Drone attack blamed on Israel

LEBANON’S prime minister said two Israeli drones which fell in the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut amounted to an open attack on the country’s sovereignty, and an attempt to foment regional tensions.

In the first such incident in more than a decade, one drone fell while a second exploded near the ground, causing some damage just before dawn to Hezbollah’s media centre in the suburbs of the capital Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah official said.

“The new aggression constitutes a threat to regional stability and an attempt to push the situation towards further tension,” he added.

The Israeli military declined to comment. The incident took place hours after the Israeli military said its aircraft had struck Iranian forces and Shia militias near Syria’s capital Damascus, which it said had been planning to launch “killer drones” into Israel.

War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and one Iranian were killed in the Israeli strikes around Damascus.

In Tehran, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander denied yesterday that Iranian targets had been hit in the Israeli air strikes in Syria, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported.

Israel deems Lebanon’s heavily armed Shia Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran, as the biggest threat across its border. They fought a monthlong war in 2006 in which nearly 1 200 people, mostly civilians, died in Lebanon and 158 people died in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Lebanon has complained to the UN about Israeli planes regularly violating its airspace in recent years.

Residents in Dahiyeh said they heard the sound of a blast while a witness said the army closed off the streets where a fire had started. A Hezbollah spokesperson told Lebanon’s state news agency NNA the second drone was rigged with explosives, causing serious damage to the media centre.

Hezbollah is now examining the first drone, he said. The Lebanese army said that one Israeli drone fell and another exploded at 2.30am local time, causing only material damage.

“The army arrived immediately and cordoned off the area where the two drones fell,” it said.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was scheduled to give a televised speech later yesterday.

Israel has grown alarmed by the rising influence of its regional foe Iran during the war in neighbouring Syria, where Tehran and Hezbollah provide military help to Damascus.

Israel says its air force has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria against what it calls Iranian targets, and arms transfers to Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes in Syria on Saturday thwarted a planned Iranian attack in Israel.

Syrian state media said air defences confronted the “aggression”, while the army said most of the Israeli missiles were destroyed.

The US and Iran are at odds over Tehran’s nuclear programme and the Gulf, with both sides trading accusations over threats to the strategic waterway’s security.

Iran also has wide sway in Iraq. Iraq’s paramilitary groups on Wednesday blamed a series of recent blasts at their weapons depots and bases on the US and Israel.

The statement from the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the grouping of Iraq’s mostly Shia Muslim paramilitary groups, many of which are backed by Iran, said the US had allowed four Israeli drones to enter the region accompanying US forces, and carrying out missions on Iraqi territory. |