this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.


Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.

Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).

Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.

I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.


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Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.
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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.


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[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 40 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

https://nitter.poast.org/ME_Observer_/status/1935098577144967461#m

i think i get the gist but does anyone have specific knowledge on this?

[–] LargePenis@hexbear.net 44 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (3 children)

Imam Ali (the most important guy in Shia Islam after Prophet Muhammed) is famous in Shia lore for singlehandedly carrying and removing the door to Khaybar, which was a Jewish town near Medina. The Jews of Khaybar declared war on the early Muslims back in Muhammed's time, but it was Imam Ali who broke open the door and led the Muslims to victory in that battle. So basically he's doing historical allegory and saying that the descendents of Ali are fighting the descendents of the Jews of Khaybar.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 26 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

This is also why Iran names their missiles things like Kheibar Shekan and Zulfiqar, correct?

[–] LargePenis@hexbear.net 19 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Exactly, Kheibar is after the battle of Khaybar and Zulfiqar is Ali's two pronged sword. Then you have other missiles named Khorramshahr after the battle of Khorramshahr in the Iraq-Iran War. Dezful after the battle of Dezful also in the Iraq-Iran War. Ashura after the battle of Ashura where Imam Husayn and the rest of the Prophet's family were massacred.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 10 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

And Fattah as "the opener/conqueror" and the Qassem missiles are named after Qassem Soleimani. Emad is the supporting fire/pillar, and Qadr as intensity/intense fire. Sejjil as stones/hardened clay being fired from space I'd assume. By fire I don't mean literal fire, but shooting/firing the missiles.

I think this is all correct, at least I would hope so..

[–] LargePenis@hexbear.net 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Sejjil definitely comes from the Quran, specially 15:74.

فَجَعَلْنَا عَـٰلِيَهَا سَافِلَهَا وَأَمْطَرْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ حِجَارَةًۭ مِّن سِجِّيلٍ

And We made the highest part [of the city] its lowest and rained upon them stones of hard clay.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 9 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I guess I wasn't that far off about stones/hard clay being fired from space/raining down then.

Certainly much better names for missiles than "Dark Eagle" and "Pershing-II".

Sejjil as stones/hardened clay being fired from space I'd assume.

Surat Al Fil

[–] luddybuddy@hexbear.net 14 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Also Zulfiqar was a specific famous sword that had two blades or two points. from my knowledge it’s unclear whether the blade bifurcates side by side or front to back, there are interpretations from many periods with either.

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 8 points 18 hours ago

thats a great rabbit hole , apperently it still stands landcape of this oasi is also uniqu with these fortresses on hillls in the middle and then the oasis?/Wadi? around it

this goes so hard, i need to learn more about the early history of islam

[–] Parzivus@hexbear.net 21 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The Battle of Khaybar is a historical event where an army led by Muhammad defeated a force of Arabic Jews near Medina. The parallel is pretty obvious and it gets used as a mantra by some Islamic people these days

[–] Crucible@hexbear.net 18 points 18 hours ago

Iran also has a medium range missile named after this battle

[–] OnceUponATimeInWeHo@hexbear.net 17 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Wiki summary

This was cut off: “Since the late 20th century, Muhammad's conquest of Khaybar's Jewish community has become notable as the subject of an Arabic-language rallying slogan ("Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud!"), in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict”