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Abdul Nasser al-Ansari Abdul Nasser al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040503 Link
Abu Taleb Ansari Abu Taleb Ansari Allahr Dal Bangladesh 20060304 Link
  Abu Taleb Ansari Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh Bangladesh 20051009 Link
Aftab Ansari Aftab Ansari Harkat-e-Jehadi Islami Afghanistan/South Asia Mastermind 20020216  
  Aftab Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20020512  
  Aftab Ansari Jaish-e-Mohammad India-Pakistan 20060416 Link
  Aftab Ansari Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami India-Pakistan 20020122  
  Aftab Ansari al-Qaeda affiliate Terror Networks Arrested 20020209  
Ansar Barni Ansar Barni Ansar Barni International Welfare Trust India-Pakistan 20030411  
Arshad Ansari Arshad Ansari Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force India-Pakistan 20030901  
  Arshad Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20030901  
Ayman Abdul Qader Al-Ansari Ayman Abdul Qader Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040504 Link
  Ayman Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040503 Link
Babul Ansari Babul Ansari Allahr Dal Bangladesh Bangladeshi 20060304 Link
  Babul Ansari Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh Bangladesh Bangladeshi 20051009 Link
Firaq Ansari Firaq Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20060920 Link
Jalees Ansari Jalees Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20060804 Link
  Jalees Ansari Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen India-Pakistan 20030825  
Maulana Abbas Ansari Maulana Abbas Ansari All Parties Hurriyet Conference India-Pakistan 20020608  
Mustafa Abdel-Qader Abed al-Ansari Mustafa Abdel-Qader Abed al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040504 Link
  Mustafa Abdul Kader Abed al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040508 Link
  Mustafa Abdul Qader Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040504 Link
  Mustafa Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040505 Link
  Mustafa Abdel-Qader Abed al-Ansari Committee for the Defence of the Legitimate Rights Arabia 20040504 Link
Noor Mohammed Abdul Ansari Noor Mohammed Abdul Ansari Students Islamic Movement of India India-Pakistan Indian Arrested Tough Guy 20030524  
    Arrested in connection with Ghatkopar and Mulund bomb blasts.
  Noor Mohammed Abdul Ansari Lashkar e-Taiba India-Pakistan Indian Arrested Tough Guy 20030524  
    Arrested in connection with Ghatkopar and Mulund bomb blasts.
Sami Suleiman Al-Ansari Sami Suleiman Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia Saudi Deceased Cannon Fodder 20040504 Link
  Sami Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040505 Link
  Sami al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040503 Link
Samir Suleiman Al-Ansari Samir al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040503 Link
  Samir Suleiman Al-Ansari al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Arabia 20040504 Link
Shakil Ansari Shakil Ansari Hizbul Mujahideen Afghanistan/South Asia 20050918 Link
Tanveer Ahmed Ansari Tanveer Ahmed Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20060731 Link
Tanvir Ahmad Ansari Tanvir Ahmad Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20060804 Link
Wahid Ansari Wahid Ansari Lashkar e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20030524  
  Wahid Ansari Students Islamic Movement of India India-Pakistan 20030524  
Yunus Ansari Yunus Ansari Nepal Muslim Amaraat Society Afghanistan/South Asia 20040405  
Zabiuddin Ansari Zabiuddin Ansari Lashkar-e-Taiba India-Pakistan 20060715 Link
Ziauddin Ansari Ziauddin Ansari Student Islamic Movement of India India-Pakistan 20060805 Link

Arabia
Footage of the bombing and sinking of the ship Magic Seas in the Red Sea by Yemen
2025-07-09
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Related:
Magic Seas 07/08/2025 Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim cargo ship they attacked Sunday has sunk; anti-Houthi Yemeni govt official says Houthis attacked 2nd ship in Red Sea Monday night, leaving 4 casualties

Link


Arabia
Houthis claim hypersonic missile strike on Ben Gurion airport; early Monday a.m. 20 IDF fighter jets bounce Houthi rubble at 3 ports, power station in response
2025-07-07
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Houthis from the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement attacked Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv using a hypersonic ballistic missile. This statement was made on July 6 by Houthi spokesman Yahya Saria.

"The Rocket Forces (...) carried out a military operation in which they struck the airport (...) using a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile, " Saria said in an interview with Al Masirah TV.
According to the IDF, the thing was headed for the Judean desert at 3:00 Sunday morning when the IDF shot it down. But at least this time the Houthis had it aimed at the right country. They don’t always…
He said the operation was successful
…it was successful for the IDF, yes. Not for the Houthis. Sorry.
and the airport's operations were temporarily suspended.
Also a no. Maybe next time…
The Israeli army, in turn, earlier reported the interception of a missile launched from Yemeni territory. Air raid sirens were sounded in several areas of the country.

Israel carries out strikes on Houthi-controlled power station, ports across Yemen
[IsraelTimes] IDF confirms that targets include ‘Galaxy Leader’ ship which was hijacked by Houthis in November 2023; Katz threatens that Iran-backed group will ‘continue to pay a heavy price’

Israel carried out extensive strikes on Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
targets in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
overnight between Sunday and Monday, shortly after it issued evacuation orders for several areas of the country.

The IDF confirmed early Monday morning that its Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s had targeted multiple Houthi terror targets in Yemen, including the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif, and the Ras Khatib power station.

The airstrikes also hit the "Galaxy Leader" vessel, which was hijacked by the Houthis in November 2023 and used for maritime surveillance and operational planning, the IDF said. The Houthis took the ship and its crew of 25 people — who hailed from from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico — captive in November 2023, only freeing them in January 2025 after more than a year of holding them hostage. The IDF said that the Houthis "installed a radar system on the ship, and are using it to track vessels in international maritime space, in order to promote the Houthi terrorist regime’s activities."

According to the military, all the targets hit in the overnight strikes were used by the Iran-backed Houthi regime to transfer weapons and conduct terror activity against Israel and global shipping.

The IDF said the strikes come in response to repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israeli territory and highlight the group’s ongoing use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes.

In a statement early Monday morning, Defense Minister Israel Katz repeated the threat he made following that missile attack, that "Yemen will be treated like Tehran," referencing the intensive Israeli strikes across 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 Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
during the recent 12-day conflict.

"Anyone who tries to harm Israel will be harmed, anyone who raises a hands against Israel will have it cut off," Katz added, saying that the IDF was "forcefully" striking a number of terror targets in Yemen. "The Houthis will continue to pay a heavy price for their actions."

The strikes came about half an hour after the IDF’s Arabic-language front man issued an "urgent" evacuation warning for the three Houthi-controlled ports and the power plant in Yemen.

The Houthi military spokesperson claimed following the attacks that Houthis’ air defenses confronted the Israeli attack "by using a large number of domestically produced surface-to-air missiles."
I believe them. But shooting off and hitting are two very different skills, and Allah clearly doesn’t want the Houthis to hit anything Israeli.
Residents told Rooters that the Israeli strikes on the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah put the main power station out of service, leaving the city in darkness. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported that Israel launched a series of strikes on Hodeidah. The campaign came hours after a ship was attacked off the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah and the ship’s crew abandoned it as it took on water. No one immediately grabbed credit for the attack, but security firm Ambrey said the vessel fits the typical profile of a Houthi target.
More from the Times of Israel:
The IDF says its strikes overnight on Houthi targets in Yemen were carried out by around 20 fighter jets, who dropped more than 50 munitions in the attack.
Practicing for the next thunder run over Iran?
Courtesy of Fred, a useful map:
[X]
Link


Arabia
Houthis Attack Israeli Facility With Rockets, once again missile knocked out of the sky
2025-06-29
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
The Houthis continue to blithely mistake intent for occurrence. Allah continues to show favour to Israel over those who consider themselves the Master Religion. Other than shipping continuing to avoid the area, I’m not sure anyone notices that they’re the only ones still trying to help their masters in Tehran.
[Regnum] Fighters from the Yemeni Shiite movement Ansar Allah (Houthis) struck a target in the city of Be'er Sheva in southern Israel with a missile, despite a ceasefire between Tel Aviv and Tehran. This was reported on June 28 by Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria.

"We carried out a high-quality operation against a sensitive enemy target in Beersheba using a Zulfikar missile, successfully achieving our goal," he wrote on Telegram.

Saria added that the Houthis will continue operations to support the Palestinian people until the Israeli army stops fighting in the Gaza Strip and lifts the blockade on it.

IDF says missile fired by Houthis at Israel apparently downed; no reports of injuries

[IsraelTimes] Yemeni group says it targeted ‘sensitive Israeli enemy target’ in southern city of Beersheba; sirens also sound in Dimona and Arad

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IDF hits Hezbollah targets, blames terror group rocket fire for death of woman in area
2025-06-28
More on this story from yesterday.
[IsraelTimes] Israel says Hezbollah trying to restore operations at site near Beaufort Castle in south Lebanon

Israeli Air Force fighter jets hit a Hezbollah facility in the Beaufort Castle area in south 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....
on Friday, the military said. Lebanese media reported strikes in the area killed one woman, but the military said the death was caused by an errant Hezbollah rocket.

According to the IDF, the facility, used by the terror group to "manage its fire and defense array," was part of an underground Hezbollah site that was previously targeted in Israeli strikes.

"In recent days, the IDF identified attempts by the Hezbollah terror organization to restore the site, and therefore the terror infrastructure in the area was struck," the military said.

The IDF said that the "presence of this site and the attempts to reestablish it constitute a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon."

However,
a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
the IDF later denied carrying out a strike on Nabatieh earlier today, instead blaming a Hezbollah rocket that was launched amid the strikes on the nearby facility.

"The IDF did not target any civilian building," said the military’s Arabic-language front man Col. Avichay Adraee.

"According to the information we have, the building was hit by a rocket projectile that was stored at the site, and was launched and went kaboom! as a result of the Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
," he said.

"The Hezbollah terror organization continues to store its rocket projectiles near residential buildings and the residents of Lebanon, thereby endangering them. Hezbollah continues to endanger the residents of southern Lebanon in light of its refusal to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state," Adraee said.

He added that "The Lebanese government bears responsibility for what is happening on its territory, in light of its failure to confiscate Hezbollah’s heavy weapons and rocket projectiles."

Additionally, a home in the southern Lebanon town of Houla, allegedly used by Hezbollah to observe Israeli forces, was demolished by IDF troops overnight Wednesday-Thursday, the military said. According to the IDF, the home belonged to Ahmad Ghazi Ali, a Hezbollah operative killed in a dronezap in Houla a week ago.

"The structure was used by the Hezbollah terror organization for military activity, including attempts to gather intelligence on IDF troops," the military said, adding that "the terrorists’ activity in the structure constituted a clear violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon."

The military said the demolition was carried out by the 769th "Hiram" Regional Brigade in a special operation.

Israel has continued to carry out targeted strikes on Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure since it signed a ceasefire with Lebanon in late November, alleging violations of the truce agreement. According to the IDF, over 180 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in that time.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah was required to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River and dismantle all military infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel was to withdraw from Lebanon, while maintaining the right to strike threats to its security.

The IDF maintained a presence at five points near the border it said were necessary to ensure the safety of Israeli communities.

Since the ceasefire, the Lebanese state has been working methodically to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the south of the country, and is estimated to have seized the majority of the terror group’s weapons stockpile in the same area.
Extrapolating from a Ynet report courtesy of Grom yesterday in comments, the civilian building in the Nabatieh area that went up as a result of a Hezbollah rocket launch was a cache that cooked off with noticeable secondaries.
An Nahar gives the Lebanese view of events:
A woman was killed and 20 other people were wounded Friday after Israel said it targeted Hezbollah "underground assets" in south Lebanon, despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli army said it targeted Hezbollah "underground assets" in south Lebanon as it carried out a series of violent airstrikes on Nabatieh al-Fawqa and the heights of Iqlim al-Tuffah in south Lebanon.

The airstrikes came in two waves on the mountains overlooking Nabatieh and bunker buster bombs were used, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

The strikes continued during the day as warplanes struck a region between the southern towns of Ansar and Zrariyeh.

A woman was killed and twenty other people were wounded as a residential building in Nabatieh al-Fawqa was hit with a missile that knocked out the building's top floor.

Israel later said it didn't bomb any building in Nabatieh and that the projectile that hit the building flew from a nearby Hezbollah depot after an Israeli strike.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam strongly condemned the strikes, calling them a "blatant violation of national sovereignty" and a "threat to stability".

The strikes come a day after Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said Lebanon cannot submit to dictations nor surrender to occupation.

"This is our country, we want it dignified and we will resist for that," Qassem said Thursday.

Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, particularly in the south, since a November 27 ceasefire meant to end over a year of hostilities that left Hezbollah severely weakened. Friday’s strikes were more intense than usual.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its fighter jets struck a site used by Hezbollah to manage its fire and defense array in the area and is part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use.

The Israeli army said it identified rehabilitation attempts by Hezbollah beforehand and struck infrastructure sites in the area.

IDF releases footage that it says shows Hezbollah rocket caused deadly south Lebanon blast
[IsraelTimes] The IDF releases footage it says confirms that a Hezbollah rocket flew out of a facility belonging to the terror group, after it was targeted earlier today, and hit a home in southern Lebanon.

Following the Israeli strike on the Hezbollah site near Beaufort Castle, Lebanon’s health ministry reported one dead and 11 wounded in a blast that struck an apartment in Nabatieh.

“A review revealed that as a result of the strike, secondary explosions were identified, as well as the launch of a Hezbollah terror organization rocket that was stored at the site, which struck a civilian building,” the military says.

Related:
Beaufort Castle: 2025-05-31 Israeli attacks kill two in south Lebanon in latest flare-up
Beaufort Castle: 2025-05-18 Israel Says Hezbollah Commander Killed in Lebanon
Beaufort Castle: 2025-05-09 IDF: Jets target ‘significant underground’ Hezbollah site in south Lebanon
Related:
Nabatieh: 2025-06-21 Berri ''200% sure'' Hezbollah won''t join Iran war; Qassem says Hezbollah ''not neutral,'' will act as it sees fit; Israel defense minister warns after 2 Hezbie big turbans and a GI turban killed
Nabatieh: 2025-06-06 IDF strikes underground Hezbollah drone factories in Beirut after evacuation warning
Nabatieh: 2025-06-03 Hezbollah member arrested in South for spying for Israel
Related:
Houla: 2025-06-21 Berri ''200% sure'' Hezbollah won''t join Iran war; Qassem says Hezbollah ''not neutral,'' will act as it sees fit; Israel defense minister warns after 2 Hezbie big turbans and a GI turban killed
Houla: 2025-05-21 Nine injured including children in Israeli drone strike on Mansouri
Houla: 2025-05-20 IDF says it killed Hezbollah operative in south Lebanon drone strike
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran's Flying Monkeys
2025-06-27
[Tablet Magazine] A few months before he was buried under the rubble of his Beirut bunker, the late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, repeated to his followers, as he had done many times before, his famous line that Israel was "weaker than a spider’s web." That is, Israel was an artificial implant that structurally was bound to collapse. All it needed was sustained violence and patience. The end result was inevitable: Israel would vanish from the map with a wave of the hand.

The fantasy that Nasrallah peddled to his followers and "resistance" fans was not, on its face, entirely ungrounded. Iran, a much larger country than Israel, with 10 times the population, was a rising power. Its regional reach spanned from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. It had established missile bases on Israel’s borders and on a critical maritime passageway in the Red Sea. It controlled four Arab capitals and dominated the landmass across Iraq through Syria into Lebanon. In addition, Iran was allied with the United States’ two great rivals, Russia and China. In short, for Nasrallah and the resistance faithful, it appeared certain that Iran was inexorably ascendant.

In reality, Iran’s winning hand was a mirage. It took Israel 21 months to blow through it—15 of which were during a hostile American administration that actively tried to hobble the Israeli effort, to prevent the Iranian Wizard of Oz and his legions of flying monkeys from being scattered to the winds.

Gaza, Iran’s southern front, is now a wasteland, which, if President Donald Trump implements his stated plan, will be emptied of most if not all of its inhabitants—or at least those who choose not to live in rubble. Whether Trump’s Gaza plans rise or fall, it’s unlikely that Israel will ever cede control over the strip’s border with Egypt, which means that Gaza as an active front against Israel is gone for good.

Next to go was Hezbollah, the oldest and best equipped of Iran’s regional terror assets—indeed, the lynchpin of its regional network. Within three months in 2024, Israel eliminated the group’s entire command structure, decimated its infrastructure along the shared border, and blew up its weapons caches. Despite a U.S.-imposed cease-fire, Israel has maintained operational freedom and continues to take out cadres and arms caches inside Lebanon at will, with Hezbollah unable to mount any response.

Not long after Nasrallah’s demise, the other big piece on the Iranian board tumbled. In a matter of days in December 2024, the Assad regime, the Islamic Republic’s strategic ally since the 1979 revolution, was gone. Hollowed out by a decade and a half of war, and with Hezbollah eviscerated and Russia bogged down in Ukraine, the 53-year rule of the Assad family was suddenly history. In its place, a new Sunni regime in Damascus, Syria, is now intercepting weapons shipments to Hezbollah.

Iran’s multiple militias in Iraq, another card in the mullah’s winning fantasy poker hand, didn’t bother to deploy in Syria and have largely been irrelevant in the axis’ confrontation with Israel. While Iran maintains political clout in Baghdad, its militias there have proved worthless as a military instrument in its regional project, as Iraqi Shia turn out to look good only on paper while displaying little motivation to get slaughtered by a superior enemy on behalf of Iranian adventurism.

With its Levantine network in shambles, Tehran’s most relevant proxy over the past 20 months has been the Ansar Allah group (the Houthis) in Yemen. The Houthis have held global shipping in the Red Sea hostage while occasionally lobbing missiles and attack drones at Israel. As a result, they too have been hit hard, by both the IDF and the United States and Britain. In recent days, the Houthis have threatened to resume targeting U.S. ships in the Red Sea, which would likely invite a punishing response.

Finally, there was Iran itself: the home base of the mighty resistance axis. In recent years, Israel had already shown how thoroughly it had penetrated Iran. From the theft of the mullahs’ entire nuclear archive to multiple sabotage operations and high-value targeted assassinations, including taking out Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran in July 2024, Israel showed the ability to operate with ease throughout Iran—including in the country’s most sensitive and well-guarded places. The country’s intelligence services and decision-making echelons were forced to assume that Israel was privy to the regime’s secrets and could kill its leadership at will.

After making short shrift of Iran’s air defense systems in October, Israel demonstrated its total military superiority this month, gaining full control of Iran’s airspace and going to work on its nuclear facilities, ballistic missiles and launchers, command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the nuclear program’s top scientists, clearing the way for the United States to demolish Iran’s three main nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. And with that, Iran’s nuclear dreams went up in smoke, much like its regional enterprise.

Since Israel thrashed Hezbollah a year ago, and the cascade of wins that followed, the global reaction to its achievement has been one of surprise—shock at the comprehensiveness of the Israeli domination and the complete Oz-like hollowness of the Iranians. But the Iranian regional position, much like its nuclear program, was a function not of Iranian strength but most crucially of U.S. support. If the Iranians were illusionists, the fuel for their tricks came from an America that repeatedly wrote monetary and diplomatic checks under the assumption that the magic act was real.

This applied across the board. In Iraq, the American nation-building project ensured the Iranians a sanctions-busting vehicle and protection. Whenever a Sunni revolt against the post-2003 order emerged in Iraq, the Iranians relied on the United States to put it down and prop up Tehran’s assets in the country.

But it was in Syria where Iranian dependence on U.S. protection was most evident. When Syria’s Sunnis rose against Iran’s vassal, Bashar al-Assad, Iran mobilized its Lebanese and Iraqi assets to prop him up. Soon it was sending Afghan and Pakistani Shia into the Syrian theater, too. Still, it wasn’t able to put down the uprising, despite Assad using chemical weapons against population centers.

Yet it turned out that Iran and Assad had little to fear from direct American involvement in Syria. When Tehran’s ally, then President Barack Obama, finally intervened in 2014, it was against the Islamic State group, which the United States and Iran’s Iraqi assets were partnering against in Iraq as well. Regardless, by 2015, Iran’s position in Syria was still wobbly. It required Obama facilitating the entry of Russia’s air force into Syria to help Iran’s militias gain the upper hand, though even that was not enough to take back the whole country.

Similar to Iraq, the American nation-building enterprise in Lebanon was also a condominium with Iran designed to protect Tehran’s holdings. Much as the Obama administration teamed up with Iranian assets in Iraq under the cover of the "anti-ISIS campaign," it did the same in Lebanon behind the veneer of supporting "state institutions," which allowed Hezbollah to protect its flank while prosecuting Iran’s war in Syria. Moreover, at various points before Oct. 7, Washington intervened to dissuade Israel from responding to Hezbollah provocations, locking it instead in diplomatic and even economic arrangements with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Even after the group opened the front against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, the Biden administration deterred Israel from attacking in response. Even the cease-fire the administration announced in November 2024 was reportedly imposed under threat of a U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council resolution against Israel.

The IRGC and its regional proxies all benefited from American protection under the Obama team’s three terms in office. While Obama protected the IRGC from being designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and his deal with Iran removed international sanctions on regime terror chief Qassem Soleimani, the Biden administration likewise removed Yemen’s Houthis from the terror list. With Obama’s help, the IRGC consolidated its position across the region.

U.S. protection and funding—including, for example, the famous 2016 direct payment of $1.7 billion in cash—were at the heart of Obama’s deal with Iran. The JCPOA not only legitimized Iran’s nuclear weapons program but also protected Iran’s nuclear assets with an international, namely American, shield. That shield took the form, among other things, of leaks against potential Israeli preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. In fact, Obama administration officials bragged about blocking Israeli military action, declaring that it was now too late for Israel to do anything: The administration had successfully protected its new ally’s nukes.

For more than a decade, Israel has had to work around this American protective cover. Fear of leaks intended to sabotage Israeli operations was so pervasive under Biden that the Israelis did not give advance notification of the September strike that killed Nasrallah. The following month, ahead of Israeli retaliatory strikes against Iran, the administration made clear its objection to any Israeli targeting of Iranian nuclear or energy facilities. It took Israel as long as it did to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and regional project only because Washington hobbled it for all but six of the past 21 months, between diplomatic pressure and threats, slow-rolling arms deliveries, and micromanaging the Israeli war effort, especially in Gaza.

So what changed? As the past few weeks have demonstrated, the key variable—the difference between a U.S.-protected nuclear Iran that dominates the region, and the geopolitical picture we have today, with Iran cut down to size—is leadership. Any misalignment on either side, in the United States or Israel, could well have prevented the current outcome.

Had the Obama team’s campaign to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded at any point between 2021 and 2024, it seems unlikely that Netanyahu’s American-approved replacement would have been able to successfully navigate the post-Oct. 7 landscape and destroy Iran’s regional project. Likewise, had Trump lost the 2024 election or, worse still, had he not turned his head at that precise moment in Butler, Pennsylvania, the likelihood of American support for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program drops to zero. Remove the great men of history, and everything defaults back to the Obama structural settings on the Democratic and also some of the Republican side of the aisle.

Even now, you can see it in some of the comms environment in Washington, after the U.S. strikes on Iran, where we’re hearing things from both Democrats and Republicans about the need for a "long-term settlement" with Iran, to be accompanied, no doubt, by endless new rounds of negotiations. Over what, exactly? A new and improved JCPOA, after having destroyed all their centrifuges and facilities? Why? Who cares?

President Trump put it best. When asked if he’s interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, the president was dismissive: "I’m not. ... The way I look at it, they fought. The war is done. I could get a statement that they’re not going to go nuclear ... but they’re not going to be doing it anyway. ... I’ve asked [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio], ’You want to draw up a little agreement for them to sign?’ ... I don’t think it’s necessary."

The president is being praised for using military force while eschewing long-term commitments and entanglements. The corollary of that policy is, properly, for America to walk away after the strikes yet threaten to bomb again should the need arise. Everything else, whether it’s a new "deal" or the hope of "integration" for a "moderate" Iran, is static from the Obama signal.

Why the D.C. establishment, left and right, feels such an intense attachment to Iran defies any rational cost-benefit analysis related to the national interest. It therefore can only be explained by extrinsic factors that are probably best explained by a shrink who specializes in subjects like "white guilt" or "the burdens of empire"—which means I am obliged to take a pass. I can only observe that this attachment is a powerful one that must therefore signify something important to those who continue to feel its attraction, even when the United States and Iran are at war.

Fundamentally, D.C. is a pro-Iran town, where factions on the left and right have shown a core investment in ensuring that Iran has the means and the opportunity to go nuclear as part of their political programs at home. Why? Again, I can only speculate, as it so clearly defies basic calculations of the national interest. Perhaps they see Iran, as Obama did, as a useful tool in factional wars against domestic political rivals.

Luckily for the rest of us, the behavior of D.C. sewer dwellers matters far less now, thanks to President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The illusion that the D.C. establishment has maintained, hand in hand with Iran, for decades, has been shattered. The proxy armies that formed Iran’s "Axis of Resistance" are no more. We can even pinpoint the moment when Israel pulled the curtain aside: Sept. 27, 2024, the day it killed Nasrallah, whose Iranian masters turned out to be part of the same illusion that he was.

Now that the Ayatollah’s monkeys have scattered, whatever remains or does not remain of Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t much matter, even while anonymous sources in Washington do their best to put cards back into the regime’s hand by claiming that Fordow wasn’t "fully" destroyed and other such irrelevancies. The spell is broken, and the regime’s regional alignment, which was at the heart of both its threat to its neighbors and its strategy of deterrence, has been shattered beyond any hope of easy repair. Now it’s time for Washington and regional leaders alike to deal with reality.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Shadowy jihadist group claims Damascus church attack, as government blames ISIS
2025-06-25
[IsraelTimes] Saraya Ansar al-Sunna — possibly an offshoot of Syrian president’s old rebel group HTS — says it ‘blew up the Saint Elias church,’ killing 25, over unspecified ‘provocation’

A little-known Sunni Moslem bad boy group grabbed credit on Tuesday for a weekend suicide kaboom against a church in Damascus, while the Syrian government insisted they were part of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.

Sunday’s attack killed 25 people and maimed dozens, striking terror into Syria’s Christian community and other minorities.

A statement from Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said an operative "blew up the Saint Elias church in the Dwelaa neighborhood of Damascus," adding that it came after an unspecified "provocation."

Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
in December, had quickly blamed the attack on the Islamic State group and announced several arrests on Monday in a security operation against ISIS-affiliated cells.

ISIS did not claim responsibility for the attack.

The Saraya Ansar al-Sunna statement, on the messaging app Telegram, said the government’s version of events was "untrue, fabricated."

The front man for the interior ministry, Nureddine al-Baba, said during a presser on Tuesday that the cell behind the attack "officially follows ISIS," adding that Saraya Ansar al-Sunna was "not independent... as it follows ISIS," using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Baba also said that the church attacker was not Syrian, without specifying his nationality, and came to Damascus with another jacket wallah from the al-Hol camp in the northeast for displaced people and relatives of ISIS members.

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Syria-based analyst and researcher, said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna could be "a pro-[ISIS] splinter originating primarily from defectors from HTS... and other factions but currently operating independently of [ISIS]."

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) is the Islamist group headed by Syria’s now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa that led the overthrow of Assad.

Baba said it could be just a "front group" for ISIS.

Citing a source within the group, Tamimi said a disillusioned former HTS functionary headed Saraya.

He added that its leadership included a former member of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda affiliate that announced in January it was dissolving on the orders of the new government.

’FIRST MASSACRE OF ITS KIND IN SYRIA SINCE 1860’
At the funeral of some of those killed in Damascus’s Holy Cross Church, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X called the attack an "unacceptable incident."

Addressing Sharaa, the patriarch said, "The heinous crime that took place at Mar Elias Church is the first massacre of its kind in Syria since 1860," referring to the mass killings of Christians in Damascus under the Ottoman Empire.

"We refuse for these events to take place during the revolution and during your honorable era."

Sharaa had called the patriarchate’s adviser to send his condolences, an act John X called "insufficient."

To ululations and tears, nine white coffins were carried into the church, amid a heavy security presence in the area.

"These events are fleeting and have no value in history," teacher Raji Rizkallah, 50, told AFP.

"Christianity is a deeply rooted and permanent part of this land, and holy warriors are heretics."

Assad’s government portrayed itself as a protector of minorities, who were subject to numerous attacks claimed by jihadist groups during the 14-year civil war.

The new authorities have repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, despite the eruption of sectarian violence on multiple occasions in recent months.

The suicide kaboom followed massacres of members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs and festivities with Druze fighters.

The bloodshed has raised concerns about the government’s ability to control radical fighters who took part in Assad’s overthrow.

HTS was once affiliated with al-Qaeda before breaking ties in 2016.
Related:
Saraya Ansar al-Sunna: 2025-05-05 Sheikhs' Calls: Why Türkiye Closed Skies to Israeli Aircraft
Related:
Mar Elias Church 06/23/2025 More than 20 killed in Damascus church attack
Mar Elias Church 09/03/2014 Report: Nusra Front Demands al-Rahi's Apology over Burning of ISIL Flag
Mar Elias Church 04/16/2014 Mortars Kill 1 Child, Wound Dozens In Damascus

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Pause to Disguise: West Prepares for Main Task in Iran
2025-06-25
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov

[REGNUM] The temporary pause in mutual attacks between Israel, the US and Iran so far leaves more questions than it answers.

Given that neither side has achieved its objectives,
…Iran has not erased Israel, but Israel has severely damaged Iran’s nuclear program, killed or wounded many of its civilian and military leaders, and made a severe dent in Iran’s war matériel, hindering both their ability to wage war and rule the country. Also, there’s that little thing about Israel wiping out most of the leadership, funding, and war matériel of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the ports used by the Houthis, severely reducing the ability of Iran’s catspaws to attack Israel at home, though they are thus far mostly untouched in Europe and the Americas…
a new escalation can be expected soon. Although it is also likely that Iran's opponents will move to a new stage and focus their efforts on subversion within the country in order to bring about a change of power and the dismantling of the Islamic Republic.

NEW METHODS OF OVERTHROW
In the event of a long-term truce, Washington and Tel Aviv are counting on the Yugoslav scenario being launched in Iran. Then, strikes on the country caused significant damage and, although not immediately, paved the way for a “color revolution” and a change of power.

Trump has most likely generally accepted Israel's view on the need to dismantle the political system of the Islamic Republic. At the same time, the range of possible actions to achieve this goal is very wide, including the assassination of Iran's supreme leader, which could trigger revolutionary events.

Therefore, what is happening is a serious challenge for Russia as well. Iran is being used to develop elements of future subversive activities against both us and China, Donald Trump's main adversary.

First of all, the creation and launch of not only effective terrorist and sabotage networks, but also cells engaged in subversive activities through the dissemination of narratives favorable to the United States and Israel and organizing protests in Iranian society is being tested.

Perhaps the previous principles and methods of "color revolutions" that worked against weak political regimes, such as those in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, etc., have already been revised. They have proven ineffective against countries such as Russia or Iran.

It is also worth recalling that the subversive actions of the US and Israel in Iran occurred immediately after Operation Spider Web, when strategic aviation bases were attacked by sabotage terrorist groups using drones from Russian territory. And earlier, there were explosions of transport infrastructure, murders of Russian generals and public figures.

Both operations—the actions of cells in both Iran and Russia—followed similar algorithms, so they most likely had a single foreign coordination and decision-making center.

If we consider the geopolitical consequences, then, by continuing their subversive activities against the Islamic Republic, the United States and Israel also intend to destroy the “One Belt, One Road” and “North-South” transport corridor systems that are being built.

Therefore, the actions of the American-Israeli bloc are a common threat, and it would be good if it led to strengthening cooperation in the Moscow-Tehran-Beijing triangle with the possible involvement of Pakistan to the extent that it does not cost the break in the strategic partnership with India.

A LIBERAL SHOWCASE WITH RADICAL CONTENT
Naturally, if the enemies of the Islamic Republic aim to change power in the country, then they must prepare a leader who will personify a new Iran “without mullahs, hijabs and Sharia.”

The most acceptable candidate was chosen to be the shahzade, that is, the prince, the son of the last shah, Muhammad Pahlavi, who, like his grandfather, the founder of the dynasty, bears the name Reza.

As early as February 2025, Pahlavi was chosen by various fringe factions of the Iranian opposition as their leader and head of a future transitional government “until the formation of the first national assembly and the beginning of democratic rule through free elections.”

In reality, however, his supporters do not wield any real influence within the country. Reza, like his father, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was never a popular leader.

Reza Pahlavi, the grandfather, the first shah of the dynasty, essentially usurped power after a military coup and declared himself the new monarch in 1925, rather than establish a republic in Iran. In this sense, both shahs resemble the father and son of the Assad family in Syria, who led the country to collapse and revolution.

Therefore, the legitimacy of the Pahlavis themselves is very conditional - they came to power through a coup and, by historical standards, soon lost power through a revolution. It is not possible to compare them with the Romanovs in Russia or other dynasties - overthrown, but having deep foundations for legitimacy.

At the same time, there are more serious opposition forces in Iran, which, unlike the freak monarchists, have their own networks of influence and can really lay claim to power in the event of a hypothetical collapse.

This includes, for example, the Organization of the Mujahideen of the Iranian People (OMIN), a revolutionary leftist-Islamist organization that waged armed struggle against the Islamic Republic for a long time while in Saddam Hussein's camp. The ideology of this organization is a mixture of Marxist, Leninist and Islamist positions.

The MEK participated in the Islamic Revolution in Iran, but then lost the struggle for power to the "Khomeinists" and its supporters were subjected to repression. The mujahideen responded to this with a wave of terror and mass murder of supporters of the new authorities.

The MEK had its own National Army of Liberation of Iran (NAL), based in Iraq and numbering 7,000 fighters. In 1988, six days after Ayatollah Khomeini announced his acceptance of a UN-brokered ceasefire, the NLA advanced under heavy Iraqi air cover, crossed the border, and captured the city of Islamabad-e-Gharb. But it was then driven back with heavy losses.

In 2003, the MEK and NAO, still based in Iraq, fought on Saddam's side against the US and its allies who had attacked Iraq, but a ceasefire was then agreed upon.

However, since 2009, the new Iraqi government, close to the Islamic Republic, has demanded that MEK leave Iraq. Then, pro-Iranian Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that the group would be banned from basing itself on Iraqi territory. He backed up his statements with repression and arrests of its members.

After that, the US began to remove the organization's fighters from Iraq. At the same time, OMIN was removed from the terrorist lists, and the US was able to convince Albania to accept the remaining 2,700 NAO members who were brought to Tirana between 2014 and 2016. It is obvious that the CIA, by showing such patronage over OMIN, expected to use its resources in the future.

A 2008 report by the U.S. Army Intelligence Center said the MEK operates a large network of supporters in Iran, sparking debate among intelligence experts about whether Western powers should use the opportunity to better build their own intelligence picture of the Iranian regime’s goals and intentions.

Iran has also carried out operations to expose MEK networks, for example, in 2010 and 2011, Ali Saremi, Mohammad Ali Hajj Aghaei and Jafar Kazemi were executed for collaborating with the organization .

Donald Trump, even during his first presidency, wanted to use MEK against the Islamic Republic. In January 2018, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called French President Emmanuel Macron and asked him to order the expulsion of MEK from its French base in Auvers-sur-Oise, claiming that the organization had provoked the Iranian protests of 2017–2018.

The main base of the OMIN, however, remained Albania, where more than 4,000 of its members were located. There, during the Free Iran 2019 conference, former New York City Mayor and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani described the group as a “government in exile,” saying it was a ready-made alternative to lead the country if the Iranian government fell.

Moreover, the Trump administration then stated that it did not rule out the MEK as a viable replacement for the current Iranian regime.

In turn, OMIN networks in Albania were subjected to cyber attacks in 2022, which the Albanian authorities blamed on Iran, leading to a rupture in diplomatic relations between the countries.

Thus, if the Shah is a kind of “face” of the pro-Western opposition, then in reality the change of power in the Islamic Republic will be carried out by networks of radical organizations such as OMIN.

Of course, it now positions itself as a respectable structure that shares Western values, but in reality this group has hardly moved far from its previous principles.

Therefore, even if we assume that the West will succeed in dismantling the current state system in Iran, this does not mean that they will succeed in bringing to power their own supporters, who are not an organized force.

GUARDIANS OF THE REVOLUTION
At the same time, there are serious obstacles to such plans for a change of power in Iran. Thus, despite the split in Iranian society, its pro-government part has united around the supreme leader.

It is a foundation that can withstand any pressure, even from the majority of Iranians themselves, who are unable to crack it until it cracks itself. However, its foundation still appears monolithic, despite attempts to drive wedges through military actions by the US and Israel.

At the core of this foundation is the very ideology of the Islamic Republic, the guardians and cement of which are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Unlike the CPSU and the Komsomol of the late USSR, the IRGC is not just a party of supporters of the Islamic regime or special services, which are also there. The IRGC is a multi-million army, an armed force of supporters of the Islamic Republic and the ideas of the Islamic revolution, whose tentacles are present in all spheres of society, holding it back from disintegration.

And the opposition, even one as organized as OMIN, has nothing to counter this “monster” with.

It is pointless to look for complete analogues of the IRGC: this is a purely Iranian specificity. The formation of the Corps took place without looking back at any Western examples. And what it has now become - with its own industry, aviation, navy and special services - was clearly not envisaged at the time of its creation.

The IRGC emerged primarily as a military structure, a kind of guard during the war with Iraq. At that time, assault battalions were created from the most zealous Muslim supporters of the Islamic Revolution, which were then united into the divisions of "Prophet Mohammad", "Imam Hussein", "Ashura" and "Najaf", which became some of the most combat-ready during the Iran-Iraq war.

Initially these were formations designed to fight Iraq on the battlefield, but were recruited from motivated volunteers who later found wider use.

Thus, the IRGC rather reflects the Middle Eastern, Islamic specificity, and the most similar to it is probably the National Guard of Saudi Arabia. It arose from the religious militia of zealous Wahhabis, the "Ikhwan" (not to be confused with other "Ikhwan", the "Muslim Brotherhood").

The Saudi Ikhwan might have also secured for themselves powers as broad as those of the IRGC in Iran, if not for their conflict with the king, the unsuccessful uprising in 1929, and the transformation of those of them who remained loyal to the monarch despite their own understanding of religion into the National Guard. Instead of guardians of religion, they became guardians of the oil fields and borders of the House of Saud.

That is, both the Saudi Ikhwan and the IRGC are, first and foremost, defenders, guardians of religion and a state based on religious principles. And they must protect religion from enemies, both external and internal.

This is the main difference between the IRGC and the Iranian army. If the army must protect the state as a territory, then the IRGC stands guard over the Islamic revolution, its goals and ideals. Therefore, they are called upon to act both inside the country and far beyond Iran. That is why the range of tasks of the IRGC is much wider.

For example, for the "export of the Islamic revolution" there is the Al-Quds command - an organization with its own structure. It is intended for foreign operations, support of allied movements and countries.

That is, if we imagine the IRGC as a matryoshka doll, as a state within a state, then Al-Quds is also a state, a matryoshka doll, but already within the “IRGC state”. With its own separate intelligence structures, special forces, ground forces. And it seems that it will be difficult to find a suitable analogue for this.

The IRGC has its own intelligence and counterintelligence, but so does the Quds Force command. At the same time, the Islamic Republic itself as a state also has its own intelligence and counterintelligence, not connected to the IRGC.

But functions similar to those of, for example, our Federal Security Service are concentrated in the IRGC. The Ansar al-Mahdi unit operates to protect senior officials and religious centers, and the Supreme Leader himself is protected by the Wali-e Amr unit.

The IRGC also has rapid reaction forces and special operations forces that duplicate the army special forces, including the Saberin Takavor Brigade, the 110th Salman Farsi Special Operations Brigade, the 33rd Al-Mahdi Airborne Brigade and separate battalions in provincial corps. While in the Army, the Special Forces are represented by the 55th and 65th Brigades.

The IRGC's ground forces are organized into 32 infantry territorial corps, which were deployed from regular divisions from the Iran-Iraq War, combined with regular battalions and militias from the Basij command.

Unlike the army divisions, the IRGC divisions are mostly infantry. Although they do have tank units, they are significantly fewer than the army. There are probably 8 IRGC "operational" divisions deployed at all times in peacetime, but in wartime there may be more than 40.

The core of the land component in the provinces is the "Hussein Battalions", which are part of the Basij and serve as the basis for the reserve infantry divisions in wartime that will be deployed from the militias. These battalions can also be used as expeditionary forces. They have, for example, participated in the fighting in Syria.

Therefore, the Basij is not only the militia and reserve of the IRGC, but also the regular units. This includes the first-priority reserve and the so-called “army of 20 million” - a broader, mass militia that can be called up to suppress internal threats.

If the Hussein Battalions are the backbone of the IRGC ground forces, the equivalent of a territorial army in the provinces, then the Ali Battalions of the Basij Command are the equivalent of a gendarmerie aimed at suppressing unrest and counter-revolutionary rebellions. They work closely with the police and security forces.

The IRGC has created a multi-layered presence in Iranian society and has engaged in its activities in one form or another millions of people who are ready to stand up for the Islamic revolution at the first order. At least, this is what is expected of them.

This is the foundation, the basis on which the Iranian regime relies. And even if its supporters are in the minority, their unity and organization will most likely allow them to withstand the challenges and threats of internal destabilization.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israeli warplanes carry out wave of airstrikes on south Lebanon — Naharnet
2025-06-24
[NAHARNET] srael carried out Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s in parts of south Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
, including in Iqlim al-Tuffah.

Monday's airstrikes were more intense than the usual near-daily ones that Israel has carried out since a ceasefire ended its 14-month war with Hezbollah in November.

The strikes targeted the outskirts of Ansar-Zrariyeh, Tebna-Bissariyeh, Azza, Buslaya, Houmine al-Fawqa, Mazraat al-Mahmoudiyeh and al-Aishiyeh and came hours after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem
... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies...
said the group will not join the war between 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 Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and Israel for now.

Qassem spoke in his first public comments since the U.S. inserted itself into the war on Sunday, saying his group is ready to back any decision taken by the Lebanese state to force Israel to stop the war.

Israeli's military said it struck rocket launchers and an arms depot for Hezbollah.
Link


Arabia
The Failure of the Mole: Why Israel Can't Get Close to the Houthi Leaders
2025-06-18
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov

[REGNUM] The clashes between Iran and Israel are gaining momentum. Tehran's allied forces are gradually joining the fighting. Thus, the Yemeni movement "Ansar Allah" (Houthis) supported the operation against Israel from the first days and began to carry out massive strikes with hypersonic missiles.
Massive? That’s one way to describe it, I suppose…
It turned out to be not so easy to deal with the Houthis.

In addition to the impressive distance between Israel and Yemen and the lack of a common border, Tel Aviv still has no one to rely on “on the ground.” And this gives the Houthis a serious tactical advantage.

A BLOW FROM A NEW DIRECTION
A few days before the clashes began, the Israelis tried to knock the Houthis out of the game early by striking the port of Hodeida. The latter is considered the main transshipment point for weapons cargoes arriving in Yemen from Iran, and Tel Aviv hoped to “thin out” the arsenals of the forces allied with Tehran in this way.

It is noteworthy that for the first time since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and the Houthis, a strike on them was carried out from the sea. Several missile boats were involved in the operation, which moved more than two thousand kilometers from the shores of Israel.
Yemen happens to be on the way to Iran, but surely that is coincidental…
And although the effectiveness of the strike on Hodeida is questionable—the rapid fire only managed to damage a few docking hangars—the psychological effect of the operation was important for Tel Aviv.

With the attack from the sea, the Israelis allegedly proved that they can use not only aviation but also surface fleet in operations in the Red Sea. And the next stage could well be the use of submarines against Ansar Allah.
Or possibly Iran. But go on…
HUNTING FOR LEADERS
On the night of June 15, Israeli aircraft attacked the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. The task of the air force was to try to decapitate the Houthis. The current leader of the movement, Abul-Malik al-Houthi, the Chief of General Staff Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Ghamari and the head of the Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, were all in the crosshairs - according to the Israeli army leadership, they were all present at a secret meeting to prepare for a large-scale attack on Israel.

The Houthis have not officially confirmed the death of any of the figures mentioned. On the Israeli side, objective control is also difficult due to the lack of reliable sources "on the ground".
Almost all 49,000 Yemenite Jews were gotten out by Israel in Operation On Wings Of Eagles back in 1949-50. The last few were snuck out recently, which leaves none to spy on the insular, intermarried tribal types left behind to stew in their own juices. And to be fair, nobody else has got an agent inside, either — certainly not the atheists and “Roman” Sunday People of Russia.
That is why Tel Aviv preferred to hush up the issue, switching to covering the results of targeted liquidations of Iranian high-ranking officers, the verification of data for which is much easier.

However, it is not only Israel that has faced the problem of confirming the effectiveness of attacks in Yemen. The US, which previously tried to launch a combined operation against the Houthis, has not been able to exhaustively prove any of the liquidations of the movement's command.

And other supposedly successful raids (like the attack on the “missile formation” in April 2025, which turned out to be a village meeting) later turned into a reason for criticizing the Pentagon.

Israel, already under pressure from all sides due to the war on several fronts, prefers to avoid such stories for now.

A STRANGER AMONG HIS OWN
The lack of reliable informants in Yemen is becoming an increasingly serious problem for Israel over time. Each new “retribution operation” against the Houthis costs Tel Aviv a pretty penny and is fraught with many risks.

Hitting at random is not the best strategy in this case. Especially since the Houthi command - unlike, for example, their "colleagues" from the Lebanese Hezbollah - leads a more guerrilla lifestyle and holds key meetings at facilities in the mountains, rather than in official headquarters.

Attempts to get closer to the Houthis through Saudi and Emirati loyalists have led to nothing.

Neither Riyadh nor Abu Dhabi want to aggravate the situation in Yemen, from where they were only able to escape after an unsuccessful campaign relatively recently. And after the start of active clashes between Tel Aviv and Tehran, they also want to give the Iranians another reason to accuse their Arabian neighbors of secretly supporting Israeli expansion.

The Israelis came up with an ambitious plan to infiltrate a double agent into the Houthis. And, at first glance, it had every chance of success. Especially since Israeli intelligence had previously managed to plant "moles" in the most secret structures of Iran, Syria and Egypt, and to introduce them into the inner circle of the Hezbollah and Hamas leadership.
All were named Mohammed or similar, except that one guy…
Considering that the Houthis' counterintelligence, in the opinion of the Israelis, worked much worse than that of other groups of the "Axis of Resistance", the operation did not promise any major difficulties.

Mossad operatives managed to recruit one of the Houthi liaisons in Lebanon, codenamed Mehmed,
See?
who was responsible for exchanging information and intelligence with Hezbollah. However, he was arrested by Lebanese intelligence a few days after receiving his first operational assignment.

It was a coincidence: Lebanon was going through its own "witch hunt", provoked by the discovery of several high-ranking Israeli agents of influence among the security forces, and they decided to check their Yemeni counterpart "for show". And, as it turned out later, for good reason.

Tel Aviv tried to pull the hapless "mole" out of Lebanese jails by spreading a rumor about his diplomatic immunity and his affiliation with the security forces of the legitimate government of Yemen. However, representatives of the Yemeni embassy in Beirut refused the spy - an escalation of the conflict with Iran was not in their plans.

Most likely, this is not Tel Aviv's last attempt to plant someone in the Houthi structures. Otherwise, the Israelis will have to look for other approaches to shutting up the Yemeni front - including conducting a large-scale combined operation, for which the authorities do not yet have the strength or resources.

Moreover, the Houthis themselves do not allow the issue to be put on the back burner, continuing to fire harassingly throughout Israeli territory, blocking the sea and air ports of the Jewish state.
Related:
Hodeida: 2025-06-12 Israel strikes Hodeidah port, threatens naval, air blockade
Hodeida: 2025-06-11 IDF shoots down Yemen missile; multiple interceptors launched as it breaks up
Hodeida: 2025-06-10 Israeli army warns of possible strikes on Yemen’s Houthi ports, Israeli Navy does the deed in Hodeidah
Related:
Sanaa: 2025-06-10 Israeli army warns of possible strikes on Yemen’s Houthi ports, Israeli Navy does the deed in Hodeidah
Sanaa: 2025-05-29 Israel says fighter jets striking ''terror targets'' in Yemen
Sanaa: 2025-05-28 Israel military says intercepted two projectiles fired from Yemen
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Reports: Major cyberattack targets Iranian banks
2025-06-17
[IsraelNationalNews] Branches of Iran’s Bank Sepah were reported to be closed, as hacker group claims it destroyed its entire data infrastructure.

Iranians are reporting that multiple branches of Iran’s Bank Sepah, which is linked to the Iranian military, were closed on Tuesday.

According to the reports, customers said they were unable to access their accounts.

“We went to the branch, and it was closed. We have no access to our account,” one customer told Iran International, a news outlet affiliated with the Iranian opposition.

The outlet reported widespread issues with debit cards from Ansar Bank and Kosar Bank, which are also tied to the military, with reports of failed transactions since the morning.

The “Gonjeshke Darande” (Predatory Sparrow) hacker group took responsibility for the attack and claimed to have "destroyed the entire data infrastructure of the the data of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Bank Sepah."

According to the group, “Bank Sepah was an institution that circumvented international sanctions and used the people of Iran’s money to finance the regime’s terrorist proxies, its ballistic missile program and its military nuclear program. This is what happens to institutions dedicated to maintaining the dictator’s terrorist fantasies."

There was no immediate comment from the banks or Iranian authorities on the reported outages.
Related:
Bank Sepah 03/03/2019 Iran merges military financial institutions with bank under US sanctions
Bank Sepah 01/18/2016 UN Security Council removes sanctions on Iran's Bank Sepah
Bank Sepah 09/28/2009 Iran state banks debts exceed $32 billion

Link


India-Pakistan
Noor Mukadam got justice, but why does Pakistan''s legal system fail its women?
2025-06-05
Pakistan fails pretty much covers it. That it’s women being failed serves them right for escaping purdah, amirite?
[GEO.TV] ''It's brought me some closure,'' said Shafaq Zaidi, a school friend of Noor Mukadam, reacting to the Supreme Court's May 20 verdict upholding both the life sentence and death penalty
for Noor's killer, Zahir Jaffer.

''Nothing can bring Noor back, but this decision offers a sense of justice —not just for her, but for every woman in Pakistain who's been told her life doesn't matter,'' Zaidi told IPS over the phone from Islamabad. ''It's been a long and painful journey—four years of fighting through the sessions court, high court, and finally, the Supreme Court.''

Echoing a similar sentiment, rights activist Zohra Yusuf said, ''It's satisfying that the Supreme Court upheld the verdict,'' but added that the crime's brutality left little room for relief. ''It was so horrific that one can't even celebrate the judgment,'' she said, referring to the ''extreme'' sadism Noor endured—tortured with a knuckleduster, raped, and beheaded with a sharp weapon on July 20, 2021.

Yusuf also pointed out that the ''background'' of those involved is what drew national attention.

Noor Mukadam, 27, was the daughter of a former ambassador, while Zahir Jaffer, 30, was a dual Pakistain-US national from a wealthy and influential family. Her father and friends fought to keep the case in the public eye, refusing to let it fade into yet another forgotten statistic.

Still, the response has been muted — many, including Yusuf, oppose the death penalty.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistain recorded at least 174 death sentence
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
s in 2024 — a sharp rise from 102 in 2023 — yet not a single execution was reportedly carried out. The last known hanging was in 2019, when Imran Ali was executed for the rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Ansari.

However,
the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything...
Noor's father, Shaukat Ali Mukadam, has repeatedly stated that the death sentence for Zahir Jaffer was ''very necessary,'' emphasising, ''This isn't just about my daughter — it's about all of Pakistain's daughters,'' referencing the countless acts of violence against women that go unpunished every day.

The HRCP's 2024 annual report painted a grim picture of gender-based violence against women in Pakistain.

According to the National Police Bureau, at least 405 women were killed in so-called honor crimes. Domestic violence remained widespread, resulting in 1,641 murders and over 3,385 reports of physical assault within households.

Sexual violence showed no sign of slowing. Police records documented 4,175 reported rapes, 733 gang rapes, 24 cases of custodial sexual assault, and 117 incidents of incest-related abuse — a chilling reminder of the dangers women face in both public and private spaces. HRCP's media monitoring also revealed that at least 13 transgender individuals experienced sexual violence — one was even killed by her family in the name of honor.
Link


Arabia
Putin begins talks with Yemeni leader al-Alimi
2025-05-29
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
and Chairman of the Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
i Presidential Council Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi
…that’s the rump state in southern Yemen, headquartered in Aden. The Presidential Council succeeded the Southern Transitional Council as the government of what now calls itself the Republic of Yemen. It’s backed by Saudi Arabia…
began talks in Moscow. This was reported on May 28 by the Kremlin press service.

The Russian President and the Yemeni leader shook hands and exchanged greetings before the start of the talks.

Putin noted that the Russian side is very pleased with the visit of the Yemeni leader and thanked al-Alimi for finding the time for this.

"Before we begin our conversation, I would like to once again, this time personally, congratulate you on the national holiday — the 35th anniversary of Yemeni unity," the head of state said.

Putin clarified that Russia and Yemen are interacting on the international stage and thanked al-Alimi for this cooperation.

"Our diplomatic and foreign policy departments are in constant contact, which is good news," he added.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, the head of state's press secretary Dmitry Peskov spoke on May 25 about Putin's upcoming talks with al-Alimi in Moscow. Later, the Kremlin reported that the Russian president and the Yemeni leader would discuss bilateral relations, including trade.

On May 23, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with Deputy Secretary General of Yemen's ruling General National Congress Party Faiqu Baalwi. The parties discussed steps to resolve the military-political crisis in the republic and exchanged views on current issues on the regional agenda.

Al-Alimi came to power in April 2022 in the territories of Yemen not controlled by the Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s, the Shiite movement Ansar Allah. The Presidential Leadership Council, formed in the territories controlled by the internationally recognized authorities, included leading politicians from North and South Yemen.
Related:
Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi 01/02/2010 Firings possible over fumbled case of Undieboomer

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