Image is Israeli interceptors trying and failing to intercept missiles over their cities.
Israel just carried out a widespread bombing of Iran, which has killed a number of senior officials inside Iran (though it seems the leadership is more-or-less intact) as well as a number of civilians. Important facilities have been targeted, but the amount of damage is unknown so far (note that many important Iranian facilities are deep underground, making them both hard to damage but also hard to determine if they are damaged from just satellite imagery, so reports of damage will be he-said-she-said).
It appears the attack took Iran by surprise, given that a residential block was targeted that contained some senior officials - if one saw an attack coming, one would imagine they'd be in bunkers. Nonetheless, like the rest of the Resistance Axis, I suspect that Iran has adapted their military structures to be resistant to decapitation strikes by ensuring that replacement figures are ready to take the place of killed officials.
Iran has delivered a massive missile barrage in response to Israeli aggression, even though Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. Iran is now aware of the location of many important Israeli sites, including secret nuclear sites, due to their recent intelligence haul, giving them a distinct edge.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Iran effectively just got the Seven Days War treatment, what they do have to fight back with is limited, their ability to defend is crippled, and their leadership is suffering. How did they become so utterly complacent?
They are led by an 86 year old whose primary concern is seemingly dying in his sleep.
Also doesn't help that the president is also a Gorbachev like figure who literally campaigned on negotiations with the West. I'd take the 86 year old over that 100 times out of 100.
I'd take the corpse of Ebrahim Raisi over him
A few high level officials get assassinated and their ability to defend is "crippled?" What?
It's a blow, sure, but that doesn't make sense.
This would be a meaningful comment if I said their abilities are crippled because high level officials got killed. The devastating strike at the start of the Seven Days War was not upon command, it was upon the air forces, particularly Syria. Iran's S-300 systems have been either destroyed or are out of service since october of last year. This attack right here proves they don't have the ability to compensate for that/those prior strikes took a serious toll on them.
You seem really fixated on conflating any comment on the military situation with the loss of personnel, as if that is all anyone could possibly be talking about. No one but you has implied that Salami dying has harmed Iran's defenses. What people have said is Israel being able to strike like this is a result of Iran's defenses not being good enough to keep their facilities and leadership safe.
You are putting the cart before the horse and then brow beating me for the cart being before the horse. It is not that these specific losses are so devastating, it is that the capacity for them to happen is proof of a weakness/vulnerability. I have no clue why you are being so completely disingenuous towards any lamentation over this.
Are we allowed to call a military disaster and security failure a bad thing or do we need your permission before saying how not good this bombing is? Is there a specific number of officers that need to die for you to not jump down my throat for being concerned? How many nuclear facilities should be hit before I am anything but a silly dumbass for being worried for Iran?
Oh shit I didn't realize the S-300 was managed by powerful wizards. Here I was concerned about anti-missile systems, but now you have assured me that those are perfectly fine and intact. For a second there I thought Tehran was being bombed.....
Seriously what the fuck is wrong with you? Glib shit about magic in order to mock......being concerned cause Iran's defenses DID fail. Like your silly sarcasm aside, several apartment buildings are rubble and people are digging their children out of what was their home mere hours ago. What is even your point? That anti-missile systems are not magic that only work when certain officers are alive? Yeah I know, because a bunch of officers are dead because those systems failed. You can't even decide what I am saying for you to make fun of.
I am not talking about wizards or even generals, but about this https://www.twz.com/news-features/israeli-strikes-knocked-out-all-of-irans-s-300-air-defense-systems-officials and the lack of answer for the gap this created nearly a war ago. That's not being in fantasy land, that is a fair thing to be concerned about.
I was conflating several different comments, some of which were explicitly much more about the loss of these leaders representing Iran's "doom". I apologize to you for that, and I also apologize generally for being glib under serious circumstances. I get exhausted by some of the rhetoric in this thread, but that's no excuse, so I'm sorry.
I am also very surprised and alarmed by how effective the attack from Israel was, but I am holding out on making any judgements until the situation develops more.
For reference THIS is what was thought to be destroyed and what the current strike confirms has been crippled https://www.eurasiantimes.com/f-35-vs-s-400-predecessor-after/#google_vignette
Not the IRGC staff, the defense systems that they no longer have or no longer have in a capacity that is functioning. Does that seriously not make sense?
I don't think their military is so crippled by these strikes and they have been preparing for a semi-asymmetrical war against the US for decades at this point. I don't worry about Iranian military strength. They can turtle up become a YemenX1000, throttling the Persian Gulf completely and there's not much Israel and the US together can do to stop it short of the use of nuclear weapons. I worry more about Iran politically, they might be weaker than we think.
See I am thinking the opposite. That politically they don't have the division Syria had, and that while things can get rocky, they should be fine. But while yes they can outlast the US in conventional military strength, and my money is on them for any US invasion; the threat they posed to Israel as a deterrent is severely weakened. Israel knows for sure that they can strike with ease. Iran no longer has Syria as a means of directly getting ground troops to Israel's border. They can't use Hezbollah any time soon for a threat to Israel on the ground. All they have is the threat of missiles in retaliation, which is significant, but clearly not cutting it with Israel right now. The chance of getting their nuclear program running at all is effectively dead, let alone the chance of doing so and being able to secretly create a nuke for their protection.
it is not a matter of them being able to be militarily defeated, I don't think that is the case. What has been damaged is the immediate threat to Israel. Now, even if they wanted to, their chance of countering Israel in Syria let alone Palestine is diminished greatly. Iran is losing a lot of power projection, least that is what I am worried about