Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Whispers of rumors that the 5th fleet that's stationed in Bahrain has been deployed to the seas. Whether or not this is a combat deployment or a bout of nuclear chicken brinksmanship, or even fake news will only be known with time.
I wish a very millenium challenge to all of these ships
It's true that ships have left Bahrain. Not sure exactly which.
Source, well connected to the US Navy
I'm scared of what this will mean if it's not fake news. Fuck.
At best, it's for the fleet to make guard duty easier with a mobile force on observation duty, at worst we're going to enter a new epoch.
@BobDole@hexbear.net puddle pirate shits more your territory so I'll rely on your for any nautical jargon
This is a bit stream of consciousness
The boats stationed at Bahrain are primarily Minesweepers, with some brown-water riverine boats sometimes. Maybe some LCS, but those are pieces of shit. It functions primarily as a logistics and command hub within the Persian Gulf, and is where all of the Replenishment At Sea supply ships resupply and refuel (combatant ships also pull in for the same, but are not permanently stationed there). If Iran disables the resupply function of the port, which should be easy, then that forces US Navy vessels to leave the gulf or resupply in Saudi Arabia or UAE.
My personal knowledge on all this is about ten years old now, so they may have improved facilities in SA/UAE. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are kitted out to support American ships, with a long term presence at the Dubai port, and the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi has been capable of supporting US ships for about 11 years. I don’t know of any specific ports in SA that are available.
Navy policy has always been to put ships to sea if anything happens to threaten them, and the local Bahraini population has never been happy about the American presence. Fifteen years ago there were machine gun nests in sandbag emplacements at the entrances to the base, although that relaxed and they built a bridge over the highway to connect port facilities to the base.
The “spec ops ship” mentioned would be a Lewis B Puller class AFSB (Afloat Forward Staging Base). This is essentially a modified cargo ship that can carry and launch LCAC (hovercraft landing craft) and helicopters. They’re designed to sit at a long standoff distance from shore, as they weren’t kitted out with air defense, and function as a command and control vessel as well as be used by ~~death squads~~ special forces. I’m not sure what their ordnance holding capacity is.
I forgot to mention that personnel stationed at the US base in Bahrain are predominantly logistics, admin, intel, and military police (sorry, “Masters at Arms”). The base is pretty notorious for poor morale, with MA’s locking each other in dog kennels for being gay.
Plenty of valuable information here that puts both the tweet and the general movement of the ships at port into context
My assumption is that they’ll keep carriers out of the Persian Gulf and fly sorties from the Gulf of Oman, Qatar, and Türkiye (there are USAF bases in both countries).
They’ll probably deploy cruisers and destroyers in the Gulf and try to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. USN has been drilling on how to keep the straits open for decades, and will try their hardest to force it open if Iran closes it. I think this will result in significant losses for USN (and losses for Iran, ofc). The IRGCN has been drilling on how to beat US ships for decades as well.
Watch out for amphibious ships (LHA, LHD, LPD, LSD) hanging out in the Gulf of Oman, as they’re vulnerable but the only means by which the US can put boots on the ground. They will also likely use SEAL submersibles and semi-submersibles to carry out sabotage operations, which can be carried by amphibious ships, AFSB, and some by submarine.
minimum it means they have reason to believe they're about to get shot at by Iran and don't want to be docked when it happens
That America is actively in this war?
What makes this fleet more significant than the other naval forces building up around the gulf?
All the other fleets have huge fuck off regions they patrol through while the 5th is exclusively stationed to patrol the arabian peninsula, Iran's coast, and the horn of Africa.
At least from that tweet, not much—it lists a littoral combat ship, 3-4 mine countermeasures ships and a spec ops ship or something. So utility, but not anything amazing in its own right. The announcement the tweet is replying to suggests that all of the ships are leaving port (not just the US ships) to spread out and not be sitting there at docks stationary inside range of potential attacks. Also the 5th fleet, which I assume these are a subset of, sounds like it is stationed in the Middle East anyway, so not as remarkable compared to news that, like a major element of the pacific or European fleet have redeployed into the Middle East.