These days I feel like we are witnessing the collapse of Western Civilization.
Lou
Poverty and social disadvantage are things we usually associate with the Third World. But in areas of western Sydney – on the margins of Australia’s most affluent city – thousands of families and individuals are struggling to get by.
In this 3-part observational-documentary series filmed over a six-month period in Sydney’s Mt Druitt area, we go beyond the tabloid headlines and into the lives of a cross-section of residents living in some of our most disadvantaged communities. Through their stories and voices, we shed light on a range of complex issues – from housing and employment to problems of addiction and family breakdown – and witness the triumphs and joys that still emerge despite sometimes overwhelming odds.
Ashley, whose health stopped him from driving trucks, shows how to make a few dollars by driving around looking for scrap metal. Erin’s former house gets trashed, and William shows how he can get a meal using a slingshot accurately.
Tens of thousands of pedophiles operate in Israel every year, leading to about 100,000 victims annually, according to an Israeli pedophile monitoring association.
The Matzof Association, an organization that actively keeps track of reports on pedophiles in various media and centralizes the data monthly, states that in July alone, 22 cases of pedophilia were reported in Israel and brought to the attention of the media. The vast majority go unreported.
“In Israel, tens of thousands of pedophiles operate on a daily basis without any problem,” said Eliran Malki, head of the Matzof Association.
“They are not deterred by the police and certainly not deterred by the contemptuous rulings that come from the hands of judges in the various courts,” he added, citing an incident in which one particular pedophile was let off by the courts without punishment, despite evidence of thousands of pedophilic items found on his computer, as the court stated that it would “harm his career.”
The court does not count the number of victims, and shows disproportionately favorable treatment of the perpetrators, according to Malki.
The association gathers reports from the media in order to form statistics, as no public sex offender registry in Israel currently exists.
“Matzof will continue to report and follow these trends month after month. Statistics tell the story of the victims, and they are living proof why we must fight for the establishment of a public pedophile database,” he added.
If you want to see more atrocities from the Israelis, take a look at Jackson Hinkle’s X account as he documents the ongoing genocide that the West refuses to acknowledge.
🇮🇱 ISRAELI POLICE are now spraying SEWAGE WATER mixed with POTENT CHEMICALS at Palestinians in Jerusalem.
🇵🇸 A local explains: “It’s the worst thing you can ever smell in your life and if it touches anything, the smell stays for 4 days.” pic.twitter.com/zjrDyejPBT
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the West for the bloodshed in Gaza, calling it a massacre & statement at mass rally in support of Palestine. Via Intel Slava Z pic.twitter.com/zUczileTb3
After selling his software business for millions, Marcel Lebrun decided to pour his time and money into an affordable housing project in Fredericton. CBC’s Harry Forestell takes a closer look at the 12 Neighbours community and its impact on the people who live there.
The Washington Post has a new article out explaining why it and other mainstream media outlets have been citing the Gaza Health Ministry as a source on the daily death toll from Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign, noting that the ministry has an established track record of reporting such deaths truthfully and accurately.
“Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” Human Rights Watch’s Omar Shakir told the Post. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”
This point is inconvenient for Israeli apologists — including the president of the United States — who’ve been suggesting in recent days that the Gaza death count is untrustworthy on the basis that the Gaza Health Ministry operates under Hamas governance.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Biden told the press on Wednesday, adding, “I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
Adam Taylor, the author of the aforementioned Washington Post article, correctly notes that Biden’s statements are a bit odd given that his own State Department considered Gaza’s Ministry of Health reliable enough to cite their death counts in its own reports as recently as a few months ago.
What changed? The information interests of the US empire changed.
When I drew attention to all this on Twitter a few hours ago I immediately started getting comments from Israel apologists dismissing the information I was providing because Human Rights Watch is bad and unreliable and because The Washington Post is bad and unreliable, in order to defend their belief that the Gaza Ministry of Health is bad and unreliable.
These are the tactics of people who have lost the argument. They understand that the soaring death counts from Israel’s ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is devastating to the information interests of the side they support, so they need to make up fairy tales about how The Washington Post, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department have been engaged in a years-long conspiracy to make Israel look bad.
Which is of course not to say that anyone should ever believe claims made by The Washington Post or Human Rights Watch on blind faith — I’ve had major criticisms of both of these institutions myself over the years. Believing they’re infallible would be as misguided as believing they’re always lying.
This is exactly the point I’m trying to make here: it’s not about the source, it’s about the strength of the argument. Attacking the source instead of attacking the argument is what people do when they can’t attack the argument. It’s a standard ad hominem.
A lot of people think an ad hominem is when you say something that hurts the feelings of somebody you disagree with, but that’s not what that term refers to. An ad hominem is when you attack the character or motives of the person making the argument instead of attacking the argument itself; it’s a fallacious debate tactic designed to move the conversation away from the pursuit of truth and facts to just dismissing someone’s claims because you don’t like them. It can be entirely appropriate to interrogate someone’s motives and character when that’s the only information you’ve got to work with and is relevant to the conversation, but when it’s used as a substitute for addressing evidence and argumentation it’s a fallacy.
And that’s the only tool Israel apologists seem to have in their toolbox these days. It’s exactly what they are doing when they accuse you of being a “terrorist supporter” or an “anti-semite” when you criticize Israel; they cannot address your actual criticisms because Israel’s actions in Gaza are indefensible, so they attempt to malign your character or your motives to shut down the debate and keep people from listening to you.
The “you can’t trust those death counts because they come from the health ministry of an enemy government” line can be used in literally any war against literally any enemy. People who care about facts don’t look at what governmental loyalties a source has, they look at whether the institutions in question have a track record of being reliable or not, and whether its claims are supported by evidence.
You’d have to be a complete idiot to look at the photos and videos showing entire city blocks reduced to rubble in an area known to be packed full of children and not assume that there is a massive number of civilian deaths in Gaza right now. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp recently noted, dramatic increases in death counts in Gaza correspond directly with Israeli government statements about having increased the number of bombs dropped. This is what you would expect to see if the ministry was accurately reporting deaths.
Israel apologists are doing everything they can to minimize and justify Israel’s crimes in every way possible, because if westerners start looking objectively at the crimes themselves they will cease consenting to this horrific genocidal massacre that western governments are fully supporting.
They don’t have truth on their side, and they don’t have morality on their side, so all they can ever do is attack the sources of the ideas and information that are opening people’s eyes to the criminality of Israel and its Western allies.
“They were very humane towards us,” she said in an interview on Israeli state radio. She also added that one Hamas fighter told her, ‘We’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza.’ Once released, Porat also claimed that the Israeli government gave her a specific script of talking points that she refused to go along with.
We were told Hamas killed 1400 Israelis on October 7, that they carried out rapes and torture of civilians en masse and, of course, that they beheaded babies.
These claims are being used to justify Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – the world’s largest open-air prison. Israel’s bombing of the strip, where over 50% of the population are children, has cost the lives of more than 5,000 people and left more than one million homeless.
Recent events surrounding the Gaza conflict have prompted questions about the accuracy of reported actions attributed to Hamas and Israel’s military response. A closer examination reveals a complex and, at times, conflicting narrative.
On October 7, initial reports suggested that Hamas had killed 1,400 Israelis, conducted mass rapes and torture, and even beheaded babies. These claims were cited as justification for Israel’s deadly bombardment of Gaza.
However, skepticism has emerged about the accuracy of these claims, as details remain unclear. The mainstream corporate media has largely adopted the narrative of the Israeli government, placing the blame squarely on Hamas. Nonetheless, emerging evidence from within the Israeli military and media has challenged that narrative.
One critical point of contention is the official list of Israeli casualties. Israel released a list of its dead on October 23, revealing that over 48% of those listed were soldiers or armed police on active duty, not civilians. Additionally, it has become evident that members of armed settler militias were also among the casualties.
Survivor testimonies, such as that of Yasmin Porat, suggest that Hamas captured civilians as bargaining chips to end the illegal siege on Gaza and secure the release of some of the 5,300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, many of whom are women and children. Porat noted that Hamas treated her and others humanely, with an expressed intention to transport them to Gaza.
“They were very humane towards us,” she said in an interview on Israeli state radio. She also added that one Hamas fighter told her, ‘We’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza.’ Once released, Porat also claimed that the Israeli government gave her a specific script of talking points that she refused to go along with.
The situation escalated when Israeli police and military arrived and initiated heavy gunfire and even tank shell attacks. Several Israeli testimonies now claim that they were fired upon by Israeli military and police rather than Hamas.
This approach appears consistent with the “Hannibal Directive,” an Israeli military policy dating back to 1986 that prioritizes preventing the capture of Israelis by enemy forces, even at the cost of their lives. This directive implies that Israelis might be killed rather than allowed to fall into the hands of Hamas.
The Hannibal Directive was certainly used on October 7, when Hamas overran an Israeli military base at the Erez Crossing. Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, the commander of the base, called in an airstrike on his own position, even as he and countless others were stationed there and still fighting Hamas. This was reported by Amos Harel in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.
During the events of October 7, Hamas fighters managed to escape their Gaza prison using paragliders to reach Israeli military bases. They did kill and take Israelis captive. However, questions linger as video footage reveals Israeli police standing beside a truck and firing at approaching Palestinian fighters, raising doubts about the initial assumption that Hamas was attacking civilians at a festival.
The claims of “beheaded babies” made headlines on various news outlets, including CNN. The source of this claim was the Israeli channel i24 News, but it later emerged that the source was David Ben Zion, an extremist settler known for inciting race riots against Palestinians. A Haaretz investigation previously found that i24 News functions as a proxy for the Netanyahu family, with directives coming straight from the Israeli Prime Minister’s office at times.
Subsequently, the Israeli military distanced itself from these claims, CNN retracted the story, and the White House acknowledged a lack of evidence. Similarly, the case of Shani Louk, an Israeli tattoo artist initially reported by the Israeli government as having been raped and killed, took a different turn when her mother confirmed that she was safe in Gaza and was being treated in a hospital for a head injury.
The complex and evolving narrative surrounding the October 7 events has raised doubts about the justifications for Israel’s brutal military response in Gaza. As the situation continues to unfold, it becomes increasingly apparent that the true story of that day may not be as straightforward as initially portrayed.
Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mn**@mi***********.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh
Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”
Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping?
“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”
Pepe Escobar is a columnist at The Cradle, editor-at-large at Asia Times and an independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia. Since the mid-1980s he has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore and Bangkok. He is the author of countless books; his latest one is Raging Twenties.
The only country that could possibly distract the West from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one.
The Russia-Iran strategic partnership – with China in the wings – is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia.
Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the West’s spectacular debacle in Ukraine.
The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a – ethnic cleansing – cakewalk.
A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia – and the new “axis of evil” Russia-China-Iran – have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It’s all about using the enemy’s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.
The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion.
That does not prevent cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran – via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical psychopathy.
Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv – including Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France’s Emmanuel Macron.
Avenging the Arab “century of humiliation”
So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole – and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions.
The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”
Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.
That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table.
Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping?
Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year.
That by itself won’t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would – accurately – target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case.
Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.
Moreover, there are at least 1,000 US troops in northern Syria stealing the country’s oil – which would also become an instant target.
Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”
Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles – cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 – traveling at Mach 15, and able to reach any target in Israel in 400 seconds.
And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, “whatever you need, just ask.” The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.
It’s all about the Strait of Hormuz
The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world’s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.
Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar natural gas discovered offshore Gaza: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders.
So when push comes to shove – and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War – not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 – such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE – do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.
As an old school Deep State higher-up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses:
“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”
As Persian Gulf traders told me, one possible scenario is OPEC starting to sanction Europe, first from Kuwait and then spreading from one OPEC country to another and to all countries that are treating the Muslim world as enemies and war fodder.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has already warned that oil to Western markets could be put off because of what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already called, on the record, for a total oil and gas embargo by Islamic countries against nations – essentially NATO vassals – that support Israel.
So Christian Zionists in the US allied with neocon asset Netanyahu threatening to attack Iran have the potential to pull down the entire world financial system.
Forever War on Syria remixed
Under the current volcano, the Russia-China strategic partnership has been extremely cautious. To the outside world, their mutual official position is to refuse to side with either Palestine or Israel; call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds; call for a two-state solution; and respect international law. All their initiatives at the UN have been duly sabotaged by the Hegemon.
As it stands, Washington has refused the green light for the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. The main reason is the immediate US priority: buy some time to expand the war to Syria, “accused” of being the key transit point for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. That also doubles as re-opening the same old war front against Russia.
There are no illusions in Moscow. The intel apparatus knows well that Israeli Mossad agents have been advising Kiev while Tel Aviv was supplying weapons to Ukraine under serious US pressure. That infuriated the siloviki, and may have constituted a fatal Israeli mistake.
The neocons, for their part, never stop. They are advancing a parallel threat: if Hezbollah attacks Israel with something else than a few sparse rockets – and that simply won’t happen – the Hmeimim Russian Air Base in Latakia will be “eliminated” as a “warning” to Iran.
This does not even qualify as children playing in the sandbox. After the serial Israeli attacks on the civilian Damascus and Aleppo airports, Moscow did not even blink before offering its Hmeimim facilities to Syria – complete with clearance for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo flights, according to some Russian intel sources. Netanyahu will not exactly harbor a death wish by bombing a fully A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) Russian Air Base.
Moscow also clearly sees what those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean might be up to. The response has been swift: Mig-31Ks are patrolling neutral air space over the Black Sea 24/7, equipped with hypersonic Khinzals, which would take only six minutes to visit the Mediterranean.
Amidst all this neocon-drenched madness, with the Pentagon deploying a formidable array of weaponry plus “undisclosed” assets to the Eastern Mediterranean, whether the target is Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, or all of the above, both China and North Korea – part of the new American-concocted “axis of evil” – have indicated they will not be mere bystanders.
The Chinese Navy is for all practical purposes shielding Iran from a distance. Yet even more forceful has been a statement by Premier Li Qiang – something unusually blunt and rare in Chinese diplomacy:
“China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.”
Never forget that China and Iran are linked by a comprehensive strategic partnership. Meanwhile, Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin has reinforced the Russia-Iran strategic partnership in a meeting with Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber.
Remember those rice eaters from Korea
Pro-Iran militias across the Axis of Resistance, are keeping a carefully tempered degree of confrontation against Israel, close to guerrilla hit-and-run. They won’t be engaged in massive attacks yet. But all bets are off if Israel invades Gaza. It’s clear the Arab world, for all its massive internal contradictions, will simply not tolerate the civilian massacre.
Bluntly, at the current incendiary juncture, the Hegemon has found the offramp from its Project Ukraine humiliation. They erroneously believe that the same old Forever War rekindled in West Asia can be “modulated” at will. And if two wars turn into an immense political albatross, as they will, what else is new? They will simply start a new war in the “Indo-Pacific.”
None of that fools Russia-Iran and their ice-cold monitoring of the flipping and flapping Hegemon every step of the way. It’s enlightening to remember what Malcolm X was already predicting in 1964:
“Some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.”
The Iranian deputy foreign minister for political affairs, Ali Bagheri Kani, emphasized the need for Iran and Russia to fully harness their capabilities to promptly halt Israel’s assaults on vulnerable Palestinian civilians in Gaza and to provide humanitarian assistance to the besieged region.
He conveyed this message during a meeting with Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Alexander Venediktov, in Moscow on Friday. This plea comes as the Israeli regime persists in its relentless attacks on the defenseless population in Gaza for the past 21 consecutive days.
In response, the Russian security official pointed out that the United States is the fundamental cause of the ongoing distressing situation in Palestine.
Venediktov stated that the United States aims to provoke instability in the West Asia region by creating focal points of tension. He emphasized that the U.S. relies on gaining material advantages from the development of crises, suggesting that the leaders in the White House are not interested in enhancing regional stability and peace.
On October 7, the Palestinian resistance group Hamas initiated a significant operation against Israel, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, in response to the increased violations by the occupying regime against the Palestinian population.
Since then, Israel has continued its intense bombardment of Gaza, resulting in a death toll of 7,326 in Gaza, including 3,038 children and 1,726 women. Additionally, approximately 18,967 Palestinians have been wounded.
Furthermore, Tel Aviv has imposed restrictions on water, food, and electricity to Gaza, causing a humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory.
Venediktov extended an official invitation to the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, to visit Moscow and discuss the most recent developments in mutual, regional, and international matters.
Bagheri Kani visited Moscow on Thursday at the invitation of his Russian counterpart to engage in discussions regarding the conflict involving Israel in Gaza.
During his time in Moscow, he conducted talks with Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Hamas political bureau.
Iranian Military Conducts Missile Exercises
The Iranian Army Ground Force conducts extensive military exercises, featuring the deployment of enhanced domestically produced missiles.
Indigenous missiles, developed within the country, were fired as part of the extensive Eghtedar (Authority) 1402 military maneuvers held in the Nasrabad region of Isfahan province, located in central Iran, on October 27, 2023. (Photograph courtesy of Tasnim news agency)
The Ground Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army has initiated the enhanced variants of a range of domestically-produced missiles as part of extensive military exercises in the central province of Isfahan.
In the primary phase of the two-day maneuvers, known as Eghtedar (Authority) 1402 and taking place in the Nasrabad region of the province, the Army Ground Force’s mobile assault units, armored divisions, and helicopter squadrons launched upgraded versions of Shafaq (Dawn), Almas (Diamond), and Dehlaviyeh missiles, successfully hitting designated targets at distances ranging from 8 to 20 kilometers.
Recently, the Army Ground Force equipped its M113 armored personnel carriers with Dehlaviyeh twin-arm laser-guided missile launchers. Iranian military specialists have increased the range of both the ground-launched and air-launched Dehlaviyeh missiles from 5.5 kilometers to 8 kilometers.
Furthermore, during the exercises, Iranian forces also tested the air-launched variant of the Shafaq missile. This missile is purportedly capable of transporting a 50-kilogram warhead at a maximum speed of Mach 2.2, with the ability to target and destroy objects within a 20-kilometer radius.
An indigenously-produced missile was fired as part of the extensive military drills, codenamed Eghtedar (Authority) 1402, held in the Nasrabad region of Isfahan province in central Iran on October 27, 2023. (Photograph courtesy of Tasnim news agency)
Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force’s Bell 206 helicopters conducted nighttime combat missions. These helicopters patrolled the exercise area, conducted surveys, and relayed real-time information to the command and control center.
Additionally, Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters launched air-to-surface missiles, effectively eliminating the simulated enemy positions with the aid of night vision systems.
Iranian military units regularly conduct planned exercises across different regions of the country to assess their weaponry and equipment, as well as to evaluate their combat readiness.
🇹🇷🇮🇱 Erdogan on Israel: "Israel, you are doomed to be left alone. Everyone knows that Israel is a pawn in the region that will be sacrificed when the time comes. The main culprit behind the massacre unfolding in Gaza is the West." pic.twitter.com/D1J6o8Twxw
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone