PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday the death of four Americans in Syria this week showed that the battle against Daesh militants would continue and he vowed that France would keep its troops in the region this year.
“The announced withdrawal of our American ally should not deflect us from our strategic objective to eradicate Daesh”, Macron said in a speech in Toulouse to the armed forces.
Citing the death of 16 people, including four Americans, in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, near the border with Turkey, Macron said the next few months would be decisive.
“We will remain militarily engaged in the Levant in the international coalition (…) over the coming year,” he said.

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army intelligence have detained a man on suspicion that he crossed into Lebanon from Israel, a military official said Thursday. The country’s state news agency said the detainee is a US citizen.
Lebanon and Israel are in a state of war and each bans its citizens from visiting the other country. There are no border crossings at the tightly-controlled frontier.
The official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, gave no further details saying the man is being questioned and once they have information the army will release a statement.
State-run National News Agency said the man who was detained is a US citizen adding that he was detained in the southern port-city of Tyre where he had been staying since Tuesday. It added that the man is being questioned under the supervision of judicial authorities.
There was no immediate comment from the US embassy in Lebanon.
Suspicion about someone crossing the tightly guarded border known as the Blue Line began to surface on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said: “Israeli army troops identified a break in the fence and signs that point to the suspicion of a person crossing the border from Israel into Lebanon. The incident is under investigation.”

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s Hamas authorities say they have rescued six Egyptian fishermen in the stormy Mediterranean Sea but that one is still believed to be missing.
The Hamas media office says the rough sea washed the wreckage of their boat ashore on the Nusseirat beach in central Gaza Strip
The fishermen were taken to a Gaza hospital. Local media reports say a 48-year-old Egyptian was missing at sea.
The boat apparently was sailing off the coast of northern Sinai when it got caught up in the bad weather and heavy winter winds sweeping the region.

GAZA CITY: Hamas said Thursday it had allocated new homes funded by Iran in Gaza to former Palestinian prisoners who had been held in Israeli jails.
The prisoners ministry said 26 apartments in a new building in southern Gaza had been given out in a lottery between 125 former Palestinian prisoners.
Officials from Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip, said the program was the first of its kind funded by Iran.
A second building will be constructed in northern Gaza, the ministry said, adding the project aimed to “reduce the suffering of our freed prisoners.”
Iran has long been a strong backer of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, providing them with funds, weapons and training.
Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.
Israel regards Iran as its main enemy, accusing of seeking the destruction of the Jewish state though its support for militant groups such as Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

LONDON: A former Houthi air force commander has been killed in Sanaa after the Arab coalition launched an intelligence operation, Al Arabiya reported.

Major General Ibrahim Al-Shami, who ranked number 19 on the Arab coalition’s most wanted list, was killed in “mysterious circumstances.”

Al-Shami was responsible for ballistic missile and drone attacks during his time as air force commander of the Houthi militia, and was dismissed a few months ago in a decision that was not announced. 

He was placed under house arrest under the direct orders of Houthi leader Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, and was ranked 19 out of 40 on an Arab coalition list of wanted terrorists. 

Al-Shami was also targeted by other Houthi leaders, Al Arabiya reported.