World
Hezbollah chief warns Lebanon could be ‘exposed’ to more Israeli attacks
Nasrallah again pledges retaliation for killing of Hamas deputy chief al-Arouri, says Hezbollah ‘cannot be silent’.
The head of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has said that all of Lebanon will be exposed if the group does not react to the assassination of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut this week.
Speaking in a televised address for the second time in less than a week, Hassan Nasrallah reaffirmed that Hezbollah “cannot be silent about a violation of this level”.
“This means that all of Lebanon will become exposed, all cities, villages, and figures will become exposed,” he said.
“The murder of al-Arouri … will certainly not go without reaction and punishment.”
Al-Arouri was killed in an alleged Israeli attack on a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Nasrallah’s comments come as Lebanon filed a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over the assassination of al-Arouri, calling it the “most dangerous phase” of Israeli attacks on the country.
The complaint said Israel used six missiles in the attack that killed al-Arouri and added that Israel uses Lebanese airspace to bomb Syria, the Reuters news agency said, citing the document dated January 4.
This is not the first time that Nasrallah promised retaliation. He had on Wednesday warned Israel against expanding its war, saying there would be “no ceilings” and “no rules” to his group’s fighting if Israel chose to launch a war on Lebanon.
“Whoever thinks of war with us – in one word, he will regret it,” Nasrallah said.
‘670 military operations’
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Beirut, said Nasrallah reiterated a promise to retaliate.
Nasrallah said al-Arouri’s killing “will not go unanswered or unpunished”, and that Hezbollah fighters will use the “right place and the right time, and the field will respond”, Khan said.
Nasrallah also said “We have full knowledge of where Israeli military positions are,” and the Israelis “aren’t revealing the true number of their casualties, and the destruction of their equipment”, our correspondent added.
In his remarks, the Hezbollah leader said Lebanon’s southern border with Israel was a “key part” of the war, and that the group’s current operations along the border opened a “historic opportunity” for Lebanon to liberate its land occupied by Israel.
He added that the Islamic resistance in Iraq also has a “historic opportunity” to get rid of the United States presence in that country.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah fighters had conducted approximately 670 military operations on the Lebanon-Israel border, adding that the group destroyed a “large number of Israeli vehicles and tanks”.
He also said if the Israeli military managed to achieve its military goals in Gaza, it would then turn to Lebanon.
Since October 8 – a day after Israel launched its war on the Gaza Strip – continuing clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Lebanese civilians and more than 140 Hezbollah members.
Israel and armed groups in southern Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah, have engaged in frequent back-and-forth exchanges across the United Nations-patrolled border.
Germany has temporarily closed its embassy in South Sudan’s capital Juba because of rising tensions that have brought the East African country to the verge of civil war, the German foreign ministry said on Saturday.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir this week sacked the governor of Upper Nile state, where clashes have escalated between government troops and an ethnic militia he accuses of allying with his rival, First Vice President Riek Machar.
EU DENIES INTENT TO DELAY SOUTH SUDAN ELECTIONS
The standoff has heightened concerns that the world’s newest nation could slide back into conflict some seven years after its emergence from a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit prepares for a group photo during the opening of the 38th Ordinary Session of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the African Union Commission (AUC) headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 15, 2025. (Reuters/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo)
“After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is once again on the brink of civil war,” the German foreign ministry wrote on x.
“President Kiir and Vice President Machar are plunging the country into a spiral of violence. It’s their responsibility to end this senseless violence & finally implement the peace agreement.”
South Sudan’s United Nations peacekeeping chief, Nicholas Haysom, has also said he is concerned the country is “on the brink of relapse into civil war”.
The removal of the bounty comes days after Afghan group releases US citizen.
The United States has lifted a $10m reward for information leading to the arrest of a major Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs spokesperson says.
Despite the announcement on Saturday, the FBI still lists the reward on its website, saying Haqqani was “believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan”.
The move comes after the Taliban on Thursday released a US citizen who had been kept in captivity for two years.
The release of George Glezmann, who was abducted while travelling as a tourist in Afghanistan in December 2022, marks the third time a US detainee has been freed by the Taliban since January.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Glezmann’s release represented a “positive and constructive step”. He also thanked Qatar for its “instrumental” role in securing the release.
The Taliban has previously described the release of US detainees as part of its global “normalisation” effort.
The group remains an international pariah since its lightning takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. No country has officially recognised the Taliban government although several countries continue to operate diplomatic facilities in the country.
The Taliban takeover came as former US President Joe Biden’s administration oversaw a withdrawal outlined by the first administration of President Donald Trump.
The US president had negotiated with the Taliban in 2020 to end the war in Afghanistan, and he agreed to a 14-month deadline to withdraw US troops and allied forces.
The agreement was contentious for leaving out the Western-backed Afghan government, which was toppled during the chaotic US exit from the country in 2021.
Haqqani, the son of a famed commander from the war against the Soviets, was head of the powerful Haqqani Network, a US-designated “terror group” long viewed as one of the most dangerous armed groups in Afghanistan.
It is infamous for its use of suicide bombers and is believed to have orchestrated some of the most high-profile attacks in Kabul over the years.
The network is also accused of assassinating top Afghan officials and holding kidnapped Western citizens for ransom, including US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, released in 2014.
Haqqani had continued to be on the US radar even after the Taliban takeover. In 2022, a US drone strike in Kabul killed then-al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The house in which al-Zawahiri was killed was a home for Haqqani, according to US officials.
Throngs of passengers anxious to get on their way surged into Heathrow Airport in London on Saturday, a day after a power blackout closed the airport and forced thousands to delay their trips.
As information boards flickered back to life, an army of extra airport staff members, dressed in purple, sprang into action to help people as they walked through the terminal doors.
Ganesh Suresh, a 25-year-old student who was trying to get home to Bangalore, India, was among those who secured a coveted seat on a Saturday flight. After his Air India flight was canceled, his parents booked new tickets on Virgin Atlantic, while he spent the night at a friend’s place in Birmingham, England.
“I was so eager to get back,” Mr. Suresh said. He sheepishly admitted to yelling at his parents in frustration during the height of the shutdown chaos. “I might apologize to them when I get back.”
Travelers, diverted or rebooked, arrived early, with trains and other transport routes to the airport reopened. A day earlier, the airport’s roads were empty except for police cars.
A Heathrow representative said on Saturday that the airport was “open and fully operational,” adding that the extra flights on the day’s schedule could accommodate 10,000 extra passengers. At the airport, information boards showed that most flights would leave on time, but the snaking lines at ticketing counters signaled that many travelers were in for more frustrating delays.
More than a thousand flights were diverted on Friday, wreaking havoc on more than a quarter of a million people’s travel plans, Cirium, an aviation data company, estimated.
Some travelers chose not to wait for a flight out of Heathrow. Denyse Kumbuka had lingered in the dimmed Terminal 2 for as long as she could on Friday, spending hours on a bench trying to find her way back home to Dallas.
Then her husband found a seat for her on a flight via Austria. She navigated the London Underground rail system to St. Pancras International train station and got a train to Paris. After spending the night on another bench at Charles de Gaulle Airport, she took an early flight to Vienna, then connected to Dallas on Saturday morning.
“I feel like the mom in ‘Home Alone,’” she said in a text message, referencing the exhausting journey depicted in the 1990 film.
A Heathrow representative said significant delays were expected in the coming days as airlines tried to return their planes to their usual schedules.
Mars Gonzalez, 32, and Olivia Hawthorne, 24, were stuck in the lingering aftermath. They were only meant to transfer at Heathrow on Saturday on a trip from Barcelona to Dallas, with another stop at Kennedy Airport in New York. Instead, they found themselves wandering out of the arrivals gate at Terminal 5 for an unplanned stay in London.
When news of the fire broke, Ms. Gonzalez said she called American Airlines, who assured her that the flight, operated by British Airways, would take off on Saturday as scheduled. But when they got to Heathrow, delays stretched from hours to days, with the next available flight on Tuesday.
“We spoke to like six different people who were just redirecting us to other people,” said Ms. Hawthorne.
For Stephen Delong, 74, and Lesley Scott, 73, the long line at the ticketing office turned out to be the smoothest part of their redirected travel.
“You have to come here; you have to talk to someone,” Mr. Delong said. “The online service just doesn’t work.”
The couple had just learned that in place of their original direct flight from London to Halifax, Air Canada would be rerouting them via Toronto, adding more than 15 hours to their travel time thanks to a long layover. And they would have to spend another night in London because flights on Saturday were all booked. The shutdown had already caused them to miss their grandson’s eighth birthday on Friday.
“You can’t get angry about it,” Mr. Delong said. “It would feel different if somebody blew up the generator.”
The police were still investigating what had caused the fire at the substation in western London that cut power to Heathrow.
John Yoon contributed reporting.
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