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US Expends 530 Munitions, Over $1 Bln Fighting Houthi Hellfire Raining Down on Its Carrier Group

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.05.2024

The US and Britain hastily assembled a coalition of the willing in December 2023 to target the Houthis, a month after the indefatigable Yemeni militia began a campaign of ship seizures, drone and missile attacks targeting Israeli-linked merchant vessels in the Red Sea, in solidarity with Gaza.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower supercarrier-led US Navy strike group has expended over 500 munitions targeting Houthi-launched missiles, UAVs and drone boats over and in the Red Sea, and positions inside Yemen, a new tally of Navy data has revealed.

The figures, seen by Business Insider, reportedly included almost 430 instances of US warships and aircraft engaging “planned and dynamic Houthi targets,” with the Eisenhower’s onboard F/A-18 Super Hornet strike jets flying over 27,200 hours across roughly 12,100 sorties, launching 350+ air-to-surface missiles and 50+ air-to-air missiles.

Guided-missile destroyers and cruisers accompanying the Eisenhower have reportedly launched 100 Standard Missile-2 interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles at Houthi aerial and ground targets.

The figures offer the most detailed insight to date into the expenses the US-led anti-Houthi mission in the Red Sea has sustained to date.

Last month, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers from the Senate Appropriations Committee that the US had spent nearly $1 billion in the Middle East, including against the Houthis, since the Israeli-Hamas escalation in October, and asked for more money.

But the Navy figures cited by Business Insider suggest the costs could be much higher. For example, F/A-18 jets have an average per hour flight cost of more than $30,400, meaning if the Navy-provided data are correct, the US has spent close to $827 million on sorties alone, not counting expended missiles. The latter include AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, priced between $125,000 and $400,000 apiece, and AGM-88 HARM air-to-surface missiles, which go for between $284,000 and $870,000 each.
Ship-launched standard Missile-2 interceptors cost $2 million apiece, with the more advanced Standard Missile-6 – which the US carrier strike group has also deployed against the Houthis, costing $4.3 million each. Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, meanwhile, have a price tag of roughly $2 million.

The Pentagon’s anti-Houthi strategy has recently taken flak from US lawmakers over its exorbitant cost.

“In the Red Sea, the Houthis are sending $20,000 drones and we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost $4.3 million. The math doesn’t work on that, gentlemen. It just doesn’t work. What are we thinking?” Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King said earlier this month during a grilling of senior DoD officials on the (apparently) shambolic state of America’s air and missile defense capabilities.

US-led military operations in the Red Sea, dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian, have failed to stop or even scale back the extent of Houthi attacks, with the militia ramping up its strikes in the Red and Arabian Seas in recent months, and expanding drone and missile forays into the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin hinted at the intensity of Houthi operations on Friday, revealing that the USS Carney guided-missile destroyer alone had had 51 “engagements” with Houthi missiles and drones over six months, “which is the most direct Navy engagement with a foe since World War II.”

The Carney returned home to Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida on May 19 after its long Red Sea deployment.

Separately on Friday, the Houthis announced that they had targeted three more Israeli-linked ships, including the MSC Alexandra and the Greek-owned Yannis bulk carrier (which the militia said was heading toward Israel) in the Red Sea, and the Essex LPG carrier – a Liberia-registered vessel managed by Zodiac Maritime, owned by Israeli tycoon Eyal Ofer, in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean attack came just a few days after an anonymous Pentagon official confirmed to reporters that the Houthis have weapons that could reach the body of water – situated over 2,000 km from militia-held areas of Yemen.

Along with their attacks on ships, the Houthis have been stepping up their efforts to target US military assets operating over Yemeni airspace. Last week, the group downed its fifth MQ-9 Reaper drone using a “locally-made” surface to air missile while the $32 million aircraft was “carrying out hostile acts” over Marib province in western Yemen.

May 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Houthis Take Down Another US Reaper Drone, Reiterate Threat to Target Ships in Mediterranean

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 17.05.2024

The Yemeni militia has turned the destruction of General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones into an art form, using homegrown variants of the Soviet Kub surface-to-air missile system to shoot the $32 million apiece attack UAVs out of the skies. The Pentagon has used Reapers extensively over Yemen amid the Houthi’ partial blockade of the Red Sea.
Yemen’s Houthi militia have reported the destruction of another MQ-9 Reaper using a “a locally-made” SAM.

In a statement published Friday and reported by Yemen’s SABA News Agency, the militia said their air defense forces took down the American drone over Marib, western Yemen, where it “was carrying out hostile acts,” on Thursday night.

The US military has yet to acknowledge the loss of the advanced drone. However, footage circulating online showed wreckage of a drone matching the Reaper’s dimensions and appearance, lying seemingly almost completely intact in a desert area at night. The Houthis don’t have a reputation for reporting on the destruction of enemy equipment unless they’ve actually done so, and previous attacks targeting Reapers have subsequently been begrudgingly confirmed by the Pentagon.

The downed drone is at least the fifth destroyed over Yemen since October 2023.

American forces have deployed Reapers en masse in the region to assist in their campaign of strikes on Yemen aimed at weakening the missile and drone capabilities the Houthis have deployed to try to enforce a partial blockade of the Red Sea targeting Israeli, US and UK-linked commercial vessels and warships.

Introduced into service with the US Air Force in 2008, Reapers have a 27-hour endurance time and a 50,000-foot flight ceiling, and have been heavily used in US operations over Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria for over 15 years, with over 300 built. The 11-meter long armed UAVs have a 20-meter wingspan, can carry up to 1,700 kg of ordinance on seven external hardpoints, and can travel at speeds of nearly 500 km per hour, with a cruising speed of over 300 km per hour.

The Houthis have vowed to continue their partial blockade until Israel stops its assault on Gaza, and have rejected all attempts to date by the US and its allies to get them to halt their missile and drone attacks – either by force or through quiet attempts to bribe them.

The Reaper shootdown came hours after the militia reiterated its threats to target Israeli-bound ships in the Mediterranean.

“We will target any ship heading to Israel that comes within range of our weapons,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a speech Thursday. “There is no red line for us. We are gradually hitting sensitive strategic targets that affect the enemy and we will reach them by God’s grace,” he said.

Al-Houthi reiterated that the militia sees the US as “complicit with the Zionist regime in the genocide against the Palestinian people,” and accused Washington of tacitly approving Tel Aviv’s attack on Rafah.

“We will strive to strengthen the fourth phase of escalation in terms of momentum and the power of strikes,” al-Houthi said, referencing the militia’s waves of escalatory actions, including attempts to strike Israel directly, and expanding the scope of operations from the Red and Arabian Seas to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

Al-Houthi said Houthi missiles and drones have targeted US ships operating the region more than a hundred times since the start of the year, and that Israeli ships and port infrastructure had been targeted 40 times using 211 missiles.

The “fourth phase” of the campaign promises to target “all ships that breach the Israeli navigation ban and head to the ports of occupied Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea in any area within the reach of Houthi forces,” al-Houthi said.

The Houthi campaign has shed far less blood than the crisis in Gaza which sparked it, where nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, and over 79,000 wounded, in Israeli attacks, the majority of them civilians. Houthi missile and drone strikes have killed three merchant ship sailors and injured five others, damaging at least 20 commercial vessels and sinking one. American and British strikes on Yemen have killed at least 50 Yemenis and injured 35 others to date.

What the campaign ‘lacks’ in carnage it makes up for in economic and psychological impact, with the Houthis humbling the US military – which has proven unable to stop the militia – hailing from one of the poorest, and most conflict-torn countries in the world. The campaign has also caused tens of billions of dollars in losses to economies around the world, including Israel, with major merchant fleets forced to avoid the Red Sea region to escape being targeted.

May 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Yemen expands front against Israel to include Mediterranean Sea

The Cradle | May 3, 2024

The Yemeni armed forces announced on 3 May the start of the “fourth phase” of escalation against Israel and in support of Palestine, threatening to target Israeli-linked ships “anywhere within our reach.”

Sanaa highlights in a statement that the attacks, which have successfully locked Israel out of the Red Sea, will expand to the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier this year, the Yemeni armed forces expanded the scope of their pro-Palestine operations to include the Indian Ocean, severely affecting the Israeli economy.

Friday’s statement from the Ansarallah-led government also warns Tel Aviv against launching their assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that, with immediate effect, any ships “linked to the provision of supplies and entry into the Palestinian ports under occupation” would be subject to “severe penalties.”

The statement stresses that these ships will not be allowed to “sail through the area of military operations, regardless of their destination.”

The escalation by Yemen was made public by armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, who made the announcement in front of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis who continue to gather in the capital every week to show their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Since mid-November, Yemen has maintained a naval trade blockade against Israel. The armed forces’ operations remain mostly unaffected despite an illegal US bombing campaign and the heavy militarization of the Red Sea by NATO countries.

“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Jerome Henry, the commander of France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace, told Le Figaro last month.

Ansarallah leaders have repeatedly stated that the Yemeni operations will continue until Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza comes to a stop and a lasting ceasefire is implemented.

In the face of its failure to deter Yemen, Washington recently offered the country “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.

“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.

The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | , , , | 1 Comment

Iran’s Israel Strike Reshapes West Asia Forever

By Kit Klarenberg | Active Measures | May 3, 2024

On April 13th, Iran, alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s AnsarAllah, executed Operation True Promise, a vast wave of drone, cruise and ballistic missile strikes on the Zionist entity, launched in retaliation to Tel Aviv’s criminal bombing of Tehran’s Damascus embassy less than two weeks earlier, which killed two Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) generals. As a result, history was made, and the world – in particular West Asia – will never be the same again.

Iran’s first ever strike on the entity, following decades of provocations, escalations, assassinations, incendiary threats, and determined lobbying for U.S.-led war against Tehran by Tel Aviv officials, the effort targeted airbases, Israeli Air Force intelligence HQ, and a constellation of air defense systems. The U.S., Britain, and France scrambled jets to help shoot the vast payload down – unsuccessfully – while Jordan controversially permitted Western powers to use its airspace for the purpose. The entity claimed a 99% interception rate.

However, extensive photo and video material shows many missiles hit their targets, and wrought much damage. In the process, Iran demonstrated to Tel Aviv and its Western backers a hitherto unknown ability to circumvent layer upon layer of protective measures, including top tier fighter jets, NATO-supplied air defense systems, and the much-vaunted Iron Dome. One by one, they largely failed in their duty, leading to the astonishing sight of Iranian missiles soaring unmolested over the Knesset.

This righteous scene no doubt sent untold chills scouring around Western and Israeli corridors of power, searching vainly for spines to run up. It also dispatched a palpable message – Tehran could, if it wished, have struck the Zionist legislature, but didn’t do so. For the time being, at least. The floor was now Tel Aviv’s, to decide whether – and how – to retaliate. A response came on April 19, in the form of pre-dawn drone sorties across Iran.

Initially framed by Western media as hugely impactful, in reality a small swarm of Israeli quadcopters attempted to breach Tehran’s air defenses, but ultimately couldn’t. An Iranian spokesperson subsequently referred to the effort as “failed and humiliating.” This characterization surely applies more widely to the pathetic state to which Tel Aviv has been reduced, following Operation True Promise’s seismic success. As we shall see, the Zionist entity now has little time remaining, and no good choices left to make.

‘New Equation’

Despite its astonishing optics, and unprecedented nature, some West Asian observers were disappointed that the attack on Israel wasn’t a decapitation. Such perspectives overlook the Islamic Republic’s longstanding commitment to caution. Devastation of Tehran’s Syrian embassy was without historic parallel, and clearly concerned with eliciting a major escalation, in order to drag the U.S. into total war. A measured, well-advertised show of strength deterred wider response, while signaling a major shift in Iranian policy towards the entity. IRGC commander Hossein Salami has said:

“We have decided to create a New Equation, and that is if from now on the Zionist regime attacks our interests, assets, personalities, and citizens, at any point we will attack against them.”

Those are fighting words, and Operation True Promise plainly demonstrated they can be backed with action. Iran has shown it can strike the entity directly from its own soil, its fleets of missiles and drones capable of traveling thousands of kilometers over both friendly and hostile airspace, separate timezones, and multiple countries. Along the way, Tehran will have gleaned an enormous amount of invaluable intelligence on the defensive capabilities, and vulnerabilities, not only of Israel, but the local Western infrastructure upon which its defenses depend.

Any future Iranian strike would make the most of whatever was learned on April 13th, and the data yield was likely enormous. Since Russia’s “Special Military Operation” began in February 2022, defense cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has reached extraordinary levels – and intensive learning and on-the-go refinement of battle strategy is core Russian military doctrine. As a nameless Ukrainian Army officer bitterly told Politico on April 3, Western weapons systems sent to Kiev “become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians”:

“For example, we used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully – but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this.”

If there’s a next time too, Iran’s missile and drone fleet is likely to be considerably more sustained, playing out over several days, weeks, or even months, wave after wave, burst after burst. Estimates suggest around 300 separate projectiles fired at the entity during Operation True Promise. Largely unsuccessful attempts to repel the blitz by Tel Aviv alone cost $1.08 – 1.35 billion, according to an Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) general.

“One Arrow missile used to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile costs $3.5 million, while the cost of one David Sling missile is $1 million, in addition to the sorties of aircraft that participated in intercepting the Iranian drones,” they told local media. Meanwhile, an Israeli think tank researcher calculates the costs “were enormous”, comparable to what Israel spent during the entire 1973 Arab/Israeli war, which lasted almost three weeks.

Those sums were spent on missile interceptors, missiles, jet fuel, and other military equipment and infrastructure. It is uncertain how much Iran spent on the Operation, but it is undoubtedly orders of magnitude less. Some sources have suggested $30 million, which could well be accurate. This massive cost discrepancy is a very, very grave issue for the entity, as the U.S. can attest, given its embarrassing experiences attempting – and completely failing – to end AnsarAllah’s anti-genocide blockade of the Red Sea.

Almost immediately, Politico reported that the Pentagon was aghast that it was squandering missiles costing millions to shoot down $2,000 AnsarAllah drones. “That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor,” a CIA officer lamented. “We, the U.S., need to start looking at systems that can defeat these that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us.”

‘Israel Goes Under’

There is no sign publicly yet of Washington having rectified this concern, which may account for why US officials at the start of April offered AnsarAllah a sweeping offer of total surrender in return for ending the Red Sea blockade, which was rejected. But in the event of a subsequent Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Tehran’s Shahed drones will not be used to deter shipping, but tie up, smoke out, and exhaust the entity’s air defenses.

This tactic was used to significant effect on April 13th, as it has been by Russia since its airstrikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure began in late 2022. Now, Kiev is on the verge of being de-electrified, which will cause a battlefield and population displacement, with potentially devastating knock-on effects on neighboring countries, and states trying to keep Kiev’s lights on. It seems safe to say neither Israel nor its Western allies could sustain a serious defense to a protracted assault by Tehran, economically or materially.

That conclusion is supported by an April 22nd Wall Street Journal report, which revealed the Biden administration was shocked at the scale of Iran’s barrage. It “matched worst-case scenarios” outlined by U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon, an unnamed senior official despairing, “this was on the high end… of what we were anticipating.” White House Situation Room attendees on the day allegedly feared Israel and its allies would not be able to repel the assault. And they couldn’t.

On top of a mass crime against humanity amounting to a 21st century Holocaust, the entity’s genocide in Gaza has been utterly destructive to its own economy. A Financial Times investigation of November 6th 2023 documented how the assault has ravaged personal finances, job markets, businesses, industries, and the Israeli government itself. “Thousands” of companies were teetering on the brink of collapse, with entire sectors plunged into an unprecedented crisis. One in three businesses had either shuttered or were operating at 20 percent capacity.

The race to escape Israel

One can imagine how much worse things have gotten in the six months since, and Israel isn’t yet embroiled in an all-out war. An extended period of mass strikes from Iran, AnsarAllah and Hezbollah could completely paralyzse the entity economically, render entire areas of the entity uninhabitable – or, at least, uninhabited – destroy infrastructure, and much more. Among the infrastructure in Tehran’s crosshairs could well be the Dimona nuclear power plant, which would unleash deadly chaos on a grand scale.

Resultantly, the entity’s “Samson Option”, under which it is committed to launch a mass nuclear strike if its existence is threatened, should no longer be taken very seriously. Israeli military theorist Martin van Creveld once boasted, “we have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that will happen before Israel goes under.” But Tehran’s hypersonic missile capabilities are in every way an effective counter-deterrent. They could even deliver a nuclear, or chemical/biological payload of their own.

‘Whoever Moves’

The Zionist entity’s Iranian drubbing is further exacerbated by its attempt to crush Hamas being an absolute disaster, in every conceivable way. The fiasco’s consequences are and will remain wide-ranging and grave, to the extent of fatal. This may account for Netanyahu’s flailing bid to draw Tehran into all-out war. After all, the scale of Israeli Occupation Forces’ defeat is such that in an absolutely scathing op-ed for Haaretz on April 11th, Zionist “journalist” Chaim Levinson lamented:

“We’ve lost. Truth must be told… It’s unpleasant to say, but we may not be able to safety [sic] return to Israel’s northern border… No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing was dealt a beating. Our leadership’s weakness was revealed to the outside. For years we managed to fool them into thinking we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In truth, we’re a shtetl with an airforce, and that’s on the condition it’s awakened in time.”

Even the Western media, which since the genocide began has been at best silent and at worst complicit – and much more active in the latter sphere than the former – has acknowledged Tel Aviv’s battlefield cataclysm. The Economist, a nakedly Zionist publication that has whitewashed, diminished, or outright justified every conceivable crime committed by the IOF, has condemned the Forces’ “military and moral failures”, and how “its generals botched the strategy, and discipline among troops has broken down”:

“[Israel is] accused of two catastrophic failures. First, it has not achieved its military objectives in Gaza. Second, it has acted immorally and broken the laws of war. The implications for both the IDF and Israel are profound… Hamas fighters are still ambushing Israeli forces throughout Gaza and the group is reasserting itself in areas the IDF has left… Accusations that Israel has broken the laws of war are plausible.”

An Israeli Occupation Force psychopath

The Economist went on to slam a “lack of enforcement” of already virtually non-existent “rules of engagement” under which the IOF operate. A “veteran reserve officer” was quoted as saying commanders could arbitrarily “decide that whoever moves in his sector is a terrorist or that buildings should be destroyed.” A sapper in another unit admitted, “the only limit to the number of buildings we blew up was the time we had inside Gaza”:

“Soldiers have filmed themselves vandalising Palestinian property and, in some cases, put those videos online. On February 20 the IDF’s chief of staff published a public letter to all soldiers warning them to use force only where necessary, ‘to distinguish between a terrorist and who is not, not to take anything which isn’t ours – a souvenir or weaponry – and not to film vengeance videos.’ Four months into the war, this was too little, too late.”

That The Economist printed such things at all reflects how far the Zionist entity has fallen since October 7th. Now, it is a global pariah, viscerally loathed by the overwhelming majority of the world’s citizenry. Its once-vaunted military is not feared by adversaries, and their ability to unilaterally strike Muslim countries with total impunity, and no comebacks, is over. Tel Aviv’s claim to “defense” and security primacy, upon which much of its exports were successfully marketed for decades, has been amply demonstrated to be bogus.

Meanwhile, the entity has suffered population collapse, with concomitant mass brain drain and workforce freefall as settlers flee or get conscripted. Demand for mental health services has reached all-time highs, as the trauma of perpetrating genocide, and living under the daily threat of attack as Palestinians have since 1948, ravages soldiers and civilians alike. But scores of psychiatrists have relocated elsewhere due to stressful workloads, and likely won’t return. Such are the foundational flaws of a settler colonial state.

For many, these developments may be little consolation, coming as they do off the back of thousands of murdered and mutilated Palestinian children. Yet, they are unambiguous indicators that the Zionist entity is on the brink of extinction, which wasn’t the case before Hamas breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls on October 7th 2023. Palestine is now closer to being free than at any point since Israel’s creation. And there is no going back to “normal”.

Refaat Alareer

Time is now and forever on the side of the indefatigable, undefeated Resistance – so too justice, and virtue. We should never forget the immortal, galvanising words of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, slain in cold blood by a targeted IOF airstrike on December 6th 2023:

“If I must die, let it bring hope.”

May 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Biden Showed the World the US & NATO Are Paper Tigers

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 30.04.2024

On April 13, Iran responded to an Israeli attack on its embassy in Syria by striking Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles. While most were shot down by Israeli and US air defenses, hypersonic missiles fired by Iran hit their targets, showcasing the limits of Western defenses.

US President Joe Biden revealed to the world that the US military is no longer the giant that woke up on December 7, 1941, but a paper tiger unable to exert the power it once held. Both former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden described the United States in this way. Though it may have taken several decades, they are finally being proven correct.

The United States showed in the 1990s and through the start of this century that it was capable of dominating the battlefield when facing opponents with significantly less sophisticated equipment.

But, as American hegemony has slipped, other countries have caught up and in some aspects surpassed the so-called world’s only remaining superpower.

This is evident in the United States’ inability to halt the Yemen Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement’s blockade against ships traveling to Israeli ports and the United States’ failure to prevent Iran’s attack on Israeli military targets.

With the Houthis, the United States has resorted to attempting to bribe the group into stopping their attacks, a tactic that has failed. But the attack by Iran was worse for the perception of American-dominance, because the failure of its weapons were on full display.

While most if not all of the drones sent by Iran were taken out by a combination of Israeli and US air defense systems, the drones were intended to distract and exhaust the defenses and allow Iran’s hypersonic missiles to hit their targets, which most reports say they did.

The attack from Iran showed the world “that US defense capabilities” are “not there,” retired senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Monday.

“The ability to have a strong missile defense is not there, and the Russians [also] have these hypersonic capabilities,” Maloof explained. “[Iran] did hit their targets, and they did it with hypersonics and there was no defense.”

In Ukraine, the situation would be comical were it not so dark. As the Kiev regime hyped what became its failed counteroffensive last year, a succession of NATO equipment was touted as the game changer that would send the Russians into retreat.

First, it was the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, then Leopard tanks, then Challenger tanks, then a growing list of air defense systems and long-range artillery. Russia systematically destroyed them all, proving that NATO weapons are not the pinnacle of modern warfare and in many cases are relics of 20th-century warfare that will act as a gilded millstone around the neck of any army that relies on them in the 21st century.

There was another tank the US provided to Ukraine last summer, but it was not seen on the battlefield until very recently: the Abrams M1 tank. It too was touted as a game changer, but despite Ukraine’s desperate need for armor, they were not used until the battle for Avdeyevka in February of this year.

In September, Sputnik wrote an article highlighting the weaknesses of the Abrams tank, which was responded to by Popular Mechanics. The outlet asserted the Abrams would represent a “huge leap in the capabilities” of Ukrainian armor formations and accused Sputnik of exaggerating “not only the threat to Abrams tanks, but the tank’s vulnerabilities.”

The article concluded that Russian forces “will have to work very hard to kill an Abrams tank.” But when it finally arrived, five tanks were quickly destroyed and at least one tank was captured. Last week, US military officials confirmed to US media that Ukraine had removed the Abrams tanks from the front lines, saying that they are too easily destroyed by Russian drones.

“We saw, as with pretty much every type of tank we’ve seen in this combat that relatively cheap, $500, $1,000 a pop, Kamikaze drones can seriously damage a tank fairly easily,” security and international relations expert Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday.

The Abrams tank costs roughly $10 million a piece.

The shattering of NATO’s veneer of invincibility will have geopolitical implications, Maloof argued. “Are we going to … convince the Saudis now that we’re going to defend them, when they saw with their own eyes that whatever layering we performed for the Israelis didn’t work. Are they going to buy into that? No, they’re going to start going their own way, increasingly more so.”

On Tuesday, Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi described his talks with the Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia, Faisal F. Alibrahim as “productive.”
“Faisal F. Alibrahim agreed with all [of] Iran’s [economic] proposals,” Khandouzi noted.

“The days of US dominance [are] over, and we’re seeing this now as some 40 countries want to join BRICS and get out from under the dollar,” Maloof explained. “So, all of this is interrelated. It’s all playing [out] in real-time, before our very eyes, and it’s happening very rapidly.”

May 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen downs third US MQ-9 Reaper drone since November

The Cradle | April 27, 2024

The spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, announced on 27 April that Sanaa downed another MQ-9 Reaper drone and that its troops successfully targeted the British-owned MV Andromeda Star crude oil tanker.

According to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the Yemeni armed forces launched three anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea, causing minor damage to the Andromeda Star.

One of the missiles landed near a second vessel, the MV Maisha, but it was not damaged, CENTCOM said.

On Saturday, an unnamed US military official confirmed to CBS News that an MQ-9 Reaper drone “crashed” inside Yemen early on Friday and said an investigation is underway.

According to Saree, the $30 million drone was shot down by Yemeni air defenses in Sadaa province.

Yemen has downed three MQ-9 Reaper drones since the start of its operations in support of Palestine last November, costing the US government at least $90 million.

Despite launching an illegal war on the Arab world’s poorest country, the US has failed to deter attacks on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean by Sanaa.

The Yemeni armed forces initially targeted only Israeli-linked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait but expanded the operation to include US and UK ships after Washington and London began bombing the country.

An EU naval mission to “protect navigation” in the Red Sea has also failed to deter the attacks, as officials from Germany and France have said that the situation “remains the same.”

In the face of its failure, Washington recently offered Yemeni officials “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.

“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.

The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

On 22 April, the Yemeni armed forces announced that they would expand military operations against Israeli-linked ships in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean following the discovery of mass graves around several of Gaza’s hospitals.

April 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US & UK Reduced Naval Presence in Red Sea – Houthi Leader

Sputnik – 26.04.2024

The United States and the United Kingdom have scaled down their naval presence in the Red Sea despite lack of abatement in the intensity of attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthis rebels on Israeli-linked ships, the rebel movement’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said on Thursday.

“Our operations have not decreased, as the Americans claim, presenting this as their achievement, but rather the movement of their warships has decreased. There has been an 80% reduction in the movement of US Navy ships, not our operations,” al-Houthi was quoted by Iranian broadcaster Almasirah as saying on the occasion of 200 days of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, al-Houthi said that since the beginning of hostilities in Gaza, they have attacked 102 Israeli-affiliated ships, an equivalent of one ship every two days.

“The American and British enemies have failed to ensure the movement of Israel-bound ships despite constant and intensive monitoring. As long as the blockade and aggression against the Gaza Strip continues, operations in the southern Red Sea will continue,” al-Houthi said.

Moreover, the leader of the movement also known as Ansar Allah said that there was an ongoing effort to expand and strengthen operations in the Indian Ocean in ways that “the Americans, the British, the Israelis, and perhaps the rest of the world cannot envision.”

His statements came a day after the movement announced attacks on a US ship and a destroyer in the Gulf of Aden and an Israeli ship MSC Veracruz in the Indian Ocean after a week-long standoff.

Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the region for months, in response to Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The attacks prompted the US to form a multinational coalition to protect shipping in the area, as well as to strike Houthi targets on the ground.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US-UK launch new strikes on Yemen’s Hudaydah

MEMO | April 17, 2024

The US and Britain yesterday carried out two air raids on Yemen’s Bajil district, in the Hudaydah province in the west of the country.

No details regarding casualties or damage following the air strikes have been released so far.

Separately, it was also reported yesterday that a Yemeni civilian was killed following renewed Saudi targeting of Yemen’s border areas in Saada governorate.

A security source said that the Saudi army attacked the Al-Sheikh area in Munabeh district with artillery shells, which led to the death of a civilian and property damage.

Reacting to the latest US and British strikes, Russia has condemned the acts of aggression against Yemen. Russia’s deputy delegate to the Security Council, Dmitry Polyansky, said at a council meeting that the strikes on Yemeni territory were unacceptable, stressing that they harm the internal Yemeni settlement.

“We note the destructive role of the coalition that has established itself as its ruler, led by the United States and Britain, and which continues to launch weekly attacks on Yemeni territory,” Polyansky said.

He added: “We reiterate that the missile and bomb attacks launched by the Western coalition led by the United States on the territory of sovereign Yemen are categorically unacceptable, as are attempts to justify aggression by Security Council Resolution 2722 or by referring to the right to self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”

Since 12 January, a coalition led by the US has been conducting intermittent air strikes in Yemen as part of measures against the de facto government based in Sanaa. These air strikes are aimed at diminishing the capabilities of the Houthi-aligned armed forces who have been targeting Israeli-linked vessels in and around the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians amid the war on Gaza.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Navy Depletes $1Bln Worth of Weapons in Middle East in 6 Months – Secretary Del Toro

Sputnik – 16.04.2024

WASHINGTON – The US Navy needs to replace about $1 billion worth of munitions that it used to combat attacks on Red Sea shipping and defend Israel over the last six months, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

“Over the course of the last six months we have actually countered over 130 direct attacks on US Navy ships and merchant ships,” Del Toro said. “We currently are approaching $1 billion in munitions that we need to replenish at some point in time.”

Del Toro emphasized that it would be “critical” for Congress to pass a national security supplemental in order to replace the weapons, which include SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 missiles.

The national security supplemental passed by the US Senate includes $2 billion in funds for the US Navy that would be used to replenish the weapons, he added.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Red Sea rising: Exposing the West’s diminishing naval power

By Ali Halawi | Al Mayadeen | April 12, 2024

The Red Sea has witnessed several developments that brought to light the West’s fading power, as its enemies simultaneously and continuously develop precision weapons and naval capabilities.

Although ongoing escort, air defense, and aerial attack operations in the Red Sea are viewed as uncostly, in terms of human capital, and training routines that will raise the preparedness of NATO forces in the region, they have also unveiled a quite unpleasant reality for Western navies. On the flip side, the aerial attacks of Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) on Israeli-affiliated ships, which were later expanded to include US-UK-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, add to an extended bill that NATO countries pay for securing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

The weapons used in these operations are similar to Iranian-designed drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles and have been described as “cheap” yet effective weapons by US CENTCOM commanders. These precise guided munitions have been disseminated across factions in the Axis of Resistance, via direct armament or technology sharing. When put to the correct use the weapons have proven challenging for some of the world’s most well-trained and equipped forces.

West Asia casts a shadow over NATO military industrial complexes

Some weapons could have been transferred with the blueprints for the production of their main compartments and assembly at their final destination, bringing costs down and production levels up, further deepening the hole for Western counterparts. In the case of Ansar Allah in Yemen, the YAF owns and announces to locally produce a wide array of anti-ship weapons, as well as missiles, and drones that have been appropriated for attacking seaborne targets; currently being put to use to tighten a naval blockade on “Israel” through the Red Sea.

On the other hand, flailing Western military hegemony over the seas pushed the US and its allies to embark on a poorly planned campaign to protect Israeli shipping routes, forcing them to deal with these relatively low-cost weapons in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, where the YAF has dealt direct hits to multiple non-military vessels and threatened near hits some of the most advanced American military ships. This has been the case in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, where US military bases have suffered from the horrors of cheap low-flying, and ballistic weapons in more than 100 operations on US assets, which dealt precise hits to their targets on multiple occasions.

When countering these attacks, Western forces have utilized some of the most sophisticated anti-air surface-to-air missiles, which are estimated to cost millions of dollars of taxpayer money. In the Red Sea, the US-led Western alliance has relied on NATO-standard interceptors, each of which was developed to counter specific inbound aerial objects.

According to The Responsible Statecraft and news circulating on Western media outlets regarding the mishaps of air defense units, the Western coalition has depended on the use of a layered anti-air model, consisting of RIM-116 (RAM), RIM-66 (SM-2), RIM-174 (SM-6), RIM-162 (ESSM), and RIM-161 (SM-3) interceptors. Each interceptor has been developed to counter specific weaponry, however, they all share in common extremely pricey tags.

Price list for NATO’s Israeli maritime protection campaign

Below is a list of the cost of a single interceptor, excluding operational and battery costs, as of 2022:

  • RIM-116 (RAM): $905,000
  • RIM-66 (SM-2): $2,100,000
  • RIM-174 (SM-6): $3,901,818
  • RIM-162 (ESSM): $2,031,875
  • RIM 161 (SM-3) Block IB: $9,698,617
  • RIM-161 (SM-3) Block IIA: $27,915,625

The price list is retrieved from the US Department of Defense and military-industrial complexes’ official documents.

Germany’s Navy ridicules itself

Keeping the aforementioned price ranges in mind, an outrageous fluke that came as a result of a failed surface-to-air missile interception attempt by the German Navy’s Hessen frigate exposed the deep-lying issues for the US-led Naval alliance in the Red Sea.

What should have been a strike on a low-cost Yemeni drone turned into a shabby affair in which the German Navy misidentified the drone, launched a dual attack on an allied asset, failed to hit the aircraft, and suffered malfunctions that led to the destruction of two interceptors midflight.

At first glance, the attack underlines several glaring issues including, the under-preparedness of the German air defense crew, inadequate storage or production of interceptors, and poor communication between NATO allied forces at Sea. Some military-concerned outlets have attempted to shift the blame on outdated German comms, however, further investigation of the incident reveals an issue of economic cost that could tip the scale towards NATO’s enemies.

Germany’s embarrassing mishap would cost the country around $4.2 million, as the Hessen launched two SM-2s at a US MQ-9 reaper drone that it failed to identify.

No SM-2 batches produced since 2018

The cost of the failed operation should not be the only consideration here, as the last time Ratheon sold a batch of its SM-2 Block IIIA interceptors was in a deal it signed with Denmark back in 2018. The deal was worth $152 million for 46 SM-2 Block IIIA interceptors and corresponding equipment for a couple of vertical launch systems. Now, the company has stopped producing the system, and the interceptors for lack of international orders and plans to resume production in 2035.

However, conflict in Ukraine, the war on Gaza, and tensions in East Asia may prompt reconsideration, especially as the genocide of Palestinian people drags on while their allies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq tie their operations to the status of the aggression on Gaza itself.

Large-scale confrontation might see selective engagement

The fact that Raethon has not received any major orders since 2018 brings up the possibility of Western shortages in air defense systems and interceptors, in case of larger-scale engagement erupting in the region. The phenomenon cannot be limited to SM-2 interceptors but could affect a range of staple NATO-developed and produced SAMs, including the infamous Patriot systems, THAAD, Israeil Iron Dome, and other anti-ballistic and cruise missile systems.

Large-scale engagement will most likely see the Colletive West prioritize assets and selectively down often low-cost but deadly targets.

One Yemeni strike was capable of sinking a bulk carrier in the Red Sea, while an attack on a secret US outpost on the Jordanian-Syrian border injured and killed more than a hundred US servicepeople.

In a war of attrition, the Axis of Resistance’s factions will have the economic advantages of pumping out low-cost munitions that target multi-million dollar systems and vehicles, and the morale advantage of deep-rooted ideological motives related to religion and nativity to the lands they defend.

Another blunder: Denmark’s unreported defensive failure gets chief sacked

More recently, Denmark sacked its defense chief Flemming Lentfer after major faults were discovered in air defense systems on a frigate that it sent to the Red Sea earlier. Lentfer was axed on Wednesday night after failing to report to the Danish Defense Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, that the Iver Huitfeldt vessel had experienced a 30 minutes-long malfunction in one of its missile and radar systems, during a drone attack in the Red Sea. The malfunction led Danish authorities to recall the frigate from its mission, marking the gravity of the faults.

“I have lost trust in the chief of defense,” said Poulsen. Shockingly, he found out about the incident from a specialist military outlet, rather than any of his subordinates.

“We are facing a historic and necessary strengthening of Denmark’s defense forces. This places great demands on our organization and on the military advice at a political level,” he asserted.

Danish news website Olfi was the one to break the news to the Minister of Defense, explaining that the frigate was commanded by Commander Sune Lund, who complained about a problem with the ship’s active radar and C-Flex combat management system.

Unexplained outages to the systems were severe enough to prevent the frigate from launching its ESSM interceptors. The Danish frigate’s 76 mm guns were also reported to be defective on several occasions during deployment to the Red Sea. Other reports revealed other aspects of the commander’s message, in which he stated that the equipment problems reportedly had been known about for “years”, but that little had been done to address them.

Germany’s “Embarrassment” vs Yemen’s Victory

Back to Germany’s flop in the Red Sea, which was described by German media outlet BILD as an “Embarrassment to our (the German) Navy in the Red Sea”, the YAF had just marked another milestone by downing a US-operated MQ-9 Reaper Drone over Hodeidah a few days prior to the blunder.

Although both forces attempted to target different MQ-9-type drones using their own SAMs, the Yemeni Armed Forces were able to destroy the highly prized American drone with a “locally produced” air defense system while the Germans harrowingly failed. The Germans said that they mistakenly targeted a drone on February 28, 2024. However, their failure to down the then-unidentified object was due to unnamed technical malfunctions that led to the detonation of the two SM-2 missiles midflight, rather than active efforts to avert the disaster.

Interestingly, Sanaa had only unveiled two air defense systems capable of achieving such a hit. One of which is seemingly a copy of the Iranian-developed compact air-defense missile, dubbed Saqer-2. The missile can be easily transported and launched to take down close-range targets, flying at relatively slow speeds. The Saqer-2, a copycat of the Iranian so-called 358 surface-to-air missile reportedly functions like a one-way attack drone, reaching the required via a liquid fuel-propelled engine, to later hover near an aerial target, approaching it and detonating its warhead after being manually locked on to it by a ground operator, or by working in an autonomous mode.

However, footage published by the YAF’s Military Media indicated that the air defense system utilized in the incident was similar to traditional supersonic SAMs due to the speed at which it reached its target and the sound produced during its flight in the video.

Notably, the missile impacted the drone in a near direct trajectory and did not pause to hover nearby or for directions by operators. Examining the publicly revealed arsenal of the YAF, this likely indicates that the missile in use was the Bareq-1 or Bareq-2 SAM.

The missiles resemble the Iranian Taer line of missiles, which are used on a multitude of staple air defense systems. Digging deeper into the origin of the technology, it is clear that the Taer or Bareq lines of missiles are actually reverse-engineered models of the Soviet-era 3M9, incorporating certain elements from NATO Standard Missiles.

Presuming that the Bareq-2 was used by the YAF for the operation reveals an even deeper hole dug by Western military complexes for their own armies. Moreover, NATO’s SMs are much more developed than the YAF’s interceptors, as they incorporate a wide range of technological and hardware additions, putting them in a class of their own.

These additions allow for 360° scope for air defense teams allowing Hessen and other vessels to fire at any surrounding target within its range at any time without having to adjust their position while boosters on the SM-6 allow for longer-range targeting.

Still, the single-stage and aimed single launch conducted by the YAF achieved a direct hit to the 20 m-long US drone obliterating it to pieces that were scavenged by fighters on al-Hodeidah’s shore.

Yemen’s support to Palestine uncovers deep crises in NATO’s Naval power

Putting this series of unfolding events into the context of the Yemeni Armed Forces’ support to Palestine, as the Western-backed Israeli regime continues its genocidal war on Gaza, is key to not only regional security but global security as a whole.

The equations drawn by the YAF have been unprecedented in the history of the nation’s struggle against Western imperialism, as for the first time, an Arab nation has taken the responsibility of launching an expansive naval campaign to support a moral and national cause, whose result will alter the course of human history. By setting this historical precedent, Yemen has not only altered regional security to the favor of natives, but it has also exposed essential faults in NATO’s military and naval structure which can and will be taken advantage of by adversaries.

These events have not been limited to uncovering the flaws of Danish and German forces, but they have laid bare essential challenges for the far superior American and British navies.

For the US, issues have concentrated around logistics and the high cost of operating multiple strike groups, in order to maintain feeble objectives. The UK on the other hand has witnessed multiple accidents and complications during the period of its operations.

The Yemeni Armed Forces’ strategic engagements in the Red Sea highlight a significant shift in naval dynamics, exposing vulnerabilities in Western military prowess and logistical strategies. Despite maintaining relatively low-scale engagements, the YAF’s precision attacks on military vessels have yielded valuable experience and expanded their target list, aided by direct repercussions from the US’s involvement in the genocidal war on Gaza. This evolving scenario underscores the importance of the Axis of Resistance’s strategic foresight and adaptive responses in navigating the complexities of Western provocations, in the context of modern naval warfare, signaling a paradigmatic challenge for maintaining Western military hegemony in the region.

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Denmark sacks defense chief as Red Sea failures pile up for NATO

The Cradle | April 4, 2024

The Danish government fired Chief of Defense Flemming Lentfer on 3 April after it was revealed that the top military official failed to report flaws in the HDMS Iver Huitfeldt’s air defense and weapons systems that emerged during an attack last month by the Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea.

“I have lost trust in the chief of defense,” Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, told reporters on Wednesday night. Poulsen reportedly learned about the failure from the Danish military outlet Olfi.

“We are facing a historic and necessary strengthening of Denmark’s defense forces. This places great demands on our organization and on the military advice at a political level,” the Danish official added.

On 9 March, the Iver Huitfeldt’s air defense systems failed for 30 minutes while engaging Yemeni attacks launched in support of the resistance in Gaza, according to a leaked document written by the ship’s commanding officer and reviewed by Olfi. The document also reported issues with the ship’s ammunition system, which caused half of its rounds to detonate before they hit their target.

“Our clear understanding is that the issue has been known for years without the necessary sense of urgency to resolve the problem,” the frigate’s commanding officer reported.

The Iver Huitfeldt eventually fended off the attack, shooting down four drones over the Red Sea in what – at the time – was presented as a success story.

Lentfer’s firing is the latest in a string of recent public embarrassments from NATO member states, particularly in the Red Sea, where a months-long campaign of US and UK airstrikes inside Yemen has failed to deter attacks against Israeli-linked vessels.

“We favor a diplomatic solution; we know that there is no military solution,” US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking said on Wednesday from Oman, candidly acknowledging the failure of what US military commanders called Washington’s largest naval battle since WWII.

Other recent mishaps for NATO include Germany’s use of obsolete communications systems and unsecured lines to discuss providing Ukraine with cruise missiles and Britain’s failure twice in a row to test its nuclear missiles after having two of its flagship aircraft carriers break down ahead of drills in Norway.

April 4, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

A potential UAE-Hezbollah thaw?

By Radwan Mortada | The Cradle | March 31, 2024

The veiled details behind the recent visit of Wafiq Safa, head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, to the UAE remain undisclosed. Rumors propagated by Saudi media have tried to insinuate that the Lebanese resistance party aims to placate its stance towards Israel, possibly even contemplating concessions.

This narrative seeks to undermine or distort any real achievements gained during the rare trip. Despite all the conjecture, one development is undeniable: there has been a nascent shift in thawing the longstanding hostilities between Hezbollah and the UAE — a prominent Arab ally of both the US and Israel.

Strained relations 

The sudden revelation of Safa’s visit to the Persian Gulf state on 19 March was indeed astonishing — a first by a senior Hezbollah official in many years — particularly given Abu Dhabi’s active role in clamping down on even pro-Hezbollah sentiments within the UAE.

The UAE’s track record includes arbitrary arrests and expulsions of Lebanese nationals under all sorts of dubious charges, often subjecting them to inhumane treatment, exemplified tragically in the case of Lebanese businessman Ghazi Ezzeldin, who was tortured to death while in Emirati custody last year.

News reports suggest that seven Lebanese citizens — four serving life sentences; two others facing 15 years in prison — remain incarcerated in the Emirates under charges of laundering funds for Hezbollah and Iran, and for the spurious claim of having made contact with Hezbollah. All of the detainees deny these charges.

In short, UAE authorities need little justification to accuse Lebanese individuals of ties to Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist entity in the Emirates.

The UAE, it should be noted, is Tel Aviv’s closest Arab ally in West Asia, marked by Abu Dhabi’s decision in 2020 to normalize relations with the occupation state — with Bahrain, the first Arab state in the Persian Gulf to do so. Despite Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, economic ties between the UAE and Israel continue to flourish, further entrenching their alliance against common adversaries.

Against this backdrop, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad emerges as an unexpected mediator, leveraging his amicable relations with the UAE leadership, united in their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Behind the scenes, the UAE has been quietly leveraging its international clout to lift US Caesar Act sanctions on Syria, with an eye on participating in the war-torn country’s reconstruction efforts. As the first Arab state to break Assad’s diplomatic isolation, the UAE has now seized the opportunity to engage with Hezbollah via its renewed Damascus channel.

Preliminary discussions, facilitated by Syrian General Intelligence Director Major General Hossam Louka, bridged the gap between the two parties. These exchanges, held on Syrian soil, involved representatives from both Hezbollah and UAE officials.

Louka also visited Lebanon and the UAE to meet with Emirati officials and the leadership of Hezbollah and convey a detailed message to Assad.

Contrary to the many sensationalized reports in regional media, informed sources tell The Cradle that Safa encountered no explicit demands from UAE officials during his visit. Instead, discussions centered on two pivotal objectives: first, securing the release of Lebanese detainees unjustly incarcerated in the UAE under charges of affiliation with Hezbollah, and second, improving the precarious conditions Lebanese expatriates face in the UAE, where their presence is securitized by the state.

The sources affirm the constructive nature of the meetings and indicate there may be imminent releases of the Lebanese detainees before the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

What do both parties want?

But the timing of Safa’s visit, as Israel escalates airstrikes on Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, raises speculation about the implications of this renewed relationship. Safa himself is on a US sanctions list, while Hezbollah retains its designation as a terrorist organization by both Washington and the Persian Gulf states.

The UAE, having previously subjected Lebanese nationals to unjust treatment, now initiates efforts to mend ties with Hezbollah. Conversely, Hezbollah, having waged a war to free prisoners from Israeli detention, displays a willingness to engage in dialogue, even if the optics of its representative shaking hands with UAE officials may not be well-received back home.

Following the visit, Hezbollah issued a very brief statement:

“The head of the Liaison and Coordination Unit, Hajj Wafiq Safa, visited the United Arab Emirates as part of the ongoing follow-up to address the case of a number of Lebanese detainees there, where he met with a number of officials concerned with this case, and [a solution to this issue will be reached hopefully].”

Nevertheless, the underlying question remains: What does the UAE seek to achieve? Did it initiate this thaw in relations merely to reopen its embassy in Lebanon after years of closure and diplomatic strife? Does the UAE have hidden intentions concealing these superficial objectives — and what role could Hezbollah play in this equation?

Outreach to Iran via its allies 

Early this year, as the regional war expanded, CIA Director William Burns wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine: “The key to Israel’s — and the region’s — security is dealing with Iran.”

Abu Dhabi too, knows that the relationship with Tehran is pivotal to resolving crises in the region. Hence, the UAE has taken a significant stride towards Hezbollah, recognizing its critical regional role. While this unusual meeting could have taken place in Damascus, in secret, the UAE opted instead for a public airing and even arranged for Safa’s transportation via plane to the Emirates.

Moreover, Abu Dhabi’s interest in improving relations with Hezbollah and its leadership could have direct security benefits. The Lebanese party has influence with Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, whose naval operations in the Red Sea and other waterways are impacting international navigation and, thus, Emirati interests from the Persian Gulf to the Horn of Africa.

While a Syrian source tells The Cradle that the meeting yielded positive outcomes and is likely to be followed by further engagements, the visit carries implications that extend well beyond the immediate parties involved.

Beyond improving Hezbollah-UAE or Iran-UAE understandings, it will be essential to monitor the subsequent actions of Saudi Arabia’s leadership after this event.

In essence, these developments could lead to improved future relations between Hezbollah and Arab states of the Persian Gulf, in turn reversing Washington and Tel Aviv’s strategic target of clinching further normalization deals for Israel in West Asia.

March 31, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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