Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Fresh tensions were reported across the Middle East on Saturday, with Iran saying Qatar was holding three of its pilots who have been missing since March, a claim Doha denied. The United Arab Emirates also accused Iran of attacking one of its vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, while Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis struck the Red Sea port of Mokha.
In southern Lebanon, at least 11 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in one of the deadliest days since a shaky truce between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah took effect on June 20. Israel said it had targeted a Hezbollah battalion commander and other militants, while Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state media reported civilian deaths, including children.
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Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff’s Missing Persons Committee said Qatar’s armed forces had captured and were holding three pilots whose jets were downed in March. Until now, Tehran had said it had no information about what happened to them. This is the first known case in the war in which Iran has said a country in the region is holding its fighters. Qatar had said on March 2 that its air force shot down two Iranian bombers as Tehran attacked countries hosting US military bases in the opening days of the war.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Iran alleged that Qatar had not allowed the pilots to meet or communicate with their families or with Iranian officials handling their cases. Iran asked the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross for help. The letter also said a fourth pilot was killed while on the mission “targeting an enemy military base in Qatar”, according to state media.
Qatar later denied the claim. Foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said on X that the pilots had been shot down and that Qatar’s search and rescue teams had found the remains of one of them. He also said Iran had been invited in April to visit and be briefed on those efforts, but had not responded.
Separately, the Emirati state-run WAM news agency said a tanker owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil and gas company ADNOC was attacked while passing through the Strait of Hormuz on Friday evening. It said there were no injuries. The report said it was the third such attack on a vessel operated by ADNOC in the waterway in the past week, and the UAE called on Iran to stop what it described as unprovoked strikes.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said a bulk carrier was struck in the hull by an unknown projectile on Friday, though it was not immediately clear if it was the same vessel. Iran asserted control over the strait after the war began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes. Before then, about one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed through the waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Talks between the US and Iran have stalled, while Iran is in discussions with Oman on how to manage the strait, which runs between them and had been considered an international waterway.
In Lebanon, the Health Ministry and state news agency said one Israeli strike hit a home on the edge of the village of Ansar, killing seven people, including three children, and wounding two. A second strike on Deir al-Zahrani killed four people and wounded 17. Israel’s military said it had killed a Hezbollah battalion commander and several other militants at a headquarters in southern Lebanon in response to the group’s actions against Israeli soldiers operating there. In a separate statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said three soldiers were seriously injured, and the military blamed an explosive drone.
The Israeli military said the commander’s family was with him and that “it should be emphasised that the family members were not the target of the strike”. Both the military and Netanyahu’s office alleged that the commander had used his family members as human shields. It was one of the deadliest days since the Lebanese government and Israel announced a “framework agreement” under which Israeli forces would withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament. Hezbollah refused direct talks and was not part of the agreement.
In Yemen, the military said the Houthis attacked the government-held Red Sea port of Mokha on Friday evening. Port director Abdul-Malik al-Sharabi told journalists that three people, including two marines, were killed and that port operations had been suspended. Military spokesperson Col Majed al-Nazili said the Houthis fired six ballistic missiles. The attack was the latest on government-held areas and neighbouring Saudi Arabia as fighting threatens to push Yemen back towards civil war.
Saturday’s developments underlined the widening strain across the region, with Iran and Qatar trading claims over missing pilots, the UAE reporting another strike in the Strait of Hormuz, Israeli attacks killing 11 in southern Lebanon, and the Houthis hitting Yemen’s Mokha port.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
