Hi there, !
Fri 08/01/2025 Thu 07/31/2025 Wed 07/30/2025 Tue 07/29/2025 Archives
Rantburg
560658 articles and 1931748 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 65 articles and 105 comments as of 18:54.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Local News    Politix   
Islamic State in Sahel raided Burkina Faso Army Base in Oudakan
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
5 10:11 Skidmark [82] 
0 [31] 
2 07:15 Mullah Richard [82] 
3 13:31 Skidmark [71] 
9 17:02 Grom the Affective [157] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
2 11:54 swksvolFF [79]
0 [30]
0 [47]
0 [22]
1 04:52 Grom the Affective [41]
1 04:54 Grom the Affective [57]
5 15:17 NoMoreBS [100]
1 04:55 Grom the Affective [59]
0 [42]
3 14:05 Melancholic [138]
0 [61]
0 [42]
1 00:53 Skidmark [68]
0 [36]
32 16:04 badanov [549]
Page 2: WoT Background
0 [22]
1 05:15 Grom the Affective [31]
1 04:57 Grom the Affective [31]
0 [20]
0 [22]
4 14:41 Matt [68]
0 [14]
1 15:32 Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435 [26]
0 [22]
0 [21]
0 [17]
2 13:06 Skidmark [40]
1 05:00 Grom the Affective [41]
1 10:18 EMS Artifact [24]
1 13:34 3dc [90]
1 12:38 mossomo [50]
Page 3: Non-WoT
5 15:20 swksvolFF [118]
7 16:01 Regular joe [112]
0 [20]
0 [29]
7 17:39 Lord Garth [136]
1 00:55 Skidmark [91]
1 02:17 Skidmark [41]
0 [33]
1 09:45 Skidmark [47]
0 [54]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
0 [26]
0 [21]
0 [20]
0 [22]
1 12:56 mossomo [32]
0 [19]
1 09:03 Porkchop [49]
Page 6: Politix
7 16:03 Lord Garth [110]
6 12:38 Abu Uluque [94]
8 14:08 Fred [117]
2 12:13 Abu Uluque [49]
0 [39]
2 08:52 Gleng Whaick2262 [69]
0 [23]
2 10:32 Skidmark [68]
4 16:57 jefe101 [96]
0 [43]
-Obits-
On the 32nd Anniversary of the Ft. Marcy Mystery-RONALD KESSLER: How Hillary Clinton triggered Vince Foster's suicide
[WashingtonTimes] Paywalled.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 08/01/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [82 views] Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats


#2  The man who knew too much?
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 08/01/2025 7:15 Comments || Top||


Britain
To the cemetery of bourgeois freedoms
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozin:

[ColonelCassad] From the news: a new law on mass censorship has been adopted in Britain, which is officially called the "Online Safety Act". Under the slogan "protecting children from...". From what? Practically everything. Everything marked as 18+ (pornography, materials with elements of violence and other categories of "sensitive" materials) will be available only after passing identification through a passport, driver's license, bank data or biometric face verification.

Violation of these requirements by platforms threatens with draconian fines - up to 18 million pounds sterling or up to 10% of the company's annual global turnover.

As a result, the largest resources, such as Pornhub, XVideos, and Airbnb, chose to block access for British users completely, regardless of age. And on Twitter, for example, age verification is only available with a premium subscription, no matter how old you are. This means that the lion's share of posts are censored.

All messengers and private correspondence are subject to mandatory control. The law requires online services to monitor illegal content even in private chats, including messengers with end-to-end encryption protection. WhatsApp and Signal have already said that if the government tries to force them to crack encryption, the companies will prefer to leave the British market entirely, and Telegram has introduced mandatory age verification.

A fine has been introduced for teenagers for searching content prohibited for them [18+]. This law was developed and discussed for more than six years, was finally adopted by the British Parliament and signed by the king on October 26, 2023, but its main provisions came into force precisely now.

France, Sweden and Germany plan to adopt similar laws.

Here, the author of these lines involuntarily recalls what I myself wrote in 2013, when similar processes began in Russia.

And then I wrote the following: "It is not harmful to remind that "perestroika" itself began a quarter of a century ago under the main and then seemingly indisputable slogan of "glasnost", the abolition of censorship. All the achievements of the past decades - social, scientific, technical, industrial, etc. - were crossed out and swept into the dustbin of history with one careless movement: but then there was no glasnost! there was no freedom of speech! And, therefore, all of this is absolutely worthless. At that time, few people understood that "glasnost" and all civil liberties (speech, press, assembly, etc.) were needed by the reborn late Soviet "elite" for about the same purpose as a house thief needs a lock.

Only in order to appropriate the people's property and throw overboard the red Soviet ideology, which strictly forbade such appropriation. Without "liberties" it would be quite difficult to arrange such a fraudulent operation. And after this operation was successfully carried out, it was the turn to throw the freedoms themselves overboard."



Continued on Page 47
Posted by: badanov || 08/01/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [31 views] Top|| File under:


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
'Kievan Rus was founded by a Kazakh.' How the facts of history are distorted to suit ideology
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Eduard Dinikin

[REGNUM] We have previously examined how the distortion of facts led to the emergence of a story that Azerbaijanis are the “most ancient indigenous population” of Russia simply because they live in large numbers in the ancient Russian city of Derbent.

Derbent is indeed very old, it is the second oldest city in Russia after Kerch. Azerbaijanis have lived here since the late Middle Ages, but they certainly cannot be considered autochthons, although the former head of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Tofik Zulfugarov insists on this.

The latest myth about Yugra is from the same series: the medieval Siberian Khanate was ruled by a native of Bukhara, which means that Siberia is the historical homeland of the Uzbeks. The last Siberian khan-usurper Kuchum was indeed born in Bukhara, but neither the dynasty he overthrew, nor the peoples subject to it had any relation to the Uzbeks. No matter how much the now former Yugra deputy Khalid Tagizade insists on this.

And there are also stories about how Moscow would have certainly fallen in the winter of 1941 if it weren’t for the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Yes, the Panfilov Division, whose feat in November–December 1941 largely influenced the outcome of the Battle of Moscow, was indeed formed from residents of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSRs. But the authors and disseminators of distorted history are similar to those who believe that only Ukrainians fought in the Ukrainian Fronts of the Great Patriotic War, and Belarusians in the Belorussian Fronts.

There is clear data on the national composition of the division, from which it follows that ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz made up about 20% of its composition. Which, of course, does not in any way diminish their contribution to the overall victory.

All the above statements are not just lies, but much worse - intentionally distorted facts, when historical events are rewritten to suit a very specific ideology. The piggy bank of fictions can also include stories made up "from the head", which are not based on a single drop of truth.

"KAZAKH STANISLAV SOKOLOV, FOUNDER OF RUS'"
For example, the one in which Moscow was founded by Kazakhs in the 11th century. And even the name of the "legendary founder" is mentioned.

Kazakh philologist, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Mekemtas Myrzakhmetov (however, he preferred the de-Russified version of the surname - Myrzakhmetuly ) stated:

"One Bulgarian historian found information that the Kievan Rus was led by a Kazakh named Sunkar. His entourage called him Sokolov Stanislav. He lived in those places and married a Russian girl. He became the founder of the Russian state system. Later, in order to hide this fact, the Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh destroyed all the data, replacing it with false documents."

The same doctor of sciences Myrzakhmetuly wrote that in 1088 a Kazakh horseman was known, whose name was Asat Moskau. "The local people loved him and gave his name to the city. That is, the capital of Russia bears the name of a Kazakh," the prominent Kazakh philologist believes.

Myrzakhmetov-Myrzakhmetuly could not be called some kind of outsider in science. This Central Asian scientist, who died in January of this year at the ripe old age of 94, was the vice-rector of the Tashkent Pedagogical Institute named after Nizami back in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he taught at the Almaty Institute named after Abay, then worked at the Mukhtar Auezov Institute of Literature and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR.

And throughout the 1990s, he headed the literature department of the International Kazakh-Turkish University, which was created in the year of the collapse of the USSR on the initiative of Nursultan Nazarbayev and the then President of Turkey Suleyman Demirel.

For many years, the nationally minded humanitarian intelligentsia (which, in fact, forms ideologies – in this case, the ideology of pan-Turkism) was educated by a man who believed in the “Dzhigit Moscow”.

"SUBKHAN-OGLU, BUILDER OF THE KREMLIN"
Of course, there were also some “discoveries” concerning the construction of the Moscow Kremlin. From time to time, information about a Shemakhani, that is, again an Azerbaijani architect named Alis Subhan-oglu Keremli, emerges. Supporters of this version refer to the book “Shamakhi”, published in English by the Iranian architect Nadir Khalili and Elshan Fattahli, as well as the work of Ulfat Javad “The Kremlin was built by an Azerbaijani” (ANAS, Institute of History “Scientific Works”, Baku, 2009).

For example, such a story can be read in the October 2020 issue of the Dagestani magazine “Derband”.

Based on this version, the Moscow prince Dmitry Donskoy, having heard about the talented architect, specially sent the boyar Baratynsky to Shemakha to the local ruler, the Shirvanshah, with rich gifts and a request to let Keremli go to Moscow.

The Shirvanshah did not want to let Keremli go, but he let him go under the prince's guarantee of personal immunity. In Moscow, the architect was given money, unlimited labor force, and promoted to boyar.

Muscovites really loved Keremli. And there was a reason for it. A wooden fence was erected around the construction site to prevent pollution of the surrounding areas. As the authors of the publication emphasize, supposedly this had never been done before on Russian soil. It is claimed that the city's population existed due to this construction, since the working conditions were extremely favorable.

In addition to the Kremlin, the architect allegedly built a princely palace, a meeting place, a boyar's house, many other buildings, as well as a network of secret catacombs.

On June 22, 1371, a farewell was arranged for the outstanding architect, and on the same day a Cossack (history has not preserved his name) cut off the genius's head. The reason for this was that Dmitry Donskoy did not want the architect to repeat his creation anywhere else.

Although, upon closer examination, the story of how the architect Keremli was beheaded - so that he would not build anything else - looks like a "creative borrowing" from the film "Andrei Rublev" by Andrei Tarkovsky. There, let us recall, the Moscow prince Vasily Dmitrievich orders the blinding of the artel workers so that they could not decorate the palace of his brother, the Zvenigorod prince Yuri Dmitrievich.

Needless to say, “information” about Alis Subhan-oglu Keremli’s participation in the construction of the Kremlin is circulating on social networks under headlines in the style of “You definitely didn’t know that...” (and, as a rule, these are reprints from Azerbaijani websites).

It is claimed that documents confirming this story are allegedly hidden in Moscow archives. As reported: "They were personally seen in 1977 by the now deceased Fyodor Afanasyev, who worked at that time at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU." But then the papers mysteriously disappeared. But "the truth is out there" - which is what the authors of such publications would have us believe.

All these statements by figures from Russia and the near abroad sound like a joke for now. Therefore, we will allow ourselves to continue the topic by quoting a satirical work, although not a domestic one, but a British one.

"AMAR BIN BOZ, FOUNDER OF THE ADMIRAL BENBOW TAVERN"
In G.K. Chesterton's novel The Flying Tavern, published 111 years ago, there is an episode in which a young woman from high society, Joan Brett, listens to a sermon on the seashore from an old man in a red fez named Mr. Ammon, who tries to prove that all the names of English drinking establishments have an oriental trace.

For example, "The Saracen's Head" is "Our Head is a Saracen", "The Green Chump" is "The Green Turban", "Admiral Benbow" is named after the warrior Amar Ali ben Boz. Ammon's argumentation seems to him absolutely infallible, probably because he decided for himself that "the teaching of Misisra Ammon is true because it is true".

This is how he “proves” that the Royal Albert Hall, London’s Royal Hall of Arts and Sciences, has traces of the Arabic word for “alcohol” in its name.

"You will find traces of Asiatic words," he continued, "in the names of all your establishments. Moreover, you will find them in the names of all the objects that give you joy and relaxation. My dear friends, even the substance that gives strength to your drinks you call by the Arabic word "alcohol." This particle occurs in many words that you associate with merriment - such as "ale," a corruption of "al," or "Albert Hall."

In 1914, Chesterton thought he was writing a satirical grotesque. He could hardly have imagined that in 2025 the Daily Mail would publish an article about “London is over,” which, among other things, would include the following lines:

"London has already changed irreversibly. The native population, white British, is now only a third of the city…. Only 22% of children in Greater London schools are white British, and in one school in Whitechapel, all pupils are not native English speakers…. Four out of ten current Londoners were born abroad. Almost one in seven is Muslim. And almost a quarter of Londoners do not speak English as their first language."

For the native Londoner Chesterton, the name Whitechapel, translated as White Chapel, might have been associated with the Jewish ghetto, the scene of Jack the Ripper's crimes, but it is highly doubtful that he saw any connection with the schools filled with students from the former British colonies. And certainly, he, a devout Catholic, hardly thought that the White Chapel, also known as the Church of St. Mary Matfelon, would be demolished and replaced by a park named after Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi migrant killed on this site in 1978.

New residents of the English capital who do not use English as their main language can very easily be processed by modern “Ammons”, for whom the British Isles are nothing more than “dar-al-harb”, a territory of war, whose destiny is to become part of “dar-al-Islam”, the world of Islam (we wrote about this distorted understanding of religion earlier).

"KAZAKH CAPITAL"
The words of the comic character from Chesterton's novel are reminiscent of what can be heard from time to time from modern "Ammonians" in the territory of the post-USSR.

But, as we know, very often big problems start with little things. Today, one Russian deputy says that Siberia historically belongs to the Uzbeks. Tomorrow, another intellectual will “remind” that Orenburg was the Kazakh capital. This is another half-truth – Orenburg was indeed the center of the Kirghiz (Kazakh) ASSR, but it was only for five years, in 1920–1925.

And the day after tomorrow someone else will claim that since the word "mosque" in English sounds like mosque ("mosk"), it means that Moscow was built as a large religious Islamic center. And it is unlikely that he will be confused by the English word. The character in the novel "The Migratory Tavern" was not confused by English words.

No less significant for English culture than Chesterton, the English poet and preacher John Donne wrote: "No man is an island by himself; every living thing is a piece of a continent; and if the sea wash away the cliff, will not all Europe be the less: a rock, a friend's estate, or your own house? Every man's death makes me the less, for I am one with all mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee also."

The bell of Whitechapel Chapel has not rung for a long time, and we do not care about its ringing, as well as about who is behind the migrations of peoples in Europe, but we are obliged to hear the alarm bells of the consequences of not only uncontrolled migration, but also pseudo-historical fabrications.


Continued on Page 47
Posted by: badanov || 08/01/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [82 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There never was Kievan Rus a country. It was more like British East India company.
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 1:38 Comments || Top||

#2  "more like British East India company"

Run by the Varangians.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 08/01/2025 7:07 Comments || Top||

#3  ^😀
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 7:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Wait, if the Kazakhs are one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, that means Kievan Rus was founded by Juice!
Posted by: SteveS || 08/01/2025 8:58 Comments || Top||

#5  From the department of shit that doesn't matter.

Nice translation though.
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/01/2025 10:11 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel is a borderline failed state
[NonZionism] Many IDF soldiers on the ground believe that the goal of the Gaza war is to destroy as much stuff as possible so that the population has to leave and it can be annexed and settled.
How many is many? And how does the writer know?
That's not what it is? I sure thought it was. Israel cannot live next to such people. The entire 7 million population
…actually somewhere around 1.1 million in Gaza, though they claim something like 2 million — the number keeps changing on the upside. Where did the non-Zionist (whatever that means) get such an outlandish number?
must be relocated. Turning their homes into bouncing rubble ensures they have nothing to come back to.
Between the tunnels and Hamas thoroughly wiring the buildings above with mines to kill IDF troops coming through, Israel hasn’t had to do much to set off the explosions bouncing Gazan rubble. Had Hamas not started the war, none of it would have been discovered.
This is a minority position among Israelis overall, but not a tiny minority, and it is the majority position among religious Zionists, who are disproportionately represented among those still showing up for miluim combat roles. We do not need to speculate as to how they got this idea into their head because it has been repeatedly stated by government ministers, including last week.

The IDF cannot enforce discipline violations by its soldiers or junior generals. The purpose of the riot at Sdei Teiman - which included coalition MKs as participants - was to raise the costs of army discipline to the degree that no enforcement of IDF rules will happen even under the most extreme circumstances. Therefore, de facto the IDF is no longer even an army in the commonly accepted use of the term in modern times, but a collection of militias, analogous to (though not as far gone as) the Syrian army.
Oh dear, ohdear, ohdear.
If units in Gaza think their job is to depopulate Gaza, that is what they are going to do.

The Religious Zionists in the government are not per se running military strategy, but they are able to do two things. The first is to block any alternative military strategy in Gaza by threatening to bolt the coalition. The second is to push for ’more’ or ’stronger’ military action. In combination, this allows them to effectively drive policy by default, and the simplest explanation for their repeated statements that they are in the process of emptying out Gaza is that they believe they are successfully doing so.

On the very first day that Gazans died while trying to receive food at GHF aid-distribution sites,
…murdered by Hamas shooters for daring to pick up the free 95 million meals GHF has been giving away since they started in May— cutting the UN and Hamas out of the loop and taking away the billions of dollars they’ve taken in selling donated food at wartime profits…
it was very obvious that - even completely ignoring all moral considerations whatsoever - Israel had an urgent and overriding strategic interest in finding out what happened and preventing it. There has now been more than a month of almost daily incidents, if anything increasing in their awfulness. It may be that there is still some kind of explanation that exonerates IDF generals of war crimes that would justifiably incur the death penalty, but there is no theoretically possible explanation that could exonerate the Israeli state as a whole of complete dysfunctionality.
Because Israel bears the burden of Hamas murdering its own people? Go fuck yourself, you lying Jew-hater.
The centre-Left IDF leadership has consistently refused to present a coherent military strategy of its own. Instead, they have spent two years trying to shirk as much responsibility as possible while half-heartedly implementing policies they know make no sense. We can understand their predicament, but if they believe they have been placed in an impossible situation, the morally responsible thing for them to do is resign.

The only part of the Israeli army that really works is the airforce.1 In addition, use of airpower is far less likely to lead to military casualties than any other form of military action. These two factors leads to extreme over-reliance on the IAF to achieve tactical and strategic objectives. This is all understandable, but it doesn’t change the reality that the range of military goals that can be achieved by airpower is actually very limited. This was evident even in Iran after a week, but it is far more so the case in Gaza. What over-reliance on airpower does guarantee is a constant stream of mass-casualty events.

These are accidental when divided up into each individual case, but they are deliberate when considered in the aggregate because there is no way that you can do so many airstrikes without it happening. If Israel wants to enforce a successful military occupation of Gaza, planes would play a very small role in that. What it needs is a well-disciplined army with lots of fluent Arabic speakers, and good local intelligence.

The military goal of eliminating Hamas can only happen if there is a replacement regime to take over. Israel has consistently refused to identify such a regime, and so the military goal is in a basic sense unachievable. Israel lacks not only the military capabilities to enforce regime change on Gaza, but even the desire to do so. At earlier stages in the war, there were other comprehensible military goals, namely deterrence, and degradation of Hamas’ military capacity to strike Israel.

Presently, though, Israel is doing whatever it is doing for no purpose that can be articulated. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense from the perspective of driving Palestinians out of Gaza, since the obstacle to that now is not that they have yet to be sufficiently immiserated, but that no-one is willing to take them. Israel is flooding the world media with images of malnourished children for no reason at all, just as a result of systemic state malfunction.
Israel is flooding?? The writer is clearly hallucinating.
Hamas has employed for much of its history a human shield policy and a human sacrifice policy. In this war, the human shield part is basically irrelevant: except in very extreme circumstances, Israel decided to shoot through them. However, the human sacrifice policy is very much in effect. Hamas’ goal is to provoke and manoeuvre Israel into committing atrocities that halt or reverse regional normalisation, undermine international support, and incur diplomatic and economic sanctions.

The IDF today, instead of being an instrument for the Israeli state to pursue its long-term strategic goals, has effectively become an instrument for Hamas to pursue its strategic goals.

Hamas is not purely an ideological organisation - it has many leaders and employees who want to live and live comfortably - but, in so far as it can be modelled ideologically, it is now directing large parts of the Israeli state to do its bidding.

Gaza is a big pile of rubble; its people live in tents, with lives of relentless misery, periodically punctuated by mortars or airstrikes. They live this way because they allowed (or, in many cases, eagerly assisted) the absolute worst, most loathsome and vile elements of their society to take command and steer them towards disaster in the service of ethnic narcissism, wounded pride, pathological brooding over historical grievances, revenge, and bullshit counterfeit religion.

In as much as collective responsibility can ever make sense as a moral doctrine, they have merited what has happened to them. And so will we.

Strictly speaking, there is also the navy and some other strategically irrelevant sections.



Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Elmomoter Mussolini9149 || 08/01/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [157 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Gazans are vermin - and so is everyone who supports them: from secretary general of UN and down to the dumbest (and fattest) African-American freshperson in some US university.
Israel is the most brilliant success in the history of the World.
Anti-Zionist Jews are morally inferior to Jews that collaborated with the Nazis - the latter was motivated by fear for their lives, the former are making a career.
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 1:36 Comments || Top||

#2  ^ good point but a caveat

There are people who have basically made a career or a second income in being anti Israel.

However, there are probably fewer than a thousand who have done that. The remaining hundreds of thousands of anti Israel zealots have a mental condition which gives them a shot of dopamine whenever they say something they think is important.
Posted by: Lord Garth || 08/01/2025 9:22 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 Right
Evolution of emotional contagion in group-living animals
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 10:34 Comments || Top||

#4  LoLz: IDF soldiers on the ground believe that the goal of the Gaza war is to destroy as much stuff as possible.

First sentence is an utter disaster. Everything that follows will be tripe garbage. No further reading is necessitated. Author is a clown.
Posted by: mossomo || 08/01/2025 12:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Which Democrat wrote this?
Posted by: Matt || 08/01/2025 13:17 Comments || Top||

#6  IDF soldiers on the ground believe that the goal of the Gaza war is to destroy as much stuff as possible.

According to anonymous sources, there *is* an IDF soldier who believes this. But in fairness to Pvt Moshe Pyle, he is part of an artillery unit and his job is basically to destroy as much stuff as he can from a distance.
Posted by: SteveS || 08/01/2025 14:07 Comments || Top||

#7  #4 If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 14:42 Comments || Top||

#8  When the Arab and islamic world refuses to help the refugees, its clear that they are a problem no one else wants.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 08/01/2025 15:59 Comments || Top||

#9  its clear that they are a problem no one else wants

A problem elsewhere and an asset where they are - you don't really think Arabs have given up their war against Israel?
Posted by: Grom the Affective || 08/01/2025 17:02 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran's regime preparing for Plan B? - American Thinker
[AMERICANTHINKER] After the recent Israeli war against the Iranian regime and the American attack on the Fordo nuclear site, the mullahs in Tehran are feeling the heat. This is the most fragile the regime has been over the past 46 years, and talk of regime change is spreading. For the past year and a half, some in the regime have been preparing for a plan B, in case they need to flee urgently. While that does not mean that the regime is about to fall, it is still a valid indicator of the nervousness of the leadership.

After Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
, one of Iran's proxies, attacked Israel by surprise on October 7, 2023, the Iranian regime and its allies have sustained major military and strategic losses at the hands of Israel. For instance, Hezbollah, from far its most powerful proxy, is just a shadow of itself after the elimination of most of its leadership, including its long-time ruthless chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
. Therefore, apparatchiks of the regime started panicking, deciding that it was time to either turn against the regime by defecting and/or working for the Israelis or the Americans to build a life abroad.

On the financial side, a very credible and reliable source to my firm alleged that vast amounts of cash had been transferred to Venezuela

...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...

and Canada, and also that last summer, Iranian dignitaries purchased large pieces of real estate in the French Riviera to plan for their post-Tehran life. Most of the buyers are reportedly mid-levels officers of the Revolutionary Guards. The median price of the properties is between 3 and 5 millions Euros. They all have used intermediaries to close the purchase of the properties. In a way, it is quite meaningful that it's not only the top leadership that is preparing their exile in case of a fall of the regime.

When it comes to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who cultivates the image of a simple and pious man, he is actually reigning over a veritable industrial empire, owning many real estate assets. Some of these assets are said to be the result of the spoliation of the property of thousands of families in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. The amount of assets over which it has control is estimated to be a whopping figure between $95 billion and $200 billion. Through a foundation called Setad, which is present in all sectors of the Iranian economy, Khamenei is said to own dozens of companies. Setad is the key interlocutor for foreign companies wishing to invest in Iran, and its financial flows are completely opaque. Iranian law exempts the Leader of the Revolution from accountability. The money that the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards have amassed over the past forty-six years is their life insurance in case the regime falls.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred || 08/01/2025 00:00 || Comments || Link || [71 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  some mid level apparatchiks have been assassinated or injured by (presumably) anti regime activists

we need more, much more of this
Posted by: Lord Garth || 08/01/2025 10:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Watch the Canadian PM welcome jihadist Iranian leaders settling just to the north of the US
Posted by: Jeck Sproing1747 || 08/01/2025 10:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Carney 'disappointed' as Trump increases tariffs on Canada to 35%
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/01/2025 13:31 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
32[untagged]
11Hamas
3Govt of Iran
2Hezbollah
2PLO
2Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
2Commies
1Narcos
1Pak Taliban (TTP)
1Palestinian Authority
1Palestinian Islamic Jihad
1[untagged]
1al-Qaeda
1Govt of Iran Proxies
1Govt of Syria/HTS
1Islamic State
1Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
1Moslem Colonists

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2025-08-01
  Islamic State in Sahel raided Burkina Faso Army Base in Oudakan
Thu 2025-07-31
  Strategic Town Lost as SNA Troops Flee: Al-Shabaab Gains Ground Amid Crumbling Defenses
Wed 2025-07-30
  In 1st, entire Arab League condemns Oct. 7, urges Hamas to disarm
Tue 2025-07-29
  PM said to propose Israel begin annexing parts of Gaza if Hamas again rejects truce deal
Mon 2025-07-28
  Up to 43 dead after attacks on church and homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out by Islamic State linked group
Sun 2025-07-27
  The June 19th near battle between USS Reagan and ChiComs
Sat 2025-07-26
  Hamas reports 122 Palestinians, including 83 children killed by starvation in Gaza
Fri 2025-07-25
  Houthis Hijack Israel-Linked Ship In The Red Sea
Thu 2025-07-24
  Shin Bet detained a woman accused of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Netanyahu using an improvised explosive device
Wed 2025-07-23
  Illegal immigrants are now 'going on strike' to protest ICE raids
Tue 2025-07-22
  Syria starts evacuating Bedouin families from Sweida in bid to restore calm after more than 1260 killed
Mon 2025-07-21
  Mali: FAMa announced that over 70 terrorists were neutralized
Sun 2025-07-20
  Clashes end in Suwayda after govt forces deployment, 940 dead
Sat 2025-07-19
  Hezbollah Leader Naim Qassem: We're ready to fight — no to disarming, no to surrender.
Fri 2025-07-18
  Libya: Armed clashes reported in Najila between militia forces and Dbeibah's defense units


Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
216.73.216.225
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (15)    WoT Background (16)    Non-WoT (10)    Local News (9)    Politix (10)