WASHINGTON: The US government is providing vital assistance to earthquake victims in Turkiye and Syria, according to Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the commander of US Transportation Command.

Speaking during a press briefing about her recent visit to the Gulf region, she said the US military and the US Agency for International Development have sent search and rescue teams and specially trained rescue dogs to assist with the humanitarian response to the disaster.

 DAMASCUS/ANKARA: No one knows what has become of the two boys whose photos are tied to a tree close to the block of flats where they lived in the earthquake-hit Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.

In one, a baby boy in an orange babygro smiles out from a turquoise armchair, in the other an older boy climbs into a swimming pool, looking proudly into the camera.

GAZA: Valentine’s Day is considered un-Islamic by many of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and business was slower than usual on Tuesday at those shops selling red roses, fluffy hearts and teddy bears.

Wasim Abdu, owner of the Safeer El-Hub (Ambassador of Love) flower shop in Gaza City, said sporadic clashes with Israeli troops and the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria had cast a shadow over celebrations.

LONDON: Iran is becoming a world leader in cheap, military-grade drone production, the US Defense Intelligence Agency has warned.

Analysts say Tehran is using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a theater to advertise its drone capabilities, becoming a key backer of President Vladimir Putin’s war effort.

Three models are known to have been delivered to Russia by Iran: the Shahed 131 and 136 single-use drones, used to fly kamikaze missions, and the Mohajer-6, used for airstrikes and reconnaissance.

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities arrested the leader of the Ennahda opposition movement in a crackdown on rival politicians and critics of the North African country’s increasingly authoritarian President Kais Saied, lawyers said on Tuesday.

Noureddine Bhiri, a senior Ennahda leader, was taken into custody by armed police at his home in the capital, Tunis, late on Monday on suspicion of being part of a “conspiracy against the country’s security,” the movement’s lawyer, Ines Harrathi, wrote on Facebook.