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Iraq at the crossroads: Israel, covert operations, and the struggle for sovereignty

Aleena Im
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00 UTC
Iraq and war images
© –Yusuf al-Qaradawi“The Iraqis have a country that inherited cultures thousands of years old, while the Americans have a culture only two hundred years old. Two hundred years will teach thousands of years!? Oh Americans, leave Iraq for its people” –Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Iraq is no longer just a battlefield — it's becoming Israel's hidden launchpad against Iran, exposing Baghdad's weak sovereignty and dangerous double game. If Iraq fails to shut down foreign covert operations now, it risks turning itself into the next front line of a catastrophic regional war.

Israel's expansionist aims in the Middle East have altered the political and security landscape of the region. Whatever the US is doing in the region is directly linked to advancing the aims and interests of its long-standing ally. Libya, Iraq, Syria, and now Iran have been victims of direct US-Israeli aggression. The ongoing US-Iran tensions have also started to heighten once again. Right after Trump's historic visit to China, the threat of war once again looms over the region.

Although Xi Jinping treated the US president with the utmost respect, China remains wary of Trump's next steps and has not changed its stance with regard to the situation in Iran. In the meantime, an intelligence report is being made public that has exposed the deep penetration of Israel's security forces in the Middle East, instigating tensions and chaos in different states. This time, the host was Iraq, and the target was Iran. Be it a security breach or covert compliance, Iraq is once again emerging as an active participant in the US-Iran war.
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Target

If Washington moves on Cuba, here's how it could happen

Dmitry Kornev
RT
Mon, 25 May 2026 18:42 UTC
Flag of Cuba
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesFlag of Cuba
A breakdown of the military options, escalation risks, and political consequences.

The Caribbean is beginning to smell like war. As Washington tightens its sanctions noose around Cuba, deploys additional military assets to the region, and increasingly resorts to the language of ultimatums, media outlets and policy circles have started seriously discussing the possibility of direct US intervention on the island. The trigger has not only been a fresh wave of accusations against Raúl Castro and the highly publicized appearance of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group off Cuba's coast, but also the broader logic of escalation itself: an energy blockade, rhetoric about a so-called 'drone threat', and a growing perception that the Trump administration sees Cuba as the next target of its hard-power foreign policy.
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Explosion

Over 70 Hezbollah sites struck as Netanyahu orders IDF to 'intensify blows' on Lebanon

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 26 May 2026 08:05 UTC
bomb blast lebanon
© APBombing Lebanon
Israel has drastically ramped up its military campaign across Lebanon, hitting many dozens of 'Hezbollah sites' - and seriously escalating the long-running conflict, despite there officially being a US-mediated ceasefire in place.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed on Monday that [he] instructed the military to "press the pedal even harder" against Hezbollah, reportedly upon a greenlight being given by Washington, following increased drone attacks from the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran on northern Israel.

Netanyahu announced in video statement:
"We are at war with Hezbollah. Just in recent weeks, our brave fighters have eliminated more than 600 terrorists. But we are not taking our foot off the gas. On the contrary, I have instructed them to press the pedal even harder."

"We will strike them. Yes, they are attacking us with drones, cyber-enabled drones, and we have a special team working on this — and we will solve that too...But what this requires from us now is to intensify the blows, increase the force. We will strike them decisively."
The last several hours have indeed witnessed expanded attacks across Lebanon, including Tyre, and Bekaa Valley, and evacuation orders have been given for south Beirut suburbs.
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Star of David

Israel has targeted Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem twice in failed assassination ops

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Wed, 27 May 2026 19:16 UTC
Naim Qassem hezbollah
© The Long War JournalThe current Secretary-General of Hezbollah Naim Qassem, with a portrait of assassinated Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah
The single biggest, and most historic development out of Lebanon in recent years was the Israeli assassination of longtime Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, 2024, via massive bunker-busting airstrikes on his underground location in south Beirut.

Since then, Hezbollah's leadership has been greatly degraded, also given the widescale pager explosion attacks. To fill the leadership vacuum, a co-founder of Hezbollah, and its first deputy secretary-general who had long assisted Nasrallah, Naim Qassem, stepped in as new Secretary-General.

But now, Israel is once again trying to accomplish a 'decapitation strike' - reportedly having targeted Qassem in at least two recent operations thus far

Comment: When they're not trying to assassinate the leaders of every country around them, Israel relaxes by destroying millennial-old cities:





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Star of David

Heartless AND clueless: Huckabee tells Lebanese being bombed they should thank Israel for seedless watermelons


Middle East Eye
Mon, 25 May 2026 19:42 UTC
huckabee israel lebanon
© Agence France-PresseMike Huckabee visits the Israeli-occupied Palestinian village of Taybeh in the West Bank in July 2025
The US ambassador to Israel has previously said Israel has the right to take over 'all' of the Middle East

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel and a passionate advocate of its wars in the region, has told the people of Lebanon to be grateful for Israeli contributions to its society.

Video of Huckabee speaking at the Atlas Awards in Tel Aviv on 12 May is being shared online after it was picked up by Chris Menahan of the news site Information Liberation.

In the speech, Huckabee extolls the various purported Israeli contributions to society, including USB drives, cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelons.

"I wonder if everyone in Lebanon understands that if there were no Israel, they wouldn't have a cell phone," Huckabee said.

Comment: Ideological Israel-firster Huckabee is just staying true to form. Miriam Adleson is getting her money's worth from this Trump appointment.

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Russian Flag

Gloves finally off? Russia announces campaign of prolonged systematic strikes on Kiev

Simplicius the Thinker
simplicius76.substack.com
Tue, 26 May 2026 17:49 UTC
oreshnik strike Dnipr ukraine 2024
© CopyrightThe Russian Oreshnik missile strike on the town of Dnipro, Ukraine on November 21, 2024. Russia appears to have expanded its use to targets near Kiev.
Tells western diplomats to flee Ukraine' capitol city

In a turn of events that stunned the commentariat, the Russian MOD has officially announced that Russia will continue striking Kiev in a new 'systematic' campaign of hitting military-industrial enterprises and 'decision-making centers'. Russia even sent advanced warning to all Western diplomatic missions and foreign citizens to evacuate Kiev, inciting frenzies of doom-making in the pro-UA crowd.

Official account:
russia tweet mobilization
The problem with the announcement is that most are unduly blowing it way out of proportion owing to an exaggerated FighterBomber post which said that "Kiev will be destroyed." FighterBomber was simply being figurative — he is not speaking in any official capacity. But it has lit a firestorm of responses from both sides, with pro-Russians jubilating with glee, and pro-Ukrainians condemning Russia as genocidal barbarians.
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Big Bomb

Czech 'ammo coalition' for Ukraine loses support


RT
Tue, 26 May 2026 17:38 UTC
Artillery shells
A Ukrainian soldier prepares 155mm artillery shells near Marinka, Donetsk, August 29, 2024
Prague's initiative to arm Kiev has fallen short of its targets and lost half of its Western backers.

Nine countries have withdrawn from a Czech initiative aimed at jointly procuring artillery ammunition for Ukraine, according to Czech President Petr Pavel. The scheme has been plagued by underinvestment since its inception.

Some 18 countries, including Canada, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, signed up to partake in the initiative when it was announced by Pavel in 2024. At the time, Western manufacturers were unable to meet Kiev's appetite for ammunition, producing 1.3 million shells in a year, while Russia was able to make 4.5 million at a quarter of the cost.

"The initiative is still working, but the new difficulty is that only about nine member states are contributing financially," Pavel told the Financial Times on Tuesday. "This initiative has been delivering up to 50% of all large caliber ammunition to the Ukrainians, so in this sense it cannot be replaced easily by anything else."

Although the initiative has managed to source around four million pieces of artillery ammunition for Kiev, it has fallen dramatically short of its targets. As of February, it has raised €1.4 billion ($1.62 billion) to purchase ammo, less than a third of the €5 billion Pavel had hoped to raise, NATO officials told Reuters.

Comment: The new Czech Prime Minister is probably right in questioning the lack of transparency and corruption which is all over the place in Ukraine.

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USA

Scott Ritter: The US administration lost a patriot and truth-teller in Tulsi Gabbard

Scott Ritter
RT
Sun, 24 May 2026 23:01 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard
© Heather Diehl/Getty ImagesFormer DNI Tulsi Gabbard
As DNI, she brought candor and integrity to intelligence - but in a White House that prizes loyalty, facts became a liability.

Once the darling of the Democratic Party, Tulsi Gabbard had a hard-earned reputation as a no-nonsense proponent of fact-based truth, which she assiduously incorporated into her eloquent defense of Constitutional due process and moral integrity when it came to the national security of the United States.

With a resume that boasts years of honorable military service, including a tour of duty in war-torn Iraq, Gabbard was a staunch advocate of looking out for the welfare of the men and women in the US military - whom she regularly referred to as her "brothers and sisters in arms." She, as much as anyone, understood the age-old mantra, "if you lie, they die" when it came to the relationship between intelligence and troops in the field. She held herself to a high standard and applied that same standard to those she worked with.
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Telephone

Lavrov notifies Rubio of impending 'systematic strikes' on Kiev


RT
Mon, 25 May 2026 18:13 UTC
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov
© Iori Sagisawa/Getty ImagesRussian FM Sergey Lavrov
Moscow has vowed to strike military and government sites across the Ukrainian capital in retaliation for continuing "terrorist attacks"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has spoken with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, warning him that long-range strikes against Kiev are imminent, while reiterating the "recommendation" that foreigners evacuate the Ukrainian capital immediately.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a shift in Moscow's strategy in the Ukraine conflict, citing the recent deadly attack on a college dorm in the Russian town of Starobelsk, which killed at least 21 people, mainly teenage girls. The incident was the "last straw" for Moscow, which will now embark on a campaign of "systematic strikes" against the Ukrainian capital, targeting military-industrial facilities, command centers, and other sites dotting Kiev.

Comment: Ukrainian strikes continue deliberately killing six Russian civilians:
Attacks on the city of Gorlovka in the Donetsk People's Republic have claimed four lives, including of two minors in their early teens, Mayor Ivan Prikhodko said. Three ambulance workers were reportedly injured in the same attacks.

In Belgorod Region, a local resident was killed when a drone struck a car in the border municipality of Graivoron, the administration reported on Monday morning. The area has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian short-range attacks.

A separate strike in Bryansk Region hit two villages in the border municipality of Trubachevsk, acting Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said. Ukrainian forces used rocket artillery in the attack, killing one resident and injuring a firefighter, according to the official. Several apartment buildings, more than ten private homes, and other properties were damaged, he added.

Kamikaze drones were also intercepted near Yaroslavl, a city roughly 250 km northeast of Moscow, Governor Mikhail Yevraev reported. One woman suffered minor shrapnel wounds, he said. The raid forced authorities to temporarily close a highway linking Yaroslavl with the Russian capital.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted 173 Ukrainian long-range drones over 14 Russian regions overnight.

Moscow has accused Kiev of deliberately targeting civilians. In a major incident last Friday, three waves of kamikaze drones struck a college in the town of Starobelsk, killing 21 people, most of them teenagers, and injuring 42 others.

Some Western countries backing Ukraine's war effort claimed that Moscow fabricated the attack in the Lugansk People's Republic, which Kiev considers part of Ukraine.

The Russian military later retaliated with strikes on targets in and around Kiev, including the launch of an Oreshnik medium-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile that reportedly hit a Ukrainian Air Force facility.
Negative energy is one of the fuels of war. It feeds itself.

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No Entry

Trump's retaliatory withdrawal: America punishes Europe for refusing to join its war with Iran

Adrian Korczyñski
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00 UTC
Trump gives 'Europe' the pointy finger
© UnknownTrump gives 'Europe' the pointy finger
In the first days of May 2026, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 American troops from Germany over the next six to twelve months — with explicit threats of further cuts directed at Italy and Spain.

President Donald Trump stated the reason with characteristic bluntness: these countries had failed to provide meaningful support during the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

This is not a strategic recalibration. It is a punitive act by a declining hegemon that launched a dangerous conflict, triggered a global energy shock, and is now lashing out at Europe for refusing to bleed alongside it.

The message from the White House was unmistakable: Loyalty is no longer a relationship. It is a service to be paid for on demand.

Comment: Trump is not forever. Neither are the rest.

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