Growing Concerns of War Escalation Bring Blinken Back to the Middle East

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to the Middle East on Friday in a high-stakes trip aimed at preventing Israel’s months-long battle against Hamas from sliding into a broader regional war that could draw in the United States.

Blinken’s visit to the region — his fourth since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostage — comes days after a suspected Israeli strike killed a top Hamas official in Beirut and twin explosions claimed by the Islamic State killed nearly 100 people in central Iran.

Amid the Israeli counteroffensive launched in late October in Gaza, Iran-backed militias across the region — including in Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen — have targeted Israel and US forces stationed in the region. The assassination on Tuesday of Hamas deputy political leader Saleh al-Arouri has fueled new concerns that the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah could open a second front in the war.

Further ratcheting up tensions, a US airstrike in Baghdad on Thursday killed a leader of Harakat al-Nujab, an Iran-linked Shiite militia blamed for attacks on US forces in Iraq. The US military has been the target of nearly 100 militia attacks in Syria and Iraq since mid-October, the Pentagon says.