Region

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates shot down a ballistic missile fired by Yemen's Houthi insurgents during a visit by Israel's president Monday, the latest attack to rattle the Middle East financial hub.

Nobody was hurt in the early-hours attack, the third in consecutive weeks on the wealthy Gulf nation that is part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Iran-backed insurgents.

"Air defence forces... intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi terrorist group at the UAE," the defence ministry said, according to the official WAM news agency.

It said fragments of debris fell "outside of populated areas", without giving further details.

The ministry said it responded by destroying the missile launch site in Yemen's northern Al-Jawf region, releasing black-and-white footage of the explosion.

The latest rebel missile was fired as Isaac Herzog makes the first visit to the UAE by an Israeli president, after the countries established diplomatic ties under the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Herzog, who met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Sunday, visited Dubai's Expo 2020 site on Monday and held talks with the UAE Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Herzog will "continue his visit as planned", his office said earlier, as the United States condemned the Houthi attack.

"While Israel's president is visiting the UAE to build bridges and promote stability across the region, the Houthis continue to launch attacks that threaten civilians," State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted.

Monday’s attack was the latest in a series against the Emirates.

Three oil workers were killed in a drone-and-missile attack on Abu Dhabi on January 17, the first deadly assault in the UAE claimed by the Houthis, and two ballistic missiles were intercepted over the capital a week later.

The attacks, which follow a spike in hostilities in Yemen, have raised Gulf tensions further at a time when international talks over Iran’s nuclear programme are floundering and have helped push oil prices to seven-year highs.

The Iran-backed Houthis began attacking UAE interests after a series of defeats on the ground in Yemen, inflicted by the UAE-trained Giants Brigades militia.

In early January, the rebels seized a UAE-flagged ship in the Red Sea, saying it was carrying weapons, a claim denied by the Emirates.

‘All necessary measures’ 

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels targeted Abu Dhabi with a number of ballistic missiles and Dubai with multiple drones.

He also warned “citizens, residents and companies to stay away from... vital facilities as they are at risk of being targeted in the coming period”.

The UAE’s defence ministry said it blew up the launch site at 12:50am UAE time (2050 GMT), exactly 30 minutes after the missile was intercepted.

The Emirates affirms its “full readiness to deal with any threats” and will “take all necessary measures to protect the UAE from any attacks”, it added.

The UAE authorities said that the incident had no impact on air traffic, with flight operations proceeding normally.

A senior Emirati official last week vowed that Houthi attacks will not become a “new normal” for the Gulf country, a trade, business and tourism centre and a major oil exporter.

The UAE withdrew its troops from Yemen in 2019 but remains an influential player. It also hosts American troops and is one of the world’s biggest arms buyers.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.

The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly and left millions on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations which calls it the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.

VIENNA — Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) it has stopped production at one of its nuclear facilities attacked last June and transferred work to another site, the watchdog said on Monday.

The move responded to a “security concern” following the attack, with the new site “better protected”, a European diplomat told AFP.

The TESA complex in Karaj, which is near the capital Tehran, hosted a workshop to build components for centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium.

Iran said cameras at the site were damaged on June 23, 2021 during what it called an Israeli “sabotage” operation.

In the aftermath, the Vienna-based IAEA said it did not receive permission to gain access and replace the surveillance equipment damaged in the attack.

The two parties finally struck an agreement in December and new cameras were installed.

However, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said, “Iran had informed the Agency on 19 January that it intended to produce centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at a new location in Esfahan,” according to the UN watchdog.

It said “the Agency could adjust its surveillance and monitoring measures accordingly”.

“A few days later, Agency inspectors applied seals on all the relevant machines in the Karaj workshop, placed them under containment and then removed the surveillance cameras installed there,” it said.

“As a result, the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at the Karaj workshop had ceased,” it added.

Then on January 24 IAEA inspectors set up cameras at a site in Esfahan “to ensure the machines intended for the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows were under monitoring”, it said.

It added that the production of the centrifuge equipment at the new workshop had yet to begin.

Iran has sharply accelerated its nuclear activities in the years since US president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 international nuclear deal and imposed sweeping sanctions on Tehran.

The 2015 deal — struck between Iran and the United States (under president Barack Obama), Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia — offered Iran drastic relief from international sanctions in return for draconian curbs on its nuclear programme.

After President Joe Biden entered the White House just over a year ago, talks to revive the nuclear deal began in April 2021 in Vienna.

But they stopped for several months as the Islamic republic elected a new ultraconservative government.

The talks finally resumed in late November and are now in their final phase that requires political decisions, according to parties involved in the talks.

TEHRAN — Iran said Monday that differences with the United States remain over the issues of lifting sanctions and obtaining guarantees in Vienna talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

"Important and significant issues remain regarding the removal of sanctions that have not made an agreement possible so far," Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a news conference.

He reiterated calls for guarantees that the US will not withdraw from the 2015 deal, which was derailed in 2018 when the administration of then-president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the pact.

Khatibzadeh's remarks came as the eighth round of negations to restore the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been on pause since Friday, with the negotiators returning to their capitals for consultations.

The European Union's coordinator for the talks, Enrique Mora, said at the time that "political decisions" are required to break the deadlock, and that talks are expected to resume this week.

The drive to salvage the nuclear deal resumed in late November, after talks were suspended in June as Iran elected ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi.

The deal, agreed by Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

But the US reimposed severe economic sanctions after the 2018 withdrawal, prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments under the deal.

Khatibzadeh nonetheless noted "very significant progress" over the previous three weeks in negotiations over the lifting of sanctions and nuclear commitments, as well as obtaining guarantees.

"We suggest that after returning from their capitals, [other parties] come with necessary decisions so that we can conclude quickly what has been prepared in drafts," he said.

"The other parties know the differences clearly. They need to make political decisions, especially in Washington," he added.

"We await political decisions by Washington upon the return of the US delegation."

The US has participated only indirectly in the talks, which seek to bring Washington back to the accord and to ensure Iran returns to its commitments under the deal.

"We can reach a lasting, reliable and good agreement the day after the return of the negotiators to Vienna" if the other parties make the "right" political decisions, he added.

BEIRUT — Lebanon said on Monday it had busted at least 17 suspected Israeli spy networks, in one of the largest nationwide crackdowns in recent years.

Interior minister Bassam Mawlawi informed Cabinet that security forces had "clamped down on 17 spy networks working for Israel", acting information minister Abbas Halabi said after the meeting.

Lebanon and Israel remain in an official state of war.

Halabi said the rings operated both "locally and regionally", without elaborating.

He also did not specify how many people were arrested as part of the operation, which was carried out by the country's Internal Security Forces (ISF).

Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the arrests had helped stop "efforts to tamper with security and sabotage the stability of the country", according to a cabinet statement read by Halabi.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri praised the operation as "unique achievement".

Al Akhbar, a newspaper supportive of Lebanon's powerful Hizbollah movement, reported the busts on Monday, calling it the largest operation against suspected Israeli agents in the country for 13 years.

It said that the ISF’s intelligence unit started the crackdown four weeks ago and had so far detained around 20 people, including Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian nationals, some of whom were later released.

The Al Akhbar report claimed that at least 12 of the suspects in detention were aware they working for Israel, while the rest believed they were providing information for global companies or non profit organisations.

Israel and the Shiite movement Hizbollah fought a 33-day war in Lebanon in 2006.

Between April 2009 and 2014, Lebanese authorities detained more than 100 people accused of spying for Israel, most of them members of the military or telecom employees. The rate of arrests, however, had declined in recent years.

BRUSSELS — An EU-Libya deal under which migrants desperate to reach Europe are turned back and held in "hellish" conditions must be ended, Amnesty International said on Monday, the pact's fifth anniversary.

The rights organisation said that, over those five years, more than 82,000 people have been returned to Libya to face "arbitrary detention, torture, cruel and inhuman detention conditions, rape and sexual violence, extortion, forced labour and unlawful killings".

Amnesty and other critics slam the agreement as an outsourcing of the EU's border policing duties to Libya, resulting in a travesty for Europe's human rights record given the documented abuses.

The cooperation is a series of deals struck since 2016 which include EU funding and assistance of the Libyan coast guard, which intercepts migrants in boats to haul them back to land.

"These arrangements... have since enabled Libyan authorities to disembark people intercepted at sea in Libya, despite it being unlawful to return anyone to a place where they face serious abuse," Amnesty said in a statement.

The "impunity" that reigns in Libya was evinced by the appointment of a head of a detention centre where abuses had been documented to become chief of a government department tasked with fighting illegal migration, it added.

“It is high time to put an end to this callous approach, which shows a complete disregard for people’s lives and dignity. Instead, rescue efforts must ensure people are taken to a place of safety,” one of its migration and asylum researchers, Matteo de Bellis, said.

The European Commission argues that the Libyan coast guards “contribute to saving lives” and are meant to operate only in Libyan territorial waters. Brussels says it has sent “very firm messages” to Libya that it should close its migrant detention centres.

Libya became a major launching-off point for mostly African migrants trying to reach Europe in the wake of a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 in which dictator Muammar Qadhafi was toppled and killed.

The country has been gripped by violence and insecurity and two main factions are vying for control, a UN-backed government in Tripoli, and a military strongman, Khalifa Haftar, and his forces who rule the east.

A presidential election meant to have taken place in December 24 followed by legislative polls has been postponed.