War Iran-United States Military Crisis of 2020 - US Baghdad embassy under siege, rocket fire in US Baghdad green zone, Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 crash, and more!

XYZpdq · Jan 4, 2020

Pocket Dragoon said:
Probably the one biggest deterrent that the Norks have, and which the Iranians lack, is also the dumbest; plain artillery.

They have enough of it within range of Seoul to turn it into a Stalingradesque hellscape, and can probably do it before counterbattery fire lands. They have entire mountain ranges in depth behind the DMZ, that are essentially lines of buried battleships. Most people don't realize how close most of S. Korea's important infrastructure & population centers are to plain Nork artillery.

Their only purpose is to keep those batteries hidden and protected long enough to accomplish what a flashier missile would fail at.

yeah liquifying Seoul is probably still on the table

d3rk@ d3rk@ said:
>>>>> Hacked By Iran Cyber Security Group HackerS ... <<<<<

This is only small part of Iran's cyber ability !

We're always ready

to be continues ...

We Are: Iranian Hackers

#Hard revenge

Tyce what is this?

Iwasamwillbe · Jan 4, 2020

MrTickles said:
Correction, the US stock market is booming right now. That's not an economy. That's pure speculation. Record numbers of Americans are homeless and in poverty and political divide continues to grow. Doesn't matter if you have 3 shitty jobs, you still poor and resentful.

The fact that you're literally regurgitating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's long-ago debunked "everyone has two jobs" argument in a flaccid attempt to downplay the immense growth of jobs in America tells me everything I need to know about your economic "knowledge".

The "record numbers of Americans are homeless and in poverty" quip is also unsourced nonsense.

And political divides have nothing to do with economics, so I don't know why you even brought that up.

MrTickles said:
The two most significant leaders in western Europe, sure.

>Macron
>Merkel
>Significant

:story:

MrTickles said:
And by the latters strategic economic deals with Russia, and the formers indpendent foriegn policy in Africa.

Russia is still weak, Germany is still suffering economically due to being flooded by ~~invaders~~ "migrants", France still has Yellow Jacket protests going on, and Africa is still irrelevant.

This means nothing.

MrTickles said:
Correction, he pulled out of the border region with Turkey. US is still in syria.

If by "the US", you of course mean the residual force left solely to pick out the shattered remains of ISIS, then yeah, the US still is still in Syria, despite ceasing all major military operations there.

Then again, by that standard, the US is still practically everywhere in the world.

MrTickles said:
Because all things happen in isolation?

You haven't provided proof of any causal connection between the deterioration of US-Iran relations and Chinese investment in green energy.

MrTickles said:
And you exaggerate the pollution. While being the biggest renewable investor and developer by far, China is also the largest manufacturing power by far and consumes more electricity as a result than Europe and the US combined. A and B can be true alongside C, it's not an all or nothing rules board game.

If China is going green, and investing so much in renewables, why is their consumption of electricity still producing so much pollution?

Shield Breaker · Jan 4, 2020

Iwasamwillbe said:
The fact that you're literally regurgitating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's long-ago debunked "everyone has two jobs" argument in a flaccid attempt to downplay the immense growth of jobs in America tells me everything I need to know about your economic "knowledge".

The "record numbers of Americans are homeless and in poverty" quip is also unsourced nonsense.

And political divides have nothing to do with economics, so I don't know why you even brought that up.

>Macron
>Merkel
>Significant

Russia is still weak, Germany is still suffering economically due to being flooded by ~~invaders~~ "migrants", France still has Yellow Jacket protests going on, and Africa is still irrelevant.

This means nothing.

If by "the US", you of course mean the residual force left solely to pick out the shattered remains of ISIS, then yeah, the US still is still in Syria, despite ceasing all major military operations there.

Then again, by that standard, the US is still practically everywhere in the world.

You haven't provided proof of any causal connection between the deterioration of US-Iran relations and Chinese investment in green energy.

If China is going green, and investing so much in renewables, why is their consumption of electricity still producing so much pollution?

Remember that you are arguing with this:

Don't you feel silly.

XtrmGamr719 · Jan 4, 2020

I'm surprised no one did a "Why do I hear boss music" for Iran after attacking the embassy. Though I guess that's not the first thing to think of when the US just basically bitchslapped them.

nosemouth · Jan 4, 2020

Michaelsoft said:
The Federal Depository Library Program website just got defaced by pro-Iranian hackers.
https://www.fdlp.gov/
https://web.archive.org/web/20200105012250/https://www.fdlp.gov/
View attachment 1083338

Oh no, not the Federal Depository Library Program, whatever that is! Even the people who work there don't know what the fuck that is.

spiritofamermaid · Jan 4, 2020

los pepes said:
The interesting thing about him mentioning cultural sites is that it's technically a war crime. It's Trumps way of basically telling them if they keep fucking with him he doesn't care about the rules. In this situation "cultural sites" is a euphemism targeted strikes against the senior political leadership of the country. "I'm not afraid to war crime you and the UN aint gonna help" drives home the point that the old rules are out the window all their calculations based off of those rules on what America will do and what they can get away with are gone with it.

This is now a PR war more than anything else. If they launch a hundred rockets at a base and he yeets a handful of mullahs in response, he won that round. Short of sinking an aircraft carrier there isn't anything they can do to win any individual round of exchanges because he's not constraining himself like they expected him to. Hell if they did sink a carrier there is a 50/50 chance he would actually nuke them.

Oh phew when he said cultural sites I was thinking of things like ancient temples and such (idk why but my mind went there). Glad to know that's not the case.

bippu_as_fuck_ls400 · Jan 4, 2020

Inside the plot by Iran’s Soleimani to attack U.S. forces in Iraq
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight-idUSKBN1Z301Z (http://archive.vn/Xwxfx)

REUTERS STAFF JANUARY 04, 2020

(Reuters) - In mid-October, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani met with his Iraqi Shi'ite militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad.

The Revolutionary Guards commander instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters.

The strategy session, which has not been previously reported, came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight.

Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Soleimani’s efforts ended up provoking the U.S. attack on Friday that killed him and Muhandis, marking a major escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. The two men died in air strikes on their convoy at a Baghdad airport as they headed to the capital, dealing a major blow to the Islamic Republic and the Iraqi paramilitary groups it supports.

Interviews with the Iraqi security sources and Shi'ite militia commanders offer a rare glimpse of how Soleimani operated in Iraq, which he once told a Reuters reporter he knew like the back of his hand.

Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons - such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters - to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah - a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran - to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings.

Soleimani told them such a group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans,” one of the militia sources told Reuters.

Before the attacks, the U.S. intelligence community had reason to believe that Soleimani was involved in “late stage” planning to strike Americans in multiple countries, including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, U.S. officials told Reuters Friday on condition of anonymity. One senior U.S. official said Soleimani had supplied advanced weaponry to Kataib Hezbollah.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters on Friday that Soleimani had just come from Damascus, “where he was planning attacks on American soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and against our diplomats.”

An official at the headquarters of Iran's Revolutionary Guards declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry was not available for comment.

PICKING U.S. TARGETS WITH DRONES
The United States has grown increasingly concerned about Iran's influence over the ruling elite in Iraq, which has been beset for months by protesters who accuse the government of enriching itself and serving the interests of foreign powers, especially Iran, as Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs or basic services.

Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, was instrumental in expanding Iran's military influence in the Middle East as the operative who handles clandestine operations outside Iran. The 62-year-old general was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Muhandis, a former Iraqi lawmaker, oversaw Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of paramilitary forces mostly consisting of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces.

Muhandis, like Soleimani, had long been on the radar of the United States, which had declared Muhandis a terrorist. In 2007, a Kuwaiti court sentenced him to death in absentia for his involvement in the 1983 U.S. and French embassy bombings in Kuwait.

Soleimani picked Kataib Hezbollah to lead the attacks on U.S. forces in the region because it had the capability to use drones to scout targets for Katyusha rocket attacks, one of the militia commanders told Reuters. Among the weapons that Soleimani's forces supplied to its Iraqi militia allies last fall was a drone Iran had developed that could elude radar systems, the militia commanders said.

Kataib Hezbollah used the drones to gather aerial footage of locations where U.S. troops were deployed, according to two Iraqi security officials who monitor the movements of militias.

On December 11, a senior U.S. military official said attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were increasing and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.

His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq's elite Counter-Terrorism Service. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but a U.S. military official said intelligence and forensic analyses of the rockets and launchers pointed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia groups, notably Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

On Dec. 27 more than 30 rockets were fired at an Iraqi military base near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk. The attack killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four American and two Iraq servicemen.

Washington accused Kataib Hezbollah of carrying out the attack, an allegation it denied. The United States then launched air strikes two days later against the militia, killing at least 25 militia fighters and wounding 55.

The attacks sparked two days of violent protests by supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups who stormed the U.S. Embassy’s perimeter and hurled rocks, prompting Washington to dispatch extra troops to the region and threaten reprisals against Tehran.

On Thursday – the day before the attack that killed Soleimani - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned that the United States might have to take preemptive action to protect American lives from expected attacks by Iran-backed militias.

“The game has changed,” he said.

AnitaSarsleezian · Jan 4, 2020

Jet Fuel Johnny said:
A lot of older Gen-X are the same way.

Bingo. Older Gen X here (Born at the start of the 70s) and everything you said just brought back a ton of memories. Old enough by the end of the 70s to hear the news every night and definitely old enough at the beginning of the 80s to experience Iran fucking with us nonstop and already have anti-Iran feelings. In fact I was just thinking of all this stuff the other day because of the general Trump hit and I was thinking about when I was young and Carter was president and all the bullshit with Iran and I was just thinking about how this shit country has been fucking with us since I was a kid.

When I hear "PLO" the first thing that jumps to mind is the memory of a bunch of goat fuckers who pushed a crippled man off a boat in a wheelchair.

Michaelsoft said:
The Federal Depository Library Program website just got defaced by pro-Iranian hackers.
https://www.fdlp.gov/
https://web.archive.org/web/20200105012250/https://www.fdlp.gov/
View attachment 1083338

Just when I thought I'd never see anything more exceptional than "Wee R Leejun"

Ghostse · Jan 4, 2020

Kill all whales said:
The grandson of Muhammad, Hussein was decapitated in A.D. 680 during the Second Islamic Civil War, when Muslims were fighting over who was the proper successor to their prophet. The act was met with bloody retaliation from Muslims who considered Hussein's death unjust and sought to avenge him.

So, interesting/HILARIOUS fact about that - the Blood of Hussein.

So Hussein was chilling down in Mecca and just being Muhammed's grandson, not wanting to get involved in politics. Because the poltical leader of the Muslim world at the time, Yazid, was a Syrian dickbag known for being a master of politics and intrigue, and Hussein doubted his ability to take him on and not get out maneuvered politically - or assassinated. Plus Yazid, for all his shit, was not going to go kill the grandson of the prophet in the holiest city, so Hussein was safe as long as he chilled in Mecca/Medina and just waited.

Yazid was working to cement control over Egypt and Iraq.
The Muslims of Iraq said "come and liberate us from this Syrian asshole! Please"
Hussein told them to fuck off, because the Iraqis were known to be pieces of shit who had betrayed the previous Caliph.
Then one of the tribal Leaders of Iraq said "If you come, I promise you the undying support of 20,000 Iraqi Badasses" - this would have been a large enough army to push into Syria and kill Yazid. So Hussein sent his cousin ahead to validate they would actually raise and army, cousin said it was all good in the hood, and Hussein finally said yes.

While all this was going on Yazid got wind of something going on, so replaced the governor of Iraq with Ziyad, a big, black,pipe-hitting hard nigga* who proceeded to just go full reign of terror executing anyone suspected of insurrection and paying hefty rewards to anyone who snitched on neighbors, such that by the time Hussein arrived, the entire population was completely cowed.

They story says Hussein's cousin (by marriage), hearing the Ziyad's inquistion squad was coming for him, ran back to the town that was the heart of the rebellion, where they promised all to come fight for Hussein if he came to lead them. When the cousin showed up, looking for a place to hide, No one would open their door for him, and he was then caught and summarily executed.

So Hussein and his small group of followers arrive in Iraq; Hussein learns is cousin is dead, and when only a couple of men to join him, figures out he's been betrayed. Then Hussein is pursued around the desert by Yazid's army who don't bother attack, just besiege them in the desert, rain arrows on them, and let them starve/die of thirst. The commander, understandably somewhat reluctant to kill a direct descendant of their pedophile Prophet, offered to let Hussein and his family go if he'd swear loyalty to Yazid. Hussein like a suicidal badass refused,and with the several dozen men who were still able to fight rode out and challenged the commander of the thousands of well fed, rested, and watered troops to fight them one-on-one. Which they did until every one of them died, inflicting disproportionate losses.

So he died, hungry and severely dehydrated, because the Iraqis made him come up in rebellion and then pussied out when it was time to do gangsta shit.

tl;dr:
They are flying a flag for avenging the death of a guy who was largely killed by cowardace and betrayal of other muslims, specifically the Iraqis on the orders of a Syrian of Turkish blood, and the irony is fucking hilarious.

* He was said to be "dark" and his father was said to be "african", but that could have meant "Egyptian" or "North African", and despite what you're told by the diversity media of current year, at the time, Egypt was as white as Greece and North Africa would have been all primarily Roman-peopled colonies; that part of the world didn't get ~~blacked~~ browned up until a few hundred years later. Also the word for 'dark' also meant "stern, severe", so it might refer to his manner and not his melanin content.

A nigga who shit up he own joke with autistic historical footnotes....a shameful nigga.

Ponderous Pillock said:
Well let's start with their stealth fighter... The Qaher 313 who's airframe is totally unstealthy, and where they just fucking made a model and flew it about claiming it totally worked.

Now if we're talking about their airforce more generally, they've bought a bout a dozen SU-30's, but their main aircraft? That they've somehow kept going?

Yeah, it's the F-4 Phantom II (retired from most western nations in the 90s). Where they've cannibalised them so much that they've gone from 225 to just 63.

Their next most numerous aircraft is the F-14 Tomcat, where they've gone from 80 such airframes to just 26.

They've got a complete and utter mess of an airforce, with SU-22s, Mig 29's, and the Chinese Mig 21 knockoff kicking about in numbers of 20 or less, with their technological capability really hovering around and struggling to build the Chengdu F-7 in tiny, tiny numbers. (Of those, they've managed to lose two to faceplanting them into the ground).

In the event of a war, they will struggle to get all of these different aircraft into the air.

The Aerospace Force of the Revolutionary Guard has no aircraft to speak of. A tiny handful which have had some modifications done to them, but their grand total is, uh.... well, 16 ish? 25 maybe?

But to give some idea of how quick the air war will be?

An F-22 pulled a fucking Maverick on one of their F-4's.

So imagine Six Day War 2: The Youtube Sequel.

Because it'll be over in ten minutes.

Iran is home to the largest number of F-14 aces. The Iranian F-14s were put against Migs and Mirages that were 1 & 2 generations past them (granted shitty export versions) and came out on top because Iraq pilots were complete and utter ass.

(also the reason private F-14s are so hard to get a hold of. They need to burn for that alone)

Huitzilopochtli said:
LOL, what is congress going to do? Impeach him again?

"We've already impeached him, Speaker. You just never sent the articles to the senate"
"Oh. Well then as of this moment, Trump is on DOUBLE SECRET IMPEACHMENT."

Jet Fuel Johnny · Jan 4, 2020

nosemouth said:
Oh no, not the Federal Depository Library Program, whatever that is! Even the people who work there don't know what the fuck that is.

Little do the Iranians know that they screwed up the security program keeping the Dead Hand Tapes for Americas forgotten MAD program from rolling.

Right now Jason Bourne is desperately trying to break through security and keeping MD GEIST from activating Death Force.

Nice Job, you Iranian donkeys. The FDLP was only a cover and now all of Earth is in danger.

BONE_Buddy · Jan 4, 2020

Pocket Dragoon said:
Probably the one biggest deterrent that the Norks have, and which the Iranians lack, is also the dumbest; plain artillery.

They have enough of it within range of Seoul to turn it into a Stalingradesque hellscape, and can probably do it before counterbattery fire lands. They have entire mountain ranges in depth behind the DMZ, that are essentially lines of buried battleships. Most people don't realize how close most of S. Korea's important infrastructure & population centers are to plain Nork artillery.

Their only purpose is to keep those batteries hidden and protected long enough to accomplish what a flashier missile would fail at.

Because I am an autistic bastard I have to correct this particular (very popular) misconception.

First this white-paper goes into great depth on the conventional artillery forces of the DPRK, and their destructive capabilities against Seoul:

Mind the Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality

Roger Cavazos considers two bounded cases of an artillery attack on Seoul. The question is pertinent since it bears on whether there is conventional stability on the Korean Peninsula. If there is…

nautilus.org

It is a few years old, but the big gun threat of North Korea hasn't really advanced much at all since then.

Second: Precession guided missiles/shells and bunker-busters have severely reduced the threat of fixed (or only strategically mobile) artillery positions.

/sperg

Back to the topic at hand:

Luna News on Twitter

“#BREAKING After some minor research we found that a telegram group defaced several western websites and posted tutorials on telegram on how to do so. The hackers have also made their social media accounts public this is not an Iranian attack . #iran #iraq”

twitter.com

Luna News on Twitter

“Here are several of the "Hacked " sites”

twitter.com

Screen Shot 2020-01-04 at 10.42.35 PM.png

More defaced sites.

Extremist Frank · Jan 4, 2020

At this point I just want the Iranians to escalate this shit further so we can nuke Tehran and move on from this status quo bullshit that has defined the US-Iran relationship for the last 40 years.

Iwasamwillbe · Jan 4, 2020

Ghostse said:
tl;dr:
They are flying a flag for avenging the death of a guy who was largely killed by cowardace and betrayal of other muslims, specifically the Iraqis on the orders of a Syrian of Turkish blood, and the irony is fucking hilarious.

Islamic society truly is the worst society, whether under an amir, sultan, mullah, ayatollah, supreme leader, or caliph.

Extremist Frank said:
At this point I just want the Iranians to escalate this shit further so we can nuke Tehran and move on from this status quo bullshit that has defined the US-Iran relationship for the last 40 years.

But then every Iranian sleeper agent in the US will spontaneously become filled with the Spirit of Allah, and become living thermonuclear suicide bombs. Then Russia and China will pick apart the scattered remains of America.

Belligerent Monk · Jan 4, 2020

There were a ton of protests today over this nonsense.
So I open up my local news rag online to read about this exceptionalism and ofc one of the protesters looks like this:

Because, you know, it's not really protesting if you aren't also wearing an unrelated button drawing attention to your sexual orientation.
Stupid faggots.
Edited to add: Is that the term "No War" applied to her face in a war paint fashion? lmfao
Strangely enough care to guess what I didn't see in their little photo spread?
A single black person. I think I might have seen a mixed-race child but the person she was with was white so that's a wash.

I love how most people get that this dude being dead is a good thing but they're beyond ass blasted that it was Trump who made the call because he's "reckless" about it.
I'm like, "alright, nigger, how exactly do you kill off a well-guarded warlord without being a little fucking reckless?" Guess they'll think twice before fucking with our embassies now.

RodgerDodger · Jan 4, 2020

greengrilledcheese said:
Inside the plot by Iran’s Soleimani to attack U.S. forces in Iraq
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight-idUSKBN1Z301Z (http://archive.vn/Xwxfx)

REUTERS STAFF JANUARY 04, 2020

(Reuters) - In mid-October, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani met with his Iraqi Shi'ite militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad.

The Revolutionary Guards commander instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters.

The strategy session, which has not been previously reported, came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight.

Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Soleimani’s efforts ended up provoking the U.S. attack on Friday that killed him and Muhandis, marking a major escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. The two men died in air strikes on their convoy at a Baghdad airport as they headed to the capital, dealing a major blow to the Islamic Republic and the Iraqi paramilitary groups it supports.

Interviews with the Iraqi security sources and Shi'ite militia commanders offer a rare glimpse of how Soleimani operated in Iraq, which he once told a Reuters reporter he knew like the back of his hand.

Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons - such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters - to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah - a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran - to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings.

Soleimani told them such a group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans,” one of the militia sources told Reuters.

Before the attacks, the U.S. intelligence community had reason to believe that Soleimani was involved in “late stage” planning to strike Americans in multiple countries, including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, U.S. officials told Reuters Friday on condition of anonymity. One senior U.S. official said Soleimani had supplied advanced weaponry to Kataib Hezbollah.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters on Friday that Soleimani had just come from Damascus, “where he was planning attacks on American soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and against our diplomats.”

An official at the headquarters of Iran's Revolutionary Guards declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry was not available for comment.

PICKING U.S. TARGETS WITH DRONES
The United States has grown increasingly concerned about Iran's influence over the ruling elite in Iraq, which has been beset for months by protesters who accuse the government of enriching itself and serving the interests of foreign powers, especially Iran, as Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs or basic services.

Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, was instrumental in expanding Iran's military influence in the Middle East as the operative who handles clandestine operations outside Iran. The 62-year-old general was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Muhandis, a former Iraqi lawmaker, oversaw Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of paramilitary forces mostly consisting of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces.

Muhandis, like Soleimani, had long been on the radar of the United States, which had declared Muhandis a terrorist. In 2007, a Kuwaiti court sentenced him to death in absentia for his involvement in the 1983 U.S. and French embassy bombings in Kuwait.

Soleimani picked Kataib Hezbollah to lead the attacks on U.S. forces in the region because it had the capability to use drones to scout targets for Katyusha rocket attacks, one of the militia commanders told Reuters. Among the weapons that Soleimani's forces supplied to its Iraqi militia allies last fall was a drone Iran had developed that could elude radar systems, the militia commanders said.

Kataib Hezbollah used the drones to gather aerial footage of locations where U.S. troops were deployed, according to two Iraqi security officials who monitor the movements of militias.

On December 11, a senior U.S. military official said attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were increasing and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.

His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq's elite Counter-Terrorism Service. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but a U.S. military official said intelligence and forensic analyses of the rockets and launchers pointed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia groups, notably Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

On Dec. 27 more than 30 rockets were fired at an Iraqi military base near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk. The attack killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four American and two Iraq servicemen.

Washington accused Kataib Hezbollah of carrying out the attack, an allegation it denied. The United States then launched air strikes two days later against the militia, killing at least 25 militia fighters and wounding 55.

The attacks sparked two days of violent protests by supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups who stormed the U.S. Embassy’s perimeter and hurled rocks, prompting Washington to dispatch extra troops to the region and threaten reprisals against Tehran.

On Thursday – the day before the attack that killed Soleimani - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned that the United States might have to take preemptive action to protect American lives from expected attacks by Iran-backed militias.

“The game has changed,” he said.

The most interesting thing there is it looks rather suspiciously like Iraqi Shiite, and Shiite members of government rather quickly sold out Soleimani, and wanted no part of what he was bringing into their country. They immediately ran to the Iraqi and US Military with info on the meetings. Soleimani may have had far fewer friends and far less influence than he thought. Just the thought of that has got to be causing some degree of panic to set in in Tehran and Qom.

Ponderous Pillock said:
Well let's start with their stealth fighter... The Qaher 313 who's airframe is totally unstealthy, and where they just fucking made a model and flew it about claiming it totally worked.

Now if we're talking about their airforce more generally, they've bought a bout a dozen SU-30's, but their main aircraft? That they've somehow kept going?

Yeah, it's the F-4 Phantom II (retired from most western nations in the 90s). Where they've cannibalised them so much that they've gone from 225 to just 63.

Their next most numerous aircraft is the F-14 Tomcat, where they've gone from 80 such airframes to just 26.

They've got a complete and utter mess of an airforce, with SU-22s, Mig 29's, and the Chinese Mig 21 knockoff kicking about in numbers of 20 or less, with their technological capability really hovering around and struggling to build the Chengdu F-7 in tiny, tiny numbers. (Of those, they've managed to lose two to faceplanting them into the ground).

In the event of a war, they will struggle to get all of these different aircraft into the air.

The Aerospace Force of the Revolutionary Guard has no aircraft to speak of. A tiny handful which have had some modifications done to them, but their grand total is, uh.... well, 16 ish? 25 maybe?

But to give some idea of how quick the air war will be?

An F-22 pulled a fucking Maverick on one of their F-4's.

So imagine Six Day War 2: The Youtube Sequel.

Because it'll be over in ten minutes.

Ghostse said:
Iran is home to the largest number of F-14 aces. The Iranian F-14s were put against Migs and Mirages that were 1 & 2 generations past them (granted shitty export versions) and came out on top because Iraq pilots were complete and utter ass.

(also the reason private F-14s are so hard to get a hold of. They need to burn for that alone)

Yeah one thing that is pretty easy to speculate regarding Iran's air force, especially the now ancient US planes, the F-4's and F-14's. Even those that can still fly, have limited to almost no ability to fight. Notice how the F-22's could zip all around the F-4's undetected? Keeping the engines running through canibalization is fairly easy. Especially with the F-4's. But it's unlikely things like the sensor suites such as radar and the F-14's special optical camera have survived the test of time. And any stockpiled missiles purchased for and alongside those planes were long since spent in the Iran-Iraq war. It's likely the F-14's are limited to the vulcan cannon and maybe some crudely integrated short range ex soviet heat seekers? If even that. The F-4's are basically level bombers for standard gravity bombs. They might still have a few gun pods, assuming they still work. But those were worthless when they were new during Vietnam.

BONE_Buddy · Jan 5, 2020

Donald J. Trump on Twitter

“They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before! https://t.co/qI5RfWsSCH”

twitter.com

Screen Shot 2020-01-04 at 11.05.32 PM.png

Shield Breaker · Jan 5, 2020

Belligerent Monk said:
There were a ton of protests today over this nonsense.
So I open up my local news rag online to read about this exceptionalism and ofc one of the protesters looks like this:

View attachment 1083592

Because, you know, it's not really protesting if you aren't also wearing an unrelated button drawing attention to your sexual orientation.
Stupid faggots.
Edited to add: Is that the term "No War" applied to her face in a war paint fashion? lmfao
Strangely enough care to guess what I didn't see in their little photo spread?
A single black person. I think I might have seen a mixed-race child but the person she was with was white so that's a wash.

I love how most people get that this dude being dead is a good thing but they're beyond ass blasted that it was Trump who made the call because he's "reckless" about it.
I'm like, "alright, nigger, how exactly do you kill off a well-guarded warlord without being a little fucking reckless?" Guess they'll think twice before fucking with our embassies now.

What did her sign say? It looks like '--or vag--' in the picture. Don't tell me she made it about her being a dyke. :cringe:

Jet Fuel Johnny · Jan 5, 2020

Belligerent Monk said:
I love how most people get that this dude being dead is a good thing but they're beyond ass blasted that it was Trump who made the call because he's "reckless" about it.
I'm like, "alright, nigger, how exactly do you kill off a well-guarded warlord without being a little fucking reckless?" Guess they'll think twice before fucking with our embassies now.

You just know that if Obama had been the one to do or Hillary it would be called "daring" and "out of the box thinking" instead.

And I love how the thing (guy, girl, who cares?) in the picture doesn't even understand that it was an Iranian military commander, on Iraqi soil, that was hit while getting ready to coordinate more attacks with the goal of gathering hostages. I KNOW he doesn't get the history beyond what he reads on his phone when someone sends him a link he can use a rebuttal as why Iran a gud boy who dindu nuttin.

XtrmGamr719 · Jan 5, 2020

BONE_Buddy said:
Donald J. Trump on Twitter

“They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before! https://t.co/qI5RfWsSCH”

twitter.com

View attachment 1083606

Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA-IxpFSRts

Belligerent Monk · Jan 5, 2020

Shield Breaker said:
What did her sign say? It looks like '--or vag--' in the picture. Don't tell me she made it about her being a dyke.

Unfortunately that's as good as the picture gets. It's like the photog was more concerned with getting that "look of youthful opposition to drumph" than with humoring our curiosity. Cest la vie

Jet Fuel Johnny said:
You just know that if Obama had been the one to do or Hillary it would be called "daring" and "out of the box thinking" instead.

And I love how the thing (guy, girl, who cares?) in the picture doesn't even understand that it was an Iranian military commander, on Iraqi soil, that was hit while getting ready to coordinate more attacks with the goal of gathering hostages. I KNOW he doesn't get the history beyond what he reads on his phone when someone sends him a link he can use a rebuttal as why Iran a gud boy who dindu nuttin.

They don't need to understand any of it. Remember, it's feels over reals these days.
All they care about is brown people were killed by Trump and might be angry enough to try and make us pay for it. They don't care why it happened. The fact that our embassy was attacked? Pshaw. Screw that noise. Just a few more dead Americans, and who gives a fuck about that amirite?

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