US bolsters Mideast forces in readiness for an Iran attack

Iranians were warned of ‘extraordinary scenes’ to come as fears of a wider Middle East war grew after the assassination in Iran of Hamas’s political leader, blamed on Israel.

An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, above, will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region. Picture: US Navy via Getty Images

Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.

The US embassy in Lebanon urged its citizens to leave Lebanon on “any ticket available”, and British Foreign Minister David Lammy said “while we are working round the clock to strengthen our consular presence in Lebanon, my message to British nationals there is clear – leave now”.

Australia’s Foreign Affairs department has also asked Australian citizens to leave. “Australians in Lebanon should leave immediately while commercial flights remain available, it says.

Iranian TV news channels say a ecision is still being made on an Iranian response.

“In the coming hours the world will witness extraordinary scenes and very important events,” a presenter of the show Foreign Policy 1403 said.

“We are just waiting for the decision of our military strategists to see what course of action they recommend,” he said.

A Biden Administration source told The Wall Street Journal an Iranian military response could be a matter of days away.

The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.

The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.

With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.

An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, the Pentagon said.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.

In the Gaza war, Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike struck a school compound in Gaza City on Saturday, killing at least 10 people.

“There are 10 martyrs and several wounded due to Israeli bombardment on Hamama school,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it had hit a Hamas command and control centre located inside the compound.

On Friday, thousands of people in Qatar attended funeral prayers for Haniyeh, who was buried north of the capital Doha two days after his death.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said he was killed by a “short-range projectile” fired “from outside the accommodation area” where he was staying.

Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

But the London Daily Telegraph quoted Revolutionary Guard sources as claiming he had been killed by explosives left in his guesthouse months ago by Iranian agents recruited by Israel.

The killing of the Qatar-based Haniyeh is among a series of tit-for-tat attacks since April that had already heightened fears of a regional conflagration.

“The risk that the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant met his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and called for an international coalition to support “Israel’s defence against Iran and its proxies”, Gallant’s office said.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack which triggered war in Gaza and resulted in the deaths of 1197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,550 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where on Saturday Palestinian official sources said an Israeli drone strike killed five people in a vehicle.

The military said it struck “five terrorists” on their way to carry out an attack.

Haniyeh played a key role in mediated talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza. His killing raised questions about the continued viability of such negotiations which Qatar, Egypt and the United States have engaged in for months.

Hamas officials but also some analysts, and protesters in Israel, have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

Far-right members crucial to Mr Netanyahu’s ruling coalition oppose any truce.

The war in Gaza had caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions “continue to deteriorate”.

It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.

Since October Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border in support of Hamas.

Late on Friday, a source close to Hezbollah said Israel carried out strikes on a convoy of trucks entering Lebanon from Syria.

Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday, but Tel Aviv-bound flights continue as normal, their parent company said on Saturday.

Sweden on Saturday said it was shutting its embassy in Beirut and urged its nationals to leave the country “while they still can”.

AFP