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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Iran vows 'harsh' response to Israel's assassination of IRGC Commander in airstrike on its Syrian consulate


Atlas
Mon, 01 Apr 2024 17:43 UTC
El canciller iraní, Hosein Amir Abdolahian (izda.), habla con la prensa a su llegada a Beirut, la capital del Líbano, 9 de febrero de 2024.
FILE: Iran's Foreign Minister
The Iranian Ambassador to Syria has stated that Iran's response to the assassination of IRGC Commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi will be "harsh."

What retaliation looks like remains unknown at this time, as Iran could seek to target Israel directly or send more powerful weapons to Hezbollah and the Houthis to carry out attacks.

What is likely to happen, however, is that Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria will start to ramp up attacks against American forces in the region.

Comment: As noted in the X post below, these strikes are a violation of international law, and US 'sources' recently acknowledged they would be advantageous. Furthermore, as analysts Almassian, and Beely, write in their posts further below, these strikes in Syria appear to be an attempt by Israel to significantly escalate, and widen, the conflict. One of the strikes against Hezbollah in particular exposes Israel's coordination with the 'Islamicist' terror groups in Syria:
An Opinion Piece on March 27, 2024 in the WSJ, Openly Called for US-Israeli Strikes on Iranian Interests in Lebanon and Syria... "Israel and the U.S. have the tools to strike Iranian military capacity in Syria and Lebanon. This is the operational decisive point of Iran's campaign — not Gaza and Yemen, despite the public focus on Hamas and the Houthis. The U.S. and Israel can rapidly degrade state capacity in Lebanon and Syria, forcing Iran to assume direct control of both territories, or to shrink its defense perimeter to Iraq, thereby essentially abandoning its ability to pressure Israel and the U.S. in the short term."

Kevork Almassian:


IIsrael targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus❗️

The Israeli attacks killed Abu Mahdi Zahidi, a high-ranking commander of the IRGC, his second-in-command, and three military advisors.

MY TAKE

This marks a significant escalation by Israel towards Iran, specifically targeting the 'axis of resistance'. The strikes targeted a high-ranking IRGC officer who plays a crucial role in Iran's operations in Syria.

Moreover, the attack specifically aimed at the Iranian Consulate, which holds the status of a sovereign Iranian territory. Consequently, Israel's strike can be interpreted as a direct attack on Iran, rather than targeting targets that are "Iranian-linked" or "Iranian-affiliated," as the US and Israel have previously concealed using such terms.

WHAT DOES ISRAEL WANT?

Israel seeks to intensify and expand the scale of the conflict in order to compel direct involvement from the United States. American people need to understand the seriousness of the situation. Israel is actively attempting to involve their nation in another costly and dangerous conflict in the Middle East.

HOW WILL IRAN RETALIATE?

It is not easy to provide an answer to this question as Iran operates based on strategic decisions rather than emotions. Tehran aims to manage the tense situation in the region as the 'axis of resistance' continues to make slow but effective progress against the US/Israeli influence in West Asia.

Iran's response is not to be underestimated but the extent of their reaction is contingent upon various factors, including the location and nature of the response.

On the other hand, the ongoing Israeli assaults on Syria demonstrate that, despite the war and devastation caused by neocons and Zionists, Damascus remains a focal point in the conflict with Israel. The primary goal of weakening the pan-Arabist country was to ultimately eliminate the Palestinian cause by cutting off the main military support route for non-state actors opposing Israel in the region.
Vanessa Beely:
'Both aggressions targeted Hezbollah sites. The attack on Aleppo was unexpected - it is far away from the southern Lebanon front..can only be interpreted as an Israeli attempt to expand the war ..while triggering an escalation from the north-western Al Qaeda groups'


Russia foresaw the escalation a few days ago: Russia condemns Israel's latest airstrikes on Syria as 'provocative actions which can lead to extremely dangerous consequences'

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Star of David

Best of the Web: Liberal Finger-Wagging At Netanyahu Is A Phony, Cynical Charade

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin's NewsLetter
Sun, 31 Mar 2024 20:23 UTC
bernie sanders netanyahu
© Wikimedia Commons;Gage Skidmore."Liberal" Bernie Sanders and Benjamin Netanahu
We're seeing more and more of the cynical, obnoxious plan of the western liberal political-media class to try and pin the blame for the entire multinational genocidal campaign in Gaza solely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"There is growing opposition to Netanyahu's war machine," reads a new tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders. "More Americans than ever are standing up against this horrific war in Gaza, which is causing tremendous suffering amongst the Palestinian people."

This is on the same day we learned that the Biden administration has quietly signed off on the delivery of billions of dollars worth of 2,000-pound bombs and warplanes for Israel to use in its ongoing massacres of civilians in Gaza. There is absolutely no excuse for continuing to babble about "Netanyahu's war" this far into a US-backed genocide. This is Biden's war as much as it is Netanyahu's — and Sanders supports Biden.
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Vader

Best of the Web: The Assange Hearing Permission Appeal Judgment: Mad and Bad.

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Fri, 29 Mar 2024 15:14 UTC
assange justice legal scales court hearing
The latest judgment by the High Court in the Assange case achieved completely the objectives of the UK and US states. Above all, Julian remains in the hell which is Belmarsh maximum security prison. He is now safely there alone and incommunicado, from the authorities' point of view, for at least several more months.

Importantly, the United States has managed to keep him detained without securing his actual appearance in Washington. It is crucial to grasp that the CIA, who are very much controlling the process, do not actually want him to appear there until after their attempt to secure the re-election of Genocide Joe. No matter what your opinion of Donald Trump, there is no doubt the CIA conspired against him during his entire Presidency, beginning with the fake Russiagate scandal and ending with their cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop story. They do not want Trump back.

Biden is politically in deep trouble. Biden's lifelong political support for Israel has been unwavering to the point of fanaticism. In the process he has collected millions of dollars from the Zionist lobby. That always seemed a source of political strength in the United States, not of weakness.
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Sherlock

Best of the Web: Link between Crocus terrorists & Ukraine found - Russian Investigative Committee


Sputnik
Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:41 UTC
Terrorists attacking the Crocus City Hall
© Scott Ritter ExtraTerrorists attacking the Crocus City Hall.
On Tuesday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov said the first information received from suspects in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack proves a Ukrainian trace. He added that, while radical Islamists had prepared the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall, the Ukrainian special forces were involved.

The investigation has obtained evidence of the connection of the terrorists who carried out the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue with Ukrainian nationalists, the Russian Investigative Committee said on Thursday.

"The initial results of the investigation fully confirm the planned nature of the terrorists' actions, careful preparation and financial support from the organizers of the crime. As a result of working with detained terrorists, analyzing the technical devices seized from them, analyzing information about financial transactions, evidence of their connection with Ukrainian nationalists has been obtained," the Russian Investigative Committee said on Telegram.

Comment: See also:

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Pirates

Best of the Web: Massive German document release sheds still more light on the entire Covid farce, as if any more light were needed


eugyppius
Sun, 24 Mar 2024 09:23 UTC
Heavily redact internal records relating to Lockdowns, mask mandates and mass vaccination
Lockdowns, mask mandates and mass vaccination were all implemented strictly according to the science and with the utmost transparency, which is why it is necessary to heavily redact internal records relating to these policies.
Last week, the Robert Koch Institut (the German CDC) released over 2,500 pages documenting the meetings of the "Covid Crisis Team" between January 2020 and April 2021. They did so in response to long-running litigation by journalists at Multipolar.

This is a major revelation - a rough German equivalent of the Fauci email releases from 2021 - which takes us directly into the internal discussions of the pandemic managers throughout the 2020 lockdowns and the early stages of the vaccination campaign. You can download the minutes and agendas yourself here. They're heavily redacted, but they provide a dismal view of the whole pandemic circus and its idiotic, hapless coordinators. It will take me weeks to finish studying them, but German Twitter has done the Lord's work unearthing many of the more important revelations, as does this surprisingly critical ZDF article. Here I want to highlight just three points.
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Light Saber

Best of the Web: Alastair Crooke: The Crocus concert hall atrocity: No going back

Alastair Crooke
Al Mayadeen
Thu, 28 Mar 2024 00:10 UTC
russia
© Mahdi Rteil / Al MayadeenThe Crocus Concert Hall Atrocity: No going back
The details of the arrested perpetrators of the Crocus Concert Hall massacre and their mode of operation does not comport with the notion of their being ideological supporters of ISIS.

Why is it that the EU and the US are so adamant about who is behind the Crocus Concert Hall atrocity, that they will not wait out the investigation? Within 55 minutes of the attack, the US spokesperson said 'Ukraine wasn't involved'. Now the US is saying - definitively - that only ISIS was involved.

"No concrete advance warning - nothing was transferred to us", Russia's Washington Ambassador insists.

Why are Western states so certain? It is most unusual for Intelligence services to pronounce within the hour. Though the actual perpetrators are now known, the key question remains: Who stands behind the attack? Things are not always as they seem.


Comment: Two days ago Russia's FSB chief was asked whether they thought the US, UK, and Ukraine, could be behind the terror attack, to which he responded: "We think that this is so. [...] they [investigators] also have concrete results."


Comment: See also: The Nuland - Budanov - Tajik - Crocus connection

More from Alastair Crooke:



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Snowflake

Best of the Web: Wild swings: Snow falls on Malaga in southern Spain following a dramatic drop in temperatures overnight

Ben Pawlowski
Olive Press
Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:01 UTC
mmmm
Parts of Malaga have woken up to a blanket of fresh snow following a dramatic drop in temperatures overnight.

Whilst low-lying coastal areas have experienced much-needed significant rainfall, Malaga's high altitude areas have been hit by snowfall.

This morning, many of the region's mountains were covered in snow after unseasonably low overnight temperatures.

Snow settled in the Sierra de las Nieves, Sierra Tejeda, Sierra Bermeja and the Torcal de Antequera National Park.

Snow was also visible from the cities of Ronda and Granada.


Comment: Related: Temperature extremes: From 30ºC to snow fall in Portugal

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Snowflake

Best of the Web: Temperature extremes: From 30ºC to snowfall in Portugal


The Portugal News
Tue, 26 Mar 2024 14:35 UTC
From 30ºC to snow fall
From 30ºC to snow fall
Several areas woke up covered in snow this morning, including Gerês, Paredes de Coura and Arouca.

Snow fell again in several parts of the country, after several days with thermometers tipping the 30ºC mark.

Castro Laboreiro, in the municipality of Melgaço, woke up painted white after the snow fell during the afternoon and night of Monday.

In Cabana Maior, Arcos de Valdevez, right on the doorstep of the Peneda-Gerês National Park, it also snowed, with several online users sharing images.


Comment: Related: Snow falls on Malaga in southern Spain following a dramatic drop in temperatures overnight

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: US, UK and Ukraine could be behind Moscow terror attack - FSB chief


RT
Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:37 UTC
crocus moscow
© Maxim Blinov / SputnikCrocus concert hall, March 22nd 2024. 139 people died and around 200 were injured in last Friday's Crocus City Hall massacre.
The US, UK and Ukraine may have been behind last Friday's terrorist attack on a concert venue in a suburb of Moscow, which claimed lives of 139 people and left around 200 injured, according to the head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

Aleksandr Bortnikov told reporters on Tuesday that the authorities are currently trying to establish the identity of everyone involved in the attack, both inside and outside Russia.

When asked whether the US, Britain and Ukraine could be behind the terrorist attack, the FSB chief responded: "We think that this is so. In any case, we are now talking about the information that we have. This is general information, but they [investigators] also have concrete results."


Comment: An official statement as significant as this will likely have been sanctioned from higher up, and it will be supported by irrefutable proof which will be shared at what Russia considers to be the most appropriate time.


Comment: Whilst the hegemon and its vassals will undoubtedly seek to refute or bury such an announcement - they already tried to distance their involvement by claiming, less than an hour after the attack, that ISIS was responsible - it's possible that this can be considered yet another a significant marker in what is a rapidly escalating situation: The following tweets highlight the likely involvement of the West and Ukraine in the Moscow terrorist attack:









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Pills

Best of the Web: Ivermectin could be a 'powerful drug' for fighting cancer, here's why

Marina Zhang
The Epoch Times
Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:01 UTC
ivermectin illustration
© Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock
Different from many conventional cancer therapies, ivermectin kills cancer cells by enhancing immune response.

Rick Alderson was a retired sawmill worker who was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer in November 2020.

He experienced excruciating pain in his bowels for months; then, a gastroenterologist found a large tumor in his rectum and told him and his wife he only had six months to live.

Comment: Not bad for a "horse de-wormer"! The more research that goes into ivermectin, the more of a miracle drug it turns out to be, with a broad range of therapeutic benefits beyond Covid. Is it any wonder there was a wide-sweeping smear campaign against it?


See also:

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