Posts Tagged ‘Kuwait’

Iran Strikes: Day 3

Monday, March 2nd, 2026

Days 1 and 2 of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion were filled with so much dramatic news and high value targets that it was hard to keep up. Day 3 is a bit less dramatic, just more U.S. and Israel strike packets hitting targets in the country with essential impunity. And some of those targets (like border posts and police stations) seem to be tertiary targets.

So here’s another round up news. I think all the tweets are from the Suchomimus Discord.

  • After a Persian gulf shipping update, Beege Welborn brings us news of another ingenious Israeli hack.

    In what has to be the greatest hack since the beeper attack, the ingenious Israelis have had their cyber guys at work again and busted into the regime’s version of The Hallow app for Islamic Religious Fundamentalists.

    Why is this important?

    It’s state-sponsored, and everyone gets it.

    So now, instead of saying ‘Allahu ackbar,’ the prayer app is telling Iranians across the country, ‘Hang in there – WE ARE COMING..’

  • More glorious Israeli hacking against the regime.

    Years before the air strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israeli intelligence had been quietly mapping the daily rhythms of Tehran.

    According to reporting by the Financial Times, nearly all of the Iranian capital’s traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei’s compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted.

    That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a “pattern of life,” detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel’s intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.

    The result was Ali Khamenei and company getting express tickets to the afterlife.

  • Iranian naval command center taken out:

  • Border post strikes:

  • Related news?

  • We hit Iran’s drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri.

    The American military says it struck Iranian naval drone carrier IRIS Shahid Bagheri during the opening strikes on Iran on Saturday.

    “The Iranian regime’s false messaging machine continues to falsely claim that it has sunk a US aircraft carrier. The only carrier that has been hit is the Shahid Bagheri, an Iranian drone carrier,” the US Central Command says.

    “US forces struck the ship within hours of launching Operation Epic Fury,” CENTCOM adds.

  • IRCG headquarters in Tehran get hit again.

  • It wasn’t all good news. Kuwait accidentally shot down three of our F-15s in a friendly fire incident. But all crew ejected successfully, and the locals seemed distinctly grateful for American military might.

  • And now Habitual Linecrosser to bring a since of perspective to the last three days:

  • If I missed some in-theater tidbit of particular import, feel free to share it in the comments.

    Iran Strikes: Day 2

    Sunday, March 1st, 2026

    If it wasn’t clear from yesterday’s roundup, it appears that a whole lot of Islamic Republic of Iran leaders were physically meeting at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s bunker in Tehran when the successful decapitation strike was carried out as part of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion. The operations are still ongoing, and here are some news updates.

  • “‘All’ of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are ‘probably dead’ following US-Israeli strikes.”

    • Mick Mulvaney, former Trump OMB head and Chief of Staff: “A high risk, high reward type of operation.”
    • A “once in a lifetime opportunity” to both end the nuclear program and effect regime change. “All the [Iranian] senior leadership gathered together at one place at one time.”
    • The daylight attack must have meant we had really solid intel on the regime meeting. Most of our Middle East strikes happen at night during a new moon. “An opportunity they simply couldn’t pass up.”
    • “All of [Ali Khamenei’s] likely successors are probably dead as well.”
    • “The chances of getting a pro-Western, pro-American regime in Iran were as high as it ever was going to be.”
    • John Bolton was lamenting that these actions weren’t taken six or seven years ago, but the situation on the ground now is very different. “Everything has to come together at the same time for this to work.”
    • “This can’t be a forever war.”
    • Taking out the mullahs is “a step toward peace.”
  • New Guy steps into the leadership crosshairs. “Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref informed officials of plans to have him take charge of the nation during wartime, according to a report from the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) published on social media late Saturday night. There was no explicit note of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s ability to carry out presidential duties.”
  • Simon Whistler covers the strikes:

    Much of this covers information included here yesterday, but here are a few new tidbits.

    • Whistler states Iran is claiming they hit Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. LiveUAMap shows a strike against Prince Sultan Air Base, which is over a 100 miles from Riyadh. I mean, they’re both in central Saudi Arabia, but, eh.
    • In Yemen, Houthis threaten retaliation. Nothing yet.
    • The gulf states are plenty pissed at Iran tossing drones and missiles at them.
    • Russia issued a single proforma condemnation of U.S. attacks. China, on the other hand, hasn’t even done that.

  • A lot of Chinese MilTech deals were supposedly in the works when things kicked off, but it looks like very little (if any) actually made it to Iran.
  • Suchomimus video the first:

    • “It is quite telling that [Khamenei]’s death is being celebrated on the streets.”
    • Khamenei was likely killed in the opening strike. “A few sources are now saying it was Israel that hit this.”
    • “Iran isn’t showing any signs of giving up. Well, these could just be the last temper tantrum of the finished regime. The generals and remaining politicians lashing out knowing their time is over and that a surrender is inevitable and just trying to inflict damage.”
    • Suchomimus sees regime change as unlikely without “boots on the ground.”
  • Suchomimus video the second, which is all damage assessment:

    • One Iranian frigate hit, but two more showing no signs of damage.
    • Bandar Abbas radar site hit. Bandar Abbas is the port city directly north of the Strait of Hormuz.
    • Four MiG-29 fighters destroyed out of 30 in service.
    • Israel took out a Basij installation in northern Tehran, they being the hated Iranian religious police. The video shows four large buildings all exploding in a matter of seconds. “Iran’s air defense is completely ineffective here.”
    • Iran’s counterstrikes have had some limited success. In Kuwait “Ali al-Salim air base was hit.” The image shows smoke rising up from three different points, one evidently from a fuel storage strike. “One of Iran’s most successful strikes to date.” Plus a car park and a support facility.
    • Iran also hit Erbil air base in Iraq, where a large fire was seen burning. No information yet on what was hit.
    • Iran also hit Al-Udeid air base in Qatar. “This is the largest American base in the Middle East.” Videos show Patriot intercepting Iranian vehicles, but also one miss and one Patriot interceptor wandering off course and hitting the ground.
  • More IDF footage of the Basij strike:

  • The War Zone’s rolling coverage yesterday. Some highlights:

    I see Tomahawks, F-18s and F-35s, and a lot of Iranian targets going boom. And other American assets are poised to join the action:

  • Update: B-2s are already in-theater pounding Iranian ballistic missile facilities.
  • Here’s The War Zone’s day two coverage.

    Plus President Trump was stating that Iranian retaliation was less than expected.

    Also this: “Imagery circulating points to Iranian attacks in the vicinity of France’s naval base in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.” In other news, there’s a French naval base in Abu Dhabi…

  • Beware of Astroturf protesters. “CCP-Linked NGO Network Prepares “Emergency Protests” In US After Trump’s Iran Strikes Jeopardize Oil Flows To China.”

    Planned demonstrations branded “Hands Off Iran” or “Stop The War On Iran” are scheduled to take place this afternoon in major cities across the U.S. From New York to Los Angeles, left-wing organizers have circulated digital flyers, coordinated social media blasts, and activated email lists urging supporters to mobilize within hours of the announcement. This activation alert for the protest-industrial complex occurred shortly after the Department of War’s “Operation Epic Furry” began in Iran.

    To the average person, this afternoon’s protests may look like a groundswell of outrage over the U.S. strikes on Iran, especially given that the Trump administration campaigned on no new foreign wars. But the speed, uniform messaging, and coordinated national footprint suggest something highly more organized – and familiar for readers, as we’ve diligently followed the activities of the protest-industrial complex.

    This is the same mobilization network that has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to move tens of thousands of social justice warriors into the streets in under 12 hours.

    Earlier this year, that same protest infrastructure powered nationwide pro-Maduro demonstrations almost immediately after developments in Venezuela made national headlines. In the months prior, overlapping coalitions were instrumental in organizing the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and other campuses, as well as anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles and other sanctuary cities. The causes shift. The slogans change. The logistical infrastructure – or the machine that makes this spark – remains the same.

    What we are witnessing is not a loose collection of anti-war activists or 1970s-style hippies responding independently to global events. It is a coordinated ecosystem of dark-money funded nonprofits, advocacy groups, campus organizations, and ideological networks that can rapidly repurpose whatever geopolitical flashpoint dominates the news cycle. From the George Floyd riots to pro-Palestine protests to anti-Tesla protests to anti-Trump protests and anti-Elon Musk protests to anti-DOGE protests to anti-ICE protests/riots, these movements are not dedicated to a single issue. They are part of omni-cause mobilizers, sowing chaos deep within the nation’s core.

    Whether the banner reads “Free Palestine,” “Hands Off Venezuela,” “Abolish ICE,” or now “Hands Off Iran,” the same names frequently appear on sponsorship lists. The same fiscal sponsors provide infrastructure. The same activist pipelines appear.

    This brings us to far-left billionaire Neville Roy Singham, whom The New York Times recently described as “known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes” and as someone who “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.”

    Singham’s network, shortly after Operation Epic Furry began, announced on X “New York City Emergency Protest” to “Stop The war On Iran.”

    “The U.S. and Israel are carrying out an unprovoked, illegal bombing campaign on Iran. This war serves no one but a tiny elite and oil executives and is a continuation of more than two years of genocide in Palestine and US-Israeli aggressions throught the region,” the People’s Forum, a Manhattan far-left non-profit also linked to Singham, wrote on X.

    Other left-wing groups on the flyer tied to Singham’s network include the ANSWER Coalition and CODEPINK. Also on the list are the Democratic Socialists of America, American Muslims for Palestine, the National Iranian American Council, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, and 50501.

  • After almost half a century, we’re finally cutting the head off the snake.

    November 4, 1979 — almost 47 years ago — Iran seized the American embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage. Ever since then, American presidents have struggled with what to do.

    Jimmy Carter temporized for many months, even as ABC’s newly created Nightline — a nighttime news show created specially to cover the hostage crisis — opened every night with “America held hostage, day XXX.” His wife, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, finally prodded him to do something. The “something” turned out to be a shambolic rescue mission that ended in disaster.

    President Reagan intimidated the mullahs a bit, but never seriously retaliated for the Beirut barracks bombing that killed over 200 Marines along with over a score of other service personnel. George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq but left the mullahs largely alone. Bill Clinton did nothing of substance. George W. Bush had a chance to bring the Iranians to heel after the conquest of Iraq, but inexplicably failed to press his advantage. Barack Obama was, basically, complicit in their nuclear program, to the point of famously sending them pallets of cash totaling over a billion dollars.

    President Trump, on the other hand, killed General Soleimani and told other Iranian leaders that they could be next. And now they are next.

    So what have we learned, and what’s likely to happen in the future?

    Well, first, with the capture of Maduro and now this, we’ve learned that our military can do things no one else can. We seized a leader of a hostile nation from his largest military base and brought him to custody without losing a single American life. Now we’ve killed the single biggest threat to American interests in the Mideast, along with much of his senior leadership, again without losing a single American life.

    Why didn’t we do this before? And why could we do it now? The reason we can do it now is mostly leadership. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quickly prioritized precision and lethality in the military; President Trump was willing to use the military in ways prior presidents were not.

    Why didn’t we do this before? Part of that is because the foreign policy establishment, like the domestic policy establishment, doesn’t exist to solve problems. It exists to manage those problems in ways that keep its members cushily employed. To, in Myres McDougal’s words, “maintain tensions at a level short of unacceptable violence.”

    Trump, on the other hand, wants to solve things, even if it involves inflicting unacceptable violence on the enemy. Also, he regards our enemies as actual enemies, not as “foreign colleagues” or “partners in peace.” To quote author Keith Laumer, “there’s nothing as peaceful as a dead troublemaker.” Khamenei is now peaceful.

    In fact, Trump’s approach across the board, which has brought him success after success in his first 13 months back in office, is to solve problems the way the guys in the bar say they would do it. Too much illegal immigration? Close the border and deport the illegals. Problems with Iran? Kill their leaders and encourage a revolution. Venezuela shipping drugs and gangs to the U.S.? Capture their leader and encourage his successor to cooperate or share his fate. You can just do things.

    The thing is, though, that there’s a subtlety in this approach. Just doing things turns out to work. But if you take a step back from these actions of Trump’s, the big picture shows a pretty coherent strategy. Trump wants to weaken China without going to war with China. He has now cut off two major suppliers of oil to the PRC, which produces hardly any oil of its own. (It’s worse than that, because China wasn’t paying for that oil with dollars, and now it will need dollars to buy oil elsewhere.) That applies a squeeze to an already squeezed CCP, and will make Xi’s position, domestically and internationally, weaker. Also the military excellence recently displayed has to inspire second, third, and fourth thoughts about invading Taiwan.

    Trump’s tactics typically have two characteristics: He goes after his opponents’ source of sustenance (usually that means money, but not always) and he accomplishes more than one thing at a time. In neutralizing Iran, Trump accomplishes a lot of things. First, of course, he neutralizes a major hostile regional threat.

    But second, he cuts the ground out from under what’s left of Hamas and Hezbollah. He also shuts off the pipeline of cash that was being used to bribe politicians and journalists in Europe (the Iranians have basically admitted that they do that) and support various NGOs and the like that serve anti-American and anti-Israeli ends. Iran has been a major sponsor of terrorism around the world; that will end.

    With Iran gone (and India, thanks to tariffs, eager to be on our team) the threat of the BRICS has been sharply reduced. Brazil under Lula isn’t friendly, but isn’t a power house. Russia and China don’t like us but China needs oil and Russia is broke and mired in an endless and ruinous war of its own devising.

    With Iranians free to say what they think of the mullahs’ regime, he also delegitimizes the left’s narrative that fundamentalist Islam somehow has some sort of anti-colonial virtue. In fact, the mullahs ran Iran as a Persian colony of an Arab ideology. The Iranian public is well aware of this, and will be saying that a lot.

    And if he’s able to see a new pro-American government in Iran (distinctly likely) we’ll have a regional ally that will encourage the Arab states, currently friendly to us and Israel out of fear of Iran, to remain friendly to us and Israel out of a different sort of fear of Iran.

  • As they say: Developing…

    Update Some tidbits of news from the Suchomimus discord:

  • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claims he’s alive and in charge:

    Power struggle between him and Mohammad Reza Aref, or just confusion?

  • Iranian foreign minister is suggesting that no one is actually in charge, that the chain of command has broken down and the military is just sort of acting on general vibes:

    Which is not what you want to hear less than 48 hours into a shooting war…

  • Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah heir apparent, is apparently dead as well.

  • That four building complex previously described as Basij headquarters is here described as “Sarallah Headquarters” or “security crisis management command center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran”:

    Now technically, the Basij is a subset of the IRGC, so that may be where the confusion comes in. Or the complex could be both. Google Maps isn’t helping me out here…

  • More of Iran’s classic aircraft destroyed:

  • Despite claims of not being involved, UK fighters are reportedly flying CAP over the Persian Gulf:

  • I’m dancing as fast as I can…

    Update 2: Another Suchomimus video. Did Iran just sink their own shadow fleet tanker?

    Update 3 via Instapundit:

  • Also dead: Iran’s ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  • More Iranian officials killed:

    “Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed at the meeting alongside the head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and security adviser Ali Shamkhani.”

  • Why do feminists hate women’s freedom?

  • Update 4 via the Suchomimus Discord.

  • More dead regime bigwigs:

    “Iranian state media confirmed the killing of seven senior Armed Forces commanders in the US-Israeli strikes. Those killed include Supreme Leader’s office chief Mohammad Shirazi, his deputy Akbar Ebrahimzadeh, Armed Forces intelligence deputy Saleh Asadi, logistics deputy Mohsen Darreh Baghi, police intelligence chief Gholamreza Rezaeian, Armed Forces operations planning chief Bahram Hosseini Motlaq, and Armed Forces logistics chief Hasanali Tajik.”

  • More regime buildings go boom:

  • Update 5 Saw ships, sunk same.

    U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian naval ships have been sunk as part of combat operations against Iran.

    “I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump wrote in a post on X, adding that Iran’s naval headquarters has been “largely destroyed” in a different attack.

    “We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!” Trump wrote.

    U.S. Central Command officials said earlier Sunday that an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette was struck by U.S. forces at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

    “The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier,” the statement reads. “As the president said, members of Iran’s armed forces, IRGC and police ‘must lay down your weapons.’ Abandon ship.”

    Update 6: The SUPERgeniuses controlling Iran’s missiles decided it was a swell idea to toss ballistic missiles at a UK base in Cyprus.

    Result: Craven jihad apologist Keir Starmer grows something vaguely resembling a spine and gives the U.S. permission to use Cyprus base for “defensive purposes.” With so many Middle East bases to chose from, I’m not sure the US actually has any assets they can usefully deploy there, but still.

    Clarification: Here Starmer makes clear that “defensive purposes” includes letting American assets use British bases, including those in the Persian Gulf, to hunt Iranian missile launch sites and storage facilities:

    “They say his spine grew three times as large that day…”

    The Liberation of Iran Has Begun

    Saturday, February 28th, 2026

    Since the Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to give up its nuclear weapons program or free its own people, the liberation of Iran has begun.

    The United States and Israel launched long-awaited strikes on Iran early Saturday morning, as President Trump vowed to destroy their missile capabilities, “annihilate” their navy, and ensure the nation never obtains a nuclear weapon.

    Trump, in a video message released overnight that made clear the goal is regime change, urged the Iranian people to “take over your government” when the operation is finished.

    “The hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump said. “This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. . . . This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

    America and Israel reportedly plan to carry out several days of attacks, and Trump cautioned that while the administration is taking every step to minimize risks to American personnel, “we may have casualties.”

    He added, “We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.” He urged Iranian security forces to lay down their weapons in exchange for immunity, or face “certain death.”

    Snip.

    During his State of the Union address, Trump began to make a broader case for military action against Iran, citing, as he did in his video remarks released overnight, the regime’s attacks over the past half-century against U.S. personnel in the region.

    You can only tug on Superman’s cape for so long.

    The United States is calling it Operation Epic Fury, while Israel is going with Lion’s Roar.

    Suchomimus has compiled footage of the strikes.

    Some highlights:

  • A strike against “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s house. The Iranian woman recording the aftermath of the strike sounds “absolutely delighted.” It was hit in broad daylight, indicating how little American and Israeli fear Iran’s degraded, Russian-sourced air defense systems.
  • A salvo of at least 30 tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the Mediterranean flying over Iraq en-route to targets in Iran.
  • Iran is (naturally) launching retaliatory rockets at Israel.
  • One of the U.S./Israeli strike targets is Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami, who has been reported killed.
  • Second Suchomimus video:

    Highlights:

  • U.S. naval base in Bahrain hit by retaliatory Iranian missiles. “This seems like it may have been a waste of missiles because reports are saying that this base was largely cleared out prior to this. So America evacuated much of the imported equipment and troops and ships from here to a safer place. So there was nothing of importance here.” And geolocation shows that Iran might actually have hit a nearby mosque.

  • A possible successful strike in Dubai.
  • Also Iranian missiles being successfully intercepted over Abu Dhabi. Likely target was Al Dhafra Air Base, but nothing seems to have been hit there.
  • But a possible successful strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, though its not clear what, if anything, was hit.
  • “Two places hit by the US are Iranian naval bases Asaluyeh and Chabahar…Asaluyeh is a major target. This is known to be an underground storage complex for the Iranian Navy in which speedboats and coastal defense missiles are stored here.”
  • “Also confirmed hit was the headquarters of the IRGC, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, who are a major branch of the Iranian armed forces.” This is near Damavand, an underground complex that was reportedly hit with bunker buster bombs.
  • Israel reportedly hit Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, head of Iran’s judiciary courts.
  • A quick LiveUAMap snapshot of in-theater action:

    President Trump’s announcement of the strikes:

  • “A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.”
  • “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating eminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”
  • “Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries.”
  • He covers the regime’s role in the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
  • “Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq. The regime’s proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as US naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lands. It’s been mass terror and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.”
  • “it was Iran’s proxy Hamas that launched the monstrous October 7th attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage. It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.”
  • “Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested.”
  • “It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon.”
  • “They’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.”
  • “Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.”
  • “For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”
  • “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally again obliterated.”
  • “We are going to annihilate their navy.”
  • “We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces and no longer use their IEDs, or roadside bombs as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people including many Americans.”
  • “And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
  • “This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States armed forces.”
  • “My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to US personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war.”
  • “But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran.”
  • “We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm’s way. And we trust that, with his help, the men and women of the armed forces will prevail. We have the greatest in the world, and they will prevail.”
  • “To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death. So, lay down your arms, you will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death.”
  • “Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere.”
  • “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond.”
  • “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”
  • “May God bless the brave men and women of America’s armed forces. May God bless the United States of America. May God bless you all. Thank you.”
  • Possibly more later…

    Update: Unconfirmed reports out of Israel that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. Iran denying.

    Update 2: The Taliban call on Muslims worldwide…not to support Iran.

    I don’t think many people had that on their bingo card…

    Update 3: Peter Zeihan weighs in, and we didn’t even have to wait a week:

    He says all the Iranian drone and missile facilities were hit, and that the Israelis were ones hitting Iranian leadership. But no sign they’ve hit the Shahed production facilities…yet. And no sign of attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

    His military sources are generally better than his political sources, but several grains of salt are usually in order anyway.

    Update 4: Power plant on Kharg Island, the terminal for the vast majority of Iran’s oil exports, hit:

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    Update 5: We’re hitting Iran with clones of their own Shahed drones:

    Though presumably with better guidance systems…

    Update 6: PJMedia is reporting Ali Khamenei confirmed dead.

    Despite some initial debate, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed during the airstrikes Saturday morning, Israeli officials report.

    “Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in an Israeli strike on Tehran, with his body found under the rubble caused by an Israeli airstrike, senior Israeli officials were informed on Saturday evening,” the Jerusalem Post reports. “Documentation of Khamenei’s body was reportedly shown to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

    Update 7: Suchomimus has footage of Khamenei’s flattened compound.

    Probably more on this video later. It’s Saturday and I’ve got Other Stuff that needs doing…

    Update 8: Via Stephen Green at Instapundit, some Strategery:

    Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Greenland, Panama…it’s all interconnected and it all points to China.

    As U.S. energy ramps up, and China is deprived of subsidized oil, subsidized shipping channels, freedom of navigation through sovereign waters and allies that can cause the U.S. problems…their global position diminishes substantially and their costs of doing business skyrocket.

    Venezuela and Iran account for something like 20% of China’s oil imports and they’re getting an insane deal on it. China has a huge problem if that oil goes away.

    You’d be forgiven for thinking Trump’s foreign policy seems random and chaotic, but it’s actually one of the most focused and (thus far) well executed foreign policies in at least 2 generations.

    Update 9: Reports that Iranian drones and missiles have hit Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. Minor injuries reported.

    Update 10: Heh x3: “Ayatollah To Give Speech As Soon As Officials Find The Rest Of His Body.”

    “Iranian Generals Kicking Themselves For Not Just Meeting Over Zoom.”

    “Mamdani Orders Flags At One World Trade Center Flown Half-Staff To Mourn Ayatollah.”

    Update 11: Khamenei death confirmed by Iran.

    Uncle Sam Assembles Big Stick For Iran

    Monday, February 9th, 2026

    The U.S. military has some of the biggest sticks in the world, and right now a lot of them are Voltroning together within striking distance of Iran.

  • A lot of Globemasters are flying into theater.

    An eye-opening and massive number of C-17 Globemaster military transport and cargo planes have been observed heading to Europe and the Middle East, in what some monitors have forewarned looks like the build-up to major war in Iran.

    One regional watcher and pundit commented in response: “112 C-17s are in or on their way to the Middle East. Guys, that’s a lot. Like Desert Storm a lot. Stay tuned.”

    This as on Friday the prominent open source account Armchair Admiral and others used public flight tracking data to tally that the huge armada of US Air Force C-17s and counting are en route – a trend since mid-January.

    “A total of 112 U.S. Air Force C-17’s have now either arrived or are en route to the Middle East with a further 17-18 in-progress flights, a number of Royal Air Force logistics flights from RAF Marham to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and movement on U.S. Air Force CORONETs,” the source said.

    C-17s are massive, and can deliver huge amounts of equipment or large numbers of troops in a single go. The US military lists some of the following key capabilities:

    • Payload capacity of over 170,000 pounds
    • Ability to operate on short, austere runways as small as 3,500 feet
    • Intercontinental range, with in-flight refueling extending reach even further
    • Rapid load/unload design to keep missions moving under pressure

    Iran and the US just concluded an initial round of indirect talks mediated by Oman, but despite some hopeful statements issued by either side, it is very clear Iran is not willing to negotiate its ballistic missile program – a sticking point being demanded by Washington. A second round is expected in the coming days, unless military action ensues first.

    Iran’s foreign minister has newly questioned whether Washington is taking these talks seriously, or if they are merely a pretext for more time to allow for a US force build-up in the region.

    So airbases in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait. Trump’s critics have underestimated how well he’s unified the Sunni kingdoms against Iran. Go back to, say, 1989, and tell all the Middle East experts that one day an American Republican President would be able to build a coalition of Muslim countries that are more hostile to Iran than Israel and they’d look at you like you’d just grown a second head.

    Also note that the Royal Navy presence, along with the EU adding the Iranian Republican Guards to the list of terrorist groups, shows that Europe is also tired of Iran’s current jihadi regime.

  • What other assets is the U.S. flying in theater? F-22s.

    Two F-22 Raptor stealth jets originally slated for Super Bowl LX flyover have been removed due to “operational assignments,” the Air Force announced Friday.

    Katie Spencer, who helps organize the Department of the Air Force’s sports outreach programs and coordinated the flyover formation, said the F-22s were part of the original concept but were reassigned as operational demands increased.

    “We wanted fifth-generation aircraft from the Air Force and fifth-generation aircraft from the Navy,” Spencer said in a Friday interview with The Military Times. “But as things happen in our military, operational tempo has increased, and so the F-22s got pulled for some operational assignments.”

    Spencer declined to detail the specific missions that required the aircraft’s reassignment, but F-22s have recently been involved in several high-profile operations. In June, the fighters played a key role in Operation Midnight Hammer, a B-2 Spirit bomber-led strike campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities.

    Uncle Sam is notoriously possessive of the fifth generation air superiority fighter. So let’s break out the Bad Boys II meme again.

  • Other naval assets in-theater include:

    The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and the USS Michael Murphy, a guided-missile destroyer.

    Other U.S. naval assets, including the USS Bulkeley, USS Roosevelt, USS Delbert D. Black, USS McFaul, USS Mitscher, USS Spruance and USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., are positioned across key waterways surrounding Iran, from the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea.

    Lincoln and Roosevelt are both* is a Nimitz-class supercarrier (and that’s Theodore Roosevelt, so they carrier’s nickname is literally “Big Stick”). USS Roosevelt [addded – LP], Michael Murphy, Bulkeley, Delbert D. Black, McFaul, Mitscher, Spruance and Frank E. Petersen Jr. are all Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyers.

  • If Iran is indeed treating its nuclear weapon program as non-negotiable, as its been claiming in talks, then regime change is inevitable. As Operation Midnight Hammer showed, both President Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu regard Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat, and the popular uprising against the mullahs over the collapse of Iran’s economy have finally created conditions ripe for consigning the Islamic Republic of Iran to the dust-heap of history.

    Chances of that regime lasting out the year would appear to be slim and none.


    *Wrong Roosevelt.

    Remembering the Battle of Medina Ridge

    Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

    We’ve already talked about the Battle of 73 Easting, so let’s talk about the battle that followed close on it’s heels, the Battle of Medina Ridge, the 32nd anniversary of which just passed, and which some regard as the largest tank battle of Desert Storm.

  • Following 73 Easting and the Battle of Norfolk, The Adnan Republican Guard division of motorized infantry launched an artillery spoiling attack against the U.S. First Armored to slow their advance, only to be slaughtered by MLRS cluster bombs, Apaches and A-10s.
  • This is simultaneous with the destruction of loot-laden Iraqi vehicles on the Highway of Death and the burning of Kuwaiti oil fields.
  • Despite the Iraqis believing that the rugged terrain south of the Euphrates valley is too difficult for an armored division to negotiate, the 24th Infantry Division reached their objective, securing Highway 8 east of where the 101st had done so a couple of days earlier. They blockade the highway, destroying over 100 vehicles retreating westwards with tank and TOE fire. Bedouin nomads watching from atop a nearby ridgeline politely applaud as tank rounds hit their targets.

  • The Medina Division of the Iraqi Republican Guard is the last organized combat force standing against the U.S. and its allies.
  • While the Iraqis have entrenched behind a small hill the Americans must crest, they’ve made the mistake of being just out of range of their T-72s.
  • “For the next 40 minutes, the engaged elements of the First Armored Division simply sit there picking off Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles with impunity. The Iraqis desperately call in artillery support, but the rounds fall behind the front line of Abrams tanks.”
  • “The 1st and 25th Field Artillery Regiments respond. Using artillery acquisition radars, the U.S. artillery is able to detect the firing of an Iraqi artillery piece, pinpoint its exact position, and return counter artillery fire on it before the Iraqi round has even landed. Within just a few minutes, two entire artillery battalions of the Medina division have been wiped out.”
  • “40 minutes after the battle began, the Medina’s right flank has been completely destroyed, and the right flank of the American force is just beginning to smash into the Medina’s left. In this sector, many Iraqi tanks are pointing southwest. The nearest tanks are destroyed before they can even rotate their turrets towards the Americans. Those that do fire back find that they are again outranged.”
  • Apaches and A-10s join in here as well.
  • “The battle would become known as The Battle of Medina Ridge. It lasts just two hours during which 186 Iraqi tanks and 172 armored vehicles are destroyed. Four American Abrams tanks are lost.”
  • I’m skipping over some secondary action and friendly fire incidents, but the Iraqis were complete routed and Americans took minimal casualties.

    If more modern American and NATO tanks using combined arms operations took on even more antiquated Soviet tanks in Ukraine, the result is likely to be similar.

    LinkSwarm for October 2, 2020

    Friday, October 2nd, 2020

    Welcome to the October country, one of my favorite months! It being 2020, things lean rather more heavily on tricks than treats…

  • Two important points from Tuesday’s debate:

    (1) If he wins, Biden will almost certainly sign off on ending the filibuster to pack the courts and add two new states for a permanent Democrat majority that will leave the Constitution behind.

    (2) Trump may have announced that he’s about to reveal that the Democrats, from Obama on down, engaged in a coup against an American president.

    (Hat tip: ZeroHedge.)

  • Is CIA Director Gina Haspel personally blocking the release of Russiagate documents?
  • New documents show that the goal of the Flynn investigation wasn’t a search for truth, it was to get him fired.
  • So, who had “Armenian Azerbaijani War Over Nagorno Karabakh” on their 2020 bingo card? Here’s a map I swiped from Wikipedia:

    And here’s the Livemap.

  • France has accused Turkey of sending Syrian jihadists there to fight for Muslim Azerbaijan. Remember that Turkey killed over 1.5 million Armenians during the rise of the Young Turks as part of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, so the bad blood there goes back a long ways.
  • Virginia passes law decreeing that Christians have no right to that pesky First Amendment and must align their theology with the tranny mafia or face fines. Is your Church government approved, comrade? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Top Obama FBI official wants a commission to rule out any presidential candidates who threaten to bust their scams. Of course, he uses different language… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Has a member of Mueller’s team flipped for Durham?
  • Australian blogger examines Wuhan coronavirus data:

    Quick conclusion: Relative to the number of infections fewer people have died in the US than in Australia. So for all the talk about not letting us have a US style health system, it has performed relatively better than ours did. True, Australian base levels of health are higher than US levels. Relatively fewer people got infected here than in the US. (We can argue about why that happened in the comments – probably policy errors in themselves at the State level in the US). Once infected, however, it looks like the chances of survival was higher in the US.

  • Kuwait’s ruler Emir Sheikh Sabah dead at 91.
  • “Clare Bronfman Becomes First NXIVM Sex-Slave Trafficker to Get Jail Time.” Namely six years and nine months. You know it’s a crazy year when you don’t have time to pay attention rich, powerful weirdos being tried for running a sex cult…
  • Coinbase SJW babies: We have to be woke! Coinbase CEO: There’s the door.
  • Hopefully Spotify will do the same to staffers demanding the right to censor Joe Rogan.
  • What things irritate the left the most during a nomination fight? Republicans nominating blacks, women, or Hispanics. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Things generating irrational hatred in Trump Derangement Syndrome suffers this week is (rolls dice)…bales of hay in Rappahannock County, Virginia, population 7,252.
  • The Texas House District 148 battle features a fight between a Hispanic Republican against a Democratic candidate with even more ties than usual to communism. “During a July 2018 presentation, “The Art and Science of Building the Communist Party,” Chairman of the Houston chapter of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Bernard Sampson boasted that his club had placed four communist party members on the Texas ballot, including Morales-Shaw who he specifically identified as a member of his group.”
  • NBA conference finals down 40% since last year, despite involving the Lakers.

    I think the explanation for plummeting viewership is fairly obvious, even if Strauss would rather not talk about it. Conservative America is disgusted with the NBA, and therefore is tuning it out. We’re disgusted with the way the league kowtows to China and even more disgusted with the embrace of the radical BLM movement by the league and its players.

    I didn’t watch a minute of the playoffs this year and rarely even checked the scores. Not because of what many of the players think about the police and about America, in general, as slanderous as those views are. And not even because players made pro-BLM gestures before the games began.

    My problem was what was allowed, indeed encouraged, during the games. I will not watch any sports event during which the preaching of politics or ideology occurs.

    I guess I’m not alone.

    Conservative America’s divorce from the NBA is a sign, I think, of things to come. Unless corporate America steps back from its embrace of woke leftism, we are going to have to divorce ourselves from large swathes of it. To the extent feasible, we may have to divorce ourselves from many of America’s public schools. And so forth.

  • New South Korean mini nuclear reactor that can’t melt down approved for use in the United States. First plant is scheduled to come online in Utah, but not until 2029. Faster, please.
  • How to disable the nightmarish bullshit that is the WordPress “Block” Editor.
  • And here’s the post I was tempted to write: “Fuck You WordPress, Yet Again (Block Editor).”
  • Ireland’s Supreme Court rules that Subway bread isn’t. You would think that if it used that much sugar it would taste better. Then again, I’m not sure I’ve bought a Subway sandwich since the heyday of the $5 Footlong era…
  • “See Inside a 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom, the Most Expensive Rolls-Royce Ever Made.”
  • There would be an amusing Tweet here about a guy riding a wall of death with a lion, but some bastard hacked Iowahawk’s account.
  • The good news is that he’s back, the bad news is that right now he’s lacking all tweets after May 22. I hope they get that fixed soon.
  • Enjoy a movie review of The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
  • “Amy Coney Barrett Holds Press Conference In Handmaid’s Tale Costume Just To Mess With Liberals.”
  • “Democrats Prepare To Give Republicans Free Ad Footage Of Them Attacking Successful, Religious Mother Of 7.”
  • “Ninth Circuit Court Overturns Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green.)
  • “‘Coexist’ Molotov Cocktails Now Available.”
  • Looks like someone is worried about the competition:

  • LinkSwarm for March 10, 2017

    Friday, March 10th, 2017

    Welcome to Friday! (And welcome Instapundit readers coming in off Stephen Green’s link to yesterday’s border security roundup.)

    First up: Liberalism’s continued idée fixe on the “Russians hacked the election” fantasy.

  • If Trump had actually been in the pay of the Russians, Wayne Barrett, who worked the Trump beat for the Village Voice for 40 years, would have known about it. “Wayne Barrett had this file for 40 years, and if neither he nor the reporters he trained got this story, it’s not a story.”
  • Even some liberals are now seeing the Russian fantasy as a dangerous distraction that helps Trump.
  • Lefty Glenn Greenwald agrees:

    This obsession with Russia conspiracy tales is poisoning all aspects of U.S. political discourse and weakening any chance for resisting Trump’s actual abuses and excesses. Those who wake up every day to hype the latest episode of this Russia/Trump spy drama tell themselves that they’re bravely undermining and subverting Trump, but they’re doing exactly the opposite.

    This crazed conspiracy mongering is further discrediting U.S. media outlets, making Washington seem even more distant from and irrelevant to the lives of millions of Americans, degrading discourse to the lowliest Trumpian circus level on which he thrives, and is misdirecting huge portions of opposition energy and thought into an exciting but fictitious spy novel – all of which directly redounds to Trump’s benefit.

    Snip.

    Above all else, it’s because it’s an offensive assault on reason. This kind of deranged discourse is an attack on basic journalistic integrity, on any minimal obligation to ensure that one’s claims are based in evidence rather than desire, fantasy, and herd-enforced delusions. And it’s emanating from the most established and mainstream precincts of U.S. political and media elites, who have processed the severe disorientation and loss of position they feel from Trump’s shock election not by doing the work to patiently formulate cogent, effective strategies against him, but rather by desperately latching onto online “dot-connecting” charlatans and spewing the most unhinged Birther-level conspiracies that require a complete abandonment of basic principles of rationality and skepticism.

  • The timidness of the House GOP ObamaCare repeal plan shows that liberalism has already won.
  • Liberals threaten to primary Democratic senators who vote for cloture on Neil Gorsuch. I’m sure there’s no way that supergenius plan could possibly backfire on them…
  • Speaking of Gorsuch, “the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary voted unanimously to rate Neil Gorsuch as “well qualified” to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States,” the highest rating possible. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Nate Silver at 538: “There Really Was A Liberal Media Bubble.” Silver comes to many of the same conclusions about MSM blinders that conservatives have been making for years. A few samples:
    • “Much of The New York Times’s coverage, for instance, implied that Clinton’s odds were close to 100 percent.”
    • “In a country where educational attainment is an increasingly important predictor of cultural and political behavior, some 92 percent of journalists have college degrees. A degree didn’t used to be a de facto prerequisite7 for a reporting job; just 70 percent of journalists had college degrees in 1982 and only 58 percent did in 1971.”
    • “The political diversity of journalists is not very strong, either. As of 2013, only 7 percent of them identified as Republicans.”
    • “All things considered, then, the conditions of political journalism are poor for crowd wisdom and ripe for groupthink.”
  • The headline is “Battle for Manbij shows Syria’s civil war is almost over – and it looks like Bashar Assad has won.” And that’s part of it. But there’s a lot of information on just how complex the Syrian-Iraqi battlespace is:

    Winners and losers are emerging in what may be the final phase of the Syrian civil war as anti-Isis forces prepare for an attack aimed at capturing Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital in Syria. Kurdish-led Syrian fighters say they have seized part of the road south of Raqqa, cutting Isis off from its other territory further east.

    Isis is confronting an array of enemies approaching Raqqa, but these are divided, with competing agendas and ambitions. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose main fighting force is the Syrian Kurdish Popular Mobilisation Units (YPG), backed by the devastating firepower of the US-led air coalition, are now getting close to Raqqa and are likely to receive additional US support. The US currently has 500 Special Operations troops in north-east Syria and may move in American-operated heavy artillery to reinforce the attack on Raqqa.

    This is bad news for Turkey, whose military foray into northern Syria called Operation Euphrates Shield began last August, as it is being squeezed from all sides. In particular, an elaborate political and military chess game is being played around the town of Manbij, captured by the SDF last year, with the aim of excluding Turkey, which had declared it to be its next target. The Turkish priority in Syria is to contain and if possible reduce or eliminate the power of Syrian Kurds whom Ankara sees as supporting the Kurdish insurrection in Turkey.

  • “The U.S. military is sending an additional 2,500 ground combat troops to a staging base in Kuwait from which they could be called upon to back up coalition forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” So instead of following Obama’s strategy of losing slowly and expensively, President Trump’s goal appears to be to crush the Islamic State entirely.
  • “Marine Le Pen: ‘France Isn’t Burkinis on the Beach, France is Brigitte Bardot.'” France is a lot of things, but they could certainly do worse than Brigitte Bardot…

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • 40% of households in Philadelphia can’t pay their water bill.” Remind me again which party runs Philadelphia… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • School restages Trump-Clinton debates, but with a woman playing Trump and a man playing Hillary. Result: Hillary loses even more badly than before. “It seems to me that Hillary’s gender actually covered up her flaws, such as inauthenticity, scriptedness, recitations of pablum, and fake-smiling, while, when she was played by a male actor, those flaws were suddenly very visible to the people who think of themselves as ‘gender-woke’ but maybe should just think of themselves as gender partisans.”
  • Orrin Hatch reneges on retirement promise. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Social Justice Syndrome: “Rising Tide of Personality Disorders Among Millennials.”
  • “100 of the 544 Women’s March partners received a total of $246,637,217 from [George] Soros between 2000 and 2014. Soros gave more than $1 million to 36 of those partners, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, MoveOn.org, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.” (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Washington Examiner writer finds the perfect place to visit on the “Day Without Women”: Hooters. I guess that’s an excuse to break out this classic:

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Charles Murray on what it was like to be in the middle of a violent crowd trying to assault him.
  • Lawsuit of man wrongly expelled from Amherst for a “rape” that consisted of him receiving a blowjob while he was passed out can move forward after a judge’s ruling.
  • “Defense contracting firm owners Jeffrey Harrington and Michael Mayer, and employee sisters Kimberlee Hewitt and Natalee Hewitt, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in California to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and file false claims for using their companies — Veteran Logistics, Inc., Industrial Xchange, Inc., and Boston Laser Technology, Inc. — to sell the government $45 million worth of mostly incorrect and overpriced products.” As far as I can tell, this naval contracting scandal is unrelated to the Fat Leonard naval contracting scandal. Did the Navy just forget to hire auditors?
  • What’s a little rape to Democrats if there are pipelines to be protested?
  • Lynne Stewart, the radical lawyer and convicted felon who represented murderous anti-American scumbags pro bono, has died.
  • Another day, another fake hate crime exposed.
  • CNN’s new frontier in tastelessness: Cannibalism. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Speaking of CNN: “CNN cuts feed on guest after he cites jihad terror cases involving ‘refugees.'”
  • “Trump Immigration Order Requires Govt Report on ‘Honor Killings‘ by Foreign Nationals.”
  • Don’t believe everything you read about the CIA Vault7 leak. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Radio Shack to close another 187 stores. In other news, Radio Shack still has stores to close. I also ask your forgiveness in advance when I rerun this joke next year. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • In prison, mackerel can be exchanged for goods and services.
  • Brings an entire new meaning to the phrase “Got wood?”
  • Japanese man dies after being crushed under six tons of pornography. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Note that I now have a Gab account in addition to my Twitter account.
  • What is It With the Clintons Hiring Employees With Ties to the Muslim Brotherhood?

    Tuesday, July 26th, 2016

    I can certainly understand the Clinton clan’s self-centered greed and avarice. What I struggle to understand is why they keep repeatedly hiring employees with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Take, for example, former Clinton Foundation employee Gehad El-Haddad, who was just sentenced to life in prison in Egypt for his work as the mouthpiece for Mohamed Morsi’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government.

    Then there are the well documented familial links between perpetual #1 Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and the Muslim Brotherhood:

    Sheikh Qaradawi is a promoter of jihadist terror. His fatwas endorse terrorist attacks against American personnel in Iraq as well as suicide bombing — by both men and women — against Israel. He is a leading supporter of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. He also runs an umbrella organization called the Union for Good (sometimes referred to as the “Union of Good”), which is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. The Union for Good was behind the “Peace Flotilla” that attempted to break our ally Israel’s blockade of the terrorist organization Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch) in 2010.

    That’s rather interesting — at least to me, though apparently not to Speaker Boehner — because Huma Abedin’s mother, Saleha, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s female division (the “Muslim Sisterhood”), is a major figure in not one but two Union for Good components. The first is the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR). It is banned in Israel for supporting Hamas under the auspices of the Union for Good. Then there’s the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC) — an organization that Dr. Saleha Abedin has long headed. Dr. Abedin’s IICWC describes itself as part of the IICDR. And wouldn’t you know it, the IICWC charter was written by none other than . . . Sheikh Qaradawi, in conjunction with several self-proclaimed members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    The recently declassified 28 pages of the 9/11 report has more to say about it. “The ‘Abedin family business’ is an academic group called the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs that is based in the London offices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and its parent organization, the Muslim World League.”

    About the World Arab Muslim Youth Association:

    According to the FBI. Abdullah Bin Ladin [Osama bin Laden’s half-brother] has a number of connections to terrorist organizations. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Science in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

    According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to to fight in the Afghan War.” In 1998, the CIA published a paper characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding. logistical support and training with possible connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists and Philippine militants.

    Who else calls attention to the World Arab Muslim Youth Association’s ties to terrorism? Would you believe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

    Saudi Arabia has enacted important reforms to criminalize terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities. However, these restrictions fail to include multilateral organizations such as the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY.) Intelligence suggests that these groups continue to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas.

    Despite all this, Saudi pressure has helped keep the International Islamic Relief Organization and World Arab Muslim Youth Association off the official list of groups with terrorist ties.

    And as long as we’re discussing Hillary’s ties to terrorism, we should probably mention “numerous ties between Hillary Clinton and members of the shadowy network surrounding Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Muslim cleric who has been called ‘the Turkish Khomeini,’ and whom the Erdogan regime is accusing of instigating the coup that nearly toppled it.” (Just because I don’t think Gulen had any significant role in the coup doesn’t mean he’s not an Islamist scumbag.)

    According to the Caller, the Gulen camp has been one of Hillary’s numerous sources of cash, in exchange for which she gave access to the President: “a Gulen follower named Gokhan Ozkok asked Clinton deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin for help in connecting one of his allies to President Obama….Ozkok served as national finance co-chair of the pro-Clinton Ready PAC. He gave $10,000 to the committee in 2014 and $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign last year. He is also listed on the Turkish Cultural Center’s website as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the non-profit arms of the Clinton Foundation. He’s given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton charity.”

    Ah, money for access. Now the Clinton ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are starting to make more sense. Maybe they helped the Clinton Foundation bring in money from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, Nasser Al-Rashid, etc. Indeed, counting speaking fees and money for “walking away” from an investment partnership with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai, the Clintons have collectively pocketed $100 million from Persian Gulf rulers.

    There’s are other angles to the story I haven’t had time to track down yet. Like why did Hillary Clinton’s new VP pick Tim Kaine appoint the President of the Muslim Brotherhood-tied Muslim American Society, Esam Omeish, to Virginia’s state’s Immigration Commission?

    But I’ll have to leave those for another time.

    LinkSwarm for December 18, 2015

    Friday, December 18th, 2015

    It’s a week before Christmas, and I hope everyone is having a better week than I am (I’m sick and my dog’s sick).

  • Former FBI counterterrorism agent says that we haven’t gotten squat in terrorism leads from “moderate Muslims,” and we probably won’t as long as we keep using Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR as our only go-to groups for them. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Swedes are stocking up on guns.
  • Given that the French political establishment continues to ignore widespread French desire to stem Islamic immigration, is it any wonder Marine Le Pen’s National Front did so well in early voting?
  • DNC cuts off voter info access to Bernie Sanders campaign over data breach?
  • Environmentalists are a much more serious threat to human well being than climate change—even catastrophic climate change.”
  • The Fall of Rahm Emmanual.
  • Media Matters mouthpiece David Brock says that Ted Cruz is the biggest threat to a Hillary coronation.
  • “FitzGibbon Media, a prominent progressive public relations firm, abruptly shut down on Thursday amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault by the company’s president. Trevor FitzGibbon and his team worked with some of the biggest progressive organizations, including NARAL, MoveOn, the Center for American Progress and the AFL-CIO, as well as Wikileaks, Chelsea [i.e., Bradley] Manning and The Intercept.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • How The New York Times continually revised a story to help Obama look better.
  • Remember that ACLU board member that called for murdering Trump supporters? Turns out that calling for the assassination of political opponents is just a tad too extreme for the ACLU.
  • So we saved Kuwait’s bacon, and they can’t even be arsed to pretend they don’t hate Jews?
  • How Obama celebrated a deserter in the Rose Garden.
  • The cocked fist culture.
  • Nothing says “rational” and “reasonable” quite like calling Ted Cruz Satan incarnate. Thanks for proving that Hollywood celebrities aren’t overwrought drama queens, Cher…
  • The 25 most Florida things that happened in 2015.
  • This Week in Jihad for December 16, 2010

    Thursday, December 16th, 2010

    Lots of Jihad news of note this week: