Hezbollah has been gaining strength in Lebanon in recent years and is influencing the Lebanese army, a senior Israeli commander said Wednesday. He noted that Israel will not distinguish between the militia and the country’s forces during the next military confrontration. “The distinction we made between Hezbollah and Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War was a mistake,” the senior officer in the Northern Command said about the 2006 conflict. “In the next war we will not make this distinction. We will hit Lebanon and any infrastructure that would contribute to the fighting.” Source Haaretz
OPEC+ headed for a clash with the U.S. as more members rejected President Joe Biden’s call for the group to raise oil production faster and help reduce gasoline prices. On Monday, Kuwait said the cartel should stick with its plan to increase output gradually because oil markets were well-balanced. That followed similar statements from other key members in recent days, including Iraq, Algeria, Angola and Nigeria. Source Al Jazeera
“If a state buys (weaponry) from us, it’s no longer a Turkish product. It might be manufactured in Turkey, but it belongs to Ukraine,” Cavusoglu told reporters after meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the margins of the G20 summit in Rome. “Turkey cannot be blamed for this,” he said. Source The Defence Post
Bulgaria has sent 350 additional military personnel to its border with Turkey amid rising migration levels. Defense Minister Georgi Panayotov told Bulgarian media that the troops were arriving to “support the border police”. Source EuroNews
