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.
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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.
Quick thoughts on the conflict so far:
Iranian ballistic missiles and their response is about expected. The ballistic missiles with the range to hit Israel have a large variance in accuracy, and have to be launched in large numbers to saturate the Israeli/US Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). Of these missiles with the range to hit Israel, those solid fueled ballistic missiles with advanced Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicles (Fattah 1/Kheibar Shekan series) are a minority of the arsenal, and those with dedicated electro optical terminal guidance (Qassem Basir), are an extreme minority. The majority of the arsenal is their liquid fueled Qadr/Emad/Shahab-3, and solid fueled Sejjil missiles, and Haj Qassem missiles with less sophisticated MaRVs. Because of the variance in accuracy and saturation required to defeat BMD, counterforce targeting (targeting military assets) is not possible. We saw this during Operation True Promise II. So Iran has made the expected move up the escalation ladder and switched to countervalue (civilian) targeting, bombing targets in Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc.
Israeli military capabilities are about as expected, but the scale of the assault is unexpected. We knew that Iran's air defence was comprised by previous Israeli attacks, and we knew that the integration of all the various systems into one network was not as good as previously thought. We knew that Israel could use Syria and Iraq as a staging ground for air attacks after the fall of Assad. We know that Israel has advanced aircraft and stand off and stand in munitions. However the scale of Israeli incursions into Iranian airspace, without direct US involvement, is surprising. Establishing air superiority 150-200km inside of Iran (with reference to the Iraq border) within 48 hours, and then attempting to open a permanent corridor to Tehran, with no known losses in aircraft so far, is unexpected.
However, neither side is really winning on a strategic level. Without direct US involvement, it will be very difficult for Israel to establish air superiority over all of Iran and hit the second and third lines of missile bases that launch missiles at Israel. It will also be very difficult to damage underground nuclear facilities via conventional means. Both Israel and Iran know this. This is why Iran has not struck US military bases. This is why Israel is desperate to get the US involved. If Israel cannot hit the second and third line of missile bases, Iran can continue to launch missiles at Israel. If the US gets involved, this will change, and Iran's safe zone of operations in Eastern Iran will be comprised.
Is it possible israel uses bases in Azerbaijan?
For Mossad assets and covert on the ground infiltration? Yes. For their air force? No.