Top US general in Mideast meets Lebanon's Aoun in bid to shore up ceasefire with Israel
CENTCOM commander Gen. Erik Kurilla's final diplomatic tour of the region under President Joe Biden came as the outgoing president defended his foreign policy legacy in a speech from Foggy Bottom.
WASHINGTON — The four-star commander of American military forces in the Middle East, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, met with Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun in Beirut on Monday as the outgoing Biden administration seeks to shore up a fragile ceasefire with Israel and capitalize on Iran’s loss influence in the Levant.
Kurilla’s meeting with Aoun — the candidate favored by Washington who was elected by Lebanon’s parliament last week, ending a two-year vacuum in the country’s political leadership — was held just hours after Israeli warplanes struck purported Hezbollah targets in the country’s east and south.
The Israeli military said it destroyed “a rocket launcher site, a military site and routes along the Syria-Lebanon border used to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah” in its strikes overnight. Local reports placed the strikes in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border.
Yet the Pentagon on Monday said that the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was holding.
