Yemen claims destruction of 11th US Reaper drone

Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Yahya Saree announced the destruction of the 11th US-made MQ-9 Reaper drones in Saada province.

That made the Ansar Allah-led government the first stare this decade to down more than 10 of the US drones, each costing over $1 million.

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US citizens: Mr. President, can we have some aid?

Biden: No. There is aid at home

Aid at home:

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Here’s why even ‘limited’ Israeli ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon would be ‘perilous’

“A ground operation in Lebanon by Israel is likely, given the military buildup near the border. However, such an operation carries significant risks” for Tel Aviv, international and security affairs expert Dr. Mehmet Rakipoglu told Sputnik, commenting on reports that Israel is preparing a ground invasion of southern Lebanon after targeting senior Hezbollah commanders and leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah, in a string of missile strikes.

“In urban warfare, non-state actors like Hezbollah can inflict heavy damage on conventional military forces, making even limited operations perilous. Israel risks facing a situation similar to its prolonged struggle in Gaza, potentially drawing itself into a protracted conflict,” Rakipoglu, an assistant professor at Turkiye’s Mardin Artuklu University, and director of Turkish Studies at the Istanbul-based Mokha Center for Strategic Studies, explained.

With that said, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu can’t exactly be described as a “rational actor,” given his record of aggressive and escalatory policies, which makes “this scenario more challenging to predict,” the observer said.

“If a ground operation occurs, Israel is likely to face heavy losses. Hezbollah is a far stronger actor than Hamas, both financially and militarily, and Israel may incur substantial casualties without being able to neutralize Hezbollah entirely,” Rakipoglu warned.

Israel, facing setbacks in Gaza, is now “attempting to gain a psychological advantage by targeting resistance leadership,” according to the observer. These attacks, including the assassination of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and senior members of the militia’s command structure, “damages its strategic capabilities.”

On the other hand, “while Israel appears to gain from this, the move may increase global opposition to Israel, especially after violating international law with an attack on sovereign Lebanese territory,” Rakipoglu summed up.

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Reporters Without Borders’ attack on Sputnik and RT highlights NGO’s status as ‘media wing of NATO’

Reporters Without Borders’ demands for an EU crackdown on Serbia for hosting Sputnik and RT Balkan bureaus make perfect sense, since the NGO is essentially “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West,” Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik.

Gajic’s comments come following the publication of an RSF report accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and “Kremlin narratives” in the Balkans and beyond. The report was part of a new RSF project launched Monday dubbed ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, a multimedia platform promising to wage a “battle to promote reliable journalism.”

“This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic said of RSF’s “Russian propaganda” claims. “Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?...There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer said.

Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic emphasized.

As for RSF claims about RT’s spreading of “Kremlin narratives” in Serbia, Gajic stressed that “pro-Russian sentiment amongst the Serbs has nothing to with the Kremlin, and everything to do with Washington and NATO.”

“Serbs are now more militantly pro-Russian because we were in a war against NATO and actually NATO was conducting and still is conducting hybrid aggression against us. I think that this speaks volumes about the falsehood of the presumptions and of the conclusions [made by RSF, ed.]. You can see how unrealistic and completely detached these people are from the reality, and how they are not really conducting deep research to see what is going on and how come,” Gajic summed up.

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The Lebanese army has withdrawn troops from several positions along the southern border with Israel, Reuters says, quoting local residents and a security source.

A spokesman for the Lebanese army neither confirmed nor denied the reports.

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A US government official told NBC that "Israel has begun probing operations already including small-scale ground missions with their Special Forces" into Lebanon.

The unnamed source added that Israel had also “deployed combat engineers and other troops for missions like breaching.”

The Israeli Defences Forces “currently has about five brigades forward deployed but not all of those are expected to move across the border," the source added.

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Video of alleged clashes between Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah near the Israeli-Lebanese border is circulating on social media.

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Israeli tanks heard in border areas in southern Lebanon, Al Arabiya correspondent reports

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🇨🇳 On September 30, China marks its annual National Day of Remembrance for Fallen Heroes.

President Xi Jinping, the country's leader and General Secretary of the Communist Party, laid a wreath at the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square, paying tribute to those who gave their lives for the nation.

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There is no real movement by Israeli forces on the Lebanon border, the ground operation in Lebanon is yet under discussion, Sputnik correspondent in Lebanon reports

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The IDF issues a warning to residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut:

"To all those in the buildings indicated on the specific maps and the buildings adjacent to them in the following neighborhoods:

Lailaki

Haret Hreik

Borj el-Barajneh

You are in the vicinity of the interests and facilities of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and therefore the IDF will act decisively against them.

For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must immediately leave the buildings and move at least 500 meters away from them."

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The sounds of two strong explosions erupted in the area of Beirut's southern suburbs, Sputnik correspondent reports

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❗️Hezbollah stated that its fighters targeted Israeli soldiers in a woodlands region near the border

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Video of an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Source: social media

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