The Houthi movement was established in Yemen in the early 1990s on a foundation of the country’s Zaydi Shi’ite Muslims, who make up about 30% of the population. In 2004, the movement rebelled against the centralist government on the grounds that it had become too closely identified with the United States and Israel.

By 2009 six rounds of fighting between the parties had taken place, at the end of which the Houthis established an autonomous region in north Yemen. They increased their power and areas of control, and in 2015 deposed the incumbent president. That led to the establishment of a coalition of Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose goal was to defeat them and restore the previous regime. In response, the Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia and the UAE using advanced weapons provided by Iran, which has supported them over the years and included them in the “axis of resistance.”

On September 21, 2023, the Houthi authorities held a military display in the city of Sana’a to mark the ninth anniversary of their occupation of the city. Weapons from Iran were displayed for the first time, including a surface-to-surface Iranian Toofan missile, which has a range of 1,350-1,950 kilometers, or about 850 to 1,200 miles and can reach Israeli territory (the distance between north Yemen and the south of Israel is about 1,600 kilometers, or about 1,000 miles).

The display also featured new shore-to-sea missiles capable of hitting vessels in the Red Sea and near the coast of Yemen, among them Tankil missiles, which have an estimated range of 500 kilometers, or about 300 miles, and Quds Z-0s, which are cruise missiles capable of hitting targets both on land and at sea.

The new weapons joined the extensive arsenal the Houthi movement has accumulated with the massive aid it receives from Iran. It includes surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, shore-to-sea missiles and UAVs of various types with ranges of from tens of kilometers to 2,500 kilometers, or more than 1,550 miles. The arsenal constitutes a threat to various Israeli targets both in the shipping lanes adjacent to Yemen and in Israeli territory.

The information office of the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah) published a poster in Hebrew and Arabic threatening to attack Dimona (Israel's nuclear site) with the caption “We will not hesitate” (Twitter account of Iran in al-Arabia, October 31, 2023

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday published a large data set with information on its operations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon, from the number of terror operatives killed to the number of sites struck, as the country marked 100 days of war against Palestinian terror group Hamas.

According to the data, more than 9,000 Hamas operatives and members of other terror groups have been killed by the IDF in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7, when gunmen rampaged through southern communities massacring some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting over 240 to Gaza.

The Hamas-run health ministry has said over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, though the figure cannot be independently verified and is believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires.

The IDF’s data said the military has killed two Hamas brigade commanders as well as 19 battalion commanders and other senior officials with an equivalent rank. More than 50 Hamas company commanders and operatives with a similar rank have also been killed, according to the data.

In Lebanon, the IDF said it has killed more than 170 terror operatives, mostly members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Some 30,000 targets have been struck in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, including more than 3,400 that were discovered as Hamas sites during the fighting. In Lebanon, some 750 Hezbollah positions have been hit, according to the IDF’s data.

Since the beginning of the war, some 9,000 projectiles fired from Gaza crossed the border into Israel, alongside 2,000 from Lebanon, and around 30 from Syria. These figures do not include rockets — said by Israel to be at least in the hundreds — launched by Gazan terror groups that misfired and landed in the Strip.

The IDF said the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 has interrogated some 2,300 Palestinian suspects in the Gaza Strip, some of whom were arrested and brought to Israel for further questioning.

A total of 7,653 trucks ferrying humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip have been inspected by Israeli authorities at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom crossings. The IDF said the trucks have carried a total of 137,920 tons of aid.

The IDF has also made 79,000 phone calls, dropped 7.2 million leaflets, and sent 13.7 million texts and 15 million recorded calls to Palestinians in Gaza with evacuation warnings.

Since October 7, in the West Bank, the IDF said troops have arrested more than 2,650 wanted Palestinians, including more than 1,300 affiliated with Hamas. It said 40 brigade-level raids have been carried out, and 14 homes of Palestinians accused of terrorism have been demolished.

According to the IDF’s data, a total of 295,000 reservists have been called up since the beginning of the war. Of them, around 45,000 are serving despite receiving an exemption from reserve duty.

The IDF said the nearly 300,000 reservists have been on duty for an average of 61 days.

Men make up 81 percent of the reservists, with the other 19% women. 115,000 of the reservists are fathers, and some 3,000 are mothers. Half of the reservists are between the ages of 20-29, with 31% being between the ages of 30-39. Another 13% are aged 40-49, 5% aged 50-59, and 1% aged 60-69.

A total of 522 soldiers, reservists and local security officers have been killed and another 2,536 have been wounded since October 7. Of them, 188 were killed and 1,113 were wounded during the ground offensive in Gaza, the latest being Sgt. First Class (res.) Andu’alem Kabeda, 21, who was killed fighting in the southern part of the enclave Saturday.

Kabeda was from the southern town of Kiryat Gat and served in the Combat Engineering Corps’ 603rd Battalion.

The IDF also listed 19 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza, and another 36 by accidents during the war, including car crashes and military-related incidents.

Shin Bet said to urge PM to buck far-right in order to prevent West Bank flareup
13 January 2024, 6:19 am

The Shin Bet has submitted a document warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urgently act in order to prevent an imminent flareup in the West Bank, according to an Israeli television report Friday.

For months, the security establishment has urged Netanyahu to reverse the cabinet decisions taken after October 7 to withhold hundreds of millions in tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and prevent the return of some 150,000 Palestinians from work inside Israel and the settlements.

The former decision was taken as part of an effort by Israel to disconnect from Gaza, given that some of the tax revenues are used to pay services and employees in the Strip. The latter decision was taken as a security precaution following the Gaza-ruling Hamas’s terror onslaught, in which some 1,200 Israelis were brutally killed and roughly 240 were taken hostage.

The security establishment has warned that the policies risk collapsing an already cash-strapped PA, which would leave Israel responsible for providing services to millions of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The PA has been unable to pay its employees, including members of its security services in full for months, and the Shin Bet document reported by Channel 13 warns that this could lead to PA troops turning their weapons on Israeli forces after decades of cooperation that the IDF has credited for curbing terror and maintaining stability in the West Bank.

The US has also repeatedly called on Israel to release the PA tax revenues, noting that they belong to Ramallah, effectively accusing Israel of stealing. Biden officials have warned that failure to do so risks opening up another front in the West Bank on top of the war in Gaza and increasingly intensifying clashes on the Lebanon border between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah terror group.

But Netanyahu has not budged on the matter amid pushback from far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose support he needs to maintain his coalition.

Netanyahu reportedly reached out to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed asking if Abu Dhabi would be willing to finance unemployment benefits for the Palestinian workers in the West Bank. The Emirati leader flatly rejected the request.

“A lot of blood could be spilled, for merely political reasons,” a security source told Channel 13. “Not enough is being done to prevent this.”

The document reported by Channel 13 came hours after an Israeli man was wounded in a shooting attack in the settlement of Adora and several days after Channel 12 news reported on similar warnings issued by security chiefs regarding the situation in the West Bank.

According to that report, the warnings were relayed by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior military commanders, who said Israel risked a new front in the West Bank amid the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ongoing clashes on the northern border with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Besides Netanyahu, the report said the other members of the war cabinet — Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz — were also warned of the prospect of major unrest in the West Bank.

Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have been high since October 7, when some 3,000 terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led attack, killing at least 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seizing some 240 hostages. Israel responded with an aerial campaign and subsequent ground operation with the goal of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

The Israel Defense Forces has continued to operate throughout the West Bank and police have been on high alert in Israel, in light of concerns about a possible escalation of violence.

Anticipating long war, IDF pulls one of four divisions out of Gaza for R&R, training

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday began to withdraw its 36th Division from Gaza for an R&R and training period, leaving three other divisions fighting Hamas in the Strip.

The withdrawal of the division comes as part of the IDF’s plans for a long war against Hamas, as well as a potential escalation in the fighting against the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group in northern Israel, while maintaining the troops’ competence.

The division’s units will be given a short break, then will return for a training period, after which the IDF will decide if and where to redeploy them based to its latest assessments.

Over the past 80 days, the 36th Division operated in Gaza City’s Zeitoun, Shati, Shejaiya, and Rimal neighborhoods, where the IDF dismantled all of Hamas’s battalions. It also operated in central Gaza recently.

The 162nd Division remains in northern Gaza, carrying out clean-up operations to locate Hamas’s infrastructure and kill or capture its remaining operatives; the 99th Division is operating in the central part of the Strip; and the 98th Division is fighting Hamas in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza.

The IDF has assessed that fighting in Gaza will likely last throughout all of 2024, as Israel works to strip Hamas of its military and governing capabilities. The army is also preparing for fighting to escalate further on the Lebanon border, where Hezbollah and allied Palestinian terror groups have carried out daily rocket, missile, and drone attacks amid the war in Gaza.

Last month, the IDF said it was withdrawing five brigades from Gaza — three brigades usually tasked with training other forces and two reserve brigades — as the fighting in the northern part of the Strip shifted into a lower intensity.

Also on Monday, the IDF said it had begun for the first time in the war to operate on the ground in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, as the offensive against Hamas further expanded.

It said troops of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade — part of the 99th Division — operating in Nuseirat located a mortar production facility, a rocket manufacturing factory, and weapons hidden in a building belonging to a humanitarian organization.

IDF troops operate in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, in an image published by the army on January 15, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
The IDF said the reservists also raided a school in Nuseirat where eight Hamas operatives were holed up. The operatives were detained and taken to Israel to be questioned.

Also in the area of the school, the troops located a weapons depot, the IDF added.

Meanwhile, in Khan Younis, the IDF said Monday that troops of the 98th Division and Israeli Air Force aircraft foiled an attempt by Hamas to ferry weaponry in a truck to operatives in the Khan Younis area.

The IDF said the 98th Division spotted two Hamas operatives loading a truck with weapons and called in an airstrike. The truck was destroyed, along with the operatives who fled to a nearby building, it said.

Also in Khan Younis, the IDF said troops of the 7th Armored Brigade raided a Hamas command center, locating a cache of weapons. The IDF said the troops seized assault rifles, handguns, grenades, RPGs, and diving equipment belonging to Hamas’s naval forces.

Two more weapons depots were destroyed by the IDF in Khan Younis, and other caches of weapons were found in various buildings, including the home of a Hamas operative, it said.

Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, the IDF said surveillance soldiers spotted five Hamas operatives in an area where ground forces were operating, and called in an airstrike, killing all five.

War erupted between Israel and Hamas with the terror group’s October 7 massacres, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages of all ages — mostly civilians.

Vowing to destroy the terror group, Israel launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza, which the Hamas-run health ministry has said killed over 24,000 people since. The figure cannot be independently verified, and is believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 9,000 operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Several hostages freed in a ceasefire deal in late November described being held inside tunnels, which Hamas has dug throughout the Gaza Strip and which Israel says have long been used to smuggle weapons and fighters throughout the enclave.

It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during the late November truce. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

Israel also believes that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is hiding in a tunnel somewhere in Khan Younis.

Hamas Says Two More Israeli Hostages Are Dead

The group said the two were killed by Israeli airstrikes, which the Israeli military said was at least partly false.

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Adam Rasgon
Jan. 15, 2024
Updated 4:15 p.m. ET

Hamas said on Monday that two of the hostages captured on Oct. 7 had been killed in Israeli airstrikes and released images that appeared to show their bodies, but the Israeli military cast doubt on the claim.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said at a press briefing that at least one of the hostages was not killed by its forces. “That’s a Hamas lie,” he said. He did not address the fate of the other hostage.

“We are investigating the event and its circumstances, examining the images distributed by Hamas, alongside additional information at our disposal,” he added.

The claim of the hostages’ deaths, in a video released by Hamas’s military wing, came after two taunting messages from the group promising news on Monday about the fate of three hostages — the two it later said were killed, and a third it said was injured.

A senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declined to comment on the video, but the Israeli government has condemned such messages as psychological warfare.

The video included clips, apparently recorded earlier, of the two hostages who it claimed were killed, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, speaking while looking into a video camera, and then showed video apparently showing their bodies. It included narration by the hostage who reportedly survived, Noa Argamani, 26, who told of her companions’ deaths and described being wounded, herself.

It was not possible to determine when or where any scenes in the video were recorded.

Admiral Hagari, while not confirming the deaths, said that “in recent days,” the military had met with the men’s families “and expressed grave concern for their fate, due to information available to us.”

A previous video, released on Sunday, showed the three hostages identifying themselves by name and age, and ended with a caption that read: “Tomorrow we will inform you of their fate.”

Another video, released early Monday, featured headshots of the three hostages and said, “Tonight we will inform you of their fate.”

The videos appeared designed to taunt Israelis desperate for news of the hostages and to ratchet up pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions to secure their release. At the same time, the videos appeared to demonstrate the leverage which Hamas can exert on Israeli society through the hostages.

In a third video that announced the two deaths, Ms. Argamani addressed a camera while seated against a white background. It was not possible to determine whether she was speaking from a script that had been prepared for her; Mia Schem, a hostage released in late November, has said that Hamas dictated to her what to say for a video that was published in October.

Previous videos released by Hamas about the hostages have omitted or distorted crucial details.

Rights groups and international law experts say that any hostage video is, by definition, made under duress, and can constitute a war crime.

In the last of the three videos, Ms. Argamani said that she had been in a building with the two others when it was hit by three missiles fired by an Israeli warplane, with two exploding and burying them under rubble. She said that Hamas fighters dug her and Mr. Svirsky out but that Mr. Sharabi had been killed. She did not say when the attack happened.

She said that two nights later, she and Mr. Svirsky had been relocated to another location. En route, Mr. Svirsky was killed by an Israeli strike, she said, and she received shrapnel wounds to her head and body. The video ended with images of what appeared to be the two men’s dead bodies lying on white sheets.

Admiral Hagari later said that Mr. Svirsky had not been hit by Israeli forces.

“The building where they were being held was not a target, and it was not struck by our forces,” he said. “We did not know their real-time location; we do not strike in places where we know there may be hostages. In hindsight, we know we struck targets near to the location where they were being held.”

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a correspondent covering internationa

Israel Unearths More of a Subterranean Fortress Under Gaza

The Israeli military has been surprised by the extent, depth and quality of the tunnel network beneath Gaza.
Jan. 16, 2024

One tunnel in Gaza was wide enough for a top Hamas official to drive a car inside. Another stretched nearly three football fields long and was hidden beneath a hospital. Under the house of a senior Hamas commander, the Israeli military found a spiral staircase leading to a tunnel approximately seven stories deep.

These details and new information about the tunnels, some made public by the Israeli military and documented by video and photographs, underscore why the tunnels were considered a major threat to the Israeli military in Gaza even before the war started.

But Israeli officials and soldiers who have since been in the tunnels — as well as current and former American officials with experience in the region — say the scope, depth and quality of the tunnels built by Hamas have astonished them. Even some of the machinery that Hamas used to build the tunnels, observed in captured videos, has surprised the Israeli military.

The Israeli military now believes there are far more tunnels under Gaza.

In December, the network was assessed to be an estimated 250 miles. Senior Israeli defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, are currently estimating the network is between 350 and 450 miles — extraordinary figures for a territory that at its longest point is only 25 miles. Two of the officials also assessed there are close to 5,700 separate shafts leading down to the tunnels.

The numbers could not be independently verified, and there are varying estimates by Israeli officials for the increased scope of the tunnel network, based on different intelligence. But the immense efforts of Hamas to militarize the enclave are not in dispute; nor are the intelligence failures of the Israeli military in underestimating the extent and importance of the network to Hamas’s survival.

In a meeting in January 2023, a top Israeli military official said the tunnels would not even be a factor in any future war with Hamas because of Israel’s military strength, according to a transcript of the discussion reviewed by The New York Times.

“Hamas has used the time and resources over the last 15 years to turn Gaza into a fortress,” said Aaron Greenstone, a former C.I.A. officer who has worked extensively in the Middle East.

For the Israeli military, the tunnels are a subterranean nightmare and the core of Hamas’s ability to survive. Every strategic goal of Israel in Gaza is now linked to wiping out the tunnels.

“If you want to destroy the leadership and arsenal of Hamas, you have to destroy the tunnels,” said Daphné Richemond-Barak, a tunnel warfare expert at Reichman University in Israel. “It’s become connected to every part of the military missions.”

Hamas has invested heavily in the tunnels since it does not have the resources or numbers to fight the Israeli military in a conventional war. The group uses the tunnels as military bases and arsenals, and relies on them to move its forces undetected and protect its top commanders.

One 2022 document showed Hamas budgeted $1 million on the tunnel doors, underground workshops and other expenses in Khan Younis.

Israeli intelligence officials recently assessed that there were about 100 miles of tunnels just under Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city, where Israeli forces are now in heavy fighting. Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas in Gaza, had a home in Khan Younis.

In addition, a 2015 report indicated that Hamas had spent more than $3 million on tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip, including many built under civilian infrastructure and sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals, the Israeli military said.

The Israeli military said it had found two types of tunnels: ones used by commanders and others used by operatives. The commander tunnels are deeper and more comfortable, allowing for longer stays and use of ceramic tiles. The other tunnels are more spartan and often shallower.

An Israeli official said the military might have spent a year locating a single tunnel, but now the ground campaign has provided a trove of information about Gaza’s underground network.

The Israeli military has examined computers used by Hamas operatives in charge of tunnel construction to find the underground passageways, a senior Israeli official said. Some documents captured in the war are also proving vital. The Israeli military has found lists of the families that “hosted” the tunnel entrances in their private homes.

In one case, Israeli soldiers located a map of tunnels in Beit Hanoun, a city in northern Gaza, and used it to find and destroy tunnels. Even with this battlefield intelligence, the fighting in Gaza around the tunnels has been grueling. The Israeli military reports that nearly 190 soldiers have been killed and about 240 seriously wounded since the ground campaign started. But the military has not disclosed the number of dead and wounded in connection with the tunnel warfare.

One soldier, speaking on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said he oversaw the destruction of about 50 tunnels in Beit Hanoun. All of them were booby-trapped, he said. The soldier, an officer in the combat engineers, said his unit had found bombs hidden in walls and a massive explosive device that was hard-wired to be remotely activated.

The soldier, who was a reservist and has since been discharged, said the device had been made in a factory and had a serial number on it. If it had gone off, the bomb would have killed anybody in the tunnel and directly outside it, he said.

Hamas released a video in November showing how it lured a group of five Israeli soldiers to a tunnel entrance in Beit Hanoun and then used a roadside bomb to kill the soldiers.

Ms. Richemond-Barak said Hamas had imported the tactic from Syrian rebels who killed dozens of government troops in a tunnel attack in 2014 in Aleppo.

On Jan. 8, Israeli soldiers took journalists to see three tunnel shafts in central Gaza — one inside a one-story farm building on the outskirts of Bureij, the second inside a civilian steelworks on the edge of Maghazi and a third inside a shed near the steelworks.

The shaft in the steelworks was the deepest and most sophisticated. It descended roughly 30 yards and was fitted with some kind of elevator. The soldiers said it was used to transport munitions parts that were molded in the steelworks. A bucket of shells or rocket heads lay nearby. The soldiers said the shells were based on a template of a yellow U.S.-made mortar shell inscribed with the words “20 mm mortar shell; Lot 1-2008.”

The soldiers did not allow journalists into the shaft, citing the risk of explosions, but said Hamas would carry the munitions parts into the tunnel to transport them to another part of the tunnel network, where they would be fitted with explosives.

The tunnel was said to lead to a nearby shed made from corrugated iron. The journalists were escorted to that shed, where they saw 10 large rockets that were roughly three yards long and painted olive green. The rockets were contained in long oblong cages, possibly used to transport them.

The soldiers said the rockets had a range of roughly 60 miles. A shaft in the floor led underground, but it was unclear where the shaft led to, or how deep it was. It appeared shallower than the first shaft.

The logo of the Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, was stuck to a wall.

Later, the Israeli Army published photos and video of the shafts and other nearby facilities. A Times photographer documented the military infrastructure, too.

The soldiers also took journalists to see a third tunnel shaft in a one-story farm building in Bureij, roughly a mile to the north, surrounded by farmland. They said the shaft had been hidden behind a locked door, which had been blown off its hinges. The journalists were again not allowed to enter the tunnel.

Outside, roughly 100 yards away, military bulldozers appeared to have unearthed part of the tunnel leading from the farm building. It was roughly five yards below the surface, arched in shape and wide enough for one person to pass comfortably.

Hamas has improved its ability to conceal the tunnels, but the senior official said the Israeli military had figured out one of the group’s operating models. The official called it the “triangle.” Whenever the Israeli military finds a school, a hospital or a mosque, soldiers know they can expect to locate an underground tunnel system beneath them, the official said.

Destroying the tunnels is not an easy task, the official said. They need to be mapped, checked for hostages and not just damaged but made irreparable. Recent attempts to demolish the tunnels by flooding them with seawater have failed.

The official estimated it could take years to disable the tunnel system.

U.S. forces recovered Iranian warheads in Navy SEAL mission gone awry

A massive search-and-rescue operation is ongoing in the Arabian Sea, where the incident occurred Thursday. The SEALs moved to board the vessel, described by officials as a dhow, a type of trading vessel sometimes used by smugglers to carry illicit weapons. The dhow lacked proper identification, raising suspicions that it was smuggling arms.

As The Washington Post and other media previously reported, Thursday’s nighttime operation, backed by helicopters and drones, took place in rough seas. When one of the SEALs slipped from a ladder while attempting to climb aboard the dhow, the second, having witnessed their comrade fall into the water, dove in to help, officials have said. Both were swept away by the powerful swells. Neither has been publicly identified.

As rescue operations began, other troops carried out a search of the boat, which had a crew of 14, according to a Tuesday statement issued by U.S. Central Command. The statement draws a direct link to the weapons’ seizure and more than two dozen militant attacks emanating from Yemen since November, a spate of violence that has significantly disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea and prompted an aggressive response from the United States and other nations.

The dhow’s crew was taken into custody, and U.S. personnel sank the vessel, having deemed it “unsafe,” officials said. The seized items included Iranian-made ballistic and cruise missile warheads, propulsion and guidance systems, and air defense components.

An “initial analysis” indicates the weapons match those that the Houthis, a group closely aligned with Iran that controls large swaths of Yemen, have used to target merchant ships, according to the U.S. military’s statement. It also accuses Iran and others involved of having violated international law and a related U.N. resolution.

It is unclear where the vessel originated and precisely who was on board. “Disposition of the 14 dhow crew members is being determined in accordance with international law,” the statement says. The operation marked the first U.S. Navy seizure of advanced Iranian-made ballistic components since 2019, it notes. The Associated Press first reported some details of the seizure.

The episode has underscored an enduring challenge facing the Biden administration and its international partners as they vow to hold Yemen’s Houthis — and the group’s chief backer, Iran — accountable for a steep rise in attacks that have significantly disrupted commercial shipping in the region. U.S. and British forces struck dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen last week, hoping to discourage additional attacks, but the Pentagon acknowledged afterward that the group will probably remain a threat.

The Houthis have said their actions are in retaliation for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration has not ruled out future military action in Yemen but has sought to tread carefully, fearful that an overreaction or miscalculation could engulf the Middle East in violence.

U.S. forces in the region reported separately Monday that an American-owned container ship was hit with a ballistic missile in the Houthis’ latest alleged provocation. The container ship sustained no “significant damage,” and its crew was uninjured, officials said in a statement. A missile launched from Yemen earlier in the day came down before it reached the coast.

Senior U.S. officials accused Tehran of having “aided and abetted” the ongoing crisis, which has principally affected commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea. The Houthis, officials contend, would be incapable of threatening these shipping routes without Iran’s technological and intelligence support.

The SEALs launched their mission from the USS Lewis B. Puller, which acts as a floating base, and headed toward the dhow in a smaller craft, according to a U.S. official. The dhow’s crew lacked official documentation, which allowed the U.S. boarding team to search the vessel, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military mission.

Interdicting suspicious or adversarial vessels, known as visit, board, search and seizure, or VBSS, is among the most difficult and dangerous missions undertaken by highly trained troops. Such operations typically involve approaching the suspect vessel in smaller boats and using ladders and climbing tools to get aboard, which can be complicated by violent waves and hostile crew members.

It’s unclear whether the Americans involved in this operation encountered any hostile fire.

Despite the danger involved, such missions occur with some frequency. U.S. forces routinely partner with other nations’ militaries to target vessels suspected of carrying weapons or other contraband as part of a broad effort to blunt piracy and smuggling in the region.

Though it has been days since the two Navy SEALs went missing, the Pentagon remains hopeful that they will be found alive. The waters being searched are warm, officials have said, noting that powerful swells and exhaustion are more of a concern than hypothermia.

In a statement, Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, characterized the search effort as “exhaustive.”

Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least 25 rockets toward a nearby Israeli city on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military. It was one of the largest barrages from Gaza in recent weeks, and renewed criticism in Israel of the government’s decision to scale back some military operations in Gaza.

Hamas took responsibility, saying in a statement that it had targeted the Israeli city of Netivot, which is about six miles from the Gaza border. Israel’s air defense systems generally intercept most incoming rockets from Gaza, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. But the Israeli police said that at least one building had been damaged in the attack.

The attack highlighted Hamas’s continuing ability to threaten Israeli civilians with rocket fire despite more than three months of a devastating Israeli offensive aimed at destroying the group’s military capabilities. It came as Israeli officials have said their campaign against Hamas is shifting to a more targeted phase amid rising international criticism over the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave.

On Monday, the Israeli military withdrew a division of troops from northern Gaza, part of a broader drawdown of forces aimed in part at relieving the war’s strain on Israel’s economy. After the rocket barrage on Tuesday morning, right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency wartime government called for an urgent re-examination of that decision.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, said the decision to withdraw some soldiers was “a serious, grave error that will cost lives.” Mr. Ben-Gvir, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s most hawkish allies, has called for Israel to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely.

The rocket barrage “proves that conquering Gaza is essential to realizing the war’s goals,” Mr. Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

More than 24,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel sparked full-blown war, according to Gazan health officials. Over 85 percent of Gaza’s residents have been displaced, and many are threatened by starvation and disease, according to the United Nations.

In the first weeks of the war, Hamas-led militants fired near-constant barrages of dozens of rockets across Israel, sending scores of Israelis rushing to fortified shelters. But the rocket fire has slowed down as Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground offensive have worn on, and as Israeli forces have conquered large swathes of Gaza.

On Monday, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Israel had concluded its “intensive” ground operations in northern Gaza and would soon wrap up that stage of fighting in the south. He told a news conference that Israeli forces had successfully taken apart Hamas’s armed battalions in the north and were “now working to eliminate pockets of resistance,” describing the Israeli military’s achievements as “very impressive.”

But critics in Israel have questioned how much the Israeli military has achieved its stated goal of taking out Hamas’s military capabilities. Israeli leaders have continued to tell the public to expect the fighting to go on for months, even as the military has announced the deaths of at least 185 Israeli soldiers since the ground invasion began in late October.

“It is a mistake to reduce the strength of the Israeli military’s activities in Gaza and the forces deployed there in the current situation,” Gideon Sa’ar, an opposition lawmaker who joined Mr. Netanyahu’s fragile unity government, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Hamas rehabilitates battalions declared dismantled by Israeli army in northern Gaza Strip

Sources say Hamas is appointing new commanders and is attempting to bring together operatives from different battalions. A senior defense official indicated that Hamas was severely wounded, but the withdrawal of the forces would allow it to recover

The Israeli Defense Forces are monitoring Hamas attempts to rebuild its fighting battalions in the northern Gaza Strip, which the army had declared as stripped of military capabilities, with some battalions significantly restored.

The IDF has been downsizing its reserve forces in the northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks, and in the past few days has begun pulling back regular-duty forces, including parts of the Golani Brigade, armored brigades and special units.

Division 162 remains in the northern Gaza Strip to secure the large area which, when the IDF's ground maneuver began, was the territory of several of Hamas' battalions, including the a-Shati, Shujaiyeh and Jabalya battalions.

These three battalions are part of Hamas' northern division, the disarming of which was one of the military objectives at the beginning of the war.

On December 3, the IDF and the Shin Bet killed a-Shati battalion commander Haitham Khuwajari, who commanded the terrorists that invaded Israel on October 7. The IDF later hit the brigade's commander, his deputy, the commander of the brigade's aid battalion, the head of its rocket array and its observations commander.

Since the army has reduced its forces in the a-Shati refugee camp and in Gaza city in recent weeks, Hamas has been working to rebuild its battalions to strengthen its combat capabilities against IDF forces in the northern Gaza Strip.

According to security sources, Hamas started appointing new commanders in place of those killed in the fighting, and is trying to assemble operatives who belonged to different battalions.

Earlier this week, the Air Force and the army's 5th Brigade attacked in a-Shati, after the IDF had declared that it had completed the neighborhood's occupation and had incapacitated the battalion.

In the same encounter, the army killed nine terrorists who were preparing for an attack on IDF forces in the area. The army announced on Wednesday that its forces had returned to operating in the a-Shati camp, killing terrorists and destroying terror infrastructure.

Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi warned political leadership behind closed doors that the IDF was facing the "erosion of the achievements it has accomplished so far in the war" because no strategy was put in place for the Gaza Strip after the end of the war. Halevi warned that "we may have to operate again in areas where we have already completed the fighting."

The smoke of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, earlier this month.

A senior security official who recently presented the IDF's view on the extent of the harm to Hamas said that "Hamas suffered a very serious blow to its military wing," but added: "withdrawing the forces and ending the fighting now will enable Hamas to rehabilitate its military arm in a way that will continue to threaten the IDF and Israel's Gaza border communities."

The IDF attempted to minimize the importance of a barrage of 25 rockets fired at the town of Netivot on Tuesday. Some in the army claimed that this was a quick and spontaneous volley which stemmed from Hamas's fear that the IDF would reach the launchers.

Other defense sources familiar with the events believed that the shooting was indicative of the Hamas' regained control in the northern Gaza Strip, though not a return to the same capabilities it had on the eve of the war.

The army said on Wednesday that it had demolished a compound in the center of the Gaza Strip from which the barrage was fired. According to the IDF, some of the launch stations in the destroyed compound were loaded with rockets and ready to fire.

Airstrike on southern Syria, likely carried out by Jordan's air force, kills nine

This was the latest attack in a series of strikes in an area where cross-border drug smugglers have been active. Jordan so far has not claimed responsibility for any of the strikes; Syrian reports said those killed had nothing to do with smuggling

An airstrike in southern Syria early Thursday killing at least nine people was the latest in a series of strikes in an area where cross-border drug smugglers have been active, and was likely carried out by Jordan's air force, Syrian opposition activists said.

There was no immediate confirmation from Jordan on the strike that hit the province of Sweida.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said nine people, including two children and at least three women, were killed in the strike on the village of Orman.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said the people killed had nothing to do with smuggling, suggesting that the Jordanian air force might have received incorrect intelligence from local residents.

Smugglers have used Jordan as a corridor over the past years to smuggle highly addictive Captagon amphetamines out of Syria, mainly to oil-rich Arab Gulf states. The Jordanian authorities have managed to stop several smuggling attempts, including some in which smugglers used drones to fly the drugs over the border.

Rayan Maarouf, Editor-in-Chief of local activist collective Suwayda24, told The Associated Press that 10 people were killed in the strike on Orman. There was also a strike on the nearby village of Malah, he said, but no casualties were inflicted. Maarouf said search operations are still ongoing, and the death toll might still rise.

"Innocent people are always losing their lives in such strikes," he said, adding that sometimes the strikes hit the homes of people living near smugglers or close to warehouses where drugs are stored.

The Captagon industry has been a huge concern for Jordan, as well as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, as hundreds of millions of pills have been smuggled over the years. The drug is used recreationally and by people with physically demanding jobs to keep them alert.

In late August, an airstrike hit an alleged drug factory in southern Syria near the Jordanian border, an attack believed to have been carried out by Jordan's air force.

In May, another airstrike on a village in Sweida killed a well-known Syrian drug kingpin and his family. Activists believe that strike was conducted by the Jordanians.

Jordan so far has not claimed responsibility for any of the strikes.

For the fifth time in a week, the United States on Thursday attacked Houthi anti-ship missiles in Yemen, the U.S. military said, underscoring the resilience of the Iran-backed militia’s arsenal and its goal of disrupting vital international shipping lanes.

The series of strikes, and the Houthis’ defiance, have fueled fears that the widening conflicts of the Middle East could worsen and provoke deeper military involvement by the United States and its allies.

The region is tense from military strikes and violence involving a range of countries, factions and motivations. Israel has for months waged war against another Iran-backed group, Hamas, in Gaza, and has clashed with a third, Hezbollah, along its border with Lebanon. In the wake of a terrorist attack at home, Iran this week fired missiles at targets in Iraq and Pakistan, and then Pakistan carried out strikes inside Iran.

The Houthis, who have portrayed their attacks on ships as a battle to force Israel to end its campaign in Gaza, have defied demands by the Biden administration and its allies to cease their attacks on shipping lanes critical for global trade.

The U.S. military conducted the strikes against two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were prepared to launch into the southern Red Sea, the Pentagon’s Central Command said in a statement. American forces had identified the missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, it said, and determined they were “an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region.” A U.S. official had earlier said three targets had been hit.

The strikes on Thursday came after Navy vessels fired Tomahawk cruise missiles to destroy 14 missiles and launchers on Wednesday, and the U.S. carried out airstrikes against four other missiles on Tuesday.

Despite the Houthis’ assertions about the purpose of their campaign of missile and drone attacks — more than 35 in all so far since November — many of its targets have had no clear connection to Israel.

“We praise god for this great blessing and great honor — for us to be in a direct confrontation with Israel and America,” the leader of the Houthis, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said in a televised speech on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration said that it would designate the militia as a terrorist organization, blocking the groups’ access to the global financial system, among other restrictions.

But the latest U.S. strikes, as well as continued volleys by the militia, have illustrated the difficulty facing the United States and its allies in dismantling the Houthis’ arsenal, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden. Two American officials cautioned on Saturday that even after strikes hit more than 60 missile and drone targets, they had damaged or destroyed only about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis’ offensive capability.

Also on Wednesday, a drone fired from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen struck the U.S.-owned bulk carrier Genco Picardy in the Gulf of Aden, the Pentagon’s Central Command said. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the ship, which continued its journey.

The use of tunnels in wars is not new. Seeking advantages by using either natural or man-made spaces underground is as ancient as warfare itself—from stories of tunnels being used to win massive battles in the bible to underground spaces becoming key factors to urban battles, like Mariupol and Bakhmut, in the ongoing war in Ukraine. Modern nations including the United States, China, and North Korea invest billions in deep-buried military bunkers and tunnel complexes. But what Israel has faced in Gaza represents a unique first in war—namely, a case in which tunnels form one of two pillars, along with time, of a combatant’s political-military strategy.

Before the Israel-Hamas war, both the presence of Hamas tunnel networks and their growth over the years were very well known. The network was referred to as Gaza’s “Metro” or “lower Gaza.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and scholars estimated before the war that there were three hundred miles of tunnels ranging from fifteen feet to over two hundred feet below the surface. The estimates were wrong.

After three months of close combat and discovering over 1,500 tunnel shafts and underground passages, the IDF has learned enough to require the estimates to be revised. Israeli forces have unearthed massive invasion tunnels two and a half miles long, underground manufacturing plants, luxury tunnels with painted walls, tile floors, ceiling fans, and air conditioning, and a complex, layered, labyrinth underneath all areas of Gaza. The new estimates say the network may include between 350 and 450 miles of tunnels, with close to 5,700 separate shafts descending into hell.

New estimates also indicate the construction of this subterranean network could have cost Hamas as much as a billion dollars. The group has poured resources over fifteen years not just into constructing tunnel passages, but for blast doors, workshops, sleeping quarters, toilets, kitchens, and all the ventilation, electricity, and phone lines to support what amount to underground cities. As much as 6,000 tons of concrete and 1,800 tons of metals have been used in this subterranean construction.

The sheer size of Hamas’s underground networks may, once fully discovered, be beyond anything a modern military has ever faced. One of the last conflicts that involved a large amount of tunnel complexes was the Vietnam War. American forces and others faced some tunnel complexes that ranged up to forty miles in length and one of the most concentrated places of tunnels, near Saigon at Cu Chi, contained 130 miles of passageways.

There are larger military tunnel complexes in the world. China is believed to have three thousand miles of tunnels and bunkers capable of withstanding nuclear attacks in a network that has been called the “Underground Great Wall.” Some estimates show North Korea has over five thousand tunnels and infrastructure that includes multiple underground air bases with runways, radar sites, and submarine ports inside mountains.

But more importantly than the scale of the tunnels in Gaza, the Israel-Hamas war is the first war in which a combatant has made its vast underground network a defining centerpiece of its overall political-military strategy.

In the past, and even in most cases today, military tunnels and bunkers have been built specifically to gain a military advantage. They are used for smuggling, kidnapping, and invading or defending territory. Underground spaces enable militaries to conserve capabilities by avoiding detection and strike, to hold terrain by using the tunnels for mobile defense tactics, or even offensively to use guerrilla tactics to attrit the attacking force.

For the first time in the history of tunnel warfare, however, Hamas has built a tunnel network to gain not just a military advantage, but a political advantage, as well. Its underground world serves all of the military functions described above, but also an entirely different one. Hamas weaved its vast tunnel networks into the society on the surface. Destroying the tunnels is virtually impossible without adversely impacting the population living in Gaza. Consequently, they put the modern laws of war at the center of the conflict’s conduct. These laws restrict the use of military force and methods or tactics that a military can use against protected populations and sites such as hospitals, churches, schools, and United Nations facilities.

Almost all of Hamas’s tunnels are built into civilian and protected sites in densely populated urban areas. Much of the infrastructure providing access to the tunnels is in protected sites. This complicates discriminating between military targets and civilian locations—if not rendering it entirely impossible—because Hamas does not have military sites separate from civilian sites.

Hamas’s strategy is also not to hold terrain or defeat an attacking force. Its strategy is about time. It is about creating time for international pressure on Israel to stop its military operation to mount.

Hamas is globally known for using human shields, which is the practice of using civilians to restrict the attacker in a military operation. The group wants as many civilians as possible to be harmed by Israeli military action—as one of its officials put it, “We are proud to sacrifice martyrs.” It wants the world’s attention on the question of whether the IDF campaign is violating the laws of war in attacking Hamas tunnels that are tightly connected to civilian and protected sites. It wants to buy as much time as is needed to cause the international community to stop Israel. Its entire strategy is built on tunnels.

The tactical challenges Hamas tunnels present to Israel are thereby compounded by strategic challenges. To deal with tunnels at the tactical level, Israel has demonstrated some of the world’s most advanced units, methods, and capabilities to find, exploit, and destroy tunnels. From specialized engineer capabilities and canine units to the use of robots, flooding to clear tunnels, and both aerial-delivered and ground-emplaced explosives, to include liquid explosives, to destroy them. Arguably, no military in the world is as well prepared for subterranean tactical challenges as the IDF. But the strategic challenge is entirely different. To destroy many of the deep-buried tunnels, the IDF has required bunker-busting bombs, which Israel is criticized for using. And most importantly it has required time to find and destroy the tunnels in a conflict in which Hamas’s strategy is aimed at limiting the time available to Israel to conduct its campaign.

Hamas’s strategy, then, is founded on tunnels and time. This war, more so than any other, is about the underground and not the surface. It is time based rather than terrain or enemy based. Hamas is in the tunnels. Its leaders and weapons are in the tunnels. The Israeli hostages are in the tunnels. And Hamas’s strategy is founded on its conviction that, for Israel, the critical resource of time will run out in the tunnels.

Iran's missile attack on Pakistan was meant to send a message to the whole region

Last month, members of Jaish ul-Adl – an anti-Iranian separatist group that mostly operates in Pakistan – attacked a police station in the city of Sark in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. 11 policemen were killed and ten wounded.

Two weeks ago, the Islamic State organization carried out the largest and most lethal attack Iran has sustained since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. At least two ISIS members were identified as the perpetrators of the suicide attacks in the city of Karman, the birthplace of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force until his death.

The blasts killed at least 90 people and wounded 285. They came on the day of a commemoration service in Soleimani's honor, four years after he was killed in an American strike. The two attacks, in Sark and Karman, are only the latest in a spate of attacks in Iran over the last two years.

Domestic terrorism is a familiar problem to the Iranian regime. Half a dozen large, armed organizations operate inside Iran or are responsible for attacks originating outside the country.

There are also more than a dozen small organizations or factions that mount attacks less frequently. These include the dissident group Mojahedin e-Khalq and the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz. Others include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, which has military offshoots, and the aforementioned Jaish ul-Adl, an offshoot of the Jundallah organization, which was dismantled in 2010 after the execution of its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi.

Iran has been waging a Sisyphean campaign against these organizations and movements, most of which are striving for independence, autonomy, or at least equal rights. It's just one part of a much larger regime effort against its domestic opponents, including political rivals, trade unions, advocates for reform and human rights, and women's rights groups. It seems that the volatile domestic arena is the one worrying Iran the most, even more than the familiar external threat posed by Western states, particularly the U.S. and Israel.

This week, Iran shocked its neighbor, Pakistan, when it attacked several targets in Pakistani Baluchistan as a reprisal for the attack launched by Jaish ul-Adl last month. The Iranian strike came shortly after Tehran attacked targets in the city of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as in the Syrian city of Idlib. Iran justified the attacks with claims that Erbil was home to a base for Israel's Mossad espionage agency, while there had been ISIS targets in Idlib.

The greatest threat ISIS poses to Iran doesn't come from Syria or Iraq but rather from Afghanistan. That country, where the Taliban returned to power in 2021 following the withdrawal of American troops, is home to a branch of ISIS seen as its strongest and most active in central Asia, which calls itself Wilayat Khorasan ("Khorasan Province"), the region's historical name, which includes parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This regional ISIS branch, also known as ISIS-K, operates on several fronts, committing terror attacks against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and operating in Pakistan against its government. It also has cells in India, Bangladesh, and other countries in the area.

Iran has been a target for ISIS twice over. Not only is Iran a Shi'ite state – laying the religious, historical, and ideological basis for a Sunni campaign against it – but it is cooperating with the Sunni Taliban in their battle against ISIS. However, interpreting this violent confrontation along familiar lines, such as Sunnis against Shi'ites, is simplistic. Shi'ite Iran has tight military, economic, and intelligence-based cooperation with the Taliban, who are radical Sunnis. The goal of this cooperation is to form an alliance in the war against ISIS while protecting the Hazara minority living in western Afghanistan along the border with Iran.

Ostensibly, given the pattern of retaliation used by Iran against Pakistan this week, one might expect Iran to attack ISIS targets in Afghanistan, the origin of the more significant attacks, and which wouldn't risk a military counterattack. However, operating inside Afghani territory could not only shatter the fragile cooperation between the two countries – crucial for preventing terror attacks against Iran – but could make the Taliban take revenge against the Hazaras, whom Iran sees as its proteges.

There are further considerations. Afghanistan continues to be a source of competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Each of them has its tribal and political "clients" within the country. The renewal of relations between the Saudis and Iran last March didn't end this competition. An Iranian attack inside Afghanistan could destroy Iran's footholds in Kabul and give the Saudis a critical advantage.

Pakistan, however, is another story. Between Islamabad and Riyadh is a tight web of connections based in part on Saudi investments amounting to billions of dollars. Two-and-a-half million Pakistanis work in Saudi Arabia. As American allies, the two countries belong to the "pro-Western" camp. The religious connection between the two Sunni countries also contributes to regional cooperation, as the Saudis fund the operation of madrassas that advance the Wahabi stream of Islam.

Pakistan has hinted in the past that it would be willing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. At the same time, Iran has working relations and shares intelligence with Pakistan, mainly involving the battle against terrorism. These relations are fraught with suspicions and distrust, though.

Last May, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the first meeting between the two countries' leaders in a decade. At the meeting, Sharif said he was committed to doing all he could to stop operations by terror organizations against Iran. This vow didn't particularly impress Tehran. Iran accuses Pakistan of failing to prevent Jaish ul-Adl's operations. Pakistan says Iran is encouraging the operations of the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Baluch Liberation Front, whose fighters are known as the Sarmachar. These groups want to establish an independent Baluchi state in Baluchistan.

The two adjacent provinces, Sistan-Balochistan in Iran and Baluchistan in Pakistan, are the poorest ones in their respective countries. The Pakistani province is rich in natural resources from which the state benefits. The province's residents, who are mostly excluded from government positions, don't enjoy the benefits of these resources. The Iranian side has mainly Sunni residents and is thereby considered a perennial threat to the regime, which employs harsh repressive measures while neglecting to develop the area.

While Iran is hesitating to retaliate against ISIS in Afghanistan, it feels obligated to demonstrate strength in the face of terror attacks and is therefore turning to operations inside Pakistan. It's unclear whether Iran had predicted that Pakistan, which is governed by a caretaker government and preparing for elections in February, would respond so quickly and with such determination – recalling its ambassador in Tehran and preventing the return of Iran's ambassador to Islamabad and attacking Iran within 24 hours.

It seems that internal political considerations in Iran and the need to demonstrate military resolve, even at the expense of a rift in its relations with Pakistan, were augmented by regional considerations not unrelated to the war in Gaza, from the heating up of the border between Israel and Lebanon to attacks by Shi'ite militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran continues to stick to a military strategy that involves the use of proxies. At the same time, it is committed to projecting a clear message that it won't remain on the sidelines as a mere observer of developments on the ground if they endanger its strategic assets, particularly in Lebanon but also in Iraq and Yemen.

The change in American tactics in the Red Sea with the decision to attack Houthi bases inside Yemen rather than just intercepting drones and missiles, the growing concerns around the start of an all-out war on the Israel-Lebanon border, and the attacks the U.S. military is carrying out against militias in Iraq show Iran is a state that is not taking care of its assets.

Even worse for Tehran, it's developing an image of a state that doesn't pose a genuine threat, risking its role as a deterrent force blocking attacks against its allies. For Iran to fulfill its role as a "deterrent power," parallel to what the U.S. has on the other side, it has no choice but to jump into the fray. The attacks in Iraq and Syria were probably the first part of a display of direct Iranian involvement.

However, these are "safe" countries, as far as Iran is concerned. Iraq did complain to the UN Security Council, but it doesn't risk the threat of counterattack or even severing relations. Syria is already an open battlefield used for target practice.

An attack on Pakistan, by contrast, is a move meant to deliver a strategic message to the entire region – that Iran isn't afraid of countries that can respond militarily and will jump in if necessary. The question is when it would be considered necessary to take Iran from a position of deterrence to using direct action. Iran is not directly threatening to take action in Lebanon, at least for now. Still, the attack in Pakistan, a message about what could happen in Lebanon, should be added to the list of Israeli and American considerations.

Iran tried to defuse the timebomb threatening its relations with Pakistan with an announcement on Thursday that it is committed to good neighborly relations with Islamabad. Tehran called on countries in the region to prevent the establishment of terror bases on their territory. This is obviously not an apology or a request for forgiveness, and much more will be required to assuage the tension between Tehran and Islamabad. But for Iran, it's a worthwhile price to pay in exchange for the message it wanted to deliver to the region.

The attack targeted a building that, according to sources, was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad's government. Among the dead are the head of intelligence for the guard's expeditionary Quds Force in Syria.

An alleged Israeli missile strike on Syria's capital Damascus on Saturday killed four members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, including the head of the force's information unit in Syria, a security source in the regional pro-Syria alliance told Reuters.

In a statement carried on Iranian state television, the Revolutionary Guards confirmed that four of its military advisers were killed in the strike and said further details would be announced later. State TV said the targeted building was the residence of Iranian advisers in Damascus.

Nour News, which is believed to be close to Iran's intelligence apparatus, identified two of the dead in Damascus as Gen. Sadegh Omidzadeh, the intelligence deputy of the guard's expeditionary Quds Force in Syria, and his deputy.

An opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least six people – five Iranians and a Syrian – were killed in the attack that struck while officials from Iran-backed groups were holding a meeting.

Syrian state media said a building in the Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus was targeted in an alleged Israeli attack, without giving further details. Other local media in Syria said explosions were heard across the Syrian capital.

The security source, part of a network of groups that are close to Syria's government and its major ally Iran, said the multistory building was used by Iranian advisers supporting President Bashar al-Assad's government, and that it was entirely flattened by "precision-targeted Israeli missiles".

The source added that a fifth person was also killed, but could not immediately identify the individual's nationality.

Essam Al-Amin, head of the Al-Mowasat Hospital in Damascus, told Reuters that his hospital had received one corpse and three wounded people, including a woman, following Saturday's attack.

A Reuters witness in Mazzeh saw ambulances and fire trucks gathered around the site of the strike, which had been cordoned off. Rescue operations for people stuck under the rubble were ongoing throughout the late morning.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad told Reuters that no members of their group were wounded in the strike, following reports that some were at the bombed-out building.