Rain tries to play spoilsport but show goes on at Campal

India remains a strategic partner for the United States, the White House said Wednesday adding that it is for New Delhi to decide what their stance is going to be on any particular crisis or contingency around the world including the Middle East.

“India is a key strategic partner, and I think you saw that on full display when Prime Minister Modi was here,” John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, told reporters at a news conference here.

“But we’ll leave it to the Indian government and to the prime minister to decide what their stance is going to be on any particular crisis or contingency around the world, to include the Middle East,” Kirby said in response to a question.

“They (India) remain a key strategic partner. And we’re dedicated to advancing that partnership every single day,” Kirby said.

Israeli air strikes killed three pro-Iran fighters on Wednesday as they hit sites belonging to the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group near the Syrian capital Damascus, a war monitor said.

Israel has struck Syria several times in the past month as regional tensions simmer over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

“Three non-Syrian pro-Iran fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on farms and other sites belonging to Hezbollah near Akraba and Sayyida Zeinab,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

Akraba houses a military airport, the monitor said, more than 10 kilometres from Damascus International Airport.

Israel also struck Syrian air defence sites in the country’s southern Sweida province, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.

Syrian state media said Israeli air strikes had hit military sites in southern Syria, causing material damage.

“At approximately 22:50 pm today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of Baalbek in Lebanon, targeting some military points in the southern region, causing some material losses,” official news agency SANA said, quoting a military source.

On October 7, Hamas militants attacked Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages.

Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip which, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, has killed more than 10,500 people, also mostly civilians.

Last month, Israeli strikes had put Syria’s two main airports in Damascus and Aleppo out of service several times in two weeks.

During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, primarily targeting Hezbollah fighters and other Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it won’t allow arch-foe Iran, which backs President Bashar al-Assad’s government, to expand its presence there.