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Operation True Promise II: Iran launches barrage of missiles against Zionist entity

Press TV – October 1, 2024 

Sirens sounded all over the occupied territories as Iran launched hundreds of missiles towards the Zionist entity, in a retaliatory attack dubbed Operation True Promise II.

Flares and missiles were seen in the Tel Aviv sky and explosions could be heard in the occupied al-Quds, sending Zionist settlers fleeing into shelters.

The Israel Airports Authority said that no aircraft will be allowed to take off or arrive at all Israeli airports.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported “direct hits” in Negev, Sharon and other locations from Iran’s attack.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) issued a statement shortly after the missile attack began.

It said in response to the martyrdom of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan, the IRGC Aerospace Force launched dozens of ballistic missiles targeting key military and intelligence bases in the heart of the occupied territories.

The IRGC further said that the attack was in line with the country’s right to legitimate self-defense as per the United Nations Charter, and in response to the regime’s escalating crimes—backed by the United States—against the people of Lebanon and Gaza.

The Zionist regime will face more crushing attacks in case it reacts to Iran’s operation, the IRGC added.

In a follow-up statement, the IRGC said three Israeli military bases in Tel Aviv were hit during the operation.

In this operation, a number of air and radar bases, as well as centers for conspiracy and assassination planning against resistance leaders and IRGC commanders were targeted, the statement said.

The IRGC noted that even though the designated areas were shielded by advanced defense systems, 90% of the missiles shot successfully hit their targets.

“The Zionist regime has been terrified by the intelligence and operational dominance of the Islamic Republic,” it added.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations said in a statement that the missile attack was a “legal, rational, and legitimate” response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime.

It also warned the Israeli regime that a more “crushing” response would ensue should it dare to respond or commit further acts of malevolence.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in southern Beirut, where Hezbollah chief Nasrallah was killed in a massive Israeli airstrike last week, following Iran’s retaliatory attack.

“Heavy gunfire heard from automatic weapons from areas of the southern suburbs, rejoicing in the missile launch from Iran towards Israel,” Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran won’t deploy forces to Lebanon to help Hezbollah – foreign ministry

RT | September 30, 2024

Iran will not send troops to Lebanon or Gaza to confront Israel, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran announced on Monday. The statement comes amid Israel’s intensified attacks against the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran does not seek war but is not afraid of it and stands for a safe and stable Middle East, the ministry stressed.

“There is no need to send extra or volunteer forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told a weekly news conference. Lebanon and fighters in the Palestinian territories “have the capability and strength to defend themselves against the aggression,” he added.

In the past several weeks, Israel has been conducting heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon and other militant groups in the region, including in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, raising fears the conflict could engulf the entire Middle East and draw in Iran and the US, Israel’s main ally.

“We have not received any request in this regard from any side, on the contrary, we are informed and are sure that they do not need the help of our forces,” Kanaani told reporters.

He nonetheless pledged that Israel “will not remain without reprimand and punishment for the crimes it has committed against the Iranian people, military personnel and the resistance forces.”

During the past week alone, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) significantly ramped up airstrikes on Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people and wounding over 6,000 according to local health officials. The escalation also triggered a mass exodus from the areas most affected by the Israeli bombing.

The Israeli military also conducted a series of strikes against senior Hezbollah commanders, killing most of them, including the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Hezbollah’s office in Tehran on Monday to pay tribute to Nasrallah, according to the government’s website.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Americans queueing to assassinate Trump, yet Iran is blamed

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 27, 2024

The United States does not have an impressive history of truth-telling when it comes to finding the culprits of presidential assassinations.

Indeed, the opposite. Cover-up and scapegoating are par for the course. So, bear that in mind about hyped reports this week about Iran allegedly trying to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, was officially blamed for killing John F Kennedy. It was also mooted at the time that Oswald was working as a sympathizer for Communist Cuba or the Soviet Union.

Despite decades of the U.S. mainstream media and academia sticking to the preposterous narrative of Oswald as the lone shooter in Dallas, there is cogent evidence that JFK was assassinated by the American deep state of CIA and corporate power because of the president’s opposition to Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union.

For more than six decades, the official narrative of JFK’s assassination has not changed despite the absurdities of the official account. Three fatal bullets in quick succession from a notoriously poor shot (Oswald) and the third to the front of the president’s head, supposedly from Oswald perched in a high-rise building hundreds of feet to the rear. Give us a break.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024. Two attempts have been made on the life of Republican candidate Donald Trump. On both occasions, the attacks were carried out by American citizens. On July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents after he fired his assault rifle at Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania. On September 15, Ryan Routh was arrested for trying to kill Trump at his golf course in Florida. It’s not clear what the shooters’ motives were. But both incidents involve American citizens as would-be assassins.

Moreover, there are disturbing questions about the lax conduct of the state security services and bigger forces who might want Trump dead. The first assassination attempt in Pennsylvania saw gaping lapses that allowed the shooter to breach the security perimeter. In the second case, the suspect had active ties with recruiting foreign mercenaries for the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime and presumably U.S. intelligence networks.

Yet this week, the U.S. intelligence services accuse Iran of plotting to kill Trump. The story has been doing the rounds in the U.S. media for weeks, having first been reported by CNN shortly after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The unsubstantiated Iranian connection smacks of a blatant distraction from possibly more homegrown culprits.

Gullibly, Trump this week appeared to buy the accusations against Iran. He threatened to blow Iran to “smithereens” if he were president.

This is while Trump has previously blamed his Democrat rivals for responsibility, pointing out how they have labelled him as a “threat to American democracy”.

There is no evidence from the U.S. spooks to substantiate their high-flown claims against Iran. The accusations come at an extremely tense time when Israel is threatening to drag the Middle East into an all-out war with Lebanon and Iran. The latest U.S. intel accusations against Iran serve to give Israel a cover for its regional aggression.

Trump’s unquestioning reaction to blame Iran is no doubt driven by his desire to act tough for electioneering gain. Threatening to blow a country to smithereens might play well with some voters.

No doubt, too, Trump is living out his own fears of Iranian revenge. He ordered the assassination in 2020 of Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Tehran has never officially declared its intention to kill Trump out of revenge for Soleimani. This week at the United Nations General Assembly, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke of Iran not wanting war and of seeking diplomatic negotiations with the US to avoid further conflict in the Middle East. It would, therefore, be irrational for Tehran to jeopardize the region by engaging in a vendetta against a presidential candidate.

The fingering of Iran with allegations of plotting to assassinate Trump comes at a suspicious time.

The U.S. presidential race is heading to a tight finish, with the Democrat candidate Kamala Harris receiving endorsements from the Washington establishment, including former Republican administration officials. Harris is the deep-state favorite to ensure the continuation of foreign policy goals of confronting Russia and China. Trump is too much of a maverick and unreliable for the powers-that-be. The stakes are high to make sure he does not get back to the White House, as far as the interests of the U.S. imperial planners are concerned. His talk about cutting military aid to the Ukrainian regime and calls for a peace settlement are not what the military-intel-imperialist deep state wants.

What if a third assassination attempt on Trump succeeds? There are plenty of grounds to suspect that he could be taken out by “executive action” sanctioned by enemies within the U.S. power nexus because of the high stakes of this election. The deep state needs to pursue confrontation with Russia and China to prop up waning American global power. The stakes could not be higher.

Against all the evidence of Trump being threatened by Americans who have nothing to do with Iran, there now emerges a false flag of an Iranian threat.

One has to wonder if Iran is being set up as a patsy for eliminating an American presidential candidate.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Iran slams US ‘absurd scenarios’ to implicate it in alleged assassinations

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani
Press TV – September 26, 2024

Iran says US claims of Iranian threats to senior American officials are “ridiculous scenarios” fabricated by Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the US was “intensely tracking an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials like president [Donald] Trump, and some people who are currently serving the administration.”

In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani dismissed Blinken’s “accusations as absurd and completely baseless.”

“It is clear that the formulation of such claims is merely part of the electoral atmosphere in the US and is driven by specific political goals, to the extent that they do not even warrant a response,” Kan’ani noted.

“The formulation of such false attributions and political accusations in the current tense conditions of the region cannot in any way diminish the international responsibility of the US government in aiding and participating in various international crimes against Palestine and Lebanon by the Zionist regime.”

Kan’ani said public opinion worldwide holds “the US regime” and its officials accountable for such humanitarian atrocities.

“The absurd and baseless stunts and scenarios created by the US government against the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hinder Iran’s determination to pursue legal and international accountability for the perpetrators and instigators of crimes committed against the Iranian people,” he said.

“The passage of time will not protect these criminals from trial and punishment.”

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

Leaked documents reveal US intel cutout’s Iranian counter-revolution plans

By Kit Klarenberg and Max Blumenthal · The Grayzone · September 19, 2024

Leaks expose a secret effort by retired National Endowment for Democracy leader Carl Gershman to consolidate war-hungry neoconservative control over Iran’s opposition, while channeling US government funds into his own pet regime change initiatives.

Leaked documents and emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal a seemingly covert effort by American regime change operatives to impose radical leadership on the remnants of Iran’s protest movement against the mandatory hijab, in order to topple the government of Iran.

The initiative was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-funded non-profit which advances regime change operations across the globe. Originally conceived by the Reagan administration’s CIA, the NED has meddled in elections and sponsored coup leaders from Nicaragua to Venezuela to Hong Kong, and beyond.

The leaks reveal how Gershman privately plotted to channel US State Department resources into the construction of an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of pro-Western Iranian activists and US neoconservative operatives who clamor for an American military assault on Iran.

While aiming to “mobilize international support” for the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, “and to do what is possible to aid [their] struggle,” the Freedom Coalition represents a clear attempt to impose an exiled leadership over the grassroots Iranian opposition which is directed and sponsored by the most belligerent elements in Washington.

Attempts by The Grayzone to reach several members of the Coalition for comment were unsuccessful. We were therefore unable to determine if those listed by Gershman had explicitly committed to participating, or had been named by the NED veteran as prospective leaders.

Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby. Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that “war with Iran is probably our best option”

The Freedom Coalition’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute. While these figures are quoted in Western media as the leaders of Iran’s “freedom” struggle, their involvement in US government-backed campaigns like the one conceived by Gershman reveals them as little more than Persian front people for Washington warmongers.

Protests erupted in Iranian cities in September 2022 after the death of a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, who was briefly taken into police custody in Tehran after violating moral codes mandating that women wear a hijab. The movement attracted the zealous support of Western governments, celebrities and feminist NGOs, which cheered it on even after it fizzled out in the streets.

As Gershman’s leaked proposal illustrates, these elements quickly hijacked the protests, inserting US government-sponsored exiles as the movement’s international face and voice, thus ensuring that their ultimate effect would be a deepening of US sanctions on average Iranians.

In an investigation published this August, The Grayzone revealed that after retiring from his longtime post as leader of the NED in 2021, Gershman became locked in a vicious power struggle with his younger, more socially progressive successors. The Iran leaks we have obtained show how even in retirement, Gershman has attempted a bureaucratic end-around, marshaling his connections in US foreign policy networks to channel government resources into his own pet regime change projects.

Seeking a cut of “illegitimate” $55 million State Dept fund

When Gershman sought to kickstart his latest Iran regime change plot, he reached out to a longtime ally who recorded a three-minute-long “retirement tribute” honoring his tenure at the NED. It was Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Republican powerbroker of the South Florida-based Cuban American lobby. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Department of State in the House Committee on Foreign Relations, Diaz Balart had substantial influence over the pursestrings of US foreign operations.

On August 27 2023, Gershman fired off an email to Díaz-Balart and the lawmaker’s “legislative assistant,” Austin Morley, stating that one of his “retirement initiatives” was “to work with Freedom House to create a coalition of working groups.” Calling it the Iran Freedom Coalition (IFC), Gershman claimed the Coalition was already “established.” However, no trace of its existence can be found online.

Gershman explained to Díaz-Balart that his “Iranian friends were taken aback” by the guidelines of the State Department’s 2023 Iran Democracy Fund, which earmarked $55 million for proposals to “strengthen civil society engagement in electoral processes.” According to Gershman, because the Women, Life, Freedom movement driving national protests “doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the regime that will be managing those ‘electoral processes,” some of the money should be funneled to a more hardline initiative.

The Coalition was to consist “of a dozen solidarity working groups representing…women, civil society and human rights groups, parliamentarians, trade unionists, and physicians that help the injured and traumatized protesters.” Bizarrely, though the protests had been extinguished in Iran, Gershman pitched his IFC to “support…the mass uprising” in Iran, as if it were contemporary.

He suggested Díaz-Balart use his influence within Congress to “direct…maybe 10%” of the $55 million annual budget for the State Department’s controversial Iran Democracy Fund to his own NED.

“The funds could be managed by the NED,” Gershman wrote, “that has a small Iran grants program already and is in very close touch with groups in the US and elsewhere that are trying very discreetly to aid the resistance movement.  In effect, this would enable NED to expand what it’s already doing. Taking such an initiative at this time would be an important act of solidarity.”

US-backed interventionists marketed as Iranian “freedom” leaders

Initially led and organized by Iranian citizens, the Women, Life, Freedom Movement quickly became a cause celebre for notorious, high-profile anti-Islamic Republic exiles. They included Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran’s eldest son and pretender to the country’s now non-existent throne, and Masih Alinejad, a prominent veteran of Western-funded propaganda efforts targeting Tehran, who has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from the US government for her anti-Iran agitation – which includes calls for Israeli attacks on the country of her birth. In a September 2022 New Yorker interview, she claimed to be “leading this movement.” Alinejad has also called for Israel to assassinate Iranian leaders.

The Women, Life, Freedom movement’s co-optation by Western interventionists was so flagrant, activists on the ground in Iran complained their efforts had been “hijacked” by foreign forces. Protests in Tehran tapered off after a few weeks, and were forgotten inside Iran.

Yet, Pahlavi and Alinejad continued to hype the movement, earning an invite to the February 2023 Munich Security Conference, where they were presented as prospective leaders of a future “democratic” Iran. Three months later, the US government-funded NGO Freedom House presented the defunct Women, Life, Freedom movement with its annual Freedom Award.

With the introduction of his Iran Freedom Coalition, Gershman aimed to consolidate control of any future protests in the hands of the most belligerent elements in Washington, who advocate crushing sanctions, assassinations of Iranian leaders, and US airstrikes, while claiming concern for the human rights of average Iranians.

Gershman seeks US funds for defunct protest movement

Attached to Gershman’s email to Díaz-Balart was a document setting out his vision for the Iran Freedom Coalition. Touting the defunct Movement as somehow continuing to “represent momentous challenges to the Iranian theocracy and its clerics,” the file called for a “new approach to dealing with Iran.” This was considered particularly urgent in light of the coming termination of the Iran nuclear deal, and what he believed was the Islamic Republic’s “burgeoning military assistance to Russia”:

“The confluence of these factors urgently requires… a focus on building international support for the Iran protest movement and holding the regime accountable for human rights abuses and other violations of international law, as well as thwarting the regime’s ability to sustain its repressive practices and finance its malign activities inside the country and regionally… Through actions outside Iran, the Coalition will also help connect, strengthen, and mobilize constituencies within Iran, namely women, youth, trade unions, civil society, and others.”

The IFC would thus seek to “[shape] international political discourse” on Iran, “[helping] support national discussions about power and democracy.” This work might include “[coordinating] boycotts or divestment campaigns to bring economic pressure to bear” on Tehran, “denying them resources to sustain their repressive activities.” In turn, the Coalition would “bring increased visibility to the efforts of Iranians and empower them to advance change.”

Gershman wrote that Freedom House was committed to “[nurturing] the formation” of IFC, “a coalition of like-minded and influential groups and individuals working on Iran.” It would seek to “inform public opinion in the US and abroad” about “Iran’s freedom struggle,” while focusing “public and diplomatic pressure…on isolating the regime and stopping the flow of funds to the regime.”

A rogue’s gallery of regime change operatives

Gershman’s proposal also provided an accompanying list of “individuals involved or to be involved” in the IFC. Those assembled as the leaders of the longtime NED leader’s coalition represent a veritable rogue’s gallery of neoconservative chickenhawks, pro-war think tankers, and Western-backed Iranian regime change activists.

A full proposed membership list appears at the end of this article.

Mahnaz Afkhami – Afkhami was Minister of Women’s Affairs under the Shah from 1976 to 1978, at a time when the Shah’s brutal Savak security forces were disappearing, torturing and killing thousands of protesters.

William “Bill” Kristol – Kristol is perhaps the leading neoconservative demagogue in Washington, and known for his extensive history of lobbying for war with Iran. In 2010, he declared that Washington’s calamitous, bloody “interventions” in Muslim countries, of which he was invariably a top cheerleader, should be considered “liberations,” and not invasions at all.

Joshua Muravchik – One of the most virulent advocates for a US war on Iran, Muravchik declared “WE MUST bomb Iran” in a 2006 LA Times editorial. Again in 2015, Muravchik declared in a Washington Post editorial, “War with Iran is probably our only answer.” A neoconservative admirer of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, Muravchik has insisted with his usual knack for subtlety, “Israel keeps saving the world” by carrying out assassinations inside Iran.

Leopoldo Lopez – The de facto leader of Venezuela’s putschist, US and EU government-sponsored opposition, Lopez participated in a failed military coup to remove the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez in 2002, then assisted the Trump administration’s plot to oust President Nicolas Maduro which appointed a phony president, Juan Guaido, to steal Venezuela’s foreign assets, and initiated another failed military coup. Lopez is the aristocratic son of a right-wing Spanish legislator, Leopoldo Lopez Sr., and currently resides in Spain.

Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar – Aarabi and Golkar both work at the Tony Blair Institute, the think tank and influence peddling operation of the pro-war former British Prime Minister. The outfit is known to have received £9 million for advising the government of Saudi Arabia. In November 2022, the Blair Institute published an extraordinary report on the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, excitedly cheering how “removal of the hijab became a symbol of regime change” in Iran. The report made a number of frenzied claims, including that the overwhelming majority of the Islamic Republic’s population are secularists, if not atheists, wholeheartedly supporting their government’s overthrow.

It went on to boast that the Blair Institute had “developed on-the-ground intelligence in Iran through a network of contacts on the streets,” which it has exploited to forecast” protest trends in Iran for the past five years, including the ongoing nationwide uprising.” While the Institute’s claim is unsubstantiated, it raises questions about whether the former UK PM’s outfit played a clandestine role in instigating the Women, Life, Freedom Movement protests.

Roya Hakakian – An Iranian-Jewish author and darling of the Israel lobby, Hakakian has denigrated protests against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza as proof that “Iran [has] arrive[d] on US campuses,” and fervently defended Israel as a robust democracy striving for peace.

Maziar Bahari – A Canadian-Iranian journalist, Bahari was the subject of Jon Stewart’s 2014 film, Rosewater, about his detention in Iran’s Evin prison. Today, Bahari serves alongside former State Department and USAID officials, and Western interventionist NGO leaders, as director of the board of Journalism For Change. As the independent outlet Noir reported, Journalism For Change receives at least 95% of its budget from the US State Department, which also funds IranWire, an anti-Tehran partner outlet that publishes Bahari’s articles.

Mariam Memarsadeghi – A self-proclaimed “Iran democracy activist” who features both the Ukrainian and Israeli flags on her Twitter/X bio, Memarsadeghi directs the Israel lobby-adjacent Cyrus Forum, which is dedicated to promoting regime change in Iran.

Despite her own flamboyant advocacy for toppling Iran’s government, Memarsadeghi conceded that Reza Pahlavi’s own campaign to dismantle the Islamic Republic floundered because “his most visible associates” were deranged far-right ultranationalists who alienated average Iranians. “[Spending] most of their time peddling distrust and attacking other opposition leaders on social media,” they also “publicly [called] for retributive violence, summary executions, the purging of leftists, vilification of human rights defenders, and antagonism towards free media outlets.”

In her criticism of Pahlavi, Memarsadeghi could have also been describing the neocon-controlled Iran Freedom Coalition to which she apparently lent her name and reputation.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Unveils New Missile, Drone With 4,000 km Range Amid Seething Regional Tensions

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.09.2024

Mideast tensions are on a knife’s edge, reaching a fever pitch this week after a suspected Mossad attack targeting thousands of pagers and other communication and household electronic devices in Lebanon. The escalation comes as the bloody war in Gaza approaches its one-year anniversary.

Iran revealed a new solid-fueled ballistic missile dubbed the Jihad (‘Holy War’) at a military parade in Tehran on Saturday commemorating the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.
Dubbed the Jihad (lit. ‘Holy War’) the missile has a reported range of up to 1,000 km, and was designed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace division.

The missile one of nearly two dozen Iranian-made long-range strike weapons appearing at the parade, among them the Kheibar Shekan (‘Castle Buster’ or ‘Fortress Buster’), which was fired at terror targets in Syria earlier this year, and the Khorramshahr, named after the Iranian city of the same name, which has a range up to 2,000 km and has a 1.8 ton warhead.

Also making its debut at Saturday’s parade was the Shahed-136B – the latest modification of Iran’s mainstay piston engine-powered Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. The upgraded drone touts a range of over 4,000 km – enough to reach anywhere in the Middle East and most of continental Europe.

Manufactured by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA) and Shahed Aviation Industries, hundreds of base model Shahed-136s were used to keep Israeli, US, French, British and Jordanian aircraft and air defenses busy while Iran slipped missiles past them to strike an aerodrome and intel base in April. The base 200 kg drones are equipped with a 50 kg warhead, and have a 2,500 km range.

The weight and warhead characteristics of the new, upgraded model have yet to be revealed, but based on its appearance, modifications are significant, with the new drone featuring a completely different wing configuration, and more bulbous fuselage.

Iran is a regional superpower in the development, production and fielding of drones, missiles, and other advanced weapons, possessing dozens of indigenous designs developed by local companies. The Islamic Republic’s arms industry was grown from the ground up beginning in the 1980s after its traditional weapons sellers slapped the country with an embargo during Iraq’s US-backed war of aggression, and got a major shot in the arm thanks to Iran’s hard-earned status as one of the top scientific powers in the world.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Supply line sabotage: Why Israel’s terrorism in Lebanon will backfire on West

By Musa Iqbal | Press TV | September 20, 2024 

In an unprecedented act of terrorism, the Zionist regime carried out widespread device detonations across Lebanon over the course of two days this week.

The reckless terror attacks injured thousands and killed dozens, including children and civil workers, sparking outrage worldwide.

Devices such as pagers, walkie-talkies, and solar panels detonated simultaneously across the Arab country, starting from the suburbs of Beirut, killing, maiming, and dismembering Lebanese citizens.

The mouthpieces of the child-murdering regime in Tel Aviv have gone out of their way to claim that the attacks targeted members of the Hezbollah resistance movement.

However, this was not a military operation but cowardly terror attacks orchestrated to instill fear and anxiety in the everyday lives of the Lebanese people.

At the time of the explosions, Lebanese citizens were engaged in mundane activities—driving, working in hospitals, and grocery shopping. The detonation of their devices during these routine tasks demonstrates that the goal was not to strike Hezbollah but to foment widespread fear, panic, and chaos.

It remains unclear how Israeli regime agents gained access to these devices, imported from a European country in the thousands under the label of a Taiwanese firm.

However, it is evident that distributors and producers within the supply chain must have collaborated with Tel Aviv. Standard quality assurance processes ensure products are tamper-proof and safe for consumers.

The implantation of explosives into everyday communication objects used by Lebanese citizens suggests that something within the production process was compromised.

Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company responsible for producing the targeted pagers, has shifted the blame to a Hungarian firm, BAC CONSULTING KFT, which it claims was responsible for the manufacturing.

In a statement, Gold Apollo noted that according to the cooperation agreement between the two sides, it authorized BAC to use its brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products were solely the responsibility of BAC.

Taiwan has been strengthening its ties with the US in recent years, despite officially adhering to the One China Policy, which recognizes Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China.

Over the last few years, American military and intelligence personnel have been active in Taiwan, and the US has provided millions of dollars’ worth of advanced weaponry to the Taiwanese government.

Hungary, a member of the European Union, has been largely hostile to the Palestinian cause and a supporter of Israeli occupation and its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 41,300 people, mostly children and women.

Either country, or both, could have collaborated with the Zionist regime once it became known that pagers used by Lebanese people, including Hezbollah, were being sourced through these vendors.

BAC Consulting is owned by British citizen Cristiana Arcidiancono-Barsony, who has denied responsibility for the Lebanon bombings after a massive global outcry.

Given Britain’s long history of colonialism and collaboration with Zionist forces and the relationship between Zionist tech and tech honchos such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, there is a compelling case that Western technology cannot be trusted.

In fact, this technological terror plot by the Israeli occupation has escalated tensions between the imperialist West and the independence-seeking Global South.

Now, with the push of a button, the Israeli regime—or any entity granted access to this technology—can assassinate anyone via market-distributed technology.

One of imperialism’s key tools is market control: control over what is sold, produced, and licensed. If Western technology is capable of indiscriminate destruction, many will begin to question whether it’s time to step away from US-aligned tech altogether.

The Israeli regime celebrates these terroristic short-term “gains” as a military achievement, but in the long term, they have eroded trust in Western technology and products.

If the West controls supply chains and can detonate devices at will, as seen in Lebanon, can economic cooperation with the West truly be considered voluntary? And after Israel’s latest terrorist actions, is Western tech even worth purchasing?

Notice how, when countries from the Global South opt to buy Chinese, Russian, or Iranian products or welcome cooperation from other US adversaries, American politicians and media swiftly condemn these moves, decrying the spread of so-called “Chinese influence” in foreign markets.

The same dynamic can be observed with the ongoing trend of de-dollarization, prompting figures like Donald Trump to threaten “100 percent tariffs” on countries moving away from the US dollar in trade.

What does this all mean? Simply put, the US goal is to reassert itself globally, primarily through market and dollar dominance, as a means of controlling nations at a widespread level. Controlling a nation’s markets is often more effective than directly influencing politicians.

However, American imperialism cannot have it both ways. Technological terrorism, exemplified by Israeli detonators in pagers, and economic coercion, such as American sanctions, are eroding trust in the West.

For decades, American capitalists and their political representatives have argued that buying American goods and trading with US firms is voluntary and beneficial for participating nations.

Now, as American hegemony declines, the US is scrambling to maintain its influence, as countries turn to alternative models or economic alliances like BRICS and SCO in pursuit of fairer paths to development.

Governments in the Global South, especially those adversarial to the Israeli regime, are likely investigating whether they have compromised technology in their own markets.

It is well known that American tech is frequently used for surveillance—WhatsApp is believed to have played a role in the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by revealing his location in Tehran.

This development comes as alliances such as BRICS are pushing for their own global currency, and member countries—particularly India, China, Russia, and Iran—have committed to local manufacturing whenever possible, ditching the US dollar.

Iran, for instance, developed its own COVID-19 vaccines due to the West’s long history of medical terrorism, which even extends to American citizens themselves.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, banned the import of Western COVID-19 vaccines, citing a lack of trust. He stands vindicated yet again.

Less than a century ago, the US government conducted the Tuskegee experiments, poisoning Black Americans with placebos or experimental treatments. Johnson & Johnson, the US company behind a COVID-19 vaccine, also participated in the infamous Agent Orange experiments, disfiguring prisoners with chemical residues.

China and Russia, too, have developed their own technology to protect against American surveillance efforts. For example, Huawei phones, a Chinese product, are banned in the US due to fears of “Chinese spying.”

In reality, these phones were developed as a safeguard against US tech giants like Apple attempting to dominate Chinese markets, which would leave China vulnerable to American attacks and surveillance.

We are witnessing the beginning of a long, negative reaction against Western technology. In an increasingly competitive global market, where US influence is waning, Israel’s murderous gambit of rigging devices tied to US supply chains will ultimately backfire and that is for certain.

Governments, corporations, and organizations will seek out technology that cannot be compromised, particularly by threats as dangerous as the Zionist regime, which collaborates with US intelligence.

This terroristic plot will be remembered not only for its moral repugnance but also for its economic repercussions. It signals another bell toll in the decline of US imperialism.

As American influence fades and powers like China, Russia, and Iran offer more attractive alternatives, the world will undoubtedly gravitate toward anything but America.

Musa Iqbal is a Boston-based researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US agency plotted to channel government funds into anti-Iran campaign after 2022 riots: Report

Press TV – September 20, 2024

A new report has revealed that the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) privately plotted to direct government resources into an anti-Iran campaign established after 2022 foreign-backed riots.

Citing leaked documents and emails, The Grayzone news website reported Thursday that the NED had tried to channel US State Department resources into the so-called Iran Freedom Coalition.

The coalition, that is composed of pro-Western Iranian figures and warmongering US neoconservative operatives, represents a clear attempt to impose an “exiled leadership” over anti-Iran opposition, the report added.

It further said that the initiative against the Islamic Republic was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the NED, which is considered Washington’s regime-change arm or the CIA spy agency in disguise.

“Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby,” it said.

“Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that ‘war with Iran is probably our best option.’”

The report also said that the anti-Iran campaign’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute.

“As Gershman’s leaked proposal illustrates, these elements quickly hijacked the protests, inserting US government-sponsored exiles as the movement’s international face and voice, thus ensuring that their ultimate effect would be a deepening of US sanctions on average Iranians,” adds the report.

The Foreign-sponsored riots broke out in Iran in September 2022, when 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in the capital Tehran, three days after she collapsed at a police station.

The findings of an investigation into her death later attributed the tragic incident to Amini’s pre-existing medical condition, debunking claims that she was beaten by the police.

Rioters, nonetheless, went on rampage across the country, causing massive material damage to public property and, in some cases, lynching security forces as well as civilians whom they regarded as supporters of the Islamic establishment.

Iran’s intelligence community said several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, used their spy and propaganda apparatuses to provoke unrest in the country.

September 20, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s UN mission rejects Western allegations of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia

Press TV – September 7, 2024

Iran has rejected allegations of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia as baseless and misleading. The allegations are leveled against Tehran by the US and its Western allies.

The mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations said on Friday that the country regards as inhuman any military assistance to parties of the Ukraine conflict that would increase damage to lives and infrastructure in Ukraine.

Therefore, not only does it not do so, but also invites other countries to stop sending weapons to the parties involved in the conflict, the mission said.

“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the conflict in Ukraine has not changed,” the mission said after American, British and French envoys leveled coordinated accusations at Tehran concerning the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict during a UN Security Council meeting on August 30

The mission also called on other countries to follow suit and end the supply of weapons to the warring sides.

Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani previously also rejected the “baseless and misleading” accusations of the United States, England and France regarding Tehran’s role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“The United States and its allies cannot deny the undeniable fact that sending advanced Western weapons, especially from the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and harmed civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Iravani said.

He made the remarks in a letter sent to the UN chief and the Security Council’s president on Wednesday.

He said Iran “categorically rejects” any allegations suggesting its involvement in the sale, export, or transfer of arms in violation of its international commitments to Russia as “misleading, completely unfounded.”

Tehran has repeatedly dismissed Western allegations of its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Iran has called for a ceasefire, blaming the lingering conflict on Western arms supplies to Kiev.

Russia launched what it called a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 partly to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion after warning that the US-led military alliance was following an “aggressive line” against Moscow.

Russia has repeatedly warned against the flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, saying it prolongs the conflict.

September 7, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran rejects US accusations of electoral interference

Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani rejected the US accusations against Iran, alongside other countries, of launching a campaign to interfere with the results of the upcoming presidential elections.

“Once again, we reject these unfounded accusations, which serve domestic political purposes in the United States,” he said in response to US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s allegations.

The diplomat asserted that US officials cannot reform their own deeply rooted structural, political, and social problems by deflecting responsibility onto others.

Kanaani added that the US accusations divert attention from its own record of disruptive and illegal actions against other countries.

In a joint statement with the FBI and several other US intelligence agencies, Iran was accused of conducting cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaigns of Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Kamala Harris.

Iran rejects allegations about supplying Russia with arms

The US has made several attempts to politically attack Iran this week.

Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani strongly rejected on Thursday claims made by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France regarding alleged Iranian arms sales and transfers to Russia.

In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council, Iravani stated that the US and its allies “cannot hide the fact that the shipment of advanced Western weaponry, particularly by the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and caused harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Iravani pointed out that the representatives of France and the UK made false allegations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), while the US representative not only reiterated those claims but also accused Iran of supporting terrorism. He emphasized that “these baseless and misleading accusations are categorically rejected.”

“It is laughable that three countries, which are directly involved in the Ukraine war and actively fueling the conflict, would brazenly accuse the Islamic Republic of intervening in the war,” Iravani said, reaffirming Tehran’s commitment to adhering to international humanitarian law.

These remarks come in response to a recent Bloomberg report, which, citing unnamed sources, claimed that European officials expect Iran to soon deliver Iranian-made ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.

Iran has consistently denied accusations of providing military support to Russia in the Ukraine war, stressing that such claims were part of a “broader effort to incite hostility against the Islamic Republic.”

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

“We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way’”

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 30, 2024

“The successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s attack on Sunday, symbolized Israel’s intelligence and operational edge”: According to the IDF spokesman, the Hezbollah attack was thwarted for the most part – thanks to 100 Israel aircraft carrying out around the clock – pre-emptive strikes that destroyed “thousands of missile launchers”.

“The group [Hizbullah], did manage to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, but the damage they caused was quite limited”, the Israeli spokespersons disdainfully suggested (amidst a complete blackout on publication, under full censorship, in Israel of any reporting on damage caused to strategic Israeli infrastructure or to military sites).

In effect, it was ‘theatre’ mounted by both sides: By limiting their 20 minute strike to within 5 kms of the border – and by Hizbullah staying within the ‘equations’ of war – both sides signalled plainly to each other they were not looking for all-out war.

The ‘winner narrative’ from Israel was to be expected in today’s psy-war atmosphere. Yet it comes at a cost: Amos Harel in Haaretz suggests that “there’s a tendency in Israel [as a result] to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence of the consolidation of regional deterrence and [of western] strategic supremacy. But such an assessment” he concedes, “appears to be far from accurate”.

Indeed it is (far from accurate). The Sunday theatre concluded with no change to the strategic situation in the north of Israel: Daily attrition continues from across the frontier of Lebanon, down to the new 40 km border defining the extent of Israel’s loss of territory to the Hizbullah no-go zone.

The strategic point is not that this narrative of a successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s capabilities is highly misleading. Rather, it sets up expectations of available military success from which wrong conclusions will be drawn. We have been here before. It didn’t go well …

Seymour Hersh, doyen of U.S. investigative journalism, this week re-posted a piece that he wrote in August 2006 about U.S. thinking in the context of an Israeli war on Hizbullah – and on its intended role as a pathfinder-project for a subsequent U.S. strike on Iran.

What Hersh wrote then represents a striking déjà vu of today’s situation. It remains to the point because U.S. neocon thinking rarely evolves, but remains constant.

“The big question for our [U.S.] Air Force”, Hersh noted in 2006, “was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully”, the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel”. The official continued:

“Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground missile emplacements. And so the USAF went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them: ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran – and what you have on Lebanon.’”.

“The Israelis told us [that Hesballah] would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said: “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran”.

“I was told by the consultant that the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. “The NATO forces … methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days …“Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model … The Israelis told Condi Rice: You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days’ [to finish off Hizbullah]””.

“The Bush White House”, a Pentagon consultant said, “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hizbullah”; adding, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it … According to a Middle East expert, with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments: Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th [2006] kidnappings: “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it”, Hersh wrote.

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because – if there were to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities – it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both”, Hersh was told”.

“The Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced … that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations – some of which are also buried deep underground”. (Emphasis added.)

A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way”.

“Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff were deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should – the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran”.

(This is where we are today: When the smoke clears from Sunday’s ‘exemplary pre-emptive attack in Lebanon’, Netanyahu will be using it with Washington to draw reinforcement for his aspiration to engage the U.S. for a strike on Iran.)

“Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told [Hersh] … Rumsfeld [too, shared this expert’s jaded view]: “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he [Rumsfeld] had tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in – and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy”.

“The 2006 Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States had been planning for Iran””. (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran) were being resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps – according to current and former officials. They argued that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.

David Siegel, the then Israeli spokesman, said that his country’s leadership believed, as of early August 2006, that the air war had been successful, and had destroyed more than seventy per cent of Hizbullah’s medium-and long-range-missile launching capacity.

Israel however had not destroyed 70% of Hizbullah’s missile inventory in 2006. It was deceived by Hizbullah’s intelligence decoy operation. The Israelis bombed empty sites.

Today, we hear the same exultatory narrative coming from IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Hagari – parading how successful Israel’s strikes on Sunday had been.

Likely some in Israel and U.S. again will be deeply concerned that the Biden team may fall for a far more positive assessment of the Israeli air campaign than they should.

Many commentators across the West are making the same mistake. As Haaretz’ military correspondent noted in respect to this Sunday’s air strikes: “there’s a tendency in Israel to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence for the consolidation of regional deterrence – and strategic supremacy”.

Or, in other words, Iran has been deterred from carrying out its ‘commitment’ to retaliate for Ismail Haniyah’s assassination in Tehran by the amassing of fire-power by the U.S. in the waters of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and the fear of overwhelming U.S. firepower.

Anyone seeing the video glimpses of Iran’s automated and deep ‘missile cities’ deployed throughout the depth of Iran (and which it has allowed to be exposed to momentary view), should understand that carpet bombing Iranian civilian structure will not prevent the Iranian ability to respond lethally. Iran could unleash Regional Armageddon, nothing less.

So, for clarity’s sake: Who exactly is it that is deterred and backing down? Is it Iran or Washington?

Yet, “If it’s true that the Israeli campaign is based on the American approach in Kosovo, then it missed the point”, General Wesley Clark, the U.S. commander told Hersh. Killing civilians was not the objective: “In my experience, air campaigns have to be backed, ultimately, by the will and capability to finish the job on the ground”.

And that – simply – for the U.S. to contemplate for Iran is impossible.

“We face a dilemma”, an Israeli official told Hersh in 2006. Effectively, to decide whether to go for a local response (which is ineffective), or go for a comprehensive response—to really take on Hezbollah [and Iran] once and for all”.

Plus ça change: The dilemma may not have changed, but Israel has altered radically. A majority in Israel today is messianic in its support for Jabotinsky’s followers to do what they had always wanted and promised to do: To expel the Palestinians from the Land of Israel.

It is understood by many in Washington that the Revisionist Zionists (who represent maybe about 2 million Israelis) intend cynically to impose their will on the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, by plunging the U.S. into a wide regional war, should the White House try to undercut their neo-Nakba project of Palestinian forcible expulsion.

Benjamin Netanyahu has provoked Iran once (with the assassination in the Damascus Consulate of a top IRGC general); twice with killing of Haniyeh in Tehran; and a possible third would be were Israel to launch a so-called ‘pre-emptive’ strike against Iran, believing that the U.S. would be trapped and politically unable to stand aloof as Iran retaliated against Israel.

However, should the U.S. veto a strike on Iran before the U.S. elections (and Iran not retaliate for the death of Haniyeh before then), the Naqba ‘project’ can be moved forward via extending the existing Gaza military offensive to the West Bank, or through a grave provocation on the Haram al-Sharif  (such as a fire at the al-Aqsa Mosque).

The Revisionist Zionists have been clear over recent years that some crisis or the confusion of war would be required to implement their neo-Naqba project fully.

America particularly is trapped by its ‘ironclad’, unqualified military support for Israel – which offers Netanyahu ample room for manoeuvre.

Manoeuvre, that is, towards the conflict that is Netanyahu’s only escape hatch ‘upwards’ as the ‘walls of attrition’ close-in on Israel. Iran and Hizbullah seem to have chosen too, for now, to preserve their escalatory dominance through a return to imposed calibrated attrition on Israel.

The U.S. will not be able to keep such a huge deployment of naval vessels in the region for long; but equally, Netanyahu will not be able to politically prevaricate at home for long, either.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran urges elimination of atomic weapons, end to nuclear tests

Press TV | August 30, 2024

Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva has called on the international community to work towards ending nuclear tests and eliminating atomic weapons.

Ali Bahreini made the remarks in an X post on Thursday, on the occasion of the International Day against Nuclear Tests.

“Nuclear testing is a threat to our planet and future generations,” he said.

“On the International Day against Nuclear Tests, let’s pledge to protect our world by advocating for a complete end to nuclear tests and total elimination of NWs,” he added, referring to nuclear weapons.

“Each nuclear explosion is a step backward in the journey towards a world free of nuclear weapons. Today, more than ever, we need a global commitment to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons,” Bahreini wrote in a separate post on X in Persian.

In 2009, the UN General Assembly declared August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests by unanimously adopting Resolution 64/35.

The document calls for increasing awareness and education “about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

The United States is the only country on Earth that has used nuclear weapons in wartime.

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing thousands instantly and about 140,000 by the end of the year. Three days later, it dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

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