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Category: War

Iran mocks Israel’s ‘weak’ attacks as hardliners call for reprisal

Iran mocks Israel’s ‘weak’ attacks as hardliners call for reprisal

Patrick Wintour writes: The Iranian government has belittled the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli attack on its military sites, but hardliners in the parliament insisted the strikes breached Iranian red lines and required a swift response, preferably at a time when Israel is already enmeshed in Lebanon and Gaza. The internal Iranian debate on how to respond to the long-awaited Israeli attack turns on whether to treat Israel’s breach of Iranian national sovereignty as too grave to be ignored,…

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Satellite images show major expansion at Russian site with secret bioweapons past

Satellite images show major expansion at Russian site with secret bioweapons past

The Washington Post reports: A few months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, satellite imagery captured unusual activity at a restricted military research facility nestled among the birch forests northeast of Moscow. The Russian site, called Sergiev Posad-6, had been quiet for decades, but it had a notorious Cold War past: It had once been a major research center for biological weapons, with a history of experiments with the viruses that cause smallpox, Ebola and hemorrhagic…

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Trump signals to Netanyahu he supports the war his campaign claims he opposes

Trump signals to Netanyahu he supports the war his campaign claims he opposes

The Washington Post reports: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump expressed support for Israel’s offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah in a recent call with the country’s prime minister — a position that could complicate his campaign’s outreach to Arab Americans claiming he opposes the war. Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, “Do what you have to do,” according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information….

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Inside the siege of northern Gaza, where ‘death waits around every corner’

Inside the siege of northern Gaza, where ‘death waits around every corner’

+972 Magazine reports: For over two weeks, the Israeli military has been waging one the most brutal and destructive campaigns of the war in northern Gaza. Residents of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun are living through an unrelenting siege that has stripped them of food, water, and any illusion of safety. Survivors describe a nightmare beyond comprehension: airstrikes and shelling so incessant that their bodies haven’t stopped trembling. The Israeli military operation, which began during the early hours of…

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Iranian dissidents fear that Israeli attacks will strengthen the Islamic Republic

Iranian dissidents fear that Israeli attacks will strengthen the Islamic Republic

Arash Azizi writes: There is something ironic about the fact that, of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran is the one that now finds itself on the brink of war with Israel. Iran is not one of the 22 Arab states party to the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict. Its population, unlike those of many Arab countries, harbors little anti-Israel sentiment. During the past year, mass rallies in support of the Palestinians have taken place in cities all over the…

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Kamala Harris acknowledges the reality of the genocide in Gaza

Kamala Harris acknowledges the reality of the genocide in Gaza

The Jerusalem Post reports: US presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared to claim that Israel is committing genocide, calling it “real” during a talk in Milwaukee on Thursday. In the videos circulated on social media on Saturday evening, Kamala Harris can be seen addressing a group of students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before being interrupted by a student who asks her to speak about “the genocide” in Gaza. Harris tells the students she is “so invested” in them before being…

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The West has to believe that democracy will prevail

The West has to believe that democracy will prevail

Anne Applebaum writes: When I began working on the history of the Soviet Union, in the 1990s, survivors and historians alike were free to speak as they wished. Many of them felt as if a new Russia could be constructed on top of the fundamental, historical truths that were emerging. That possibility faded. I can even tell you the exact moment when it finally came to an end: the morning of February 20, 2014, when Russian troops illegally marched across…

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Raytheon admits to defrauding the Pentagon

Raytheon admits to defrauding the Pentagon

The Intercept reports: RTX Corporation, the weapons giant formerly (and better) known as Raytheon, agreed on Wednesday to pay almost $1 billion to resolve allegations that it defrauded the U.S. government and paid bribes to secure business with Qatar. “Raytheon engaged in criminal schemes to defraud the U.S. government,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division on Wednesday. “Such corrupt and fraudulent conduct, especially by a publicly traded U.S. defense contractor, erodes public trust…

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Pro-Iranian Telegram account leaks alleged U.S. intel on Israel’s attack plans on Iran

Pro-Iranian Telegram account leaks alleged U.S. intel on Israel’s attack plans on Iran

Axios reports: U.S. officials are extremely concerned about a potentially major security breach after two alleged U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran were published by a Telegram account affiliated with Iran. Why it matters: The alleged leak comes as Israel completes weeks of preparations for a retaliation against Iran, which attacked Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles on Oct. 1. The leak could be an attempt to disrupt the Israeli operation. The Pentagon and the Office of the Director…

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There are no ‘safe zones’ in Syria for refugees forced to return home

There are no ‘safe zones’ in Syria for refugees forced to return home

Rena Netjes and Sophie Fullerton report: Israel’s escalating war in Lebanon has displaced more than 1.2 million people across the country in recent weeks. Those displaced are not only Lebanese civilians but also an estimated 250,000 Syrian refugees who have fled back into neighboring Syria since Israel’s bombing campaign began last month. Some 1.5 million Syrian refugees living precariously in Lebanon for more than a decade, after fleeing civil war in their own country, have faced the threat of detention…

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Yahya Sinwar’s killing will complicate Israel’s war on Gaza, not end it

Yahya Sinwar’s killing will complicate Israel’s war on Gaza, not end it

Middle East Eye reports: Israeli analysts say the assassination of Yahya Sinwar is unlikely to bring Israel’s war on Gaza to an end and will likely put the 101 hostages held in the enclave in even greater danger. There has been speculation that the Hamas leaders’ killing has left an opportunity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under American pressure, to declare victory, strike a ceasefire deal and bring the hostages home. This might have been possible several months ago, but…

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Yahya Sinwar’s death can end this war

Yahya Sinwar’s death can end this war

Matthew Duss writes: The death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was believed to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, provides a new opening for the United States to meaningfully push for a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza and for the de-escalation of violence across the Middle East. While Mr. Sinwar was far from alone in resisting an agreement — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly and openly undermined cease-fire efforts for months —…

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The ‘pact of silence’ between Israelis and their media

The ‘pact of silence’ between Israelis and their media

Edo Konrad writes: Halfway into our conversation, Oren Persico makes a startling confession. The veteran Israeli journalist, whose job for the better half of the last two decades has been to monitor his country’s media, doesn’t watch mainstream Israeli news. “I just can’t do it,” Persico, who has worked as a staff writer for the Israeli media watchdog site The Seventh Eye since 2006, tells me. “It’s depressing and infuriating — it’s propaganda, it’s full of lies. Mostly, it’s a…

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Trump suggests Zelenskyy is to blame for the Russia-Ukraine war

Trump suggests Zelenskyy is to blame for the Russia-Ukraine war

Politico reports: Donald Trump blamed Russia’s war on Ukraine on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — an escalation of a pattern of sympathetic rhetoric toward the war’s aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser,” Trump said, referring to Zelenskyy, on a podcast with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David published Thursday. The former president added that President Joe Biden had “instigated that war,” which he has repeatedly maintained “would never have happened” if…

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Israel kills its prime target – but Sinwar’s death seems down to chance, not precise planning

Israel kills its prime target – but Sinwar’s death seems down to chance, not precise planning

Julian Borger writes: In the end, after a year-long, multi-agency manhunt involving the latest technology, Israel’s best special forces and American assistance, Yahya Sinwar appears to have been killed by regular soldiers who had stumbled into him and had no idea whom they had killed. According to the initial reports, they were not there on an assassination operation and had no prior intelligence that they could be in the vicinity of the elusive Hamas leader, architect of the 7 October…

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Russian spies apparently engaged in ‘a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets’

Russian spies apparently engaged in ‘a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets’

The Guardian reports: Counter-terrorism police are investigating whether Russian spies planted an incendiary device on a plane to Britain which later caught fire at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, the Guardian can reveal. Nobody was reported injured in the fire on 22 July at a warehouse in the suburb of Minworth that handles parcels for delivery, and the blaze was dealt with by the local fire brigade and staff. The parcel is believed to have arrived at the DHL warehouse…

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