This clip of ISWAP fighters receiving sniper rifle training from an ISIS instructor shows ISWAP receives direct training and support from instructors sent by the Islamic State core in the Middle East.
— Defense News Nigeria (@DefenseNigeria) April 4, 2026
Text:
This clip of ISWAP fighters receiving sniper rifle training from an ISIS instructor shows ISWAP receives direct training and support from instructors sent by the Islamic State core in the Middle East.
Leveling up? How exciting for them.
Many Arab ISIS instructors were deployed to the Lake Chad region in 2025 to support ISWAP operations. This is how ISWAP has innovated from simple reconnaissance to using armed drones and building VBIEDs (Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices.)
Posted by: badanov ||
04/05/2026 00:00 ||
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"We'll keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we've avenged every child in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , Iran, Leb ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... , and the resistance nations," a person representing the Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia group (which translates as: The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous) told CBS News late Monday. "We urge people to stay away from Zionist and American interests and individuals to keep themselves safe."
Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia first announced its existence in early March, after the U.S. and Israel launched the ongoing war on Iran. In the 25 days since, it has claimed a series of antisemitic attacks across Europe. The group's channel on the Telegram messaging app, where it has published a series of propaganda videos, was created just last week.
IRANIAN TERROR, RUSSIAN TERROR, "DISAFFECTED TEENAGERS" AFTER EASY MONEY, OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?
The shadowy group "looks less like a grassroots European cell that came out of nowhere and more like an astroturfed terror brand that has appeared suddenly in online ecosystems, plugged into an existing Iran-aligned network and experimenting with low-cost, high-visibility operations in Europe," Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, told CBS News.
CBS News spoke to the administrator of Ashab al-Yamin's Telegram channel, who exchanged a series of messages — writing in American English — that ranged from explanatory to combative.
Posts on the account have repeatedly referenced Christian and Jewish philosophy to justify the group's actions, but there have been no mentions of Islamic principles or teachings. Ashab al-Yamin's claims have been published in English, Arabic and even Hebrew, but not in Persian, the primary language spoken in Iran.
The administrator told CBS News the group carried out the arson attack on the London ambulances belonging to the United Hatzalah organization at night to avoid harming people, but the individual warned that approach could change, saying: "We can do it, potentially."
The administrator, who referred to themself as Asad-Allah, cited the conflicts in Gaza and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... as justification for targeting Jewish cultural and community centers, as well as a building housing the Dutch office of the Bank of New York Mellon. The latter incident came after Iran threatened to target U.S. financial institutions in the Middle East in retaliation for the ongoing war.
"They appear to be volunteer or paid recruits solicited by pro-Iran elements," said Sharon Adarlo, a conflict analyst and editor with the online publication Militant Wire.
Adarlo said she expected further attacks by the group, and possibly copycat actions.
While the videos published by the group online have been unsophisticated and amateurish so far, "the danger is that, as this war continues, attacks will be bigger," Adarlo told CBS News. "Whoever is behind the group wants to make a statement."
Two days before the first attack, in which someone detonated an improvised explosive in front of a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, a call went out on Telegram channels for Iranian "sleeper cells to activate," Adarlo said.
The attacks bear a resemblance to other arson and vandalism incidents throughout Europe, including fires set at Prime Minister Keir Starmer's former home and Ukrainian businesses in the U.K., and vandalism at Jewish cultural and religious centers in La Belle France.
CBS News has tracked dozens of cases in Europe, going back years, that court documents and other evidence show have involved people — predominately young men and often Ukrainian immigrants colonists — recruited via Telegram and other social media platforms with the promise of easy work for cash or cryptocurrency.
A common factor in most of these cases has been the involvement of intelligence agencies linked to Iran's close ally, Russia, according to recent research by the The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.
While two of the men incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... for organizing the arson attack on an East London warehouse owned by a Ukrainian businessman were found to have willingly acted on behalf of Russia, European court records show that, in some cases, the suspects were unaware of the wider goals of those paying them, or even who they were working for.
Adarlo said she wasn't sure how, or even if, the suspects in the Ashab al-Yamin cases were connected to Iran.
"They could be volunteers who contacted IRGC via Telegram, or are being paid a small fee, used by pro-Iran elements to cause trouble," she said, adding that she could not rule out a possible "organized criminal element" in the group's actions
Dutch police have arrested five teenagers in connection with a March 13 explosion at a synagogue in Rotterdam that was claimed by Ashab al-Yamin. Two minors were arrested in connection with the Antwerp arson, meanwhile, the prosecutor's office in the Belgian city told CBS News on Tuesday.
A spokesperson said the two were yet to be questioned and Sherlocks were still considering "all possibilities," but that the prosecutor was aware of the video purportedly of the incident circulating on social media.
"I think many of these perps are disaffected teenagers who don't have the strongest ties to Iran ... but want to be part of the opposition," Adarlo explained, noting that Ashab al-Yamin's videos have included orchestral music rather than the Islamic "nasheeds" commonly used as soundtracks on jihadist propaganda videos.
Webber, the Tech Against Terrorism analyst, told CBS News the propaganda clips are low-budget and can be pushed rapidly onto social media platforms "to generate psychological impact, media coverage, and an exaggerated sense of reach."
Ashab al-Yamin's "ideological language and propaganda style" suggest a hybrid model of local clusters potentially guided from abroad, rather than a large organization based in one country, like a franchised brand, the analyst said.
The amateur nature of the videos and their recent emergence on social media could also point to an opportunist group looking to take credit for other people's attacks, Neil Basu, a former head of U.K. Counterterrorism Policing, told CBS News. "ISIS used to take credit for every attack by an Islamist anywhere in the world because their view was, 'We may not have directed it, but we've inspired it.' So, that may be a similar thing playing out here."
EVEN "AMATEURISH" ATTACKS AND PROPAGANDA HAVE AN IMPACT
Acts carried out through proxies are "incredibly useful" for state sponsors of terror because they can be disruptive, but give the sponsoring regimes plausible deniability, enabling them to avoid escalation toward a conflict they may not be able to win, Basu said.
"It doesn't matter that it's amateurish" if the attack "sows a bit of chaos and ... does divert resources into trying to protect places," he said.
The Ashab al-Yamin administrator did not answer questions about the group's structure or whether anyone was being paid, and they deleted their Telegram account shortly after the conversation with CBS News.
The State Department on Sunday urged Americans around the world to "exercise increased caution," noting that, in addition to U.S. diplomatic facilities being targeted in the Middle East and elsewhere, "groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or locations associated with the United States and/or Americans throughout the world."
#1
CBS News was bought by Larry Ellison, the world's largest private donor to the IDF, Friends of the IDF. He appointed Bari Weiss to run the newsroom. If this interview was published then Netanyahu and/or the Mossad approved it.
#2
Netanyahu and Mossad have an active, multifaceted war to run. They have more urgent things demanding their immediate attention than a struggling news outlet in a country they aren’t fighting.
[IsraelTimes] Organizers appeal move in court; Jewish leader has slammed ‘perfidious attempt to relativize the murder of over 11,000 Jews… by comparing it to Israel’s actions in recent Gaza war’
German authorities have shut down a planned anti-Israel, pro-Paleostinian vigil at the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp memorial after a fierce outcry.
The rally had been slated for April 12, marking the 81st anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation by US troops. But the city of Weimar said on Monday it would ban the event on the memorial grounds and offered a downtown square as an alternative location.
”The protest is great. Just don’t embarrass us by doing it there.”
Kufiyas in Buchenwald, the group behind the campaign, announced it was challenging the ban in court. The group said it aimed to "commemorate victims of genocide and fascism fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. Its distinguishing philosophical feature is the Corporate State. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about... " and "uplift the fundamental duty to fight against all genocides, particularly the genocide currently taking place in Paleostine."
The planned event had been heavily criticized by German leaders, such as federal antisemitism czar Felix Klein. In an interview with the Judische Allgemeine, Klein said he viewed the rally as "disrespectful self-promotion and a perfidious attempt to relativize the murder of over 11,000 Jews in the Buchenwald concentration camp by comparing it to Israel’s actions in the recent Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... war."
Of course. That’s the point.
The campaign was also protested in a joint statement by a coalition of 17 organizations, including several Jewish communal and academic groups. They accused the organizers of "instrumentalizing the Buchenwald memorial site as a platform for anti-Jewish agitation."
Kufiyas in Buchenwald
…the misspelt name is an obscenity…
had support from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the German group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East.
How many members merely self-identify as “Jewish” versus those who are actually of Jewish descent versus those who practice a Jewishly involved lifestyle? The American branches of these organizations are funded by various Progressive rich people and/or Hamas or Hezbollah, but I don’t know who is funding and leading these particular Black Bloc groups.
Rachael Shapiro, an organizer with the International Jewish Anti-zionist Network, said the memorial foundation’s "insistence on the singularity and exceptionalism of the Nazi genocide of European Jews" served to "actively provide cover for Germany’s participation in and funding of the mass murder of Paleostinians."
Back in the day, Ms Rachel, people like you were Kapos for the Nazis in the concentration camps.
"As Jewish, queer and other anti-fascist ...anybody you disagree with, damn them... s, many of us, the children and grandchildren of survivors of and those persecuted and murdered in the Nazi genocide, we wholeheartedly reject the German state dictating conditions around commemoration," Shapiro said in a statement.
Shut up and sit down. You do not speak for the majority of the children and grandchildren of those who experienced the Nazi Holocaust.
The event originated as a protest against a German court’s decision that Buchenwald could refuse entry to visitors who wear a Paleostinian keffiyeh. Kufiyas in Buchenwald also said the memorial had suppressed other voices that criticized Israel. They cited the treatment of Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm, the grandson of Holocaust survivors and a critic of the Israeli government, who was disinvited from giving a commemoration speech at Buchenwald after pressure from the Israeli embassy in Berlin.
Kufiyas in Buchenwald said it continued to call on the memorial foundation to "openly address the genocide in Gaza" and lift restrictions on pro-Paleostinian symbols and speech at the site. The group said its demands honored the "Oath of Buchenwald," a promise spoken by survivors of the camp during a memorial ceremony on April 19, 1945.
These survivors said in six languages, "We will only give up the fight when the last of the guilty has been judged by the tribunal of all nations. The absolute destruction of Nazism is our device. The building of a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal."
#2
Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany or lessening the impact of the Holocaust by comparing it to other incidents are both part of the IHRA definition of antisemmtism. Germany was within the law here.
#4
Germany’s laws on the subject of Nazis long predate the IHRA definition of antisemitism, addressing concerns that go well beyond just the Jews. They don’t want their idiots to ever get the country anywhere near the point where they need to be defeated like that again.
[IsraelTimes] Force cites ‘major terrorist risk’ amid ‘particularly tense international and national context’
The Gay Paree police on Thursday banned an annual gathering of French Moslems north of the capital, citing a "major terrorist risk" that it might be targeted.
The Annual Gathering of the Moslems of La Belle France had been due to take place at Bourget, just north of Gay Paree, from Friday until Monday.
The order banning it issued by the Gay Paree police said there was a risk that "small far-right groups" might try to disrupt the event.
But the police order said the event was "taking place in a particularly tense international and national context."
The gathering was "exposed to a significant terrorist risk targeting the Moslem community," it added.
The order cited a foiled bid last weekend to bomb the Bank of America building in Gay Paree — an event, it said, that underlined the seriousness of the threat inside La Belle France.
French prosecutors said the attempted attack might have been linked to a pro-Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... group, as security fears flare over the war in the Middle East.
Police also cited a polarized political debate during municipal elections last month.
The decision comes as the French interior ministry prepares a draft law designed to tackle the danger of radical Islamist elements infiltrating Moslem groups.
The bill is due to be presented to President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet at the end of April, the ministry told AFP, confirming a report by Le Gay Pareeien newspaper.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Iran has proposed a deal with Europe regarding the Strait of Hormuz, which could change the global financial system. At first glance, this seems like a simple transit deal through the Strait, but the consequences could be colossal.
Twenty percent of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and energy prices in Europe have already risen sharply: gas has risen by 100%, oil by 60%, and diesel costs $200 per barrel. The dollar is losing influence: US reserve currencies have fallen from 70% to 56.9% over 25 years.
Iran has joined BRICS, Russia has banned dollar transactions, and gold has already reached $5,500 per ounce. If Europe accepts the deal and pays in euros or yuan, it will show the world that bypassing the petrodollar is possible. The petrodollar has been the basis of US financial dominance since 1974. If its role weakens, demand for the dollar will fall, the share of the reserve currency will decline, and the US will lose the ability to finance its debt on preferential terms.
This isn't just a regional war; it's an attack on the US global financial system.
If Iran succeeds in decoupling at least part of its oil trade from the dollar, this will be a huge strategic victory not only for Iran, but for the entire BRICS, as this will likely accelerate the process of systemic dedollarization and increase the economic influence of the entire bloc.
Of course, the US understands this threat and will pressure Europe not to enter into separate deals with Iran. On the other hand, as long as Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, there will be plenty of people willing to negotiate with it. Ultimately, oil has to come from somewhere. And Europe has been relying on Gulf oil for a long time, among other things.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/05/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
Everybody is already blaming the USA for the Strait of Hormuz being closed. Therefore, I propose that we mine the strait just for fun. It wouldn’t change anyone’s opinion of us, we don’t need the oil, Iran would immediately beg to open the strait, and it would be very funny.
[NYPost] The glam grandniece of slain Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani frequented several US hotspots and lived a lavish life in LA before being scooped up by ICE Friday.
Sarinasadat Hosseiny, 25, and her mother, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, were arrested after the State Department terminated their permanent resident status and had their green cards revoked due to her ties the terrorist Iranian regime, the agency announced Saturday.
The 25-year-old terror scion’s social media showed she’s enjoyed a luxurious, vacation-centric lifestyle while living in the country her mother referred to as the “Great Satan.”
Hosseiny shared photos of her jetsetting on private planes, sunbathing on yachts, and dancing at music festivals while showing no signs of gainful employment.
Instagram posts show that Hosseiny has recently traveled to Miami where she posed with drinks; to Alaska, where she still managed to take snaps in a bikini; and Las Vegas, where she attended an F-1 race.
Other posts show Hosseiny donning skin tight dresses, barely-there bikinis, and skirts well north of the knee.
In one photo taken from the floor, she wears fishnets and a skirt that does not cover butt — an outfit that would certainly not fly in Iran.
Hosseiny was first admitted to the US on a student visa in 2015 and was given a green card by the Biden administration in 2023.
Both Afshar and Hosseiny were arrested in Los Angeles, with the State Department citing the mother’s “unflinching support for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,” which is a designated terror organization.
More stashed Mullahcracy scions sent home: asylum and green cards revoked of the niece and grand-niece of General Qasem Soleimani
The niece of Qassem Soleimani, who until today lived in freedom on a green card in the US, will be deported.
[NYPost] The niece of slain Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani – who showcased her luxe LA lifestyle on Instagram while bashing the US as the “Great Satan” – and her daughter have been arrested by ICE agents, the State Department announced Saturday.
Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, who allegedly celebrated attacks on US soldiers and military bases, and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny, have had their green cards revoked over their ties to the Iranian regime.
“While living in the United States, she promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the ‘Great Satan,’ and voiced her unflinching support for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization,” according to a State Department letter confirming the Friday arrests.
Afshar, 47, entered the US in 2015 on a tourist visa, was granted asylum in 2019 and secured a green card in 2021 from the Biden administration. She made at least four trips back to Iran since receiving her green card.
Afshar, 47, entered the US in 2015 on a tourist visa, was granted asylum in 2019 and secured a green card in 2021 from the Biden administration. She made at least four trips back to Iran since receiving her green card, the Department of Homeland Security said.
Hosseniy, 25, also entered the US in 2015 on a student visa. She became a green card holder in 2023.
“It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America. If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the US, the green card will be revoked,” Lauren Bis, a DHS spokesperson, told The Post.
The State Department also referenced Afshar’s extravagant life in Los Angeles, which she allegedly frequently documented on her Instagram account, which has also apparently been deleted.
The 47-year-old was spotted by The Post Saturday outside her two bedroom Tujunga-area abode, hastily stuffing designer handbags from Louis Vuitton and Hermes into her Model 3 Tesla sedan hours after her arrest was publicly announced. Neighbors tell The Post Afshar was living in a unit in the backyard of the Plainview Avenue property, roughly 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Afshar’s daughter was detained by ICE while driving, said neighbor Halasius Bradford who rents the main house on the property.
“The daughter lives in Hollywood. The boyfriend told me that he and Sarina were driving outside the house when they were cut up by ICE cars. He said the agents were demanding to know where the mother was,” Bradford, 50, said.
Afshar’s husband, who was not named by the State Department, is also now barred from entering the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the removal order as the joint US-Israel war with Iran entered its sixth week.
“The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes,” Rubio wrote on X.
Last month, the State Department also terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larjiani, the daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Larjiani. Larijana, a regime hardliner who was considered the de facto leader following the Israeli attack that assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed March 16 by joint US and Israeli airstrikes.
Qasem Soleimani, who led the notorious Quds force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was killed in a drone strike ordered by President Trump in Iraq in 2020 near the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.
New initiative by the Community Security Service roves city’s streets, providing a ‘subtle additional layer of security’ to detect dangers and reassure Jews
The black SUV squeezed past a double-parked sedan on a Manhattan street, then rolled slowly past a synagogue, its occupants peering out of the partially open windows.
“There’s a guy sitting right in front of the shul. Is he known to security?” the passenger behind the driver aked, noticing a man sitting on a chair near the synagogue’s entrance.
“I’ll reach out,” the driver said.
The team was part of a new street patrol program from the Community Security Service (CSS), a Jewish nonprofit that trains volunteers to protect synagogues and Jewish events around the US. CSS quietly launched the patrols several months ago, part of an expanding array of measures to protect Jewish communities as antisemitism and threats spike in New York City and around the US.
CSS granted The Times of Israel exclusive access to the patrol program, on the condition that the participants’ identities, specific locations, and some operational procedures remain confidential due to security risks.
The patrols, known as Mobile Protection Units (MPUs), began in January and operate in parts of Manhattan and the Bronx with high concentrations of Jewish residents. CSS plans to expand the program to other cities.
Funded and organized within the community, manned by volunteers. Like the Jewish ambulances in Bath, the wider community gets the to share the results for free, while the Jewish residents use less of the wider community’s resources.
During patrols, CSS vehicles roam the city streets, looking for anything suspicious or out of place that could constitute a threat. Until recently, CSS stationed guards at synagogues and Jewish events, but had not formally operated moving patrols.
The UJA-Federation of New York helped fund the program, which was developed in partnership with the Community Security Initiative, a group that coordinates with law enforcement, tracks threats, and provides security assessments to Jewish institutions in the New York region.
The purpose of the patrols is to “detect, report, deploy and reassure,” said Richard Priem, the head of CSS.
Detecting means providing an extra layer of security by opening a wider perimeter for static guards at events. The patrols can spot approaching threats and report them to law enforcement. CSS reporting of threats has led to arrests in the past, averting potential attacks. For deployment, the patrol members can join guards who are already stationed at Jewish institutions and events if needed.
A central concern is vehicular ramming attacks, and the large SUVs can be parked in strategic locations as an obstacle.
#1
Private security is legal but usually only operates on private property like gated communities. These are just driving around on our streets?
Patrols that go unchalleneged are what we did when we occupied Iraq. This lets the population know they were conquered and who was in charge. This has been a standard move taught since Napoleon. If our patrols did get attacked, we wiped out the attackers with maximum force and were not shy about collateral damage. If they escaped we hunted them down with Hellfire-armed Predator drones. Who doesn't remember the Obama-era videos of a missile homing in on a group of military-aged men then BOOM, body parts flying everywhere.
#2
They are roaming the specific very Jewish neighbourhoods that are threatened by jihadis hired by the IRGC and Moslem colonists and others who feel permitted by the current government to attack Jews at will. Basically, they’re doing the job that the professional police decided not to do anymore because they have come to consider Jews an attractive nuisance by definition.
They aren’t going out into the rest of the city looking to cause trouble with innocent residents elsewhere.
[IsraelTimes] Old City largely desolate as just a handful of clergy allowed to perform Passover priestly blessing at the Western Wall and Easter Sunday services at Church of Holy Sepulchre.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/05/2026 11:59 ||
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🇫🇷🇦🇪 BREAKING: UAE pulls out of Rafale F5 programme, leaving France to fund it alone.
Negotiations between Paris and Abu Dhabi collapsed over access to highly sensitive military technology, particularly optronics systems.
The UAE had offered up to €3.5 billion for a stake in the €5 billion programme, but demanded access to “black box” technologies and joint intellectual property.
#2
Hmm, untested French plane with the French not providing some of it's best technology or combat tested American fighters?
I suspect UAE will be buying some American fighters soon.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli defense official says awaiting US approval to bomb energy sites, as US president warns ‘time running out’ on his ultimatum to hit power grid; Iranian general derides ‘helpless, stupid’ threats
US President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... on Saturday vowed to rain "hell" on Iran if it fails to reach a ceasefire deal or open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday, when time runs out on an ultimatum that he has extended twice.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran’s power grid if Tehran fails to comply with US demands. On Saturday, a senior Israeli defense official said Israel was preparing to attack Iranian energy facilities, likely within the next week, but was awaiting a green light from the US.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump warned, "Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all hell will reign [sic] down on them. Glory be to GOD!"
Trump first threatened on March 21 to strike Iran’s power grid if it did not agree to a US ceasefire proposal within 48 hours. Hours before the deadline on March 23, he pushed it off by five days, to last Saturday, saying ceasefire talks were "going very well."
He again delayed the deadline by 10 days to April 6, this coming Monday, claiming he was doing so "as per Iranian government request." Iran has denied making such a request or even negotiating with the US, and mediation efforts have reportedly hit a dead end.
Responding to Trump, General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi of Iran’s central military command said the US threat was a "a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action."
Echoing the religious language of Trump’s social media post, he warned that "the simple meaning of this message is that the gates of hell will open for you."
Following Aliabadi’s comments, Trump again took to social media with footage of an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Iran, which he declared had killed "many of Iran’s military leaders, who have led them poorly and unwisely."
He did not elaborate on the details of the strike or its targets.
Separately on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep striking Iran’s heavy industry, asserting the military destroyed most of Iran’s capacity to produce the missiles it fires at Israel.
"After we destroyed 70 percent of its ability to create steel, which is used as the raw material for the weapons used against us, today we attacked their petrochemical factories," said Netanyahu in a video statement released shortly after the end of Shabbat.
"These two things are their money machine, which funds their war of terror against us and against the world," he said. "We will continue to hit them, as I promised."
The Times of Israel has learned that the IDF was ordered by the political echelon late last month to shift to hitting "economic" targets of the Iranian regime after the military had nearly completed bombing all the targets it set for itself when the war began.
Israel and the US launched a bombing campaign on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize its regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Iran has responded with missile and dronezaps across the region and by effectively blockading the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil shipments normally travel.
A US proposal to end the war reportedly includes demands that Iran dismantle its nuclear program, limit its ballistic missiles, halt support for terrorist proxies and relinquish control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has reportedly demanded reparations for damages inflicted in the war and guarantees that it won’t be attacked again.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/05/2026 11:59 ||
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#1
Not a fan of deadlines or countdowns.
Set a real expectation, then go in early.
[IsraelTimes] Planet Labs tells clients it’s switching to case-by-case ‘managed distribution’ of images, expanding on 14-day delay it imposed in March to prevent Iranian attacks on US and allies.
#1
Iran presumably has access to satellite photos from Russia or China (plus their own satellites - Nour3 and Khayyam). This would seem to be focused on delaying battle damage assessment by civilians from other countries.
California-based Planet Labs (PL.N), announced the decision in an email to customers and said the U.S. government had asked all satellite imagery providers to indefinitely withhold images of the conflict region.
The restriction expands upon a 14-day delay on imagery of the Middle East that Planet Labs imposed last month, a move the firm said was meant to prevent adversaries from using it to attack the U.S. and its allies.
[ZERO] During his Wednesday night speech, Donald Trump made the following claim about Iran’s air defenses: "They have no anti-aircraft equipment, their radar’s 100% annihilated, we are unstoppable as a military force."
The White House followed this Friday, with a statement from a spokesperson, Anna Kelley, who further emphasized, "Here are the facts: Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks are down 90 percent, their navy is wiped out, two-thirds of their production facilities are damaged or destroyed, and the United States and Israel have overwhelming air dominance over Iran," she said.
It appears that President Trump was a bit premature. The US Air Force had a difficult day on Friday:
F-15E (48th Fighter Wing) — Shot down in southwestern Iran. Pilot rescued; WSO still missing.
A-10C Thunderbolt II — Shot down and crashed into the Persian Gulf. Pilot reportedly recovered.
2X HH-60G Pave Hawk — Hit during CSAR mission, one crash-landed across the border in Iraq. All crew reportedly rescued.
KC-135R Stratotanker — Emergency squawk 7700 around 10:00 UTC near Tel Aviv.
F-16CJ "Wild Weasel" (F-16C Block 50/52, SEAD configuration) — Emergency squawk 7700 over Saudi Arabia near the Iraqi border around 15:00 UTC; later disappeared from FlightRadar.
KC-135R Stratotanker — Emergency squawk 7700 around 19:00 UTC near Tel Aviv.
It appears that Iran has no centralized air defense C2 or any kind of joint engagement zone (JEZ) anymore.
However, as evidenced by the incidents above, Iran appears to be relying on Vietnam-style guerrilla tactics of shoot-and-scoot air defense with their passive and highly tactical indigenous system... The IR-SA-7’s (pronounced "Ur-sah-seven").
Posted by: Besoeker ||
04/05/2026 01:23 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1801 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
If no one else is airborne, then target selection is fairly simple and straight forward. How about we just STFU until the shoot'n is done ?
#3
Who gives AF, Russia and Ukraine can keep killing each other wholesale for all I care.
Posted by: chris ||
04/05/2026 4:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
MANPADs will still be there. There is also the tactic of blind volley fire into a airspace/box just hoping to hit something. If you have a high value target, you concentrate assets and just fill the sky with what you have. Nothing more sophisticated than old WW2 anti-aircraft guns tactics.
#5
^^^ exactly, shit happens. To all the arm chair warriors go play call of war and stfu
Posted by: chris ||
04/05/2026 6:48 Comments ||
Top||
#6
One guy with a rifle is an air defense system. He just has to get very, very lucky.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/05/2026 8:32 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Doctrine for small arms AD is as stated fill a airspace/box with everything and hope you hit something. Though outside machineguns, your range is rather limited.
[IsraelTimes] As a million people flee their homes, locals elsewhere refuse to rent to Shiites amid concerns undisclosed links to terror group could put their buildings in crosshairs of Israel
When Hezbollah reignited the conflict with Israel in early March, Hussein Shuman fled the heavy Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, but he didn’t bother trying to rent an apartment elsewhere.
In areas deemed "safe" because Hezbollah has no presence, he feels that Shiite Moslems like him are not welcome. Residents regard them with suspicion as potential Hezbollah members, and landlords charge exorbitant prices to rent to displaced families.
Instead, the 35-year-old, who works at a perfume company, headed to central Beirut where he set up a small tent where he has been staying, along with his wife, seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter.
Shuman even rejected an offer from a friend who invited him to bring his family to the Christian mountain town of Zgharta. He preferred to remain in his tent, even though it had flooded twice in the past two weeks.
"By staying here, I have my dignity and respect," Shuman said, sitting on a chair near his tent as a barber gave him an open-air haircut. "We will not stay in a place where we are going to be humiliated."
In a country full of suspicion, the more than 1 million people — most of them Shiite — displaced as a result of Israel’s evacuation orders and Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s have limited options.
Some landlords in Christian areas refuse to rent to Shiites. Others demand inflated rents and deposits that few can afford. Fatima Zahra, 42, from Beirut’s southern suburbs, said she and her sister sold their finest jewelry to pay the $5,000 the landlord charged up front for two months’ rent. In some Beirut neighborhoods, displaced people who can afford to pay high rents are only allowed to take the apartment after landlords inform the security agencies to check on whether the family has any links to Hezbollah.
Sectarian tensions are a sensitive issue in Leb ...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade.... , where a 15-year civil war ending in 1990 largely broke down along sectarian lines.
STRIKES IN NON-SHIITE AREAS RAISE FRICTIONS IN LEBANON
Social frictions have worsened since Israel’s targeted airstrikes killed Hezbollah officials or members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in predominantly Christian, Sunni and Druze areas, raising fears among the hosts that Hezbollah members are mingling within the civilian population.
The Lebanese are deeply divided over Hezbollah’s wars with Israel, with many in the small nation blaming the Iran-backed group for dragging the country into a deadly conflict that has so far left more than 1,300 people dead and over 4,000 maimed, according to figures from Lebanese authorities that don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The current fighting started when Hezbollah attacked Israel with rockets and drones on March 2, two days after the US and Israel attacked the Iranian regime.
Amid the subsequent fighting, Lebanon has fired hundreds of rockets per day, the vast majority aimed at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, but others at Israel itself. Ten Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been killed in Lebanon, as well as three civilians in Israel, including one mistakenly killed by Israeli shelling.
The IDF says it’s killed some 1,000 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force. Israeli officials have said the IDF is establishing a demilitarized "security zone" in southern Lebanon until the threat of Hezbollah is removed.
The last Israel-Hezbollah war, which the terror group started in support of its ally Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... , ended with a November 2024 ceasefire deal. That agreement allowed Israel to respond to imminent threats; however, the subsequent year saw near-daily strikes on Hezbollah targets.
The renewed war has caused widespread destruction and paralyzed the economy at a time when Lebanon is still in the throes of a historic economic crisis that broke out in late 2019.
In mid-March, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the town of Aramoun killed three people, prompting some local residents to call for the displaced to leave the area. Days later, an airstrike on the nearby town of Bchamoun also killed three people, including a four-year-old girl, who were displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. In neither case did Israel announce the intended target of the strikes, but neighbors assumed that someone in the targeted apartments was a Hezbollah member.
"Had we known that they were linked to Hezbollah, we would have kicked them out," an angry man who owns an apartment in the building in Bchamoun said at the scene.
In late March, a missile went kaboom! over the predominantly Christian Keserwan region north of Beirut, with debris falling on different areas. Although the Lebanese army later said that it was an Iranian missile passing over Lebanon that fell, many initially assumed that it was an Israeli airstrike targeting displaced people. No one was hurt by the missile debris, but a group of young men attacked displaced Shiites in the district of Haret Sakher near the coastal city of Jounieh, calling for their eviction, before local officials intervened.
"We don’t want them here," shouted a Haret Sakher resident shortly after the strike. He said that some of the displaced refer to their hosts as "Zionists," accusing them of being aligned with Israel because they criticize Hezbollah for dragging the country into the conflict. He added: "We don’t want national coexistence."
George Saadeh, a member of Jounieh’s municipal council, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that he had called on Haret Sakher residents to avoid any reaction "so that we can preserve civil peace."
In a predominantly Christian area just north of Beirut, plans to house displaced people in an abandoned warehouse near the port were suspended last week after drawing backlash from politicians and residents.
LEBANON URGES STABILITY, RAMPS UP POLICE PRESENCE
"The Israeli targeting campaign has created a lot of paranoia," said Maha Yahya, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center. "If you see a displaced person, maybe you wonder, ’What if this person is a target?’"
Fearing the tension could slip out of control, the army has beefed up its presence on the streets. Last week, army commander Gen. Rudolphe Haikal toured Beirut and the southern city of Sidon and told troops that they should be "firm in the face of any attempt to undermine internal stability," the army said in a statement.
Police forces, including a SWAT unit, were deployed at major intersections in the capital to preserve peace and prevent any friction between the displaced and locals. Police patrols pass through the tent city by Beirut’s coast where Shuman and his family are staying.
An official at the municipality of the predominantly Sunni town of Naameh, just south of Beirut, said that they have received thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon. The official said that to avoid tensions, they opened a school in one district for displaced Shiites and another in a different neighborhood for people displaced from Sunni border villages.
"There are concerns among people" that conflict could break out, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
With the Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion mainly targeting Shiite areas, US ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, a Lebanese-American, was criticized for stoking sectarianism. He told news hounds in late March that the US had asked Israel for a commitment that Christian villages in southern Lebanon would not be attacked.
"We have asked the Israelis to leave Christian villages in the south alone and they told us that they will not touch Christian villages," Issa said.
However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... he added, "[The Israelis] said that they cannot guarantee" that the villages would be left alone "if there is infiltration into these villages" by Hezbollah members. Several Christian villages in southern Lebanon have asked displaced Shiites who were sheltering there to leave, fearing that their presence might trigger Israeli attacks.
Legislator Taymour Joumblatt, who is the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, the largest Druze-led political group in the country, said that the biggest concern in the country now is "strife."
"The most important thing is to reduce sectarian pressures on the ground," Joumblatt said. "Our Shiite brothers are part of this country and our humanitarian duty is to help them."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...
..always the voice of sweet reason...
