PDB Afternoon Bulletin | October 4th, 2024: Israel Targets Hezbollah's Remaining Leaders & The West Strikes Back Against Houthis
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It's Friday, 4 October. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First, we'll begin with an update out of Lebanon, where a massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut may have just killed the next man in line to take over leadership of Hezbollah.

I mean, the turnover, not to mention the headroom opportunities in Hezbollah, is shocking. Then, the Iranian-backed Houthi militants have re-engaged in their campaign of terror in the Red Sea, prompting the U.S. and the U.K. to hit Houthi strongholds in Yemen with a wave of targeted airstrikes on Friday. But first...

Our afternoon spotlight. I want to begin with Israel's ongoing operations inside Lebanon, where reports suggest that the likely successor to deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah may have been taken out in a massive airstrike. Israeli forces launched a heavy airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs around midnight Thursday, just a week after the longtime Hezbollah leader was killed in a similar barrage.

The consecutive strikes, which were reportedly far larger than the ones targeting Nasrallah, triggered multiple explosions and leveled parts of a neighborhood in a suburb noted as a Hezbollah stronghold. That's according to a report from the New York Times.

Israeli sources speaking to the Times said that the latest strikes targeted Hashem Safedin. Now, he's the late Hezbollah leader's cousin and the heir apparent for the top leadership post. He was reportedly attending a meeting with other senior Hezbollah leaders in an underground bunker at the time of the strikes. Now, you'd think by now they'd stop holding in-person meetings and maybe switch to, I don't know, Zoom calls.

In a statement that doesn't mention Safedine by name, officials said the strikes targeted Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters. While Safedine's fate is unknown, his death, well, of course, would be another major victory for Israel, which has managed to eliminate virtually all of the group's senior leaders over the past several weeks.

He currently serves as the head of Hezbollah's executive council, overseeing the group's political affairs, and he's also head of the Jihad Council, which governs Hezbollah's military operations. Due to his status as a Shia Islamist cleric, claiming direct descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, he's widely seen as the likely successor to Nasrallah.

He was officially designated a terrorist by the U.S. State Department back in 2017 and maintained strong ties with Iran. As we've mentioned in the past on the PDB, Safedine's son is married to the daughter of Qasem Soleimani, the former top general of the IRGC's elite Quds Force, who, of course, was killed in a U.S. airstrike back in 2020.

Now, along with Safeddin, Hezbollah's chief of intelligence is also believed to have been in the bunker at the time of the Israeli strike. And at the same time, Israel expanded their military operations in Lebanon on Friday, issuing evacuation orders for villages throughout southern Lebanon.

The IDF also targeted a border crossing reportedly housing an underground tunnel between Lebanon and Syria that's been used by Iran to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah. The airstrike destroyed a section of the road and effectively cut off access to the crossing. Since their ground operations began on Tuesday, Israeli officials say they've killed some 250 Hezbollah fighters, with 100 of those deaths coming in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a rare sermon to tens of thousands at a mosque in Tehran on Friday, eulogizing Nasrallah and praising Hamas for the barbaric 7 October attacks on Israel. That's just a few days before the one-year anniversary coming up, of course.

Now, Khamenei defended Iran's massive missile attack on Israel earlier this week as, quote, logical and legal. He added that Iran and their terror proxies would not back down and that Israel, quote, will not last long. He also reiterated Iran's threat that if Israel retaliates against Iran, the regime will hit back in kind.

As we've been tracking on the show this week, Israel is mulling a number of response options and target packages, including strikes on Iranian oil production facilities, targeted assassinations of leadership, and possibly strikes against the Iranian regime's nuclear program. Coming up.

The Iranian-backed Houthi militants have re-engaged in their campaign of terror in the Red Sea, prompting a fresh wave of airstrikes by the U.S. and the U.K., targeting Houthi strongholds in Yemen. I'll be right back.

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is still going strong, and LifeLock is here with a message about phishing, the scam cybercriminals use to trick victims into allowing access to their devices so they can steal their personal info. Being aware of phishing scams is one way to help protect yourself. For comprehensive identity theft protection, there's LifeLock. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at LifeLock.com slash podcast.

Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. The U.S. and the U.K. unleashed a wave of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen on Friday in response to the Iranian-backed terror group's renewal of attacks both in the Red Sea and against Israel. U.S. officials speaking to the Associated Press said the joint operation hit more than a dozen Houthi targets spread out across five different locations, taking out multiple strongholds, housing weapon systems and military equipment.

The main focus appears to have been sites near the airport in Hodeidah, a major port city in Yemen that serves as the Houthi's central base of operations. The airstrikes came just days after the Iranian-backed militants threatened to escalate their attacks, targeting Israel and Western interests, pouring fuel on fears that a full-scale regional war may be imminent.

On Tuesday, the Houthis launched an explosive-laden drone boat at a British oil tanker in the Red Sea, triggering a massive explosion that caused significant damage to the ship's portside tank. The group claimed to have also fired eight ballistic missiles at the vessel, though they don't appear to have landed. Separately, the Houthis hit a Liberia-flagged vessel bound for the Suez Canal on Tuesday with a missile. Officials said the crews of both vessels were unharmed by the attacks.

The Houthis began intensifying their activity once again last Friday when they targeted Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, as well as three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones, though those attacks also proved unsuccessful.

Israel unleashed their own wave of airstrikes, targeting the group's infrastructure and fighters on Sunday, destroying oil facilities and other strategic sites in the port city of Hodada, being used to smuggle in weapons from Iran. The Houthis responded by launching an attack drone. This is what you call tit-for-tat, isn't it? The Houthis responded by launching an attack drone at Tel Aviv on Thursday, though it was intercepted long before it could reach the city.

The group said the attacks will not cease until Israel halts the military operations both in Gaza and Lebanon. The Houthis began attacking Israel, of course, in the wake of last year's 7 October attacks by Hamas that kicked off this entire conflict. In addition to their attacks on Israel, they've targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with hundreds of missile attacks in the Red Sea, significantly disrupting international trade.

While the U.S. and U.K. have engaged in a number of targeted airstrike campaigns throughout the past year to degrade the Houthis in Yemen, they appear to have done little to deter their aggression or to, frankly, significantly cripple the group's operations. And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Friday, 4 October. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb.com.

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that simple. And of course, it's Friday. At least I suspect it's Friday. And you know what Friday means. A brand spanking new episode of our extended weekend show, The PDB Situation Report. Now the show airs tonight at 10 p.m. on the First TV and of course is available on our YouTube channel at President's Daily Brief and all podcast platforms. I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back over the weekend with our latest PDB Situation Report. Until then...

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