Israeli Army Abducts 31 Palestinians in the Outer Court: Revelation 11

Israeli Army Abducts 31 Palestinians in the West Bank

Israeli forces abducted, on Thursday, at least thirty-one Palestinians, including a child, in several regions of the occupied West Bank, after storming many citizens’ homes.

Jenin

Before dawn on Thursday, Israeli forces invaded the northern West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp from several directions, stormed many citizens’ homes, and abducted one Palestinian young man.

Media sources said that several military vehicles, including bulldozers, stormed the city and its camp, while an infantry squad was deployed in the camp and on its outskirts, and sharpshooters were deployed on the rooftops of buildings.

The invading army besieged the home of Samer Al-Fayed, and called over a loudspeaker demanding that he surrender himself and threatening to bomb his home.

The young man subsequently exited the home while soldiers abducted him, amid protests from local Palestinians.

Tulkarem

In the northwestern part of the West Bank, several occupation vehicles invaded the city of Tulkarem, before dawn, while soldiers broke into and ransacked the homes of Jamal Hadayda, 56, and Uday Abu Sheikha, before abducting them.

Nablus

On Thursday morning, Israeli soldiers abducted a young man, Atheer Raed Abu Saif, after storming and searching his home in the town of Sebastia, northwest of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Later, the army stormed an equestrian club in the town of Beit Furik, southeast of Nablus, and abducted two unidentified Palestinian young men.

On Thursday night, illegal Israeli colonizers attacked Palestinian farmers, Hassan Firas Abu Lahiya, Othman Zahi Bani Minya, and Musa Atta Rayhan, in the town of Aqraba, southeast of the city, before soldiers abducted them.

Jericho

In the Jordan Valley, occupation forces closed the entrances to the city of Jericho and the town of Al-Auja, north of the city, while stopping and searching vehicles, amid the overhead flight of a military helicopter.

Media sources added that on Monday morning, occupation forces assaulted and abducted the two brothers, Sharif and Afif Jalal Rashaida, and Sanad Ali Rashaida, while they were herding sheep in the “Ras al-Auja” area, north of Jericho.

Salfit

In the predawn hours of Thursday, the army invaded the village of Sarta, northwest of Salfit in the central West Bank, and stormed several citizens’ homes, and hurled concussion grenades at citizens.

After breaking into and ransacking his home, soldiers abducted the young man, Ayman Ibrahim Al-Khatib, 28 in the village.

Ramallah

Northwest of Ramallah, in the central West Bank, Israeli forces invaded, in the morning, the town of Deir as-Sudan, and abducted Mohammad Na’el Mohammad Shehadeh, 21, Mahmoud Fares Abed, 19, and Izz al-Din Fares Abed, 18, after storming and searching their homes.

Meanwhile, west of Ramallah, the army abducted the young man, Mohammad Daoud Sabti Khawaja, 30, from the town of Ni’lin.

In the afternoon, several undercover Israeli agents kidnapped two unidentified Palestinian young menin the village of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah.

Occupied Jerusalem

Undercover Israeli soldiers abducted a Palestinian child, 10, in Ras Al-Amoud in occupied Jerusalem, and took him to to a police station in Jerusalem, before he was released a few hours later.

Before dawn on Thursday, a large army force invaded the town of Abu Dis, east of occupied Jerusalem, fired rubber-coated steel rounds and tear gas canisters at citizens, and abducted the two brothers, Maher and Ahmed Bahr.

Hebron

In the southern West Bank, Israeli soldiers abducted several Palestinians, including a child, after invading their homes in the Hebron governorate.

North of Hebron, Israeli forces stormed and ransacked the homes of Ibrahim Amer Abu Jouda, 19, Tariq Riyad Arar, 19, and Mahdi Ahmed Barbarawi, 24, before abducting them in Beit Ummar town.

Meanwhile, northeast of the city, soldiers abducted Ahmad Shehdeh Ayida, Baha Ahmad Al-Halayqa, and Abd al-Rahman Musa Jaradat, in the towns of Sa’ir and Ash-Shuyukh.

Before dawn, a large army force stormed the Al-Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron, invaded several citizens’ homes, sparking protests.

Soldiers fired live rounds, concussion grenades, and tear gas canisters without inflicting any injuries, and abducted Bashar Jibril Al-Karma, his son, the child, Montaser, 15, and Murad Ibrahim Abu Aram.

South of the city, the army abducted the young man, Ali Ibrahim Etaimat from the town of Yatta.

It was added that the army broke into many citizens’ homes in the town of Bani Na’im, east of Hebron, without any reports of arrests.

In the occupied West Bank’s northern plains, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers burnt fruits and vegetables stands near Ein Al-Baida and Bardala villages.

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According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), Israeli forces have abducted 7,845 Palestinians since the beginning of the military onslaught against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

Who is the Antichrist? The Iraqi warlord who claims to fight corruption

Who is Moqtada Al Sadr? The Iraqi warlord who claims to fight corruption

The cleric rose to prominence organising resistance to US and British forces but has since become a powerful political force

Robert Tollast

Radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr is once again upending Iraqi politics by asking his legion of supporters to occupy the national Parliament for the second time since 2016, this time blocking rival MPs, many aligned to Iran-backed political parties in a coalition called the Co-Ordination Framework, from convening to form government.

On Monday, the sit-in spurred a counter-protest, largely led by Asaib Ahl Al Haq, a splinter group from the Sadrist movement backed by Iran with a political party aligned to former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki — Mr Al Sadr’s arch rival.

Supporters of Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr during a sit-in at a parliament building in Baghdad, Iraq. Reuters 

The group is widely accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing civilians during Iraq’s civil war and later killing hundreds of protesters in 2019.

They fought street battles with the Mr Al Sadr’s militia in Baghdad between 2012 and 2014.

Since then, rivalry has involved assassinations of members from both groups.

The recent standoff has led to fears of a new civil war — this time Shiite against Shiite.

Who is Moqtada Al Sadr?

The cleric has long claimed to fight corruption and oppression, whether that of the Saddam Hussein regime or after 2003, the US.

Through numerous protests between 2016 and 2020, he aligned his movement with Iraqi Communists and youth protest groups, calling for “a revolution of the oppressed” that could put an end to Iraq’s system of sectarian apportionment in government and usher in public service based on quality rather than identity.

His father-in-law, revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al Sadr, was murdered along with his wife by Iraq’s Baathists and his father, Muhammad Sadiq Al Sadr was shot dead by Baathist agents in 1999, sparking a second Shiite uprising against Saddam.

This heritage of suffering and religious piety gave him folk hero status among Iraq’s Shiite poor and he inherited a southern network of Sadrists stretching into the slums of Baghdad’s crowded, suburban Saddam City (now Sadr City).

But is the cleric really an outsider fighting corruption?

“In the background, Sadrist loyalists have embedded themselves in the bureaucracy. There has been some good reporting on this, on the ‘deep state’ and Sadrist penetration thereof,” says Nicholas Krohley, author of The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Iraq’s Most Powerful Militia.

Mr Krohley refers to revelations over the years that Mr Al Sadr controls sections of Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity, abusing contracts to raise funds, and controls much of the Ministry of Health, a legacy of when his militia, the Jaish Al Mahdi, took control of it between 2005 and 2007.

The group was widely accused of committing sectarian murders in hospital wards, selling medicine on the black market and driving away many of Iraq’s talented health workers.

But Mr Al Sadr has tried to distance himself from this period, disbanding the Jaish Al Mahdi, withdrawing ministers and MPs from government on many occasions as an act of protest against what he deems mainstream political groups — mainly his rivals in Mr Al Maliki’s Dawa party and their Iran-backed allies in the Badr Organisation.

With the latter group, Mr Al Sadr’s supporters fought a series of bloody gun battles in Karbala in 2007 that left 50 dead.

But analysts say his outsider image is a mirage.

In reality, the cleric has always maintained a strong network of supporters in senior government positions.

When Baghdad’s Ibn Al Khatib hospital caught fire — killing nearly 90 people in a tragedy widely blamed on negligence — Mr Al Sadr’s nominated health minister Hassan Al Tamimi was removed from his post. A health official told The National that the hospital, along with most health facilities in Rusafa, where Sadr City is located, was run by the movement.

When a similar blaze occurred in July last year, killing 92 people in Nasiriyah, tribal leaders blamed local Sadrists in the health authority, giving them three days to leave the province.

The cleric has also tried to distance himself from militia crimes during Iraq’s sectarian strife between 2003 and 2008.

Sensitive to the fact that he reformed his old militia, renamed Saraya Al Salam during the war on ISIS, Mr Al Sadr said he would disband the group in 2017, but they remain active. Their commander Abu Mustafa Al Hamidawi ordered members to be “prepared for any emergency” in Baghdad on July 24.

Some analysts say Mr Al Sadr only has loose control over this armed group and at least three splinter factions have emerged.

Hakim Al Zamili, former deputy parliament speaker and deputy minister of health — arrested by the US for running sectarian death squads when working in the Health Ministry, last year said the kidnap and murder strategy his militia used had helped to “defeat terrorism”. Mr Al Zamili recently joined protesters in Iraq’s Parliament.

Al Sadr again sorry Iran

To some, the unpredictable Shiite cleric is a useful bulwark against increasingly powerful Iranian-backed political parties.

Their power soared after 2014 when Mr Al Maliki formalised Iran-backed militias as part of the security services, wrapping them into an umbrella organisation, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

But it meant that two rival sets of militias — US-listed terrorist organisations such as Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl Al Haq, as well as a host of smaller groups — were now in the same formation as Saraya Al Salam.

Bitter disputes over salaries between the groups ensued, at one point leading to the assassination of a government-appointed PMF auditor.

Now the prize, after 10 months of stalled government formation, is control over Iraqi state resources — Shiite parties lead the competition for everything from PMF salaries and pensions to controlling entire state-owned companies.

Will there be a new civil war?

“None of what’s happening is usual, this has been uncharted territory since Sadr pulled his followers [MPs] out of Parliament,” says Omar Al Nidawi, programme director at US NGO Enabling Peace in Iraq Center.

“Both Sadr and the Co-ordination Framework are taking shots in the dark to see what works. The difference is the Framework seems to be finding it more difficult to agree on a united course of action. This may explain the brief protest on Monday and decision to pull back after ‘delivering the message’.”

But Mr Al Nidawi is sceptical of the prospect of full-scale war.

“We’re unlikely to see Co-ordination Framework factions decide they want to take on the Sadrists in an armed conflict.” he says.

Joel Wing, an analyst who has tracked violence in Iraq since 2008, agrees that Iraq’s intra-Shiite competition now extends beyond Iran’s reach.

“The driving force in all this escalation is Maliki not Iran. Everyone knows Maliki is an autocrat full of conspiracies who will turn on anyone and use the power of the state,” he says, referring to Mr Al Maliki’s considerable influence behind the scenes in Iraq’s politics.

But Mr Wing says there will be no winners.

“Sadr could be just as big a threat to everyone as Maliki was, if he’s in the driver’s seat,” he warns.

In the long run, “time is on Moqtada’s side”, Mr Krohley says. He notes Iraq’s rapidly growing population which swells the ranks of unemployed with each year of government failure.

This will always boost the appeal of Mr Al Sadr’s populist brand, he says.

“It’s demographics. The Sadrist base keeps growing in Iraq, in absolute and relative terms. No other political faction has had any luck in peeling away meaningful numbers of Sadrist followers. The ‘resistance’ IRGC-linked PMF types have utterly failed. So, Moqtada still sits at the head of what is, and seems very likely to remain, the dominant political force in Iraq.”

Updated: August 02, 2022, 10:18 AM

Hypocrisy of Babylon the Great: Daniel 7

Gaza war damage 2023. Tasnim News Agency, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Naked Hypocrisy: The US Cited UNSC Resolutions to Invade Iraq, Now Call Gaza Ceasefire Demand ‘Non-Binding’

byEDITORMarch 28, 2024

By Juan Cole / Informed Comment

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday characterized the United Nations Security Council resolution 2728 demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict as “non-binding,” a phrase also used by US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

The US was rebuked by China, according to Akmal Dawi at VOA: “‘Security Council resolutions are binding,’ Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday.”

Beijing is correct on the law, and the Biden administration is being disingenuous. If President Biden did not want a ceasefire resolution to pass, he should have vetoed it. By abstaining and letting the world community vote on the matter, Biden has elicited a binding decision, and his officials should stop dancing around it.

The law here is clear.

Article 25 of the UN Charter, to which the US, China and Israel are all signatories, says, “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”

Moreover, we could consider the actual language of the resolution, in which the UNSC

“Demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs, and further demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain”

You’d have to twist yourself into a pretzel to avoid concluding that the Security Council sees the ceasefire as binding, given the use of the verb “demand.” The UNSC isn’t suggesting. It isn’t hoping. It isn’t imploring. It is demanding.

Washington’s hypocrisy on this matter is legendary and stunning.

After the Gulf War of 1990-1991 the UN Security Council passed resolutions demanding the disarmament of Iraq. We now know that Iraq complied. But the US and other major powers refused to believe Baghdad’s assertions or even documents in this regard.

One of the grounds that George W. Bush put forward for invading Iraq was precisely its failure to abide by those UN Security Council resolutions. He actually represented the US not as acting unilaterally for narrow American purposes but as upholding the authority of the UNSC.

Robert McMahon at Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty wrote in 2002, “Expressing frustration and alarm, U.S. President George W. Bush says Iraq’s long defiance of United Nations disarmament resolutions has placed the UN’s credibility in question.”

So disobeying the UNSC according to Washington is so serious a matter that it could get you invaded and your government overthrown. I guess that’s not non-binding.

In 2007, the UNSC, disappointed in Iran’s non-compliance with demands for it to cease its civilian nuclear enrichment activities, imposed an embargo on weapons sales by Tehran. To enforce economic sanctions against Iran, the UNSC even allowed the boarding of vessels on the high seas suspected of carrying Iranian weapons.

The UNSC also allows ships carrying North Korean goods to be boarded. Ordinarily freedom of navigation on the high seas is an absolute right in international law. But the UNSC can do as it pleases. It has placed extensive economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

The only real sense in which UNSC Resolution 2728 is “non-binding” is not a legal one but a practical one. Since the US has a veto, if the UNSC tries to sanction Israel for its defiance, as it did Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the Biden administration would use its veto to protect the fascist government presently ruling Israel. But that action is not high diplomacy, just arbitrary and disgusting partisanship that makes a mockery of international law and of ethical principles.

Finally, consider the legislative history. What did the UNSC members intend? The UN News tells us.

Russian ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said, “‘Those who are providing cover for Israel still want to give it a free hand,’ he added, expressing hope that the wording contained in the resolution ‘will be used in the interests of peace rather than advancing the inhumane Israeli operation against the Palestinians’”.

He opposed the Biden administration’s granting of a free hand to Israel to thumb its nose at the resolution.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana: “‘This demand [by the Council] comes at a significant time as Palestinians are observing the holy month of Ramadan,’ she said, noting continuing deaths in the enclave and a growing number of families left homeless.”

She called it a demand, and said that said that “after more than five months of a ‘war of utter terror and destruction’, a ceasefire is the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and others.

Doesn’t sound like a mere polite suggestion to me.

China’s Zhang Jun said, “The current draft is unequivocal and correct in its direction, demanding an immediate ceasefire, while the previous one was evasive and ambiguous.”

I note the term “unequivocal.”

Hwang Joonkook of South Korea said, “The situation must be different before and after this resolution. This will only be possible when both Israel and Hamas respect and faithfully implement this resolution.”

So, not voluntary. Binding.

Threats from the Russian Nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

 Russian President Vladimir Putin. Credit: TASS News Agency. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.Share

Putin’s nuclear warnings: heightened risk or revolving door?

By Stephen J. Cimbala, Lawrence J. Korb | March 28, 2024

In his State of the Nation address February 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued one of his most explicit warnings about the danger of nuclear war in Ukraine and noted that Russian strategic nuclear forces “are in a state of full readiness” and able to hit targets in the West. In addition, Russian military files from 2008 to 2014—leaked recently to the Financial Times—seem to suggest that Russia’s threshold for nuclear first use is lower than Western military experts had assumed.  Some 29 classified Russian military documents include discussions of war gaming and reportedly identify operational thresholds for the first use of so-called tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons. Commenting on the unusal dump of secret Russian documents, Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, said: “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”^[1]

Coming on the heels of a suggestion by French President Emmanuel Macron that the option of sending NATO ground forces into Ukraine was under discussion within the alliance, the leaked documents on Russian nuclear first use seem both timely and significant.^[2] On the other hand, in previous statements about Russian military doctrine for deterrence and possible nuclear employment, many Russian officials have stressed that nuclear weapons would only be used in response to a nuclear attack on Russia or its allies, or in cases of threat to the survival of the regime and nation posed by a war with conventional weapons. In response to the leaked documents, a Putin spokesperson commented: “The main thing is that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely transparent and is spelled out in the doctrine. As for the documents mentioned, we strongly doubt their authenticity.”

Regardless of the authenticity of these documents, references to the possibility of Russian nuclear first use in Ukraine cannot be treated as idiosyncrasies or departures from precedent.  Putin himself has, on numerous occasions since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022, reminded NATO and the world that the nuclear option remains available should Russia choose to use it. He has also noted, in this regard, Russia’s superior numbers of non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons compared to the US tactical nuclear weapons deployed in other NATO countries.^[3]

Observers of varying backgrounds have put forward explanations for Putin’s saber rattling, all of which suggest the Russian president hopes, through nuclear threats, to achieve some current or future tactical edge in his country’s continuing face-off with Ukraine, the United States, and NATO. All that reasoning, however, cannot erase the dangerous reality: Any Russian first use of tactical nuclear weapons would create unprecedented conditions that could easily lead not to a regional Russian advantage, but to a wider nuclear war that would decimate Russia and its leadership (not to mention the rest of the world).

Why is Russia making nuclear threats? Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a variety of commentators have put forward at least five explanations for Putin’s propensity for nuclear saber rattling. First, some contend that Putin is bluffing. This is the argument of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others. Zelensky feels that Putin’s nuclear diplomacy is designed to intimidate NATO into backing off from its support for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence. Others in and outside of Ukraine are more fearful of attacks with conventional weapons on Ukrainian nuclear power plants—and the residual effects of such strikes on public health, infrastructure and climate—than an actual Russian nuclear first use.

A second explanation for Putin’s nuclear threats is that they constitute a probe. Russian leadership is, as it were, taking the temperature of the United States and NATO, to see their reactions. This presents a dilemma for American and NATO European leaders.  If they overreact to Putin’s intimidation, they appear fearful and potentially vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.  If they simply ignore his comments about nuclear war, they may come across as lacking in awareness of the risks of escalation as fighting continues.

A third perspective on Putin’s nuclear rhetoric sees it as a response to Russia’s political and military setbacks since the war began in February, 2022. The initial objective of Russia’s so-called Special Military Operation was the prompt defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces and the abdication or surrender of its government, replaced by a Russian puppet regime. Instead, Russia found itself bogged down in a protracted war that has been extremely costly in both personnel and resources—hence the threat of nuclear weapons use, if the situation worsened. Putin has been dissatisfied with the performance of Russian armed forces on more than one occasion, and the weird attempt at a putsch by the erstwhile Wagner group created a temporary sense of chaos in the military chain of command. Wagner has since been scattered to the winds, and Russia’s military position relative to Ukraine has improved in the aftermath of the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of the summer and the fall of 2023.  Moreover, Russia’s superior numbers of available and potential military personnel and war-supporting industrial resources, relative to those of Ukraine, create the potential for an endless stalemate with outcomes favorable to Russia. But the situation remains uncertain, and so the nuclear saber-rattling continues.

A fourth perspective on Putin’s nuclear diplomacy asserts that he is laying the predicate for escalation to nuclear first use if unexpected battlefield reverses threaten to destabilize Russia’s operational-tactical position for the defense of important objectives. NATO support for Ukraine provides that county not only with military hardware such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, long range missiles and antimissile systems, and the like, but also with the “software” of warfare, including C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assistance with navigation, warning, special operations, and strategic deception.  On more than one occasion, Ukrainian brainpower has outmaneuvered Russian muscle. But the Russians are learning fast and have upped their game significantly since the embarrassing blunders of 2022. Moreover, Russian armed forces have demonstrated in training exercises superior understanding of the extreme complexity of modern airland battle and its potential risks and costs. They are also aware of the difficulties in operational-tactical maneuver on a nuclear battlefield.^[4]

A fifth possible interpretation of Putin’s propensity for nuclear rhetoric is that it reflects the reasoning of some Russian military and political thinkers about the management of escalation toward favorable outcomes by the manipulation of risk. According to this line of reasoning, nuclear first use is one point on a continuum of coercion that extends from the lowest point on the conflict spectrum up to the crossing of the threshold from conventional into nuclear war.  Prominent Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov’s essay, “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” argued that a Russian tactical nuclear first use somewhere in Europe might be necessary to shock NATO back into its senses and concede to Russia’s view of the situation in Ukraine.

Still, it is clear that many experts within Russia are not aligned with Karaganov’s high-octane nuclear chest-thumping. For example, Ivan Timofeev, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council and a widely published academic, noted that Karaganov’s approach “underestimates the Western elites’ determination to climb the escalation ladder with Russia, and, if necessary, ahead of it” and “overlooks the possibly catastrophic consequences for Russia itself.” According to noted military theorist Dmitry Adamsky, Russia offers a cross-domain cocktail of conventional war-fighting and nuclear deterrence options. Crossing the nuclear threshold would most likely occur when Russia felt that its nonnuclear escalation options had been exhausted and its nuclear rhetoric had thus far proved futile. Even then, prior to actual nuclear first use, a “muscle-flexing” phase of gradually increasing “strategic gestures” will be used to communicate resolve and capability to climb the escalation ladder, Adamsky writes.

The limits of nuclear threats. The preceding discussion focuses on a Russian decision for conventional war or nuclear escalation without reference to the possibility of a Russian-Chinese coordination of tactics and strategy in regional wars. US deterrence and defense requirements for a simultaneous Russian and Chinese regional aggression assume a greater need for forward-deployed forces and power-projection capabilities than hitherto.^[5] The final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States warned that US objectives must include “effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces” and that, if existing conventional forces were inadequate to this objective, US strategy would have to be adjusted to increase reliance on nuclear weapons “to deter opportunistic or collaborative aggression” in the other theater.^[6]

One should be cautious, however, in estimating the sizes and capabilities of future Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. Nor can it be assumed that the current rapprochement between Russia and China will be everlasting or apply to all issues of military significance. China and Russia have a history of border conflicts and Cold War disagreements, and China’s world historical view is somewhat apart from Russia’s.

William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, has provided a concise description of the possible roles for non-strategic nuclear weapons in Russian military strategy: “deterring unwanted conflicts; coercing adversaries; shaping the battlefield for planned conflicts; controlling escalation within conflicts to protect the Russian homeland; preventing outside powers (read: the United States) from intervening in its conflicts; and ensuring that it prevails in war.”

Notwithstanding the rationale, the decision to move from nuclear deterrence to nuclear first use in Europe or Asia would be a world-historical marker—and not one of progress. The firebreak between non-strategic and strategic nuclear warfare has never been tested under exigent conditions, and indeed, part of the deterrent efficacy for tactical nuclear weapons lies in their potential coupling to strategic nuclear war.  Putin’s assertive nuclear rhetoric is strategically unhelpful and politically dangerous.

Notes

[1] Gabuev, cited in Max Seddon and Chris Cook, “Leaked Russian military files reveal criteria for nuclear strike,” Financial Times, February 28, 2024, in Johnson’s Russia List 2024 – #51 – February 29, 2024

[2] Anatol Lieven and George Beebe, “Europeans’ last ditch clutch at Ukrainian victory: France’s Macron raised the idea of Western troops entering the fray, others want to send longer range missiles.  It’s all folly.”, Responsible Statecraft, February 28, 2024, in Johnson’s Russia List 2024 – #51 – February 29, 2024

[3] Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, and Eliana Johns, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons: 2023, May 9, 2023, https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-05/nuclear-notebook-russian-nuclear-weapons-2023/

[4] Dr. Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles, The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Armed Forces (Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2016),  pp. 201-203 and 206.

[5] The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington, D.C.: October, 2022), pp. 23-26.

[6] Madelyn R. Creedon, Chair, and Jon L. Kyl, Vice Chair, America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (Washington, D.C.: October 2023), p. xiii.

Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake: Revelation 6

Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake

Roger BilhamQuakeland: New York and the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

Given recent seismic activity — political as well as geological — it’s perhaps unsurprising that two books on earthquakes have arrived this season. One is as elegant as the score of a Beethoven symphony; the other resembles a diary of conversations overheard during a rock concert. Both are interesting, and both relate recent history to a shaky future.

Journalist Kathryn Miles’s Quakeland is a litany of bad things that happen when you provoke Earth to release its invisible but ubiquitous store of seismic-strain energy, either by removing fluids (oil, water, gas) or by adding them in copious quantities (when extracting shale gas in hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, or when injecting contaminated water or building reservoirs). To complete the picture, she describes at length the bad things that happen during unprovoked natural earthquakes. As its subtitle hints, the book takes the form of a road trip to visit seismic disasters both past and potential, and seismologists and earthquake engineers who have first-hand knowledge of them. Their colourful personalities, opinions and prejudices tell a story of scientific discovery and engineering remedy.

Miles poses some important societal questions. Aside from human intervention potentially triggering a really damaging earthquake, what is it actually like to live in neighbourhoods jolted daily by magnitude 1–3 earthquakes, or the occasional magnitude 5? Are these bumps in the night acceptable? And how can industries that perturb the highly stressed rocks beneath our feet deny obvious cause and effect? In 2015, the Oklahoma Geological Survey conceded that a quadrupling of the rate of magnitude-3 or more earthquakes in recent years, coinciding with a rise in fracking, was unlikely to represent a natural process. Miles does not take sides, but it’s difficult for the reader not to.

She visits New York City, marvelling at subway tunnels and unreinforced masonry almost certainly scheduled for destruction by the next moderate earthquake in the vicinity. She considers the perils of nuclear-waste storage in Nevada and Texas, and ponders the risks to Idaho miners of rock bursts — spontaneous fracture of the working face when the restraints of many million years of confinement are mined away. She contemplates the ups and downs of the Yellowstone Caldera — North America’s very own mid-continent supervolcano — and its magnificently uncertain future. Miles also touches on geothermal power plants in southern California’s Salton Sea and elsewhere; the vast US network of crumbling bridges, dams and oil-storage farms; and the magnitude 7–9 earthquakes that could hit California and the Cascadia coastline of Oregon and Washington state this century. Amid all this doom, a new elementary school on the coast near Westport, Washington, vulnerable to inbound tsunamis, is offered as a note of optimism. With foresight and much persuasion from its head teacher, it was engineered to become an elevated safe haven.

Miles briefly discusses earthquake prediction and the perils of getting it wrong (embarrassment in New Madrid, Missouri, where a quake was predicted but never materialized; prison in L’Aquila, Italy, where scientists failed to foresee a devastating seismic event) and the successes of early-warning systems, with which electronic alerts can be issued ahead of damaging seismic waves. Yes, it’s a lot to digest, but most of the book obeys the laws of physics, and it is a engaging read. One just can’t help wishing that Miles’s road trips had taken her somewhere that wasn’t a disaster waiting to happen.

Catastrophic damage in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1964, caused by the second-largest earthquake in the global instrumental record.

In The Great Quake, journalist Henry Fountain provides us with a forthright and timely reminder of the startling historical consequences of North America’s largest known earthquake, which more than half a century ago devastated southern Alaska. With its epicentre in Prince William Sound, the 1964 quake reached magnitude 9.2, the second largest in the global instrumental record. It released more energy than either the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake or the 2011 Tohoku earthquake off Japan; and it generated almost as many pages of scientific commentary and description as aftershocks. Yet it has been forgotten by many.

The quake was scientifically important because it occurred at a time when plate tectonics was in transition from hypothesis to theory. Fountain expertly traces the theory’s historical development, and how the Alaska earthquake was pivotal in nailing down one of the most important predictions. The earthquake caused a fjordland region larger than England to subside, and a similarly huge region of islands offshore to rise by many metres; but its scientific implications were not obvious at the time. Eminent seismologists thought that a vertical fault had slipped, drowning forests and coastlines to its north and raising beaches and islands to its south. But this kind of fault should have reached the surface, and extended deep into Earth’s mantle. There was no geological evidence of a monster surface fault separating these two regions, nor any evidence for excessively deep aftershocks. The landslides and liquefied soils that collapsed houses, and the tsunami that severely damaged ports and infrastructure, offered no clues to the cause.

“Previous earthquakes provide clear guidance about present-day vulnerability.” The hero of The Great Quake is the geologist George Plafker, who painstakingly mapped the height reached by barnacles lifted out of the intertidal zone along shorelines raised by the earthquake, and documented the depths of drowned forests. He deduced that the region of subsidence was the surface manifestation of previously compressed rocks springing apart, driving parts of Alaska up and southwards over the Pacific Plate. His finding confirmed a prediction of plate tectonics, that the leading edge of the Pacific Plate plunged beneath the southern edge of Alaska along a gently dipping thrust fault. That observation, once fully appreciated, was applauded by the geophysics community.

Fountain tells this story through the testimony of survivors, engineers and scientists, interweaving it with the fascinating history of Alaska, from early discovery by Europeans to purchase from Russia by the United States in 1867, and its recent development. Were the quake to occur now, it is not difficult to envisage that with increased infrastructure and larger populations, the death toll and price tag would be two orders of magnitude larger than the 139 fatalities and US$300-million economic cost recorded in 1964.

What is clear from these two books is that seismicity on the North American continent is guaranteed to deliver surprises, along with unprecedented economic and human losses. Previous earthquakes provide clear guidance about the present-day vulnerability of US infrastructure and populations. Engineers and seismologists know how to mitigate the effects of future earthquakes (and, in mid-continent, would advise against the reckless injection of waste fluids known to trigger earthquakes). It is merely a matter of persuading city planners and politicians that if they are tempted to ignore the certainty of the continent’s seismic past, they should err on the side of caution when considering its seismic future.

Grave Toll on Children in the Outer Court: Revelation 11

Doctors perform surgery on a patient at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, Sunday, March 17, 2024. An international team of doctors has been working the past two weeks at the facility amid shortages of supplies. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war’s toll on Palestinian children

An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war with Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.Photos

BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND KAREEM CHEHAYEBUpdated 4:24 AM MDT, March 28, 2024Share

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.

One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike.

An unrelated 10-year-old boy screamed out in pain for his parents, not knowing that they were killed in the strike. Beside him was his sister, but he didn’t recognize her because burns covered almost her entire body.

These gut-wrenching casualties were described to The Associated Press by Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive-care doctor from Jordan, following a 10-hour overnight shift at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah.

Haj-Hassan, who has extensive experience in Gaza and regularly speaks out about the war’s devastating effects, was part of a team that recently finished a two-week stint there.

ISRAEL-HAMAS WA

After nearly six months of war, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated. Roughly a dozen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are only partially functioning. The rest have either shut down or are barely functioning after they ran out of fuel and medicine, were surrounded and raided by Israeli troops, or were damaged in fighting.

Pediatrician Tanya Haj-Hassan, center, examines wounded children at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Saturday, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

That leaves hospitals such as Al-Aqsa Martyrs caring for an overwhelming number of patients with limited supplies and staff. The majority of its intensive care unit beds are occupied by children, including infants wrapped in bandages and wearing oxygen masks.

AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports on a visit by an international team of doctors to a hospital in Gaza.

“I spend most of my time here resuscitating children,” Haj-Hassan said after a recent shift. “What does that tell you about every other hospital in the Gaza Strip?”

A different team of international doctors working at Al-Aqsa Martyrs in January stayed at a nearby guesthouse. But because of a recent surge of Israeli Israel strikes nearby, Haj-Hassan and her co-workers stayed in the hospital itself.

Pediatrician Tanya Haj-Hassan, examines wounded Gazan children at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Saturday, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

That gave them a painfully vivid look at the strain the hospital has come under as the number of patients keeps rising, said Arvind Das, the team leader in Gaza for the International Rescue Committee. His organization and Medical Aid for Palestinians organized the visit by Haj-Hassan and others.

Mustafa Abu Qassim, a nurse from Jordan who was part of the visiting team, said he was shocked by the overcrowding.

“When we look for patients, there are no rooms,” he said. “They are in the corridors on a bed, a mattress, or on a blanket on the floor.”

Before the war, the hospital had a capacity of around 160 beds, according to the World Health Organization. Now there are some 800 patients, yet many of the hospital’s 120 staff members are no longer able to come to work.

FILE – Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE – Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

Health care workers face the same daily struggle as others in Gaza in finding food for their families and trying to ensure some safety for them. Many bring their children with them to the hospital to keep them close, Abu Qassim said.

“It’s just miserable,” he said.

Thousands of people driven from their homes by the war are also living in the hospital grounds, hoping it will be safe. Hospitals have special protections under international law, though those protections can be removed if combatants use them for military purposes.

Israel has alleged that hospitals serve as command centers, weapons storage facilities and hideouts for Hamas, but has presented little visual evidence. Hamas has denied the allegations. Israel has been carrying out a large-scale operation in Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, for the past week.

Israeli troops have not raided or besieged Al-Aqsa Martyrs but have attacked surrounding areas, sometimes striking close to the hospital. In January, many doctors, patients, and displaced Palestinians fled the hospital after a flurry of strikes.

Doctors perform surgery on a patient at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Sunday, March 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israel’s bombardment and offensive in Gaza have killed more than 32,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 75,000 more in the territory of 2.3 million people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry says about two-thirds of those killed have been women and children.

Roughly half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are 17 or younger, the U.N.’s agency for children estimates.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for non-combatants’ deaths and injuries because the militants in Gaza operate from within civilian areas. It says over one-third of the dead are Hamas militants, though it has not backed up the claim with evidence.

The war was triggered on Oct. 7 by Hamas and other militants who attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages. The Israeli government believes around 100 hostages being held in Gaza are still alive.

In the early stages of the war, Israel severely limited the entry of food, fuel and medical supplies into Gaza. While the flow of aid has increased — and Israel says there are no longer any limits — the international community has called on Israel to let in more.

Aid groups say complicated inspection procedures at the border, continued fighting, and a breakdown in public order have caused massive slowdowns in convoys. Israel accuses the U.N. of disorganization.

Pediatrician Tanya Haj-Hassan, left, examines wounded children at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Saturday, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The result has been catastrophic, with hospital staff struggling to cope with a shortage of spare parts to maintain medical equipment. Al-Aqsa Martyrs has also been short on anesthetics, meaning surgeries and other procedures are frequently performed without painkillers.

Haj-Hassan says there is only one way to end Gaza’s health care crisis.

“They need the war to stop,” she said.

___

Chehayeb reported from Beirut.

Nuclear Meltdown Inevitable: Jeremiah 12

Zaporizhzhia NPP’s safe operation at power levels currently impossible – SNRIU

28.03.2024 03:39

As long as Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) remains under Russian occupation, it is impossible to safely operate the plant at the power levels.

The relevant statement was made by the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), following a meeting between SNRIU Head Oleh Korikov and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“During the meeting, Oleh Korikov emphasized that any intention of Russian occupiers to bring Zaporizhzhia NPP’s power units to the power levels for electricity generation poses a huge threat of accidents with radiation consequences that will have transboundary effects. Such actions would completely contradict the terms of the license, rules and regulations on nuclear and radiation safety,” the report states.

According to Korikov, Russian military occupation, the lack of proper maintenance and repairs, incompetent and illegitimate personnel have led to a significant deterioration in the nuclear and radiation safety and the lack of emergency response capability.

In addition, Russia’s blowing up of the Kakhovka Reservoir adversely affected the possibility of Zaporizhzhia NPP’s safe operation.

Korikov noted that Zaporizhzhia NPP’s safe operation is possible only after its demilitarization, de-occupation, and return under Ukraine’s control.

Additionally, Korikov and Grossi discussed the impact of Russian massive attacks on the nuclear and radiation safety of nuclear energy facilities and the performance of IAEA monitoring missions at Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

A reminder that Zaporizhzhia NPP has been under Russian occupation since March 4, 2022.

Photo: Energoatom

Starvation in the Outer Court: Revelation 11

BBCNoora Mohammed can’t get the treatment she needs in a Gaza hospital

Gaza starvation could amount to war crime, UN human rights chief tells BBC

By Jeremy Bowen,BBC international editor, JerusalemShare

After months of warnings, a recent UN-backed report offered hard statistical evidence that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is turning into a man-made famine.

It has increased the pressure on Israel to fulfil its legal responsibilities to protect Palestinian civilians, and to allow adequate supplies of humanitarian aid to reach the people who need it.

The UN’s most senior human rights official, Volker Türk, said in a BBC interview that Israel bore significant blame, and that there was a “plausible” case that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Mr Türk, who is the UN high commissioner for human rights, said that if intent was proven, that would amount to a war crime.

Israel’s economy minister, Nir Barkat, a senior politician in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, dismissed Mr Türk’s warnings as “total nonsense – a totally irresponsible thing to say”.

Like his cabinet colleagues, Mr Barkat insisted that Israel was letting in all the aid offered by the US and the rest of the world. Israel says the UN fails to distribute whatever is left once Hamas has helped itself.

But a long line of lorries fully loaded with aid supplies desperately needed in the Gaza Strip is backing up on the Egyptian side of the border with Rafah. They can only enter Gaza through Israel, after a complex and bureaucratic series of checks.

The absence of adequate supplies has forced Jordan, and now other countries including the US and UK, to drop aid from the air – the least effective way to deliver humanitarian supplies.

0:48Watch: Gazans reportedly drown after video shows rush for aid drop that landed in sea

The US Navy is also sending an engineering flotilla across the Atlantic to build a temporary pier to land aid by sea.

None of that would be necessary if Israel granted full road access to Gaza and expedited the delivery of relief supplies through the modern container port at Ashdod, only about half an hour’s drive north of the Gaza Strip.

In an interview from Geneva, Mr Türk said evidence had emerged that Israel was slowing down or withholding the delivery of aid.

Mr Türk condemned the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers on 7 October, including killing, rape and hostage-taking. But he also said that no side in the war should evade accountability for its actions, including for any attempt to withhold aid supplies from the people who need it in Gaza.

“All of my humanitarian colleagues keep telling us that there is a lot of red tape. There are obstacles. There are hindrances… Israel is to blame in a significant way,” he said.

“I can only say the facts speak for themselves… I understand that this needs to be controlled, but it cannot take days for it to be done.

“When you put all kinds of requirements on the table that are unreasonable in an emergency… that brings up the question, with all the restrictions that we currently see, whether there is a plausible claim to be made that starvation is, or may be used as, a weapon of war.”

Concern about humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip deepened last week with the release of a soberly written commentary alongside a series of maps, charts and statistics. It prompted more warnings from Israel’s allies that it should change the way it is fighting the war against Hamas to spare civilians from death from either high explosive or hunger.

The study is the latest report from a respected international network, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, known as IPC. It provides governments, the UN and aid agencies with apolitical data to measure the scale of hunger. The headline on the report was stark – “Gaza Strip: Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity.”

Its data explained how famine could come at any time in the next eight weeks or so if there was no ceasefire and relief aid did not pour into the Gaza Strip.

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Palestinian parents who had managed to bring sick and hungry children to one of the few hospitals still operating in Gaza after Israel’s onslaught did not have to wait for the statistics. For weeks and months, as they struggled to feed them, they have watched their children decline.

Gaza is no place to be ill. One young girl at the hospital, reached by a Palestinian freelance journalist working for the BBC, lay semi-conscious on a bed.

The girl, Noora Mohammed, has lung and liver fibrosis, conditions that can be fatal even in peacetime. In the months of starvation since the war began, and without the right medical care, she is deteriorating fast.

“My daughter can’t move,” her mother said. “She’s anaemic, always sleeping, and there’s nothing nutritious to eat.”

At least Noora reached hospital. Most of just over one million Gazans considered to be in acute need will not have that option.

The evidence of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe is overwhelming. Our pictures from the hospital showed children with swollen joints, wasted limbs and dermatitis, all classic symptoms of acute malnutrition.

There are signs among children of acute malnutrition

Israel has ignored the UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. Nir Barkat, the Israeli economy minister, said that nothing would be allowed to get in the way of Israel’s war aim of smashing Hamas for good and freeing the hostages taken on 7 October.

Allies around the world, he said, supported Israel’s strategic goal. When I pointed out many of Israel’s friends, starting with US President Joe Biden, did not like the way Israel was fighting the war, Mr Barkat was blunt.

“That’s tough. We are going to finish the war. We’ll do everything we can to kill the Hamas terrorists and to minimise collateral damage as much as we can,” he said.

“With all due respect, we’re fighting evil, and we expect the world to help us fight evil until we finish Hamas off the map.”

The UN high commissioner for human rights had a succinct response to stinging criticism from Israel.

“The only thing I can say to them is that there is an emerging international consensus, and it may not have been there before, but it is clearly there now, including with this week’s Security Council resolution, on the humanitarian situation,” Mr Türk said.

“The human rights situation is so tragic that an immediate ceasefire is required. That’s my response to that.”

Iraqi Horn Threatens Babylon the Great: Daniel

Faylaq al-Waad al-Sadiq Secretary-General Sheikh Mohammed al-Tamimi poses for a picture provided to Newsweek by his media office.SHEIKH MOHAMMED AL-TAMIMI MEDIA OFFICE

Iraq Militia Warns US Troops Will Exit ‘in Coffins’ If Biden Won’t Withdraw

Published Mar 27, 2024 at 9:41 AM EDTUpdated Mar 27, 2024 at 11:40 AM EDT00:43

Joe Biden Angers Iraq With Airstrikes Against Kataib Hezbollah

By Tom O’Connor

Senior Writer, Foreign Policy & Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign PolicyFOLLOW

The head of an Iraqi militia participating in a coalition of groups that have waged attacks against U.S. troops and Israel has told Newsweek that his forces are prepared to escalate their campaign significantly if President Joe Biden does not meet their demands.

According to Sheikh Mohammed al-Tamimi, secretary-general of Faylaq al-Waad al-Sadiq, all they are asking for is the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from their country.

The group, whose name translates to the “True Promise Corps,” is one of several factions that have banded together as part of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” which launched a campaign of near-daily rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces stationed in Iraq and Syria in October, shortly after the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in the Gaza Strip.

The offensive took a deadly turn in January when three U.S. soldiers were killed on the border of Jordan and Syria.

As unrest worsened with Biden ordering intensive airstrikes and the killing of a high-level militia commander last month, the Iraqi government began to harden its calls for a timely exit of U.S. forces. The Pentagon soon commenced talks with Iraqi counterparts over a “transition” in the U.S. military presence, which is officially limited to battling the remnants of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

With these assurances, a number of Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias largely paused their campaign, instead turning their sights on Israel itself. But as weeks pass with little sign of progress and reports of new attacks on U.S. positions, Tamimi has warned U.S. troops will be met with an offensive that goes far beyond even Hamas’ devastating October 7, 2023, attack on Israel should “the reckless, senile” Biden ultimately fail to withdraw U.S. soldiers from the country.

“If the agreement is not achieved, we will expel the Americans in their coffins from Iraq, and we will humiliate the ‘Black House’ administration,” Tamimi told Newsweek. “And they will see who the resistance is and what the capabilities of the resistance are, especially now that we have drones and long-range smart missiles.”

The Rise of Iraq’s Shiite Militiamen

The presence of largely Shiite Muslim militias threatening U.S. troops in Iraq is not a new phenomenon and predates the Israel-Hamas war by more than two decades. When the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 toppled President Saddam Hussein, rival Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions took up arms to target one another and U.S. forces viewed as occupiers in the war-torn nation.

While U.S. troops did ultimately exit in late 2011, unrest erupted once again with the rise of the ultraconservative Sunni ISIS, which took over large swathes of the country, declaring a global caliphate from Iraq’s second city of Mosul in 2014. Mostly Shiite Muslim militias banded together with support from Iran to tackle the jihadis in Iraq and Syria, while the U.S. formed an international coalition, backed by U.S. boots on the ground, to take on the same foe.

Faylaq al-Waad al-Sadiq was among the groups that engaged in frontline battles against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria during these years.

For a time, the fight against ISIS served as a mutual goal between factions backed by the U.S. and Iran, but militias once again rose up against U.S. troops as tensions between Washington and Tehran worsened. Tit-for-tat hostilities came to a head in early 2020, with the U.S. killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani and the second-in-command of Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces coalition, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in Baghdad.

Soleimani is often credited as the architect of the Axis of Resistance, whose influence extends as far as the frontlines of Ukraine, where Faylaq al-Waad al-Sadiq’s media channel shared photos last month appearing to show Russian soldiers in Avdiivka carrying a flag carrying the slain commander’s face along with another bearing the symbol for the Russian city of Stary Oskol. Soleimani’s death sparked vows for revenge among his international supporters.

Today, the war in Gaza has served as a new catalyst for anti-U.S. operations. Various groups such as Kataib Hezbollah, the Nujaba Movement and others have united to form the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, of which Tamimi said Faylaq al-Waad al-Sadiq and its mujahideen, a term referring to Muslim guerilla fighters, were also “an essential part.”

“The role of the mujahideen in the corps is to defend the land of Iraq, and this is a right guaranteed by divine laws and international treaties,” Tamimi said. “For the leadership and mujahideen of the corps, targeting the American occupation in Iraq is a legitimate, national and moral duty, and Iraq’s sovereignty is a duty that everyone must respect.”

“The role of the corps’ mujahideen was to target any clear American presence and target the Zionist entity,” he added.

Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

Israel Refuses to Stop the Holy War: Revelation 11

The Latest | Israel won’t accept Hamas demands after militant group rejects cease-fire plan

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that his government will not accept Hamas’ “delusional” conditions for a cease-fire in Gaza. The militant group rejected the latest truce proposal because it says Israel is ignoring the group’s core demands

Hamas wants an end to the war and Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Israel seeks to destroy Hamas and to recover all of the approximately 100 Israeli hostages still in Gaza, as well as the remains of some 30 others.

Netanyahu also rebuked Monday’s U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. The council’s legally binding demand for a pause in the war comes as much of the Gaza Strip is in ruins, most of its 2.3 million residents are displaced, and a third of the besieged population is on the brink of famine.

More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 74,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally. The ministry says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.

Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel and another 250 people abducted when militants launched a surprise attack out of Gaza on Oct. 7, triggering the war.

Currently:

— Israel and Hamas dig in as pressure builds for a cease-fire in Gaza

— With its soldiers mired in Gaza, Israel also fighting over drafting the ultra-Orthodox

— Lebanese Sunni militant group head says coordination with Shiite Hezbollah is vital to fight Israel

— Pentagon urges Israel to protect civilians in Gaza as military chiefs meet

— Colombia threatens to break ties with Israel if it doesn’t comply with UN cease-fire resolution