Rwanda reports eight deaths linked to Marburg virus

KIGALI, Rwanda

Rwanda says at least eight people have died from the Ebola-like, highly contagious Marburg virus, just days after the country declared an outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorized vaccine or treatment.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in fruit bats and spreads among people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bedsheets.

Rwanda, a landlocked country in central Africa, declared an outbreak on Friday.

So far, 26 cases have been confirmed, and eight of the sickened people have died, Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said late on Sunday.

The public has been urged to avoid physical contact to help curb the spread, but some 300 people who came into contact with those confirmed to have the virus have also been identified.

An unspecified number of them have been put in isolation facilities and most of the affected are healthcare workers across six out of 30 districts in the country.

“Marburg is a rare disease,” Nsanzimana told journalists. “We are intensifying contact tracing and testing to help stop the spread.”

The minister said the source of the disease has not been determined, adding that a person infected with the virus can take between three days and three weeks to show symptoms.

Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.

The World Health Organization is scaling up its support and will work with Rwandan authorities to help stop the spread, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday on the social media platform X.

Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to the WHO.

The rare virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven people died who were exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.

Separately, Rwanda has reported six cases of mpox, a disease caused by a virus related to smallpox but that typically causes milder symptoms.

Mpox has also affected several other African countries in what the WHO has declared a global health emergency.

Rwanda launched an mpox vaccination campaign earlier this month, and more vaccines are expected to arrive in the country.

Sudan army denies UAE accusation of bombing envoy’s residence

KHARTOUM, Sudan

Sudan’s military government has refuted accusations from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that its forces have bombed its ambassador’s residence in Khartoum, pointing instead at the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The UAE earlier on Monday said the diplomatic post was attacked by a Sudanese military aircraft, condemning it as a “heinous attack”. The government in Khartoum, which is in the midst of a new push to retake the capital, has previously accused the UAE of supporting the RSF, with which it has been entangled in war for more than a year.

“The UAE has called on the army to assume full responsibility for this cowardly act,” the Middle Eastern state’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Describing the attack as a “flagrant violation of the fundamental principle of the inviolability of diplomatic premises”, the ministry said the attack had caused extensive damage to the building.

It added that it would send complaints to the League of Arab States, the African Union and the United Nations.

In reply, the Sudanese military released a statement blaming the RSF for carrying out these “shameful and cowardly acts”.

In a clear dig at its adversary, with which it has been fighting for control of swaths of Sudan since April 2023, the army said “it does not target the headquarters of diplomatic missions, United Nations agencies or voluntary organisations and does not turn them into military bases and loot their assets.

“The one that carries out these heinous and cowardly actions is the terrorist, rebel militia (RSF)… supported in committing all this by countries known to the world,” the statement said.

The military government has accused the UAE of providing weapons and support to the RSF in the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and ignited a dire humanitarian crisis.

In June, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed, accused Abu Dhabi of giving financial and military support to the RSF, and claimed that help was the “main reason behind this protracted war”.

The Gulf state has called the allegations “disinformation”, saying its efforts are focused exclusively on de-escalation and alleviating Sudan’s humanitarian suffering.

However, UN sanctions monitors have described the accusations that the UAE has provided military support to the RSF as credible.

The UN says nearly 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – need aid, famine is looming and some 8 million people have fled their homes.

Heavy clashes have raged in several parts of the capital city in recent days in a major flare-up of hostilities as government forces have launched an assault aimed at retaking Khartoum.

For the most part, the RSF has been in firm control of most of the city since the outbreak of hostilities and has been accused of committing abuses against the civilian population.

Congo rebels generating $300,000 monthly in seized mining area, UN says

UNITED NATIONS, New York

Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have consolidated control over the Rubaya coltan-mining region, imposing a production tax estimated to generate around $300,000 in monthly revenue, the United Nations security council heard on Monday.

The M23 movement, a Tutsi-led organization purportedly backed by Rwanda, seized the area, which produces minerals used in smartphones and computers, following intense fighting in April.

Bintou Keita, head of the UN mission in Congo, told the Security Council that trade from minerals in the Rubaya area accounts for over 15% of global tantalum supply.

Congo is the world’s top producer of tantalum which is considered a critical mineral by the United States and the European Union.

“This generates an estimated $300,000 in revenue per month to the armed group,” Keita said. “This is deeply concerning and needs to be stopped.”

“The criminal laundering of the DRC’s natural resources smuggled out of the country is strengthening armed groups, sustaining the exploitation of civilian populations, some of them reduced to de-facto slavery, and undermining peace-making efforts,” Keita added.

The majority of Congo’s mineral resources are situated in the east, a region plagued by conflict over land and resources between several armed factions. The situation has deteriorated since the resurgence of the M23 rebellion in March 2022.

Thousands have been killed and over 1 million displaced since the resurgence in fighting.

Manufacturers are under scrutiny to ensure that metals used in products such as laptops and batteries for electric vehicles are not sourced from conflict zones like eastern Congo.

Keita said that as profits from mining have surged, armed groups have become militarized entrepreneurs, making them stronger both militarily and financially.

“Unless international sanctions are imposed on those benefiting from this criminal trade, peace will remain elusive, and civilians will continue to suffer,” Keita said.

FIFA bans Samuel Eto’o from national team games for 6 months

ZÜRICH, Switzerland

Cameroon soccer great Samuel Eto’o was banned by FIFA on Monday from attending any national team games for six months.

Eto’o, who has been president of the Cameroon soccer federation since 2021, faced two charges from an incident at the Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Colombia on Sept. 11.

FIFA did not specify details of what happened at the round of 16 game that Brazil won against Cameroon 3-1 after extra time.

Eto’o was judged to have broken disciplinary rules relating to “offensive behavior and violations of the principles of fair play” and misconduct of officials, FIFA said.

“The ban imposed on Mr. Eto’o prevents him from attending men’s and women’s matches involving (Cameroon) teams of all categories and age groups,” FIFA said in a statement.

That period through March includes men’s national team games in qualifying groups for the 2026 World Cup and 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The 43-year-old Eto’o played for Cameroon at four World Cups from 1998 to 2014, missing only the 2006 edition, and scored a record 56 goals for the Indomitable Lions. He played in two Africa Cup of Nations title-winning teams, in 2000 and 2002.

He won three Champions League titles, including back to back in 2009 with Barcelona and 2010 with Inter Milan, in a storied career as one of soccer’s top forwards.

Uganda receives first batch of pipes for crude oil project

KAMPALA, Uganda

Uganda on Monday received the first batch of coated line pipes for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which was delivered to the main camp and pipe yard in Kyotera District, signalling the project developers’ intent to fast track the laying and construction of the cross-border pipeline in both Uganda and Tanzania. 

China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co. Ltd (CPP), the construction contractor for Eacop, received nine trucks of insulated line pipe from the coating plant in Nzenga, Tabora Region, Tanzania. 

With the arrival of the insulated line pipes in Uganda, CPP is expected to start laying of the pipeline in Uganda as the developers race against time to export the first barrels of crude oil by the end of next year, a statement from Eacop Ltd said.

“The project remains on track to meet its construction and operational timelines, with a continued focus on safety, environmental sustainability, and local community engagement,” it said.

“This is a major landmark in the construction of the Eacop and a clear sign of the progress of the project. Government and its partners are committed to ensuring that all developments are completed in the most environmentally responsible and sustainable manner,” said Ali Ssekatawa, Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs at the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU). 

He added that civil works have already advanced on the pumping stations, main camps, pipe yards and storage facilities along the 1,443-kilometre pipeline, which will link oil fields in the Albertine Basin in Uganda to the Tanga port in Tanzania.

To date, the project has received 800 kilometres of line pipes, which are currently being coated and insulated at the Nzega Coating Yard.

To mitigate climate change risks, the project will deploy renewable energy for all pumping, heating, monitoring and storage operations, with the 296km section in Uganda to be fully carbon neutral, powered entirely by 80MW of solar and hydroelectric energy, while efforts are underway to develop similar renewable capacity on the Tanzanian side.

The project, estimated to cost $5 billion, is being developed by the Eacop Company, with Uganda and Tanzania as shareholders, each holding a 15 percent stake, while French supermajor TotalEnergies holds 62 percent and China National Offshore Oil Corporation Uganda Limited owns eight percent.

Angola's Isabel dos Santos loses appeal against freezing order over assets

LONDON, England

Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos on Monday lost an appeal to overturn an order freezing up to 580 million pounds ($778 million) of her assets as part a lawsuit at London's High Court.

Dos Santos – Africa's first female billionaire, whose father Jose Eduardo dos Santos ruled Angola for 38 years until 2017 – is being sued by Angolan telecoms operator Unitel.

Unitel was granted a worldwide freezing order over dos Santos' assets in December and the Court of Appeal on Monday rejected her appeal against that decision.

Dos Santos has faced corruption accusations in Angola for years. She denies the allegations and says she is the target of a long-running political vendetta.

She is being sued by Unitel over loans it made to separate Dutch company Unitel International Holdings (UIH) in 2012 and 2013, when she was a Unitel director, to fund UIH's acquisition of shares in telecoms companies.

Dos Santos owns and controls UIH, the Court of Appeal said in its ruling.

Unitel and UIH are not related despite bearing the same name, and dos Santos resigned as a director of Unitel in 2020.

The loans were not repaid and around 300 million pounds is outstanding, Unitel's lawyers argued at the High Court.

But dos Santos – who claims to be the victim of a "campaign of oppression" by Angola – says Unitel is itself responsible for UIH's inability to repay the loans because of its alleged role in Angola's unlawful seizure of UIH assets.

EAST AFRICA NEWSPAPERS 01/10/2024

Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah last week, said the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

"We will face any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement," he said.

Israeli forces have dealt multiple blows to Hezbollah in a two-week wave of attacks on targets in Lebanon that has eliminated several commanders.

The possibility that Israel's next move might be to send ground troops and tanks over the border is on many minds.

In other developments, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon in the city of Tyre on Monday, and another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders died in a strike in central Beirut - the first such hit inside the capital's limits.

The killings were the latest in a wave of intensified Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon, part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, and within Israel itself.

Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with his wife, son and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.

People check a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, September 28, 2024

Another group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut's Kola district.

This was the first time Israel had struck Beirut beyond its southern suburbs in a campaign which culminated in the assassination of Hezbollah's veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah last week in a succession of heavy air strikes.

The strike against the PFLP hit the upper floor of an apartment building, our reporter witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The latest attacks indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive on multiple fronts even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran's most powerful ally in its "Axis of Resistance" against Israeli and U.S. influence in the region.

Israel's intensified attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi forces in Yemen have prompted fears that Middle East fighting could spin out of control and draw in Iran and the United States, Israel's main ally.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, said Tehran would not leave any of Israel's "criminal acts" go unanswered.

He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Guard deputy commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes on Friday.

Lebanon's Health Ministry says more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. One million people - a fifth of the population - have fled their homes, the government says.

The escalation has put Beirut on edge, with Lebanese fearful that Israel will expand its military campaign.

"There is nothing else to say or add, except God save Lebanon," Beirut resident Nawel said. "What will happen to me is the same as what can happen to anyone."

New cost of living rallies planned in Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria

Nigeria could see new rallies on Tuesday with citizens protesting against a cost of living crisis.

Named 'Fearless October 1', the demonstrations have been timed to coincide with Nigeria's 64th independence anniversary which falls on Tuesday, October 1.

Organisers told local media that rallies would take place in the capital Abuja, the port city of Lagos and in provincial capitals across the west African country.

Similar demonstrations rocked Nigeria in July and August, with protestors demanding the reinstatement of a fuel subsidy, and end to government corruption.

About two dozen people were killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to activists.

On his first day in office, President Bola Tinubu ended a decades-long fuel subsidy that had helped keep prices down. His government also twice devalued the currency, causing prices of just about everything to jump.

In an address to the nation, Tinubu defended his policies but made no concessions to the protestors.

192 confirmed dead in Nepal disasters

KATHMANDU, Nepal

The death toll from floods and landslides triggered by incessant rainfalls in Nepal has risen further to 192 by Monday morning.

The devastating disasters have left 30 missing and 194 others injured, said Rishiram Tiwari, spokesperson for the home ministry.

"Over 4,500 people affected have been rescued so far. The security forces are still continuing their rescue efforts," he told our correspondent.

Noting that the injured are receiving free treatment, Tiwari said the government has expedited the distribution of relief materials, including food, to those displaced in the disasters sparked by continuous rains on Friday and Saturday.

According to government data, 1,327 individual houses have been destroyed and different stretches of 19 major highways across Nepal damaged. Security forces have been mobilized to clear the blocked highways.

Israeli warplanes target power stations, Yemen’s Houthi-held Hodeidah

AL MUKALLA, Yemen

Israeli warplanes on Sunday bombed two ports and two power plants in Hodeidah, the Houthi-held western city in Yemen, a day after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed to have fired a ballistic missile and drone at Israel.

Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported that Israeli warplanes launched a number of airstrikes on Hodeidah city port and Ras Issa port, including a major oil export terminal and Al-Hali and Al-Katheeb power plants. 

The airstrikes had “completely” destroyed the Al-Hali power plant, Hodeidah’s main power station, rendering it inoperable and burying workers.

Al-Masirah said three workers were found under debris at the plant while rescuers were attempting to find more trapped people.

Images and videos shared on social media showed large balls of fire and smoke at the targeted oil storage facilities at Hodeidah Port and other locations.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its warplanes had attacked Houthi targets in Hodeidah and the Ras Issa regions.

Fearing that the airstrikes on facilities in Hodeidah would cause an oil-buying panic, the Houthi-run oil company issued a statement immediately following the strikes, assuring people in areas under its control that there were sufficient oil supplies and telling fuel station owners not to close stations or raise prices.

“The Yemeni Oil Company confirms that it has already taken the necessary precautions for any emergency and that the supply situation in the free zones is completely stable,” it said.

The airstrikes came a day after the Houthis claimed to have launched a ballistic missile at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, and vowed to carry out similar drone and missile strikes on Israel in the future in support of Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its war in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli warplanes first launched airstrikes on Houthi targets in Hodeidah on July 20, killing and wounding 90 people a day after the Houthis fired a drone at Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring several others.

Since November the Houthis have fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at international commercial and naval ships in the Red Sea and other seas off Yemen, as well as at Israel, in what the Yemeni militia claims is an effort to support the Palestinian people.

Russian PM to meet Iranian President in Tehran

MOSCOW, Russia

Russia announced Sunday that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Monday.

The announcement came as Russia has condemned Israel's "political murder" of Iran-backed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

Mishustin will hold talks with Pezeshkian and First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, the government statement said.

"It is planned to discuss the full range of Russian-Iranian cooperation in the trade and economic and cultural and humanitarian spheres," Russia said.

The talks will focus on "carrying out large joint projects in fields involving transport energy, industry and agriculture,” the statement added.

Western governments have accused Iran of supplying both drones and missiles to Moscow for its war on Ukraine, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Pezeshkian is set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Russia next month to attend the BRICS summit.

Three Palestinian leaders killed in Israel strike in Beirut

GAZA, Palestine

A Palestinian militant group said on Monday that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut, the first attack within city limits as Israel escalated hostilities against Iran's allies in the region.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said the three leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut's Kola district.

The strike hit the upper floor of an apartment building in the Kola district of Lebanon's capital, Reuters witnesses said.

There was no immediate comment from Israel's military.

Israel's increasing frequency of attacks against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and the Houthi militia in Yemen have prompted fears that Middle East fighting could spin out of control and draw in Iran and the United States, Israel's main ally.

The PFLP is another militant group taking part in the fight against Israel.

Israel on Sunday launched airstrikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen and dozens of Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon after earlier killing the Hezbollah leader.

The Houthi-run health ministry said at least four people were killed and 29 wounded in airstrikes on Yemen's port of Hodeidah, which Israel said were a response to Houthi missile attacks. In Lebanon, authorities said at least 105 people had been killed by Israeli air strikes on Sunday.

Lebanon's Health Ministry has said more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people - a fifth of the population - have fled their homes.

The intensifying Israeli bombardment over two weeks has killed a string of top Hezbollah officials, including its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel has vowed to keep up the assault and says it wants to make its northern areas secure again for residents who have been forced to flee Hezbollah rocket attacks.

Israeli drones hovered over Beirut for much of Sunday, with the loud blasts of new airstrikes echoing around the Lebanese capital. Displaced families spent the night on benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut's waterfront.

Many of Israel's attacks have been carried out in the south of Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah has most of its operations, or Beirut's southern suburbs.

Monday's attack in the Kola district appeared to be the first strike within Beirut's city limits. Syrians living in southern Lebanon who had fled Israeli bombardment had been sleeping under a bridge in the neighborhood for days, residents of the area said.

The United States has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon but has also authorised its military to reinforce in the region.

U.S. President Joe Biden, asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could be avoided, said “It has to be." He said he will be talking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

EAST AFRICA NEWSPAPERS 30/09/2024

 

101 dead in Nepal floods after relentless monsoon rains

KATHMANDU,  Nepal 

Low-lying neighbourhoods in Nepal's capital Kathmandu were inundated by surging floodwaters on Sunday after ferocious monsoon rains that police said had killed at least 101 people around the Himalayan republic.

Deadly rain-related floods and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.

Large swathes of eastern and central Nepal have been inundated since Friday with flash floods reported in several rivers and extensive damage to the country's highways.

"The death toll has reached 101, and 64 people are missing," police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

"There is likely to be an increase in the death toll as our search and rescue mission proceeds in the affected areas," he added.

The Kathmandu valley recorded 240 millimetres (9.4 inches) of rain in the 24 hours to Saturday morning, the country's weather bureau told the Kathmandu Post newspaper.

It was the highest rainfall recorded in the capital since at least 1970, the report said.

The Bagmati river and its numerous tributaries which cut through Kathmandu broke their banks, inundating nearby homes and vehicles.

Residents pushed through chest-deep water to get to higher ground, with nearly 3,300 people rescued by relief teams as of Sunday morning.

More than 3,000 security personnel were deployed to assist rescue efforts with helicopters and motorboats.

Rescue teams were using rafts to pull survivors to safety.

Landslides have blocked several highways connecting the capital to the rest of the country, leaving hundreds of travellers stranded.

"We have around eight locations, all of them have been blocked due to landslides in different sections of the road," Kathmandu traffic police officer Bishwaraj Khadka said on Saturday.

Domestic flights have resumed in and out of Kathmandu after weather forced a complete stoppage from Friday evening, with more than 150 departures cancelled.

The summer monsoon brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall.

Monsoon rains from June to September bring widespread death and destruction every year across South Asia, but the number of fatal floods and landslides have increased in recent years.

Experts say climate change has worsened their frequency and intensity.

A landslide that hit a road in Chitwan district in July pushed two buses with 59 passengers aboard into a river.

Three people were able to escape alive, but authorities managed to recover only 20 bodies from the accident, with raging flood waters impeding the search.

More than 260 people have died in Nepal in rain-related disasters this year.

Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates 

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been taken to a secure location inside Iran amid heightened security, sources told Reuters, a day after Israel killed the head of Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah in a strike on Beirut. 

The move to safeguard Iran’s top decision-maker is the latest show of nervousness by the Iranian authorities as Israel launched a series of devastating attacks on Hezbollah, Iran’s best armed and most well-equipped ally in the region.

Reuters reported this month that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, the ideological guardians of the Islamic Republic, had ordered all of members to stop using any type of communication devices after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah blew up.

Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel was behind the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. Israel neither denied nor confirmed involvement.

The two regional officials briefed by Tehran and who told Reuters that Khamenei had been moved to a safe location also said Iran was in contact with Hezbollah and other regional proxy groups to determine the next step after Nasrallah’s killing.

The sources declined to be identified further due to the sensitivity of the matter. 

As well as killing Nasrallah, Friday’s strikes by Israel on Beirut killed Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, Iranian media reported on Saturday. 

Other Revolutionary Guard’s commanders have also been killed since the Gaza War erupted last year and violence flared elsewhere.

Khamenei issued a statement later on Saturday, following Israel’s announcement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront.”

“The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged,” he said in a separate statement, in which he announced five days of mourning to mark Nasrallah’s death.

Nasrallah’s death is a major blow to Iran, removing an influential ally who helped build Hezbollah into the linchpin of Tehran’s constellation of allied groups in the Arab world. 

Iran’s network of regional allies, known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, stretch from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. 

Hamas has been fighting a war with Israel for almost a year, since its fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched missiles at Israel and at ships sailing in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea along the Yemeni coast.

Hezbollah has been engaged in exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border throughout the Gaza War and has repeatedly said it would not stop until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.

After the pager and walkie-talkies strikes, one Iranian security official told Reuters that a large-scale operation was underway by the Revolutionary Guards to inspect all communications devices. He said most of these devices were either homemade or imported from China and Russia.

The official said Iran was concerned about infiltration by Israeli agents, including Iranians on Israel’s payroll and a thorough investigation of personnel has already begun, targeting mid and high-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guards.

In another statement on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the United States had played a role in Nasrallah’s killing as a supplier of weapons to Israel.

“The Americans cannot deny their complicity with the Zionists,” he said in the statement carried by state media.

6 killed by bomb blasts in Somalia after leader addresses UN

By Our Correspondent,  NAIROBI  Kenya

Bomb blasts in Mogadishu and a town in the country's Middle Shabelle region killed at least six people and injured 10 others Saturday, police said and witnesses confirmed to our reporter.

“An explosives-laden vehicle, which was parked on the road near a restaurant in the busy Hamar Weyne district, went off. I could see the dead bodies of at least three people, two of them women,” Mohamed Haji Nur, a witness, said.

The explosion site is opposite of Somalia’s National Theater, about one kilometer from the president's office.

The target of the attack is still unknown, but the affected Gel Doh restaurant is frequented by government staff and people from the diaspora for serving traditional Somali food.

In a separate incident, a bomb planted in a livestock market in Jowhar city in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region killed one person and injured three other civilians, Jowhar police Commander Bashir Hassan told a news conference.

It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attacks. However, the Islamist militant group al-Shabab is known for orchestrating bombings and gun attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa country.

Somalian Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre publicly accused Ethiopia before the U.N. General Assembly on Friday of actions that he says "flagrantly violate" Somalia's territorial integrity.

This accusation comes as tensions continue to escalate between the two neighboring countries since January, when Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal with the breakaway region of Somaliland.

This region, at the northern tip of the country, declared independence in 1991 but lacks international recognition.

Under the deal, Somaliland would lease 20 kilometers of shoreline to Ethiopia in return for recognition, a move that raised alarms in Mogadishu.