Image is one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver's seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it's not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I've seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we're reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - "You're telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!" - and given Trump's deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it's clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been "destroyed" as Western propaganda claim, though it's impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
The US has begun laying minefields from the air near Iranian missile cities in Iran, in an attempt to complicate/deny movement around the missile cities, and cut them off from nearby supply lines and villages (people underground need food, water and medicine once stockpiles run low). This involves laying mines in the villages itself, and on the outskirts.
Photos have emerged of BLU-91/B anti tank/heavy vehicle mines in Kafari, Shiraz, Iran, about 2 kilometres away from the underground Shiraz missile city. These are magnetically activated airdropped mines that arm contact with the ground, and set off when the magnetic signature of a heavy vehicle is above them, blasting straight up. They may also go off if disturbed or moved.
This is part of the GATOR airdropped mining system, which makes use of cluster munitions dispensers which can be launched by US tactical fighter aircraft and strategic bombers.
The CBU-89/B is the most likely culprit, as it can be fitted with a Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) tail kit, allowing for high altitude launch with INS guidance with minimal drift due to the launch aircraft's GPS updating it's position just before launch, a CEP (Circular Error Probable, also known as mean error radius) of 26m/86ft for the cluster munitions dispenser. The CBU-89/B becomes the CBU-104/B when fitted with a WCMD. This allows for a range of 15 miles when dropped from altitudes of 40 000ft, instead of having to fly directly over the target at very low altitudes without the WCMD. A single CBU-104B can be equipped with 72x BLU-91/B anti tank mines, and 22x BLU-92/B anti personel mines (not seen yet), with 4x tripwires each, very nasty, they explode horizontally. An F-15E can be equipped with up to 18x CBU-89/CBU-104, though a loadout of 10x is more realistic with two external fuel tanks taking up the pylons on the wings. This allows a single F-15E to realistically disperse close to 940 land mines per sortie with high altitude bombing. The CBU-89/104 is designed to disperse mines over an area of 200mx650m, to create a minefield of that size with a single bomb.
BLU-92/B:
The self-destruct feature of the mines can be set for 4 hours, 48 hours, or 15 days, and any that fail to self destruct should be disarmed after 40 days, due to the batteries running out of energy. However, this still leaves the potential of unexploded ordnance scattered around cities. Even a single percentage dud rate can lead to dozens of unexploded landmines. And cluster munitions aren't known for low dud rates.
If anyone here is in Iran and sees this, stop moving immediately, you are in the middle of a minefield, surrounded by dozens, potentially more landmines.
Trevor Ball Twitter thread, with article
Howard Altman article for Yahoo
This is another reminder to take the tunnelpill, build tunnels all throughout the country.
Go full moleman.
Excuse me, I'm Morlockmaxxing over here
Those look like the "explosive packages" they found in the city of Shiraz
https://t.me/presstv/181971
Yeah those are the BLU-91/B
Jesus Christ. That’s all they need, more uxo. There was a terrifying video of kids in Syria taking apart landmines and another of a kid throwing a rock and it blows up underneath him (kid lived). I dread the consequences of this
I hate the US
Does Iran have mines too?
When the fools send their carriers to sink i hope the Iranians pull as many warpigs from the drink as possible and enslave them to a UXO removal corps.