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!

January 10th:
Exclusive: Informants in Iraq, Syria helped U.S. kill Iran's Soleimani - sources (archive)(post)
Iraqi Shia cleric whose militia killed American troops says crisis is over following Iran strike and Trump speech (archive)(post)
Iraqi PM tells US to decide mechanism for troop withdrawal (archive)(post)
Mike Pence says Congress might 'compromise sources and methods' if fully briefed on the Soleimani strike (archive)(post)
Unidentified planes hit Iraqi militiamen in Syria, killing 8 (archive)(post)
Iraq: The Master Of Mayhem Meets A Missile (archive)(post)
Eliminating Qasem Soleimani was Donald Trump’s Middle East farewell letter (archive)(post)
Iran uses BULLDOZERS to clear debris from plane crash site while accusing US of ‘big lie’ that they shot it down (archive)(post)
Swiss Back Channel Helped Defuse U.S.-Iran Crisis (post)

January 11th:
UKRAINIAN AIRCRAFT WAS BROUGHT DOWN IN IRAN DUE TO 'HUMAN ERROR' (archive)(post)
Iran minister says 'human error' caused by 'US adventurism' led to deadly crash of Ukrainian jetliner (archive)(post)
Ukrainian aircraft was brought down in Iran due to 'human error' (archive)(post)
Trump, at Ohio rally, says Democrats would have leaked Soleimani attack plans (archive)(post)
The Atlantic's David Frum blames Trump for downing of plane in Iran, deaths of 176 (archive)(post)
Associated Press changes ‘shockingly bad’ headline about Soleimani, Ukrainian plane crash after backlash (archive)(post)
GOP Rep. Doug Collins apologizes for saying Democrats are 'in love with terrorists' (archive)(post)
Iran demands West 'show findings' as new video reveals aircraft was struck before fiery crash (archive)(post)
Warren town hall interrupted by angry protester accusing her of ‘siding with terrorists’ (archive)(post)
Trump administration announces new sanctions on Iran (archive)(post)
Prepare For the Worst From Iran Cyber Attacks, As DHS Issues Warning: Experts (archive)(post)
Trump tells Fox News' Laura Ingraham 'four embassies' were targeted in imminent threat from Iran (archive)(post)
Trump tweets support for Iranian protesters as they demand Khamenei quit (archive)(post)
Trump warns Iran against ‘another massacre’ as protests flare over downed jet (archive)(post)

January 12th:
Trump tweet in Farsi 'the most liked Persian tweet' in history of Twitter (archive)(post)
Iraq warned to keep US troops or risk financial blow-WSJ (archive)(post)
Iran arrests UK ambassador in what Britain calls ‘flagrant violation of international law’ (archive)(post)

January 13th:
Trump authorized Soleimani's killing 7 months ago, with conditions (archive)(post)

edit: This is a WIP. All links are posted in the order they appear in the thread, not in chronological order of their publication.


---Original OP before the merge---
Iraqi supporters of Iran-backed militia attack US Embassy
https://apnews.com/75228a8a607a44863b57021ac33264dc (http://archive.vn/ljm9Y)

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA12 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday after smashing a main door and setting fire to a reception area, prompting tear gas and sounds of gunfire.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main building inside embassy. It was not clear what caused the fire at the reception area near the parking lot of the compound. A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying: “The message was delivered.”

The embassy attack followed deadly U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said it was in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it had blamed on the militia.

Dozens of protesters marched inside the compound after smashing the gate used by cars to enter the embassy. The protesters, many in militia uniform, stopped in a corridor after about 5 meters (16 feet), and were only about 200 meters away from the main building. Half a dozen U.S. soldiers were seen on the roof of the main building, their guns were pointed at the protesters.

Smoke from the tear gas rose in the area, and at least three of the protesters appeared to have difficulties breathing. It wasn’t immediately known whether the embassy staff had remained inside the main building.

The protesters hanged a poster on the wall: “America is an aggressor.”

Shouting “Down, Down USA,” the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water and stones over its walls. They raised yellow militia flags and taunted the embassy’s security staff who remained behind the glass windows in the gates’ reception area. They sprayed graffiti on the wall and windows in red in support of the Kataeb Hezbollah militia: “Closed in the name of the resistance.”

Hundreds of angry protesters, some in militia uniforms, set up tents outside the embassy. As tempers rose, the mob set fire to three trailers used by security guards along the embassy wall.

No one was immediately reported hurt in the rampage and security staff had withdrawn to inside the embassy earlier, soon after protesters gathered outside.

The U.S. attack — the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years — and the subsequent calls by the militia for retaliation, represent a new escalation in the proxy war between the U.S. and Iran playing out in the Middle East.

Tuesday’s attempted embassy storming took place after mourners and supporters held funerals for the militia fighters killed in a Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone and kept walking till they reached the sprawling U.S. Embassy there.

AP journalists then saw the crowd as they tried to scale the walls of the embassy, in what appeared to be an attempt to storm it, shouting “Down, down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday’s strikes send the message that the U.S. will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize American lives.

The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia had vowed Monday to retaliate for the U.S. military strikes. The attack and vows for revenge raised concerns of new attacks that could threaten American interests in the region.

The U.S. attack also outraged both the militias and the Iraqi government, which said it will reconsider its relationship with the U.S.-led coalition — the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some U.S. troops in the country. It called the attack a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

In a partly televised meeting Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told Cabinet members that he had tried to stop the U.S. operation “but there was insistence” from American officials.

The U.S. military said “precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria. The group, which is a separate force from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, operates under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran.

.

 

[bippu_as_fuck_ls400]

Trump will be live at 11am EST:

 

[Null]

China is also a habitual liar whose economy has been proven time and time again to be falsifying its own economic growth rates, and have an outright national-scale ponzi scheme going as far as their housing market is concern. The government is also corrupt to an unfathomable degree, and is just as fanatical as Iran when it comes to style-over-substance blustering.

Is American perfect? No. Hah. Definitely not. It has a thousand issues. But China has more. Far more. The only reason people champion it as the next great world empire is because they don't live there, and therefore have a very filtered understanding of how the country works and what goes on within its borders. You don't see the societal degradation of China. You don't see the doctors being stabbed to death in hospitals, you don't see the vast population of elderly ex-communist men who sit on street corners all day lamenting about how they've been abandoned by the nation they once loved. Chinese society is rotten in a way even California's liberal majority could even dream of. It's a gigantic house of cards, built up by power-mad dictators that are just as internally divorced from reality as any of North Korea's leaders.

I'm not scared that China will replace the US as a world power. I'm scared that when they realize they can't cook their books any longer, they'll end up crashing the world economy worse than we've ever seen it before. That's what you should be worried about.

Also, you're just objectively wrong about China being unified in any real way, shape or form. Northern and Southern Chinese consider themselves entirely separate races, and they don't even speak the same dialect. In fact, if you do from one side of the country to another and speak the wrong dialect, you can be socially ostracized to a degree that wouldn't even be seen in apartheid. Underground (or above-ground) separatist movements exist in nearly every country annexed by China, especially in places like Mongolia. Chinese unity is a farce, maintained by state propaganda and press censorship. And it's not even effective censorship.

I too read Western media talk about China.

A guy stabs a doctor operating on his father, gets national coverage, but this is somehow an endemic? Are we going to forget the US mass murders or the European trucks of peace? CPC says to build more housing, resulting in over-enthusiastic provinces building a 'ghost city'. A strange anomaly of central planning, but lets not talk about how the US appropriates its fucking tax money. Elderly people die in the streets (usually those whove been estranged from their family, China maintains a ritual of children-caring-for-parents), meet the US epidemic of alcoholic veterans dying waiting for the VA to cover anything. "Whataboutism", hello yes bad things happen everywhere.

HK / Taiwan have ideological independence movements backed by foreign powers. Tibet was an acquisition in the 40s no one cares about anymore. The wiggers of Xinjiang want to stop being forcefed tasty bacon and being taught Mandarin -- and that's too bad.

You are completely full of shit regarding dialect. Maybe someone wrote an op-ed you read once 5 years ago and you've committed it to memory as true. If any dialect based discrimination goes on it's probably due to minority status as China is 90%+ Han. You know, the kind of minority oppression you're completely fine with if it were whites to niggers or spics.

Regarding corruption, I'd like to introduce you to literally every single person occupying a seat in the U.S. Federal Government (such as the Verizon lobbyist running the FCC), the members of congress with Israeli dual-citizenship, the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, or the general average wealth of your typical politician being in the millions of dollars with political campaigns that can receive contributions from any number of companies and be liquidated back to personal finances.

Your entire post is predicated on the belief that you've been told the right things and I've been told the wrong things, just like every single fucking person who reads the Washington Post and is waiting for the huge Trump meltdown any day now.

 

[Sanshain]

I was just struck by a thought about this whole situation.

What happens in these kind of arguments is always the same. One side declares that X event will be the downfall of the US. Or Britain. Or France. Or whatever country they dislike. Then the other side comes in and disagrees with them. The first side counters with all sorts of unsubstantiated claims, and the opposing side hits back with all the raw facts of that matter that reduces the first side to saying things like 'history will see me as in the right'.

Fast forward a few months/years, and the situation turns out to have been a nothingburger. Then another event pops up, and the first side now seizes hold of it and starts chanting how THIS TIME it will be the downfall of the US or Britain or blah blah. The cycle repeats.

Then, perhaps, decades later, long after this cycle has repeated itself dozens and dozens of times, some new event totally unrelated to any of the previous events happens that does finally have a serious destabilizing effect on the country the first side has had a hateboner for. Inevitably, they will all come out to scream variations of 'HAH. WE TOLD YOU SO. WE ALWAYS SAID THAT X EVENT WOULD DESTROY YOU ALL. HAH. OWNED. SMUGANIMEGIRL.jpg!!'

When in reality, this is nothing more than intellectual bandwagon-chasing and the stopped clock effect. If you're always fucking negative and predict doom and destruction every single time there's something mildly unpredictable going on, of course you're eventually going to see something bad actually happen. But that doesn't make all the people who patiently explained to you all the reasons why you were wrong the other 99 times suddenly the losers of the argument.

 

[Vince McMahon]

They don't have a single language. Mandarin may be the official language, but outside of the cities a lot of people still use their native dialect. The difference between these aren't like accents in the US, but more like going from Spanish to French to Italian.

Chinese were haughty as fuck when they saw Gorbachev trying his best to reorganize the system and they were like "nyyargh, we can do better hurr durr", in the end, PRC is repeating all the same mistakes of the USSR, including their attempt to create Homo Soveticus, the new Soviet man.

The result was several generations of drag on all the former nations, including mine, that is longing for something that has never been and will do its' best to fight for it, even though their fight will not bring about that utopian, better USSR, their propaganda drenched parents told them about and the movies infected them with.

ITT Null is unironically sperging about Western media saying "China bad" even though we know people who have lived a significant amount of their lives there, who say that China is bad.

 

[Sanshain]

You are completely full of shit regarding dialect. Maybe someone wrote an op-ed you read once 5 years ago and you've committed it to memory as true. If any dialect based discrimination goes on it's probably due to minority status as China is 90%+ Han. You know, the kind of minority oppression you're completely fine with if it were whites to niggers or spics.

lol Han Chinese are just as divided amongst themselves as any other national body on earth. I'm not talking about different racial minorities, I'm talking about divisions between the same racial group. It doesn't matter if you're ethnically Han Chinese. If you don't conform to the exact, precise stereotype of Han Chinese living in a specific location or even specific suburb of the same city, you are an outsider who will be exploited, ostracized, taken advantage of and then abandoned as soon as convenient.

 

[Wesley Willis]

It looks like this is going to be a Wag the Dog conflict. I doubt a full scale war. Trump officials are already trying to claim Iran had no intention of harming Americans.


Even CNN reported it...

​

Some administration officials believe Iran intentionally missed areas with Americans

There is a growing belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran's missiles intentionally missed areas populated by Americans when they targeted two Iraqi bases housing US troops early Wednesday local time, multiple administration officials said.

www.cnn.com

 

[Кот Бегемот]

lol Han Chinese are just as divided amongst themselves as any other national body on earth. I'm not talking about different racial minorities, I'm talking about divisions between the same racial group. It doesn't matter if you're ethnically Han Chinese. If you don't conform to the exact, precise stereotype of Han Chinese living in a specific location or even specific suburb of the same city, you are an outsider who will be exploited, ostracized, taken advantage of and then abandoned as soon as convenient.

That sounds a lot like the Russian empire building since Peter the "great". No matter what ethnicity, you were "Russian" which is collective term like Australian or American or I suppose "Chinese", but internally country always was divided along racial, ethnic and religious lines. Empire must have one identity, meanwhile internally it never is.

 

[Null]

That's a really cool opinion and I hope it works out for you because I'd really like to not live under a Chinese world order. Maybe Reuters is correct, and all those economists who were right about the Trump economy all this time are also right about the Chinese economy, and that 'house of cards' will collapse like you predict it would. Maybe the proud Mutt empire will last 1000 years, ethnically diverse and under a functional democracy that doesn't already seem in imminent risk of collapse as people start talking more about secession and killing each other every day now. What a truly based world that'll be. Maybe I'll get to keep my ability to say things on the Internet and my guns. Wow. Cool. I really like this fantasy you've built. It's more more comfy than what I observe.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Why isn't it WW3 yet. Everyone was saying it was WW3. I'm bored, this happening sucks.

state with a strong central power system capable of flexibly planning 100 years in the future.

Remember when people were saying this about the USSR?

Yeah me neither because I'm not in my 50's, but they were. Calm down.

 

[Кот Бегемот]

It looks like this is going to be a Wag the Dog conflict. I doubt a full scale war. Trump officials are already trying to claim Iran had no intention of harming Americans.
Even CNN reported it...

Some administration officials believe Iran intentionally missed areas with Americans

There is a growing belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran's missiles intentionally missed areas populated by Americans when they targeted two Iraqi bases housing US troops early Wednesday local time, multiple administration officials said.

www.cnn.com

This sounds a lot like the Cuban missile crisis. Both sides need to save faces and go back to their countrymen claiming victory.

 

[JosephStalin]

Like the Pilot had any time to say anything to anyone bar "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

Hmmm...wouldn't be surprised if a non-Iranian source had a recording of that plane's communications.

 

[BONE_Buddy]

Bit of a news roundup (by the way CNN has had a trashy record on this subject, like worse than usual), In unfortunately chaotic order:

Global: MilitaryInfo on Twitter

“#NEW: President Trump to make a statement on #Iran at 11 AM EST - Reuters”

twitter.com

Global: MilitaryInfo on Twitter

“Iranian ballistic missiles were not intercepted because there were no U.S. BMD assets in place to intercept them. Focus in Iraq was ISIS, AD assets were not needed to defeat ISIS - @LucasFoxNews”

twitter.com

Global: MilitaryInfo on Twitter

“Iraqi Parliament speaker calls Iran strikes a "violation of Iraqi sovereignty" - CNN”

twitter.com

Global: MilitaryInfo on Twitter

“#NEW: @planetlabs sat image of the damage on Al-Assad AB from the Iranian Strike.”

twitter.com

Global: MilitaryInfo on Twitter

“Jan 7, 2020: #Iraq - 15 ballistic missiles fired, 4 failed. - Iran informed Iraq as the strikes were happening. - Al-Asad AB, Erbil were the targets. - Early warning systems detected the BMs, troops went to bunkers and safety areas. - No Iraqi/US casualties reported. https://t.co/LgsseKSiIL”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“.@planetlabs have released the first Sat. imagery of Ain Al Assad Airbase after the #Iran attack showing the damage caused. #Iraq #US”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“Aircraft shelters appear to be directly hit. In the grand scheme of things, that's just a material lose however.”

twitter.com

First Squawk on Twitter

“DJ - SAUDI TANKER GIANT BAHRI SUSPENDS TRANSITS THROUGH STRAITS OF HORMUZ || PETROBRAS, OTHER TANKER MAJORS ALSO SUSPENDING SAILINGS THROUGH STRAITS OF HORMUZ #OOTT Follow the story live: https://t.co/m2JBwOmVug”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“#PMU spox. earlier today "The first #Iran|ian response to killing of Soleimani took place and now the time has come for #Iraq|i response"”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“Statement from #Iraq|i PM: Shortly after midnight on Wednesday 8/1/2020, we received an official verbal message from the Islamic Republic of #Iran that the Iranian response to the assassination of the martyr Qassem Soleimani had begun or It will start in a little while https://t.co/0A65fn3kcG”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“Rough translation of the full statement, this was done via google. So it'll be slightly off but it gives you context.”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“@planetlabs Reupload: wider angle shows damage to the top right as well.”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“@planetlabs Reupload: wider angle shows damage to the top right as well.”

twitter.com

Aurora Intel on Twitter

“@planetlabs Close up again processed by @MIIS shows BDA of the direct hit on what appears to be aircraft tent shelters.”

twitter.com

About the Airliner downing, looks like a shoot down:

Julian Röpcke on Twitter

“#Breaking #NewsMap I finally found the exact location of the #PS752 crash site. The Boeing traveled more than 20 kilometres after @flightradar24 lost its track over Parand and crashed in the town of Khalaj Abad. #Iran”

twitter.com

Julian Röpcke on Twitter

“@flightradar24 This also means, the eyewitness video ( https://t.co/Jw7qECh4uN ), filmed from Ferdosiye, got inverted during the upload (happens with some phones). "Technical error" becomes less and less likely. Iranian air defence missile accident more certain.”

twitter.com

Julian Röpcke on Twitter

“@Cornubot @flightradar24 I would rather say, it was in a right-turn when it got hit. Everything else was physics and destiny ... Video and interruption of communication indicates, pilots had no control after the hit anymore as fires were raging on board =( ...”

twitter.com

 

[No Ma'ams Land]

Bladerunner future was not supposed to be a prophecy, but eh, maybe the chinese won't care if I get a Daryl Hannah sexdoll

 

[LetThemEatCake]

The Iranians are starting to explain too much. Sign of a liar.

Ali Abedzadeh said "terrorism" had played no role in the crash, Iran's conservative Mehr news agency reported. Another official, Qasem Biniaz, blamed an engine fire. "Had the accident happened due to a missile strike, the plane would have exploded in the air," he told the IRNA news agency.

Ukrainian plane crashes in Iran killing 176

There were many Iranian and Canadian citizens on board the Ukraine International Airlines' Boeing 737.

www.bbc.co.uk

Anyway, it's bullshit that a plane would instantly explode in midair if hit by a missile. Korean Air 902 was hit by a Soviet missile in 1978 when it wandered into Soviet airspace by accident. It that case the missile took off part of one of the wings and thr debris penetrated the fusilage. It suffered decompression and still flew on at least 40 minutes before made it down to land on a frozen lake in one piece, albeit with a couple of dead passengers from the decompression. It depends what part of the plane got hit and how high you are whether the whole thing falls apart instantly. Korean Air 007 didn't break up instantly either, even at 31,000ft.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

That's actually not implausible. If you look at the ADS-B track earlier, everything was fine, then suddenly it cut off. Even if they weren't busy trying to save it, they may not have had electric power to the radios. Not declaring an emergency itself is an indicator of an incredibly energetic event, which mechanical failure tends not to be.

Airliners have backup-batteries for avionics & comms, with banks of them buried up front and under the tail section.

For an airliner to lose it's radios midflight, it'd have to be an energetic & intrusive (or extrusive) event.

The footage of that airliner, especially at night, tells me it had it's nose blown off and fuel tanks ruptured... as in a missile strike.

The flight profile of the fireball, still maintaining "flight" rather than tumbling or spinning down in pieces, shows that the wings and tail were intact; hence not an explosion in an engine or empenage assembly failure.

 

[Montage]

President Trump, please don't send American boys to die for Israel.

He already did, 3,000 of them I believe.

 

[Sanshain]

That's a really cool opinion and I hope it works out for you because I'd really like to not live under a Chinese world order. Maybe Reuters is correct, and all those economists who were right about the Trump economy all this time are also right about the Chinese economy, and that 'house of cards' will collapse like you predict it would. Maybe the proud Mutt empire will last 1000 years, ethnically diverse and under a functional democracy that doesn't already seem in imminent risk of collapse as people start talking more about secession and killing each other every day now. What a truly based world that'll be. Maybe I'll get to keep my ability to say things on the Internet and my guns. Wow. Cool. I really like this fantasy you've built. It's more more comfy than what I observe.

I get my sources directly from people who live in China and report on the conditions there. I base my analysis on historical context and the facts we are aware of that can be verified without going through state-approved media reports. I honestly have never read a news article about the Chinese economy without first being informed about it by somebody who lives and works in China.

Now, I want you to tell me; why is this a fantasy? Why are these people wrong? Why are their experiences living, working and reporting on the conditions of the country they call home invalid compared to your external sources? I'm not being disingenuous here, and I'm not going to respond to anything you say with some dumb 'GOTCHA' post. I genuinely want you to explain why you're so convinced of all these things, and why you value your sources more highly than mine.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

This sounds a lot like the Cuban missile crisis. Both sides need to save faces and go back to their countrymen claiming victory.

Americans haven't had any real problems for far too long if this is the modern day Cuban missile crisis.

I want to remind everyone that this time last century we'd already had a fucking world war. Tons of bad stuff is happening that I wish was different. The world is always like that. But on the whole, things are pretty awesome right now. You're just making yourselves miserable with this black pill shit for no reason.

 

[Shield Breaker]

When you realize null has been infected by Mr. Tickles.

 

[HumanHive]

It sickens me that Trump forced the Iranians to shoot down a civilian aircraft, and a Ukrainian one no less. There are no coincidences. Trump is removing loose ends, with the help of Iran and Russia.
How deep does the rabbit hole go?