Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Yemen! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Italy, Spain and France have all withdrawn from "Operation Prosperity Guardian" and are withdrawing their warships
Yemen wins again
Norway has banned the landing of a Russian plane with a dying man on board. On a Nordwind Airlines flight from Moscow to Cuba, a person began bleeding internally due to an ulcer.
Passengers on the flight told Shot that the pilots requested permission to land at one of the nearest airports in Norway, but were refused. Afterwards, the pilots announced the plane was turning around back to Moscow. The Norwegian authorities stated that they allowed the airliner to use the country’s airspace in order to “fly back faster.”
At the time the plane landed in Moscow, the injured passenger was still conscious. He was taken away by ambulance.
Seriously Norway?!
Logged in here again after a few days of being forced to deal with stuff in a place called the "real world" for nerds or something.
Was happy to see hexbear.net/u/ThomasMuentzner remembering my existence. We're all mostly unemployed daydreamers here, but it still warms my dead heart that I've made a miniscule impact on someone's life.
I'm preparing a little effortpost to celebrate the COTW being Yemen this week. It has barely anything to do with politics, but I'll give you guys three hint words: Jews, Music, Poetry. I also have a really interesting political story about northern Yemen's transition from the Imamate to modern chaos that I have written somewhere in Arabic, gotta translate it and post it here during this week.
Operation Prosperity Guardian is not going well for the US:
- Iran fired at Israeli tanker in the Indian Ocean
- Spain wont participate at all without UN or Nato running the show, so Spain is out for now
- Italy is sending just 1 frigate, and not as part of the operation
- France is still in, but not under US command
- Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark are sending no ships. Sending liason officers only.
- Currently, the operation consists if 7 US ships, Incl. 1 carrier, 1 British warship, and 1 Greek warship
- Permanent ceasefire called in Yemeni Civil War.
Yemen has apparently come out of an impending war with half of the west even stronger than it started. This might be the best day for the resistance since Oct 7th
USA announced the start of Operation Prosperity Guardian
USA and with multiple countries including the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain will try to safeguard the Red Sea
UAE and Saudi rejected US proposal to go against Yemen
hmm wonder what's easier, just telling Isntreal to stop committing genocide, or having to put together a westoid taskforce and hoping it too doesn't get bombed by Ansarallah
EVERGREEN DENIES ISRAELI SHIPPMENTS AND CARGO !
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67748813
Ukraine war: Kyiv forced to cut military operations as foreign aid dries up
Putin admitted that in the “zero” he was a naive person, believing that the West did not want confrontation with the Russian Federation. In an interview with journalist Zarubin, the president explained his wish to “myself from 2000” not to be naive and overly gullible.
“Still, I had a naive idea that the whole world, I am absolutely convinced, the so-called civilized one, understands what happened to Russia. That it has completely become a different country, that there is no longer ideological confrontation, which means there is no basis for confrontation <...> I believed that this was simply the inertia of thinking and action,” Putin said.
Putin is sad that Russia was not allowed to join the League of Fascism even after a successful rebranding. Maybe it’s time to wake up that it’s the AES that are standing up for you, not the Western imperialist countries you admire so much.
But it’s still funny to see him admit to himself that he’s a naive person (very true).
A gold-plated camouflage veil that can make a cruise missile look like a passenger plane on a radar screen could “change the face of war”, according to the team of Chinese scientists behind the design.
The low-cost technology can confuse expensive air defence systems and significantly reduce the time available for military commanders to respond – if at all.
Developed by a research team in northwest China, the project is part of an ongoing effort by China to build up a wide range of ways it can penetrate air defence systems in the first island chain, Guam or even the US homeland.
I can see a major problem with this - you're assuming that the United States is above shooting down passenger planes.
