Title is a reference to Resistance imagery about how Israeli soldiers will enter Gaza alive but leave it in coffins - the same is true for American soldiers in the Middle East if the regional war expands.
The image is of the Fattah-1 Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile, which its creators boast can overcome any missile defense system on the planet, has a range of 1400 kilometers (and thus Iran can strike Israel), and has a terminal impact velocity of Mach 13.
Dozens of American soldiers have been injured and 3 have been killed on a base in the Middle East. There has been confused reports about whether the attack was on Syrian territory or Jordan's - the Al-Tanf base is in Syria, but Tower-22 in Jordan is another base that helps supply Al-Tanf, and Tower-22 is the one that is alleged to have been hit. These is the first confirmed deaths of American troops since the conflict began, though it's not likely that this is actually the first deaths after hundreds of drone/missile strikes throughout the region on American bases, unless you think American soldiers are having extremely timely heart attacks just after a missile hits.
The attack is certainly impactful, though it does also have considerably symbolism. Courtesy of John Helmer:
The operational success of the strike for the attackers is strategic. Tower-22 is a logistics, supply, and rear guard post for the Al-Tanf base which US troops are operating thirty kilometres north across the border in Syria. The attack demonstrates that both Tower-22 and Al-Tanf, Jordan and Syria, are newly vulnerable to weapons which the US forces have failed to detect and neutralize. Just as significantly, the massive US airbase called Muwaffaq Salti, 230 kilometres west across Jordan, is also vulnerable now.
It indicates that Iran now possesses Russian expertise in countering American equipment:
“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”
I am putting my take on the table right now: I am 99% certain that the US won't attack Iran directly. I think we are still quite a while away from that being a possibility. Much more likely is that Iranian officials in Iraq or Syria will be hit by a retaliatory strike, as Israel has done recently. It is a significant escalation nonetheless. And it comes as Israel seems to be gearing up for a suicidal war with Hezbollah.
The Country of the Week is Iran! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Updates continue to be AWOL - but I am cooking something. Hopefully.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/31/politics/us-warship-close-call-houthi-missile/index.html
The Houthis got within seconds of destroying a US warship and managed to get a cruise missile to evade all other lines of defence and interceptor missiles, except for the CIWS. That is not good news for the US. Their airstrikes have failed to limit the Houthi's ability to carry out attacks on both cargo and US military ships, and the US only has so many interceptor missiles left, and missile defence with CIWS is too close to rely on. The Houthis will successfully strike a US warship if the current status quo continues. (It will not continue indefinitely obviously, as soon as the US retaliates. But then again, previous US airstrikes have failed to stop the Houthis or hinder their capabilities. )
Again, US Navy and Air Force Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) operations are top notch. This kind of thing should worry Iran. The US airforce successfully baited the Yemeni air defence systems targeting radar to turn on, jammed it and destroyed it. A lot of people joke about that one US strike in which only one plane and one missile was fired at a radar site in Yemen earlier, but if it's at a control centre or early warning radar, it shows the capabilities there.
So in essence we have an asymmetric situation where Iran and various other military groups have the capabilities to strike US ships and ground assets if need be, but the US has the ability to suppress their air defence and launch airstrikes. What happens next, nobody knows.
If it had been a faster missile it may have still hit the ship. Bullet-based air defense relies heavily on airframe damage type kills, where they damage an aerodynamic surface which results in the missile effectively steering into the ocean. It's rare for a bullet to actually set off the warhead, as they are typically armored these days (which serves a dual purpose of preventing defensive weapons from setting off the warhead as well as increasing armor penetration), so a higher-speed missile would have been less likely to be hit and also stands a higher chance of its momentum still carrying it into the ship. See: USS Chancelorsville Drone Strike Incident. ("Drone" here refers to what is essentially a remote operated missile with the warhead replaced by more avionics)
Yeah, and even with subsonic cruise missiles, fragments from the missile can still hit the ship. Obviously a lot better for the ship than taking a direct hit, but some minor damage can still be done.
Faster missiles can get through CIWS for sure. It's why everyone is worried about hypersonics.
I imagine any US CIWS fans are clapping like seals though. Those things very rarely get used
Yeah, because if they get used, it means they were seconds from becoming shark food. So it's generally good practice for those onboard the ship, that they don't get used.
Though yeah I imagine the CIWS crew onboard the US ship are getting a ton of thanks and praise from their fellow sailors onboard.
And for military nerds, it's proof that the system works. I know they gave it the nickname of one of the Star Wars robots. So they're probably spamming that all over the internet.
My uncle was a naval officer, so I got to go on tiger cruise once. They did a display of the CIWS which resulted in half the deck being covered in mildly radioactive shell casings which were then swept into the sea. Fun stuff. At the time I remember thinking yikes, seems like you wouldn’t want to risk your crew’s safety by littering shells all over the deck for people to trip over, but knowing it’s the last line of defense it makes a bit more sense. It’s an emergency and you’ve got to spit all the depleted uranium at the incoming missile, who cares if one guy slips on a shell casing and gets a concussion.
Yahya Saree, Spokesman for Yemeni Army, says they actually hit the destroyer though. And unlike the Great Satan, Mr. Saree doesn't lie.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/yaf-navy-directly-hit-us-destroyer--cargo-ship-in-red-sea--y
this is compared to 8-10 mile shoot-down distance for previous missiles/drones fired at US navy ships