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.
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TowinKarz said:
The more the Ivory Tower types howl here in the US, the better the chances out foreign policy is the right one.

They WANTED him to invade, fail, get stuck in a quagmire and tarnish the US' image across the globe, they wanted UN condemnations, they wanted Russia threatening nukes if we didn't withdrawl, they wanted 30 years of fresh bad blood stirred up for US Marines on the local level.

The fact he did none of that and the regime is now teetering because it geared up to repel an invasion that wasn't coming and shot the first blip on the radar they saw that morning has them damning Trump's name because now the US will be off the hook if the final revolution is popular and headed by the frustrated citizens....

They WANT the US to keep failing in the middle east so the "Conservative-Militant Murrica' Bad" narrative they've peddled for 30 years can continue undaunted... .and it doesn't look to be happening that way.
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Trump is literally cleaning up Obama's mess. Fucking Obama. Piece of shit.
 
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Gustav Schuchardt said:
Honestly the people who run Iran have got it coming for this little atrocity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_executions_of_Iranian_political_prisoners
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That was hardly a one-off either.

Note the irony of people who think Trump's USA is literally The Handmaid's Tale being apologists for, or active supporters of, the Iranian regime, on whose actions parts of that book were actually based.

I was imprisoned as a young adult living in Iran for protesting against the Islamist government of Ruhollah Khomeini’s misogynistic policies. The age of marriage had been lowered to nine years for girls, or even less with the consent of paternal male guardians. The custody of children was unquestionably given to the husband, and the civil and penal codes had placed the value of women at half that of a man in legal matters such as inheritance, court testimony and blood money.

My younger sister unfortunately followed my footsteps, and was also imprisoned for distributing pamphlets among her classmates protesting the regime’s violence against girls. After being released, we took different paths: I fled the country, came to Canada, and learned about my rights to liberty and freedom. She remained in the land of our birth and married, her life as a housewife reduced to the four walls of her home. Yet, she did her best to cope with those women-unfriendly circumstances by quietly resisting the regime’s ideological indoctrination, not unlike the female characters in The Handmaid’s Tale.

At one point, we focused on the passage about the protagonist’s mother, who tells her daughter how female activists suffered but eventually succeeded in claiming their rights, benefiting the next generations of girls and women. We both knew that Iranians were actively discouraged from reading anything about women fighting for equal rights, and found that this section was deleted in the translation.


Based on her lived experience, my sister insightfully concluded that whoever made these alterations did not want to put the idea in women’s heads that they would be rewarded for activism. We both laughed at her perceptive sarcasm, and simultaneously were plunged back into our own turbulent pasts, captured and caged in solitary cells between 1983-84.


She said, her voice trembling, that “it was awfully painful to witness the daily execution of my cellmates as young as 13 years old whose only sin was attending peaceful rallies or spraying anti-revolutionary graffiti.” She herself was a mere teenager at the time and I was terrified that the same fate could befall her.
www.theglobeandmail.com

How Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale resonates in Iran

A Persian translation of the dystopian novel helped two Iranian sisters discover what they had lost, bringing them closer together
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
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If I can play a little ha ha I told you so on the recorder...this is another black eye for the Russians, too. In a round-about way, I mean. Sure, IR655 was shot down by an SM-2 but we're not trying to sell them to prospective buyers. Meanwhile, to keep themselves in salt pork and grain alcohol, the Russians will roll shit right off their weapons manufacturers' floors into any given dictator's back yard, in this case, the SA-15 network they sold to Iran.

Gonna be a hard sell in Dubai or Jo-Berg or Kuala Lumpour or wherever international arms sales conventions are held, when your products can't tell the difference between (that is, IFF squawk) a given US military bird...and a passenger jet that literally just lifted off, 2km behind where your system was sitting.
 
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F603ED78-E928-4E8F-9005-39FDA1DB5464.png

Boy he sure does fall ass-backwards into a lot of things that benefit him and make his enemies look foolish.
 
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kobebyarlant said:
It’s very likely these protests won’t lead to anything, but on the other hand the Romanian Revolution started with people protesting one overreach too many by the authorities, causing a chain reaction until the entire system collapsed in on itself.
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iirc the guy who got splatted was Chief Of Shipping In People To Crush Protestors
 
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kobebyarlant said:
View attachment 1094633
Boy he sure does fall ass-backwards into a lot of things that benefit him and make his enemies look foolish.
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I like how these people would rather keep the regime that hangs gays from cranes, stones women to death for minor crimes, and supports murderous terrorist organizations because it would make Orange Man good. But they're on the right side of history!*

I hear dumbfucks like this Redditor open their mouths and couldn't string together a valid and actually righteous belief if I tried, and I hate nothing than a morally hollow bastard tell anyone who disagrees with him that they're in the wrong.

*history may refer to watching Iran revert back to the middle ages while screaming that America is going back to the pre-Civil Rights era
 
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kobebyarlant said:
It’s very likely these protests won’t lead to anything, but on the other hand the Romanian Revolution started with people protesting one overreach too many by the authorities, causing a chain reaction until the entire system collapsed in on itself.
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The initial spark to these was a simple rise in the price of Gasoline. Soleimani killed them for those protests. Then he died, amd more of them were killed by an uncaring government. Then yet more were killed by an incompetant Government. While it puffs itself up, but takes such careful steps to not kill the Americans. The Americans that it always tells the people are the evil cause of all their problems. Yeah Iranians don't like us. They surely have no reason to do so. But they just want to live a simple life of freedome where they can seel their labor, worship as they please and raise their families without being subject to the whims of the theocracy and the politics of the Middle East.

The problem is if the Mullah's fall, what next? Through what path lies liberty and freedom for them? What action doesn't make everything worse. Does take off the Mullah's heads and devolve your nation into a realm of warlords like Lybia? Or square off Regular Military and Police against IRGC and Kuds force. Full on civil war? Is there some Leader they could slip in there to take out the Mullah's leave himself in charge. and be crazy enough to open a dialog with the west? Rhouhani might be able to serve that role. But more likely our olf friend Ahmadinejaad might be the best possibility. The Army would follow him. But you would just be trading a theocratic tyrany for a more pragmatic tyrant.
 
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CNN, we do have operative memories. We know that the hostilities between Iran and the USA didn't start a week ago. Iran kind of has this long, sordid history with us and it's pretty obvious that more than a handful of Iranians and especially their government harbour a tiny bit of hostility towards this country.

You especially can't do that when you take everything that Trump says 100% literally with no wiggle room whatsoever, but then say that when an openly-hostile country chants "Death to America" it's "Just a 'thing' or some trope." This might actually be the most double-think I've ever seen coming out of CNN. It's astounding how far they'll go to try and defend this fucking regime at the expense of their own (?) country.
 
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It's HK-47 said:
View attachment 1094731

CNN, we do have operative memories. We know that the hostilities between Iran and the USA didn't start a week ago. Iran kind of has this long, sordid history with us and it's pretty obvious that more than a handful of Iranians and especially their government harbour a tiny bit of hostility towards this country.

You especially can't do that when you take everything that Trump says 100% literally with no wiggle room whatsoever, but then say that when an openly-hostile country chants "Death to America" it's "Just a 'thing' or some trope." This might actually be the most double-think I've ever seen coming out of CNN. It's astounding how far they'll go to try and defend this fucking regime at the expense of their own (?) country.
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How far up your own ass do you have to be to honestly think that you can just sweep under the rug 30 odd years of Iran fucking with the US? The only people this might even remotely convinced are people born after 9/11 but still not tech-savvy or educated enough to have a basic understanding of world politics. It astounds me that the American Media is this convinced of itself in spite of all evidence that people blindly trust them.
 
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