Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli strikes came half an hour before his group launched more than 300 Katyusha rockets at 11 Israeli military sites, and that drones then targeted deeper inside the country, in response to the killing of senior commander Fuad Shukr in July.
Ryder said that the US was not involved in the preemptive strikes or in shooting down the projectiles, but that it did “provide some intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance support – ISR – in terms of tracking incoming Lebanese Hezbollah attacks”.
He also said that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has ordered the presence of two carrier strike groups to remain in the region” as part of support for Israel.
The Pentagon said last week that the USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying destroyers had arrived in the region.
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