AFP :
Israel struck a Hezbollah target in Syria on Thursday, a war monitor said, and the United States used heavy bombers to hit rebel targets in Yemen nearly a month into the war in Lebanon.
Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza all belong to the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran, which on October 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s strike, sparking concern around the world that what is already a war on multiple fronts could morph into an all-out regional conflict.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief on Thursday warned Tehran would hit Israel “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets.
“If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully,” Hossein Salami said.
Salami was speaking at the funeral of a Guards general who was killed in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month that also killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
According to Syrian state media, an Israeli strike on the city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, wounded two civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the Israeli raid targeted a “weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah.”
Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years, including multiple attacks along the Lebanese border that seek to cut off Hezbollah’s main weapons and equipment supply route from Iran to Lebanon.
In Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Israel’s main ally the US conducted multiple B-2 bomber strikes on weapon storage facilities, according to the US military and defence department.
“US forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
The B-2 is a stealth aircraft capable of flying non-stop from the US, with a payload of 40,000 pounds of bombs, the US Air Force says on its website. That is a far heavier weapons load than on most other modern warplanes.
Mohammed al-Basha, a US-based Yemen and Middle East security analyst, said the use of B-2 bombers indicated Washington was taking “a firmer stance” against the Houthis.
“This operation signifies a shift in US policy, indicating a firmer stance against the group’s destabilizing behaviour as Washington intensifies efforts to degrade their military capabilities,” Basha said.
