[ShabelleMedia] Stability is gradually returning to the Sabiid and Caanoole areas in Somalia’s Shabeelaha Hoose region, following their recent recapture by the Somali National Army (SNA).
Residents who fled amid fighting are reportedly beginning to return to their homes, despite significant damage to local infrastructure.
The bridge linking Sabiid and Caanoole remains destroyed after al-Shabaab ... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia attempting to metastasize into Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and similar places, all ofwhich have enough problems without them... gunnies detonated explosives while retreating from the area. However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... locals say the damaged bridge has not deterred their return, as they make their way back to their communities peacefully.
Security in the area remains calm, with a strong presence of government forces seen patrolling the towns’ centers. Soldiers are urging residents to remain calm and continue living peacefully in their homes.
Military officials have assured civilians that the Somali National Army will maintain a permanent presence in Sabiid and Caanoole to ensure lasting security.
General Sahal Abdullahi Omar, commander of the Somali Army’s ground forces in the region, praised the troops’ successes in the fight against al-Shabaab. He said efforts are underway to reclaim all territories previously lost to bully boys, including several areas in Sabiid and Caanoole.
"Many areas that were evacuated have now been retaken, marking significant progress in our campaign against al-Shabaab in Shabeelaha Hoose," General Sahal said.
Despite the bully boys’ destruction of the vital bridge, government forces have fully reestablished control over both communities after months of bully boy occupation.
The Somali National Army’s commitment to stabilizing Shabeelaha Hoose appears strong, with ongoing efforts to restore normality and facilitate the safe return of displaced residents.
[Garowe] The federal government of Somalia has been delisted from countries that are notorious for the recruitment of child soldiers, an act which is prohibited by the United Nations (UN) through various legal frameworks, charters, and commitments.
Several countries have been slammed for engagement in the recruitment of child soldiers in armed conflicts, but Somalia has managed to effectively denounce this habit, which is rampant in several parts of Africa.
The decision, made public by the United Nations on June 17, follows years of collaboration between the Federal Government of Somalia and international partners, including UNICEF and the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS).
For years, the country has struggled to implement the Somalia National Action Plan on the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict, an idea which has successfully been adopted into the transitional constitution, which is yet to be fully adopted.
“This is a historic achievement for the Somali people and security forces,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. “It reflects our strong commitment to protect vulnerable children and build a professional, accountable national army.”
Previously, the Somali National Army had been accused of the recruitment of children during conflicts, but the latest actions by the United Nations are an indication that the habit is slowly fading as constitutionalism and order take precedent in the country.
As chair of the National Committee on the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict, the Ministry praised the role of committee members and UN agencies in strengthening child protection mechanisms and enforcing safeguards in military recruitment and training.
Recently, the Al-Shabaab militants were accused of recruiting children following a viral video of child soldiers during the Eid al-Adha celebrations. The militants paraded several children who were reportedly recruits on various frontlines.
Good idea. It’s time to clear out the Iranian and Hezbollah sleeper cells
[IsraelTimes] FBI said to reassign agents to monitor for threats from Islamic Republic, which has previously targeted senior American politicians and a prominent dissident
The US Department of Homeland Security has warned of a "heightened threat environment" following American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and the deputy FBI director said the bureau’s "assets are fully engaged" to prevent retaliatory violence, while local law enforcement agencies in major US cities like New York said they were on high alert.
No credible threats to the domestic US have surfaced publicly in the days since the stealth American attack. It’s also unclear what bearing a ceasefire announced Monday by the US between Israel and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... might have on potential threats. The ceasefire appeared to hold late into Tuesday.
But the potential for reprisal is no idle concern given the steps Iran is accused of having taken in recent years to target political figures on US soil. Iranian-backed hackers have also launched cyberattacks against US targets in recent years.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported that over the weekend, the FBI had reassigned a number of agents who were working on immigration cases to instead focus on national security due to potential threats from Iran.
The US has alleged that Iran’s most common tactic over the past decade, rather than planning mass violence, has been murder-for-hire plots in which government officials recruit operatives — including reputed Russian mobsters and other non-Iranians — to kill public officials and dissidents. The plots, which Tehran has repeatedly denied engineering, have been consistently stymied and exposed by the FBI and the US Justice Department.
"You run into this problem that it’s not like there’s this one sleeper cell that’s connected directly to command central in Iran. There’s a lot of cut-outs and middlemen," said Ilan Berman, a senior vice president of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council. "The competence erodes three layers down."
Whether Iran intends to resort to that familiar method or has the capacity or ambition to successfully carry off a large-scale attack is unclear, but the government may feel a need to demonstrate to its people that it has not surrendered, said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The capability to execute successfully is different from the capability to try," he said. "Showing you’re not afraid to do this may be 90% part of the goal."
Hours after the US attack on Iran Sunday morning, FBI and DHS officials convened a call with local law enforcement to update them on the threat landscape, said Michael Masters, who participated in it as director of the Secure Community Network, which coordinates security for US Jewish institutions and tracks Iranian threats.
The DHS bulletin released over the weekend warned that several foreign terror organizations have called for violence against US assets and personnel in the Middle East. It also warned of an increased likelihood that a "supporter of the Iranian regime is inspired to commit an act of violence in the Homeland."
"The amount of material that we’re tracking online is at such a fever pitch at the moment," Masters said.
A PLOT AGAINST US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
The Justice Department in November disclosed that it had disrupted a plot to kill Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... before the 2024 election, a reflection of the regime’s long-running outrage over a 2020 strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani .
The scheme was revealed to law enforcement by an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who is alleged to maintain a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.
The man, Farhad Shakeri, told the FBI that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him last September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, authorities have said.
He said the official told him if he could not put together a plan within that timeframe, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then, according to a criminal complaint.
Shakeri disclosed some of the details of the alleged plots in a series of recorded telephone interviews with FBI agents while in Iran, the complaint said. The stated reason for his cooperation, he told Sherlocks, was to try to get a reduced prison sentence for an associate behind bars in the US. Shakeri is on the lam and has not been apprehended.
A PLOT AGAINST JOHN BOLTON
John Bolton was ousted from his position as Trump’s national security adviser months before the Soleimani strike, but he nonetheless found himself targeted in a plot that US officials say was orchestrated by a member of the Revolutionary Guard and involved a $300,000 offer for an liquidation.
Unbeknownst to the operative behind the plot, the man he thought he was hiring to carry out the killing was actually a confidential informant who was secretly working with the FBI.
The US Justice Department filed criminal charges in August 2022 even as the operative, Shahram Poursafi, remained on the lam.
A PLOT AGAINST MASIH ALINEJAD
Sometimes the intended target is not a US government official but rather a dissident or critic of the Iranian government.
That was the case with Masih Alinejad, a prominent Iranian American journalist and activist in New York who was targeted by Iran for her online campaigns encouraging women there to record videos of themselves exposing their hair in violation of edicts requiring them to cover it in public.
Two purported crime bosses in the Russian mob were convicted in March of plotting to assassinate her at her home in New York City in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors said was financed by Iran’s government.
Prosecutors said Iranian intelligence officials first plotted in 2020 and 2021 to kidnap her in the US and move her to Iran to silence her criticism.
When that failed, Iran offered $500,000 for Alinejad to be killed in July 2022 after efforts to harass, smear and intimidate her failed, prosecutors said.
A PLOT AGAINST A SAUDI AMBASSADOR
Underscoring the longstanding nature of the threat, federal prosecutors in 2011 accused two suspected Iranian agents of trying to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
The planned kaboom was to be carried out while envoy Adel al-Jubeir dined at his favorite restaurant in Washington.
And as is common in such plots, the person approached for the job was not an Iranian but rather someone who was thought to be an associate of a Mexican drug trafficking cartel who was actually an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli diplomat says it will be ‘almost’ impossible for Iran to build weapons from whatever nuclear infrastructure and material may have survived; others are less optimistic
Israel’s tally of the war damage it wrought on Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... includes the assassinations of at least 14 scientists, an unprecedented attack on the brains behind Iran’s nuclear program that outside experts say can only set it back, not stop it.
In an interview with The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, Israel’s ambassador to La Belle France said the killings will make it "almost" impossible for Iran to build weapons from whatever nuclear infrastructure and material may have survived nearly two weeks of Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s and massive bunker-busting bombs dropped by US stealth bombers.
"The fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the program by a number of years, by quite a number of years," Ambassador Joshua Zarka said.
But nuclear analysts say Iran has other scientists who can take their place. European governments say that military force alone cannot eradicate Iran’s nuclear know-how, which is why they want a negotiated solution to put concerns about the Iranian program to rest.
"Strikes cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has acquired over several decades, nor any regime ambition to deploy that knowledge to build a nuclear weapon," UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told politicians in the House of Commons.
Here’s a closer look at the killings:
CHEMISTS, PHYSICISTS, ENGINEERS AMONG THOSE KILLED
Zarka told AP that Israeli strikes killed at least 14 physicists and nuclear engineers, top Iranian scientific leaders who "basically had everything in their mind."
They were killed "not because of the fact that they knew physics, but because of the fight that they were personally involved in, the creation and the fabrication and the production of [a] nuclear weapon," he said.
Nine of them were killed in Israel’s opening wave of attacks on June 13, the Israeli military said. It said they "possessed decades of accumulated experience in the development of nuclear weapons" and included specialists in chemistry, materials and explosives as well as physicists.
Zarka spoke Monday to AP. On Tuesday, Iran’s state TV reported the death of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, in an Israeli strike, after he’d survived an earlier attack that killed his 17-year-old son on June 13. The US State Department described Sedighi Saber, who was killed at his father-in-law’s residence, as the head of a group that works on explosives-related projects, adding that he was "linked to projects including research and testing applicable to the development of nuclear bombs."
TARGETED KILLINGS MEANT TO DISCOURAGE WOULD-BE SUCCESSORS
Experts say that decades of Iranian work on nuclear energy — and, Western powers allege, nuclear weapons — has given the country reserves of know-how and scientists who could continue any work toward building warheads to fit on Iran’s ballistic missiles.
"Blueprints will be around and, you know, the next generation of PhD students will be able to figure it out," said Mark Fitzpatrick, who specialized in nuclear non-proliferation as a former US diplomat. Bombing nuclear facilities "or killing the people will set it back some period of time. Doing both will set it back further, but it will be reconstituted."
Fitzpatrick, now an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank, added, "They have substitutes in maybe the next league down, and they’re not as highly qualified, but they will get the job done eventually."
How quickly nuclear work could resume will, in part, depend on whether Israeli and US strikes destroyed Iran’s stock of enriched uranium and equipment needed to make it sufficiently potent for possible weapons use.
"The key element is the material. So once you have the material, then the rest is reasonably well-known," said Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst who specializes in Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Killing scientists may have been intended "to scare people so they don’t go work on these programs," he said.
"Then the questions are, ’Where do you stop?’ I mean you start killing, like, students who study physics?" he asked. "This is a very slippery slope."
The Israeli ambassador said, "I do think that people who will be asked to be part of a future nuclear weapon program in Iran will think twice about it."
PREVIOUS ATTACKS ON SCIENTISTS
Israel has long been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists, but previously didn’t claim responsibility as it did this time.
In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for killing its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, with a remote-controlled machine gun.
"It delayed the program but they still have a program. So it doesn’t work," said Gay Paree-based analyst Lova Rinel, with the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank. "It’s more symbolic than strategic."
Without saying that Israel killed Fakhrizadeh, the Israeli ambassador said, "Iran would have had a bomb a long time ago" were it not for repeated setbacks to its nuclear program — some of which Iran attributed to Israeli sabotage.
"They have not reached the bomb yet," Zarka said. "Every one of these accidents has postponed a little bit the program."
A LEGALLY GRAY AREA
International humanitarian law bans the intentional killing of civilians and non-combatants. But legal scholars say those restrictions might not apply to nuclear scientists if they were part of the Iranian armed forces or directly participating in hostilities.
"My own take: These scientists were working for a rogue regime that has consistently called for the elimination of Israel, helping it to develop weapons that will allow that threat to take place. As such, they are legitimate targets," said Steven R. David, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.
He said Nazi German and Japanese leaders who fought Allied nations during World War II "would not have hesitated to kill the scientists working on the Manhattan Project" that fathered the world’s first atomic weapons.
Laurie Blank, a specialist in humanitarian law at Emory Law School, said it’s too early to say whether Israel’s decapitation campaign was legal.
"As external observers, we don’t have all the relevant facts about the nature of the scientists’ role and activities or the intelligence that Israel has," she said by email to AP. "As a result, it is not possible to make any definitive conclusions."
Zarka, the ambassador, distinguished between civilian nuclear research and the scientists targeted by Israel.
"It’s one thing to learn physics and to know exactly how a nucleus of an atom works and what uranium is," he said.
But turning uranium into warheads that fit onto missiles is "not that simple," he said. "These people had the know-how of doing it, and were developing the know-how of doing it further. And this is why they were eliminated."
Continued on Page 47
#1
The point is not to eliminate nuclear "scientists". The point is to replace them with Mossad agents. Ask yourself "Why some nuclear "scientists", IRGC and Army commanders, were eliminated - while others survived?".
[IsraelTimes] 550 missiles, 1,000 drones fired; 31 impacts in populated areas; 28 killed, over 3,000 wounded in Israel; IDF says Iran’s capabilities degraded, nuclear program set back years
With a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... taking effect on Tuesday morning, the full scope of the 12 days of fighting, which started with a surprise Israeli operation against Tehran’s nuclear program, began to emerge.
Two hours into the ceasefire declared by US President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... , Iran launched two more ballistic missiles at Israel, setting off sirens in northern Israel. Both projectiles were intercepted, and the Israel Defense Forces in response struck an Iranian radar north of Tehran, seemingly ending the conflict.
THE CIVILIAN TOLL
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel during the 12 days of war claimed the lives of 28 people — all but one of them civilians — and maimed over 3,000 people.
Israel’s Health Ministry said a total of 3,238 people were hospitalized, including 23 who were seriously injured, 111 moderately, 2,933 lightly, 138 who suffered from acute anxiety, and another 30 whose conditions have not been determined.
The vast majority of the casualties were civilians, with the IDF reporting just seven soldiers hurt in one missile impact in central Israel and an off-duty soldier killed in Beersheba.
Israeli authorities have said more than 9,000 people have been displaced from their homes, dozens of which were damaged or destroyed by the Iranian attacks.
MISSILES AND DRONES
Iran launched between some 550 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones at Israel during the war, according to the IDF.
Most of the missiles were intercepted by Israeli and American air defenses at an interception rate of around 90 percent, similar to the rate in Iran’s April and October 2024 attacks on Israel.
Also, quietly,Jordanian defenses, as we were recently informed.
At least 31 ballistic missile impacts were reported in populated areas or critical infrastructure sites, including a power station in southern Israel,
…though Grom reported the power was back on line in only thee hours…
an oil refinery in Haifa, and a university in central Israel. Dozens of other missiles struck open areas, without causing significant damage.
The vast majority of the 1,000 drones, which are slower-moving but harder to track, failed to even make it to Israel’s borders.
A few crashed in Iraq, to their annoyance.
Nearly 99% of the drones that had posed a threat to Israel — around 500 — were intercepted by the Israeli Air Force with fighter jets, helicopters, and ground-based air defense systems; the Israeli Navy with missile boats; and the 5114th Spectrum Battalion with electronic warfare means, according to the military.
Just one drone hit a populated area, a home in the northern town of Beit She’an, causing heavy damage but no injuries.
The IDF Home Front Command said it issued over 21,000 alerts to civilians amid the war.
IRAN’S REMAINING CAPABILITIES
Iran at the start of the war was estimated to have some 2,500 ballistic missiles and many thousands of drones, according to the IDF.
The military has estimated that some two-thirds of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers, around 250, were destroyed in strikes, along with around 1,000 of the missiles.
This leaves Iran with around 1,000 to 1,500 ballistic missiles, and only around 100 or so launchers, according to IDF estimates.
In terms of Iran’s defenses, the IDF said it achieved aerial superiority over western Iran and Tehran amid the fighting, with over 80 Iranian air defense batteries destroyed.
Iran was unable to shoot down any Israeli fighter jets during the war, despite claims made by Iranian media. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits... two Israeli drones were intercepted, the military has confirmed.
The Israeli Air Force carried out over 1,000 sorties during the fighting, with over 600 aerial refueling operations, according to the IDF. Thousands of munitions were dropped on hundreds of targets by IAF fighter jets and drones.
NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Israel said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program was necessary to prevent the Islamic Theocratic Republic from realizing its plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran, which avowedly seeks Israel’s destruction, has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits... it has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward weaponization.
The military said its Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s caused "significant damage" to Iran’s Natanz and Isfahan nuclear enrichment facilities. The US also struck the underground Fordo site with heavy "bunker buster" munitions.
Additionally, dozens of other sites relating to the nuclear program were struck by Israel, including the inactive Arak heavy water reactor, the "headquarters of the SPND nuclear project," a site where Iran kept its "nuclear archive," and several centrifuge production sites.
The exact scope of the damage to the nuclear program remains unclear, but IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Tuesday that "we have set Iran’s nuclear project back by years."
At least 15 top Iranian nuclear scientists, who Israel said were working on a bomb, were also eliminated in strikes.
IRAN’S MILITARY LEADERSHIP
Israel’s opening strikes on Iran on June 13 eliminated some 30 senior Iranian military commanders, according to the IDF. Others were killed over the following days.
The dead included the Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami; Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters (emergency command) chief, Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, along with his replacement Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani.
Within the IRGC, Israeli strikes eliminated the commander of the Guards’ air force, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh; along with the IRGC air force drone unit commander Mohammad-Bagher Taherpour and his replacement Aminpour Joudaki; and IRGC air force air defense unit commander Davoud Shaykhian.
In the IRGC Quds Force, the IDF killed Saeed Izadi, head of the Paleostine Corps, and Behnam Shahriyari, head of the Unit 190 smuggling body.
Hundreds more IRGC soldiers, including numerous members of the Basij internal security body, were killed in Israeli strikes, according to IDF assessments.
Israeli strikes also killed at least 610 civilians in Iran, according to the country’s health ministry.
[IsraelTimes] Experts say it will take years for Tehran to replenish its missile supplies, but it can still terrorize Israel and others with cluster warheads and short-range rockets.
[IsraelTimes] Saraya Ansar al-Sunna — possibly an offshoot of Syrian president’s old rebel group HTS — says it ‘blew up the Saint Elias church,’ killing 25, over unspecified ‘provocation’
A little-known Sunni Moslem bad boy group grabbed credit on Tuesday for a weekend suicide kaboom against a church in Damascus, while the Syrian government insisted they were part of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Sunday’s attack killed 25 people and maimed dozens, striking terror into Syria’s Christian community and other minorities.
A statement from Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said an operative "blew up the Saint Elias church in the Dwelaa neighborhood of Damascus," adding that it came after an unspecified "provocation."
Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... in December, had quickly blamed the attack on the Islamic State group and announced several arrests on Monday in a security operation against ISIS-affiliated cells.
ISIS did not claim responsibility for the attack.
The Saraya Ansar al-Sunna statement, on the messaging app Telegram, said the government’s version of events was "untrue, fabricated."
The front man for the interior ministry, Nureddine al-Baba, said during a presser on Tuesday that the cell behind the attack "officially follows ISIS," adding that Saraya Ansar al-Sunna was "not independent... as it follows ISIS," using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Baba also said that the church attacker was not Syrian, without specifying his nationality, and came to Damascus with another jacket wallah from the al-Hol camp in the northeast for displaced people and relatives of ISIS members.
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Syria-based analyst and researcher, said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna could be "a pro-[ISIS] splinter originating primarily from defectors from HTS... and other factions but currently operating independently of [ISIS]."
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) is the Islamist group headed by Syria’s now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa that led the overthrow of Assad.
Baba said it could be just a "front group" for ISIS.
Citing a source within the group, Tamimi said a disillusioned former HTS functionary headed Saraya.
He added that its leadership included a former member of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda affiliate that announced in January it was dissolving on the orders of the new government.
’FIRST MASSACRE OF ITS KIND IN SYRIA SINCE 1860’
At the funeral of some of those killed in Damascus’s Holy Cross Church, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X called the attack an "unacceptable incident."
Addressing Sharaa, the patriarch said, "The heinous crime that took place at Mar Elias Church is the first massacre of its kind in Syria since 1860," referring to the mass killings of Christians in Damascus under the Ottoman Empire.
"We refuse for these events to take place during the revolution and during your honorable era."
Sharaa had called the patriarchate’s adviser to send his condolences, an act John X called "insufficient."
To ululations and tears, nine white coffins were carried into the church, amid a heavy security presence in the area.
"These events are fleeting and have no value in history," teacher Raji Rizkallah, 50, told AFP.
"Christianity is a deeply rooted and permanent part of this land, and holy warriors are heretics."
Assad’s government portrayed itself as a protector of minorities, who were subject to numerous attacks claimed by jihadist groups during the 14-year civil war.
The new authorities have repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, despite the eruption of sectarian violence on multiple occasions in recent months.
The suicide kaboom followed massacres of members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs and festivities with Druze fighters.
The bloodshed has raised concerns about the government’s ability to control radical fighters who took part in Assad’s overthrow.
HTS was once affiliated with al-Qaeda before breaking ties in 2016.
The job is not yet done, and Iran breaking the hudna means Israel can go to town when they are ready.
[IsraelTimes] Preliminary assessment says uranium stocks not destroyed, some centrifuges still intact; former UN inspector warns Tehran still has ‘ability to break out and produce weapon-grade uranium’
A US official who read the assessment noted that it contained a number of caveats and “ifs” and said a more refined report was expected in the coming days and weeks.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment has determined that US strikes over the weekend on Iranian nuclear facilities have set back Tehran’s program by only a matter of months, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Rooters.
The initial report was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s main intelligence arm and one of 18 US intelligence agencies, said two of the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss classified matters.
The classified assessment is at odds with the statements of President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... and high-ranking US officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. They have said the weekend strikes, which used a combination of bunker-busting bombs and more conventional weapons, essentially eliminated Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel’s own early assessment is also more optimistic, gauging that the twelve-day war with Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... — which seemed to conclude on Tuesday with a fragile US-brokered ceasefire agreement — set back Tehran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb by years, not months — though Jerusalem does not believe it has wiped out the program entirely either.
Asked for comment, the White House pointed to a statement by spokesperson Karoline Leavitt to CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... , which first reported the assessment, that the "alleged" conclusion was "flat-out wrong."
"Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration," she said.
A US official who read the assessment noted that it contained a number of caveats and "ifs" and said a more refined report was expected in the coming days and weeks.
Analysts said that, if the assessment was based on satellite imagery, the extent of damage to the deeply buried Fordow uranium enrichment facility would not necessarily be revealed.
Trump has said the attacks were necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies it is seeking such a weapon and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Hegseth on Sunday said that the strikes had "obliterated" Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while Trump said Iran’s crucial nuclear sites had been "completely and fully obliterated."
Assessing the damage at the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites is expected to be a difficult task, and the DIA is not the only agency tasked with the job. One source said the assessment was not universally accepted and had generated significant disagreement.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered... , said the US did not know the extent of the damage yet.
Still, the initial assessment indicated the strikes may not have been nearly as successful as the Trump administration has claimed. The US on Tuesday told the UN Security Council that the strikes "degraded" Iran’s nuclear program, short of Trump’s earlier assertion that the facilities had been "obliterated."
HEGSETH REITERATES STANCE
The sources said that the report found that the US attack had caved in facility entrances and destroyed or damaged infrastructure. However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... one added, the strike did not collapse underground buildings.
Restarting operations would basically depend on "how long it takes them to dig out and build or repair" power and water supply facilities, said the second source.
The Washington Post, citing a person familiar the report, said some centrifuges for enriching uranium were intact.
The Pentagon disputed the notion that the damage to Iran’s nuclear program was minor, though it did not dispute that the DIA assessment exists.
"Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons," Hegseth said in a statement provided to Rooters.
"Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target—and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission."
One source, however, said Iran’s enriched uranium stocks had not been eliminated.
David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector, said that based on post-strike commercial satellite imagery, he believed the US attack effectively destroyed Iran’s uranium enrichment program for now, but failed to eliminate the longer-term threat.
"Iran retains an ability to break out and produce weapon-grade uranium," said Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security, in a post on X.
He noted that Iran’s stock of near-weapons grade highly enriched uranium — enough for about nine warheads — is unaccounted for as are advanced centrifuges for a new enrichment facility that Iran this month told the IAEA it was preparing.
Initial military assessments can change as more information comes to light and it is not uncommon for opinions to vary across different US intelligence agencies.
Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... have previously said Trump’s claims that the weekend strikes eliminated or seriously set back Iran’s nuclear program were not yet backed by evidence.
"There’s zero evidence that I’ve seen that the nuclear program was completely and totally obliterated as Donald Trump has claimed," House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Monday.
Classified briefings on the matter for members of the House of Representatives and Senate were canceled on Tuesday. Senators are now set to be briefed on Thursday, according to the New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... . It was not immediately clear when representatives from the House will be briefed.
ISRAEL ASSESSES IRAN SET BACK ’SEVERAL YEARS,’ OFFICIAL SAYS
Israeli intelligence, meanwhile, has preliminarily assessed that US and Instrikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by "several years," but did not completely destroy it, a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
The Israeli intelligence assessment is constantly being updated and refined, and a more concrete understanding of the status of Iran’s nuclear program will be available in the coming weeks, the senior Israeli official said.
The Israeli official argued that the military strikes were still worthwhile because the negotiations that the US had previously been pursuing with Iran would not have been able to achieve such results.
Moreover, the strikes on the nuclear program along with other military targets in Iran will serve as a deterrent against the Islamic Theocratic Republic again trying to enrich uranium, the official said.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir also said Tuesday, "We have set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same goes for its missile program."
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told news hounds, "I think it’s still early to assess all the strikes. We know we were able to push back the [nuclear] program. We were able to remove the imminent threat that we had."
#4
...The loons who are insisting that we don't 'know' that Fordow has been destroyed are utterly, utterly clueless about how this sh!t works. At best, the physical plant itself is unusable even if it's more or less intact. The centrifuges require EXTREMELY delicate handling, and you don't just turn them off and haul 'em out the door by calling Two Jihadis And A Truck.
Could they have saved the enriched uranium they had? It would have been remarkably stupid even for the Iranians if they hadn't tried. Could they still build a bomb? Yep. The difference now is that they might get 3-4 bombs out of that, then that's all she wrote. They are going to be big, unwieldy beasts that are unlikely to be aircraft deliverable (IF they had any aircraft left) and they may not have any missiles left that are big enough to haul them from point a to point b. And if they did, then they have an interesting dilemma: they'll have to launch all of them in one go to even have a shot at getting past the Israeli BMD....and we already know they're very, very good.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that Israel sent agents to Iran’s Fordo nuclear site after US struck it earlier this week, insisting the attack was a success and warning that he was willing to strike again if Iran tried to revive its enrichment program.
“You know they have guys that go in there after the hit, and they said it was total obliteration,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit in The Hague, speaking about the bombing of Fordo.
“Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand, and I was told that they said it was total obliteration. I believe it was total obliteration, and I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast.”
Israeli officials told the Kan public broadcaster Wednesday, responding to Trump’s comments, that they were unaware of any Israeli operation at the Fordo nuclear facility after the strike.
Asked by a reporter Sunday if the US would carry out more attacks if Tehran were to rebuild its uranium enrichment facilities, Trump said: “Sure.”
#6
It's become an article of faith for the Democrats that the attack failed.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/25/2025 9:59 Comments ||
Top||
#7
^ and prayer
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/25/2025 10:25 Comments ||
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#8
I'm no structural engineer, but I would be apprehensive, to put it mildly, about working in a tunnel complex that had just had several tons of high explosives dropped on it.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/25/2025 10:40 Comments ||
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images/prisonstories.jpg [Rudaw] Iran transferred inmates away from notorious Evin prison in Tehran after an Israeli strike targeted the facility, the Iranian judiciary announced on Tuesday.
“Immediately after the Zionist regime's criminal action, in order to protect the rights of prisoners and provide space for relief forces, convicts who were serving their sentences in Evin Prison were transferred to other prisons in Tehran,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online said, citing prison staff.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike targeted the Evin prison in Tehran, with the judiciary asserting that the situation at the facility is under control.
Iranian state TV said that the inmates were transferred early on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, media affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that the Israeli airstrikes on the facility incurred casualties.
“As well as members of the prisoners' families and the prisoners themselves, were injured, and we had martyrs in this regard,” Fars news agency said, citing the judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir.
He added that “part of the Evin administrative building was destroyed” in the Israeli strikes.
Evin prison has served as Iran’s main detention center for political dissidents and foreign nationals since the 1970s, making it a powerful symbol of state repression and a tool for diplomatic leverage.
Located in northwestern Tehran, the facility is known for holding political prisoners, dual nationals, and foreign detainees. It has gained international attention due to the high-profile cases of inmates.
Following news that Iran executed a man accused of spying for Israel, reported by Mizan on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the attack on Evin prison was carried out to stop Iran.
“We warned Iran time and again: stop targeting civilians! They continued, including this morning,” Sa’ar said in a post on X.
On Saturday, the head of Iran’s judiciary said that suspects accused of collaborating with Israel in its war on Iran will face expedited trials and be given no leniency.
Iran has released several confessions of people accused of cooperating with or spying for Israel. Such confessions are widely believed to be coerced, often obtained through threats, psychological pressure, and, in some cases, physical torture.
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.
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.
... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia attempting to metastasize into Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and similar places, all ofwhich have enough problems without them...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...
...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...every time you hear the phrase 
