Iran

[Mil-26Man]

But a broad coalition (no, NOT an EU Navy!)

Dancing on the head of a pin. The EU is there for us, unlike the US.


How ironic that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards should be succeeding where Trump failed!
Quote (https://www.pprune.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=10526927)

There are other ironies here also (see above).

[racedo]

Racedo (and the likes of Van) are useful as they stick out a foot occasionally to interrupt the group think that can settle in on here

I'm sure West Coast, SAS-less and some of the other Cold War warriors don't object to having their tails tweaked occasionally.........

Group think brought Communism, Nazis, Vietnam, Iraq plus lots of other cases when people who could have done something early didn't and the body count went into the millions.

Some people will always do as they are told, others won't.

[racedo]

Even if the Royal Navy was four times it’s size, it couldn’t possibly escort every single ship. But a broad coalition (no, NOT an EU Navy!) would certainly change this picture, however unpalatable Iran May find this. How ironic that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards should be succeeding where Trump failed!

Wouldn't it be easier to stop the drums of war and ask WTF is going on and why is everybody jumping to someones tune, who is sitting back and claim not involved.

[Mil-26Man]

Some people will always do as they are told, others won't.

How very noble. Don't kid.yourself racedo, you're just being contrary because.you get a kick out of it.

[Asturias56]

"Why do you choose to make a thread personal about someone ? As someone who has openly supported Trump since 2016 then your assessment kind of falls flat."

Just interested in what drives you Racdeo - for the record I'm a middle of the road, wishy washy Liberal who doesn't trust anything any politician or newspaper says

As for supporting Trump since 2016 ... how do you know?? I've only been posting on here since late 2018 ....................

In fact I think he's a disgrace - the worst ever US President - a man I wouldn't allow to be in the same room alone with any female for a start..............

[racedo]

"Why do you choose to make a thread personal about someone ? As someone who has openly supported Trump since 2016 then your assessment kind of falls flat."

Just interested in what drives you Racdeo - for the record I'm a middle of the road, wishy washy Liberal who doesn't trust anything any politician or newspaper says

As for supporting Trump since 2016 ... how do you know?? I've only been posting on here since late 2018 ....................

In fact I think he's a disgrace - the worst ever US President - a man I wouldn't allow to be in the same room alone with any female for a start..............

Who said anything about you supporting Trump ? You made the assessment on me and I showed it up as a personal attack with little knowledge as I am an open Trump supporter and have been for 3 yrs. You attempting to dig at me rather than focus on the thread.

[Tashengurt]

Anyone care to give odds on HMS Montrose being seized next?

[Asturias56]

"As someone who has openly supported Trump since 2016 then your assessment "

led me to believe you were referring to me

If its you that supports Trump well I apologise ... and sympathize

[Capt Kremmen]

During a relatively short trip, a thought crossed my mind. We seem to be many frigates, carriers, submarines and support vessels short of a navy. Wouldn't it therefore make sense to approach the Yanks for a repeat of the 1940/41 WW2 agreement where GB traded territory for fifty fairly rancid WW1 American destroyers ?

The trade-off - which heralded the start of the American dismemberment of the British Empire - perhaps created a useful diplomatic and commercial precedent. Introducing the Yanks to disaffected component parts of the British Isles might attract some serious equipment offers.

The Scots are always trumpeting independence. How many frigates would that be worth ? Prestigious Scottish golf venues might raise the ante to include a few doddery aircraft carriers and so on. I'm sure you get the general idea ! Fond as I am of the Isle of Wight, I would not like to lose that amenity, although if someone dangled an entire fleet I could be tempted.

[SASless]

Sorry Mate....we booted some disaffected Brits back in the 1700's and Trump already has a very nice Golf Venue in Scotland.

[melmothtw]

Sorry Mate....we booted some disaffected Brits back in the 1700's...

You were some disaffected Brits back in the 1700's.

[pr00ne]

Quote:

Sorry Mate....we booted some disaffected Brits back in the 1700's...



You were some disaffected Brits back in the 1700's.


And you all still speak English...

If it wasn't for us you'd all be speaking French now.

[SASless]

It is because of the French that we speak English if you care to check it! we do so as Americans and not Brits.

[arketip]

It is because of the French that we speak English if you care to check it! we do so as Americans and not Brits.

Well, it would be more correct to say that if it wasn't for the French, you would be speaking English now

[Mil-26Man]

It is because of the French that we speak English if you care to check it! we do so as Americans and not Brits.

Uh? That just makes no sense.

[SASless]

For the not knowing of France's role in the successful outcome of the American Revolutionary War.

Short version....the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

https://www.thoughtco.com/france-american-revolutionary-war-1222026

[ShotOne]

Successful for who? The French didn’t do it for your benefit! Their military support was purely a stick with which to poke the British. Much good it did them; following the revolutionary example the French king’s head was in a basket only a few years later.

[Mil-26Man]

For the not knowing of France's role in the successful outcome of the American Revolutionary War.

Short version....the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

https://www.thoughtco.com/france-american-revolutionary-war-1222026

I know of France's role, but I don't understand how France's support specifically means Americans today speak English. If the British has won, you'd effectively be Candaians...speaking English.

Anyway, epic thread drift.

[ShotOne]

They may have meant the French and Indian War which ended in a decisive British victory. So decisive, in fact, that the British colonists no longer had an enemy from which to need British protection. Leading to the rebellion to which Sasless referred. Yes: impressive thread drift!

[Fortissimo]

I have it on good authority (The Donald) that the French sold the Exocets to the Americans that helped them win the War of Independence! You just can’t trust them!

Rant over...

[West Coast]

I have it on good authority (The Donald) that the French sold the Exocets to the Americans that helped them win the War of Independence! You just can’t trust them!

Rant over...


Don't answer the knock at the door...

[Asturias56]

If Leif Eriksson had been half the salesman his father was ("Greenland" indeed..............) you'd all be speaking Icelandic...............

[SASless]

Mil.....you overlook the small fact that Canada is a Bi-Lingual Nation with all of their signage and such in both English and French.

But they shall be joining the coalition to protect UK Flagged Vessels in the Hormuz Straits area I am sure no matter past events between the UK and what is now Canada.

They and their American neighbors to the south are alike in that regard.



https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Bilingualstopsign.jpg

[BEagle]

SASless wrote: Mil.....you overlook the small fact that Canada is a Bi-Lingual Nation with all of their signage and such in both English and French.

Indeed:

https://youtu.be/dDGkQiwh_qg

[slack]

Mil.....you overlook the small fact that Canada is a Bi-Lingual Nation with all of their signage and such in both English and French.

But they shall be joining the coalition to protect UK Flagged Vessels in the Hormuz Straits area I am sure no matter past events between the UK and what is now Canada.

They and their American neighbors to the south are alike in that regard.



https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Bilingualstopsign.jpg

Not really In quebeq english signs are illegal. They have language cops. The rest of Canada is about 80% English speeking.

[Asturias56]

That sign is REALLY annoying - in France they just use STOP

[pr00ne]

BEagle,

Brilliant!

[Imagegear]

In the middle of the night, in Montreal, English street names are torn down and replaced with French names.

The city is well sectioned into English and French speaking suburbs, and in general the English are being squeezed out of Quebec by Quebecois nationalists.

There is no prospect of integration since the Quebecois are increasingly supporting independence from the rest of Canada. TODAY.

IG.

[Asturias56]

My God! and there was me thinking the PQ were in favour of assimilation all these years

TBH I've never understood the PQ & friends - they have all the protections they could want in Canada - how many do they think they'll get if they're a small independent country between Anglophone Canada & the USA...........

[Professor Plum]

Wow!

Epic thread drift!

This thread started talking about Iran, and we’re now talking about Canadian road signs.

[Imagegear]

Apologies, thread drift is down to my bad, following the trail into the weeds of allies who are prepared to look past historical differences. However, since a considerable number of politicians at the top of the Canadian Government are of Quebecois origin, and there is more than a hint of French sympathy floating around, supporting an English initiative is less of a driver than you might think.

By the way, there is nothing small about Quebec, take a look at a world map.

Get the drift?

I'm done,

IG

,

[BEagle]

Perhaps then, Les Quebecois might influence the RCAF's future fighter programme office towards the excellent Dassault Rafale? The Polaris crews with whom I've worked were hugely impressed by the Rafale's capabilities during the Libyan campaign.

[SASless]

By the way, there is nothing small about Quebec, take a look at a world map.

Caution....you just walked off into a Minefield.


Lets compare Quebec to the UK for instance......by land area.

OverlapMaps - Instantly compare any two places on Earth! (http://overlapmaps.com/index.php)

Select Country, Province (Canada/Quebec) and United Kingdom and check the results.

[Capt Kremmen]

I'm left wondering why Wolfe bothered.

[Lonewolf_50]

The mistake made was in the treaty in 1763. Wolfe bothered because it was a key strategic objective of the campaign.

[tdracer]

There is no prospect of integration since the Quebecois are increasingly supporting independence from the rest of Canada. TODAY.


If my Canadian friends in BC are in any way representative, the rest of Canada would be happy to see them go...
Before I visited Montreal the first time, I was warned to speak English with a distinctly American accent, if they thought I was Canadian speaking English they would ignore me. Absolutely correct - and quite obvious.

[t43562]

If my Canadian friends in BC are in any way representative, the rest of Canada would be happy to see them go...
Before I visited Montreal the first time, I was warned to speak English with a distinctly American accent, if they thought I was Canadian speaking English they would ignore me. Absolutely correct - and quite obvious.

That's sometimes true in South Africa. It is useful to be foreign and not British because then some Afrikaners will then talk to you in English.

Personally I think it's totally incredible that these enormously arrogant people don't get with the program and speak English like everyone in the world should for our convenience.

[tdracer]

Personally I think it's totally incredible that these enormously arrogant people don't get with the program and speak English like everyone in the world should for our convenience.

The vast majority of people in Quebec speak English quite well - I've been there a few times and never came across anyone who didn't speak English fluently (I also found it mildly amazing how quickly and seamlessly they could switch between French and English).
They just think everyone should speak French (at least other Canadians).

[havoc]

https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/lessons-versailles-todays-middle-east

Lessons From Versailles for Today’s Middle East

[Imagegear]

SASLESS

I think we are in agreement, there is nothing small about Quebec...:ok:

IG

[ericsson16]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/04/iran-seizes-oil-tanker-in-gulf-smuggling-fuel-to-arab-states

[SASless]

That article says nothing useful.

Which ship, where was it loaded, who owned the cargo, where was it too unload?

Was it Iranian Oil from an Iranian Port or was it from a non-Iranian Port headed to an Non-Iranian port?


From a better source.....at least there is some detail and background info in this article.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-seizes-oil-tanker-smuggled-fuel-persian-gulf

[ericsson16]

That article says nothing useful.

Which ship, where was it loaded, who owned the cargo, where was it too unload?

Was it Iranian Oil from an Iranian Port or was it from a non-Iranian Port headed to an Non-Iranian port?
If true,what it does say is that the International community is pretty hopeless.

[ericsson16]

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Russia-Gains-Stranglehold-Over-Persian-Gulf.html

[racedo]

If true,what it does say is that the International community is pretty hopeless.

Ambivalent is a better word.

[Asturias56]

Yes - its fine for the USA and the UK to have bases there but Really Bad when the Russians do................

Pot, kettle, black...................................

[Capt Kremmen]

If the British navy again caves in as pathetically as it did during the last interception by armed Iranian fast RIBs in 2007 then the correct description is 'hopeless'.

Risk aversion carried to the nth. Nelson must be quivering with rage !

[ORAC]

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/iran-and-russia-getting-ready-hold-joint-naval-drills-strait-hormuz-71661

Iran and Russia: Getting Ready to Hold Joint-Naval Drills in the Strait of Hormuz

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/07/intel-russia-deepening-military-ties-iran-counter-us.html

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Capt Kremmen

Just a question - what would you have done, in a RIB and armed with a SA80 and a 9mm pistol, when IRGCN boats armed with 12.7mm and 14.5mm Heavy Machine Guns surround you?

If you are interested - the Fulton report (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/482260/20151120-Report_Redacted-FINAL_Redacted.pdf) was released under the Freedom of Information Act.

[Capt Kremmen]

I'm not exactly an 'armchair warrior'. I'm a former member of No. 40 Commando and my actions would not have included the pathetic act of surrender that, when it became known, was so damaging to the international reputation of specifically our navy and generally our armed forces.

Resolution, linked to a clear cut extraction plan appeared to be lacking. Thank you for the link.

[SASless]

My t thoughts go towards how did the RIB crew(s) come to find themselves in that predicament to begin with.

It is plain....they did not have the back-up support needed to ensure their safety.

Considering the situation, past conduct by the Iranians....going down with the ship with guns ablaze certainly was not the ending this situation demanded or would be be expected.

I did like the comment in the Report about "overly complex SOP's".

For the Captain....taking a hard line begins at 10 Downing Street and not on the Deck of a RIB in contested waters with a small boat crew with no backup.

[Capt Kremmen]

The only SOP that really mattered on this occasion was the one that says that under no circumstances do you ever surrender your command. The reality of the situation was that it made our navy a laughing stock and encouraged the Iranians in the belief that they could very effectively continue tweaking the lion's tail.

That is the situation that still prevails. The inquiry report revealed a preoccupation with legal matters bordering on the obsessive. That is perhaps all very well if everyone is singing from the same hymn book, that, however is almost always never the case.

If one expects to be taken seriously - militarily that is - then situations that have a potential for robust threats need a robust response. Then you get taken seriously. 10, Downing St. isn't in the firing line when hard choices have to be made very quickly.

[dead_pan]

Having a 'clear cut extraction plan' is all well and good if you're not out-manoeuvred by your opponent (or if they bend the rules) - they're not stupid, after all. They made the right choice not to try and fight their way out. To have done so would have been futile and could well have risked the lives of more of our servicemen.

Re our naval presence + posture in the Gulf, if it's any consolation to those who think we've been humiliated, even the US appears to be reluctant to get involved in a shooting war with Iran.

[SASless]

Captain, Absolutely well said and clearly stated!

To do other than as they did....would. have required a White Head Band with the Union Jack affixed to the front....to make it a proper ritual suicide if they had fought. back only to die before surrender.

That would have accomplished nothing but the death of good people doing their Duty....when others more Senior to them had not done their own Duty.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Captain K

Who surrendered their command? The boarding party in the two RIBs? Are you really suggesting a suicidal firefight against things such as Heavy Machine Guns was the way forward? It was not combat. It was board and search. They lost situational awareness, and walked into a trap.You will be unsuprised to hear that much soul searching followed, and many changes were implemented.

How does this relate to current activities in the Strait of Hormuz?

[Asturias56]

Capt. - are you REALLY suggesting you'd be willing to sacrifice your own life (and maybe those of your mates) in a stupid face off in a muddy creek in S Iraq/Iran for nothing other than the "reputation of the Service"?

Knowing that every officer and politician above you would disavow your action and do their damnedest to make sure you were totally forgotten??

If so I think its better for everyone, especially your friends and family, that you no longer are in the military

[Capt Kremmen]

Investment ín the development, planning, construction and maintenance of a countries armed forces requires that those forces present, apart from offensive capability, a realistic and believable defence threat. In other words, a credible deterrent.

That deterrent value, was, in the incident under discussion, swiftly swept away by the Iranians who then went on their national TV network to expose RN personnel to further ridicule and derision.

At no point in this discussion have I suggested that a short range exchange of small arms fire would have provided an immediate solution. Those here that think I have, are ahead of themselves. I do not believe that the Iranians would first have opened fire. That wasn't necessary - they had read the situation all too well.

In the absence of any close support, all our people could do was maintain a separation and withdraw. Any moves by the Iranians towards a forcible arrest could then have been met with an appropriate response and one that required a demonstration of resolution and determination.

It seems that judged by the content of some of the criticisms aimed at me that appeasement still enjoys a certain popularity.

[SASless]

The US Navy had a similar event.....with two boat crews.

The Iranians gained a propaganda advantage and we lost face in the process.

No one got killed or wounded although some careers took a bit of a detour.

At some point this game is going to take a turn for the bad and some good people are going to die.

When that happens....I pray that our response is immediate, over-whelming, and decisive.

We can look back to the initial attacks on the Falklands where the Royal Marines gave a good account of themselves but confronted with absolutely no hope of winning.....did the right thing and laid down their arms.

It was not an easy thing for them to do but they did what was necessary and lived to fight another day.

[dead_pan]

Investment ín the development, planning, construction and maintenance of a countries armed forces requires that those forces present, apart from offensive capability, a realistic and believable defence threat. In other words, a credible deterrent.

Hmm, but given our current financial limitations do you think Joe public will be willing for our govt to lavish money on new frigates etc to protect shipping in the Gulf? I'd contend they'd prefer us to get the deal with Iran back on track and spend the money on hospitals, adult social care etc instead. From your language I guess you read the Daily Mail and spend a little too much time reminiscing with your mates down the Legion. I guess you must be furious with Trump's love-in with fat Kim, yes?

[Asturias56]

You could make a start by paying the Iranians the money you owe them for the Challenger tanks - an issue which still irritates the hell out of the mullahs but, oddly enough, is never mentioned in the British Press........................

[skydiver69]

You could make a start by paying the Iranians the money you owe them for the Challenger tanks - an issue which still irritates the hell out of the mullahs but, oddly enough, is never mentioned in the British Press........................
It has been mentioned a few times recently, often when there is a story about Nazarene Zaghari Ratcliffe and the suggestion that repaying the money might ease the path to her release.

[Capt Kremmen]

Deadpan

As a maritime trading nation, if you haven't got enough frigates to protect your trade routes then it might be that new hospitals and social care come way down the list. The balance of your comment is foolish and pointless guesswork and wide of the mark..

[dead_pan]

Captain - so what size of surface fleet would you propose we maintain? Given half our trade currently comes from Europe, how many frigates do you suggest we position in the Channel?

Fact of the matter is the world is a much different place to it was in the latter half of the 20th century - the playing field is much more level, and smaller nations like the UK can't project power like we once could.

[Capt Kremmen]

I don't see a huge amount or even a mere trickle of crude oil, iron ore, bauxite or other bulk commodities coming directly from the EU. I do though see transferred liberal quantities of overpriced foodstuffs courtesy of CAP guaranteed prices to French farmers. Presumably if hostilities haven't commenced in Europe then all will use the Channel Tunnel thus obviating the need for any gunboats - They could though do sterling work picking up Iranian channel swimmers who seem to have been persuaded that the pleasantries of life in GB exceeds that in their native land.

"the world is a much different place..". Human nature doesn't change. It still respects strength. There are three elements essential to the international projection of power: The will to do so, confidence, and well balanced and adequately sized and resourced military forces. Two out of three won't do it. If you believe you can, you will. If you believe you can't you won't.

[Asturias56]

"Projection of Power" = fighting wars all over the place

that's been a spectacular success since 1990 I don't think..............

[racedo]

Deadpan

As a maritime trading nation, if you haven't got enough frigates to protect your trade routes then it might be that new hospitals and social care come way down the list. The balance of your comment is foolish and pointless guesswork and wide of the mark..

$1 billion warship, damaged / destroyed by 2 guys in a fibre glass boat... USS Cole.

So are warships better protected now or worse protected.

[WE Branch Fanatic]

$1 billion warship, damaged / destroyed by 2 guys in a fibre glass boat... USS Cole.

So are warships better protected now or worse protected.

But the Cole was in port - a sitting target! The force protection measures were not great.

The Royal Navy and other major navies have responded to the threat, including:

More weapons on the upper deck
Better sights
Anti FIAC drills built into sea training
0.50 Cal HMG carried by Lynx, later Merlin and now Wildcat
Better night vision equipment
Miniguns
Development of DS30M Mk2, a 30mm cannon controlled from the Operations Room (so operators not cold/wet/hot....), with an integrated Electro-Optical system, computers to predict when the target is moving to, and air bursting ammunition
0.5 Cal HMGs
Wildcat to carry Martlet - a maritime vesrion of the Lightweight Multirole Missile intended to engage small boat type targets (Wildcat HM2 can carry ten)
Experiments with a ship launched version of Martlet
Better and more EO systems to detect and track small craft

.....and other things such as training and tactics, and increased awareness of the maritime domain.

[SASless]

$1 billion warship, damaged / destroyed by 2 guys in a fibre glass boat... USS Cole.

The same USS Cole that was transported to a repair facility and put back into service and currently serving in Operations at sea....that USS Cole?


https://www.public.navy.mil/surflant/ddg67/Pages/default.aspx

[racedo]

The same USS Cole that was transported to a repair facility and put back into service and currently serving in Operations at sea....that USS Cole?


https://www.public.navy.mil/surflant/ddg67/Pages/default.aspx

Oh I am aware of it went back into service after $1/4 billion repair. It was a new ship by the time in effect with everything that needed to be done and it was 18 months out of service. It was destroyed by a $200 boat with C4. Next time they wouldn't get that close but next time they may be using something else like lots of RPGs or something a bit bigger.

My comment directed at the view that UK MOD should spent £1 billion on a ship to project power a $200 piece of armament takes it out.

[Capt Kremmen]

Yes, and that is likely to happen again unless the vessels sentry systems are awake. The threat level is ramped up if the pirates think that they are liable - for one reason or another - to escape with their lives - others won't care either way.

Perhaps a part answer might be an exclusion zone of around 1,000 yards with the ship at the center. Any suspicious object entering gets a warning, maybe two. Then obliteration.

It's pretty certain that a determined attacker will be effective. Even a drone with a pound of Semtex strapped to its underside will create more than a big bang.

[dead_pan]

well balanced and adequately sized and resourced military forces

Good luck with that in the current climate.

I think someone suggested previously that a far cheaper and easier option would be to re-flag any British commercial shipping entering the straights under a flag of convenience. We've got enough tin-pot tax havens under our jurisdiction which no doubt would be more than happy to oblige.

Weird how it appears to have gone quiet in that neck of the woods. News cycle moved on? Back channels being explored?

[SASless]

Race,

Essentially you are right in your comment about cheap assets taking out expensive assets.

The Lesson Learned from that incident has evoked some interesting results.

At my local shipping port where US Military vessels sometimes arrive to drop military cargo and take on similar cargo.....in a US Port known for its sport fishing.....we get to see Armed vigilant gunners manning .50 Cal Machine Guns watching us pass by as USCG Patrol Vessels standby.....24 Hours a day.

If you happen to violate the Buffer Zone....you get to have a friendly chat with the Coasties who remind you to shove off smartish and not to come back again or they will ruin your fishing trip.

You can imagine the measures taken in a hostile location when such vessels pull into Port.

[racedo]

You can imagine the measures taken in a hostile location when such vessels pull into Port.

As you say in a US port you would assume (not always correct), that everyone is working with the same goals and intent.

In a hostile environment that will not be the case, yup, you may be paying Jonny $100 a week to man guns (when local wage is $5 a week) to prevent anybody transgressing an area but local baddies have Jonny's son as a member / hostage. Jonny just ends up being too slow to react or the gun "jammed" when needed or he fired and missed.

2 or 3 $50 inflatables with paddles, 2-3 RPGs per inflatable and guys knowing whatever happens to them, family will be provided for everymore, are what keeps Navy security drinking Maalox by the bottle.

[AnglianAV8R]

UK To Release Hijacked Tanker Back To Iran – Iranian Mediahttps://en.muraselon.com/2019/08/uk-to-release-hijacked-tanker-back-to-iran-iranian-media/

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/bevanshields/status/1163968455680282625?s=21

[ericsson16]

https://news.sky.com/story/us-officials-say-military-drone-shot-down-over-yemen-11790577

[ORAC]

Salami Tactics | Comment Central (http://commentcentral.co.uk/salami-tactics/)

Salami Tactics

[racedo]

Salami Tactics | Comment Central (http://commentcentral.co.uk/salami-tactics/)

Salami Tactics

So is this another one of those dodgy think tanks funded by dodgy back door funds. I have seen the contributors and a lot on the right of Attila the Hun.

Bit like Integrity Iniatitive.

[ORAC]

The CEJISS?

https://www.mup.cz/en/mup-press/academic-journals/cejiss/

http://www.cejiss.org/editors/desk

“Mitchell Belfer is Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations and European Studies and Editor in Chief of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS). He holds a Ph.D. and an MPA in International Relations Theory and his academic interests gravitate around: alliance theory, small states, dangerous regions, the international relations of the Arabian Gulf and Middle East, asymmetrical violence and general security-related issues.

What began as a strictly alliance-centric focus has morphed into a multi-layered understanding of alliances that investigates the manner in which an alliance’s major to minor and its minor to minor dyads within the alliance behave to one another.”.

[Asturias56]

Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend..........................

[racedo]

The CEJISS?

https://www.mup.cz/en/mup-press/academic-journals/cejiss/

Editors desk (http://www.cejiss.org/editors/desk)

“Mitchell Belfer is Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations and European Studies and Editor in Chief of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS). He holds a Ph.D. and an MPA in International Relations Theory and his academic interests gravitate around: alliance theory, small states, dangerous regions, the international relations of the Arabian Gulf and Middle East, asymmetrical violence and general security-related issues.

What began as a strictly alliance-centric focus has morphed into a multi-layered understanding of alliances that investigates the manner in which an alliance’s major to minor and its minor to minor dyads within the alliance behave to one another.”.

Doesn't answer the question though.

Where is the money coming from to fund it ?

Atlantic council ? Soros ? or some other mysterious benefactor.

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iran-tanker-crisis-greece-refuses-to-let-adrian-darya-1-refuel-8m3n3f5x7

Iran tanker crisis: Greece refuses to let Adrian Darya 1 refuel

An Iranian tanker suspected of transporting oil to Syria has been blocked from refuelling in Greece, prompting fears that its crew may attempt a dangerous sea-to-sea cargo transfer if they cannot dock in north Africa.

The Adrian Darya 1 was in the middle of the Mediterranean yesterday, 100 nautical miles south of Sardinia and 60 nautical miles north of Algeria, sailing east at around eight knots towards Greece. However, the country has refused sanctuary to the ship, which the United States claims is transporting around £130 million worth in light crude to Syria, in breach of international sanctions. The vessel was previously known as Grace 1 and was detained by the authorities in Gibraltar last month, prompting a diplomatic crisis. Its detention order was lifted last week (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gibraltar-denies-us-seizure-of-iranian-tanker-hzc3t6lc6).

Carrying 2.1 million barrels of crude, enough to supply both Britain and France for a day, the ship was expected to arrive in the southern Greek port of Kalamata on Sunday, according to maritime tracking systems. However, local media said that the tanker’s crew had contacted a Greek shipping company for assistance to dock and the request was turned down. Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, Greece’s deputy foreign minister, told the broadcaster ANT1 that his country was “not willing to facilitate the course of this ship to Syria”.

Experts have said that if the tanker cannot dock in Greece, it can either go someplace else, most likely north Africa, or the crew could attempt to transfer the oil to another ship. “That leaves the tanker with limited options,” one shipping expert told The Times, requesting anonymity because of his knowledge of details of the case.

“It will either have to find a friendly port to dock or bunker offshore. It will have to find a vessel to transfer its cargo, vessel to vessel, in high seas — something which is extremely difficult at present because of bad weather conditions. If all fails, and it runs out of fuel and is left sailing adrift, then it becomes a major safety hazard. It would require immediate international assistance to be towed to the nearest shore. At this point, no one knows what the endgame is for either side.”

Greece controls about a quarter of the global tanker fleet. Its shipping operations used to ferry 37 per cent of Iranian crude worldwide before the US tightened sanctions on Tehran’s exports in April.

Government officials contacted by The Times said that the tanker had been switching its tracking system “on and off, travelling at a very slow speed”. It has a crew of 29, from India, Russia, Latvia and the Philippines......

[Lonewolf_50]

Darn, I need to refresh my current events. Is Syria under UN sanctions for oil imports due to ... something Assad did or didn't do? As I look under the UNSCR documents on Syria, I didn't find any at first blush.

[SASless]

Since 2011.....if still in effect for Aviation fuel.

One would have to assume the Brits knew what they were doing when they seized the Tanker and Crew....surely.

[ORAC]

L-50,

No UN Sanctions on Syria - all vetoed. Y Russia and China, but there are by other international blocs. The UK was applying EU sanctions, which is why Greece will also be complying.

https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/sanctioned-countries/syria/

[racedo]

Since 2011.....if still in effect for Aviation fuel.

One would have to assume the Brits knew what they were doing when they seized the Tanker and Crew....surely.

:ugh: Good luck with that idea.

[Lonewolf_50]

OK, ORAC, thanks, this was an interesting stroll down memory lane back to W (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/syria.pdf) and the Arab spring based actions of Obama.
Refresh of memory, and the links to other interested parties taken note of.
As Dick Deadeye once remarked: "Ah, it's a queer world."

[Lordflasheart]

...
... and all the others ... ?

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/sanctioned-iranian-tanker-adrian-darya-1-goes-dark-off-syria

....

[racedo]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49589075

This shows a rather scary viewpoint that US State Dept openly seeking to engage in piracy.

[Asturias56]

Actually it's not Piracy it's incitement to Barratry - "the Capt & Crew conspiring together to defraud the owners and shippers" - used to be common and can still be seen as a legal term in some shipping contracts

Yes - I shall look for a job as a Tanker Captain and send my bank details to the USA so they can pay me in advance..................

still it's better than killing people I suppose - and cheaper than deploying serious assets to intercept.....

[ORAC]

Looks like the Iranians lied when they promised it wasn’t going to Syria to get Gibraltar to release it.....

https://news.sky.com/story/satellite-images-show-iranian-oil-tanker-sought-by-us-near-syrian-port-11804153

[etudiant]

Looks like the Iranians lied when they promised it wasn’t going to Syria to get Gibraltar to release it.....

https://news.sky.com/story/satellite-images-show-iranian-oil-tanker-sought-by-us-near-syrian-port-11804153

I'm shocked, shocked, that you could say the Iranians lied.
The ship was sold in transit and renamed, so with new owners the cargo could again be sold anywhere, including Syria. ;)

Obviously this is one of these devious 'intelligence' operations, mostly distinguished by the absence thereof.

[racedo]

I'm shocked, shocked, that you could say the Iranians lied.
The ship was sold in transit and renamed, so with new owners the cargo could again be sold anywhere, including Syria. ;)

Obviously this is one of these devious 'intelligence' operations, mostly distinguished by the absence thereof.

As they were not doing anything illegal in the first place the siezure and then attempt to incite to barratary is the issue.

There is no UN sanctions on Iran to prevent Oil sales.

[Asturias56]

" incite to barratary" - now there's a case for our Legal Friends - I have a terrible suspicion the last time anyone was sued for it was int the W Highlands of Scotland about 1895...............

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/freed-tanker-adrian-darya-1-has-sold-its-oil-to-syria-says-iran-xpbdp9fcl

Freed tanker Adrian Darya 1 has sold its oil to Syria, says Iran

Iran claims that a tanker impounded in Gibraltar for six weeks has offloaded its oil in Syria, despite Britain saying it had secured written guarantees that the cargo would not be sold to the Assad regime.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not commented on the apparent breach of the agreement under which the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1, which was called Grace 1 when it was seized by Royal Marines in July, was freed last month. British officials may be awaiting further confirmation. Although an Iranian government spokesman confirmed claims by state media that the vessel had sold and transferred its 2.1 million barrels of crude oil......

There were also signs that Iran was keeping the other half of its agreement. The spokesman said paperwork was being completed for the release of the Stena Impero (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/60-minutes-too-late-sh7s6l6zw), a Swedish-owned, British-flagged tanker seized in the Gulf in what was taken to be a tit-for-tat move later in July......

[dead_pan]

But they promised!!...

Not surprised they tried it on given our current political travails.

[racedo]

Mad Hatter John Bolton gets fired. :D

[Blossy]

You have this compulsion to sneer at most things American and free world. What ails you?

[Asturias56]

You don't have to be anti American to think that Bolton is very bad news....................

[racedo]

You have this compulsion to sneer at most things American and free world. What ails you?

Define "Free world". Is this the one where John Bolton decides he wants regime change and many people die ?

[Mil-26Man]

Define "Free world". Is this the one where John Bolton decides he wants regime change and many people die ?

No, it's the one where you get to spout nonsense on the internet

[Mil-26Man]

...you're right about Bolton though.

[ORAC]

Linked to the Yemen thread....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/pompeo-iran-saudi-arabia-oil-yemen-houthi

Pompeo: Iran behind attack on Saudi oil facilities that will reduce kingdom's output

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/mike-pompeo), has accused Iran of being responsible for attacks on Saudi oil plants that could lead to the temporary loss of more than 5% of global oil supply.

Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen (https://www.theguardian.com/world/yemen) claimed responsibility for Saturday’s drone attack. But Pompeo, Donald Trump’s top diplomat, blamed the attacks squarely on Iran writing on Twitter that there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen”.

“Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran (https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran) has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo said. “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia (https://www.theguardian.com/world/saudiarabia) while [President Hassan] Rouhani and [foreign minister Javad] Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy,” he said.

According to a statement from the state-run oil producer Saudi Aramco, the attacks on the Abqaiq facility will cut the kingdom’s production by about 5.7m barrels per day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s output. Saudi is the world’s largest exporter of crude oil.

The US Energy Department said on Saturday it was ready to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) if needed. “Oil prices will jump on this attack, and if the disruption to Saudi production is prolonged, an SPR release ... seems likely and sensible,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York.......

Responding to Pompeo’s tweet on Saturday, the Democratic senator Chris Murphy, a member of the foreign relations committee, wrote: “This is such irresponsible simplification and it’s how we get into dumb wars of choice. “The Saudis and Houthis are at war. The Saudis attack the Houthis and the Houthis attack back. Iran is backing the Houthis and has been a bad actor, but it’s just not as simple as Houthis = Iran.”

he Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a leading Trump ally, disagreed. “It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment,” the South Carolina senator said on Twitter........

[racedo]

No, it's the one where you get to spout nonsense on the internet

So Russia is Free World as poster on here from Russia.

[Asturias56]

Not many Russians other than Van - who seems to have come back from his/her summer holidays.....................

[A_Van]

Not many Russians other than Van - who seems to have come back from his/her summer holidays.....................

No summer holidays - no rest for the wary :-) Too much brain work on a couple of projects until the father Frost's arrival.

Recall an old military joke:
A base commander is working on the leave schedule for the next year and asks a young lieutenant who had just arrived under his command: "Hey, Petrov, do you like warm vodka and sweaty women?"
"No, Sir, not at all", was an obvious reply.
"Great, got it! Your leave is now scheduled for December".

[ORAC]

The brink of war?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iran-warns-us-after-being-accused-over-drone-strikes-jnm9cz9kb

Iran and US on brink over attack on oil sites

Iran and the US have threatened each other with military action following a huge attack on Saudi oil facilities, bringing tensions in the Gulf region to boiling point.

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, blamed Tehran for the drone attacks on two facilities, even though they have been claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and warned that Iran would be “held accountable for its aggression”. Soon after, Amirali Hajizadeh, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force, said that any US bases or aircraft carriers within a 2,000-mile radius of Iran could be targeted by its missiles and that Tehran has prepared itself for “fully-fledged war”.

The attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais installations, 118 miles apart in eastern Saudi Arabia, early yesterday sparked raging fires and have halved Saudi Arabia’s oil output — which totals 5 per cent of the world’s supply — to 5.7 million barrels daily. The blazes broke out at around 4am local time and have since been brought under control, but satellite images show acrid black clouds covering a huge area around the facilities in the hours after the attacks.......

Saudi Arabia has not commented on who it believes to be behind the strikes, although Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi energy minister who was newly appointed to the role last week, described it as a “terrorist attack” which “threatens the world economy”. But Mr Pompeo said there is “no evidence” that the attacks were orchestrated by the Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran in their fight against the government of Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and had in fact been arranged directly from Tehran. His comments have quashed hopes of the thaw in US-Iran relations which had been anticipated following the resignation of John Bolton as national security adviser last week.

Iran has hit back against Mr Pompeo’s claim that it was behind the attacks, with Abbas Mousavi, the foreign ministry spokesman, claiming the accusation was part of Washington’s policy of “maximum falsification”. Mr Mousavi also described Mr Pompeo’s tweets as “blind and abortive comments that are obscure and meaningless within a diplomatic framework” and accused Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which is supporting the internationally-recognised government, of “fuelling the flames of war”.

Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Republican, raised the temperature further, tweeting: “Iran will not stop their misbehaviour until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries, which will break the regime’s back.” “It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment,” he added........

President Trump spoke to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia by telephone last night and confirmed the US’s readiness to “cooperate with the Kingdom, by all means conducive to maintain its security and stability”, according to a report in the official Saudi Press Agency. The UK’s foreign office condemned the strikes as “dangerous, provocative and completely unacceptable”. There have so far been no reported casualties or injuries.........

Riyadh is now scrambling to restore its output and stem the damage to its economy.........

[The Sultan]

None of this would be happening if Trump/Pompeo had not violated the 2015 nuc agreement. Pompeo said there is no evidence the Houthis did the attack, that also means no evidence Iran did it either. If it was the Houthis they do have the right to fight back against the US aided war the Saudis are waging against them.

[obgraham]

Please explain, Sultan, how the US "violated" the agreement. It was just that: an agreement, not a treaty. We decided to withdraw from it.

[etudiant]

Please explain, Sultan, how the US "violated" the agreement. It was just that: an agreement, not a treaty. We decided to withdraw from it.

But when you withdraw from an agreement, you should not expect the other party to abide by it either.

[tartare]

Locked and loaded eh?
Yeah, right...

[ORAC]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/trump-says-us-locked-and-loaded-after-saudi-arabia-oil-attack-as-crude-prices-soar-iran-aramco

Trump says US 'locked and loaded' after Saudi Arabia attack, as oil prices soar

Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) has said the US was “locked and loaded” and to ready respond to drone attacks on a petroleum processing facility in Saudi Arabia, saying the US knew who was behind them.

The US president tweeted on Sunday night that he had “reason to believe that we know the culprit” behind the series of (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/major-saudi-arabia-oil-facilities-hit-by-drone-strikes)attacks (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/major-saudi-arabia-oil-facilities-hit-by-drone-strikes) on the Abqaiq facility, which is the world’s largest petroleum processing plant. The attacks disrupted more than half of the kingdom’s oil output and will affect global supplies.

Trump tweeted: “[We] are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] as to who they believe was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!”

It is the first time the president has hinted at a potential American military response to the attack......

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo claimed over the weekend that Iran was responsible for the attack (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/major-saudi-arabia-oil-facilities-hit-by-drone-strikes) after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Pompeo said (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/pompeo-iran-saudi-arabia-oil-yemen-houthi) there was no evidence the drones were launched in Yemen and accused Iran of “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply”.......

The US government produced satellite photos showing what officials said were at least 19 points of impact at two Saudi energy facilities, including damage at the heart of the kingdom’s crucial oil processing plant at Abqaiq. Officials said the photos show impacts consistent with the attack coming from the direction of Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen to the south........

The US officials said additional devices, which apparently didn’t reach their targets, were recovered northwest of the facilities and are being jointly analysed by Saudi and American intelligence. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, did not address whether the drone could have been fired from Yemen, then taken a round-about path, but did not explicitly rule it out........

[ORAC]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-iranian-drones-launched-iraq-carried-out-attacks-saudi-oil-plants

EXCLUSIVE: Iranian drones launched from Iraq carried out attacks on Saudi oil plants

[Just a spotter]

Yemen's Houthi rebel group, part of a regional network of militants backed by Iran, claims to be behind the drone strikes on two Saudi oil facilities that have the potential to disrupt global oil supplies.

https://taskandpurpose.com/iran-kamikaze-drone

As I type, Reuters is confirming the Houthi claim. Seems the narrative is already being shaped ahead of the claim of responsibility.

JAS

[The Sultan]

Trump tweeted: “[We] are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] as to who they believe was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!”

So Trump confirms he is subservient to Saudi will. Like to see those tax returns to see how in debt he is to them.

[Turbine D]

So Trump confirms he is subservient to Saudi will. Like to see those tax returns to see how in debt he is to them.
Yah and you gotta wonder what US intelligence information Trump is ignoring as he cozies up to the Saudi Royals...

[ORAC]

Or what evidence he is ignoring because he is determined not to follow his last 3 predecessors in getting dragged into a war in the Middle East.

An explanation for his latest tweet where he says his waiting to see what the Saudis want to do, is because he is exerting substantial pressure to get them to do nothing.

[racedo]

Or what evidence he is ignoring because he is determined not to follow his last 3 predecessors in getting dragged into a war in the Middle East.

An explanation for his latest tweet where he says his waiting to see what the Saudis want to do, is because he is exerting substantial pressure to get them to do nothing.

Anybody would think there is an election in Israel this week......

[dead_pan]

An explanation for his latest tweet where he says his waiting to see what the Saudis want to do, is because he is exerting substantial pressure to get them to do nothing. ​​​​​​And what evidence do you have for this assertion??

I'd be amazed if the Saudis weren't piling on the pressure for the US to act, but Trump is holding off because of the impact of any action on oil prices and hence the US economy ​​

[ORAC]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tells-saudi-arabia-oil-attacks-were-launched-from-iran-11568644126

U.S. Tells Saudi Arabia Oil Attacks Were Launched From Iran

American intelligence indicates Iran was the staging ground for a debilitating attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, people familiar with the discussions said Monday, as Washington and the kingdom weighed how to respond.

The assessment (https://www.wsj.com/articles/drone-strikes-spark-fires-at-saudi-oil-facilities-11568443375?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline), which the U.S. hasn’t shared publicly, comes as President Trump raised the prospect of a joint U.S.-Saudi retaliatory strike on Iran, a scenario that risks quickly broadening into a regional armed conflict.

U.S. officials shared with Saudi Arabia the images, intelligence reports, and their assessment that Iran launched more than 20 drones and at least a dozen ballistic missiles at the Saudi oil facilities on Saturday, the people familiar said.

The Saudi-led coalition leading the war in Yemen said Monday the weapons used to hit the kingdom were Iranian, in its first assessment of the weekend attacks. The coalition dismissed Yemeni Houthi rebels’ claims (https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspicions-rise-that-saudi-oil-attack-came-from-outside-yemen-11568498542?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline) of responsibility for the strikes. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Iraqi leaders that the U.S. didn’t believe their country was used to carry out the attacks........

After weighing the Trump administration information, Saudi Arabia announced that it was going to invite United Nations experts to come investigate the attacks, a decision likely to prolong the debate over any military response. Saudi Arabia said it would wait for the results of any such investigation before deciding how to respond........

Mr. Trump met Monday with his national security team to discuss the attacks on Saudi Arabia and escalating tensions in the Middle East, said a person familiar with the meetings. Mr. Trump and his team, which included Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and acting national security adviser Charles Kupperman, discussed possible military action against Iran, but made no decisions, said a second person familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Trump has warned that the U.S. is “locked and loaded,” but that it is waiting for Saudi Arabia’s assessment of the attacks before deciding what to do next.

“Both President Trump and Mohammed bin Salman feel the need to respond but neither wants war,” said Robert Malley, president of International Crisis Group and former White House Middle East coordinator under President Obama. “The question is how they achieve the former without provoking the latter.”......

[Phantom Driver]

Or what evidence he is ignoring because he is determined not to follow his last 3 predecessors in getting dragged into a war in the Middle East.
An explanation for his latest tweet where he says his waiting to see what the Saudis want to do, is because he is exerting substantial pressure to get them to do nothing.

Below is an extract from analysis in today’s Quora digest . Makes interesting reading . Some of the "Warheads" surrounding Trump may not fully understand what they are dealing with when it comes to the Iranian people . Talks of nukes may be a stretch , but any kind of military action will not end well........

"The US is in between a rock and a hard place as a consequence of the latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia. The Iranians were certainly aware of the Houthis’ plans to attack the Saudi oil facilities, and the Houthis must have coordinated the attack with Iran. Nevertheless, if the US gets into a war with Iran, it has the potential to spill into a far bigger conflagration.

In the event of a conflict between Iran and the US, Iran would likely use its commanding position on the mountainous, northern side of the Strait of Hormuz to halt all oil tanker traffic going through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has scores of license-produced copies of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. It is roughly equivalent to the US Harpoon. Lacking any kind of countermeasures or defenses, oil tankers transiting the Strait would be utterly defenseless against missiles and torpedoes launched by the Iranian side.

The US could potentially opt to retaliate with air strikes against Iran itself. However over the past 20 years, Iran has manufactured thousands of precision-guided, ballistic missiles that are specifically designed to knock out the US’s airbases guarding the Strait of Hormuz. In the event that the US directed air strikes against targets in Iran itself, the Iranian government would retaliate by unleashing these ballistic missiles on US bases in Qatar and the UAE.

While the US would likely threaten the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for such a strike, Russia recently amended its nuclear posture to allow for the use of nuclear weapons in the event that a key ally was struck by nuclear weapons. The Russian government did this specifically to address the possibility that the US would use nuclear weapons against Iran in the event of a war.

Consequently, the US’s options are not particularly envious at the moment. Any strike against Iran will inevitably spiral into a major conflict. The US could opt for a diplomatic response, however the US’s sanctions landed the US in this mess to begin with. Iran is lashing out as a direct consequence of the sanctions. At that, with 50% of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity knocked offline, the sanctions against Iran have become essentially meaningless as countries like Japan, China and India will be forced to turn to Iran to make up the difference, nullifying the effect of US sanctions."

[racedo]

The Iranians were certainly aware of the Houthis’ plans to attack the Saudi oil facilities, and the Houthis must have coordinated the attack with Iran. Nevertheless, if the US gets into a war with Iran, it has the potential to spill into a far bigger conflagration.



Right like Israel and Saudi's coordinate attacks with US.

Houthi's in a fight for survival and blockaded. They will take help and assistance from anybody. They will act as they see fit without respect to anybody because when in a fight for survival that is all that matters.

Telling anybody then likelihood that words will spill out because there are spies everywhere.

More column inches have been given to this attack that on the genocide in Yemen.

[tartare]

Hmm - wonder if the US is contemplating some Operation Orchard-type assistance to the Saudis (if the Saudis choose to retaliate against Iran)?

[Phantom Driver]

More column inches have been given to this attack that on the genocide in Yemen.
Agree 100 per cent .

[racedo]

Hmm - wonder if the US is contemplating some Operation Orchard-type assistance to the Saudis (if the Saudis choose to retaliate against Iran)?

I have a feeling many countrys are happy to sit on their hands as far as Saudi's are concerned.

[Mozella]

And the draft dodging Clown in Chief who said Sen. John McCain is not a hero because he got shot down... How does one respond to that?

Here's how:

I was a fighter pilot in Airwing 16 when McCain (a light attack pilot) joined my Airwing part way through our 1967 combat tour. I didn't know him previously because, in those days, the fighters and light attack aircraft operated out of different Naval Air Stations when not deployed onboard a carrier. But my friends who were attack pilots warned me to watch out for John. He was considered something of a joke among those who knew him. I was told if I wanted to meet the Admiral's little boy I had better hurry up because he wouldn't last long. Even McCain admitted in his biography that he did was at the bottom of his class in school and was switched from ship duty to the Naval flight program only because of the intervention of his daddy. He washed out of flight training several times and crashed several airplanes. Anyone else would have been transferred back to the surface Navy, but John's daddy, the Admiral, got him re instated each time and eventually he got his wings. His father even pulled extraordinary strings to get John into an Airwing involved in combat so he could tick that career box. His fellow attack pilots resented the special treatment McCain got.

Sure enough, McCain didn't last very long, he got himself shot down, and became a POW where he disgraced himself by not resisting the enemy up to the standards his fellow POW's had set. My squadron mates who were POWs knew McCain in captivity and reported that sending him to a court martial after they were released was discussed as a real possibility. That didn't happen, but people who served with McCain do not consider him to be some kind of hero.

To make matters worse, he betrayed his wife who stood by him for all those years he was a POW and married into an influential family who greased the skids so that he could become a U.S. Senator. I'm sure he felt more comfortable in Washington where honor, sense of duty, and truthfulness are unknown commodities. Eventually he let down his own political party. He died a bitter, hateful, little shell of a man.

[Radley]

A bit harsh considering he knew he wasn't a gifted pilot. He did not hide or use family influence to dodge the draft
unlike some others. He served his country.

[ORAC]

And the draft dodging Clown in Chief who said Sen. John McCain is not a hero because he got shot down... How does one respond to that? Ignoring the comment above, the proposition is true - as remarked after GW1 when the question was asked why aircrew who had been shot down did not get medals, the response was we get medals for shooting the enemy down, not the other way round.

However, I would distance myself from the comments about his behaviour as a POW. The reported facts concerning his refusal to cooperate, his subsequent punishments which he bore stoically and his refusal to accept early repatriation because of its propaganda value to the enemy is generally accepted as both heroic and gallant.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-true-nature-of-john-mccains-heroism

[ETOPS]

Meanwhile....

Any thoughts on this Iranian strike capability?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49746645

[racedo]

Meanwhile....

Any thoughts on this Iranian strike capability?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49746645

Love the idea that somehow Israel per BBC map is non aligned.

[TEEEJ]

Meanwhile....

Any thoughts on this Iranian strike capability?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49746645

I was puzzled as to why Saudi defence ministry spokesman Col Turki al-Malki was referring to the cruise missile type as Ya-Ali?. It appears that their analysts misidentified the type. As far as I could see no wreckage of a Ya-Ali cruise missile was shown during the briefing.

The Ya-Ali has different shaped rear fins and also an internal engine. The cruise missile wreckage shown was from the Quds-1 type with the externally mounted turbojet.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1398x755/annotation_2019_09_18_213920_399dfcd1c3f20c667bccd9f06099697 ea6f10cc0.jpg

Quds-1 cruise missile inset showing external turbojet.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1004x756/annotation_2019_09_18_215408_3e356f054bfdb51d308b07a565c8c06 42a7097e4.jpg

Ya-Ali LACM

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/800x214/ya_ali_73fd14081f27fac772ae8f291445c752d511120f.jpg

yy2GL4FmH7k

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208062/meet-the-quds-1/

[Willard Whyte]

Love the idea that somehow Israel per BBC map is non aligned.

One could argue that Israel is aligned with Israel, and no-one else.

[Lonewolf_50]

Here's how:

I was a fighter pilot in Airwing 16 when McCain (a light attack pilot) joined my Airwing part way through our 1967 combat tour. I didn't know him previously because, in those days, the fighters and light attack aircraft operated out of different Naval Air Stations when not deployed onboard a carrier. John McCain surely made a few friends, and a few enemies, in the Navy. (I do not recall his name being raised as a collaborator, so I am not sure how solid your sources were on that, but my memory of that goes back over 30 years ago and I didn't write much of that briefing down, ,so I'll leave it to those who really know).

Some years back I had the chance to review a whole load of old mishaps and found a folder that had his loss in the Gulf of Mexico. (One of a whole bunch of files we pored through that week).

Just out of curiosity: how well did you get to know Jack Fellows or Red McDaniel?
From your post, it would appear that you were not a guest at the same hotel where they stayed.

As a point of comparison: I got to meet General Wesley Clark back in the 90's before he became SACEUR. I have two close friends who worked on his staff when he was at SHAPE/SACEUR.
He's a very smart man who did a fine job of making a lousy impression (in re his integrity) to people whose job it was to make him look good. His foray into politics met with less than brilliant success, but he's done a decent job as a talking head for various news shows/networks. (And I don't think he'd have made any worse of a pres than any of the ones since he threw his hat in the ring ... )

Some years before that, James Stockdale got into politics with Ross Perot. A very good man whose brief career in politics was not scintillating.

My point: excellence in one field of endeavor may or may not map well onto excellence in another field of endeavor. McCain was successful in politics. (And Duke Cunningham ended up in jail)

When I was flying, the F-8s had been assigned to VFP/photo recon squadrons. (Looks like you got to fly them while they were still F'ing).
They made quite the racket coming aboard.

[Phantom Driver]

Interesting that not a peep in the tv media about this ( so far ) . Focus still on Saudi refineries that have already had half the lost capacity restored (allegedly...) ; and you wonder why the folks over there get kind of cheesed off .

https://t.co/vwolCGnRlr

"The US forces in Afghanistan (https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/afghanistan.html) have admitted that a drone attack that killed at least 30 pine nut farmers in Nangarhar province on Thursday was conducted by them.

At least 40 others were injured in the attack in Wazir Tangi area of Khogyani district that was previously attributed to the West-backed Afghan government.

A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan confirmed on Thursday that the drone attack was conducted by the US with the intention of destroying a hideout used by the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL (https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/organisations/isis-isil.html) or ISIS) group."

[racedo]

Interesting that not a peep in the tv media about this ( so far ) . Focus still on Saudi refineries that have already had half the lost capacity restored (allegedly...) ; and you wonder why the folks over there get kind of cheesed off .

https://t.co/vwolCGnRlr

"The US forces in Afghanistan (https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/afghanistan.html) have admitted that a drone attack that killed at least 30 pine nut farmers in Nangarhar province on Thursday was conducted by them.

At least 40 others were injured in the attack in Wazir Tangi area of Khogyani district that was previously attributed to the West-backed Afghan government.

A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan confirmed on Thursday that the drone attack was conducted by the US with the intention of destroying a hideout used by the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL (https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/organisations/isis-isil.html) or ISIS) group."

Pretty much guarantees that every family member and relations will now look the other way or openly support Taliban. You don't win hearts and minds by killing people's relatives, you win lots of new enemies.

[ORAC]

Good article with facts and research.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2019/09/26/are-air-defense-systems-ready-to-confront-drone-swarms/

[racedo]

Good article with facts and research.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2019/09/26/are-air-defense-systems-ready-to-confront-drone-swarms/

But and it is a big but. The assumption is that yup we can defeat a drone swarm because we have missiles, aa guns etc. However a drone swarm may be the first of 10-15 swarms where by the time the 10 has arrived guns are out because of heat / lack of ammo, missiles all used up etc.

The belief is that it would be a lack of a big enough impact but it is not trying to make a big enough impact it is ensuring the defenders are aware they are not invulnerable and that everywhere is a target. Missile swarms could be a day 1-2 strategy before using a bigger offense after that.

The nightmare scenario for a naval captain is yes we can defend the ship at close quarters BUT a Gatlin overheats and they do not carry enough ammo to keep going 24/7.

Ultimately as per space movies a force field shield is the next defence step to combat this but technology is not there yet.

[unmanned_droid]

And that's where directed energy systems could be useful.

[weemonkey]

US Army is already on the DE case. For use future against Russian drones, which have been very useful, to say the least, in the Eastern Ukraine insurgency..

[jolihokistix]

Surprising that al Jazeera would run this Reuters article exposing Iran's planning behind their Saudi oil installation attack.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2019/11/25/-Start-planning-for-the-next-one-says-IRGC-Commander-after-Saudi-oil-attacks.html

[dead_pan]

These new, unconventional tactics have certainly got western strategists scratching their heads. So much for investing in radar and missiles to detect and defeat ballistic missiles etc - the threat has gone low-tech and low-altitude.

Interesting comments about the relative costs & availability of defensive missiles vs the inbound threats, be it drones or whatever. Even the Israelis only use Iron Dome on projectiles which are heading towards populated areas - anything heading towards open country is left alone.

[ORAC]

Only two thirds the size? That’s still massive.......

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iran-builds-a-fake-us-aircraft-carrier-for-target-practice-hr5f7xkb8

Iran builds a fake US aircraft carrier for target practice

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has built a fake American aircraft carrier and moored it at the entrance to the Gulf, according to satellite pictures. The presence and purpose of the carrier, which also has 16 fake fighter jets parked on its landing deck, have not been confirmed by officials.

It may be used as part of military exercises to shore up domestic morale that has been hit hard by sanctions, poverty and the Middle East’s worst outbreak of coronavirus. Five years ago a previous mocked-up carrier was attacked and sunk for the cameras by missiles after being used as a test target.......

The new “aircraft carrier” is in dock at Bandar Abbas, the large Iranian port by the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf. It is built to resemble a Nimitz-class US carrier, several of which patrol the Gulf region on rotation, although it is only about two thirds the size of the real thing.

The satellite pictures were taken by Maxar Technologies, a space technology company, and passed to a news agency.

Months after the similar carrier was sunk in live-fire drills in February 2015 the deal between Iran, the US and other major states was signed, limiting Iranian nuclear development in return for sanctions relief, and leading to a lessening of military tensions. Since President Trump pulled out of the deal two years ago the Gulf has once again become a playground for a US-Iranian test of wills, with Revolutionary Guard ships harassing American naval vessels.......


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1180x663/image_5c083f4b18d9d28d42a302a671d183efe51084d2.jpeg

[Lonewolf_50]

Training is something people spend money on. They are training someone.
Honestly, no big deal. If they think it is important enough, they spend money on it.

[jolihokistix]

Is that connected by a tunnel?

[Asturias56]

I wonder if their F-35's fly?

[ORAC]

https://www.snafu-solomon.com/2020/07/royal-saudi-air-force-is-waging.html

Royal Saudi Air Force is waging an unnoticed war against Iranian made IED drones...


https://twitter.com/mbks15/status/1278615224980029440?s=21

[Lyneham Lad]

Self-inflicted or with 'outside help'?

Second explosion in a week at Iran’s key weapon facilities (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/second-explosion-in-a-week-at-irans-key-weapon-facilities-7ztwms3q7)

Article intro - An explosion yesterday rocked Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant which the West believes is part of the country’s nuclear weapons programme.It was the second blast at a key Iranian military production facility in a week. The authorities in the Islamic republic released photographs of a brick building at the plant, in the city of Natanz in central Iran, damaged by scorch marks, but played down the seriousness of the explosion and subsequent fire.

[KiloB]

Now let’s see, who has the nearest F-35s?

[Asturias56]

just as likely to be rogue software like the attack a few years ago on the centrifuges

[tdracer]

just as likely to be rogue software like the attack a few years ago on the centrifuges
Or it could be incompetence - didn't they hit their own ship with a missile not long ago?

[Lyneham Lad]

From an article in The Times today.

Iran fears sabotage plot after new ‘attack’ (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iran-fears-sabotage-plot-after-new-attack-rqmpddxpk)

Suspicions that Iran is the victim of an international sabotage operation have intensified after a fire at a power station, the third incident in nine days.

[Chugalug2]

Times story paywalled, but Sky News coverage here :-

https://news.sky.com/story/coincidence-or-attack-what-is-behind-the-six-curious-incidents-in-iran-12021907

[esscee]

Surprised? No.

[Lyneham Lad]

Times story paywalled, but Sky News coverage here :-

https://news.sky.com/story/coincidence-or-attack-what-is-behind-the-six-curious-incidents-in-iran-12021907

Odd, the links usually work. This one should do - a different method to the earlier one.
Iran fears sabotage plot after new ‘attack’ (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0f9f55fc-bedb-11ea-bb37-3d3cce807650?shareToken=c29bb91bc0798cea0427f250e6931d76)

[Asturias56]

The great thing about remote sabotage is that it means the bad guys have to spend a lot of effort "just in case" and every glitch will be pinned on the opposition - like shooting your own gun boat..............

[Lyneham Lad]

Latest report in The Times.

Iran hit by latest in series of explosions (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2500002c-c29b-11ea-91bd-3bac3c644e50?shareToken=06512f446dcacfbf827295e4e021c47a)

The Iranian capital has been hit by another in a series of explosions, with the latest blast reportedly at a missile plant to the west of Tehran. The explosion was heard in the western suburbs in the early hours of this morning and was powerful enough to knock out electricity supplies in two areas where it is known there are military facilities.

Iran has been struck by a series of explosions and disasters in the past three weeks, including one that destroyed a key unit of its main uranium enrichment plant. The authorities believe that may have been the result of a bomb planted by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. The head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, has been accused of leaking confirmation to a journalist.

However, Israeli sources have played down the country’s possible involvement in other incidents, which included a fire at a power station and an explosion at another missile plant, east of Tehran. Iran regularly suffers accidents to its infrastructure, including parts with no military application, owing to the difficulty of maintenance while under western sanctions.

The sound of the latest blast was reported as coming from near Garmdareh, a suburb on the edge of west Tehran on the road to the city of Karaj. There are known to be Revolutionary Guard sites in the area. Several early reports said that the explosion had been in a missile storage facility or similar. The mayor of Garmdareh was quoted as saying there had been an accident at a “gas canister workshop”.

Israeli defences are on alert after there were threats of retaliation by Iran if reports of the attack on the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz last Thursday turned out to be true. That blast was reported to have put back Iran’s nuclear programme by a year.

Israel has been attacking Iranian militias across Syria extensively in recent years.

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sabotage-fears-after-fire-rips-through-iranian-port-of-bushehr-f00b0qbw3

Sabotage fears after fire rips through Iranian port of Bushehr

A fire has damaged seven large cargo boats at the Iranian port city of Bushehr, the latest in a series of incidents which have aroused suspicions of widespread sabotage. Thick black smoke in the Delvar shipyard was visible for miles but was brought under control, the Iranian authorities said, and there were no casualties. It was the second significant blaze yesterday in southern Iran, with reports of another at a new aluminium smelting plant at Lamerd, also in the south.....

As debate continued in Iran over whether foreign saboteurs were responsible, Tehran appears to have engineered the escape of an oil tanker that had been held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for allegedly breaching US sanctions.

The Gulf Sky, which is registered in Dominica but linked to an associate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was initially said to have been “hijacked”. The reappearance of the 900ft vessel in Iranian waters suggests a covert operation may have been carried out to remove the tanker from UAE custody. Most of the Indian crew of 28 have been repatriated, though two are said to still be in Iran because of problems with their passports.

The tanker had been held at the UAE port of Khor Fakkan for the last four months as part of a US investigation into Amir Dianat, 55, an Iranian, described as a long-time associate of the Quds Force, the powerful unit which engages in clandestine overseas operations. In May the US Justice Department charged Mr Dianat, and Kamran Lajmiri, 42, another Iranian, with purchasing the tanker, previously called Nautic, through a series of front companies on behalf of the Quds Force.

The tanker, which had been issued with a “prohibition to sail order”, had disappeared and turned its automatic radar transponder off at 4.30am on July 5, but has now reappeared in Iranian waters off Hormuz Island, according to tankerstrackers.com, which had been asked to find the missing vessel.

The captain told a seafarers charity, human Rights at Sea, that the vessel had been hijacked...

The US Central Command confirmed to The Times that there had been no “hijack” of the Gulf Sky and that the tanker was being tracked by the 5th Fleet based in Bahrain.

[Lyneham Lad]

Article in The Times today.

President Trump sends B-52s to Gulf in final show of strength with Iran (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fc61ebec-2e8f-11eb-ad99-2498151d5fd1?shareToken=4db4584152d050aff8dd986179de2364)

The US sent a long-range bomber force to the Middle East at short notice over the weekend as leading American, Israeli and Saudi officials held an unprecedented diplomatic meeting on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.

The show of American air power was headed by B-52H strategic bombers which flew 7,000 miles to the Middle East from their Minot air force base in North Dakota on Saturday.

B-52Hs, the largest of the US Air Force’s bombers, and the longest in service, appear to have been deployed both to deter Iran — the arch regional rival of both the Saudis and Israel — and to provide a show of force in the region as the leaders of Israel and Saudi Arabia and Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary ofstate, gathered for the unprecedented diplomatic exchanges at Neom (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salmans-saudi-arabia-dream-will-neom-survive-the-oil-price-slump-m9qt2pbtd).

US officials would not confirm how many of the bombers were deployed but a statement from US Central Command said B-52H Stratofortress “aircrews” assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot air force base had “conducted a short-notice, long-range mission into the Middle East on November 21”, the day before the arrival of Mr Pompeo (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mike-pompeos-world-tour-woos-evangelicals-at-home-0ks2sx370) and, reportedly, Binyamin Netanyahu (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israels-prime-minister-held-secret-talks-in-saudi-arabia-with-crown-prince-pqbbfs2mn), Israel’s prime minister, in Saudi Arabia.

Central Command said the B-52Hs had been sent “to deter aggression and reassure US partners and allies”.

The long-range bombers, which can carry nuclear as well as conventional bombs and missiles, were joined in the show of force by F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons.

“The ability to quickly move forces into, out of and around the theatre to seize, retain and exploit the initiative is key to deterring potential aggression,” Lieutenant-General Greg Guillot, commander of US 9th Air Force, said.

According to Israeli sources the meeting in Neom also involved Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. It is the first time the Israeli leader has officially met the crown prince.


Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, denied that the Israeli leader had taken part, dismissing confirmation of Mr Netanyahu’s presence by Israel’s education minister.

The Saudis meanwhile have been targeted by the Houthis, the Iran-backed rebel movement in Yemen, which has given a striking indication of its advances in missile technology with a precision attack on an oil distribution plant in Jeddah. The missile, fired from a distance of more than 400 miles, was accurate enough to knock a hole in a storage tank at a site run by Aramco, the Saudi oil and gas company.

The rebels have fired a series of missiles at Saudi Arabia, which is backing the recognised government in Yemen’s civil war, but none is known to have been so accurate over a distance before. They released a claim of responsibility saying that the ground-launched missile was a new type, called the Quds-2.

The Quds-1 is known to be a variant of an Iranian cruise missile, itself developed from an old Soviet model.

“Unfortunately the facility was hit yesterday by a projectile, by a hostile attack,” said Abdullah al-Ghamdi, manager of the Jeddah facility, on a tour for journalists to show the damage. He said that production had been restored within three hours. He added: “As you know Aramco has been a target of such hostile attacks. It was a big fire, it was a big explosion but it was controlled.”

UN mediators have been frustrated in their attempts to engineer a sustained ceasefire to the war in Yemen. Hopes for a resolution in the conflict now depend in part on the attitude of the incoming Biden administration.
The president-elect, during his campaign, promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear accord abandoned by President Trump, seek negotiations with Tehran, and put more pressure on Saudi Arabia to come to a resolution in Yemen.

[ORAC]

Lots of changes of allies and alliances going on - especially as Saudi and Turkey seem to be emerging as competing Sunni and Shia power bases as well as Iran.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-arab-states-fighting-back-against-turkey-s-neo-ottomanism-

Arab states are fighting back against Turkey’s ‘neo-Ottomanism’

[Asturias56]

70% of the population of Turkey are Sunni

ORAC I think you've got it wrong - they're not "competing Sunni & Shia power bases" - the article says that Turkey is ANOTHER Sunni power

"Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems determined to reinvent the secular Muslim country he inherited as a sort of Sunni Iranian ‘Mini-Me’: draconian, Islamist and with vaunting regional ambitions. For Western powers and their allies, the urgent question is how to deal with the mutation of a Nato ally into a ‘neo-Ottoman’ threat."

Turkey is just moving to be a big local player -102 years after they were gutted after WW1

[Lyneham Lad]

In The Guardian this afternoon.
Iran's top nuclear scientist shot dead near Tehran (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/mohsen-fakhrizadeh-iranian-nuclear-scientist-reportedly-shot-dead-near-tehran)

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, identified by Israel as director of nuclear weapons programme, ambushed in street

An Iranian nuclear scientist described as the guru of Iran (https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran)’s nuclear programme has been gunned down in the street in a town near Tehran.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was ambushed in the town of Absard, 70km east of Tehran. Four assailants opened fire after witnesses heard an explosion. Efforts to resuscitate Fakhrizadeh failed, and his bodyguard was also wounded.

An adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that the country would retaliate against the perpetrators. “We will strike as thunder at the killers of this oppressed martyr and will make them regret their action,” tweeted Hossein Dehghan, a military commander.

The Iranian ministry of defence confirmed Fakhrizadeh’s death in a statement. “During the clash between his security team and the terrorists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was seriously injured and taken to hospital,” it said.

“Unfortunately, the medical team did not succeed in reviving him, and a few minutes ago, this manager and scientist, after years of effort and struggle, achieved a high degree of martyrdom.”

Fakhrizadeh was identified by Israel’s prime minister in a 2018 public presentation (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/30/netanyahu-accuses-iran-cheating-nuclear-deal) as the director of Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Benjamin Netanyahu said during the presentation.

He accused Iran at the time of hiding and expanding its nuclear weapons knowhow, saying that Israeli intelligence had obtained a half-tonne cache of nuclear archive materials from the country.

The attack was confirmed by Iranian state TV but then denied by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) before being confirmed separately by the defence ministry. Pictures of the purported site of the attack also appeared on the Iranian news sites. Security forces blocked the boulevard where the attack occurred.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military said: “We don’t comment on reports in the foreign media”. The prime minister’s office said it would not comment “on those reports”.

The confusion in the Iranian media reflects the high tensions inside Iran, amid reports that Israeli intelligence and secret service have been given the green light to mount attacks on Iranian nuclear installations before Donald Trump stands down as president.

Many Iranian officials believe Trump, in conjunction with Israel and Saudi Arabia, is determined to weaken or antagonise Iran before the US handover of power on 20 January.

The US president-elect, Joe Biden, has said he is willing to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and lift some economic sanctions so long as Iran comes back into compliance with the agreement, especially over its excess stocks of enriched uranium. Israel and Saudi Arabia want the US to remain outside the deal and continue with a policy of maximum economic sanctions.

Fakhrizadeh, on a US sanctions list, was regarded as the main keeper of Iranian knowledge of its nuclear programme. A brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and a professor of physics at the Guard’s Imam Hussein University, Fakhrizadeh was a man cloaked in mystery.

Until April 2018, no photograph of him was publicly available, and after the killing of several other nuclear scientists, a further shield of secrecy and security had been thrown around him, in an effort to protect him against Israeli assassins.

He took charge of Iran’s Physics Research Centre in 1988, and then became head of research at its successor, the Institute of Applied Physics, from where Iran’s secret nuclear research programme was conducted.

He had never been interviewed by a member of the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA, but was named in one of their reports.

Hmmm, I wonder who...

[fitliker]

Play stupid games , Win stupid prizes :)

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iranian-bomb-plot-targeted-tory-mps-6mjtldtjd

Iranian ‘bomb plot’ targeted Tory MPs

An Iranian diplomat planned to carry out a terrorist attack in France that could have killed five British MPs and Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, a court has been told.

Assadollah Assadi, 48, failed to appear yesterday for the opening of his trial at which he is accused of masterminding a foiled attack on an event held by Iranian opposition activists in June 2018. The event, near Paris, was attended by the Conservative MPs Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, Theresa Villiers and Sir David Amess and Labour’s Roger Godsiff, as well as 30 other British officials.

Mr Assadi and three alleged co-conspirators are being tried in Antwerp. Two of them, Amir Saadouni, 40, and his wife Nasimeh Naami, 36, were arrested in Belgium, supposedly en route to the event. Mehrdad Arefani, 57, was arrested in Villepinte, on the outskirts of Paris, where the event was taking place, and Mr Assadi was arrested in Germany and extradited.

Belgian prosecutors claim that the plot was concocted with support from Tehran. Representatives of the Mujahidin-e-Khalq opposition group, whose annual rally was the alleged target, claimed that Mr Assadi had been ordered by Mohammad Javad Zarif (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-singles-out-iranian-foreign-minister-mohammad-javad-zarif-with-sanctions-mzj5092xs), the Iranian foreign minister, not to attend. Thousands of activists and politicians were there, and police believe that the plot would have caused mass loss of life had it succeeded.

Yesterday Mr Assadi’s lawyer, Dimitri de Beco, said that he would be arguing that his client had diplomatic immunity, which is denied by the European authorities. They claim that he did not have immunity in Germany, where he was arrested.

Mr Assadi is accused of being an undercover intelligence operative. He was officially serving as the third counsellor in Iran’s embassy in Vienna at the time, but is also an officer of the Iranian intelligence and security ministry. Prosecutors say that he boarded an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna from Tehran carrying the explosive device in his baggage.

He is accused of driving to a Pizza Hut (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-hellish-pizza-hut-delivery-irans-bomb-to-take-out-foes-in-paris-9067nb66k) in Luxembourg and handing over the bomb to Mr Saadouni and Ms Naami. The couple, who are of Iranian origin but had been granted political asylum in Belgium, were arrested in their car, in which police found explosives. The European authorities had received a tip-off from Israeli intelligence.

All four defendants deny the charges of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group. The trial is expected to last for three or four days, with the vedict to be delivered a month later. The defendants could face prison sentences of 20 years or more if convicted.

It is the first time that a European country has put an Iranian official on trial for terrorism charges. Tehran has threatened a “proportionate response” against countries involved in the trial......

[Asturias56]

This sort of thing turns into a long running tit-for-tat exercise

problem is innocent people get killed in the cross-fire

[Less Hair]

B-52 moved to the Middle East before and then the Saudi summit. Is there more going on?
Now USS Nimitz is returning to the gulf.

[MarcK]

An Iranian diplomat planned to carry out a terrorist attack in France that could have killed five British MPs and Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, a court has been told.
I would have felt very sorry for the British MPs.

[NutLoose]

The sooner the US is shot of Trump the better, the guy isn't playing with a full deck of cards, watching him on CNN and his irate rantings it is sad to see, he is not all there, and this guy is in a position to cause havoc in the region over the next month or so.

I can see him totally falling apart when he is finally ousted from the White House, what I cannot believe is how a lot of Americans just can't see he is not the full ticket.

[Lyneham Lad]

More on the Iran’s nuclear chief's assassination in The Times.

Iran’s nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh killed by ‘remote-controlled weapons’ (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/77410814-327f-11eb-8874-74fdd66018b3?shareToken=6a4def03d62c985dd8239e813aaf0977)


A leading Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated in his car with gunfire from remote-controlled automatic weapons in an operation that took less than three minutes, reports from Tehran suggest.

Israeli intelligence services and the UN’s nuclear weapons experts believed that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was instrumental in Iran’s atomic programme. He was killed (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mohsen-fakhrizadeh-iran-s-nuclear-mastermind-shot-dead-by-assassins-near-tehran-v256wvr63) as he travelled with his wife towards their house in the suburb of Absard, a weekend destination for the capital’s wealthy residents. Iran has blamed Israel for the attack.

Locals reported hearing a loud blast and sustained gunfire at about 2pm on Friday. Photos show the wreckage of his blacked-out vehicle, which was travelling in a convoy with three other vehicles, strewn across the road.

Dr Fakhrizadeh’s death has embarrassed the Iranian regime 11 months after Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds expeditionary force and architect of Iran’s regional expansion, was killed in a US drone strike (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trumps-assassination-of-qasem-soleimani-was-illegal-says-un-j3kgw90cs) in Baghdad. The scientist had been the target of an assassination attempt in 2008, when a hit squad on motorcycles attached explosives to his moving car.

Initial reports suggested that the latest attackers ambushed the convoy in a bomb and gun assault before vanishing. Other accounts suggested that a team of 12 was involved.

The Fars news agency, which is close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that the shots initially fired at Dr Fakhrizadeh’s car came from a remotely-operated machinegun mounted on a Nissan pick-up truck, which exploded with a self-destruct mechanism.

It claimed that Dr Fakhrizadeh stepped out of the car, thinking it had hit an object or that there was a problem with the engine. No one has claimed to be behind the attack but Tehran has said that it holds Israel responsible.

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said that there would be “definitive punishment” of the perpetrators.

[squawking 7700]

I'd be more interested as to why five British MP's and thirty 'officials' were attending a conference hosted by what was previously deemed a terrorist organisation and who funded their trip? and was it sanctioned by the FO? I'd be disappointed if my MP was involved in anything other than their constituents' needs.

[ORAC]

You mean the rally also attended by:

Anna Elzbieta Fotyga, MP, representing the delegation from the Belgian parliament; Nejat al-Astal, Member of Parliament representing the Palestinian parliament; Saleh al-Qalab representing the Jordanian parliament.

A bipartisan delegation from the US Senate including Newt Gingrich plus Judge Michael Mukasey, former US Attorney General and Judge Louis Freeh, former Director of FBI. Frances Townsend; former assistant secretary for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,

A Canadian delegation, led by John Baird, former Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Former Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France and Rama Yade, former French Minister of Human Rights; Minister of Foreign Affair Giulio Terzi of Italy and Italian Senator Roberto Rampi.

Eduard Lintner, former German deputy Interior Minister and Martin Patzelt, a Member of Germany Bundestag; Marcin Swiecicki, a Member of Parliament from Poland.

A delegation from Albania included Pandeli Majko, former Prime Minister, and Fatmir Mediu, Leader of the Albanian Republican Party.

Amongst others....

I'd be more interested as to why five British MP's and thirty 'officials' were attending a conference hosted by what was previously deemed a terrorist organisationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Council_of_Resistance_of_Iran

The NCRI, along with the MEK is regarded by the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Iraq as a terrorist organization, and was classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, alleging that the NCRI "is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MEK at all relevant times" and that the NCRI is "the political branch" of the MEK. However, it is no longer considered terrorist. On September 28, 2012, the US State Department formally removed MEK from its list of terrorist organizations in a decision made by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ahead of an October 1 deadline set by a US appeals court.

Dick Armey (the former House majority leader 1995–2003) suggested that the State Department wrongly included MEK in the terrorist list from the beginning. Alireza Jafazadeh was its official representative in the US until the Washington office was closed by the US State Department in 2002 on the grounds that it was only a front group for the MEK by then listed as a terrorist organization in the US. It has been alleged that the inclusion of NCRI and MEK in the list was a token offered to the theocratic regime of Iran rather than based on the facts of the matter.

According to the Wall Street Journal "Senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the MEK figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." The Journal added that: In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as "a signal" of the US's desire for rapprochement with Tehran's reformists, said Martin Indyk, who at the time was assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. President khatami's government "considered it a pretty big deal," Indyk said.

The European Union in May 2004 implied that NCRI is part of the people's Mujahedin of Iran and excluded the NCRI itself from a list of organisations considered to be terrorist organisations, including the People's Mujahedin of Iran "minus the National Council of Resistance of Iran" on its list of terrorist organisations. On January 26, 2009, the EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the MEK from the EU terror list....

[dead_pan]

The Fars news agency, which is close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that the shots initially fired at Dr Fakhrizadeh’s car came from a remotely-operated machinegun mounted on a Nissan pick-up truck, which exploded with a self-destruct mechanism.

Interesting tech, and presumably relatively easy to deploy and operate.

It claimed that Dr Fakhrizadeh stepped out of the car, thinking it had hit an object or that there was a problem with the engine.

Well he wasn't that clever then, was he? Also, I wonder what his bodyguards were up to at that point - cowering in the footwells?

[jolihokistix]

From Al ArabiyaAccording to Fars' news report, Fakhrizadeh and his wife were on their way to spend the weekend at their house in the suburbs of Tehran.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. (https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMOnQlwswi_quAw?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen)

There were three security cars with them, and at a certain point, the leading vehicle left the motorcade to do a preliminary security check of the house. Right after the car at the front of the motorcade left, shots were fired on Fakhrizadeh's car, and it stopped. Fakhrizadeh stepped out of the car, thinking his vehicle hit an object on the road or there was a problem with the engine, the report added.

The report mentioned that shots were fired again from a Nisan pickup truck, which was parked 150 meters from Fakhrizadeh's car. The shots were fired from an automatic machine gun, which was mounted on the truck and has been operated by remote control.

Three bullets hit Fakhrizadeh – one hit him in the spine, the Nisan pickup truck then exploded in what appeared to be a self-destruct mechanism, added the report.

According to Fars news, Iranian intelligence has identified the pickup truck owner; he had left Iran one month ago.

[etudiant]

The sooner the US is shot of Trump the better, the guy isn't playing with a full deck of cards, watching him on CNN and his irate rantings it is sad to see, he is not all there, and this guy is in a position to cause havoc in the region over the next month or so.

I can see him totally falling apart when he is finally ousted from the White House, what I cannot believe is how a lot of Americans just can't see he is not the full ticket.

There has been speculation that his Covid illness had left him impaired. Also, he must be under considerable stress, his legal and financial issues post White House loom large.

[NutLoose]

There has been speculation that his Covid illness had left him impaired. Also, he must be under considerable stress, his legal and financial issues post White House loom large.

Then I hope he gets the help he needs and those around him ensure he does not do anything foolish in the last couple of months of his term...I do feel over Covid he has let the Country down badly and the Country is now lacking the leadership it needs with whats going on at home and abroad, especially now in Iran.
I know a lot is being made in the press of him standing again, but I can't see it, I imagine his popularity will wane when he is no longer your President and those that have cowered under is coat tails and not put the Country before themselves will re-emerge and condem him, and as for the daughter running.... The Kennedy's they are not.

[GlobalNav]

Then I hope he gets the help he needs and those around him ensure he does not do anything foolish in the last couple of months of his term...I do feel over Covid he has let the Country down badly and the Country is now lacking the leadership it needs with whats going on at home and abroad, especially now in Iran.
I know a lot is being made in the press of him standing again, but I can't see it, I imagine his popularity will wane when he is no longer your President and those that have cowered under is coat tails and not put the Country before themselves will re-emerge and condem him, and as for the daughter running.... The Kennedy's they are not.

As we all know, the President has not surrounded himself with those who can truly help him or us. Their only qualification is the ability and willingness to say and spell the word “Yes” on cue. All others read his tweets of dismissal.

[etudiant]

As we all know, the President has not surrounded himself with those who can truly help him or us. Their only qualification is the ability and willingness to say and spell the word “Yes” on cue. All others read his tweets of dismissal.
Not sure that is true.
He has been trying to shift the country away from its global imperial pretensions as well as from its dependency on 'lower cost' foreign production, both unpopular concepts in the Washington bubble.
Consider how little support even the obviously imperative withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria are getting in the foreign policy and military establishments.

[Lyneham Lad]

Report in The Guardian.
Iran seizes South Korean tanker as tensions with US mount (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/iran-resumes-enriching-uranium-breach-nuclear-deal)

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have seized a South Korean vessel “for polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals”, amid rising tensions between Iran (https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran) and the US during the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Iranian news agencies published photos showing Guards speed boats escorting the tanker MT Hankuk Chemi and said the vessel’s crew members, including nationals of South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, had been detained. The tanker is being held at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port city.

South Korea’s foreign ministry demanded the vessel’s immediate release and said South Korean forces stationed in the Strait of Hormuz had been dispatched to the area.

The incident came before an expected visit by South Korea’s deputy foreign minister to Tehran, and against the backdrop of rising tensions between Iran and the Trump administration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration).

Click for rest of article & photo.

[Lyneham Lad]

Update in The Guardian.

South Korean forces arrive in waters near strait of Hormuz amid Iran tensions (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/south-korean-forces-arrive-in-waters-near-strait-of-hormuz-amid-iran-tensions)

South Korean forces have arrived in waters near the strait of Hormuz as pressure builds on Iran to free a South Korean tanker it seized (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/iran-resumes-enriching-uranium-breach-nuclear-deal) along with its crew on Monday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had taken control of the South Korean vessel, the Hankuk Chemi, and its 20 crew because it was “polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals”. The tanker is being held at Iran’s Bandar Abbas port city.

The Choi Young, a destroyer carrying members of the Cheonghae anti-piracy unit, arrived in the strategically important area on Tuesday, as officials in Seoul sought a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

Officials stressed there were no plans to conduct a military operation to free the crew of five South Koreans, 11 Myanmarese, two Indonesians and two Vietnamese, according to the Yonhap news agency.

“[The destroyer] is carrying out missions to ensure the safety of our nationals,” foreign ministry spokesperson Boo Seung-chan said on Tuesday.
An unnamed official told Yonhap: “The issue should be resolved through diplomacy. The unit is focused on the safety of our people who use the waterway after the seizure.”

The Hankuk Chemi’s owner said on Tuesday that Revolutionary Guard troops had stormed the vessel and forced it to change course and travel to Iran (https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran). That account contradicts Iranian claims that the ship had been stopped for polluting the waters of the Persian Gulf and the strait of Hormuz.

The South Korean foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, did not comment directly on speculation that Tehran had seized the vessel to pressure Seoul into releasing billions of dollars of Iranian assets frozen in South Korea as part of US sanctions against the regime. Kang said her priority was to “verify the facts and ensure the safety of the crew members”. She added: “We have been trying to figure out what happened through the Iranian embassy in South Korea and the South Korean embassy in Iran and are continuing to make efforts to address the situation.”

There was confusion over plans to send a senior South Korean official to Iran this weekend to negotiate the vessel’s release.
Iranian state TV cited a Tehran government official as saying that the vice foreign minister, Choi Jong-kun, had been due to discuss Iran’s demand that $7bn in frozen funds be released. However, a foreign ministry official in Seoul told Reuters that Choi’s visit was “unclear as of now”. Last Sunday, the Tehran Times newspaper reported Iran was hoping to negotiate an agreement to use the frozen funds to “barter” for coronavirus vaccine doses and other commodities. The Revolutionary Guards said on Monday the Hankuk Chemi, which was carrying 7,200 tonnes of ethanol, “was seized by our force’s [navy] this morning”. They added: “This tanker was headed from Saudi Arabia’s Al Jubail port and was seized due to the repeated infringement of maritime environmental laws.”

[ORAC]

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/world-exclusive-truth-behind-killing-of-iran-nuclear-scientist-mohsen-fakhrizadeh-revealed-1.511653

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Truth behind killing of Iran nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh revealed

[Asturias56]

I though that was in the Times about 2 months ago - complete with diagrams and artists impressions...............

[Imagegear]

I read an article this morning that according Iranian News sources, a member of the Iranian military was the killer.

Can't find the article anymore

IG

[Tashengurt]

Probably not going to win their Pulitzer with that piece.

[jolihokistix]

https://gulfheadlines.com/indonesia-finds-weapons-on-impounded-iranian-tanker/

The weapons found were small arms and probably justified in the context of piracy, but the Indonesians seem to have stumbled across an illegal deal going on in some backwaters.

Do the dotted lines connect Iran and North Korea, via China?

[Asturias56]

“Investigators found a sniper rifle, three assault rifles, two pistols, and ammunition on the Iranian-flagged tanker MT Horse,”

You wouldn't turn a hair if you found those in a pickup in the middle of Kansas on a Sunday afternoon - just enough to cover against some very poorly armed pirates ..... and illegal deals int Indonesian waters?

I'm shocked,.. shocked...... arrest the usual suspects

[ORAC]

60 Minutes: Never-before-seen video of the attack on Al Asad Airbase, Iraq by Iran ? Alert 5 (http://alert5.com/2021/03/01/60-minutes-never-before-seen-video-of-the-attack-on-al-asad-airbase-iraq-by-iran/)

60 Minutes: Never-before-seen video of the attack on Al Asad Airbase, Iraq by Iran

Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, gave the order for U.S. troops to evacuate Al Asad Airbase, Iraq from an impending ballistic missile by Iran only after the Iranians have downloaded the last commercial satellite images fo the base.

https://youtu.be/lGP7hZQuTL0

[jolihokistix]

Can’t understand the English, and the video won’t play. Safe site?

[ORAC]

Youtube video of “60 Minutes” on ABC TV.

[Lyneham Lad]

In The Times:-
Israel launches missiles at Damascus after attack on cargo ship (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/768993f0-7a64-11eb-823e-250f70612dc4?shareToken=058ee4901f920bbde243c9c7aafae902)

Israel launched air raids on Damascus last night, in apparent retaliation for an attack on a cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman it blamed on Syria’s ally Iran.

A volley of missiles targeted bases in the south of the Syrian capital said to be occupied by the Iran-backed militias playing a strong role in shoring up the regime of President Assad.

There was no comment from the government in Israel, though it had hinted there would be retaliation for an attack on a cargo ship (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-accuses-iran-of-attack-on-ship-in-gulf-of-oman-9jrsbljpj), the Helios Ray, on Friday. Syrian state media claimed that air defences shot down “most” of the missiles.

The Helios Ray, a car transporter, was flying a Bahamian flag when it was struck after leaving Saudi Arabia, but it is owned by an Israeli businessman. It was struck in four places, though there were no injuries and the vessel made it to port in Dubai for repairs.

Israel’s intelligence community was certain that Iran was behind the attack and on Sunday Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, the chief of staff of the military, blamed Tehran in a speech to officers of the country’s main signals intelligence gathering unit.

“We have received a reminder from one of the greatest threats in the region, and a reminder that Iran is not just a nuclear threat, but that it spreads and carries out terror against civilian targets,” Kochavi said. He promised that Israel would respond to the attack.

This morning, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu hinted at Israeli responsibility for the raids in Syria, repeating accusations that Iran was to blame for the explosions on the Helios Ray. “It is indeed an Iranian act, that’s clear,” he told the public broadcaster Kan. “Iran is Israel’s greatest enemy, I’m determined to block it, we’re striking at it throughout the region.”

While the government in Tehran has not made any official statement, the Kayhan newspaper, which is close to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote that the Helios Ray may have been “trapped in an ambush by a branch of the resistance axis”. This refers to militias aligned with Iran, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel believes the ship was targeted as retribution for its clandestine operations against Iran, notably the assassination (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mossad-used-iranian-for-assassination-of-nuclear-weapons-scientist-f0xq89mmp) of the head of Iran’s nuclear programme, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, on a road near Tehran in November. There have been several “low-level attacks” against Israeli targets, such as an explosion outside Israel’s embassy in the Indian capital Delhi that also did not cause any injuries.


A senior Israeli officer predicted last month that Iran would try to avoid a confrontation with Israel because it was waiting to see the Biden administration’s first moves, “but it is likely to try and carry out smaller, low-level attacks through its proxies in the region”.

This is despite the onslaught Israel has waged against Iranian and Iranian-backed forces inside Syria in the last five years, a series of hundreds of missile and air raids intended to stop the transfer of weapons to positions on its borders in that country and in Lebanon.

On Friday, the United States also attacked (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/biden-s-first-air-strikes-target-iran-backed-militias-in-syria-s9vghbw3l) Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias on the Syria-Iraq border. It said the raids were a response to rocket strikes on a US base in northern Iraq that killed two civilian contractors, which it blamed on the same militias.

[Levelling_the_Land]

Interesting Series of Podcasts from Sky News which are mildly relevant to some of this, called "Into the Grey Zone"

https://news.sky.com/story/into-the-grey-zone-podcast-episode-one-the-gathering-storm-12184704

First episode at the link above, "you can get other episodes from your podcast provider"

[Lyneham Lad]

In The Times.
US coalition military base in Iraq hit by ten missiles (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d8504b7c-7c0f-11eb-823e-250f70612dc4?shareToken=44be3babccc734b47a64f69f1838df0a)

A US coalition military base in Iraq has come under rocket fire, five days after President Biden retaliated for a previous strike with air raids on Iranian-backed Shia militias in neighbouring Syria.

A volley of ten missiles this morning hit the Ain al-Asad base in Anbar, western Iraq. The Iraqi military and the US-led coalition, which share the base, were still assessing the damage early afternoon local time, but said a civilian contractor had died apparently of a heart attack.

The Vatican insisted that the rocket attacks would not deter the Pope, who is due to make his first visit to Iraq on Friday (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/iraqi-christians-hope-for-miracle-from-pope-franciss-visit-mllkhqxzh).


The visit has already been criticised given the prevalence of coronavirus in the country, and fears that services led by Pope Francis might turn into “super-spreader” events.

“The day after tomorrow, God willing, I will go to Iraq for a three-day pilgrimage,” the Pope said in his weekly address today. “For a long time I have wanted to meet these people who have suffered so much.”

Two contractors were killed in a strike two weeks ago against a similar combined base in northern Iraq, outside the Kurdish city of Arbil, which was blamed on Iraqi Shia militias. In response, Biden ordered the bombing of warehouses belonging to what the Pentagon said were the same militias just over the border with Syria, where they are also operating.

Iran denied direct responsibility for the attack, but the exchange has led to a worsening of relations between Washington and Tehran, which had been expected to improve after Biden said he wanted to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal.

After the Syria strike, Iran refused an offer to join preliminary, informal talks on the nuclear programme hosted by the European Union, saying the US had to lift sanctions before it would respond. It has also continued to increase the capabilities of its programme beyond the limits set by the deal, and begun restricting full access to inspectors from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

The rocket attack this morning was confirmed by a spokesman for the international coalition, whose troops were sent to Iraq in 2014 to help the fight against Islamic State.


Since then, their presence has divided Iraqi politics into pro-western and pro-Iranian factions, the latter of which are demanding the removal of western forces. The US has drawn down its number of troops to about 2,500, with Britain having between 150 and 200 troops in the country, but both say Isis still poses a threat.

Washington is also keen not to allow Iraq to fall entirely under the security umbrella of its powerful and anti-western neighbour, Iran.

The rocket attacks may have a domestic purpose. The Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, is under pressure to crack down on the militias, who are also being blamed for the murders of activists in Iraq’s restive southern cities where there have been demonstrations against government corruption and Iranian influence.

[Lyneham Lad]

Things warming up - or just Iran posturing? In The Times this afternoon.

Houthi missile hits main Saudi oil terminal as US envoy opens talks (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/903fed6a-7cdc-11eb-83b7-5869de54abef?shareToken=3f931ba1aa4c8d32a776b673ce8b27a4)

The Iran-backed Houthi rebel movement in Yemen claimed to have carried out a successful missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s main west coast oil terminal in Jeddah today.

The group’s spokesman said that they had used a Quds-2 missile, believed to be a new variant of a Scud missile developed with Iranian assistance. A Quds-2 hit the same facility in the Red Sea port city in November, starting a fire. Saudi Aramco, the giant state-owned oil company that owns the facility, has not confirmed the latest attack.

The attack comes in the middle of an escalation in Yemen’s civil war following pressure from the Biden administration on Saudi Arabia to pull back from its support of the recognised government.

The administration refused to comment on reports overnight that the new US envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, had met Houthi representatives in Oman, which has often played a role in mediating crises in the Gulf.

However, the Houthis have seized the opportunity provided by the new pressure on Saudi Arabia to launch attacks both on the kingdom and on government lines inside Yemen. There has been fierce fighting, killing hundreds of fighters on either side in the last month as the Houthis have pressed an offensive on the key central Yemen city of Marib, which is close to the country’s main oil reserves.

They have also rapidly increased the number of missile attacks over the border into Saudi Arabia. Riyadh reported overnight that its defence systems had intercepted two drones and a missile fired at points in southwest Saudi Arabia.

The situation in Yemen is the first big test of Biden’s determination to “recalibrate” policy towards the Middle East, as his aides have described it. Like President Obama, he believes that engaging diplomatically with Iran, including by rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal, is the best way to bring peace to the region and allow the US to refocus its energies elsewhere.

However, Iran has so far rejected an offer of talks over the nuclear deal, insisting that Biden must rejoin it unconditionally. In Yemen the Saudi-backed government fears that rather than making peace in response to US overtures, the Houthis will seize the military advantage, leading to a division into two of the country.

[Lonewolf_50]

That's an interesting choice by the Rebels.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebel movement in Yemen claimed to have carried out a successful missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s main west coast oil terminal in Jeddah today.
===
The attack comes in the middle of an escalation in Yemen’s civil war following pressure from the Biden administration on Saudi Arabia to pull back from its support of the recognised government. The administration refused to comment on reports overnight that the new US envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, had met Houthi representatives in Oman, which has often played a role in mediating crises in the Gulf. However, the Houthis have seized the opportunity provided by the new pressure on Saudi Arabia to launch attacks both on the kingdom and on government lines inside Yemen...Riyadh reported overnight that its defence systems had intercepted two drones and a missile fired at points in southwest Saudi Arabia. If Mr Lenderking is in talks with the Saudis to try and get them to back down, and while that is going on the Houthi ramp it up, isn't the easy response from the Saudis "They are escalating, we are not obliged to back down when they attack our territory" or words to that effect?

Not seeing how more missile attacks into Saudi fits with American 'pressure' although, on their own, the old threat of "If you don't leave there's more of the same" is a very clear message from the rebels. (Which needs no American input to get across). Not sure how much leverage the US has at this point. (IIRC, numerous opinions on 'don't sell the Saudis weapons' is a form of leverage, but since the Saudis also oppose Iran, with whom America is still at odds, that doesn't seem to be a very tunable dial on the relations scale).
However, Iran has so far rejected an offer of talks over the nuclear deal, insisting that Biden must rejoin it unconditionally. No surprise there. That's been their position for quite some time.
In Yemen the Saudi-backed government fears that rather than making peace in response to US overtures, the Houthis will seize the military advantage, leading to a division into two of the country.
It was two countries a few decades ago. Maybe it will be better off that way in the future. (Heck, Yugoslavia split into six. :p ) Yemen unification was followed by a civil war less than five years later.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1280x772/1280px_divided_yemen_svg_dcf40ea0b1364812ff7160667381d6fcb94 3bb16.png
Interesting parallels, though the politics are a bit different.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/560x366/560px_yemeni_civil_war_svg_17bbda04e806c4ea91991d6eb332230d4 7492f42.png
Granted, a few of the players have changed in the mean time.

[Lyneham Lad]

Report in The Times.
Israel ‘secretly attacked Iranian oil tankers and weapons carriers’ (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8c53496e-8325-11eb-8dc5-6a6f238d9d27?shareToken=80229c4ef9825a316265b147acbba8b7)

Israel has carried out a series of clandestine strikes on Iranian oil tankers and ships carrying weapons, according to revelations from Washington that cast fresh light on a series of naval incidents in recent years.

At least a dozen vessels, mostly carrying Iranian oil to Syria (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-opens-new-route-for-iranian-oil-to-skirt-sanctions-k7xqlg386) and mainly hit by mines, have been damaged in Israeli attacks since late 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US and other officials. The attacks, three in 2019, six last year and three more this year, took place in the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and possibly elsewhere.

They were part of Israel’s military campaign against the Revolutionary Guard (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/irans-revolutionary-guard-seizes-third-oil-tanker-in-a-month-z0bc6f7d6), the Iranian paramilitary organisation that oversees oil exports and supplies numerous militias throughout the Middle East.

However, they were undisclosed despite the chorus of condemnation that met similar attacks blamed on Iran that hit western shipping and, most recently, an Israeli oil car transport vessel over a similar period.

Although there is no confirmed connection, the revelations will also be linked by Israel’s critics to the oil spill that has devastated the Israeli and Lebanese coastline in the past few weeks.

Click the link for remainder of article.

[racedo]

Report in The Times.
Click the link for remainder of article.

If you attack another countrys resources they have a right of doing the same.

[Asturias56]

"Granted, a few of the players have changed in the mean time"

At the top maybe but its all rooted in internal Yemeini divisions - in many ways its like Afghanistan - everyone's loyalty is pretty much only to family and clan - after that they have problems with everyone. The REAL trouble starts when outsiders start to meddle - at which point THEY become the enemy and it never, ever, ends well

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/senior-iranian-officers-die-within-days-of-each-other-gj30j9kwf

Death of two Iranian generals fuels fears over Israel

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, already reeling from claims of infiltration by Israel, has suffered a blow with the deaths of two senior officers announced in the space of three days.

One was said to have died of heart disease, and the other coronavirus, but the timing has led to rumours they may have been killed or injured in action.

Brigadier General Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi, 65, who was the deputy head of the Quds Force, the Guard’s overseas arm, was at first said to have died of heart disease. The authorities later clarified that his condition was aggravated by the effects of chemical weapons poisoning in his youth during the war with Iraq war in the 1980s, and that he had suffered coronavirus some months ago but recovered.....

Reports of the death of Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Haghbin on Tuesday were even more contradictory. State media said he had died of coronavirus, but a news agency released a photograph of him in hospital in which, while he was wearing breathing apparatus, he was sitting up with both legs heavily bandaged. The photograph was later substituted for one in which his legs were not visible.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/822x548/image_79ac164ef834e614833915d66f566db6ef56dc88.jpeg


There were claims in Saudi media that he had in fact been wounded while fighting with the Houthis, the Iran-backed rebel group in Yemen. Sources inside Iran said both men had been injured in Syria, possibly in an Israeli air strike on a Iran-linked military site near Damascus two weeks ago.

The photograph of Haghbin would suggest that he was making a recovery, but perhaps caught coronavirus in hospital. Iran is experiencing a fourth wave of coronavirus, with hundreds of people dying every day.......

[Lyneham Lad]

A touch more tension in the Gulf. Article in The Times.
US warship fires warning as Iranians approach in Gulf (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d13052a4-a7ae-11eb-b000-cc13f23b4eff?shareToken=42573ba0619c68deef36368d422aef0b)

A US warship fired warning shots after three Iranian vessels came within about 200ft of it in the Gulf, the American military said.

Three fast inshore attack craft from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) harassed the USS Firebolt, a patrol ship, and the coast guard cutter Baranof, according to a US statement.

The incident, which took place on Monday in international waters, is the second time that ships from the IRGC navy have targeted US ships in the Gulf this month and occurred as US-led talks in Vienna to revive the Iranian nuclear deal, which President Trump tore up in 2018, gather momentum.

Although such incidents are not uncommon, there have been few encounters in the past year. Military officials said that such acts were usually carried out by local commanders, and were not directed by senior officials.

When the Iranian vessels approached the American ship, US crews issued warnings using bridge-to-bridge radio and loud-hailer devices. When they came within 204ft, “the crew of Firebolt then fired warning shots” and the vessels moved away to a safe distance from the US ship, the US military said.

The head of US forces in the Middle East said that the American military wanted to ensure that such incidents did not turn into a cycle of provocation.

Tensions between the US and Iran were heightened during Trump’s presidency but President Biden has expressed a desire to re-engage. Last week US and Iranian officials said progress had been made in talks about rejoining the nuclear deal, which is designed to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. It also follows leaked audio (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mohammad-javad-zarif-leak-reveals-bitter-division-in-tehran-leadership-tgq50gmwj) of Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, criticising the IRGC.

While offering to rejoin the agreement in February, Biden stressed the need to reduce “Iran’s destabilising activities across the Middle East”.

[ORAC]

Lyneham Lad,

You can add to that the Iranian tanker attacked with a drone just off Syria a couple of days ago and the report in today’s press of the Saudi’s destroying a armed drone launch near one of their tankers off their west coast.

[Imagegear]

Everybody wants to "have a go", no doubt under the China/Iran/Russia sphere of influence, "let's test Biden's resolve", strategy. I don't see Iran trying it on unless someone has their back.

You want to antagonise the big dog, better have your ducks in a row.

IG

[ORAC]

https://apnews.com/article/persian-gulf-tensions-middle-east-iran-business-evacuations-f3e8126a8603326e1abc4705c6629fcd

Iran's largest warship catches fire, sinks in Gulf of Oman

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The largest warship in the Iranian navy caught fire and later sank Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman under unclear circumstances, semiofficial news agencies reported.

The Fars and Tasnim news agencies said efforts failed to save the support warship Kharg, named after the island that serves as the main oil terminal for Iran.

The blaze began around 2:25 a.m. and firefighters tried to contain it, Fars said. The vessel sank near the Iranian port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran on the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Photos circulated on Iranian social media of sailors wearing life jackets evacuating the vessel as a fire burned behind them. State TV and semiofficial news agencies referred to the 207-meter (679 foot) Kharg as a “training ship.” Fars published video of thick, black smoke rising from the ship early Wednesday morning.

Satellite photos from Planet Labs Inc. analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Kharg off to the west of Jask on Tuesday. Satellites from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that track fires from space detected a blaze at the site of the Jask that started just before the time of the fire reported by Fars.

The Kharg serves as one of a few vessels in the Iranian navy capable of providing replenishment at sea for its other ships. It also can lift heavy cargo and serve as a launch point for helicopters…..

Iranian officials offered no cause for the fire aboard the Kharg…..

In April, an Iranian ship called the MV Saviz (https://apnews.com/article/dubai-iran-united-arab-emirates-persian-gulf-tensions-yemen-9c89b8a5571468f1f12be535e8825212)believed to be a Guard base and anchored for years in the Red Sea off Yemen was targeted in an attack suspected to have been carried out by Israel. It escalated a yearslong shadow war in Mideast waters (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-israel-iran-iran-nuclear-united-arab-emirates-9835ba4644959e9cb4584ca999f49002) between the two countries.….


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/976x549/image_c7ed26b3f95f9166f9761f1ee56c294dc3dd76c4.jpeg


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/976x549/image_96fd5a096db634843ed0b73549436e183e796e9d.jpeg

[Lonewolf_50]

A fire at sea can ruin your whole day.
Took at look at the wiki page dedicated to this ship, built in the UK; Iran got good service from her, and she certainly made their blue water capability real.
Through the Suez Canal and such.
Did any of you ever observe them doing VERTREP?

[Not_a_boffin]

Last steam powered ship built on the Tyne and last ship launched from the old Walker yard as well IIRC.

They'll struggle to get another ship to replace her.

[ORAC]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-tests-biden-before-geneva-summit-with-gift-of-spy-satellite-to-iran-mhcvdg3pg

Putin tests Biden before Geneva summit with gift of spy satellite to Iran

Russia is to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will allow it to spy on military targets across the Middle East, in a move seen as a provocation before President Biden’s showdown with President Putin next week.

The Kanopus-V satellite will give Iran the ability to monitor Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases and even Iraqi barracks that house US troops, US and Middle East officials told The Washington Post.

News of the development will complicate Biden’s efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/biden-team-ready-to-reopen-talks-with-iran-over-nuclear-deal-zp9xhgq8w)agreement — ended by President Trump — amid domestic criticism from Republicans.

His administration has already lifted sanctions on three former Iranian officials and several companies involved in oil and gas shipping, with talks on the nuclear deal due to resume in Vienna tomorrow. The State Department insisted the change was a routine matter and not, as some diplomats believe, a sweetener…..

The officials who told The Washington Post about the Kanopus-V deal said that Iranian military officials were “heavily involved in the acquisition, and leaders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have made multiple trips to Russia since 2018 to help negotiate the terms of the agreement”.

Russian experts are said to have travelled to Iran in the spring to help train ground crews that would operate the satellite from a new facility near the northern city of Karaj, perhaps as early as this summer.…

[SASless]

Everybody wants to "have a go", no doubt under the China/Iran/Russia sphere of influence, "let's test Biden's resolve", strategy. I don't see Iran trying it on unless someone has their back.

You want to antagonise the big dog, better have your ducks in a row.

IG



You do understand there has been a change of management within the "big dog" you mention.

It is not one conducive to generating a reluctance to pull that big dog's tail by smaller dogs.

[etudiant]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-tests-biden-before-geneva-summit-with-gift-of-spy-satellite-to-iran-mhcvdg3pg

Putin tests Biden before Geneva summit with gift of spy satellite to Iran

Russia is to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will allow it to spy on military targets across the Middle East, in a move seen as a provocation before President Biden’s showdown with President Putin next week.

The Kanopus-V satellite will give Iran the ability to monitor Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases and even Iraqi barracks that house US troops, US and Middle East officials told The Washington Post.

News of the development will complicate Biden’s efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/biden-team-ready-to-reopen-talks-with-iran-over-nuclear-deal-zp9xhgq8w)agreement — ended by President Trump — amid domestic criticism from Republicans.

His administration has already lifted sanctions on three former Iranian officials and several companies involved in oil and gas shipping, with talks on the nuclear deal due to resume in Vienna tomorrow. The State Department insisted the change was a routine matter and not, as some diplomats believe, a sweetener…..

The officials who told The Washington Post about the Kanopus-V deal said that Iranian military officials were “heavily involved in the acquisition, and leaders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have made multiple trips to Russia since 2018 to help negotiate the terms of the agreement”.

Russian experts are said to have travelled to Iran in the spring to help train ground crews that would operate the satellite from a new facility near the northern city of Karaj, perhaps as early as this summer.…

Seems mostly an effort by Iran to ensure that Iran can get reliable data on what is happening in the region, seen that the commercial services won't cover the region uncensored.
Imho, just another example of us shooting ourselves in the foot. Would we really be happier if Iran bought Chinese surveillance satellite services?

[ORAC]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/28/biden-iran-nuclear-weapon-496801

Biden declares Iran will never get a nuclear weapon ‘on my watch’

President Joe Biden on Monday declared that Iran would “never get a nuclear weapon on my watch,” after affirming an “iron-clad” relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

Biden’s comments, in an Oval Office meeting with Israel’s outgoing president, Reuven Rivlin, came after the U.S. launched airstrikes against Iranian-linked facilities on the Iraq-Syria border on Sunday evening. Biden said he launched the strikes under the authority of Article II of the Constitution.

He also said the U.S. backed recent normalization deals between Israel and countries in the Middle East and Africa…..

[SASless]

The real question has to be what does the Western Powers do if Iran does in fact obtain a Nuclear Weapon capability....not grandiose political jibber jabber about "not on my watch"!

[ORAC]

Just wondering, considering recent history……

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cargo-ship-fireball-in-dubai-port-seen-30-miles-away-jl96m2976

Cargo ship fireball in Dubai port seen 30 miles away

An explosion on board a cargo ship moored at Dubai’s main port sent a fireball high in the air that rattled windows and could be seen for miles around last night.

There was no immediate explanation for what caused the blast and subsequent fire, which left debris burning across the harbour side. Witnesses said that they saw an explosion “like the sun”, before a huge boom rang out.

The Dubai authorities said a container on board a small cargo ship had exploded as it came in to moor, playing down initial reports that an oil tanker had gone up in flames. They said no one had died or been injured, a remarkable outcome given the scale of the explosion, which could be seen from Dubai airport 30 miles away.

The blast, at the city’s Jebel Ali port, the largest in the Middle East, comes at a sensitive time in the Middle East. Israel and Iran have been involved in a covert tit-for-tat exchange of attacks on each other’s shipping activities, while the United States and Iran-backed militias have been striking each other in Iraq and Syria.

The United Arab Emirates, the federal state of which Dubai is the second biggest individual entity, is a key US ally and Iran has occasionally threatened to strike western targets there. However, there have been attempts at rapprochement recently and an attack on a ship in harbour would be unprecedented.

The blast happened without warning shortly before midnight local time, sending shock-waves that rippled through apartment buildings in the southern suburbs of Dubai, which stretches in a line along the coast from the city centre and airport towards Jebel Ali.

Nevertheless, the crew were said to have already been evacuated safely. The Dubai government’s media office released footage of a fire service ship blasting water at the blazing vessel, and said the fire had been brought under control by early Thursday morning……

. “The Jebel Ali fire is under full control and the area is now being cooled off,” Major General Rashid Thani al-Matrooshi, the head of Dubai’s civil defence, said.

Port officials insisted that the blast was caused by a “normal accident” and was not suspicious. They said services were unaffected and vessels could continue to sail.

There was no immediate word from the Pentagon, which regularly has warships docked in a separate part of the port.…..

[fitliker]

It might be interesting if they release the harbour security camera footage closer in , more interesting if they don’t .

[Asturias56]

"It might be interesting if they release the harbour security camera footage closer in , more interesting if they don’t ."


In Dubai? A place that depends on its image as safe, home form home?? A place that deals with Iran, the USA and anyone who has a dollar to spend??? Worse than Las Vegas

I think we'll have a long wait

[ORAC]

Iran’s ghost tanker fleet.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-iran-matters-to-china

[Asturias56]

I see Israel took a pop at another tanker in Syria the other day...........

[ORAC]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/west-faces-iran-censure-decision-after-damning-un-nuclear-watchdog-report

West to decide on Iran censure after damning UN nuclear watchdog report

European powers and the US will decide on Friday whether to censure Iran in response to a damning report by the UN nuclear inspectorate the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showing that the new hardline government in Tehran had made it impossible for inspectors to oversee the country’s nuclear programme.....

[Toadstool]

https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2021-november-2/

Interesting development following on from the previous SSM strike in Iraq. (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2021-november-2/)


In late October, according to the United States Defense Department, a “complex, coordinated, and deliberate attack” was conducted against a U.S. base at Al Tanf in eastern Syria (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-irans-strategy-in-syria/). U.S. officials did not directly blame Iran for the attack, carried out by several armed drones, but Iranian and pro-Iranian media in the region reported that the strike was conducted by Iran. There were no U.S. casualties among the small U.S. contingent at the base, but several of the structures on the base were destroyed. American troops are deployed in Syria under the mission to combat Islamic State, and neither their rules of engagement nor any authorization from Congress calls on them to combat Iran, except in self-defense.

The strike appears to represent the most direct and aggressive action to date undertaken by Iran or its proxies against the roughly 900 U.S. forces still in Syria and raises questions about the timing of such a bold and seemingly risky strike. It can be argued that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2021-august-17/) in August has led Iranian leaders to assess that direct U.S. military pressure can compel the United States to withdraw from the region completely. Iranian strategists (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2021-august-26/) appeared to draw conclusions from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August. The United States justified the withdrawal, in the absence of a political settlement, by citing Taliban threats to resume attacks on U.S. forces if they remained beyond the agreed deadline of May 1. Iran’s allies in Iraq have already engineered the passage of non-binding legislation in Iraq’s parliament calling for a U.S. withdrawal of its 2,500 troops from Iraq, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that U.S. combat forces will depart by the end of 2021. Iran’s leaders apparently see military pressure on U.S. forces as a means to ensure that the deadline is met in Iraq, as well.

[Lyneham Lad]

In The Times this afternoon - article & photos.

Israeli and Gulf fighter jets fly with a US ‘bunker buster’ bomber to warn Iran over its nuclear programme (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/82d690f8-3b12-11ec-9bef-aa3112940013?shareToken=4bd375b9c9a69650ba418fe3de4caa4f)

The US has flown an advanced fighter-bomber jet across the Middle East alongside Israeli and Gulf state warplanes as a warning to Iran over its nuclear programme.

A B-1B Lancer, which can be adapted to deliver the “bunker buster” bombs necessary to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, was escorted by Israeli F-15s at the end of military exercises in which the British RAF and other Nato allies also took part.

It then flew over other Middle East flashpoints — the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, and the Bab al-Mandab, at the foot of the Red Sea, which is being fought over by Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the internationally recognised Yemen government.

Click the link for the full article etc.

[Asturias56]

One of the papers yesterday was saying Iran can produce a workable device in 30-60 days......... I think this horse is out of the stable

[etudiant]

One of the papers yesterday was saying Iran can produce a workable device in 30-60 days......... I think this horse is out of the stable

Agree entirely, this one is beyond constraint.
Iran has been greatly expanding its pool of nuclear technicians, training both in Iran as well as abroad, while also getting practical reactor operating experience at the Bushehr site, so there is no longer any one crucial individual.
Scholastic arguments about levels of enrichment don't impact actual capability, which is now undeniably adequate for bomb making at short notice.

[Asturias56]

"Iran has been greatly expanding its pool of nuclear technicians,"

The Israelis have ensured there's lots of vacancies...............

[Lonewolf_50]

Iran has launched a rocket. (That's aerospace content, if not aviation content).

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/06/26/iran-launches-rocket-space-nuclear-talks-resume.html
Iran Launches Rocket into Space as Nuclear Talks to Resume
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian state television said Sunday that Tehran had launched a solid-fueled rocket into space, drawing a rebuke from Washington ahead of the expected resumption of stalled talks over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. It's unclear when or where the rocket was launched, but the announcement came after satellite photos showed preparations at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s rural Semnan province, the site of Iran's frequent failed attempts to put a satellite into orbit.

State-run media aired dramatic footage of the blastoff against the backdrop of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, which is racing ahead under decreasing international oversight.
Iran had previously acknowledged that it planned more tests for the satellite-carrying rocket, which it first launched in February of last year.
Ahmad Hosseini, spokesman for Iran's Defense Ministry, said Zuljanah, a 25.5 meter-long rocket capable of carrying a payload of 220 kilograms (485 pounds), would gather data in a low-earth orbit. It was not immediately clear whether it reached its intended orbit.

The launch comes just a day after the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, traveled to Tehran in a push to resuscitate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that have stalemated for months. A few significant sticking points remain, including Tehran's demand that Washington lift terrorism sanctions on its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Borrell said on Saturday that talks over the nuclear deal would resume in an unnamed Persian Gulf country in the coming days, with Iranian media reporting that Qatar would likely host the negotiations. As Ukraine has demonstrated (as the latest example) lack of a nuclear posture / deterrent holds risks.
Would it be fair to say that the NPT is a dead letter at this point, or is there still hope?

[etudiant]

Iran has launched a rocket. (That's aerospace content, if not aviation content).

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/06/26/iran-launches-rocket-space-nuclear-talks-resume.html
As Ukraine has demonstrated (as the latest example) lack of a nuclear posture / deterrent holds risks.
Would it be fair to say that the NPT is a dead letter at this point, or is there still hope?

After Qaddafi, any autocratic leader would seek nuclear weapons by any means possible. After Ukraine, no elected leader will fail to consider them.
What astonishes me is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are not yet recognized members of the club. Perhaps Japan or South Korea will break the ice and admit hidden capabilities first.

[melmothtw]

What astonishes me is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are not yet recognized members of the club.

No evidence that either has nuclear weapons, which is probably why.

[Asturias56]

There was talk a few years back that the Saudis were looking at a weapon - to be bought/built with Pakistani assistance. At one point the Pakistanis had substantial forces in Saudi "just in case" of some trouble with Iran IIRC

[Lonewolf_50]

There was talk a few years back that the Saudis were looking at a weapon - to be bought/built with Pakistani assistance. At one point the Pakistanis had substantial forces in Saudi "just in case" of some trouble with Iran IIRC I suspect that the aforementioned arrangement with Pakistan is in place, and if they've been able to stay "under the radar" as regards actual disposition it might lend more urgency to Iran's ambitions.

[ORAC]

Iran tried to hijack a USN unmanned ship - released the tow after a 4 hour face off with a USN patrol boat.

Be interesting to see if the transcript of their negotiations is released…

https://twitter.com/ryankakiuchan/status/1564636592312033282?s=21&t=CHkVBJlFuG8c_zISLrv9Ng


Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy support ship Shahid Baziar is towing US Navy Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel international waters of Arabian Gulf as US Navy patrol coastal ship USS Thunderbolt (PC-12) approaches in response, Aug. 30.

https://youtu.be/z0pd38Z0ImM

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/fridaghitis/status/1581349672752656386?s=61&t=wBjYhynvfTcgnRwJclAAVQ


The infamous Evin prison in Tehran is on fire. Gunfire heard. This is big.…

[Asturias56]

Not much we can do about it -it raelly is up to the people there - as with the Shah external "help" will only make matters worse.

Tho I can see the Ayatollahs all asking for Asylum in Hawaii.......

[ORAC]

Most interesting comment here… I wonder who provided the info and if this is a straight swap from current stocks.

Might shake the Israelis and Gulf states a bit…

https://twitter.com/tendar/status/1583835866891329538?s=61&t=6NrkMKhJbLCB1sNp5IFTww


The Russian military complex is basically destroyed. Whoever has orders open, e.g. military planes, won't receive them before ...check notes... end of this decade, if ever.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/10/20/russias-military-aircraft-exports-are-headed-for-a-nosedive/

Russia’s military aircraft exports are headed for a nosedive

….”Reportedly, Russia traded more than 60 Su-35 to Iran in exchange for several thousand drones”…….

[T28B]

notasmodnoradmin
At the risk of being very boring, how does Iran figure that parts and spares support is going to pan out for those 60 aircraft?

[ORAC]

More straight swaps for drones - and SRBMs…

[Jobza Guddun]

T28B,

I guess they'll put into practice the same methods they've used to keep F-4s / 5s / 14s going!

[Lonewolf_50]

I guess they'll put into practice the same methods they've used to keep F-4s / 5s / 14s going! Local manufacture? Or buying stuff from the Israelis? :bored:

[ORAC]

Get 60, fly 12 and use the rest as Hagar queens for spares, rotating airframes for fatigue management. Meanwhile reverse engineer parts or buy them off the Chinese…

[NutLoose]

Looks like the regime is firked, well and truly..

A landmark event where the riot police are joining the protesters, without those to control the crowds they are screwed unless they use the military and that is the beginning of the end.

https://twitter.com/dpatrikarakos/status/1578916102633304064


https://twitter.com/dpatrikarakos/status/1578916102633304064

[Lonewolf_50]

Looks like the regime is firked, well and truly.
https://twitter.com/dpatrikarakos/status/1578916102633304064 Nutty, is this happening in just one city, or in numerous ones?
I have a suspicion that the IRGC is about to go into action, and it won't be pretty.
But, if the IRGC joins in with the protestors, that would be massively different.

[NutLoose]

I don't know but have a look at these below, then the thread listed below that, that is some crowd, and the bottom link shows a lot more going on.
Got to be hundreds of thousands of them?

https://twitter.com/MohammadaHabib/status/1585248259383373826

https://twitter.com/MohammadaHabib/status/1585248259383373826

https://twitter.com/Maryam_Rajavi/status/1585251343799050241

https://twitter.com/Maryam_Rajavi/status/1585251343799050241

Main site, one clip fimed by a woman in her car she gets shot and killed!

https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranRevolution?src=hashtag_click

https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranRevolution?src=hashtag_click

[NutLoose]

Looking bad for the Government

Lana (https://twitter.com/Anita_Hugging)

Breaking news live from Iran : Universities, bazars and malls in many cities and some of the oil refineries are on strike today. Freedom and rights for all iranians. Down with religious dictatorship. #IranRevolution (https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranRevolution?src=hashtag_click)

[dead_pan]

There's lots of misinformation (and a fair amount of wishful thinking) on social media. Dark powers at work....

It would be 'helpful' if the country did rise up and boot out the Ayatollah, but I'd caution about getting too exited about the future, given what happened in the region a decade or so ago.

[MPN11]

There's lots of misinformation (and a fair amount of wishful thinking) on social media. Dark powers at work....

It would be 'helpful' if the country did rise up and boot out the Ayatollah, but I'd caution about getting too exited about the future, given what happened in the region a decade or so ago.
Sadly, removing an extremist theocratic dictatorship with robust security forces tends to the impossible. but one can hope [however unlikely it would be]. A tragedy for a civilised people that will, sadly, grind on for ages to come.

[Lonewolf_50]

I don't know but have a look at these below, then the thread listed below that, that is some crowd, and the bottom link shows a lot more going on. Got to be hundreds of thousands of them? Not gonna guess at numbers.
https://twitter.com/MohammadaHabib/status/1585248259383373826
https://twitter.com/Maryam_Rajavi/status/1585251343799050241
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff_E2ReXwAE_L7l?format=jpg&name=small
Is this the beginning of an annual pilgrimage? Mahsa Amini (Zhini Amini?) was a martyr, or has become one - or so it would seem.
Main site, one clip fimed by a woman in her car she gets shot and killed!
https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranRevolution?src=hashtag_click
What you describe didn't come up when I checked. Might have been taken down.
Recent report that security forces are opening fire
https://twitter.com/ICHRI/status/1585304205908414464?s=20&t=DFIRbwscZIVprOTW4y6jAA

[NutLoose]

Still there, see below, there is a translation that she says “they just shot a woman” then gets hit herself, it said she was in the car with her husband and her 7 year old son and she was killed.

https://twitter.com/RealShayanX/status/1585070413625044992

https://twitter.com/RealShayanX/status/1585070413625044992

[NutLoose]

They never expected that response

https://twitter.com/Omid_M/status/1585448377151623170

https://twitter.com/Omid_M/status/1585448377151623170

[NutLoose]

More that 100,000 attended the grave of the woman killed.

https://twitter.com/Omid_M/status/1585271640954478592

https://twitter.com/Omid_M/status/1585271640954478592

[NutLoose]

Says it all really

https://twitter.com/AndiYazdanpanah/status/1585344846080147456

https://twitter.com/AndiYazdanpanah/status/1585344846080147456

[Lonewolf_50]

From This Article Originally (https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-drones-in-ukraine-project-tehrans-power-beyond-mideast-testing-u-s-europe-11666880851)
I find the tone to be slightly alarmist in nature, but it's not a bad summary. Russia’s expanding use of Iranian drones in Ukraine (https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-use-of-iranian-kamikaze-drones-creates-new-dangers-for-ukrainian-troops-11663415140?mod=article_inline) poses an increasing threat for the U.S. and its European allies as Tehran attempts to project military power beyond the Middle East. In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials say, Russia has launched more than 300 Iranian drones that have targeted military units, power plants and civilian buildings in the capital, Kyiv. The Ukrainian military said it has shot down more than 70% of the drones, but Ukrainian officials are asking the U.S. and NATO allies (https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-calls-for-more-air-defense-help-as-russian-barrages-continue-11666777614?mod=article_inline) for more help to counter the threat. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has vowed to rush hundreds of drone jammers (https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-russia-pummels-ukraine-u-s-counterdrone-system-months-away-from-delivery-11666353651?mod=article_inline) to Ukraine as part of a deepening effort to shore up Ukraine’s air defenses.
The wave of attacks has made Iran Moscow’s most important military ally in its faltering campaign (https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-challenge-for-ukraine-is-how-to-retake-kherson-without-destroying-it-11666534964?mod=article_inline) in Ukraine and highlighted how Tehran has created one of the world’s most successful drone fleets despite years of Western sanctions.

“Drones have become the spearhead of Iranian power projection globally,” said Dr. James Rogers, an associate professor of war studies at the University of Southern Denmark. “Iran has one of the oldest and, arguably, one of the most efficient drone programs in the world.”

While the international community focused for years on trying to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran methodically built an army of drones that reached across the Middle East (https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-armed-drone-prowess-reshapes-security-in-middle-east-11633530266?mod=article_inline). Iran and its proxies have been accused of carrying out attacks on everything from U.S. forces in Syria and commercial ships in the Arabian Sea to Israeli cities and Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.
A drone flying over Kyiv during a Russian attack last week. Since 2015, Iran and its proxies have fired nearly 1,000 drones in attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and the Gulf of Oman, according to the Saudi military and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects and analyzes information on protests and violence around the world. Besides Russia, Iran has also sold its drone technology to friendly governments, including Venezuela, Syria and Ethiopia, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Of course, you can argue that it's a case of Monkey See Monkey Do. Other nations, to include the US, Turkey, Israel, China, and others have used and developed drones and UAVs as part of their ability to use tech to add to their military capabilities.
And to project power beyond their borders.
The Iranians have done likewise.
Welcome to the brave new world, folks. The rest is in the spoiler for those interested.

Iranian and Russian officials have repeatedly denied that Tehran has provided Moscow with drones to use in Ukraine. “We strongly reject the baseless accusations of some countries about Russia using Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a televised address on Wednesday.
Flying KillersIran is exporting sophisticated, low-cost drones in the Middle East and now in Ukraine's frontlines.https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OG-GN549_36add0_700PX_20221025164550.jpg

MOHAJER-6

Unmanned aerial vehicle capable of carrying a multispectral surveillance payload alone or with two precision-guided munitions

Max speed:

Max flying range:

Weight:

In service:

Origin:

124 mph

124 miles

1,323 lbs.

2018

Iran

32.8 ft.

18.6 ft.

SHAHED-136

Max speed:

Max flying range:

Weight:

In service:

Origin:

115 mph

Up to 1,553 miles

441 lbs.

2021

Iran

A suicide drone equipped with an explosive warhead

8.2 ft.

11.5 ft.

Sources: Army Recognition; OE Data Integration Network
Jemal R. Brinson / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

He invited Ukrainian officials to hold a bilateral meeting with Iran to present any evidence on the claim Iran drones are being used in the war. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian army only used domestically produced equipment.

Ukrainian investigators dissecting the downed drones used to target civilians and soldiers maintain that they are Iranian in origin and that key parts powering them are made in America, Europe and Asia, according to an analysis viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Western-made components that guide, power and steer the drones touch on a vexing problem world leaders face in trying to contain the expanding threat: Although Western nations have imposed expansive sanctions on Iran (https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-to-impose-new-sanctions-on-iran-for-supplying-drones-to-russia-11666201883?mod=article_inline), the Middle East nation is able to rely on a loosely regulated global supply chain to build its drone fleet.

Ukrainian investigators have traced Iranian drone components back to U.S. companies, including Texas Instruments (https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TXN) Inc., the Dallas-based technology giant. Ellen Fishpaw, a Texas Instruments spokeswoman, said the company is investigating reports that its products were used in the weapons.

“We do not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren’t designed for,” she said.

Iran’s emergence as one of the world’s most adept purveyors of deadly drones has been decades in the making. Its origins stretch back to the 1970s, when American defense contractor Textron (https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TXT) Inc. helped set up a plant in Isfahan, central Iran, to make military helicopters when the country was ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S. ally.

The plant is now run by Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries, a military-controlled company, according to Iranian corporate records, Iran’s semiofficial FARS news agency and European security officials.

Iran developed its first crude surveillance drone in the mid-1980s, during its war with neighboring Iraq, after the Shah of Iran was toppled by a revolution and the country was isolated economically. The program was overseen by then-President Ali Khamenei, now the country’s supreme leader, the Fars news agency said.

One of its biggest advances came in 2011 when Iran recovered a downed American Sentinel stealth drone. Weapons experts say that Iran was able to reverse engineer the U.S. technology to create its own version within three years.

Tehran has also established a domestic production strategy, insulating it more from sanctions and spurring its acquisition of parts from a global array of suppliers. In 2018, an aircraft-modeling company in Germany received a routine order for miniature-plane engines from China. Two years later, the device resurfaced in the debris of an explosive drone that Iran-backed rebels used to target civilians in Yemen, according to a January report by the United Nations sanctions panel on Yemen (https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-navy-port-emerges-as-key-to-alleged-weapons-smuggling-to-yemen-u-n-report-says-11641651941?mod=article_inline).

Weapons experts also say Iran was able to reverse engineer an Israeli drone captured by its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, to develop another surveillance drone.

These weapons experts say that Ukraine is now bearing the brunt of Iran’s advanced drone industry, turning the country into a test bed for its weapons.

Ukrainian authorities say the drones used by Russia to target Kyiv are Iranian in origin.

Russia has asked Iran to supply 2,400 of the Shahed-136 suicide drones to use in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s intelligence services and President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukrainian forces have also brought down a larger Mohajer-6 Iranian-made drone that is capable of carrying two bombs.

How quickly Iran can supply so many drones remains an open question. Bernard Hudson, a former Central Intelligence Agency operations officer who is now president of Looking Glass Global Services, a drone consulting firm, estimates that Iran can make about 100 drones a month.

Ukrainian officials have warned that the two types of Iranian drones are just the beginning of Iranian support for Russia. They say Iran plans to send Russia both cruise and ballistic missiles (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-europe-struggle-to-keep-irans-drones-from-russian-military-11666263602?mod=article_inline) that it can use in Ukraine.

Norman Roule, a three-decade veteran of the CIA and now a consultant at the U.S.-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, warned that the combination of drones and missiles one day might be used against Western powers.

“This Ukraine conflict provides Iran with a unique and low-risk opportunity to test its weapons systems against modern Western defenses,” Mr. Roule said. “We rightfully disparage Russian battle performance, but Iran likely also uses this engagement to sharpen the skills of its military.”

[Asturias56]

"it's a case of Monkey See Monkey Do."

same as N weapons - Iran is hammered for wanting to develop atomic weapons - by the USA, UK, France, Israel - and they have India, China, Russia & Pakistan in the neighbourhood

the only N armed nation they don't have to worry about is N Korea.

[ORAC]

Two Iranian IL-76 destroyed yesterday on the pan at Damascus airport.

Reportedly by Israeli missile attack, but not acknowledged….

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/tendar/status/1587494099208249347?s=61&t=_N1dZF9sO0vPqM0fnm1iRw


Saudi Arabia warns of an imminent attack by Iran. Reason for the possible attack is Iran's internal turmoil regarding the protests.
Honestly, an Iranian attack right now would be suicide. If they do it then it will start a cataclysmic reaction for Tehran.

[Lonewolf_50]

"it's a case of Monkey See Monkey Do."
same as N weapons - Iran is hammered for wanting to develop atomic weapons
1. How about you not change the topic, and, specifically, don't lay that bull**** on me.
2. You will find that my position on Iran and nuke weapons, posted on PPRuNe forums even, is that I am not surprised they want them, and that given the neighborhood they live in, their desire for that deterrent is rational.
And that I don't care if they get them or not. If they do, all that the US has to do is add them to the target list.
And to be courteous, advise them via diplomatic memo that such esteemed status is a consequence of their own choices.
(Somewhere, a few years ago, I think I posted a proposed wording for such a comminique)
Hmm, I could have sworn I did something less tongue in cheek, but here's a sample)
Iran with nukes is not that big of a deal. It's just one more freaking target to put into the SIOP. With the automation capabilities of the current age, a job lasting a week, max. Then, a cheerful telegram can be sent to Teheran:
Dearest Iranian Friends
Congratulations. You are now targeted. You did this to yourself. We wouldn't have to do this if you didn't get yourself some nukes. Hope you enjoy your sleep at night ... knowing that you are now a valid target.
With warmest regards (you do know how hot it gets at a ground zero, right?)
Your Dear American Friends

If they can handle the heat, then I say:
Welcome to the Kitchen! https://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/thumbs.gif



Granted, it was posted in JB about 9 years ago, and took a bit of digging to find ...

[ORAC]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1587579211073699841?s=61&t=z58OgZ_VaXVR49iD3l_yWw


The Iranian Government has reportedly raised the “Flag of Revenge” above the Shahcheragh Holy Shrine in the City of Shiraz, this is the exact same Flag raised on the days before the Iranian Missile Attack on the U.S Military’s Ayn al-Asad Airbase in Iraq.

U.S and Saudi Intelligence announced earlier today that Iranian Forces are preparing to conduct “Strikes” on Oil Refineries inside of Saudi Arabia most likely to distract the International/Domestic Community from the Protests across the Country in recent weeks.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/889x798/image_7fa03f9cb4a7fc96e47da37abaf1b2a321899477.jpeg

[Lonewolf_50]

Seems to remove the element of surprise, doesn't it? :confused: