We really are due for the sixth seal: Revelation 6:12

Opinion/Al Southwick: Could an earthquake really rock New England? We are 265 years overdue

On Nov. 8, a 3.6 magnitude earthquake struck Buzzard’s Bay off the coast of New Bedford. Reverberations were felt up to 100 miles away, across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and parts of Connecticut and New York. News outlets scrambled to interview local residents who felt the ground shake their homes. Seismologists explained that New England earthquakes, while uncommon and usually minor, are by no means unheard of.

The last bad one we had took place on Nov. 18, 1755, a date long remembered.

It’s sometimes called the Boston Earthquake and sometimes the Cape Ann Earthquake. Its epicenter is thought to have been in the Atlantic Ocean about 25 miles east of Gloucester. Estimates say that it would have registered between 6.0 and 6.3 on the modern Richter scale. It was an occasion to remember as chronicled by John E. Ebel, director of the Weston observatory of Boston College:

“At about 4:30 in the morning on 18 November, 1755, a strong earthquake rocked the New England area. Observers reported damage to chimneys, brick buildings and stone walls in coastal communities from Portland, Maine to south of Boston … Chimneys were also damaged as far away as Springfield, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut. The earthquake was felt at Halifax, Nova Scotia to the northeast, Lake Champlain to the northwest, and Winyah, South Carolina to the southwest. The crew of a ship in deep water about 70 leagues east of Boston thought it had run aground and only realized it had felt an earthquake after it arrived at Boston later that same day.

“The 1755 earthquake rocked Boston, with the shaking lasting more than a minute. According to contemporary reports, as many as 1,500 chimneys were shattered or thrown down in part, the gable ends of about 15 brick buildings were broken out, and some church steeples ended up tilted due to the shaking. Falling chimney bricks created holes in the roofs of some houses. Some streets, particularly those on manmade ground along the water, were so covered with bricks and debris that passage by horse-drawn carriage was impossible. Many homes lost china and glassware that was thrown from shelves and shattered. A distiller’s cistern filled with liquor broke apart and lost its contents.”

We don’t have many details of the earthquake’s impact here, there being no newspaper in Worcester County at that time. We do know that one man, Christian Angel, working in a “silver” mine in Sterling, was buried alive when the ground shook. He is the only known fatality in these parts. We can assume that, if the quake shook down chimneys in Springfield and New Haven, it did even more damage hereabouts. We can imagine the cries of alarm and the feeling of panic as trees swayed violently, fields and meadows trembled underfoot and pottery fell off shelves and crashed below.

The Boston Earthquake was an aftershock from the gigantic Lisbon Earthquake that had leveled Lisbon, Portugal, a few days before. That cataclysm, estimated as an 8 or 9 on the modern Richter scale, was the most devastating natural catastrophe to hit western Europe since Roman times. The first shock struck on Nov. 1, at about 9 in the morning.

According to one account: ”Suddenly the city began to shudder violently, its tall medieval spires waving like a cornfield in the breeze … In the ancient cathedral, the Basilica de Santa Maria, the nave rocked and the massive chandeliers began swinging crazily. . . . Then came a second, even more powerful shock. And with it, the ornate façade of every great building in the square … broke away and cascaded forward.”

Until that moment, Lisbon had been one of the leading cities in western Europe, right up there with London and Paris. With 250,000 people, it was a center of culture, financial activity and exploration. Within minutes it was reduced to smoky, dusty rubble punctuated by human groans and screams. An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 lost their lives.

Since then, New England has been mildly shaken by quakes from time to time. One series of tremors on March 1, 1925, was felt throughout Worcester County, from Fitchburg to Worcester, and caused a lot of speculation.

What if another quake like that in 1755 hit New England today? What would happen? That question was studied 15 years ago by the Massachusetts Civil Defense Agency. Its report is sobering:

“The occurrence of a Richter magnitude 6.25 earthquake off Cape Ann, Massachusetts … would cause damage in the range of 2 to 10 billion dollars … in the Boston metropolitan area (within Route 128) due to ground shaking, with significant additional losses due to secondary effects such as soil liquefaction failures, fires and economic interruptions. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of major and minor injuries would be expected … Thousands of people could be displaced from their homes … Additional damage may also be experienced outside the 128 area, especially closer to the earthquake epicenter.”

So even if we don’t worry much about volcanoes, we know that hurricanes and tornadoes are always possible. As for earthquakes, they may not happen in this century or even in this millennium, but it is sobering to think that if the tectonic plates under Boston and Gloucester shift again, we could see a repeat of 1755.

Who is the Antichrist? Part 2: Confronting Iran

Who is Muqtada al-Sadr? Part 2: Confronting Iran

AMATZIA BARAM

Iraq’s ongoing political crisis pits the firebrand Shia militia leader against both domestic rivals and the regime in Tehran.

In a nutshell

• Sadrist candidates won a plurality in Iraq’s last election
• The country’s factions remain in gridlock
• Mass protests are likely to again erupt

This report is the second in a two-part series from GIS Expert Prof. Dr. Amatzia Baram. The first part, which published yesterday, focused on Muqtada al-Sadr’s political and ideological development.

For nearly two decades, Iran has sought to deepen its influence over Iraq’s affairs by exploiting the instability there. By 2021 it had scored substantial success. But if the current political crisis in Baghdad proves to be a hinge point in relations with Iran, it will be largely thanks to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric and militia leader who has played a central role in its recent history.

Mr. Sadr’s open confrontation with Iran began in July 2017, when he visited Saudi Arabia with great fanfare. Tehran was not pleased. The summer of 2018 saw another key event: mass demonstrations in southern Iraq against the regime’s corruption and Iran’s exploitation of the country. For the first time, it became a Shia struggle against a Shia ruling elite, a dynamic that has persisted until today.

Both Mr. Sadr and Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani supported the demonstrators, even though the former’s followers included members of the ruling elite. After almost two years of civil unrest, by May 2020 the new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, had announced his support of the protestors’ demands: new electoral legislation, new elections, an anti-corruption campaign and an end to independent armed militias. Both Messrs. Sistani and Sadr, together with Iraq’s Kurdish president, Barham Salih, backed the prime minister all the way. Ultimately, he managed to change the electoral law and conduct democratic elections, but failed to achieve his other goals.

Electoral victory?

In the early elections held in October 2021, politicians loyal to Mr. Sadr won 73 seats out of 329 in parliament – making him leader of the largest party and kingmaker. He again sought to split the Shia camp and build an all-Iraqi coalition, including most Sunni and Kurdish representatives, and managed to secure a borderline majority in parliament. He declared that his nemesis – ex-prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran’s main supporter in Iraq – would never be part of his ruling coalition.

This step meant that the largest pro-Iranian party would be excluded from Iraq’s government, and that Iran would lose a favorable majority in parliament. For Tehran, this was a looming disaster; it might still exert control over Iraq through the 160,000-strong pro-Iranian militias, but it could not afford losing the democratic legitimacy that came from parliamentary dominance.

In a brilliant move, the Iranian regime convinced its man heading the Supreme Judicial Council, Faiq Zaidan, to issue an unconstitutional rule stipulating that no new president can be elected without a two-thirds quorum in parliament. Constitutionally, only a new president can nominate a new prime minister. And with Muqtada al-Sadr unable to cobble together a two-thirds quorum, the democratic process was frozen solid.

Though surrounded by a million supporters, since 2003 Muqtada al-Sadr has been a lonely man.

As has happened a few times before, beginning June 11, 2022, Mr. Sadr went into an emotional frenzy lasting over six weeks. Instead of using the simple majority that he still retained to dissolve parliament, he ordered all of his 73 delegates to resign, hoping to both delegitimize the legislature and reenergize his base of support. He also believed that his Kurdish and Sunni allies would also resign, but they did not.

But by ordering his party parliamentarians to resign, he gave a majority to his archenemy, Nouri al-Maliki. The latter immediately found a candidate for the premiership, though he, too, lacked a two-thirds quorum to first elect a new president.

Muqtada al-Sadr again lashed out. On July 27, he declared a “revolution” against the sectarian governmental system that was introduced after 2003, and ordered his supporters to storm parliament – and subsequently to evacuate it, to occupy it again, and finally to besiege the Supreme Judicial Council. The latter siege lost him much domestic and foreign support. He later sent an appeal to the same body to disperse parliament and call for new elections, which the Council rejected; constitutionally, only parliament can disperse itself.

Humiliation

This is when Iran dealt Mr. Sadr a humiliating blow. On August 28, his official religious “source of emulation” (muqallad), Grand Ayatollah Kadhim Husayni al-Haeri, resigned from all religious leadership duties – apparently on the orders of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Such a resignation is an extremely rare act in Shia tradition: an ayatollah is muqallad for life. To add insult to injury, Ayatollah al-Haeri sent Mr. Sadr a public and highly offensive letter, reminding him just how insignificant of a cleric he was. Most embarrassingly, he called upon all of his Iraqi followers (which include most of Mr. Sadr’s supporters) to follow Iran’s Supreme Leader from then on.

As a reaction to this profound affront from Iran and his mentor, and with a sense that he has hit a brick wall, Muqtada al-Sadr again flew into a rage. On August 29, he announced – for the fourth or fifth time – his resignation from political life. He once more demanded the dissolution of parliament, but in an escalation, also demanded that all Iraqi senior politicians also resign from politics.

His supporters viewed these as marching orders. They occupied the government palace, and all over Baghdad began challenging pro-Iranian militias. The highly dangerous, pro-Iranian group Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq quickly opened fire. No fewer than 30 people were killed, almost all of them Mr. Sadr’s men.

Prime Minister al-Kadhimi ordered a full curfew in Iraqi cities, while security forces tried to separate the warring sides. On August 30 – with the casualties piling up and after receiving a quiet demand from Ayatollah al-Sistani to evacuate Baghdad’s Green Zone and end the violence – Mr. Sadr denounced both his own side and the other. He praised the prime minister for not unduly involving state security, ordered his supporters to evacuate the Green Zone within the hour, and urged all involved to stop the fighting. While tensions remained as high as the August heat of 52 degrees Celsius, his words cooled everybody off.

Scenarios

Though surrounded by a million supporters, since 2003 Muqtada al-Sadr has been a lonely man. The Shia intellectual and political elite, such as the Islamic Dawa Party, have had little respect for him or his supporters. The anti-regime and anti-Iranian demonstrators cannot trust him, because his men harassed them in 2019-2020 for no reason. Since he ordered his lawmakers to resign, his Kurdish and Sunni allies, the prime minister, the president, and the marja’iyya (religious leadership) of Najaf – while all sympathetic – are worried about his decision-making style and predisposition for violence.

Mr. Sadr has no consigliere to make him pause and listen in a moment of anger. After past major crises, he has resigned and then bounced back. This is again the case today: he will be back. But if he desists from political activity for a few months, it will serve the parliament and Iraqi politics on a silver platter to Nouri al-Maliki and Iran. Alternatively, Mr. Sadr can send his people back to the streets, which could also spark a civil war.

While parliament is now widely seen as illegitimate, following the resignation of Mr. Sadr’s lawmakers, even a problematic parliament can serve Iran’s needs. Interim President Barham Salih is therefore supporting Mr. Sadr’s call for new elections. Mr. Salih is highly respected, but this is not enough. Now that the high court has decided against interference, the one person who can save Iraq from the present crisis without subjugating the country to Iran is Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani – who, for the last few months, has kept himself above the fray.

Mr. Sistani favors the fight against corruption and against Iran’s domination of Iraq’s politics, security and economy. Yet, contrary to the Iranian concept that the senior cleric should rule, he does not want to get involved in politics. He seems reluctant to return to the role of political arbiter that he played in 2019-2020.

However, if Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani believes that most Iraqis (or, at least, most Iraqi Shias) want him to intervene, he will. So far, his actions have appeared somewhat contradictory. On one hand, he quietly demanded that Mr. Sadr end all violence. On the other, he and his Najaf colleagues have gently signaled support for the junior Iraqi cleric’s cause, by sending senior representatives to a ceremony mourning the dead Sadrist soldiers and denouncing the killings. But that modest signal was all.

Mr. Sistani’s inclination is to call for new elections – but he faces the dilemma that constitutionally, the parliament is still legitimate. Calling for its dissolution will also alienate Iran and its powerful militias. More likely, therefore, unless Iraq explodes into violent riots, or unless there emerges a constitutional way to dissolve parliament, the Ayatollah will keep his silence.

Still, because too many young Iraqis want to see Iran’s exit, major political reform and new elections, calm is not likely. Peaceful mass protests are very likely to erupt again, as they did most impressively in October 2019 – and the pro-Iranian militias know how to shoot. Muqtada al-Sadr’s mistakes greatly weakened the protesters, as well as his Kurdish and Sunni allies.

Indeed, these two groups of allies are in a bind. If they betray Mr. Sadr and join the pro-Iranian camp, he will never forgive them, and they will be blamed for turning Iraq into Tehran’s vassal. If they stick with Mr. Sadr much longer, the political crisis will become extremely dangerous.

They could solve their dilemma in two stages. First, by agreeing on a president, who must be Kurdish. The two main Kurdish parties are on both sides of the parliamentary divide and, so far, cannot agree on a single candidate.  Second, the pro-al-Sadr Kurds and Sunnis may be able to force the pro-Iranian politicians to agree that a new prime minister will declare early elections. If the pro-Iranians prove unyielding, Mr. Sistani’s support for such a step could then be decisive.

As for Western aims, the path to lifting Iran’s grip on Iraq starts with supporting new elections. Muqtada al-Sadr is a dangerous actor, and helping him means riding a tiger. Still, to achieve that goal, Western powers and Arab states would first have to help the woefully divided Iraqi demonstrators organize ahead of the next elections. Then they must ensure that the ballot is a democratic one. Tehran is certain to act in the opposite direction.

Who is the Antichrist? Part 1: Beginnings

Who is Muqtada al-Sadr? Part 1: Beginnings

AMATZIA BARAM

The controversial Shia cleric and militia leader has long been at the heart of Iraq’s political intrigue.

In a nutshell

• The enigmatic Iraqi cleric has long been at the center of Iraqi politics
• His private militias shaped years of conflict in the country
• The American withdrawal set the stage for confrontation with Iran

Nearly a year after Iraq’s last parliamentary election, the country’s political system remains frozen in crisis. The man who seemed to emerge as kingmaker after last October’s vote – Muqtada al-Sadr – proved unable to secure a coalition government, while thousands of his followers took to the streets, storming the halls of government.

This failure of the Shia cleric, who announced his retirement from politics for at least the fourth time, is casting a shadow on his chances of shaping events to come.

Muqtada al-Sadr was born in Najaf, Iraq, on August 4, 1974, to a prominent Shia clerical family with roots in Lebanon’s Jabal Amil region. The fourth and youngest son of Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, he was considered the least intellectual of his brothers, but he was a good organizer and his father trusted him with the daily management of some of his madrassas.

Mr. Sadr’s political career is marked by several major turning points. Notwithstanding his repeated resignations, his emotional decision-making and his ideological contradictions, throughout the years he has stuck to two principles: that Iraq must have self-rule, and that he must be a central player in his country’s politics.

A father’s death

In April 1980, Saddam Hussein executed his father’s cousins, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and his sister, a scholar. The death of the former – the most senior cleric yet killed by the regime – shocked the extended al-Sadr family and the Shia community.

Muqtada al-Sadr’s father, Muhammad Sadiq, a religious scholar of rising influence, decided to keep a low profile. In the late 1980s, he even began to collaborate with the regime of Saddam Hussein, though quietly enough to avoid controversy in Shia society. The Iraqi dictator allowed him to establish some institutions and preach Islam to the Shia tribes and in Saddam City – the sprawling shantytown in northeast Baghdad, which in 2003 was renamed in his memory.

His father was a proud Arab and Iraqi, leading to competition with Shia Iran.

In 1998, Saddam allowed the elder al-Sadr to begin holding communal Friday prayers, a practice not seen in Shia areas for some time. He did this at his Friday mosque services in Kufa, near Najaf, sermons that attracted tens of thousands of young Shia eager to hear some anti-Baath preaching. Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr carefully straddled the line between obeying and criticizing the regime – never explicitly crossing it, but attacking all the other Iraqi ayatollahs for their passivity and fear of Saddam. This generated a bitter rivalry with their leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Critically, in the fall of 1999, he declared himself Wali Amr al-Muslimin, the one responsible for all the world’s Muslims. This implied that the true leader of the Iranians and the Shia world was not Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the elder al-Sadr.

Mr. Khamenei was incensed – as this was a title reserved in Iran only for him and his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini – and closed all the offices in Iran belonging to Muqtada’s father. In December 1999, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Najaf. Muqtada’s two elder brothers, both highly respected religious scholars, died in the same hail of bullets.

A ready martyr

Most blamed the assassination on Saddam, but it would have been a serious mistake on his part to murder the senior al-Sadr. The religious leader had served the regime’s purposes well by preventing mass clashes with Shia Iraqis. He had also offended other Najaf clerics whom Saddam reviled and, most helpfully, humiliated and drew the ire of Saddam’s archenemy, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. The latter, on the other hand, had very good reason to eliminate such a formidable competitor – a fact that cannot have escaped Muqtada’s attention.

The death of his father and brothers represented the first turning point in Muqtada’s adult life. Thereafter, he frequently appeared wearing white shrouds and declared himself ready to become a martyr. His father’s slain cousin, Baqir al-Sadr, also acted similarly before his arrest and execution. But Muqtada al-Sadr is far from genuinely seeking martyrdom; he has taken risks, but has always left himself a way out.

From his father, he inherited a few central political principles to which he still adheres. One is enmity toward the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel, which his father called “the ill-fated trinity.” These days, Mr. Sadr’s intense ire is reserved exclusively for Israel.

Another central pillar is his father’s attachment to Shia history and eschatology (like the expected Return of the Mahdi) and to Islamic law, though without embracing fanatical bigotry. Therefore, while Muqtada has found it easy to allow the killing of Sunnis for no other reason than their being Sunnis, he can also easily befriend Sunni Arabs and Kurds when necessary.

Finally, his father was a proud Arab and Iraqi, leading to competition with Shia Iran. When politically expedient, Muqtada collaborated with the Iranian Quds Force, and even stayed in Iran; now he is confronting the regime.

Facts & figures

Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraq

From his father’s death until 2003, Mr. Sadr kept a very low profile. He accepted Saddam’s financial support because turning it down would have gotten him killed. Still, if he actually served Saddam, he did so very quietly. He kept supporting his father’s flock, the poorest Shia, with social help and religious guidance through a network of low-level clerics.

Muqtada al-Sadr is not charismatic in the usual sense; he derives his charisma from the people’s admiration for his father, an admiration that he has nurtured. For his ardent supporters, who risk their lives for him, the son of a martyred saint is also a saint. To great effect, he continues to remind them that he, too, may soon become a martyr. But while they admire him, Mr. Sadr treats his followers like a capricious nanny, threatening to disown them if they do not immediately abide by his orders.

The American enemy

The U.S. occupation of Iraq was Muqtada al-Sadr’s second turning point. Soon afterward, he sprang from his quiet activities into a political and military frenzy.

Why? First, fighting U.S. forces was a fulfillment of his father’s legacy. Second, it portrayed him as a heroic Iraqi and Muslim patriot, increasing his popularity. Finally, he understood that the Americans are not the British of old, and certainly not Saddam. They might have the ability to kill him, but, thanks to their political values, they would not.

Mr. Sadr established his private army, Jaysh al-Mahdi, named after the Shia Redeemer, the Vanished Twelfth Imam, who is expected to rise and lead the faithful to a final battle at the end of times. (In 2014, he changed the group’s name to Saraya al-Salam, the “Peace Companies.”) His fighters came from the same elements his father nurtured, and he ordered them to kill American soldiers – often providing them with Captagon pills, a potent psychostimulant to send them into battle in a frenzy.

The American occupation of Iraq was Muqtada al-Sadr’s second turning point.

Iran was very helpful in providing weapons and improvised explosive devices. This led to myriad confrontations between his Mahdi militia and American soldiers, with many casualties on both sides. Mr. Sadr’s forces also fought against supporters of his late father’s enemies, the four grand ayatollahs of Najaf, led by Ayatollah al-Sistani.

Soon after the Americans occupied Najaf, his militia murdered the pro-American Ayatollah Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, son of the late chief ayatollah. When the holy Shia Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra was blown up in 2006, Mr. Sadr likely saw it as a personal attack against him, as his militia’s namesake imam vanished in Samarra in the ninth century. His Mahdi Army became the cutting edge of fighting the Sunnis.

The Ayatollah

In August 2004, Muqtada al-Sadr occupied the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, among the most sacred Shia sites. He was besieged by the U.S. Marines, but his life was saved by his late father’s nemesis, Ayatollah al-Sistani. They met at the latter’s home, and Mr. Sadr agreed to order his fighters to lay down their weapons and leave Najaf.

The meeting changed him – the third turning point in his life, after his father’s violent death and the U.S. invasion. Mr. Sadr seems to have been in quest for a spiritual father, and found him in Ayatollah al-Sistani.

While his official religious “source of emulation” (muqallad) was Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Kadhim Husayni al-Haeri, Mr. Sistani became his true guide. Because this clashed with his father’s legacy, and because he needed to provide his wild supporters with a target, he still disobeyed Mr. Sistani’s call not to fight the Americans. Yet he has never again attacked the ayatollah or his supporters and, after the U.S. evacuation from Iraq in 2011, never antagonized him politically. Often, he has even acted as if they were perfectly in sync.

In 2007, feeling the heat from the U.S. “surge,” Mr. Sadr escaped to Iran, where he studied for four years in Qom. The following year, with the Mahdi Army growing dominant in the Iraq city of Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent in troops to subdue them, with massive American and British assistance.

It was a humiliation that Muqtada al-Sadr could never forgive, although he decided to serve his revenge cold. While he criticized Mr. Maliki for failing to demand an immediate exit of U.S. forces, he still supported him for the premiership after the elections of 2010.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces in December 2011 was the next turning point. With no Americans left to fight, Mr. Sadr returned to Iraq and launched his long-term campaign against Mr. Maliki – and, less conspicuously, against Iran.

In 2012, he would split the parliamentary Shia camp for the first time, joining forces with Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party. And by 2014, he would help replace Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister with Haidar al-Abadi.

Within a few more years, Muqtada al-Sadr’s campaign against Tehran would break out into the open, setting the stage for political crisis.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2, on Muqtada al-Sadr’s confrontation with Iran.

Three Israeli Women Shot Dead Outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Lucy (left), Rina (centre) and Maia Dee were reportedly shot at close range after their car came under fire

UK-Israeli mother dies after West Bank shooting

A British-Israeli woman has died after a suspected Palestinian gun attack on Friday, in which two of her daughters were also killed.

Lucy Dee, 45, had been in a coma since the attack in the occupied West Bank.

Her daughters Rina, 15, and Maia, 20, were buried on Sunday in the settlement of Kfar Etzion, with their father and three surviving siblings present. 

The family moved to Israel nine years ago from the UK, where Lucy’s husband, Leo, had served as a rabbi.

Thousands of mourners attended the emotionally charged funeral of the sisters, where Rabbi Dee eulogised them. 

Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem announced that Lucy (who was also known by her Hebrew name, Leah) Dee had died on Monday morning “despite great and constant efforts”.

Speaking hours after his wife’s death, Rabbi Dee said: “My beautiful wife, Lucy, and myself tried to raise our children with good values and to do good and bring more good into the world,” calling the attack “pure evil”.

“Alas, our family of seven is now a family of four”, he said. 

Lucy, Rina and Maia were shot at as they were driving in the Jordan Valley in the northern West Bank on their way to a family holiday. Their vehicle crashed and the gunmen went up to the car and opened fire on the women at close range, Israeli media quoted investigators as saying. 

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that 22 bullet casings were found, apparently from a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Rabbi Dee had been further ahead in a separate car when his sister called him with news of the attack. 

He said he tried to call his wife and daughters but they did not answer. He then saw a missed call from Maia from the time of the attack.

He said another daughter who was with him saw a photo posted on Instagram by the driver of a car which passed the attacked car and they recognised one of their suitcases on the back seat of the vehicle.

The emergency services were already at the scene of the attack, near the settlement of Hamra, when he got there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted that he sent his “heartfelt condolences to the Dee family, on the death of the mother of the family, Leah (Lucy), who was murdered in the severe terror attack in the [Jordan] valley”. 

Radlett United Synagogue in Hertfordshire, to which the Dees had belonged, said the community was “devastated at the terrible news” of Lucy and her daughters’ deaths. 

“We and the world have been robbed of their presence, but their light can never be extinguished,” it said in a statement.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a hunt for the perpetrators following the attack, which came at a time of spiralling tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.

Australian Nuclear Horn seriously jeopardizes peace, stability in Asia-Pacific

AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation seriously jeopardizes peace, stability in Asia-Pacific: embassy

Source: Xinhua

Editor: huaxia

2023-04-09 13:12:16

LONDON, April 8 (Xinhua) — The United States, Britain and Australia have been pressing ahead with nuclear submarine cooperation despite being widely questioned, which creates nuclear proliferation risks and undermines the international non-proliferation system, the Chinese Embassy in Britain has said.

In response to a question concerning the trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) cooperation on nuclear submarines, the embassy said on Friday that such cooperation will exacerbate the resurgence of the Cold War mentality, trigger a new round of arms race, and further provoke regional security and military confrontation, seriously jeopardizing regional peace, stability and prosperity.

The Asia-Pacific is now the most dynamic and fastest growing region in the world, which hasn’t come easily, the embassy said in a press release. “The AUKUS cooperation is designed to serve the U.S. geopolitical agenda to introduce group politics and Cold War confrontation into the Asia-Pacific with military deterrence. It is aimed at creating a NATO-replica in the Asia-Pacific, which runs counter to peace and stability in the region.”

The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation marks the first time for nuclear weapon states to transfer naval nuclear propulsion reactors and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapon state, it noted.

As the current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system is incapable of ensuring effective safeguards, such cooperation poses serious nuclear proliferation risks, seriously compromises the authority of the IAEA, and deals a blow to the agency’s safeguards system, the embassy said.

“If the three countries are set on advancing the cooperation, other countries will likely follow suit, eventually leading to the collapse of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” it said.

China urges the three countries to heed the call of the international community and regional countries, discard the outdated zero-sum Cold War mentality and narrow geopolitical mindset, earnestly fulfil their international obligations and do more things that are conducive to regional peace, stability, unity and development, the embassy said.

“This serves the fundamental and long-term interests of regional countries as well as the three countries themselves,” it said. “The UK is not a country in the region and it is unwise to overstretch itself.”  ■

Who Is the Antichrist, Iraq’s New Kingmaker? (Rev 13)

Analysis Who Is Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq’s New Kingmaker?
Amatzia Baram
26.05.2018 | 00:42
Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, the junior Shi’ite cleric and new kingmaker whose party came out on top in the Iraqi elections a few days ago? Since he doesn’t appear on the list of parliamentary candidates, al-Sadr can’t appoint himself prime minister, but his support will be crucial. His choice for prime minister will have great influence on Iraq’s policies.
Simplistic descriptions of al-Sadr portray him as equally anti-American and anti-Iranian. But it’s important to understand the sources of his positions on the big power and the large neighbor to the east; his stance on Iran is particularly surprising for a Shi’ite cleric who has never visited the West but visited and even lived and studied in Iran.
Al-Sadr is the third and least impressive son of Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was killed in his car with his two older sons by submachine gun fire at the entrance to the city of Najaf in 1999. The father left al-Sadr two legacies: deep hostility to the United States, Britain and Israel in the spirit of Saddam Hussein, and a strange competition for hegemony in the Shi’ite and Muslim world with the Shi’ite-Iranian religious establishment and Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei.
The father would refer to the United States, Britain and Israel as the “wretched triad.” During Friday sermons, his haranguing of this terrible trio bought Sadeq al-Sadr a measure of protection from the paranoia of the Saddam regime, which he also occasionally criticized, albeit in softer language.
Another way to signal to the regime that Saddam’s enemies were his enemies as well, or at least his rivals, was to declare himself wali amar al-muslamin – in charge of all the Muslims and the only one authorized to declare jihad. Thus he assumed a title that Iran had bestowed on only two people: ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. This chutzpah was as pleasant to Saddam’s ears as an Umm Kulthum love song, but it wasn’t relished at all by the Tehran regime, which immediately shut down Sadeq al-Sadr’s offices in Iran and severed ties with him. A few weeks later he was murdered.
It still isn’t clear who assassinated Muqtada’s father. Iran and many Iraqi Shi’ites blamed the Mukhabarat, Saddam’s secret police. The regime vehemently denied the allegations, but no one believed it. Many years later an exiled Iraqi general told this writer that the regime was shocked by the assassination.

Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr speaks during a press conference in Najaf Karim Kadim / אי־פי
No love for ‘the Persians’
Perhaps. Today, people close to al-Sadr hint that it was the Iranians who killed his father.
Al-Sadr has good political, strategic and cultural reasons to keep his distance from Iran. Opinions in Iraq about Iran are divided: Most clerics need Iranian economic assistance and their standing depends on Iran’s recognition. That’s where their support for Iranian involvement in Iraq comes from. On the other hand, the main religious authority for Iraqi Shi’ites, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as well as most clerics in the city of Najaf, which is sacred to the Shi’ites, strongly oppose the extent of Tehran’s influence.
As for the people themselves, Iraqis serving in militias backed by Iran support Iranian influence, but the broader public is reluctant; the Iraqis are Arabs, while the Iranians are Persians. Although both sides are members of the same religious community, they aren’t fond of each other due to cultural-linguistic differences and negative historical memories.
The term al-furas, the Persians, has no positive connotation in Arabic. These reservations are especiall2003y evident among the Shi’ite tribes of southern Iraq and the millions of tribesmen who have migrated to Baghdad from the rural south since the 1930s, many of whom live in a poor neighborhood in northeast Baghdad. Largely thanks to his father, who worked hard to help the tribesmen and the poor, al-Sadr became the most important leader of these Shi’ites after the American invasion of 2003.
After the U.S. invasion, al-Sadr declared war on the United States and caused many casualties among its forces. Tehran’s aid in arms and money was vital to him and required him to squelch his suspicions and cooperate with the Iranians. But he had stopped trusting them after his father’s death and the Iranians had never trusted him; his father’s legacy and his explosive temper were enough to warn them off.
Al-Sadr despises Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister from 2006 to 2014 and one of the three leading candidates. In 2008, Maliki, with U.S.-British military assistance, eliminated al-Sadr’s control of Basra in the southeast.

A Muqtada al-Sadr poster in Baghdad. Ahmad al-Rubaye / AFP
Al-Sadr is also an opponent of the second candidate, Hadi al-Amiri, the head of extremist pro-Iranian militias. But he’s not an enemy, and Amiri came in second in the elections. A political alliance with him is possible and would protect al-Sadr from Iran’s wrath, but if this happens al-Sadr will have to surrender to his partner’s pro-Iranian line.
Preferring the Saudis and the Gulf states
Far more likely is an alliance with the current prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, whose relations with al-Sadr have never been smooth. This alliance might seem impossible for al-Sadr, but there have never been crises between them. His support for Abadi is eminently reasonable because like al-Sadr and Sistani, Abadi understands the necessity to balance the relationship with Iran through strategic ties with other forces.
Iran is such a powerful neighbor that even its limited involvement in Iraq is an imminent threat to Iraq’s ability to make independent political decisions. Tehran’s aspiration to turn Iraq into a passage zone for its military en route to Syria and Lebanon is only one example of such a threat.
On the other hand, al-Sadr can’t agree to the long-standing presence of the U.S. military in Iraq, even if Abadi, Sistani and many Sunnis want this to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State. He can ignore the presence of a few American military instructors, and he has never demanded severing relations with the United States or avoiding visits between Baghdad and Washington. In place of American influence and a direct presence in Iraq, al-Sadr will support the influence and presence of U.S. allies, mainly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. This is the only way Iraq will be able to offset Iranian influence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, left, and Muqtada al-Sadr meeting in Baghdad, May 20, 2018. Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office / AFP
Indeed, al-Sadr and Abadi have already visited the Gulf states. Nor does al-Sadr object to a significant UN presence to help negotiations at home with the Kurds and manage foreign humanitarian aid. Like his partners in the Iraqi patriotic trio, Sistani and Abadi, al-Sadr sees an independent Iraqi identity as the main basis for action.
This was seen in the joint election slate he formed with secular communists and Sunni politicians. Abadi, for his part, won in the most rebellious Sunni province, Al-Anbar, coming far ahead of Sunni candidates. He and al-Sadr are now perceived as the most “Iraqi” statesmen and as not corrupt.
Another possibility, albeit a little theoretical, is of course to return to the broader Shi’ite alliance that includes all four major Shi’ite parties. Even if Abadi leads it, this alliance would be very pro-Iranian, with a symbolic balance of relations with the Gulf states and the United States.
And what about Israel? There’s no chance that any Iraqi government will support ties with Israel in the foreseeable future. But al-Sadr, Sistani and Abadi aren’t happy about Iranian involvement in Syria after the defeat of the Islamic State or about Iran’s expectation that Iraq will grant Iran passage to Syria. All three also support the dismantling of the militias, most of which are pro-Iranian and undermine the state’s monopoly on the use of military force.
Therefore, as far as Israel is concerned, a government led by Abadi with the support of al-Sadr would be a poor man’s joy but still provide some consolation.
Amatzia Baram is a professor emeritus at the University of Haifa.

The Nuclear Apocalypse: Revelation 16

Russia Is Building New Subs to Launch Its Terrifying Apocalypse Torpedoes

Poseidon could attack cities and ports with a multi-megaton thermonuclear bomb.BY SÉBASTIEN ROBLINPUBLISHED: APR 9, 2023SAVE ARTICLE

Alexyz3d//Getty Images

Even as Russia’s military continues to struggle in Ukraine, the country’s plans to deploy a unique sea-based form of strategic nuclear deterrence are apparently proceeding. Russia’s TASS state new agency reported on Monday that its Pacific Fleet was moving forward with plans to activate a new division of submarines specially designed to launch an intercontinental-range nuclear drone-torpedo called Poseidon, which could be used to attack coastal cities.

This follows Russian media reports from January that delivery of the first production batch of Poseidon drone torpedoesformerly known as the Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System or Kanyon—had been successfully completed.

Not only does each Poseidon torpedo carry a big nuke—approximately a 2-megaton-yield—it’s propelled by a liquid metal nuclear reactor, giving it essentially inexhaustible range and endurance, and likely high sustainable speeds

Russia has been happy to threaten the use of this weird weapon of mass destruction prior to its operational deployment. It has been showcased in prominent TV appearances by Putin, and a commentator on state TV eagerly suggested the torpedoes could be used to flood the entire United Kingdom in a radioactive tsunami.

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This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Allegedly, the new submarine division will become active at a base on the Kamchatka Peninsula in either late 2024 or the first half of 2025, according to TASS. The division seems likely to eventually encompass four or five submarines in total, with 30 Poseidons between them. If production stops at 30, that would imply there would be no bothering with reloads after the doomsday torpedoes are launched.

The hulls of least two of the planned four drone torpedo-carrying nuclear-powered submarines were laid down in 2014 and 2017: the Khabarovsk and Ulyanovsk. These are supposedly set to be for commissioned in 2024/2025 and 2027. Also designated Project 09851 submarines, they appear to be significantly shortened (down to 120-meters length) derivatives from Russia’s latest Borei-class ballistic missile submarine, and include that submarine’s quiet pump jet propulsion system. (For more, check out submarine expert H.I. Sutton’s well-illustrated article on this new submarine class.)

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However, sanctions resulting in decreased access to microelectronics could impose delays on production and commissioning. It’s also worth recalling that in November of 2022, there were reports that an apparent test of Poseidon in the Arctic Sea had to be aborted for technical reasons.

Basing the Poseidon and its Project 09851 carriers in the Pacific makes sense—the ocean’s deeper waters would give the torpedoes greater freedom of maneuverability to evade detection with fewer chokepoints. There, however, it seems likely to pose a particular threat for naval bases in the Pacific and to U.S. West Coast cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco—though in theory, it has the endurance to go anywhere, undersea geography permitting.

At present, only two unique ‘special projects’ submarines can employ Poseidon. The first was the B-90 Sarov, based on the ubiquitous Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine which, unusually, has a nuclear reactor used only for electrical generation instead of directly turning the propeller. Given its experimental role, it seems less likely Sarov will be permanently assigned to the new division.

Russia subsequently built the much larger K-329 Belgorod ”special mission” sub, which also plays a research-and-undersea-hacking role, serving as the mothership for the Klavesin under-water drone and Losharik mini-submarine. Based on the Oscar II-class cruise missile submarine, the 10,000-ton Belgorod (AKA Project 09852) can carry up to six Poseidons in its oversized tubes, and was commissioned in June of 2022.

At 24 meters long and 1.6 meters in diameter, each Poseidon is roughly three times wider than a standard heavyweight torpedo, and has practically unlimited endurance with which to drive its quiet pump-jet propulsions system, thanks to its nuclear reactor. It can also allegedly dive deeper than the crush depth of U.S. Mark 48 torpedoes at 1,000 meters, and may be able to do it faster at 56-70 knots—depending on which Russian claims you believe.

But because the torpedo will be detectable from far away when traveling anywhere near maximum speed, it is likely to cruise much slower until ready to make a final dash or evade enemies.

The possibility of static deployment of these strategic weapons to launch containers on the ocean floor has also been explored. In such a configuration, the container would be deposited and recovered by cranes on special icebreakers.

ICBMs, but underwater and on robots

Russia still retains older, anti-ship or anti-submarine tactical nukes, which aren’t subject to restriction under the New START arms control treaty. Because Poseidon didn’t exist when New START was signed, it doesn’t neatly fall into its specified categories of strategic weapons—though, as they are clearly long-range strategic weapons, they should fall under that rubric.

Nobody else has seriously tried to build weapons like the Poseidon, and for years, many Western officials were incredulous Russia would build weapons with such an unusual capability. But by the mid-2010s, it became clear it was very real.

The reasoning behind Poseidon is largely tied to Russia’s anxiety over the U.S.’s budding missile defense capabilities, developed after the U.S. withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002. In reality, U.S. defenses can muster only a few dozen shots to repel Russia’s hundreds of strategic missiles. Nonetheless, Russia grew paranoid that the U.S.’s defenses could eventually undermine their deterrence, and began developing a variety of exotic nuclear delivery systems to bypass them—a category encompassing both Poseidon and Russia’s hypersonic missiles.

Nuclear torpedoes themselves are not unprecedented, and were fielded operationally by both the Soviet Union and the U.S. in 1958 and 1963, respectively. The operational types were intended to swat ships and submarines at sea without requiring a precision torpedo intercept. Russian submariners out of communication with their country very nearly employed them against U.S. ships blockading Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

However, the initial Soviet T-15 nuclear torpedo was intended for attacks on coastal targets, like naval bases. It was a strategic nuclear weapon—but one that had to be fired within 16-25 miles of the target.

Unlike the weapons that preceded it’s development, Poseidon is designed to travel thousands of miles across the ocean—think of it as a sort of slower, underwater intercontinental ballistic missile, or a robotic nuclear-armed (and nuclear-powered) kamikaze submarine. While traveling for days to target, the drone-like torpedo will necessarily operate autonomously, relying on AI to evade defenses and stay on course.There is some disagreement over Poseidon’s exact concept of operations. One widely recounted possibility is that it’s designed to trigger a nuclear explosion short of a coastal target, thereby generating a tsunami wave of irradiated water.

However, according to some analysts, even a big nuclear bomb exerts less energy than a natural tsunami, and furthermore disperses its energy in a circular pattern rather than concentrated more destructively in one general direction, so this concept may be less effective than it sounds. Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis has argued, however, that Poseidon could be ‘salted’ with cobalt to make it an especially lethal ‘dirty’ radiation bomb.

Perhaps instead, the nuclear warhead is supposed to trigger more or less directly on a targeted harbor or base. That may be more destructive than the tsunami approach, but still much less so than missile-delivered air-bursting warhead.

Russia has also occasionally portrayed Poseidon as useable against U.S. carrier taskforces, though getting the long-distance weapon to intercept ship erratically moving at 30 knots poses very complex challenges. As TASS describes the new Poseidon-armed division as aimed at “strategic deterrence,” we perhaps need not overthink the “how” of the technically problematic anti-carrier mode of employment.

Regardless, there’s no question the Poseidon torpedoes will take longer to target than an ICBM traveling at Mach 27. In a 2017 email, Michael Kofman—an expert on the Russian military—described them in an email to the author as “third strike” weapons promising punishment, even if the U.S. were to come out “ahead” in an initial exchange of more traditional nuclear missiles with Russia.

One notable question is to what extent Russia can communicate with, or otherwise control, this heavily automated nuclear weapon once launched—say, to cancel or redirect an attack. If controllable, that could make these weapons exploitable for nuclear blackmail. Depending on the extent of autonomy (most likely limited at present, but bound to increase) it could also pose issues related to entrusting AIs to understand when to employ nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Navy is nonetheless looking at ways it could defend against Poseidon. It seems—even using the more moderate specifications— that such torpedoes could be highly challenging to both detect and destroy due to their combination of stealth, speed and depth. Countermeasures could include faster anti-torpedo torpedoes, a more extensive static sea-bed sonar surveillance system, and development of ballistic/hypersonic missiles that can quickly release homing torpedoes close enough to intercept a Poseidon torpedo once it is detected.

Poseidon is an unnecessarily creative and Strangelovian new way to threaten nuclear devastation when the existing means are more than adequately nightmarish. Yet, it looks like the resources have been committed, and that intercontinental-range nuclear torpedoes are here to stay. Expect Poseidon to continue featuring in Russia’s nuclear threats, intended to help cover for the declining intrigue of its conventional military.

SÉBASTIEN ROBLIN

CONTRIBUTOR

Sébastien Roblin has written on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including 19FortyFive, The National Interest, MSNBC, Forbes.com, Inside Unmanned Systems and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.