US President Joe Biden is cutting short his day off and returning to the White House for consultations with his security team due to events in the Middle East, according to a pool of White House journalists.
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According to a previously released schedule, Biden headed to his Rehoboth Beach residence in Delaware on Friday evening. He was supposed to stay there until Sunday.
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According to a pool of journalists citing the White House, the president is returning to Washington to “consult with his national security team on events in the Middle East.”
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Biden’s unscheduled return to the capital comes amid an expected Iranian strike on Israel. At the same time, the American television channel CBS News, citing US officials, reported that an attack was expected in Washington on Friday. Against the backdrop of a possible escalation, the United States is assuring Israel in every possible way that it will support its allies in countering any threats emanating from Iran and its satellites.
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On April 1, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced an Israeli airstrike on the building of the Iranian Consulate General in the Syrian capital Damascus. The consulate building also housed the residence of Iranian Ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic Hossein Akbari – the latter was not injured during the attack. According to a statement by the Syrian defense ministry, the consulate building was completely destroyed as a result of a missile attack.
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According to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (elite units of the Armed Forces), the Israeli strike killed seven IRGC officers, including two senior general advisers – Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, as well as his deputy, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi.
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The Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that it “reserves the right” to respond to the Israeli airstrike on the Consulate General in Damascus, as well as to determine exactly how to “punish the aggressor.”
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also stressed that Israel will pay a high price for this attack. Leaders of resistance movements in the region expressed the need to use all possible resources in the confrontation with Israel to support the Palestinian Hamas movement and other armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.
