Syrian radar site destroyed as Israel hits back after Iran launches rocket attack

Agencies
May 10, 2018

Jerusalem/Beirut, May 10: Iranian forces in Syria launched a rocket attack on Israeli army bases in the Golan Heights early on Thursday, Israel said, prompting one of the heaviest Israeli barrages in Syria since the conflict there began in 2011.The attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, just past midnight, marked the first time Iranian forces have hit Israel from Syria, where they have deployed along with Iran-backed Shia militias and Russian troops to support President Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year-old civil war.

A wider escalation in wait

Syrian state media said dozens of Israeli missile strikes hit a radar station, Syrian air defence positions and an ammunition dump, underscoring the risks of a wider escalation involving Iran and its regional allies.

Israel said the Iranian salvo of 20 Grad and Fajr rockets were shot down by its Iron Dome air defence system or fell short of the Golan targets. The Quds Force, an external arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, carried out the launch, Israel said.

“It was commanded and ordered by [Quds Force chief General] Qassem Soleimani and its has not achieved its purpose,” military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

Israel struck back by destroying dozens of Iranian military sites in Syria,Lieutenant-Colonel Conricus said, as well as Syrian anti-aircraft units that tried unsuccessfully to shoot down Israeli planes.

“We do not know yet the [Iranian] casualty count,” he said.

“But I can say that in terms of our purpose, we focussed less on personnel and more on capabilities and hardware ... to inflict long-term damage on the Iranian military establishment in Syria. We assess it will take substantial time to replenish.”

Russia concerned

Tensions between Israel and Iran had already spilled over in Syria, worrying Russia, which want to stabilise Mr. Assad’s rule.

Iran vowed retaliation after a suspected Israeli air strike last month killed seven of its military personnel in a Syrian air base. Israel regards Iran as its biggest threat, and has repeatedly targeted Iranian forces and allied militia in Syria.

Thursday’s flare-up came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a visit to Moscow, where he discussed Syria concerns with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lieutenant-Colonel Conricus said Israel forewarned Russia of its strikes on Thursday, which Syrian state media first reported hit Baath City in Quneitra, near the border. Further waves of missiles followed. Syrian state media said Israeli missiles had been brought down over Damascus, Homs and Sueida.

Barrage of Israeli rockets

“Air defences confronted tens of Israeli rockets and some of them reached their target and destroyed one of the radar sites,” Syrian state news agency SANA reported, citing a military source. Another rocket hit an ammunition warehouse, it said.

Asked whether Israel had attacked near Damascus or scrambled communications there, an Israeli military spokeswoman said: “I have no comment on that at this time.”

Syrian state television was broadcasting footage of its air defences firing, and playing patriotic songs. Damascus residents described explosions in the sky from air defence systems.

Israeli media said residents of Metulla, on the Lebanese border, had been instructed to go to bomb shelters. There was no official confirmation.

Lebanon’s National News Agency, citing Lebanese Army Command, reported Israeli jets circling over Lebanese territory early on Thursday before exiting.

Lebanese-Syrian front against Israel?

Fearing that Iran and Hezbollah are setting up a Lebanese-Syrian front against it, Israel has occasionally struck at their forces. The April 9 air strike that Iran blamed on Israel killed seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Expectations of a regional flare-up were stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal. Hours later, Israeli rocket rockets targeted a military base in Kisweh, a commander in the pro-Syrian government regional alliance said.

That attack killed 15 people, including eight Iranians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, though the commander said there were no casualties. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

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News Network
June 22,2020

New Delhi, Jun 22: With an increase of 14,821 new cases and 445 deaths, India's COVID-19 count reached 4,25,282 on Monday.

According to the latest update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), 13,699 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far in the country.

The rise in confirmed cases today is lower than the highest spike of 15 thousand plus cases registered on Sunday.

The count includes 1,74,387 active cases, and 2,37,196 cured/discharged/migrated patients.

Maharashtra with 1,32,075 confirmed cases remains the worst-affected by the infection so far in the country. The state's count includes 60,161 active, 65,744 cured, discharged patients while 6,170 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far.

Meanwhile, the national capital today became the second-worst affected region in the country with the number of confirmed cases in Delhi reaching 59,746 as opposed to Tamil Nadu's 59,377 cases.

While 2,175 deaths have been reported in Delhi due to the infection so far, the toll in Tamil Nadu stands at 757.

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News Network
February 19,2020

Beijing, Feb 19: The death count from China's new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 2,000 on Wednesday after 132 more people died in Hubei province, the hard-hit epicentre of the outbreak.

In its daily update, the province's health commission also reported 1,693 new cases of people infected with the virus.

This brings the total number of cases in mainland China past 74,000.

Most of the cases are in Hubei, where the virus first emerged in December before spiralling into a nationwide epidemic.

Wednesday's jump in the death count was an increase on Tuesday's figures, although the number of new cases reported in Hubei were the lowest for a week.

A study released by Chinese officials claimed most patients have mild cases of the illness.

Outside of hardest-hit Hubei, which has been effectively locked down to try to contain the virus, the number of new cases has been slowing and China's national health authority has said this is a sign the outbreak is under control.

President Xi Jinping, in a phone call with the British prime minister, said China's measures were achieving "visible progress", according to state media Tuesday.

However, the World Health Organization has cautioned that it was too early to tell if the decline would continue.

On Tuesday the director of a hospital in the central Hubei city of Wuhan became the seventh medical worker to succumb to the COVID-19 illness.

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News Network
March 12,2020

New Delhi, Mar 12: The Supreme Court told the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday that as of now, there was no law that could back their action of putting up roadside posters of those accused of vandalism during anti-CAA protests in Lucknow.

An apex court bench refused to stay the March 9 Allahabad High Court order directing the Yogi Adityanath administration to remove the posters.

The top court, which grilled the Uttar Pradesh government for putting up such posters in public, described the plea as a matter that needed "further elaboration and consideration".

A vacation bench of justices U U Lalit and Aniruddha Bose said a "bench of sufficient strength" would consider next week the Uttar Pradesh government's appeal against the Allahabad High Court order directing the state administration to remove the posters of those accused of vandalism during anti-CAA protests.

It directed the apex court registry to put up the case file before Chief Justice of India (CJI) S A Bobde so that a "bench of sufficient strength can be constituted at the earliest to hear and consider" the case next week.

During the hearing, the bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, that it was a matter of "great importance".

It asked Mehta whether the state government had the power to put up such posters.

The top court, however, said there was no doubt that action should be taken against rioters and they should be punished.

Mehta told the court that the posters were put up as a "deterrent" and the hoardings only said that these persons were liable to pay for their alleged acts during the violence.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for former IPS officer S R Darapuri whose poster has also been affixed in Lucknow, told the bench that the state was duty-bound to show the authority of law backing its action.

He said the action of the Uttar Pradesh government amounted to a "mega blanket" approach of naming and shaming these persons without final adjudication and it was an open invitation to common men to lynch them as the posters also had their addresses and photographs.

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