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.
Update from Al Jazeera regarding F-15E Crew member 'rescue' operation:
~~Very ambiguous, I think if the operation was going smoothly, we likely wouldn't here anything from us sources until they had exfilled.~~
Update: MSM outlets are reporting the crew member was rescued and exfilled.
sounds like they sent in a ton of forces to get the pilot
two planes "got stuck"
Funnily enough during the Iran hostage crisis Carter sent in Delta Force in Operation Eagle Claw which was a complete failure. They had to abandon 5 RH-53D Sea Stallions, which were captured and integrated into the Iranian Navy. Supposedly some of the are still operational despite the difficulty of acquiring new parts. Maybe they’ll repair 2 CH-130 and put them into service.
So maybe I'm just a heartless asshole but why is it worth risking all these other lives and assets to get a single soldier out of a combat situation in which he realistically will be captured and not even die? Like we're talking millions of dollars and other aircraft risked and potentially sacrificed, why do you not just chalk up a loss and prepare for the prisoner swap stage when the war ends?
Besides the potential intelligence value of interrogating the pilot, I imagine it would be a massive, massive propaganda victory for IRI. Broadcasting a captured living American pilot to the world on Easter Sunday? That is a humiliation the paper tiger cannot stomach. Also I imagine their doctrine is based around committing to rescues like this, and having to admit defeat of that concept at the outset of a war would be a weak start. Additionally, this gives the US a nice opportunity to do a probing attack and see how IRGC and local forces can respond.
Pilots aren’t your standard replaceable grunts, they have to go through intense physical, mental, and technical training to operate equipment worth tens of millions of dollars. So it can very much make sense to rescue a single pilot (technically a weapons system officer in this case, but I'm pretty sure they go through a similar amount of training). Even if they suffer severe spinal compression from the ejection and can’t fly in combat, they are still useful as instructors, or maybe even as drone operators.
Al Jazeera as well as other agencies like Xinhua (citing Al Jazeera) say both war criminals have been "rescued". No real ambiguity in this reporting I'm seeing. They're out, they're safe, US succeeded.
I can see them declaring this an Easter miracle and a sign their wicked war god smiles on their vile crusade.
AJ is Qatari state propaganda. Wouldn't trust them. They were peddling the idea that Iran was out of missiles.
Sounds like cope. They're not lying about this but you're coping about it for some reason. Sticking your head in the sand when your enemies get a win isn't a good look. AJ is no less/more trustworthy than the AP who are reporting Trump says the rescued war criminal was injured but has been extracted.
People were doing this same cope over the Maduro kidnapping and such. West lies about a lot of things but not these types of situations so much because they're verifiable easily and cause anger and humiliation domestically which isn't acceptable in the way calling an enemy simultaneously weak and strong is.
Why would they be deemed rescued but still not exfiltrated? Are they unable to fly out for some reason? Does that imply the exfiltration team is stuck as well?
Nevermind, seeing reports that they’re all out now ):
I guess AJ was just fucking with us
🇮🇷 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Public Relations: — By the grace of Allah, an American enemy aircraft that was searching for the pilot of the downed fighter jet was destroyed in the southern Isfahan region by the fighters of Islam.
Further details will be announced subsequently.