Syrian and pro-Iranian officials have accused Israel of being behind nighttime strikes on the posts of Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria that are reported to have left at least 18 fighters dead.
A Syrian security official told the Associated Press that Israel was behind the attacks, but said there were no casualties.
An official with an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq also blamed Israel for the air strikes that hit in the eastern Syrian town of Al Bukamal early Monday. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which rarely admits to its military actions in the Middle East and views Iran as its greatest threat.
It has allegedly struck Iran-linked targets as far away as Iraq in recent weeks.
The attack comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East and the crisis between Iran and the US in the wake of the collapsing nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
Israel frequently attacks Iranian targets in Syria and is believed to have recently crash-landed drones in southern Beirut in a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that Iran has no immunity anywhere and that the Israeli military forces "will act – and currently are acting – against them".
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the airstrikes began late Sunday and continued after midnight, killing 18 Iranian and pro-Iranian fighters and also causing extensive damage.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said rockets launched from Syria on Monday fell short and did not land in Israel. The military said the rockets were launched from the outskirts of Damascus by Shiite militants operating under the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The military said it holds the Syrian government responsible for the attempted attack.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
