U.S. says strike on Syria compound killed one fighter and wounded two more
The Department of Defense has assessed that the U.S. military strike last week on a facility in Syria used by Iranian-backed militias led to the death of one fighter and wounded two others, in addition to destroying nine buildings.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced the casualty figures at a briefing on Monday, some four days after the Biden administration launched the attack on a border-crossing station in eastern Syria that the U.S. military said had been used by Iranianlinked Iraqi militias that have been pressuring American forces in Iraq.
The U.S. military’s strike was the first lethal operation ordered by the Biden administration against Iranian proxy forces in the Middle East and came in response to a Feb. 15 rocket attack on a facility housing U.S. forces in northern
Iraq that killed a civilian contractor and injured several others, including a U.S. service member.
U.S. officials said the border crossing station had been used by an Iranianbacked militia in Iraq that U.S., Kurdish and Iraqi officials have determined was responsible for the attack last month.
The Biden administration’s strike was seen largely as a symbolic tit for tat. Asked at Monday’s briefing about comments by the targeted militants that the attack represented nothing more than a “pinprick,” Kirby said the operation had accomplished its intentions.
“This was really designed to do two things: to remove that compound from their utilization of it as an entry control point from Syria into Iraq, and two, to send a very strong signal that we are not going to tolerate attacks on our people and on our Iraqi partners,” Kirby said.
The United States has roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq to train and assist the government as it grapples with a volatile security situation. Shiite militias backed by Iran have emerged as a powerful force in Iraq and pose a challenge to U.S. and other Western troops operating in the country.
The Biden administration has said it wants to reengage in diplomacy with Iran, having agreed to European-led talks about the future of the 2015 nuclear accord. The United States withdrew from the pact under President Donald Trump.
But Iran’s foreign ministry, while not rejecting the meeting outright, issued a statement Sunday saying it “does not deem the time suitable” for a sit-down.
The first two games in this eight-game season series between the Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes both went to overtime, so it only figures the third one would as well.
The Panthers probably just wish Martin Necas would take the extra time off.
Necas scored with 3:01 left in overtime to lift the Hurricanes to a 3-2 win Monday night at BB&T Center. On Saturday, Necas beat the Panthers with his fifth-round shootout goal.
The Panthers were trying to go 7-0 this season following a loss but instead will have to take the point and head on the road for a five-game trip.
Florida visits Nashville for two games starting Thursday and goes to Carolina on Sunday before playing two in Columbus next week.
The rough part, goalie Chris Driedger said, was holding a late lead and then letting Carolina tie the score and get the extra point in overtime.
“When we scored that late one and we go up, it’s tough,” Driedger said. “I was unhappy giving up that second goal . ... If I make the save, I probably get us the win.”
These teams share a few former players and two of them had a big say in what happened Monday.
With the score tied at 1 in the third, Eetu Luostarinen — who came to the Panthers in the Vincent Trocheck trade last February — scored off his own rebound with 3:09 left to give the Panthers their first lead of the night.
Florida outshot Carolina 46-31 and rallied to a late lead, but former Panther Vincent Trocheck sent the game into overtime, where the Hurricanes prevailed.
to be outdone, Trocheck forced overtime by scoring with
1:33 remaining.
In overtime, Sebastian Aho fed Necas on a nice cross pass as they converged on Driedger for the winning goal.
Florida trailed 1-0 after Brett Pesce scored a power-play goal in the first period. That held up all the way into the third.
Frank Vatrano tied the score at 1 for the Panthers with 15:30 left following a hard-working shift from the top line.
After Carter Verhaeghe got the puck to Alexsander Barkov, he hammered at it a few times with Vatrano able to find the loose puck off goalie Alex Nedeljkovic’s pads.
But with Trocheck’s game-tying goal, the Panthers ended up losing after holding a late third-period lead for just the second time this season.
Florida outshot Carolina 23-5 in the third period.
“We have been playing great in the third period lately,” said Barkov, who marked his 500th NHL game Monday.
“We came out wanting to score goals, put pucks at the net and that is what we have been doing. But every game is different.”
CONNOLLY CLEARS WAIVERS
Forward Brett Connolly, who
signed a four-year deal as a free agent in 2019, was placed on waivers by the Panthers on Sunday.
Likely because of the time and money remaining on his deal, Connolly was not claimed Monday and stays with the Panthers.
By passing through waivers, Florida has one more player who can move to the taxi squad, which gives them a little more roster flexibility.
With Connolly ($3.5 million per season) going to the taxi squad, Owen Tippett and Riley Stillman were moved up to the main roster. Tippett was back in the lineup MonNot
day.
Those were not the only roster moves made Monday.
Anthony Duclair was hurt in Saturday’s shootout loss to the Hurricanes and was placed on injured reserve.
Coach Joel Quenneville said Duclair will likely miss a week and would be eligible to be activated for next Tuesday’s game in Columbus.
Noel Acciari, on the IR since Feb. 14, was activated and returned to his spot on the fourth line Monday. Florida also added defenseman Noah Juulsen to the IR.
In November, Key West voters changed how the island will deal with the cruise ship industry.
They capped the number of passengers that can disembark each day to 1,500, limited mooring to ships with a capacity of 1,300, and gave docking priorities to cruise lines with the best health and environmental records.
But state lawmakers this year could cancel out those election results. The 2021 legislative session starts Tuesday, and the cruise ship issue is in the Capitol.
Filed by state Sen. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, a socalled preemption bill would retroactively bar local governments from regulating seaport business, including restricting a vessel’s type or size. A companion bill was filed in the House by Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort
Myers, and Rep. Tyler I. Sirois, R-Merritt Island.
Opponents to the bills, including the Key West
City Commission, say the legislation goes against “home rule,” and cancels what local voters already decided at the polls.
The City Commission last month unanimously passed a resolution urging the Legislature to support home rule, saying the bills would “deny the will of local voters at the expense of the environment.”
“The Florida Legislature’s efforts to limit home rule conflicts with the rights and ability of local government and local voters to protect and improve their own community and the environment,” the resolution states.
But the Senate bill says allowing local governments to impose their own requirements on maritime commerce would be bad for business, “and potentially drive it out of the port and out of the state in search of a more consistent and predictable operating environment, thus disrupting Florida’s economy and threatening the public’s health, safety, and welfare.”
For now, the issue is moot. No passenger cruises have departed from U.S. ports since March 2020 due to pandemic restrictions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But cruise ships are a divisive issue in Key West, whether they’re sailing or not.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Key West took in about a million cruise ship passengers each year. Local critics say the cruise passengers spent far less than overnight visitors and, with COVID-19, now bring the risk of a disease outbreak on an island with limited healthcare options. There are 167 hospital beds, including 10 ICU beds, in Key West.
The distaste for cruise passengers eventually found its way to the ballot.
The Key West Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships emerged last year, gathering enough signatures to place three referendums before city voters in an effort to reduce cruise ship traffic.
“Although cruise ships bring 50 percent of all tourists to Key West, they bring only 6 percent of tourist spending,” said Arlo
Haskell, a committee organizer, at a Feb. 16 Senate Committee on Transportation hearing. “Big ships don’t bring big money to Key West but they do bring big problems.”
The campaign leading up to the Nov. 3 vote included disinformation-filled mailers paid for by cruise companies through a dark money scheme. But they didn’t work.
The limits on cruise ship visitors passed by 63%, and the ban on larger ships passed by 61%. A third referendum giving docking priorities to cruise ships with the best environmental and health records passed by about 81%.
The referendums drew legal challenges in federal and state court, but they survived. After the election, though, the city was left facing a lawsuit in state court by Pier B Development, which is owned by Mark Walsh and is the only privately owned cruise pier in Key West, which has three. It’s also the only private cruise pier in Florida.
But Pier B dropped its case in late January.
Safer, Cleaner Ships said the voluntary dismissal showed the weakness of the claim, but Pier B attorney Barton Smith said the case was dropped only because it sought to prevent the referendum vote from appearing on the ballot.
“That case is moot by the vote occurring,” Smith said. “My client certainly will look at options to potential claims it may have.”
Some say the new cruise ship limits in Key West go too far.
The referendums were hardly a compromise when it comes to reducing the number of cruise ships that come to the island, said John Wells, the founder of Caribe Nautical, an agency that arranges ports of call from each ship that stops in Key West.
In 2022, Key West already has 287 firm reservations for cruise ships of all sizes, Wells told the Senate Committee on Transportation on Feb. 16.
“Of those 287, only 18 will meet the size criteria,” Wells said. “That’s only 6 percent. Hundreds of thousands of passengers that want to come to Key West cannot come, and that affects all businesses that rely on cruise tourism.”
In an interview, Wells said the election didn’t reflect the views of everyone in the Keys.
“All the people affected throughout the Lower Keys and Monroe County were not given the chance to vote,” Wells said. “The process was very flawed. The election was flawed.”
The Florida Harbor
Pilots Association, which represents about 100 harbor pilots who man the state’s seaports, supports the proposed legislation.
“A patchwork of new local government regulations would make port operations unpredictable, drive away commerce, threaten port investments, disrupt Florida’s economy, and result in job loss,” Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman for the association, said in a statement.
However, the Florida Ports Council, the port industry’s main lobbying group, is not on board with the bills.
“As currently written we’re concerned about what it does to existing operations at all of our Florida seaports,” said Michael Rubin, vice president of government affairs for the council. “We think it’s too broad and frankly unnecessary.”