US Approves Transfer of Bombs, Fighter Jets to Israel Amid Rafah Concerns – Reports
Sputnik – 29.03.2024
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration approved the transfer of billions of dollars of military equipment to Israel, amid concerns about a potential Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
The United States will provide Israel with more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, the report said, citing State Department and Pentagon officials.
The MK84 bombs have been connected to mass-casualty incidents during Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, the report said.
The US will also send 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines, the report said.
Suspected Israeli hitman caught in Malaysia
RT | March 29, 2024
Malaysian police have apprehended a heavily armed Israeli national who investigators believe might be a Mossad hitman and a member of a larger spy ring. The suspect recently arrived in the country on a French passport and claims he had come to murder a fellow Israeli in a family dispute.
The arrest was announced by Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain during a press conference on Friday. The 36-year-old suspect entered Malaysia on March 12, and was staying at a hotel in the country’s capital of Kuala Lumpur at the time of his arrest.
“During questioning, the suspect produced another passport which was issued by Israel. The six guns were found in a bag in his hotel room,” Husain said.
The suspect reportedly told police he had come to the country to find and kill a fellow Israeli national, citing a “family issue” as his motive. However, Husain noted that the man refused to divulge information about his job, and said investigators could not rule out that the suspect was linked to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
“We don’t fully believe what this suspect is telling us, maybe he has another agenda because he has been here since March 12. We found that the weapons were bought using cryptocurrency,” the official said.
Police are now investigating how exactly the arsenal, which included various types of pistols, had been smuggled into the country. The police also seized some 200 rounds of ammunition, while three of the guns were loaded, the official noted.
The investigation also believes the suspected hitman likely had accomplices in the country and presumably was a member of a larger group. “We have not identified the others. We will also check the authenticity of his passport with the French embassy,” the inspector-general said.
Thus far, neither France nor Israel has made any public remarks on the affair.
Dozens killed by joint Israeli, HTS attack on Syria
The Cradle | March 29, 2024
Israeli warplanes carried out a large attack on the countryside of Syria’s northwestern Aleppo province early on 29 March, coinciding with attacks by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist militant group, formerly known as the Nusra Front.
Dozens were killed in the simultaneous attack, including Syrian soldiers and civilians.
“At around 1:45 AM, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo, targeting several points in Aleppo countryside, which coincided with a drone attack carried out by terrorist organizations from Idlib and the western countryside of Aleppo province, in an attempt to target civilians in Aleppo and its surroundings,” a military source told Syrian news outlet SANA.
According to security sources cited by Reuters, at least 38 people were killed. Five members of the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah were reportedly among the casualties.
Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent in Damascus confirmed that the Israeli strikes were launched simultaneously with the drone attacks by extremist militants. It added that the attack hit the Jibreen and Safira areas.
The attack came one day after Israeli jets struck a residential building in the Sayyida Zaynab neighborhood in the Damascus countryside, resulting in the injury of at least two civilians.
Extremist groups in Syria have long coordinated with Israel throughout the US-backed war on the country that began in 2011, particularly in the 2014 battles in Quneitra between the Nusra Front and the Syrian army.
Following an Israeli assault on Syria in late March 2023, which also coincided with attacks by extremist militants, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “These repeated attacks show the close coordination between … Israel and terrorist groups … The coordination proves beyond any doubt the deliberate intentions against Syria, which aim to prolong the crisis and deplete the country’s capabilities.”
Imagine If Russia or China Did the Things Israel Is Doing in Gaza
By Caitlin Johnstone | March 28, 2024
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China was bombing and starving a walled-in population of two million, half of them children. Seriously, imagine it. Imagine the rage and vitriol. Imagine the nonstop media coverage.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, US media coverage of that war exceeded the media coverage of all US wars in the previous three decades. If Russia were deliberately and systematically exterminating civilians in Ukraine or anywhere else, the western media coverage of those war crimes would be many times more.
It’s almost cliché at this point to say “imagine if Russia or China did this”, but such comparisons are important for retaining a sense of perspective on just how evil the western political-media class is being about Gaza right now. We’re seeing articles come out in the mass media about starvation in Gaza which never once even mention the word “Israel”. Do you think that would be happening if this were being perpetrated by a government which defies the western empire? Of course not.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China was deliberately blockading food from an imprisoned population of millions of people.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China was relentlessly raining military explosives on densely packed urban areas known to be full of children.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China was deliberately and methodically ethnically cleansing an oppressed population for entirely racist reasons.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if evidence that Russia or China are committing horrific war crimes was surfacing on a daily basis.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China were getting caught in lie after lie after lie while carrying out such a mass atrocity.
Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China tried to present them with blatantly fabricated evidence of crimes committed by the targeted population in justification of their atrocities.
We’d be living in a different political and media landscape. If Russia or China was doing what Israel is doing, entire presidential campaigns would have been built around who would oppose it most aggressively. Every sanction and embargo in the book would have been slammed upon the perpetrating government. The western press would be falling all over themselves to expose every atrocity and every lie and blaring those expositions as feature stories on every platform for months, and showering one another with awards for doing so.
Instead we get this. Government officials babbling nonstop about Israel’s “right” to “defend itself” and how this would all be over if Hamas didn’t keep fighting, while showering Israel with weapons to help it continue its atrocities. The mass media churning out a constant deluge of passive-language “Gazans are having trouble finding food for some reason” headlines and continuous reminders that this is all happening because of October 7, while repeating Israeli atrocity propaganda like it’s gospel truth. All viable US presidential candidates vowing their unconditional support for Israel while occasionally impotently finger-wagging at this or that aspect of Israel’s atrocities to avoid looking like complete psychopaths.
That contrast between how the western political-media class is acting toward the Gaza genocide and how we all know they’d be acting if an unaligned government was doing something similar is exactly why the US-centralized empire cannot be permitted to rule our world anymore. It pretends to stand for peace, justice, freedom and democracy, but in reality it just inflicts nonstop death and suffering upon human beings around the world and covers it up with propaganda spin from its servile mainstream press. It purports to uphold the “rules-based international order”, but all that means in practice is that it upholds an international order in which the US empire makes up the rules as it goes along and changes them as it pleases.
Humanity cannot allow itself to be abused and tyrannized by this murderous, hypocritical globe-spanning power structure any longer. A better world is possible, but we’re going to have to find a way to pry the talons of these monsters off the steering wheel first.
Ukraine is ‘tip of the iceberg’ – Lavrov
RT March 29, 2024
The Ukraine conflict is only one part of a wider stand-off between Russia and the West, which seeks to contain Moscow at all costs, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
In an interview with Izvestia published on Friday, Lavrov stated that after the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the new Ukrainian authorities unleashed “a war… against their own people” in Donbass.
The hostilities, the minister said, were only stopped by the now-defunct Minsk agreements, which were designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state.
The ensuing governments of both ex-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky cracked down on the Russian language and culture, introducing stringent restrictions targeting its use in all aspects of life, according to Lavrov.
Moscow repeatedly urged Kiev’s backers in the West to condemn and halt the discriminatory policies, which also violate Ukraine’s constitution, but “not one of the Western countries that are now shielding Ukraine from all accusations has ever publicly condemned these absolutely illegal actions,” he insisted.
“The only explanation is that Ukraine is the tip of the iceberg. And that the declared goal of the West is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.”
Lavrov added that in practice this implies that those who do the West’s bidding when it comes to this mission, “are allowed to do anything, including direct support for… Nazism. It is sad”.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukraine conflict could have been easily avoided if the West had taken Moscow’s security interests into account. However, those interests “were completely ignored” as NATO moved closer to Russia’s borders by incorporating Eastern European states and former Soviet republics, Putin added.
The Russian president has also repeatedly said that the main goals of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine are to “denazify” and “demilitarize” the neighboring state, as well as protecting the population of Donbass from Kiev’s attacks. The two Donbass republics, along with two other former Ukrainian regions, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in the autumn of 2022.
Pro-Palestine campaign forces Israeli arms maker to close UK factory
Press TV – March 28, 2024
A relentless campaign by the Palestine Action group has managed to force Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company, to permanently shut down another weapons factory in Britain.
Palestine Action uses direct action tactics to shut down and disrupt the Israeli regime’s multinational arms dealers. It announced on Thursday that its campaign has forced Elbit Systems to vacate Elite KL factory in Tamworth, Staffordshire, for good.
This is the third Elbit Systems site in the UK to be shut down permanently by Palestine Action.
According to the pro-Palestine group, the company had previously manufactured cooling and power management systems for military vehicles, but was sold on after stating that it faced falling profits and increased security costs resulting from Palestine Action’s efforts.
“Following the recent acquisition of Elite KL Limited by a UK investment syndicate, the newly appointed board has unanimously agreed to withdraw from all future defense contracts and terminate its association with its former parent company,” Elite KL’s new owners, listed as Griffin Newco Ltd, confirmed the news in an email to Palestine Action.
Elbit Systems itself provides 85 percent of the drones and land-based military equipment for the Israeli military, as well as a wide range of the munitions and armaments currently being used by the occupying regime in its brutal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The company also maintains the surveillance technology deployed at the Gaza border and military checkpoints there.
Analysts say the genocidal attacks on Gaza, which continue to escalate, provide Israel’s arms manufacturers with opportunities to test and develop their latest lethal inventions.
Despite a massive death toll, the Israeli military has failed to achieve the goals it has been seeking to score through the campaign in Gaza, such as “destroying” Hamas, finding the captives that the Gaza-based resistance movement is holding, and bringing about forced displacement of the Palestinian territory’s population to Egypt.
UAE builds new airstrip in occupied Yemeni island
The Cradle | March 28, 2024
Satellite imagery has revealed what appears to be a new UAE airstrip being constructed on the Yemeni island of Abd al-Kuri.
The island is part of the Socotra Archipelago, which has been subjected to an Emirati military and intelligence expansion in recent years.
Satellite images obtained by AP show the phrase “I LOVE UAE” spelled out in the dirt near the new airstrip site.
The imagery obtained on 26 March shows increased work is being carried out on the Abd al-Kuri Island. Images from earlier in March, which showed trucks grading the airstrip, also confirmed this.
The UAE has repeatedly denied its military and intelligence presence on the Socotra Archipelago – which includes the island of Socotra, which has been revealed to be the site of a joint Emirati–Israeli occupation.
“Any presence of the UAE on Socotra Island is based on humanitarian grounds that is carried out in cooperation with the Yemeni government and local authorities. The UAE remains steadfast in its commitment to all international endeavors aimed at facilitating the resumption of the Yemeni political process, thereby advancing the security, stability, and prosperity sought by the Yemeni populace,” the UAE said in response to questions from AP.
In February last year, the Ansarallah resistance movement released a statement condemning the UAE’s eviction of residents from Abd al-Kuri, the Socotra archipelago’s second-largest island. The resistance movement accused Abu Dhabi of carrying out a long-planned operation to transform the archipelago, which includes Abd al-Kuri, into an Israeli-Emirati military and intelligence hub.
An in-depth investigation released by The Cradle in March 2023 details the Emirati–Israeli presence on the Socotra archipelago.
Expansion of the Emirati presence on the Abd al-Kuri comes as Ansarallah and the Armed Forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government – which are militarily aligned with one another – have stepped up their naval operations against vessels linked to or bound for Israel as part of a campaign launched in solidarity with the people of Gaza at the start of the war.
Since January, Yemen’s naval forces have also been targeting US and British vessels in response to London and Washington’s brutal aerial campaign launched against the country that month, which aimed to deter Sanaa’s campaign against Israeli interests in the Red and Arab seas.
As Washington continues its unsuccessful attempts to deter Sanaa, reports have emerged that the US plans to establish a presence on Socotra.
The US Department of Defense (DOD) denied on 26 March a report from Sky News Arabia released last week that Washington was sending troops and missile defense batteries to Socotra Island.
A Pentagon spokesperson told Responsible Statecraft that there is no US presence on Socotra Island or anywhere else in Yemen, contradicting the confirmations made by President Joe Biden in 2022.
Houthis Thwart the US-UK Military Dictatorship on Global South
By Simon Chege Ndiritu – New Eastern Outlook – 28.03.2024
A multipolar world is taking shape even in the military realm, as can be inferred from Houthi’s ability to curtail the US and UK goal of propping up Israeli genocide in Gaza at all cost. Houthis persistence and continued ability to inflict damage on Israeli, American, and British vessels transiting through Bab el Mandeb until Israel lifts its medieval blockade on Gaza shows that the western empire’s military dictatorship can be resisted by small countries. Meanwhile, the western empire desperately seeks diversion from its failure in the Red Sea.
Diversion; from Military Operation to Humanitarian Concern
The US and UK’s ill-fated “Operation Prosperity Guardian” is turning out so awfully wrong that the western media prefers to ignore it, hoping the rest of the world will forget. A passing view of the main western media outlets, France 24, CNN, and BBC on the 19th and 20th March 2024 shows that they did not display the exploits of the western empire’s military, either in Ukraine or the Red Sea like they cheered the destruction of all former victims of the empire. Instead, the European section of this propaganda machine; France 24, and BBC attempted to assume a moral high ground, by hypocritically raising the awareness of the dire food situation in Gaza, which is caused by their governments’ blind arming of Israel. France 24, featured a report by UNICEF stating how it was wrong to let children in Gaza to starve, and accentuated the story with a photo of a starving African child; for an extra boost of sympathy. Similarly, the BBC’s homepage in extreme right column carried a story of how the entire Gaza now faces starvation, something that could not be published in such a position just a few weeks ago. The CNN steered clear of Gaza and Ukraine and could not even popularize Biden’s botched campaign to airdrop a few food packages to Gazans (here), which ended awfully with some packages falling in the sea, others in Israel, and others killing Gazans. Noteworthy, the US provides millions of times more bombs to Israel than food to Gaza, and none of its bombs have missed its target by the margin seen in the airdropped food packages. This comparison shows the strong determination of the US to aid Israel in exterminating Palestinians, and that its food airdrop is for public relations.
The main lesson that comes to the fore is that American and British commitment to eliminating Yemeni’s resistance to their sponsored genocide has not born fruits. Therefore, the days of the West achieving every narrow-minded goal using its military are over. It is also clear that western global dictatorship will not only be resisted by military superpowers like Russia and China but also by small countries with sufficient missile and drone technology. “Operation Prosperity Guardian” has spectacularly failed and its architects; Washington and London have proved unable to defend their merchant vessels and Israel’s in the Red Sea. Surprisingly, it appears that the security of vessels transiting through the area is inversely proportional to the military deployment by countries owning them (these vessels). The US and the UK, which have heavily deployed their naval forces in and around the Red Sea have faced the most significant attacks from the Houthis, while vessels from other countries have been transiting peacefully. The Houthis’ meticulous selection of targets has denied the US and UK propaganda impetus of portraying the group’s attacks as indiscriminate. It may be dawning on the Western Empire that it may have to force Israel to suspend its medieval blockade on Gaza. This realization can explain Biden’s mumbling a declaration to establish a floating pier for vessels to ‘deliver aid’ to Gazans (here). However, such a pier may be designed for smuggling Gazans out in what Israeli hypocrites call voluntary immigration. Nonetheless, Operation Prosperity Guardian has failed so badly that Lindsey Graham, the empire’s military windsock pointed back to Ukraine, appearing flaccid and demanding mobilization of more young Ukrainians to add wind to the west’s failing military campaign (here). However, Houthi’s are not yet done.
On March 19th, Houthis’ spokesman announced (here) about Yemeni’s attack on a US commercial vessel MADO, news that the US media ignored before the UK Maritime Trade Organization (UKMTO) confirming. The attack constituted a trend where US vessels have been targeted recently, one of which resulted in casualties. Earlier, the UK even lost a commercial ship, Rubymar, a bulk Carrier that was struck by Houthis on the 18th February (here) and received significant damages making the crew to abandon it. The vessel sank several days later. Later, a US owned vessel, Gibraltar eagle, was also struck by Houthis in the recent past (here). Meanwhile, the US and UK navies have failed to lift the Houthis’ blockade on the Israeli port of Eilat which, reported, losing over 85% of its revenue since the Yemeni group started operations (here). The simple message that should be clear now is that the US and UK must abandon their hegemonic arrogance of trying to achieve haughty goals like militarily advancing Israeli genocide and others. The Houthis remind that a new world order is here, in which diplomacy is needed to balance the legitimate interests of all.
Houthi attacks also have desirable secondary effects in global geopolitics, especially in freeing long-term US hostages and isolating the latter. The Houthis have capabilities to inflict significant damage to participants, which has dissuaded some and limited the US ability to diplomatically mobilize vassals, relative to earlier campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan. The past US imperial wars of plunder saw many countries joining, including Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and Poland as there was no risk of meaningful retaliation, but the Houthis are different. For instance, Australia declined to send its vessel to Operation Prosperity Guardian (here) for fear of losing them. However, the same (Australia) sent it thuggish Special Forces to Afghanistan to kill Afghans and drink beer from their prosthetic limbs (here). Other US allies declined to participate or only gave marginal support (here), while Germany’s participation came later, and entailed an embarrassing maneuver involving trying to shoot down US drones. Participants of the current operation are cautious of the risks involved, and the Houthis have repeatedly reported targeting US and UK naval vessels, statements that cannot be ignored. Also, navies involved are primarily securing their shipping vessels as opposed to helping the US military posturing, even when the American contingent is stretched thin and unable to provide meaningful protection to American shipping vessels (here).
The US Central Command, which is not in charge of the central US, but the Middle East, has been reduced to issuing threats and statements that have not deterred Houthis, after several months of military deployment and savage bombing of Yemen. As things stand, the pentagon can either continue its military posturing and risk even more attacks, or urge Israel to meet the Houthis’ demands and halt the Genocide in Gaza. Houthis have reminded the US that it cannot always get its way in the global south, and needs to take demands from smaller countries seriously.
China Opposes US Practice of Creating Enemies Out of Thin Air
Sputnik – 28.03.2024
BEIJING – The US practice of artificially creating enemies out of thin air for the sake of boosting its military budget is strategically extremely dangerous, and China firmly opposes it, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.
The United States had repeatedly used China as a pretext for increasing its military budget, inflating a non-existent “Chinese military threat,” Wu said at a briefing.
“This practice of artificially creating enemies out of thin air is extremely dangerous from a strategic point of view, and China is firmly opposed to it,” the spokesman added.
He also said that China did not wish to threaten anyone, but it was also not afraid of anyone’s threats, and no amount of force can stop the development of the Chinese army.
On Saturday, US President Joe Biden signed into law an appropriations package that includes the $825 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2024. The act doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan. The United States would counter China by maximizing its production of critical munitions and by spending more than $66 billion for the US Indo-Pacific Command capabilities, including $42 million to bolster its military capabilities in the region, the House Appropriations Committee said in a summary of the package.
US threatens sanctions if Pakistan continues gas pipeline project with Iran
By Ahmed Adel | March 28, 2024
Despite Pakistan dealing with a crippling economic situation, the US has shown little concern for its strategic ally’s issues and, instead of offering support, has threatened tough sanctions if Islamabad decides to continue with the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project. Ironically, though, such an action will only push Pakistan closer to China, which the US views as a greater threat to its hegemony than Iran.
“We always advise everyone that doing business with Iran runs the risk of touching upon and coming in contact with our sanctions, and would advise everyone to consider that very carefully,” a US State Department spokesperson told reporters in a press briefing on March 26.
“We do not support this pipeline going forward,” the spokesperson added.
Washington continually emphasises that Pakistan is one of its closest allies and a partner in the fight against terrorism, making the sanctions threat a major development in their bilateral relations. For this reason, Pakistan Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik said on March 27 that Islamabad would seek an exemption from US sanctions over the gas pipeline project.
The Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, known as the Peace Pipeline, will transport natural gas from Iran to Pakistan. Despite the pipeline’s several years of delays and funding challenges, Pakistan and Iran signed a five-year trade plan in August 2023 with a target of $5 billion. Tehran is evidently desperate for the project to be completed, which had an original deadline of 2015, since it signed the trade plan and overlooked Pakistan not laying the pipeline when Iran has already completed the laying of its 900-kilometre pipeline.
Islamabad claims it could not lay the pipe due to the US sanctions imposed on Iran, but Tehran rejects this excuse. Pakistan is now in a difficult position with the latest US sanction threat when recalling that Tehran issued a third notice in January to Islamabad and announced intentions to go to arbitration court to receive $18 billion for breach of contract.
The threat of US sanctions or paying a huge fine to Iran is only compounding Pakistan’s difficult economic situation, especially as the country is seeking a 24th bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on March 26 that his country needs another IMF loan programme to stabilise its fragile economy. An IMF mission that visited Islamabad for five days earlier this month said Pakistan had to meet IMF conditions, including revising its budget and raising interest rates, generating revenue through more taxes, and hiking electricity and gas prices.
Effectively, ordinary Pakistanis are going to suffer a lot more than they already are.
Islamabad and Washington have had longstanding relations rooted in their opposition to the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, the US became dependent on the South Asian country for supplies during its long occupation of Afghanistan. Due to the US’s double standard of using Pakistan as a security partner but also threatening to worsen the country’s economic situation, China has been able to fill the financial void.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar met with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing on March 22 in Brussels, where the latter emphasised Beijing’s commitment to aiding Pakistan in addressing its financial challenges. However, just like the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, Islamabad continues to stall the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013 to link the Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan with China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Worsening the situation for CPEC is the constant stream of terror attacks against Chinese workers and nationals.
In the latest attack, on March 26, a suicide bomber in the Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa rammed an explosive-laden car into a vehicle, killing five Chinese workers and engineers and their Pakistani driver heading to the Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan. Less than a week before the suicide attack, Pakistani security forces killed eight Balochistan Liberation Army separatist militants who opened fire on a convoy carrying Chinese citizens outside Gwadar port in the southwestern Balochistan province.
Given that Pakistan is facing a dire economic situation and needs to turn to the IMF and seek more funding from China, US sanctions would be a devastating blow. Sanction threats are especially contradictory for the US since it not only considers Pakistan an ally but overlooks the fact that India invests in the Iranian port of Chabahar, located only 170 kilometres from Gwadar port. Washington overlooks this contradiction since Chabahar rivals the China-funded Gwadar, signalling that the US views China as a much larger threat to its hegemony than Iran, which makes sanction threats more confusing since it will only push Pakistan to be even closer and more aligned with China.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Investigators establish link between Moscow terrorist attack suspects and Ukraine
RT | March 28, 2024
The suspects in last week’s Moscow terrorist attack were linked to Ukrainian nationalists, the Russian Investigative Committee stated on Thursday, citing preliminary findings. The perpetrators had received “significant sums of money” from Ukraine, the law enforcement agency said.
The investigators have obtained “substantiated evidence” that the suspected assailants received funding from Ukraine in the form of cryptocurrency, which was then used to prepare the terrorist attack, the statement read.
Law enforcement officers also identified and detained another suspect who was allegedly involved in financing the attack, the Investigative Committee said, without identifying the individual.
Earlier, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, told reporters that the US, UK and Ukraine may have been behind the attack. The Ukrainians may have been preparing a “window” for them to cross back over the border, the official said. “On the other side, they were to be welcomed as heroes,” he added.
The four suspected perpetrators had previously been identified as radical Islamists, recruited through an online chat apparently operated by the Afghanistan-based offshoot of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). However, the investigators said at that time that, despite the group’s claim of responsibility for the terrorist act, another party, such as a Ukrainian intelligence agency, may have been involved in the plot.
Last Friday, a group of men armed with assault rifles stormed the Crocus City Hall music venue in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, just before a concert by the rock band Picnic. The attack and a subsequent blaze started by the perpetrators claimed the lives of 140 people and injured some 200 others.
The assailants were apprehended hours after the attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine.
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The 15 Most Devastating Truths About the PSA Screening Disaster
Lies are Unbekoming | October 26, 2025
The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has screened 30 million American men annually for over three decades. The man who discovered PSA in 1970, Richard Ablin, now calls mass screening “a public health disaster.” Two landmark 2012 studies found no survival benefit from radical surgery compared to watchful waiting. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded PSA screening does more harm than good. Yet the $3 billion annual industry continues largely unabated.
These revelations emerge from three insider accounts: Ablin’s The Great Prostate Hoax, urologist Anthony Horan’s The Rise and Fall of the Prostate Cancer Scam, and oncologist Mark Scholz’s Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers. Together they document how a test meant to monitor existing cancer patients became a screening juggernaut that has left millions of men incontinent, impotent, or dead from unnecessary treatment.
The numbers are staggering. Since 1987, when PSA screening exploded nationwide, over one million American men have undergone radical prostatectomies. Studies show 40 to 50 men must be diagnosed and treated to prevent one death from prostate cancer. The other 39 to 49 men receive no benefit but face permanent side effects. Medicare and the Veterans Administration fund most of this treatment, pouring billions into a system that prominent urologists privately acknowledge has failed.
What follows are the most damaging truths about how PSA screening became entrenched despite overwhelming evidence of harm, why it persists against scientific consensus, and what this reveals about American medicine’s inability to abandon lucrative practices even when they damage patients. … continue
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