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Hezbollah Leader Threatens to Sink US War Ships With Russian Missiles
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned the United States that his group had something in store for US Navy ships stationed in the region following the outbreak of war last month between the Palestinian party Hamas and Israel, which shook the wider Middle East.
According to individuals acquainted with Hezbollah’s arsenal, powerful Russian anti-ship missiles purchased by the group provide it with the means to carry out its leader’s veiled threat against US warships and highlight the dire hazards of any regional war.
According to two individuals in Lebanon acquainted with Hezbollah’s arsenal, he was alluding to the group’s considerably upgraded anti-ship missile capabilities, which include the Russian-made Yakhont missile with a range of 300 km (186 miles).
According to media and analysts, Hezbollah obtained Yakhont missiles in Syria after deploying there more than a decade ago to assist President Bashar al-Assad in fighting a civil war.
Hezbollah has never admitted to having the weapon.
When contacted for comment on this article, the Shi’ite group’s media office did not react promptly.
Washington claims that the Mediterranean naval deployment, which includes two aircraft carriers and supporting ships, aims to prevent the crisis from spreading by discouraging Iran, which supports groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Because of their ability to strike the group and its allies, Hezbollah sees the US warships as a direct danger.
In a speech on Friday, Nasrallah stated that US warships in the Mediterranean “do not scare us, and will not scare us.”
“We have prepared for the fleets with which you threaten us,” he went on to say.
Following Nasrallah’s Friday statement, the White House stated that Hezbollah must not exploit the Hamas-Israel confrontation, and that the US does not want the conflict to spill over into Lebanon.
According to one of the sources, Hezbollah’s anti-ship capabilities have grown dramatically since 2006, when the group displayed its ability to strike a vessel at sea by hitting an Israeli destroyer in the Mediterranean during a fight with Israel.
“There’s the Yakhont, and of course there are other things besides it,” the insider stated, without going into further detail. The use of this weapon by Hezbollah against US Navy warships would signify that the situation has evolved into a major regional war.
Hezbollah’s capabilities
According to three current and one former US officials, Hezbollah has developed an outstanding arsenal of weaponry, including anti-ship missiles.
“We’re obviously paying a lot of attention to that… and we’re taking whatever capabilities they have seriously,” one official added, without specifically addressing whether the organisation has the Yakhont rocket.
The officials talked anonymously in order to speak openly about Hezbollah’s capabilities.
According to US sources, the recently deployed US naval strength in the region includes defences against incoming missiles. They didn’t go into detail.
The Pentagon has sent warships to the eastern Mediterranean since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists assaulted Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 people, according to Israel.
According to Palestinian sources, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed over 10,000 Palestinians since then.
Nasrallah cautioned Washington on Friday that stopping the Israeli onslaught was critical to avoiding a regional war. Since October 8, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanese border.
However, Hezbollah has only deployed a portion of its weaponry thus far, and the fighting has primarily been limited to the border area.
Iran backed militants
Other Iran-aligned groups, such as Yemen’s Houthis, have also shot drones at Israel, while Shi’ite Muslim militias backed by Iran have fired on US forces in Iraq and Syria.
According to Reuters the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the ground-launched Yakhont approaches its target at low altitude – 10 to 15 metres (yards) off the ground – to escape detection.
According to CSIS, the Yakhont missile, a version of the P-800 Oniks missile first created in 1993, was developed in 1999 for export by a Russian defence contractor and may be launched from the air, land, or submarines.
When asked about the sources’ claims that Hezbollah had obtained Yakhont missiles, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated, “First and foremost, this is news with no confirmation.” We don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Secondly, we do not have such information.”
The Russian defence ministry did not respond to a written request for comment. The Syrian information ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ emailed inquiry.
Nasrallah’s Friday speech was one of his strongest warnings to the US, which holds his group responsible for a suicide attack that destroyed the US Marines headquarters in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 servicemen, as well as a suicide attack on the US embassy that same year, killing 63 people.
While Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the assaults, Nasrallah alluded to them implicitly in his speech, saying people who beat the US in Lebanon in the early 1980s were “still alive.”
In remarks aired last month on his private YouTube channel, Nasser Qandil, a Lebanese political analyst close to Hezbollah, outlined how the group’s Yakhont missiles could be used against US vessels.
He called the rocket “the most important prize” of Hezbollah’s role in Syria’s civil war, where the group helped turn the tide in Assad’s favour.
“Yes, Hezbollah is prepared and ready,” stated Qandil.
According to two people who spoke to Reuters, Hezbollah got the weapon while fighting in Syria in support of Assad, whose force has long been supported by Russia.
Hezbollah maintains its stockpile and the sources of its weapons under wraps. Nasrallah detailed how the group received Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles through Syria in rare statements on the subject in 2021.
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Canadian Man Arrested for TikTok Video That Threatened Trudeau
A TikTok video that went live earlier this week has led to a Toronto man facing charges of threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Andrew Marshall, 61, is facing two counts of uttering threats.
On Friday afternoon, the Ontario Court of Justice granted him bail with a surety and restrictions after the RCMP charged him on Wednesday.
Following Monday’s upload to TikTok, CBC Toronto conducted its own independent investigation of the video. Marshall vehemently opposes what he perceives as restrictions on free expression in Canada in it.
“I get them taken down all the time— I make videos — or all my comments, that are just simple comments,” Marsh says in the TikTok. “It’s just getting ridiculous, Marshall said.”
According to the CBC more and more people are threatening politicians. The commissioner of the RCMP has hinted that further measures may be necessary to ensure their safety.
In the TikTok video, Marshall explains in great detail how he would brutally assassinate Trudeau and Freeland “if it was up to him.”
Marshall attacks multiple groups throughout the roughly 11-minute TikTok video, including the media, Muslims, migrants, and the police who defend the government.
Among Marshall’s bail terms are the following: he must not communicate with Trudeau or Freeland; he must not use the internet to make social media posts or comments; he must not own any weapons; and he must not apply for a firearms permit.
During the bail hearing, the prosecution provided all of the evidence that is often not published.
Nate Jackson, Marshall’s attorney, stressed his client’s liberties and privileges as a Canadian in an email message.
“He has the right to freedom of speech, the right to reasonable bail and the right to a fair trial,” he said. “Having secured his release from custody, we will continue to defend Mr. Marshall’s Charter rights as his case proceeds.”
Neither Freeland’s nor the prime minister’s office would comment on the allegations, according to the CBC.
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Canada’s Unemployment Rate Hits its Highest Point Since 2017
As the job market remains dismal, the national unemployment rate in Canada has risen to its highest point since 2017. This has led some analysts to question whether the Bank of Canada should be reducing interest rates more quickly.
In spite of a net gain of 22,000 jobs, Statistics Canada reported on Friday that the unemployment rate increased to 6.6% from 6.4% the previous month. The rise was due to an uptick in part-time employment and a fall in full-time employment.
Outside of the pandemic years, the national unemployment rate has reached its highest position since May 2017, according to StatCan.
Rapid population expansion in Canada has increased the overall labour pool, but the country’s unemployment rate has persisted in rising.
The summer job market was especially tough for students, according to StatCan. Not including the pandemic, the unemployment rate among students going back to school in the autumn was 16.7 percent, which is the highest level since 2012.
Two days after the Bank of Canada dropped interest rates for the third time in a row, reducing borrowing costs to alleviate economic pressure, the most recent reading of the Canadian job market follows suit.
According to TD Bank economist Leslie Preston, who wrote a note on Friday, the central bank is “giving the OK” to keep dropping rates due to the bad August jobs report. Preston predicts two more quarter-point decreases at the remaining decisions this year.
According to CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham, there are indications that the labour market is quickly contracting more than initially thought, since the unemployment rate is nearly two percentage points greater than the record low of 4.9% in June 2022.
“Due to this, we believe the Bank should be contemplating a quicker rate of reductions in order to bring interest rates to less restrictive levels,” he informed clients in a letter on Friday morning.
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US Job Growth Falls Short of Expectations: Economy Struggles Under High Interest Rates
Last month, job growth in the United States was weaker than predicted, prompting concerns that the world’s largest economy is beginning to struggle under the weight of increased interest rates.
The Labour Department said that employers added 142,000 jobs in August, which was less than the nearly 160,000 economists predicted. It also stated that job gains over the preceding two months were weaker than expected.
However, the jobless rate went down to 4.2%, down from 4.3% in July.
The report is one of the most important indicators of the US economy and arrives at a vital time, as voters consider presidential candidates for the November election and the US central bank contemplates its first interest rate decrease in four years.
Analysts said the latest statistics kept the Federal Reserve on pace for a rate drop at its meeting this month, but did little to answer worries about the trajectory of the US economy or how much of a cut it should make.
“There has rarely been such a make-or-break number; unfortunately, today’s jobs report does not completely resolve the recession debate,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
Soaring prices in 2022 caused the Federal Reserve to hike its key lending rate to 5.3%, a nearly 20-year high.
Faced with increased borrowing costs for homes, vehicles, and other debt, the economy has slowed, helping to alleviate pressures that were boosting inflation but exacerbating market concerns.
As inflation has fallen to 2.9% in July, the Fed is under pressure to decrease interest rates to prevent additional economic deceleration.
Although job increases in August fell short of expectations, they were greater than in July, when a slowdown aroused anxieties and triggered several days of stock market volatility.
Last month, construction and health-care firms hired the most, while manufacturing and retailers laid off employees.
Ms Shah stated that the data in Friday’s report was mixed, but provided enough concerning indicators that the Fed should make a larger cut.
“On balance, with inflation pressures subdued, there is no reason for the Fed not to err on the side of caution and frontload rate cuts,” she told reporters.
Others, however, felt the advances were just steady enough to warrant a 0.25 percentage point decrease, as markets had long projected – though this could signal more cuts than expected in the coming months.
Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics’ senior North America economist, predicted that the Fed’s decision will be “close run.”
“The labour market is clearly experiencing a marked slowdown,” he said, adding that the new statistics were “overall still consistent with an economy experiencing a soft landing rather than plummeting into recession”.
Concerns about the economy are a major issue in the US election.
According to polls, a majority of Americans feel the US is in a recession, despite healthy 2.5% growth last year.
Donald Trump has declared that the economy is headed for a “crash,” and his team instantly latched on the latest data to criticise Vice President Kamala Harris, publishing a press release titled “warning lights flash as Kamala’s economy continues to weaken.”
Democrats have defended their performance, claiming that the United States survived the pandemic and inflation better than many other countries.
They believe the slowdown is a sign that the economy is returning to a more sustainable rate of growth following the post-pandemic boom.
“Although hiring has slowed, the US job market continues to generate solid job gains and wage growth that is consistently beating inflation,” the White House Council of Economic Advisors stated in a blog.
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