Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Vietnam commitment to green economy undermined by targeting of activists

Since announcing its goal, Hanoi imprisoned 6 activists who pushed for changes to the national energy policy.

By RFA Vietnamese
2024.09.17

Vietnam commitment to green economy undermined by targeting of activists

The Vinh Tan coal power plant in southern Vietnam's Binh Thuan province, April 23, 2019.

Manan Vatsyayana/AFP

Read a version of this story in Vietnamese

The Vietnamese government recently reaffirmed its goal of transition to a green economy, but activists have questioned the commitment as the one-party communist nation continues imprisoning and detaining climate advocates.

In a letter released by the U.N. Human Rights Office on Tuesday, Ambassador Mai Phan Dung, the head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations, said Vietnam was among the countries most affected by climate change and that the Vietnamese government “recognizes the connection between climate change and human rights.”

The statement was made during an interactive dialogue on the Human Rights High Commissioner’s annual report at the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 56th session in June 2024.

“We are committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and transitioning to a green economy while providing assistance to vulnerable groups, ensuring access to affordable energy and sustainable livelihoods, and maintaining transparency with a holistic, participatory, and just approach to the energy transition,” the ambassador’s letter said.

Mai Phan Dung also affirmed that Vietnam strongly supports the basic principles of universality, fairness, objectivity, non-selectivity and non-interference in internal affairs and was committed to promoting sincere dialogue and effective cooperation with all member states and U.N. human rights mechanisms.

Activists remain skeptical

In 2021, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh committed to reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 and transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy at the U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Glasgow, Scotland.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, committed governments must “take measures to ensure that everyone can participate effectively in shaping climate policies at the local, national, and international levels” to implement climate policies effectively.

But since 2021, Vietnam has arrested and imprisoned at least six prominent climate activists on charges of “tax evasion” or “document appropriation,” which many international organizations regard as “fabricated” and “politically motivated.”

Lightning strikes have killed 50 people in Cambodia so far this year

Some 130 people died in 2023, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management.

By RFA Khmer
2024.09.17

Lightning strikes have killed 50 people in Cambodia so far this year

Lightning strikes a roof on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Aug. 21, 2016.

(Heng Sinith/AP)

Lightning strikes killed 50 people and injured 43 others during the first eight months of 2024 – a year after nearly 130 people died after getting hit by lightning, according to Cambodia’s National Committee for Disaster Management.

The high rates of death underscore the need for more public awareness, electrician Pon Robang told Radio Free Asia.

In order to avoid lightning strikes, farmers and others should remember to avoid taking refuge under tall trees, he said. They should also stay away from water sources during storms.

Additionally, houses and high-rise commercial buildings should be equipped with lightning poles, he said.

“These need to be tested during installation because I have seen some buildings burned by lightning,” he said.

Lightning current is strong enough to cause heart attacks, skin burns and damage to people’s nervous systems.

Most of the lightning strikes this year have occurred in Siem Reap, Battambang and and Banteay Meanchey provinces in the country’s northwest and Prey Veng and Tbong Khmum provinces in the east, according to the committee.

A farmer in Battambang province's Sangke district, Sem Bunthy, told RFA that he had never seen the government try to educate people about lightning strikes.

“No one comes to tell us anything when we suffer from storms or lightning,” he said. “We just live among our people. If we cannot solve the problem, there’s nothing we can do. We depend on ourselves.”

RFA was unable to reach National Disaster Management Committee spokesman Soth Kimkol Mony on Sept. 9 to ask further questions.

Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed.

Majority of Trump supporters think his Haitian immigrant lies are true, poll shows

Trump’s claim about Haitian immigrants has been debunked by Ohio officials and condemned by the White House

Katie Hawkinson

Nearly half of Donald Trump voters say they believe his debunked claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating residents’ pets.

Some 52 percent of Trump voters said that the claim is “definitely” or “probably” true, according to a post-debate poll by YouGov released this week. Meanwhile, 24 percent of Trump voters said they’re “not sure” if it’s true, while 25 percent said it’s “probably” or “definitely” false.

On the other hand, 81 percent of Kamala Harris voters said the claim is “definitely false.”

The former president, his running mate JD Vance and GOP allies like Ohio Representative Jim Jordan have repeatedly spread the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating residents’ pets.

The claim has been repeatedly debunked. Springfield’s city manager has confirmed there have been no credible, specific reports of pets being harmed. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, also called the untrue conspiracy theory “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”

More than half of Donald Trump voters say his debunked claim about Haitian migrants eating pets is “definitely” or “probably” true (AFP via Getty Images)

Despite this, Trump amplified the false claim during the presidential debate with Harris last week. When moderator David Muir fact-checked the claim live on-air, Trump still pushed it.

“ABC News did reach out to the city manager there,” Muir said during the debate. “He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

“Well, I’ve seen people on television. People on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food,’ so maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager,” Trump responded.

The White House has also condemned the false claims.

“I think it’s important that all of us take a step back here and just lean on the facts here,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday. “The Springfield, Ohio police department has debunked this very bizarre and very hateful smear that’s out there.”

The lies have sent shockwaves through Springfield. On Thursday, a bomb threat forced the evacuation of city hall and two schools.

Local officials said the threat explicitly “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”

On Monday, threats continued to pour in. As a result, two more schools in Springfield evacuated while two nearby college campuses moved classes online and canceled on-campus events.

The same YouGov poll showed that Trump voters also believed other debunked claims he has spread.

Some 28 percent of Trump voters say it’s “definitely” or “probably” true that public schools are providing students with sex-change operations, an untrue claim the former president made earlier this year.

Meanwhile, 75 percent of Trump voters say President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, an untrue claim the former president has peddled for nearly four years.

Global warming is more dangerous than terror or Putin, UK Foreign Secretary says

NIGERIA

Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu: A unique Yorùbá intellectual, cultural icon and elder statesman, By Tunji Olaopa

Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu is an exemplar for other intellectuals — a sum of cultural knowledge that broadens our cultural worldviews.

byTunji Olaopa
September 17, 2024

Baba Ladigbolu is phenomenal. He occupies the same circle of cultural preservationists that include Tunde Kelani the filmmaker and the Afenifere, the pan-Yorùbá cultural and political forum. However, Baba’s historical trajectory is one with a significant difference. And this is because he is a minister of God who is deeply ingrained in both his cultural environment as well as in Christianity. His career therefore enables a deep insight into the understanding of the conflicted relationship between culture and modernity, and how one could begin to unravel the significance of modernity within a culture’s own development.

The Yorùbá culture has always been blessed with the attention of intellectuals, scholars and academics who considered it a worthwhile subject of discourse. Without any doubt, the Yorùbá culture is one of the most studied cultural forms of life in the world. This is apart from the many scholars, cultural enthusiasts and intellectuals that the culture itself has produced, from Samuel Ajayi Crowther to Samuel Johnson, from Akinwunmi Isola to JA Atanda to Saburi Biobaku, and from Wole Soyinka to Wande Abimbola, Oyekan Owomoyela to Toyin Falola. But we must also not forget the cultural and indigenous intellectuals, like DO Fagunwa, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu and Adebayo Faleti, to name just a few, who’s very being and profession are invested in the culture itself. All these intellectuals are those who have laid the foundation for entrenching the influence and the national and global reach of the culture, as well as its hold on our collective imagination.

In this piece, I am glad to dedicate this critical analysis to Baba Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu who has been a cultural icon for me since way back. I have written so much about my wondering and wandering sensibility as a young boy growing up and reflecting about my context and surrounding. Yoruba culture and history have always held a deep source of curiosity for me, and Pa Ladigbolu is a phenomenal figure who constitutes a triadic embodiment of the theological, the cultural and the political, and one at that who influenced my scholarship indescribably. That places Baba within the crosshair of my search for cultural and theological enlightenment, especially about the Yorùbá culture’s engagement with non-Yorùbá influences. Indeed, in many of my intense political conversations with His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo around Nigerian politics and the place of the southwest within it, he had always been insistent that I must not miss the opportunity to sit at the feet of the Master, Archbishop Ladigbolu, since I have chosen to follow in the footstep of my grandfather and the celebrated historian of culture, Reverend David Aibinu Olaopa of blessed memory. This was an added impetus since I had already taken him as a father and a mentor.

Baba Ladigbolu is phenomenal. He occupies the same circle of cultural preservationists that include Tunde Kelani the filmmaker and the Afenifere, the pan-Yorùbá cultural and political forum. However, Baba’s historical trajectory is one with a significant difference. And this is because he is a minister of God who is deeply ingrained in both his cultural environment as well as in Christianity. His career therefore enables a deep insight into the understanding of the conflicted relationship between culture and modernity, and how one could begin to unravel the significance of modernity within a culture’s own development. Indeed, the cultural and professional trajectories of Baba Ladigbolu provides us with a fundamental framework for how an ecumenical framework could be generated between an indigenous culture and a foreign religion. Pa Ladigbolu achieved that almost seamless coherence that allowed him to become a priest of the Methodist Church of Nigeria (and to rise up to the zenith of its hierarchy as an archbishop) while retaining a very deep cultural mooring in the Yorùbá heritage.

We immediately see the significance of this fusion in an age when Pentecostal Christianity built its own incursion into a different culture on the basis of the demonization of those cultures as heathenism. Archbishop Ladigbolu deployed his contact with western education as the fulcrum for developing an open-minded cultural sensibility that allows for the mutual reinforcement between Christianity and the Yorùbá culture in terms of the emergence of a modern sensibility that enables a conversation between the two. When I think of Pa Ladigbolu, I see an older and more perfect reflection of how Ali Mazrui’s Africa’s triple heritage thesis could become an embodied lifestyle and philosophy. I have written so much about how my upbringing enabled me to see how the three dynamics — Christianity, traditional Yoruba religion and Islam — could relate in a non-violent manner. Baba Ladigbolu was raised as a Muslim within a deeply culturally conscious Yoruba context and he converted to Christianity while still advocating the preservation of the Yorùbá culture.

Being born within a household that traces its lineage to Alaafin Siyanbola Ladigbolu I, and growing up within an authentic palace comes with its own unique educational value in the paraphernalia of the Yoruba culture. One of the deepest implications was that even before encountering western education through his many travels and the experience they yielded, he had already assimilated an enlarged mind that accepted the theological ramifications of Islam, Yoruba theology and Christianity. His worldview was already wide enough and empathetic to accommodate his myriad experiences traveling from one place to another. We can speculate that his enlarged sensibility owes a lot to the openminded accommodationist framework that the Yorùbá culture itself makes possible. The Yorùbá culture was able to accommodate the incursion of Islam and Christianity because it lacks the exclusionary ontology of both.

I prefer to see Archbishop Ladigbolu as an exemplar of Antonio Gramsci’s understanding of who an intellectual is. Gramsci bifurcated between the “traditional” and the “organic” intellectuals. The traditional intellectuals — teachers, scientists, priests, artists — contrary to their claims to be the bearers of universal values, are actually those that emerged from within a privileged or even a dominant social class, and who are compelled by the dynamics of that class to reinforce its values and philosophies. The organic intellectuals, on the other hand, are more organically connected to the masses because they grew and emerged from within non-privileged strata, transformed their status through education especially, and imposed on themselves the obligation to raise the fortune of that strata. Intellectuals, Gramsci argues, are recognised by their need for the critical elaboration of a new understanding of the world. This is what determines the functions of the intellectuals in any society.

Indeed, I want to make a radical assertion that Pa Ladigbolu possesses the status of both a traditional and an organic intellectual. When he became a Christian and the entire household became convulsed with fear and tears, they had no way of understanding the contradiction in their worries. They were Yorùbá who embraced Islam. And so there should not have been any worries about one of them embracing Christianity. And if their worry had been about his possible loss of cultural knowledge, little did they know that he would become a cultural champion that he is today.

A much more fundamental challenge embedded in Pa Ladigbolu’s stature is the tension between absolutist theological ontology of Christianity and the accommodationist and liberal worldview of the Yorùbá. How was the archbishop of the Methodist Church in Nigeria able to balance the claim that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life with Christianity’s paganisation of non-Christian cultures? How is Christianity’s proselytising dynamics squared with the non-proselytising nature of Yorùbá traditional religion? One way to respond to this is to argue that Pa Ladigbolu’s cultural enthusiasm had to take a back seat while he was the Archbishop of the Methodist Church. And this cultural advocacy had picked up immediately he retired as the archbishop. Even if this explanation is far-fetched given his fearless determination to be Yorùbá at all cost, no one — not even the Church — could deny that Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu was a staunch Yorùbá who deeply loves God.

Combining two near incompatible theological views, in my assessment, becomes a courageous plus for Pa Ladigbolu, an insight into the capacity of the Yorùbá culture to keep inventing itself in the face of challenges. The Yorùbá understanding of àṣà demonstrates a flexible adaptability that has allowed the Yorùbá to not only domesticate non-Yorùbá influences, but to also fit into any cultural and theological contexts wherever they found themselves. This is what had made possible, for instance, the Candomblé and Santeria religious experiences from Brazil to Cuba and beyond. These religious forms emerged from the syncretic fusion of the Yorùbá òrìṣà tradition with Roman Catholicism. What is even more significant is that Candomblé, for example, lacks the same institutionalised framework determined by an orthodoxy and a sacred text. Its heterogeneous form allows for significant incorporation in the same way that Ifá incorporates non-Yorùbá events.

This is the same way that Baba Ladigbolu could be understood as a moderniser of the Yorùbá culture and tradition. Being the leader of the Yorùbá Unity Forum (YUF) as well as the chairman of the Oyo Metropolitan Development provide the opportunity to do two major things. First, it allows him to pursue a programme of creative urbanism, what the Yorùbá themselves are historically famous for — transforming Yorùbá cities in line with modern exigencies. And second, Baba’s advocacy also brings to the fore the roles of traditional structures and institutions in the development of modern existence.

For Baba, even as the best of modern scholars have realised, culture matters. It must be the platform around which our being-in-the-world is measured and extended to others. The full extent of his multicultural experiences has allowed him to both serve the Almighty, while pushing the bounds of theological and cultural similarities and differences. And so, in straddling Gramsci’s distinction between the traditional and the organic intellectual, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu becomes an exemplar for other intellectuals — a sum of cultural knowledge that broadens our cultural worldviews.

Tunji Olaopa, a professor of Public Administration, is chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.

Claiming Russia is Fighting NATO and Not Just Ukraine Helps Kremlin Keep Russians from Asking Inconvenient Questions about Russian Failures, Konyeva Says

Paul Goble

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

– The longer the war in Ukraine has gone on, the more the Kremlin and its propagandists have insisted that Russia is opposed there not by the Ukrainians alone but by the West and NATO, at least in part because that makes the failures of the Russian Army less disturbing to the Russian people, according to Yelena Konyeva.

That is because most Russians have long been accustomed to the idea that NATO is strong and serious opponent, the founder of the ExtremeScan agency that has monitored opinion in Russian regions bordering Ukraine says (svoboda.org/a/neobnulyaemyy-effekt-provala-sotsiolog-o-sobytiyah-v-prigranichje/33117882.html).

But few Russians are ready to accept that the Ukrainian military could hold its own or even advance against the Russian army; and were they to begin to do so, that would likely prompt the kind of questions about the state of Russian forces and the Russian leadership that no one in the Kremlin wants asked, Konyeva continues.

That is just one of the many important observations she offers in her latest interview with Radio Liberty. Among the others are the following:

· The Kremlin decided not to use the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk to mobilize the Russian people because it was obvious to the Russian leadership because its members feared the consequences.

· “For many residents of Kursk Oblast, the war began not in February 2022 but only now in August 2024” when Ukrainian forces entered their region.

· The shock many Kursk residents felt about the Ukrainian incurious passed quickly because there have not been any signs of repression by Ukrainian forces. Instead, Ukrainian military personnel have distributed water and medicines to the Kursk population.

· The situation has been further calmed by the disappearance of official Russian structures and their replacement by volunteer organizations who work with the Ukrainians.

· Russian attitudes toward other countries is entirely the product of Moscow propaganda rather than any personal experience.

· But Russians are increasingly concerned about the war and that is having an impact on their attitudes toward Putin and his regime.

Bushfires in northern New Caledonia, forests destroyed

Patrick Decloitre, Correspondent French Pacific Desk

Bushfire risk high in New Caledonia . Photo: Association des Sapeurs Pompiers du SIVM Nord

New Caledonia is gripped by a series of bushfires, especially the north-western tip of the main island of Grande Terre, with local firefighters strongly suspicious of criminal motives.

Since early September, local firefighters have been trying to contain several bushfires in the northern region, especially near the small towns of Koumac, Pouembout and Kaala-Gomen, in the Northern Province.

On Tuesday, local government President Louis Mapou declared a level 2 emergency situation on the communes of Koumac and Kaala-Gomen, where fire and emergency services (mostly volunteer) teams were still struggling to extinguish several blazes.

At least one house was reported to have been destroyed, and over one thousand hectares of forests and bushes had already gone up in flames, along the main provincial road RT1.

The road has had to be closed on several occasions, local media reported.

New Caledonian fire-fighters on site in Pouembout, extreme north-west of the main island of Grande Terre, on 7 September 2024. Photo: NC la 1ere
'Not natural origin'

The volunteers have also received backup from the local civil security services.

Warrant officer Kevin Leclerc, who heads the local firefighting services, told local radio RRB that he no longer believes those fires are of "natural origin".

"We must stop believing that it is of natural origin. These fires have been set alight," he said.

"We do not really understand what game the arsonist is playing, but he sure does a lot of damage.

"And only with everyone's vigilance will we perhaps stop this. Because we are really in the risky period of the year, plus the weather, this really means we cannot play with fire at the moment."

But Civil Security director Frédéric Marchi-Leccia had a less definitive approach, recalling that winds, scorching and dry weather remained a contributing factor to fan the fires.

"What is true is that most of those fires are of human origin, voluntary or not," he told RRB earlier this month.

Bushfire in Kaala-Gomen along the territorial road RP1 on 17 September 2024. Photo: Supplied

He said he did not know whether there is a link with the insurrectional situation with arson and looting, especially in the capital Nouméa.

But he feared that as a consequence of the current unrest, with firemen often called for urban fires, the civil security services could become over-stretched and "overwhelmed".

This year again, he has called for reinforcements.

Some firefighting units have arrived over the past four months, but because of the unrest, they are more specialised in urban, building fires.

"So it's not the same as bushfires," he pointed out.

"Our firemen, civil security and communal ones, volunteers, they are very brave, they are resilient, but they are tired, and this makes me fear the risk of human accident.

"Our means are not stretchable forever. So at one stage, things could get out of control. And then the situation could turn catastrophic."

Earlier this month, several other fires had already prompted another intervention from local firefighters, who managed to extinguish the blaze, but some 40 hectares of bushes had already been destroyed.

Last weekend, there was another wave of fires that had to be extinguished in nearby Poum.

Altogether, emergency services have listed over fifteen towns and villages in the region as "very high risk" zones.

During the previous season, which ended in March 2024 and was also marked by thousands of hectares of vegetation going up in flames, New Caledonia had to request reinforcement from mainland France firefighters.

Several individuals have been charged with arson for last season's fires.

The seasonal trade winds are also not helping, as New Caledonia's north has entered its driest season of the year a few weeks ago, and August has been recorded this year as one of the hottest in decades.

But just like last season, firemen have sometimes witnessed scenes where, on several occasions, not long after they had just extinguished a fire, it was re-ignited at the same location or nearby.

Israel-Middle East conflict: A history of inventive assassination methods

Reuters
17 Sep, 2024

Israel has a long history of inventive, unusual assassination methods, and reports that at least nine people may have been killed by exploding pagers could be its latest grim chapter.

As of Tuesday night, Israel had not claimed responsibility for the attack – but it bears many of the hallmarks of its special forces units, such as Mossad.

Formed in 1949, the year after the birth of the state of Israel, Mossad has been linked to many of Israel’s most daring killings.

Mossad was suspected of deploying a remote-controlled machinegun to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Over seven decades, it is thought to have relied on exploding books, remote-controlled machineguns and even poisoned toothpaste to reach its targets, with mixed results.

In 2012, a documentary claimed that a failed 1970s Israeli assassination plot against Saddam Hussein involved a book rigged with explosives.

The documentary, Sealed Lips, recounted how the notoriously paranoid Saddam refused to open the book himself, instead passing it to one of his officials.

As soon as the official opened the book, it exploded, killing the official but failing to injure the Iraqi dictator.

Then there was the mysterious case of the poisoned toothpaste, allegedly deployed to kill Wadie Haddad, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to the 2018 book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman, a New York Times journalist, a deep-cover Mossad hit squad was involved.

An ambulance takes some of the injured to hospital after the explosion of the wireless communication devices, known as pagers, in Beirut, on September 17, 2024.

In 1978, the group gained access to Haddad’s home and swapped his toothpaste for an identical tube containing a toxin developed by Israeli scientists.

The poison was said to have seeped into his mouth through his mucous membranes each time he cleaned his teeth, leading to him being taken to hospital in Iraq.

The Palestinian commander was eventually treated in East Germany, where doctors found the suspicious toothpaste in his toiletries bag.

His death was reportedly slow and painful, with his screams heard from corridors in the hospital, where he died after 10 days.

Mossad was suspected of deploying a remote-controlled machinegun to assassinate Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s nuclear programme, in 2020.

The gun was said to have been smuggled into the country piece by piece, assembled and then placed to ambush the scientist as he travelled near Tehran.

Bergman’s book also contains a detailed account of a January 2010 assassination in Dubai, where Mossad agents descended on a hotel to target Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas arms supplier.

The hit squad flew into the Emirati city from various European locations on false passports, posing as tennis players. They then killed Mabhouh using a paralysing drug, leaving his body to be discovered by hotel staff.

Bergman himself points out that many other attempted assassinations did not succeed, and were even botched, but they only spread Mossad’s notoriety around the world.

“Occasional blunders have only enhanced the Mossad’s aggressive and merciless reputation,” he writes. “Not a bad thing when the goal of deterrence is as important as the goal of pre-empting specific hostile acts.”

Israel has a long history of pulling off complex attacks like the exploding pagers

Thousands of pagers used members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people and wounding several thousand, officials said

Via AP news wire

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were quick to blame Israel for the nearly simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pagers used by the militant group's members in an attack Tuesday that killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 3,000 others, according to officials.

Many of those hit were members of militant group Hezbollah, but it wasn't immediately clear if others also carried the pagers. Among those killed were the son of a prominent Hezbollah politician and an 8-year-old girl, according to Lebanon's health minister.

The attack came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among those injured by the pager explosions.

Israel rarely takes responsibility for such attacks, and its military declined to comment Tuesday. However, the country has a long history of carrying out sophisticated remote operations, ranging from intricate cyberattacks to remote-controlled machine guns targeting leaders in drive-by shootings, suicide drone attacks, and the detonation of explosions in secretive underground Iranian nuclear facilities.

Here is a look at previous operations that have been attributed to Israel:

July 2024

Two major militant leaders in Beirut and Tehran were killed in deadly strikes within hours of each other. Hamas said Israel was behind the assassination of its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran’s capital. Although Israel didn't acknowledge playing a role in that attack, it did claim responsibility for a deadly strike hours earlier on Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

July 2024

Israel targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander, Mohammed Deif, in a massive strike in the crowded southern Gaza Strip. The strike killed at least 90 people, including children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said in August that Deif was killed in the attack, though Hamas previously claimed he survived.

April 2024

Two Iranian generals were killed in what Iran said was an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. The deaths led Iran to launch an unprecedented attack on Israel that involved about 300 missiles and drones, most of which were intercepted.

January 2024

An Israeli drone strike in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official in exile, as Israeli troops fight the militant group in Gaza.

December 2023

Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, was killed in a drone attack outside of Damascus. Iran blamed Israel.

2021

An underground nuclear facility in central Iran was hit with explosions and a devastating cyberattack that caused rolling blackouts. Iran accused Israel of carrying out the attack as well as several others against Iranian nuclear facilities using explosive drones in the ensuing years.

2020

In one of the most prominent assassinations targeting Iran's nuclear program, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. Iran blamed Israel.

2019

An Israeli airstrike hit the home of Bahaa Abu el-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, killing him and his wife.

2012

Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’ armed wing, was killed when an airstrike targets his car. His death sparked an eight-day war between Hamas and Israel.

2010

The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010, disrupted and destroyed Iranian nuclear centrifuges. It was widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation.

2010

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas operative, was killed in a Dubai hotel room in an operation attributed to the Mossad spy agency but never acknowledged by Israel. Many of the 26 supposed assassins were caught on camera disguised as tourists.

2008

Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Damascus. Mughniyeh was accused of engineering suicide bombings during Lebanon’s civil war and of planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. Hezbollah blamed his killing on Israel. His son Jihad Mughniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in 2015.

2004

Hamas' spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike while being pushed in his wheelchair. Yassin, who was paralyzed in a childhood accident, was among the founders of Hamas in 1987. His successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike less than a month later.

2002

Hamas’s second-highest military leader, Salah Shehadeh, was killed by a one-ton bomb dropped on an apartment building in Gaza City.

1997

Mossad agents tried to kill the head of Hamas at the time, Khaled Mashaal, in Amman, Jordan. Two agents entered Jordan using fake Canadian passports and poison Mashaal by placing a device near his ear. They were captured shortly afterward and Jordan’s king threatened to void a still-fresh peace accord if Mashaal died. Israel ultimately dispatched an antidote, and the Israeli agents were returned home. Mashaal remains a senior figure in Hamas.

1996

Yahya Ayyash, nicknamed the “engineer” for his mastery in building bombs for Hamas, was killed by answering a rigged phone in Gaza. His assassination triggered a series of deadly bus bombings in Israel.

1995

Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shikaki was shot in the head in Malta in an assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

1988

Palestine Liberation Organization military chief Khalil al-Wazir was killed in Tunisia. Better known as Abu Jihad, he had been PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s deputy. In 2012, military censors allowed an Israeli paper to reveal details of the Israeli raid for the first time.

1973

Israeli commandos shot a number of PLO leaders in their apartments in Beirut, in a nighttime raid led by Ehud Barak, who later became Israel’s top army commander and prime minister. The operation was part of a string of Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders that were carried out in retaliation for the killings of 11 Israeli coaches and athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Lebanese girl becomes most notable victim of pager blasts

10-year-old Fatima Jaafar Abdullah was killed in pager explosions in Lebanon

Anadolu staff |18.09.2024 -

Ambulances are being dispatched to the area in Beirut, Lebanon while security forces take precautions after at least eight people, including a child, were killed in a mass explosion of wireless communication devices known as pagers on September 17, 2024.

BEIRUT

Lebanese social media users extensively shared the name and images of Fatima Jaafar Abdullah on Tuesday, making her the most notable victim of wireless pager explosions that rocked the country.

Fatima, 10, was killed when a pager device exploded near her at her family's home in the town of Saraain in Lebanon's Bekaa region, according to an Anadolu reporter.

At least nine people, including a child, were killed in a mass explosion of the devices in areas across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firas Al-Abiad.

He said that around 2,750 people were also injured, including 200 in critical condition.

Lebanese media suggested that the devices exploded after an Israeli breach of the communication system.

Both Hezbollah and the health minister confirmed the death of a girl in their respective statements and press conference without mentioning her name or further details.

Among the nine confirmed fatalities, only Fatima and Mohammad Mahdi Ammar, the son of Ali Ammar, a member of Hezbollah's Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc, have been identified.

There is currently no information on whether any children are among the injured.

Hezbollah confirmed that at least two members were killed and many injured in the mass explosion and held Israel fully responsible for the incident, vowing “just retaliation from unexpected quarters.

Israel has remained mum, with the Prime Minister's Office distancing itself from a now-deleted social media post by Netanyahu's former top aide and spokesperson Topaz Luk, which hinted at Israeli responsibility for the attacks.

The mass explosions came amid an exchange of cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel against the backdrop of a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,200 people, mostly women and children, following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio

PAPER TIGER

US downplays ability to prevent escalation after Lebanon pager explosions

Biden administration faces continued calls to do more to pressure top ally Israel to prevent wider regional conflict.

A person is carried on a stretcher outside the American University of Beirut Medical Center amid the pager explosions across Lebanon on September 17

[Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 17 Sep 2024

Washington, DC – The United States has said it does not want to see further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah after the Lebanese armed group blamed Israel for a series of deadly, coordinated handheld pager blasts.

But the administration of US President Joe Biden, which remains Israel’s top military and diplomatic backer, on Tuesday also sought to downplay its ability to tamper tensions between the pair.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was not involved in the apparent attack and was not given prior notification that it would occur.

“I will say that our overall policy remains consistent, which is, we do want to see a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,” Miller said. “We are always concerned about any type of event that may cause further escalation.”

But when pushed on whether the Biden administration’s influence – the US provides Israel with $3.8bn in military aid annually as well as staunch diplomatic support – could be used to prevent a wider war, Miller said that was “not just a question for the United States”.

“Of course, it’s a first … order question to Israel. It’s a question to Hezbollah, but is a question to all of the other countries in the region about what type of region they want to live in,” he said.

Exploding pagers injure thousands in Lebanon in attack targeting Hezbollah

Miller’s remarks come as rights advocates have urged the Biden administration to apply pressure on Israel to end its war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since early October and decimated the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Analysts have repeatedly accused Washington of acting as both an “arsonist and firefighter” by continually refusing to leverage US military aid to its “ironclad” ally despite the risks that a prolonged Gaza war could lead to a wider regional escalation.

Hezbollah, which has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began, blamed Israel for Tuesday’s pager blasts and pledged that it would get its “fair punishment”.

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the explosions.

The Lebanese health minister said at least nine people were killed, including an eight-year-old girl, when the pagers exploded across Lebanon. About 2,750 people also were injured, including 200 in critical condition.

Asked about the apparently indiscriminate nature of the explosions, Miller at the US State Department declined to comment directly on what happened.

However, he said that, broadly speaking, the US position is that “no country, no organisation should be targeting civilians

‘Mud in their face’

The explosions took place as the Biden administration continues to say it is pushing to broker a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian faction that governs the territory.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was travelling to the Middle East for the latest meeting with mediators.

“President Biden doesn’t have a whole lot of time, the US election is less than 60 days away,” Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reported from Washington, DC.

“So if [the Lebanon explosions] are something that Israel is in fact responsible for, this is certainly discouraging to the United States.”

The deadly blasts also came less than a day after White House adviser Amos Hochstein met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for de-escalation along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Following the meeting, Netanyahu’s office released a defiant statement saying Israelis would not be able to return to evacuated areas along the Lebanon border “without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north”.

Ramy Khoury, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, called the Israeli response to the US appeal “par for the course”.

“The Israelis routinely not only neglect what the Americans tell them, but throw mud in their face,” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

“The Americans have very limited capabilities in terms of their diplomatic action. They’ve focused more on military support for Israel and sanctions against Israel’s foes.”

Khoury added that US “diplomatic efforts are not taken very seriously by most people in the region” due to the country’s unconditional support for Israel.

“The US should be a huge diplomatic actor,” he said. “But it is clearly on the side of Israel and everything it does has to fit into the priorities of Israel.”
Source: Al Jazeera

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