🇮🇱❌🇱🇧 IDF says top Hezbollah intel commander killed in Beirut strike this afternoon

A top commander in Hezbollah’s intelligence division was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut this afternoon, the IDF says.

Hassan Khalil Yassin, according to the IDF, headed a unit in Hezbollah’s intelligence division that was tasked with locating Israeli military and civilian sites in Israel to be targeted.

The IDF says Yassin worked closely with Hezbollah’s rocket, missile, and drone units, and was “personally involved in terror plots that were carried out from the beginning of the war against civilians and soldiers, and planned additional attacks in the coming days.”

Fighter jets carried out the strike on a site in Dahiyeh, killing Yassin.

🔗 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-top-hezbollah-intel-commander-killed-in-beirut-strike-this-afternoon/

🇺🇸🛡🇮🇱 Austin orders US forces to be ready to deploy as Middle East heats up

The U.S. is further beefing up its military presence in the Middle East, sending in additional troops and putting others on standby while keeping an aircraft carrier on station as the region prepares for more violence.

The moves come after Israeli forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday, in a strike that threatens to plunge the region into a wider war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its attached destroyers to remain in the region, just a month after rerouting them to the Middle East while they were on a planned deployment to the Pacific. The directive comes days after the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group left its home port in Virginia for a scheduled cruise, potentially creating a two-carrier presence in the Middle East for the second time since the summer.

The Pentagon also announced that the U.S. will be sending additional “air-support capabilities in the coming days,” and that the USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group will remain in the eastern Mediterranean. The group includes the amphibious ships USS New York and USS Oak Hill, along with thousands of Marines capable of performing civilian evacuations from Lebanon if necessary. The Wasp, which can launch small boats ashore, is also loaded with Marine-flown F-35B fighter planes, giving military planners an extra aerial punch if needed.

Those ships have been patrolling the Mediterranean since June and have been at sea since April. The Wasp group replaced a similar group of amphibious ships led by the USS Bataan, which had its own deployment to the region extended several times and ended up spending eight months at sea before heading home in March.

Meanwhile, Austin ordered additional U.S. forces to be ready to deploy, “elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies,” the Pentagon said.

In a Sunday statement, the Pentagon said the ships are being backed up by “DoD’s elevated fighter and attack squadron presence, including F-22, F-15E, F-16, and A-10 aircraft.”

The Truman, which is still in the Atlantic, was initially scheduled to relieve Lincoln and allow the carrier to return to operations in the Pacific, though those plans may have changed now if the decision is made to put both carriers in the Middle East.

🔗 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/austin-order-deploy-middle-east-00181582