turkey in February: “The area is full of old and historical buildings, which are mainly masonry. The collapsed reinforced concrete structures that I saw … were either old or substandard.”

Marrakech is due to host the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from Oct. 9.

An IMF spokesperson, asked about the planned meetings, said: “Our sole focus at this time is on the people of Morocco and the authorities who are dealing with this tragedy.”

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As Iran tensions build, US military moves warplanes to reinforce Middle East

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reinforced U.S. military capability in the Middle East with more warplanes, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, amid a more than two-week-old U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen and mounting tensions with Iran, Reuters reported.

The Pentagon’s brief statement did not specify which aircraft were being deployed or where precisely they were sent.

However, as many as six B-2 bombers have relocated in the past week or so to a U.S.-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, according to U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Experts say that puts the B-2s, which have stealth technology and are equipped to carry the heaviest U.S. bombs and nuclear weapons, in an ideal position to operate in the Middle East.

“Should Iran or its proxies threaten American personnel and interests in the region, the United States will take decisive action to defend our people,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement.

The U.S. military’s Strategic Command has declined to say how many B-2s have reached Diego Garcia and noted that it does not comment on exercises or operations involving the B-2.

There is already considerable firepower in the Middle East and the U.S. military will soon have two aircraft carriers in the region, read the report.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program.

While B-2 bombers have been employed to strike buried Houthi targets in Yemen, most experts say use of the stealthy bomber is overkill there and the targets aren’t buried so deeply.

However, the B-2 is equipped to carry America’s most potent bomb — the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator. That is the weapon that experts say could be used to strike Iran’s nuclear program.

There are only 20 B-2 bombers in the Air Force’s inventory so they are usually used sparingly.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday the U.S. would receive a strong blow if Trump followed through with his threats.

Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Commander Amirali Hajizadeh threatened U.S. forces in the Middle East, noting American bases in the Middle East and adding: “They are in a glass house and should not throw stones.”

One official told Reuters that the U.S. military was also moving some air defense capabilities from Asia to the Middle East.

In his 2017-2021 term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump also reimposed sweeping U.S. sanctions.

Since then, Iran has far surpassed that deal’s limits on uranium enrichment.

Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian energy purposes.

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Israel kills Hezbollah official in deadly Beirut airstrike

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An Israeli airstrike killed four people including a Hezbollah official in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday, a Lebanese security source said, further testing a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said the official – Hassan Bdeir – was a member of a Hezbollah unit and Iran’s Quds Force, and he had assisted the Palestinian group Hamas in planning a “significant and imminent terror attack against Israeli civilians,” Reuters reported.

The Lebanese security source said the target was a Hezbollah figure whose responsibilities included the Palestinian file. The Lebanese health ministry said the strike killed four people – including a woman – and wounded seven others.

It marked Israel’s second airstrike in the Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Beirut in five days, adding to strains on the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that ended last year’s devastating conflict.

The attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs have resumed at a time of broader escalation in the region, with Israel having restarted Gaza strikes after a two-month truce and the United States hitting the Iran-aligned Houthis of Yemen in a bid to get them to stop attacking Red Sea shipping.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Moussawi said the Israeli attack amounted to “a major and severe aggression that has escalated the situation to an entirely different level”.

Speaking in a televised statement after visiting the building that was struck, he called on the Lebanese state to “activate the highest level of diplomacy to find solutions”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the eliminated Hezbollah operative posed “a real and immediate threat”. “We expect Lebanon to take action to uproot terrorist organizations acting within its borders against Israel,” he said.

Israel dealt severe blows to Hezbollah in the war, killing thousands of its fighters, destroying much of it arsenal and eliminating its top leadership including Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah has denied any role in recent rocket attacks from Lebanon towards Israel, including one that prompted Israel to carry out an airstrike on the southern suburbs last Friday.

Tuesday’s strike in the early hours appeared to have damaged the upper three floors of a building, a Reuters reporter at the scene said, with the balconies of those floors blown out.

The glass on the floors below was intact, indicating a targeted strike. Ambulances were at the scene as families fled to other parts of Beirut.

There was no advance warning, in contrast to the attack on Friday when the Israeli military announced which building it intended to hit and ordered residents to leave the area.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the latest airstrike, calling it a “dangerous warning” that signals premeditated intentions against Lebanon, which would intensify diplomatic outreach and mobilise international allies.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the strike was a flagrant breach of a U.N. Security Council Resolution upon which the ceasefire was based, and the ceasefire arrangement.

U.S. BACKS ISRAEL

The ceasefire agreement demanded that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy into the area, and that Israeli troops withdraw.

But each side accuses the other of failing to implement the terms fully. Israel says Hezbollah still has infrastructure in the south, while Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel is occupying Lebanese soil by not withdrawing from five hilltop positions.

The U.S. State Department said that Israel was defending itself from rocket attacks that came from Lebanon and that Washington blamed “terrorists” for the resumption of hostilities.

“Hostilities have resumed because terrorists launched rockets into Israel from Lebanon,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email, responding to a question from Reuters seeking reaction to Tuesday’s airstrike. Washington supported Israel’s response, the spokesperson said.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict was ignited when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war. It escalated in September when Israel went on the offensive, declaring the aim of securing the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from homes in the north.

The war uprooted more than a million people and killed at least 3,768 people in Lebanon, according to a Lebanese health ministry toll from November. Dozens more have been reported killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire.

Lebanon’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

During the war, Hezbollah strikes killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. At least 73 Israeli soldiers were killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights, and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.

 

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Trump says Zelenskiy wants to back out of critical minerals deal

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants to back out of a critical minerals deal, warning the Ukrainian leader would face big problems if he did.

“He’s trying to back out of the rare earth deal and if he does that he’s got some problems, big, big problems,” Trump told reporters.

“He wants to be a member of NATO, but he’s never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that.”

(Reuters) 

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