Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
If Telegram is to be believed (and the rumour mill seems legit this time) there are still ongoing battles occurring over the acquisition of the located pilot, civilians, IRGC and US special forces are all involved. Mountain roads have been closed because too many civilians are rushing to the site.
POV You've just bailed out over Iran (there's about to be a tri-factional gunfight over who gets to dome you first)
This except Persian kitties
Looks like there are literal traffic jams of random Iranians who all want to find the pilot. Kind of insane.
https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/2040569882690146612
Get in loser
if the civilians grab him before the IRGC or the SEALs he is 100% getting lynched
Yeah I actually think it'll be pretty bad if civilians get him, they'll rip him apart piece by piece and there won't be much left.
There are reports of helicopters, manpad uses and intense gunfire. Sounds a lot like the fighting in Lebanon when Hezbollah clashed with Israeli special forces. What the outcome ends up being I can't predict.
The longer it goes on the worse it will get for any americans at the site though as the IRGC will bring more and more to the location.
Drop site retweeted a guy who says he was recovered
Possible, I'll wait for confirmation though. The US will start shouting about it very soon if he's safe.
no doubt
Even having to move from further away searching rough terrain with fast helicopters including with heavy machine-gun fire cover will always be more effective than trying to search on the ground slowly via cars and on foot. The Americans had a MASSIVE advantage in retrieving him due to having air assets while the Iranians were relegated to traversing tough terrain under enemy eyes in the sky via the ground and searching via same. US would have had satellites and other assets including drones searching and pilot would have been letting them know his position.
Short of an Amerikkkan child murderer dropping right on an Iranian city or right on a militia base any kind of remote area ditching always favored the Americans winning the race short of the pilot losing all their comms equipment in the process as well. Frustrating but it is what it is.
What's interesting though is it hasn't been confirmed yet by anyone major. No AP, Reuters, Fox News, etc. They could be waiting to make a big announcement while parading the guy around or it could be the rescue went bad and the guy is actually dead but they got his body or he could have been badly injured in the firefight and they're waiting to see if he makes it before announcing or it could be that the US took heavy casualties retrieving their child murderer so is trying to figure out how to spin this whole situation. And of course it could just be that we're waiting on Trump who wants to make a big pronouncement out of it.
Information in this war is being managed much more tightly than anything else in recent decades. The firing and hollowing out of the Pentagon, State Dept, etc has removed many of the people who would leak this stuff to the press and frightened a lot of the rest into silence.
I'm more than a little annoyed at how the Evangelical maniacs will spin this as an "Easter miracle" and proof god is on their side in their crusade.
Indeed, I'm surprised we haven't heard a single word from anybody and should have couched the original post as such
Now confirmed by Al Jazeera that the US indeed recovered both crew members successfully.
Iran has access to military satellites via Russia and China
(not really confirmed ,but that pic goes around )
emoji potential if confirmed real
:found-out:
Fake. Second crewmember confirmed recovered by Al Jazeera. Stop repeating badly sourced randoms on social media I beg you people.
"Not confirmed but this picture goes around"
--> "A Gulfstate Owned News organization said something else and didnt post a picture , Stop not fully beliving Gulfstate Monarchy Media and please Travel forward in Time before you post"
Thank god, they saved the precious podcaster!
The podcaster is the journalist breaking the story and not the pilot. I had to reread it because it's strangely written. Why would we need to know that the reporter has a podcast and the other stuff? Why would we care?
My interpretation is that Drop Site is trying to offer journalism by tweet. As in they aren't just puttimg out excerpts or headlines from articles, theyre actually interacting with other accts independently of that, but they also arent just retweeting faceless accounts like most unserious "situation monitorer" types. Theyre actually explaining who the quoted person is and why/if what they are saying is credible.
Ohhhh right, I see it now thanks lol
Similar events summarized here: https://todon.eu/@faab64/116348432990414065
to be clear, this person as far as I know is just re-iterating things they've seen on Telegram. Don't treat anything here as confirmed.