Deadly Gunfire In Beirut As Hezbollah Supporters Gather To Protest

The Saudi State TV that reported on the incident on Wednesday did not give indications about the target of the attempted attack, which was in the southern part of the Red Sea.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in talks since April to reduce bilateral tensions and possibly re-establish diplomatic relations. Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed this week that the conflict in Yemen was part of the talks.

Iran has been backing the Houthis with supplying weapons, Saudi Arabia , the United States and UN experts have said.

Reporting by Reuters

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to try to restore a Saudi-backed, internationally-recognized government toppled by the Houthis in 2014. The war has caused what the United Nations describes as the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

Lapid’s office released a statement after his meeting with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying, “the foreign minister shared with the national security advisor Israel’s concerns about Iran’s race toward nuclear capabilities, as well as that Iran is becoming a nuclear threshold state.” The statement went on to stress that “Lapid also discussed with the national security advisor the need for an alternative plan to the nuclear agreement.”

In a separate readout, the spokesperson for the Biden administration’s National Security Council said “the officials also shared their perspectives on the threat posed by Iran. Mr. Sullivan reaffirmed President Biden’s commitment to ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. The officials agreed that the United States and Israel will continue to consult closely on Iran and other critical matters impacting the security and stability of the region.”

Lapid also met with US Vice President Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and other lawmakers. Harris noted Washington’s and Israel’s “shared concern” over Iran during her meeting with Lapid as well as the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in dignity. Lapid revealed that the focus of his visit was the Iranian nuclear program and the need for bipartisan support for Israel.

While in the United States, Lapid is also meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and will participate in a special trilateral meeting with Blinken and the UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on Wednesday.

The three parties will launch two new working groups, a senior State Department official said, as Washington hopes to expand the agreements between Israel and its neighbors known as the Abraham accords.

One working group will focus on religious coexistence and the other on water and energy issues, said the official, who briefed reporters ahead of the meeting on condition of anonymity, Reuters reported.

This visit comes as Israeli officials have become increasingly vocal in their impatience with the stalemate in nuclear negotiations with Iran. They have urged the Biden administration to prepare another package of sanctions as well as undertake military drills in the Middle East as a show of force to pressure Iran to return to the table. Jerusalem has also repeatedly emphasized the need to formulate a Plan B on Iran, should the nuclear negotiations with Tehran fail to salvage the nuclear deal from 2015.

The main winner of the election was Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a populist who has positioned himself as a staunch opponent of both Iran and the United States.

Sadr proclaimed the result a "victory by the people over ... militias". There was elation among his supporters.

"The most important thing in this election is that foreign countries like Iran didn't interfere in the vote," said Yousef Mohammed, an unemployed 21-year-old in Sadr's vast Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City. "We've been celebrating since last night."

Sadr's bloc, already the biggest in the 329-seat parliament, will expand to 73 seats from 54. Its main rivals for years, the Fatah bloc of factions linked to pro-Tehran militia, meanwhile, saw its parliamentary representation collapse -- to just 14 seats from 48.

An unusually unified Sunni Muslim bloc placed second, giving the minority sect perhaps its strongest leverage since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And even upstart groups of reformists who campaigned against the ruling elite managed to defy predictions that they would be outmaneuvered by established parties: a bloc headed by a pharmacologist emerged with ten seats.

Yet there are still signs that Tehran's grip on the country remains formidable. Most notably, former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a friend of Iran who campaigned as a champion of law and order, also won big surprise gains, emerging in third place with 37 seats.

A Western diplomat said the leader of Iran's Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, was in Baghdad while the initial results were released, still seeking a way to keep Tehran's allies in power.

"According to our information, Ghaani was attending a meeting with (Shi’ite militia parties) yesterday. They will do whatever they can to try to organize the biggest bloc - although that will also be very difficult with Sadr's power," the Western diplomat said.

Tehran and Baghdad both publicly denied Ghaani was in Iraq, but two Iranian sources contacted by Reuters confirmed it.

At least one pro-Iran militia commander said the armed groups were prepared to resort to violence if necessary to ensure they do not lose their influence after what they view as a fraudulent election.

"We'll use legal frameworks for now. If unsuccessful we'll have to go to the streets and do the same thing that was done to us during protests - burn party buildings" of the Sadrists, he said.

PROXY BATTLEFIELD

Iraq has been a proxy battlefield for influence between the United States and Iran since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which toppled Saddam and created a path to power for a Shi'ite majority led by figures courted for decades by Tehran.

In 2014, when a third of Iraq was captured by fighters from the Sunni Muslim group Islamic State, Washington and Tehran found themselves uneasily on the same side: both providing assistance to Baghdad to fight the militants.

But when Islamic State was defeated in 2017, it was Iran that came out ahead. Factions linked to pro-Iran militias emerged with control over much of the Iraqi state.

That triggered a backlash in 2019, with hundreds of thousands of mainly young Iraqis taking to the streets to protest against corruption, joblessness and foreign influence. Security forces and the militia gunned down 600 of them. A prime minister close to Iran was forced to quit, paving the way for this week's early election.

Sadr, scion of a family of revered clerics including a father and uncle both murdered under Saddam, has emerged as a rare foe of both Washington and Tehran, first leading a Shi'ite uprising against U.S. occupation and later campaigning against Iranian influence.

While he has always held back from playing a leading role in governing coalitions, his followers have quietly secured control of ministries and industries in governments headed by other Shi'ite factions, most with ties to Tehran.

But most of Iraq's Shi'ite political establishment remains suspicious or even hostile to Sadr, including commanders of the security forces who battled his followers in the past. This may have helped Maliki, who as prime minister led a campaign more than a decade ago that successfully wrested southern cities and Baghdad districts from Sadr's followers.

Hamdi Malik, specialist on Iraq's Shi'ite militias at the Washington Institute, said Maliki had spent a lot of money campaigning and appealed to nostalgia among the armed forces, emphasising his own image as a strong leader.

One official from the Badr party, long one of the main pro-Iran factions, said one of the reasons for the poor showing of the militia's Fatah bloc was that supporters shifted their votes to Maliki, viewing him as a more effective bulwark against Sadr.

"Maliki already showed he can stand up to Sadr," the official said.

Analysis by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed of Reuters

"We will not accept these fabricated results, whatever the cost," the channel Al-Aahd cited Hadi al-Amiri as saying on Tuesday on its Telegram messaging account, after a top Iranian military officials reportedly visited Baghdad on Monday.

Iran-backed parties with links to militia groups accused of killing some of the nearly 600 people who died in mass protests in 2019 took a blow in the election, winning less seats than in the previous vote, in 2018.

Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's party was the biggest winner in the election held on Sunday, according to initial results.

Initial results showed Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr had won more seats than expected in Iraq’s election Sunday taking 73 seats, a spokesman of the movement said.

In a reflection of Iran’s influence in its neighbor, Iraq’s Shafaq daily Monday quoted a government source that General Esmail Ghaani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) extra-territorial al-Quds group, had met officials and leaders in Baghdad within 24 hours of polls closing to discuss next steps.

With reporting by Reuters

Nasrallah said the total blackout that occurred on Saturday when Lebanon's two largest power plants ground to a halt was like a "clinical death" for the country.

The Iran-backed Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah group has been coordinating Iranian shipments of fuel oil and gasoline for Lebanon since August as shortages spread amid an economic meltdown, despite U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales.

However, so far it is not clear if Hezbollah delivered any fuel to the country’s power stations or how the fuel was used.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said the Iranian shipments constitute a breach of his country's sovereignty.

Iran sends the fuel oil shipments organized by Hezbollah to the port of Baniyas in Syria and from there they are transported by truck to Lebanon.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on a visit to Beirut last week, said his country was ready to build two power plants in Lebanon, one in Beirut and the other in the south of the country, in a period of 18 months. The offer is more of a publicity stunt as Iran itself is gripped by power shortages unable to meet demand.

On Monday Nasrallah urged the cabinet to respond to his offer.