BEIRUT: Lebanon is due to appoint a new acting head of its intelligence agency after the highest-ranking candidate was declared fit to take over from its retiring current chief.

The medical committee of General Security approved on Tuesday the extension of Brig. Gen. Elias Baissari’s commission for nine months, amid questions over his fitness relating to injuries he suffered in a car bomb attack almost 20 years ago.

WASHINGTON: The US government remains committed to defeating Daesh and its ideology in Iraq, Syria, the wider Middle East and all around the world, even though the extremist group no longer holds any territory, according to military and defense chiefs.

BEIRUT: The term of Lebanon’s powerful General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim is set to end this week as neither cabinet nor parliament have discussed a measure that would allow him to stay on after reaching the legal retirement age.
Ibrahim, who hails from southern Lebanon, has headed the General Security directorate since 2011 and is considered a key regional interlocutor who has good ties with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah and links with Western governments.

JERUSALEM: An ultra-conservative Jewish politician on Monday said he was resigning from his role in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government after failing to advance his agenda, but that he would still support the coalition in parliament.
Avi Maoz, whose Noam party had one of the Knesset’s 120 seats, was made a deputy minister in Netanyahu’s office as part of the coalition sworn in on Dec. 29, with responsibilities for encouraging stringent observance of Jewish law in the country.

HAWARA, West Bank: Suspected Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli-American motorist in the occupied West Bank on Monday after Jewish settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village in a burst of violence that defied US efforts to prod the sides to cooperate on security.
Israeli officials said in the latest incident Palestinians carried out several drive-by shootings on a highway near Jericho, killing an Israeli in his car before fleeing. The US State Department said the person killed was also a US citizen.