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US Navy sails first drone through Mideast's Strait of Hormuz
The U.S. Navy sailed its first drone boat through the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, a crucial waterway for global energy supplies where American sailors often face tense encounters with Iranian forces.
The trip by the L3 Harris Arabian Fox MAST-13, a 13-meter (41-foot) speedboat carrying sensors and cameras, drew the attention of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, but took place without incident, said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins. Two U.S. Coast Guard cutters, the USCGC Charles Moulthrope and USCGC John Scheuerman, accompanied the drone.
The trip saw the drone safely pass with the accompanying ships through the strait, a busy waterway between Iran and Oman which at its narrowest is just 33 kilometers (21 miles) wide. A fifth of all oil traded passes through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
"The Iranians observed the unmanned surface vessel transiting the strait in accordance with international law," Hawkins told The Associated Press. He said an Iranian drone and at least one Houdong-class fast-attack vessel operated by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard observed the MAST-13 drone.
The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet patrols Mideast waters, particularly the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, to keep open the waterways for international trade, as well as protect American interests and allies. However, Iran views the Navy's presence as an affront, comparing it to its forces running patrols in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iranian state media did not acknowledge the drone voyage. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 5th Fleet launched a special drone task force last year, aiming to have a fleet of some 100 unmanned drones, both sailing and submersible, operating in the region with America's allies.
Iran briefly seized several of the American drones being tested in the region in late August and early September, though there hasn't been any similar incident since.
The MAST-13 now is operating in the Gulf of Oman, where a maritime shadow war has played out as oil tankers have been seized by Iranian forces and suspicious explosions have struck vessels in the region, including those linked to Israeli and Western firms. Iran has denied involvement in the explosions, despite evidence from the West to the contrary.
The MAST-13's video feeds can transmit images back to shore and to ships at sea, helping sailors see ships before approaching them, Hawkins said. That can come in handy, particularly as the Navy and Western allies have increasingly seized weapons it believes were from Iran bound for Yemen.
"It puts more eyes out on the water, enabling us to better monitor what is happening," Hawkins said.
Iran renews threats against Israel during Army Day parade
Iran's president Tuesday reiterated threats against Israel while marking the country's annual Army Day, though he stayed away from criticizing Saudi Arabia as Tehran seeks a détente with the kingdom.
The comments by Ebrahim Raisi came as fighter jets and helicopters flew overhead in Tehran, and as Iranian submarines sailed across its waters during a ceremony carried live by state television.
The day celebrates Iran's regular military, not its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, whose expeditionary forces operate across the wider Mideast and aid Iranian-allied militia groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah. The Guard also routinely has tense encounters with the U.S. Navy.
Speaking at the ceremony, Raisi threatened Israel, which is suspected of carrying out a series of attacks targeting Iran since the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers.
"Enemies, particularly the Zionist regime, have received the message that any tiny action against (our) country will prompt a harsh answer from the armed forces, which will accompany the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv," Raisi said.
Raisi also reiterated a demand for the U.S. to leave the Mideast. American policy since the Carter administration has viewed protecting the Persian Gulf region as crucial to securing global energy supplies. A fifth of the world's supply of oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
While not specifically naming Saudi Arabia, Raisi did offer an olive branch in his remarks.
"The hand of our armed forces warmly shakes the hand of the regional nations that intend to create security in the region," the president said.
In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions, a diplomatic agreement reached in China. In the time since, Saudi Arabia also has been involved in a prisoner swap with Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, with hopes such a deal could see an end to that country's yearslong proxy war.
Saudi foreign minister visits Syria as relations thaw
Saudi Arabia's top diplomat arrived in the Syrian capital on Tuesday, the first official visit by an official from the kingdom in more than a decade, the Syrian government said.
The visit by Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Damascus follows that of his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mikdad, to Riyadh last week. Syrian state news agency SANA reported that after his arrival, the Saudi top diplomat was received by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
A statement published by Saudi state media said that bin Farhan's visit came "within the framework of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's keenness and interest to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis that would end all its repercussions and preserve Syria's unity, security, stability, and Arab identity and restore it to its Arab surroundings."
The kingdom cut off diplomatic relations with Damascus in 2012, after the outbreak of Syria's civil war. Syria and Saudi Arabia said last week they were moving toward restoring consular services and resuming flights between the two countries.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments over Assad's brutal crackdown on protesters in a 2011 uprising that descended into civil war. The breakdown in relations culminated with Syria being ousted from the Arab League.
However, in recent years, as Assad consolidated control over most of the country, Syria's neighbors have begun to take steps toward rapprochement. The overtures picked up pace since the massive Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and the Chinese-brokered reestablishment of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had backed opposing sides in the Syrian conflict.
Saudi Arabia is hosting the next Arab League summit in May, when Syria's membership is widely expected to be on the table. Some members, mainly Qatar, have opposed Damascus' return to the organization.
On Friday, a group of regional leaders from the Arab Gulf countries as well as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq convened in Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria's political fate.
Following the meeting, the group promised to continue talks to reach a political solution to the Syrian conflict, but stopped short of endorsing its return to the Arab League.
Fire in Dubai kills 16, injures 9 in apartment building
A fire swept through an apartment building in an older neighborhood of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, killing at least 16 people and injuring another nine, authorities said Sunday.
The state-linked newspaper The National cited a statement from Dubai Civil Defense provided by the city-state's Dubai Media Office for the death toll. It said the blaze happened Saturday in Dubai's Al Ras neighborhood, a tightly knit warren of streets and alleys home to one of its oldest neighborhoods.
Al Ras is also home to the Dubai Spice Market, a major tourist attraction near the Dubai Creek.
Authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The government statement did not offer a cause, but appeared to hint at a problem in the five-story apartment building leading to the deaths.
Civil Defense "stressed the importance of residential and commercial building owners and residents fully complying with security and safety requirements and guidelines to avoid accidents and protect people's lives," the government statement reportedly said.
In first, Iran's president addresses Palestinians in Gaza
Iran’s president on Friday delivered an unprecedented speech to an annual pro-Palestinian rally in the Gaza Strip — a display of Iran’s importance to the Hamas militant group that rules the territory.
In a virtual address to hundreds of supporters of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group gathered at a soccer field, Ebrahim Raisi urged Palestinians to press on with their struggle against Israel.
“The initiative to self-determination is today in the hands of the Palestinian fighters,” Raisi said, dismissing Hamas' domestic political rival, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has long sought to win Palestinian statehood through negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian Authority administers autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Raisi's speech was seen as part of efforts to mend a rift between Hamas and its long-time patron, Iran, over the devastating civil war in Syria.
Raisi addressed the crowd on the occasion of “Jerusalem Day,” or al-Quds Day after the city’s Arabic name, which falls on the final Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Jerusalem is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site of Islam. The mosque sits atop a walled esplanade, a compound that was the site of biblical Jewish temples and is revered as the most sacred site in Judaism.
The compound has repeatedly been a flashpoint in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last week, Israeli police forcefully removed Palestinian worshippers who had barricaded themselves in the mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight.
After the raid, in which hundreds of Palestinians were detained and dozens hurt, Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria toward Israel.
The Hamas leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, praised the rocket fire during Friday's rally. “The response came like a simple electric shock,” Sinwar said.
For the past four decades, al-Quds Day parades have drawn thousands to the streets around the Middle East. The event is most dramatic in Iran, where crowds burn Israeli flags and chant pledges to liberate Jerusalem. Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it to its capital. Palestinians seek the eastern part of the city as a future capital.
Although Hamas is a Sunni Muslim group, it has a militant wing that has long nurtured close ties with Iran, a source of funding and a Shiite powerhouse. Hamas and Iran are brought together by a shared enmity toward Israel.
While Iran has not revealed the details of its support, Hamas has publicly praised the Islamic Republic for its assistance. Experts say Iran’s support is both financial and political — now mostly blueprint technology, engineering know-how and training to help the militant group grow its own homemade arsenal of advanced rockets that can strike all of Israel’s territory.
A crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007 has made it difficult for Hamas to smuggle Iranian-made rockets into the coastal enclave in recent years.
The U.S. State Department reports that Iran provides some $100 million a year to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The civil war in Syria strained the relationship. In 2012, Hamas closed its Damascus office and left Syria following President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown on a popular uprising — including on the Muslim Brotherhood, a political Islamist movement with which Hamas is aligned.
But the Hamas military wing has been drifting closer to Iran, a main backer of Assad. Recent steps toward reconciliation between Hamas and Assad late last year have pointed toward Iran's growing influence on Gaza's militant rulers.
Syria, Saudi Arabia move toward restoring embassies, flights
Syria and Saudi Arabia are moving toward reopening embassies and resuming flights between the two countries for the first time in more than a decade, the countries said Thursday in a joint statement.
The announcement followed a visit by Syria's top diplomat to the kingdom, the first since Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Syria in 2012.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments over Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown on protester,s and later civilians, in an uprising turned civil war that began in 2011. The breakdown in relations culminated with Syria being ousted from the Arab League.
However, in recent years, as Assad has consolidated control over most of the country, Syria's neighbors have begun to take steps toward rapprochement. The overtures have picked up pace since the massive Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and the Chinese-brokered reestablishment of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, regional rivals that had backed opposing sides in the Syrian conflict.
A delegation headed by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad, at the invitation of Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for talks about bilateral relations between the two countries, state media from the two countries reported.
Saudi state media reported that Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad was received by the kingdom’s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Al-Khuraiji.
The meeting focused on the steps needed to reach a “comprehensive political settlement of the Syrian crisis that would ... achieve national reconciliation, and contribute to the return of Syria to its Arab fold," the two countries said in a joint statement.
Saudi Arabia is hosting the next Arab League summit in May, where a restoration of Syria's membership is widely expected to be on the table.
The two sides also discussed “the importance of enhancing security and combating terrorism in all its forms, and enhancing cooperation in combating drug smuggling and trafficking,” the statement said. Syria is a primary producer of the amphetamine-based drug Captagon, which is largely smuggled into Gulf markets for sale.
The talks also focused on “the need to support ... the Syrian state to extend its control over its territories to end the presence of armed militias and external interference in the Syrian internal affairs,” as well as on facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and the return of Syrian refugees.
The visit to Saudi Arabia came after Syria announced Wednesday that it will reopen its embassy in Tunisia, which cut off relations in 2012.
Tunisian President Kais Saied announced earlier this month that he had directed the country’s foreign ministry to appoint a new ambassador to Syria.
His move was reciprocated by the Syrian government, a joint statement from the two countries’ foreign ministries said Wednesday, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
Gulf nations Bahrain, Qatar to restore ties after blockade
The Gulf nations of Bahrain and Qatar agreed to restore diplomatic relations late Wednesday.
Bahrain had been the last holdout of four Arab nations that imposed a boycott and blockade on Qatar in 2017. They were angered by Qatar's support for Islamist groups that rose to power in some countries following the 2011 Arab Spring protests, which the other autocratic nations viewed as terrorist organizations.
The blockade was lifted at the start of 2021, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have restored ties with Qatar since then, with top leaders paying official visits in recent months.
Bahrain and Qatar each issued official statements announcing the decision to restore relations following a meeting between their delegations at the headquarters of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation bloc of which both are members, in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
The four nations had severed all ties to Qatar, and at the height of the crisis there was even talk in local media of digging a trench along the 87-kilometer (54-mile) border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and filling it with nuclear waste.
The boycott had little impact on Qatar's economy, however. The tiny Gulf country, which hosted soccer's World Cup last year, is one of the wealthiest countries on Earth owing to its vast natural gas reserves. Turkey, which is also friendly to Islamist groups, stepped in to aid Qatar during the crisis.
Wednesday's agreement comes amid regionwide efforts by longtime enemies to repair relations following years of war and unrest sparked by the 2011 protests.
Saudi Arabia welcomed Syria's foreign minister earlier Wednesday. It was the latest sign that the Arab League might be ready to reinstate Damascus after suspending its membership more than a decade ago as Syrian President Bashar Assad launched a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
Last month, Saudi Arabia and its main regional rival, Iran, agreed to restore diplomatic ties that had been severed in 2016, in an agreement brokered by China.
Israeli army kills 2 alleged Palestinian gunmen in West Bank
The Israeli military shot and killed two Palestinians who allegedly opened fire at troops from their car in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, authorities said, the latest incident in a wave of deadly violence gripping the occupied territory.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the two men killed in the West Bank village of Deir al Hatab as Saud Abdullah Saud and Mohammed Abu Dira, without saying their ages.
The Israeli military said the men shot at an Israeli outpost near the settlement of Elon Moreh, south of the Palestinian city of Nablus. Israeli soldiers on patrol opened fire, killing the two alleged gunmen.
Palestinian media reported that a third gunman was in the car during the drive-by shooting and fled the area. Israeli security forces said they were searching for other suspected assailants and found a pair of M-16 rifles and a pistol at the scene.
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The local armed group of the Balata refugee camp, a militant stronghold near Nablus, identified the two men as militants, sharing photos of them brandishing M-16s in the camp. Saud had previously spent 15 years in Israeli prison, the group said.
“We fought as soldiers and we promise we will always be soldiers,” Saud said in a video after being freed from prison last spring.
Tuesday's deaths followed a week of unusually heightened violence in Israel and the West Bank, touched off by an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site, the compound home to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Last week, the Israeli military struck sites linked to the Palestinian group Hamas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip after militants in the two territories fired salvos of rockets at Israel. The mosque sits on a contested hilltop revered as the third-holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism.
Underscoring the ever-combustible situation in the West Bank, two British-Israeli sisters and their mother were killed when their car came under fire near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank last Friday. The mother, Lucy Dee, succumbed to her wounds on Monday and was laid to rest in the settlement of Kfar Etzion south of Jerusalem on Tuesday. Hundreds of mourners packed the funeral, singing and swaying as Lucy's husband, Leo, and his remaining children wept at the podium — their family of seven reduced to four.
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“Lucy, I have a choice: I could lament over the next 25 years of marriage that I’ve lost, but I actually feel blessed to have had 25 years of a beautiful marriage with you,” Leo said, his voice cracking in anguish.
He added: “If we support the good and reject the evil, then we can all play our part in building a better world.”
Last week, in a separate incident, an Italian tourist was killed and five others were wounded when a Palestinian's car careened onto a bike path near the beach in Tel Aviv in what authorities described as a suspected terrorist attack. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he offered condolences to his Italian counterpart during a phone call Tuesday.
So far this year, 94 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to a tally by The Associated Press, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups. During that time, 19 people were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
With the country battling threats on multiple fronts, Netanyahu on Monday reversed his decision to fire his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who expressed opposition to the government’s divisive plans to weaken the judiciary last month. Gallant praised the Israeli military's killing of the Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday.
In a step toward deescalating the situation, Netanyahu's office said Tuesday that authorities would bar Jewish visits to Al-Aqsa, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, for the remainder of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. That's standard for the final 10 days of the holiday, when Muslims often pray at the site overnight.
Jews are permitted to visit the compound, but not pray there, under longstanding agreements. But such visits, which have grown in numbers in recent years, have stoked anger, particularly because some Jews are often seen quietly praying.
The rare convergence of the Jewish Passover festival and Ramadan brought scores of religious Jews to the site last week and fueled tensions that spiraled into unrest in Jerusalem — and a regional confrontation.
IS land mine kills at least 6 civilians in Syria: Reports
A deadly land mine explosion in Syria killed at least six people on Sunday, according to state media.
News agency SANA said the explosion hit civilians who were foraging for truffles in the countryside, and blamed the incident on a land mine planted by the Islamic State group in the southern Deir Ez-Zor province. The area is a former stronghold of the militants.
A day earlier, SANA reported six people - also heading to search for truffles - were killed by an anti-tank mine left by IS in the desert of Homs' eastern countryside.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, put the number killed Sunday at nine. The monitor said the incident brings to 139 the number of civilians reported killed this year as a result of the explosion of mines and other explosive objects left over from the war, including 30 children.
The truffles are a seasonal delicacy that can be sold for a high price. Since truffle hunters work in large groups in remote areas, IS militants have repeatedly preyed on them, emerging from the desert to abduct them, kill some and ransom others for money.
In February, IS sleeper cells attacked workers collecting truffles near the central town of Sukhna, killing at least 53 people, mostly workers but also some Syrian government security forces.
Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets
Israeli warplanes and artillery struck targets in Syria following rare rocket fire from the northeastern neighbor, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reached a peak Sunday at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city’s Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday. At the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a walled esplanade above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hundreds of Jews also visited the Al-Aqsa compound under heavy police guard Sunday, to whistles and religious chants from Palestinians protesting their presence.
Such tours by religious and nationalist Jews have increased in size and frequency over the years, and are viewed with suspicion by many Palestinians who fear that Israel plans one day to take over the site or partition it. Israeli officials say they have no intention of changing long-standing arrangements that allow Jews to visit, but not pray in the Muslim-administered site. However, the country is now governed by the most right-wing government in its history, with ultra-nationalists in senior positions.
Tensions have soared in the past week at the flashpoint shrine after an Israeli police raid on the mosque. On several occasions, Palestinians have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight, something Israel has in the past only allowed during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Police removed them by force, detaining hundreds and leaving dozens injured.
The violence at the shrine triggered rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, starting Wednesday, and Israeli airstrikes targeted both areas.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s media office announced that the militant group’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, received a delegation headed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday. The two discussed “the most important developments in occupied Palestine, the course of events at al-Aqsa Mosque, and the escalating resistance in the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to general political developments in the region, the readiness of the resistance axis and the cooperation of its parties,” the statement said.
Haniyeh, who arrived in Lebanon last week shortly before rockets were launched at Israel from south Lebanon, had been scheduled to make a public appearance in Beirut on Friday. But it was canceled for security reasons following the exchange of strikes between Lebanon and Israel. No group has officially claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, but Israel has accused Hamas of being behind them.
Late on Saturday and early Sunday, militants in Syria fired rockets in two salvos toward Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian government claimed responsibility for the first round of rockets, saying it was retaliating for the Al-Aqsa raids.
In the first salvo, one rocket landed in a field in the Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan’s military reported. In the second round, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the Israeli military said.
Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired. Later, the military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites, including a compound of Syria’s 4th Division and radar and artillery posts.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the violence in a telephone call with Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog late Saturday, telling Herzog that Muslims could not remain silent about the “provocations and threats” against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said the hostilities that have spread to Gaza and Lebanon should not be allowed to escalate further.
In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
The funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia and Rina Dee, who were killed in a shooting was scheduled for Sunday at a cemetery in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion in the occupied West Bank.
An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35, a lawyer from Rome, had just arrived in the city a few hours earlier with some friends for a brief Easter holiday. He was killed Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv’s beachside promenade.
Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time. All but one were civilians.