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Aujourd’hui — 28 mars 2024Vos flux RSS

Plucked Peacocks in Françafrique..

Par : AHH

Lost in the thunder of the two incendiary battlegrounds of the Ukraine and the Holy Land, the end of the western Age of Plunder is vividly demonstrated in the West African Sahel. Calm business arrangements are conducted with friendly states, even as the last US garrisons are dismantled, one by one.


💠 @Intel Slava Z:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇫🇷🇸🇳 SENEGAL: how Russia is destroying French neocolonialism

Historical events are brewing in another West African country, Senegal. Getting rid of the country’s neocolonial dependence on its former official metropolis – France.

Over the weekend, presidential elections took place here, in which the opposition candidate Bashiru Jumaye Faye is confidently leading (and may even win them in the first round, which will become known tomorrow), who, as part of his election promises, promised to review oil and gas deals with Western campaigns, including agreements with British Petroleum, Endeavor Mining and Kosmos Energy.

He also advocates a radical revision of relations between Senegal and France. And as part of this, Faye is going to follow neighboring Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to leave the French currency system (by abandoning the CFA franc). And the French military will have to leave the country. By the way, sensing something was wrong, Paris had already announced a little earlier that it was sharply reducing the military contingent in the country (probably so that it would not be so shameful later). In return, he promises to take a course towards rapprochement with Russia.

Thus, France’s next major foreign policy defeat on the African continent looms on the horizon. Moreover, Senegal was a key player in the issue of the blockade of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, which had previously freed themselves from the influence of Paris. And the departure of Senegal from the CFA franc zone puts a final and fat cross on this system (which brought huge profits to France) and on which the entire system of French neocolonialism was essentially built.

And hence all of Macron’s current anti-Russian hysteria. He, like a plucked rooster, understands that he is losing to Russia and therefore becomes hysterical. And Ukraine for him is the last chance to spoil Moscow. But I think he will be disappointed here too.


💠 @Russian MFA:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇳🇪📞 President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone with President of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland of the Republic of Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani, who expressed solidarity with the Russian people and heartfelt condolences over the numerous victims of the heinous terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.

In discussing the bilateral agenda, the Leaders expressed determination to step up political dialogue and develop mutually beneficial cooperation in various spheres.

They also exchanged views on the developments in the Sahel-Sahara region with an emphasis on coordination of security and counterterrorism efforts. 

💠 @Sputnik Africa:
⭕ 🇳🇪 US will plan for the “disengagement” of troops from Niger after its military pact with Washington ends, Niger’s interior minister says.

The statement was published on social media after Mohamed Toumba hosted US Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon for talks.

A spokesperson for the Nigerien military said in mid-March that the country’s transitional government, which took power in a coup last July, ended the agreement with immediate effect, citing the interests of the Nigerien people.

💠@Africa Intel:
⭕ 🇷🇺🌍 Putin discusses security cooperation with West and Central African leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed security and economic cooperation with Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita by phone on Wednesday, both countries said, a day after Putin held a similar call with the junta leader in neighbouring Niger.

“We discussed bilateral issues, particularly the security and economic areas,” Goita said. “We agreed to cooperate further in the fight against terrorism.” The Kremlin confirmed.

The call appeared to be part of a round of diplomatic exchanges Putin has made with West and Central African leaders since his re-election earlier this month.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday Putin and the leader of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, had agreed in a phone call to deepen political, economic and humanitarian ties.

On Tuesday, Putin spoke by phone with Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tiani and discussed a need to reinforce their security cooperation, according to Nigerien state television.


💠 @Arab_Africa:
⭕ 🇺🇸 The US is worried that Niger will replace its military with Russian mercenaries

This was stated by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, at a hearing on the US military posture in the Middle East and Africa.

According to him, the recent expulsion of the US military from Niger may be linked to security talks with Iran and Russia that took place the day before.

“It looks like Niger will soon join Mali, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique and Burkina Faso in welcoming Russian troops and mercenaries into their country,” Rogers suggested. He also noted that China is at the same time seeking to expand its military presence beyond the PLA naval base in Djibouti.

“And they set up bases on the west coast to give the PLA strategic access to the Atlantic. China has already built and currently operates several major trading ports along the west coast of Africa,” the Republican reported.

Finally, Rogers warned that the US could lose the initiative due to inaction on the continent.

“Africa is of vital strategic importance to the United States. We cannot allow China or Russia to become their preferred security or business partner,” the American worries.
#нувыпонимаете
LOL


💠@Sputnik Africa:
⭕ “Atomexpo-2024,” the largest international forum on nuclear energy, was held on March 25-26 in Russia. Here are our publications not to be missed
🔸 Atomexpo-2024 nuclear industry forum breaks attendance record;
🔸 Rosatom signs roadmaps for developing cooperation on nuclear energy with Mali, and Burkina Faso and AlgeriaNOTE: the first two are members of the Sahelian Junta Belt..
🔸 “Russia will be able to better support Burkina Faso towards its energy independence,” a Burkinabe minister reveals details of the roadmap with Rosatom;
🔸 “Gold mined in Mali should be processed in Mali,” Malian minister of mines comments on the gold processing plant project with Russia;
🔸 Cooperation with Russia can help eliminate power shortages in Africa and advance Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, says minister;
🔸 Russia attracted Africans’ interest in nuclear energy because it’s a reliable partner, says a Rosatom official;
🔸 With the help of the agreements with Rosatom, Burundi intends to have a nuclear power plant that will help launch the country into industrial production, says a minister from the African country.

À partir d’avant-hierVos flux RSS

The Nuland – Budanov – Tajik – Crocus connection

Par : AHH

The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.

Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.

December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”

January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.

January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.

February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.

February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.

Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.

Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).

Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.

March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.

March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.

March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.

March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.

March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.

ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms

The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi– similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.

And that brings us to the Tajik connection.

There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.

The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.

All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.

A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.

And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.

The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.

Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.

Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.

Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.

Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.

Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.

The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.

The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.

After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.

That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.

Oleh Tyahnybok, with McCain and Nuland

The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs

Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.

Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.

One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.

The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.

The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.

Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,

As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.

Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).

The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.

The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.

But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.

Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.

In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

Double Crossing of the Red Line

Par : AHH

Moscow’s Terror Explosion – Macron’s NATO Troops to Ukraine

Peter Koenig
23 March 2024

Automatic gun-shooting by 5 men in black took place Friday evening 22 March in the Crocus City Concert Hall, attached to a shopping mall, at the outskirts of Moscow. The terror attack preceded a concert. The hall was therefore crowded with people, panicking for leaving it. The assault was followed by a massive explosion.

The official fatality as of 23 March stands at 133. Dozens of people were injured.

The Islamic State (IS) – a CIA creation – claimed credit for the attack.

However, the political end of this attack is more complex.
On March 7, 2024, the US Embassy in Russia warned Moscow that a terror attack may take place in Moscow within the next few weeks. No further details.

Is it one of the now fashionable “predictive planning” stunts?

On the same day, the same US Embassy in Moscow warned US citizens in Moscow not to visit shopping malls. How much did the US know?

Speculations abound. Was this an empty warning to destabilize Russia and Russian elections? Or was it one more provocation to pull Russia into a larger conflict?

On the day of the attack, John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House said in a Press Conference that there were no indications that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack. In early March Washington just had some indications that a terror assault may hit Moscow.

“Some indications”? – Why then the warning on the same 7 March to US citizens in Moscow not to visit any shopping malls?

It could not be more obvious that a hidden agenda is being played by Washington – and, may be added, by NATO and Europe?

Whether the Islamic State, Al Qaeda or another CIA / MI6 terror creation – or even Kiev directly, was involved in this mass-killing is irrelevant, because whoever acted, did so on behalf of US / NATO and the collective West.

Admiral John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House

It is no coincidence that French President Macron practically simultaneously sends officially 2,000 French NATO troops to Ukraine. “Officially”, because western / NATO military advisers, trainers and coaches for Kiev’s Nazi-military have been in Kiev for quite a while.

Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski has called it an open secret that Western soldiers are in Ukraine. German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz said, “there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” (See this)


This is clearly the crossing of President Putin’s Red Line. Mr. Macron knows it, those who mandate the crossing of the Red Line, like the WEF and those dark Deep State Cult forces behind the WEF, know it – and Moscow knows that they know it.

Is it a provocation to pull Moscow into a hot war?
And the Moscow Concert Hall assault being a doubling-up of the Red-Line crossing?

This happening in the Ides of March, and just after the confirmed landslide re-election of President Putin on 17 March 2024.

Ides of March, is the day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls approximately on Mid-March and is associated with misfortune and doom. The date is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Most US wars were initiated in March. Is it a symbolic cult ritual of the west?

It would perfectly fit into the Death Cult of the Great Reset (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030, which are currently plaguing humanity – worldwide.

There are other non-coincidences. The 24 March 2024 is the 25th anniversary of the 1999 US-NATO assault on Yugoslavia (Ides of March) – currently being commemorated by a three-day Conference 22-24 March 2024, in Belgrade.

The destruction and dismembering of Yugoslavia were also planned by a long hand. After Josip Tito’s death in May 1980 (he served in several leadership positions of Yugoslavia from 1943 – 1980) – there were some lesser communist successors, who were vulnerable to western / NATO “pressures”, and let what was a solid Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) deteriorate, western-style.

In 1990 Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia became de facto President of the SFR Yugoslavia attempting to hold the federation together – which in the ten years after President Tito’s departure was financially destabilized by the west. In the 1990s the SFR Yugoslavia was one of the first “cases” where the World Bank, IMF Washington Consensus was applied full-scale – indebting to destabilize, create internal unrest – and divide.

Mr. Milošević was captured, detained at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prison in The Hague. He was poisoned on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell – shortly before his scheduled appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Once divided with constant civil unrest, there was “justification” for western rescue, i.e., bombing Yugoslavia literally into bits and pieces – leaving what we have today, numerous so-called independent former Yugoslavian Federal States – being economically and with “sanctions” controlled by the west.

This is the strategy Washington wants to apply to the Russian Federation – destabilizing it, fracturing it, Regime Change, and then taking it over.

Imagine! – The world’s biggest riches in the world’s largest country, absorbed or subdued by the (still) wannabe US Empire – and its European vassals.

It looks like the west wants a hot war with Russia, come hell or high water. Yes, it would be hell for Europe – for the third time in just over 100 years, and three-times for the same purpose – taking control of Russia, WWI, WWII and now WWIII?

A war – possibly nuclear – of which nobody can predict the outcome. As President Putin repeatedly said – there will be no winners, just absolute destruction.

Under no circumstances will Russia allow a take-over by an arrogant, criminal west. With Russian military’s far-superiority over US and NATO forces, this will not happen.

In the current Middle-East scenario, western leaders are supporting and funding the Israeli-Zionists, literally destroying and mass-killing – wiping out – Palestine, depicting an arrogance blinded by the zest for unlimited might, possibly driving humanity into a bottomless abyss.

A cleansing of this genocidal western “superiority” may bring birth of a new civilization – an evolution to a more spiritual and less material humanity.

—-

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Fallout from Moscow’s Crocus City Hall

Par : AHH

Was the US behind the Moscow terror attack? The US and Ukraine will pay a high price. And that, I have been reliably informed, will extend to our Arab world.

By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.

The Ukraine war could be poised to take a dramatic new turn

The terrorist operation in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall centre, which killed 143 people and injured hundreds of others, mostly concertgoers, was clearly carried out by a group that had been given serious military training. It could mark a paradigm shift in the Ukraine war presaging a strategic escalation and NATO’s official entry into the war.

Two weeks earlier, the US embassy in Moscow had warned its citizens that extremists were planning imminent attacks on large gatherings, including concerts, in the Russian capital, and warned them to stay away. That foreknowledge of the planning and execution of the operation raised suspicions about a degree of complicity. Washington’s denunciation of the atrocity, and swift disavowal of involvement, cannot be taken at face value.

When the initial warning was made, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova remarked that if the US had information about terrorist actions of such enormity, it should have shared it with Russia. That was the first official hint from Moscow of suspected American complicity.

Two years into the Ukraine war, the US has begun to sense defeat. Russia has made a succession of gains, taking control of the Donbas region and annexing it after holding referendums.

Large-scale US and NATO intervention — on the material, military, and intelligence fronts — failed to achieve any major success. Russia did not collapse under the weight of draconian sanctions. Its economy remains strong. The predicted colour revolution never happened, nor the anticipated military coup to depose Putin.

The opposite occurred, with the Russian president getting re-elected with an 87% majority on a 74% turnout.

The resort to terrorist attacks in Moscow could be a mark of the US’ frustration and a response aimed at expanding the scope of the war. But that would not only be a losing bet. It could bring the prospect of a catastrophic nuclear war closer.

Putin announced on Saturday night that the eleven people involved in the attack, including four direct participants, had been apprehended.
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of the Russia Today broadcast network, Margarita Simonyan, published video excerpts of the interrogation of one of the suspects. He identified himself as Feredoun Shamsedin, born in 1988, who arrived in Russia from Turkey on 4 March. He said he had been recruited via Telegram after following an extremist preacher, by someone who offered him 5 million roubles ($5,000) to conduct a mass killing in Moscow. Half of the money was transferred to him in advance.

I met Ms. Simonyan when I visited Moscow recently. She was constantly accompanied by a security detail because she had been subjected to death threats. She said she believed the Crocus atrocity was masterminded by the Ukrainian regime, rather than by ISIS as the US media were claiming. Putin’s subsequent assertion that the perpetrators were arrested while heading towards the Ukrainian border reinforced that accusation.

Russia’s fingers of blame pointed at Ukraine were a portent of fierce retaliation. It seems to have already begun. Former president and current deputy national security chief Dmitri Medvedev warned immediately after the massacre that Russia would hunt down any Ukrainian leaders proven to have been involved.

Reading between the lines, that may imply that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could be top of the target list.

Two days before the Crocus attack, Putin threatened Ukraine with ”war’—abandoning the term special military operation’ — in response to French President Emanual Macron’s hint that NATO could send 90,000 fully equipped troops to Ukraine. Under Russian military doctrine, a declaration of war authorises the use of all available means, including nuclear weapons.

The US administration, disoriented and defeated in Ukraine and (so far) the Middle East, is fueling this escalation against Russia. It is the primary beneficiary of the Crocus attack. Not just to destabilise Russia by stoking ethnic tensions, but also to divert international attention away from its collusion in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the failure of its cynical attempt at the UN Security Council to sustain it under the guise of favouring (but not actually calling for) a cease-fire.

Putin won’t forgive this assault on his capital while it was celebrating the renewal of his presidential term. He is likely to make the US and Ukraine pay a high price. And that, I have been reliably informed, will extend to our Arab world.

Yemen’s Indian Ocean Checkmate

Par : AHH

Ansarallah has single-handedly disrupted global shipping power dynamics. Yemen is launching attacks against Israeli-linked vessels deep into the Indian Ocean to cut off the last waterway route to the occupation state.

By Khalil Harb at The Cradle.

Our people are ready to send hundreds of thousands of mujahideen to Palestine. Okay, geography might pose a problem. It could be a problem for our people to go there in large numbers. Nevertheless, and despite all the obstacles, we will not hesitate to do whatever we can. We are completely coordinated with our brothers in the Jihad and resistance front to do anything and everything that we can do.  — Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, 10 October 2023

Since Abdul-Malik al-Houthi’s proclamation three days after the launch of the Palestinian resistance’s 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, under his leadership, has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Ansarallah’s maritime reach has surpassed all initial expectations, now extending to the distant shores of the Indian Ocean in its ambitious plan to besiege Israel by targeting the occupation state’s shipping interests.

Yemen’s strategic position not only serves as a beacon of hope for Palestinians enduring Israel’s brutal military assault on their lives, homes, and livelihoods but has also become a crucial pillar in the Axis of Resistance’s fight against US hegemonic machinations in West Asia.

In late February, al-Houthi vowed to expand the scope of attacks against Israel-linked vessels, stating, “We have surprises that the enemies do not expect at all,” before announcing the successful testing of a new hypersonic missile.

This stands in stark contradiction to western narratives trumpeting their own containment efforts to encircle Yemen and thwart its ability to intercept Israel-bound vessels. If anything, the naval operations undertaken by the Ansarallah-aligned armed forces are instead rippling outward, spanning a remarkable distance of over 6,000 kilometers from the Yemeni coast to the Indian Ocean.

Failure of ‘Prosperity Guardian’

Crucially, Yemen’s defiance has drawn widespread, popular support from its once-warring nationals, not just in support of Gaza and the Israeli blockade but also against the relentless US and British airstrikes launched under the fig leaf of Operation ‘Prosperity Guardian‘ – an extrajudicial imperial project which aims to cripple Ansarallah’s military capabilities under the guise of securing international shipping and trade routes.

Yet al-Houthi’s unequivocal declaration on barring the passage of ships associated with Israel, or those engaged in commercial ties with it, from traversing the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope shows that Washington and London have been dealt a resounding strategic defeat.

By targeting these two new critical waterway passages, Yemen imposes a new reality on global shipping routes. This phase of the naval battle presents a significant threat to the world’s established maritime corridors, compelling commercial vessels traveling to and from Southeast Asia to navigate lengthier and more costly routes around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Mediterranean Sea.

Iran’s partner, not a proxy

Al-Houthi’s message is clear: “Do the Americans, British, and the Zionists expect that any aggressive act against Yemen will distract us from defending Gaza?” Ansarallah recently announced the targeting of over 70 commercial ships with ties to Israel, alongside military battleships across the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean.

Moreover, Yemen’s stance challenges western reports of secret talks brokered by Oman between the US and Iran, purportedly aimed at containing the conflict, preventing it from spreading further from the ‘Yemeni front.’

Despite Washington’s announcement that it has released $10 billion in frozen Iranian funds and its ferocious intimidation and enticement maneuvers behind the scenes, Sanaa’s strategic move towards the Indian Ocean should dismiss any rumors about an impending ‘US–Iran deal.’

Instead of acquiescing to US pressure, Tehran is working to maintain stability and avert all-out war through its ‘support fronts’ in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The escalation in Yemen poses a greater regional challenge, overshadowing any temporary truces in Iraq by some factions.

While the Biden administration attempts to portray its diplomatic efforts as successes, particularly through indirect negotiations with Tehran and plans to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, the situation in Yemen remains a humiliating inconvenience for a White House heading into an election cycle. This comes against the backdrop of a White House also frantically trying to manage the Iraqi and Lebanese arenas, which are equally pushing back against US hegemonic interests.

As the spokesman for the Iraqi resistance Al-Nujaba movement, Dr Hussein al-Musawi, tells The Cradle:

Our principles are clear and firm regarding the American presence on Iraqi soil, which is a complete exit without any interference in our political, economic, and other affairs; ending its control over the aspects of Iraq’s politics; and liberating its land and wealth; and political and economic independence.

Economic ramifications for Israel 

Sanaa’s strategic maneuvering in the Red Sea–Gulf of Aden–Indian Ocean corridor not only poses a distraction for US and British naval forces but also presents unforeseen challenges. While US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Israel after announcing his ‘Guardian of Prosperity’ operation, the Yemeni resistance was busy adding millions of square kilometers to their area of missile confrontation.

The 12 percent of global trade passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait has already suffered a blow to the core. The resulting disruptions, including increased shipping costs and insurance premiums, are anticipated to fuel inflation and potentially paralyze Israeli ports such as Eilat and decrease traffic in Haifa.

While the full extent of damage to Israel’s foreign trade remains unclear, initial estimates suggested losses exceeding $180 billion, considering pre-existing trade figures from 2022.

Yemen’s growing naval capabilities

Simultaneously, the question arises: how will the ‘Guardian of Prosperity’ forces, previously tasked with monitoring just the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to counter Yemeni missile threats, manage the vast expansion required to monitor the thousands of ships traversing to and from the Cape of Good Hope across the Indian Ocean?

While the US and UK do not reveal the number of naval vessels assigned to their almost impossible mission, numbers circulating claim the participation of several US battleships, including the USS Laboon, USS Carney, and USS Mason – and from the British, the destroyer HM Diamond. Greece is estimated to have one frigate involved, France contributes naval vessels under US command, and Italy claims to have a frigate that operates outside the operation’s banner. Although the coalition publicly announced the inclusion of more than twenty countries in its mission, the actual naval commitment from its members appears negligible.

Furthermore, it’s hard not to notice the fundamental inefficiencies inherent to the western naval operation: the US “is launching $2 million defense missiles to stop $2,000 Houthi drones.” It was no surprise then when a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged a few days ago that despite ongoing western strikes on Yemen, Ansarallah’s capabilities have not been undermined.

And then Abdul-Malik al-Houthi comes along and adds the Indian Ocean to the US’ horror scenario with an area exceeding 70 million square kilometers.

Ali al-Qahum of Ansarallah’s Political Bureau characterizes this expansion as a “shocking and unexpected surprise” for the resistance’s adversaries. At the same time, it amplifies Yemen’s globally strategic significance as a military force – one that can successfully execute a comprehensive siege on Israel.

It is not clear whether the announcement of including the Indian Ocean in the Yemeni naval operations is related to the tests of the hypersonic missile. It would make Yemen one of only a small handful of nations to possess this unique military capability – Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Regardless, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi’s ability to take the enemy by surprise showcases Yemen’s capacity to disrupt established power dynamics, particularly in the West Asian region. By supporting Gaza unequivocally, the Yemeni front within the Resistance Axis is further diminishing US influence amid the waves of the Indian Ocean, unless a lasting ceasefire is imposed in Gaza.

WHAT?! Yemen Just Closed the Indian Ocean to USUK Ships too

Par : AHH

“… and all linked to zionists…”

Richard connects a terrible dot on the back of my mind! Yemen didn’t merely extend the Gauntlet to the Indian Ocean for the zionists, but to the same western parties they currently fight in the Red Sea. They closed the South Africa route to USUK and those of the combined West that partake of the aggression against Palestine and/or themselves in the Red Sea or hinder the Gauntlet in the Red Sea! They emphasized this on day one by droning or missiling two US ships in the Indian Ocean………..

Let’s see if they can carry it off. Assuming they will be as resourceful as only motivated Yemenis can be.. and that several civilizational-states work to ensure they get accurate targeting and manifests of cargo ships to be targetted, what would be the consequences for severing the India/China sea trade to Europe and to the eastern US seaboard?? The US has the Pacific coast option, but Europe.. would be reduced to railroads, mostly through.. Russia as they helped torch West Asia, the Ukraine, and currently stoke Transcaucasia. This is unliveable

Yemen consolidates around Ansar Allah (Houthis)

Par : AHH

In Yemen, The Squabbling Tribes — ancient vehicle used by Empires to divide and rule  — have been harnessed by Ansar Allah into the unbreakable internal front; the rock upon which shatters the thalassocratic West.

By Saqr Abo Hasan at The Cradle.

In Yemen, tribes hold the keys to power

Yemen’s many tribes are key powerbrokers in the country’s wars and conflicts. Today, it is Ansarallah, and not foreign powers, that has emerged as the predominant force harnessing tribal influence and strategically managing these disparate groups.

Throughout the considerable history of internal conflicts in Yemen, the influential role of tribes has been critical in shaping the outcomes of external wars and internal power struggles.

These ancient tribal structures, deeply embedded in Yemen’s social fabric and military dynamics, have played kingmaker roles in times of conflict – even during periods when the state, with its superior military and security apparatuses, was involved, as seen in the Six Sadaa Wars.

Spanning from 2004 to 2010, those wars pitted government forces against Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement. But each side could only come to the fight with their own set of tribal allies.

Over the years, and especially today, Yemeni tribes in the northern regions – where the Houthi clan is based – have evolved into an “inexhaustible reservoir of fighters,” embodying a formidable force that can be mobilized under the right political and social conditions.

As Yemeni writer Ali Abdullah al-Dhayani points out, these particular Yemeni tribes are “natural warriors, as their men – and even women in some areas – carry weapons as part of daily life.”

The Hashid and Bakil tribes

Two prominent tribal confederations, Hashid (led by the Al-Ahmar family) and Bakil (led by the Abu Lahoum family), stand out as the most potent forces in Yemen’s military, civil, and executive spheres. The Hashid tribe’s clout has helped it secure four seats in the Yemeni House of Representatives for the sons of its late leader, Abdullah al-Ahmar.

Meanwhile, Saba Abu Lahoum, the scion of the Abu Lahoum family, now leads the Bakil tribe, inheriting the mantle from his father, Sinan Abu Lahoum, who passed away in 2021.

For decades, the Al-Ahmar and Abu Lahoum families have vied for the prestigious position of “Sheikh of the Sheikhs of Yemen,” a title that has oscillated between them depending on prevailing political winds.

The loose alliance forged between the Hashid and Bakil encompasses the majority of tribes across northern and eastern Yemen, wielding significant influence. It is worth noting that Ansarallah belongs to the Bakil confederation, while late former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s Sanhan clan belongs to Hashid.

According to a study by Iraqi researcher Nizar al-Abadi, published on the Al-Mutamar.net website, which is affiliated with the Saleh-affiliated General People’s Congress Party (GPC) in Yemen, “The number of Yemeni tribes is estimated at 200–168 of them are in the north and the rest in the south, with the majority of them living in mountainous areas.”

Tribalism in politics

Successive governments in Yemen have historically sought to exert control over the tribes, employing various strategies to secure their allegiance. One notable example is Saleh’s establishment of the “Tribal Affairs Authority” in the early 1980s, through which monthly salaries and bonuses were distributed to numerous tribal leaders across the country to ensure the alignment of their interests with Saleh’s ruling GPC.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a leader of one of the tribes informs The Cradle that this government approach encouraged materialism and corruption within tribal leadership, effectively buying their loyalty for the Saleh government:

Joining the Tribal Affairs Authority was based on loyalty to the regime. It included hundreds of sheikhs who had no influence, while opponents of the ruling party were punished by being deprived of salaries. Sometimes, marginal figures were pushed to assume the leadership of the tribe.

After Saleh stepped down in early 2012, there were calls to abolish the Tribal Affairs Authority and invest its annual budget of around 13 billion Yemeni riyals into national infrastructure. But the successor government to Mohammed Salem Basindwa decided against this. It resumed Saleh’s tried-and-tested financial approach “to win over the tribal leaders,” according to a tribal source.

During Yemen’s 2011 ‘Arab Spring,’ Saleh established a new entity – the “Yemen Tribal Council” – to contain the growing tribal preference for the opposition, especially after several of these leaders, including Hashid Chief Sadiq al-Ahmar, publicly supported the popular uprising against his government.

According to political activist Shaalan al-Abrat, the tribes’ involvement provided significant momentum to the so-called February 11 revolution in some Yemeni cities, such as Dhamar (100 km south of Sanaa).

In late 2012, the city of Saada in northern Yemen, an Ansarallah stronghold, witnessed the emergence of the “Tribal Popular Cohesion Council,” which included tribal leaders supportive of the resistance movement. The council quickly expanded to include all tribes in and outside areas controlled by the current Ansarallah-led government based in the capital, Sanaa.

As Dr Abdo al-Bahsh, head of the political department at the Yemeni Studies and Research Center, describes the development:

[This council] was imposed by the Yemeni political reality and attempts to subject Yemen to American control … [It] expresses the aspirations of the Yemeni people and their national will, far from sectarian, ethnic, regional, and narrow partisanship.

The council is headed by Dhaif Allah Rassam, a tribal leader from Saada Governorate. It has branches and representatives in all Yemeni governorates currently under Sanaa’s control. Importantly, its influence extends to tribes outside their area of control, such as in the Shabwa, Ma’rib, and Al-Dhalea areas of Yemen.

Bolstering the argument that the tribes play a key role in dispute resolution, the council’s Dhamar branch head, Abbas al-Amdi, says that throughout the years of aggression against Yemen, the council was instrumental in strengthening internal unity, ending tribal revenge wars, and supplying the fighting fronts with tribal fighters.

Ansarallah’s political ascendency

Yemen’s political factions have long leveraged tribal affiliations to enhance popular support. The Saudi-backed Islah Party, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, strategically aligned itself with tribal leaders upon its establishment in 1990, with Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, chief of the Hashid tribe, assuming its presidency.

The assertion of tribal authority over state influence was exemplified by Hamid al-Ahmar – brother of Hashid’s leader – when asked in an interview on Al-Jazeera whether he was afraid of returning to Sanaa after voicing support for Saleh’s opposition: “Whoever has Sadiq [al-Ahmar] as his chief, and Hashid as his tribe, would not be afraid.”

Tribal influence was strikingly evident during Saleh’s ousting through the 2012 Gulf Initiative, in which a coalition of Yemeni tribal and political factions orchestrated that delicate transition of power. Around this time, Ansarallah capitalized on its tribal networks to expand its movement’s influence, particularly in the country’s northern regions. It gradually extended its reach across Yemen in an alliance with Saleh’s GPC and the armed forces.

Ansarallah’s adept handling of tribal structures facilitated their rise, merging ideology with tribalism to galvanize support. This symbiotic relationship contributed to their military and popular ascendancy, as noted by Yemeni political analyst Abdul Salam al-Nahari:

[Before 2012], finding someone who believed in Ansarallah was difficult due to years of misinformation. However, after 2015, society began to become aware of Ansarallah, especially among tribes exhausted by wars and internal conflicts … After the war in Yemen, the tribe has now become more cohesive after playing a major role in community steadfastness and in supplying the fighting fronts with weapons, money, and men.

Tribe-centric strategies

Nahari points out that the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen put the country at a crossroads: either remaining under American guardianship or breaking away from it at any cost. “The people of Yemen chose independence,” he declares.

The foreign aggression united Yemenis during a time when Ansarallah was encouraging the advancement of many tribal leaders to the front ranks and giving them the opportunity to lead.

Examples abound. In the Al-Bayda region of central Yemen, tribal leader Saleh bin Saleh al-Wahbi founded the “Wahbi Brigades” in 2016. After his death in 2021, his son Bakil succeeded him.

In the Al-Razzamat region, north of Saada Governorate near the southern border of Saudi Arabia, tribal leader and member of the House of Representatives Abdullah Aydah al-Razami threw his weight behind Ansarallah Founder Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and his tribe fought a fierce war against government forces after the latter’s killing.

During the foreign aggression against Yemen, his son Yahya al-Razami was appointed commander of the Hamidan axis forces and assumed command of the “Death Brigades,” the elite forces affiliated with Ansarallah.

The son played a vital role in the Victory from God operation in 2019 when his forces captured thousands of soldiers loyal to the Yemeni government in Riyadh and seized a vast amount of weapons and military equipment.

Al-Nahari asserts that “fighting in any area where there is no popular incubator is like fighting on open ground.” Ansarallah has actively sought to create supportive environments in strategic areas. By neutralizing certain tribes through treaties and agreements, such as in Marib, Ansarallah has effectively extended its influence with minimal combat cost, illustrating its strategic understanding of Yemen’s tribal politics.

Juin 1940 – mai 1945, Charles de Gaulle et la France dans la guerre

Charles de Gaulle - appel du 18 juin

Charles de Gaulle - appel du 18 juinLa France vient de subir la défaite la plus humiliante de son histoire, capitulant en quelques semaines devant l’armée allemande,

L’article Juin 1940 – mai 1945, Charles de Gaulle et la France dans la guerre est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

State of Play in the Sandbox

Par : AHH

“The only nation in the world that won a naval war without having a single ship!”

Two of my favorites review the unedifying remains of the day. Some go to art galleries or the beach, listen to music or watch a movie — these two savants relax me. After listening to Smoothie you will understand (1) the  reason for supreme calm & confidence of Putin and Medvedev and (2) the panic and verbal enuresis of Macron & Crew.

Last soundbite for the scrapbook:

“NATO is not going to back down, it’s going to dissolve .. unh .. that is the best way of going about it!”

1938 – 1940 : de Munich à Rethondes

Conférence de Munich, 30 septembre 1939

Conférence de Munich, 30 septembre 1939L’ascension inexorable du Führer n’a pas été prise au sérieux par les pays européens qui ne voulaient pas voir les

L’article 1938 – 1940 : de Munich à Rethondes est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Compradore ECOWAS Surrendered!

Par : AHH

Say whatever you wanna say,we know those who are pulling the strings. Personally , I ain’t got nothing to say! I have said enough. I rest my case! pic.twitter.com/f8jJH9sBQr

— Sy Marcus Herve Traore (@marcus_herve) February 24, 2024

 

Do you remember all the ⛈Thunder & Lightning ⚡starting with the overthrow of the French poodle Bazum of resource-rich Niger late last summer (rapidly forgotten after October 07)?? The roars of the French peacock and ECOWAS about the inadmissibility of another Junta coup overturning west-built “Freeum & Demokracy” in “our Africa?

Well, after they were stared down as they wet themselves, and Frenchie’s troops duly kicked out, and a political-economic-military merger made among the Junta Belt, and trade was rerouted elsewhere to friendly neighbors, and the trio left ECOWAS, the latter just rolled over onto its naked back and cried “Uncle!” btw, this is a preview of the best-case scenario for the combined West in 404 too.

💠 @Arab_Africa:
⭕ 🇳🇪 ECOWAS lifted sanctions on Niger. Local sources report this.
On February 24, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced the lifting of sanctions imposed on Niger, which include border closures, suspension of financial transactions, and a ban on the import of food and medicine.

💠 @Sputnik Africa:
⭕ ❗ECOWAS has decided to lift a number of sanctions against Niger, the head of the bloc’s commission says

The measures include the closure of borders, ban on financial transactions, and the freezing of Niger’s assets. The measures are lifted with immediate effect.

Earlier, ECOWAS Chairman and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said it was important to “re-examine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order in our member states.”

ECOWAS leaders met Saturday in Abuja to discuss the crisis in the region, which has recently seen military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. In response, ECOWAS imposed sanctions on Mali and Niger.

In January, the three countries declared their pullout from ECOWAS. They called the bloc a “threat” to its member states and criticized it for applying “illegal, illegitimate, inhumane” sanctions against them.
⭕ ❗ECOWAS has decided to lift financial and economic sanctions against Guinea, the head of the bloc’s commission says

In 2022, the media reported that the ECOWAS countries, at an emergency summit held on the sidelines of the UNGA, decided to introduce “phased sanctions” against Guinea, which had underwent a coup d’etat in 2021.
⭕ 🇧🇫 The Vladimir Putin Sambo Tournament kicks off in Burkina Faso
🔹The martial art is becoming increasingly popular in this West African country. The Burkinabe Sambo Association, founded in September 2020, today has 18 clubs across the country.
🔹The Association plans to offer internships for Burkinabe sambo wrestlers in Russia, where athletes will be able to better understand and master this Olympic discipline.
🔹”They say that sambo is power, sambo is leadership. Vladimir Putin is an example of the power of leadership,” the secretary general of the Burkina Faso Sambo Association
☝🏾 The Russian President has been a champion in this discipline, he has a great interest in martial arts and he is a “fervent amateur” of sport in general, Amidou Guindo recalled.

“His name must be a part of the event,” he added.

👉🏾 About fifty athletes from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Russia will compete for medals in several categories. |video|
LOL! Russians aren’t the only ones who know how to impale the Yemeni dagger and rotate it with glee.

The Axis of Asymmetry Rolls the ‘Rules-based Order’

Par : AHH

World War III is here, playing out asymmetrically in military, financial, and institutional battlefields, and the fight is an existential one. The western Hegemon, in truth, is at war against international law, and only ‘kinetic military action’ can bring it to heel.

By Pepe Escobar at The Cradle.

The Axis of Asymmetry is in full swing. These are the state and non-state actors employing asymmetrical moves on the global chessboard to sideline the US-led western rules-based order. And its vanguard is the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah.

Ansarallah is absolutely relentless. They have downed a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k indigenous missile.

They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships.

For all practical purposes, Ansarallah is at war with no less than the US Navy.

Ansarallah has captured one of the US Navy’s ultra-sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), the $1.3 million Remus 600, a torpedo-shaped underwater drone able to carry a massive payload of sensors.

Next stop: reverse engineering in Iran? The Global South eagerly awaits, ready to pay in currencies bypassing the US dollar.

All of the above – a maritime 21st-century remix of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War – spells out that the Hegemon may not even qualify as a paper tiger, but rather as a paper leech.

from the Resistance archives: Ho Chi Minh trail

Lula tells it as the Global South sees it

Into the Big Picture – linked to the relentless ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza – steps a true leader of the Global South, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula spoke in the name of Brazil, Latin America, Africa, BRICS 10, and the overwhelming majority of the Global South when he cut to the chase and defined the Gaza tragedy for what it is: a genocide. No wonder the Zionist tentacles across the Global North – plus its Global South vassals – went bonkers.

The genocidals in Tel Aviv declared Lula as persona non grata in Israel. Yet Lula did not assassinate 29,000+ Palestinians – the overwhelming majority of whom were women and children.

History will be unforgiving: it’s the genocidals that will eventually be judged as personae non grata to all of humanity.

What Lula said represented BRICS 10 in action: this was obviously cleared before with Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and, of course, the African Union. Lula spoke in Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia is now a BRICS 10 member.

The Brazilian president was extremely smart in timing his Gaza fact-check to be on the table during the G20 meeting of Foreign Ministers in Rio. Way beyond BRICS 10, what’s happening in Gaza is a consensus among the non-Western G20 partners – who are actually a majority. No one, though, should expect any serious follow-up inside a divided G20. The heart of the matter remains in the facts on the ground.

Yemen’s fight for “our people” in Gaza is a matter of humanistic, moral, and religious solidarity – these are foundational tenets of the rising eastern “civilizational” powers, both domestically and in international affairs. This convergence of principles has now created a direct link – extrapolating to the moral and spiritual spheres – between the Axis of Resistance in West Asia and the Slavic Axis of Resistance in Donbass.

Extreme attention should be paid to the timescale. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) forces and Russia have spent two hard-fought years in Novorossiya just to arrive at the stage where it becomes clear – based on the battlefield and cumulative facts on the ground – that “negotiations” mean only the terms of Kiev’s surrender.

In contrast, the job of the Axis of Resistance in West Asia has not even started. It’s fair to argue that its strength and full sovereign involvement have not been deployed yet (think Hezbollah and Iran).

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, with his proverbial subtlety, has hinted there’s, in fact, nothing to negotiate on Palestine. And if there would be a return to any borders, these would be the 1948 borders. The Axis of Resistance understands that the whole Zionist Project is unlawful and immoral. But the question remains how to throw it, in practice, into the dustbin of History?

Possible – avowedly optimistic – scenarios ahead would include Hezbollah taking possession of the Galilee as a step toward the eventual retaking of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Yet the fact remains that even a united Palestine does not have the military capability to reconquer stolen Palestinian lands.

So the questions posed by the overwhelming majority of the Global South that stands with Lula may be: Who else, apart from Ansarallah, Hezbollah, Hashd al-Shaabi, will join the Axis of Asymmetry in the fight for Palestine? Who would be willing to come to the Holy Land and die? (After all, in Donbass, it’s only Russians and Russophones who are dying for historically Russian lands)

And that brings us to the way towards the endgame: only a West Asian Special Military Operation (SMO), to the bitter end, will settle the Palestinian tragedy. A translation of what happens across the Slavic Axis of Resistance: “Those who refuse to negotiate with Lavrov, deal with Shoigu.”

Operations Prosperous Genocide (USUK) & Viperous (EU)

The menu, the table, and the guests

That out-of-his-depth closet neocon, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, let the cat out of the bag when he actually defined his much cherished “rules-based international order”: “If you’re not at the table, you are on the menu.”

Following his own hegemonic logic, it’s clear that Russia and the US/NATO are on the table while Ukraine is on the menu. What about the Red Sea? The Houthis defending Palestine against US–UK–Israel are clearly at the table, while Western vassals supporting Israel in a maritime way are clearly on the menu.

And that’s the problem: the Hegemon – or, in Chinese scholarly terminology, “the crusaders” – have lost the power to place the name cards at the table. The main reason for this authority collapse is the build-up of serious international meetings sponsored by the Russia–China strategic partnership during the past two years since the start of the SMO. It’s all about sequential planning, with long-term targets clearly outlined.

Only civilizational states can do that – not plutocratic neoliberal casinos.

Negotiating with the Hegemon is impossible because the Hegemon itself prevents negotiations (see the serial blocking of ceasefire resolutions at the UN). Additionally, the Hegemon excels in instrumentalizing its client elites across the Global South via threats or kompromat: see the hysterical reaction of Brazilian mainstream media to Lula’s verdict on Gaza.

What Russia is showing the Global South, two years after the start of the SMO, is that the only path to teach a lesson to the Hegemon has to be kinetic, or “military-technical.”

The problem is no nation-state can compare to nuclear/hypersonic/military superpower Russia, in which 7.5 percent of the government’s budget is dedicated to military production. Russia is and will remain on a permanent war footing until Hegemon’s elites come to their senses – and that may never happen.

Meanwhile, West Asia’s Axis of Resistance is watching and learning, day after day. It’s always crucial to keep in mind that for all the resistance movements across the Global South – and that also includes, for instance, West Africans against French neo-colonialism – the geopolitical fault lines could not be starker.

It’s a matter of the collective West versus Islam; the collective West versus Russia; and sooner rather than later, a substantial part of the West, even reluctantly, versus China.

The fact is we are already immersed in a World War that is both existential and civilizational. As we stand at the crossroads, there is a bifurcation: either escalation towards overt “kinetic military action,” or a multiplication of Hybrid Wars across several latitudes.

So it’s up to the Axis of Asymmetry, cool, calm, and collected, to forge the underground corridors, passages, and trails capable of undermining and subverting the US-led, unipolar, rules-based international order.

22.02.24 Speech of the Ansar Allah Leader

Par : AHH

The following is this week’s speech and cogent observations of the Yemeni leader on the state of the war against Zio-USUK, Gaza, and the wider region. He is every bit as sharp and wide ranging as Hezbollah’s Nasrallah. He gives his speech on Thursdays, the day before their now-regular million man marches in most cities of Yemen each Friday.

This week’s edition is a sober review of the ramifications of the latest UNSC veto and dismantling of the UN life-support systems by the US regime, the abjectness of the arab compradore hypocrites, the severely deteriorated plight of the poor starving Palestinians, and the losses and absolute barbarism of the savage zionist beast which is being steadily defeated in relentless and effective attrition.

@Yemen | Bab-el-Mandeb:
⭕ Statement from Sayyed Commander Abdulmalik Badraddin Al-Houthi regarding the latest developments and updates on 12 Sha’ban 1445 AH – 22-02-2024 AD:

— The oppressed Palestinian people in Gaza have been suffering for 20 weeks the most severe forms of suffering due to the Israeli aggression.
🔹The Israeli enemy in Gaza has pursued from the beginning a criminal and genocidal behavior, using all means of extermination.
🔹On the first day of the aggression, America, Britain, and most major European countries rushed to provide all forms of support to the Zionist enemy.
🔹Despite the immense military capabilities of the Israeli enemy, America and the West have provided it with weapons, money, and experts.

Where is the support of the [wealthy, powerful, neighboring] Muslims for the oppressed Palestinian people, who are part of them and have clear and established rights?
🔹The Palestinian people deserve support and solidarity for humanitarian reasons and all other considerations.
🔹Most countries, regimes, and governments are taking the stance of onlookers, some of them are complicit, and some secretly support the Israeli enemy.
🔹The betrayal of most governments and regimes, and the silence of the people, is one of the reasons for the boldness of the Israeli enemy to continue its crimes and tighten its siege.

For the third time, the American veto is used in the Security Council to prevent any decision to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
🔹America insists on continuing the genocide of the people of Gaza by all means of extermination. 
🔹The US provided the greatest cover for the starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza to reach blatant levels for countries and Western institutions.
🔹The US has used the veto power more than any other country since the formation of the Security Council to date in order to serve the Israeli enemy.
🔹The US is a key partner of the Israeli enemy in all its crimes against the Palestinian people in all past stages.
🔹The US inherited from the British the role of sponsoring the Zionist criminality and protecting the Israeli enemy, and providing all forms of support to it.
🔹The US turned the Security Council’s role and obstructed the role of the UN in any humanitarian direction in favor of the oppressed peoples.

— The responsibility of everyone, especially in the Muslim world, increases with the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the magnitude of the tragedy.
🔹What are Muslims waiting for to act? Do they want a full-blown genocide to happen to the people of Gaza?!
🔹The number of martyrs, mostly children and women, continues to rise, and the number of massacres reached 2,544, in a clear violation of human life.

— The Israeli enemy continues on its savage approach in preventing food for the people and disallowing trucks carrying food supplies from reaching the residents.
🔹The suspension of the World Food Program’s activities amid the painful levels of suffering and hunger in Gaza reveals the nature of its role.
🔹The malfeasance of the US and Israel is seen in their manipulating of international organizations and programs that operate under humanitarian titles.
🔹Deaths from starvation are on the rise, including children and the elderly.
🔹Animal feed has run out or is near depletion in many areas of the Gaza Strip, particularly in the northern part.
🔹Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are starving and appealing to their brethren through their hunger and suffering.

Where are the wealthy Arab countries that waste hundreds of billions of dollars on nonsense, trivial matters, and fueling sectarian strife yet do not offer food that is meager to the Palestinians?
🔹Many countries waste huge amounts of good food that ends up in their garbage cans, and their citizens suffer from obesity, without providing a thing of this food to the Palestinians.
🔹There are no serious and tangible moves by major Arab countries as if their role were confined to conflicts and destructive struggles that tear the nation from within.
🔹Why can’t the major Arab countries endeavor to play an honorable and positive role, even if it is something in the humanitarian vein, by delivering food, medicine, and aid to the residents of Gaza?
🔹We have seen some people’s seriousness during trivial issues when they dealt with it with great interest, and took various procedures from boycotting to waging wars.
🔹The Israeli enemy opened fire on a group of thousands of residents who were trying to obtain some food and flour, killing and wounding them.

— The Israeli enemy carried out cold-blooded executions while they were detained against the abductees, including children and women.

Where are the women’s rights that the West is bragging about, in front of the executions of women by the Israeli enemy?!
🔹The West does not repeat the slogan of women’s rights, except in immoral or trivial contexts, or to dismantle society from within.
🔹Women’s rights disappeared in the West when this woman was the Palestinian woman, and when the perpetrator and aggressor was the Israeli enemy.

— The Israeli enemy stormed the Nasser Medical Complex with tanks and drones, as if it were storming one of the largest military bases.
🔹The Israeli enemy targeted hospitals, even premature, infant, and patients of all categories.
🔹There is a real tragedy on the health side, and hundreds of thousands are suffering, and the most affected of them are the children.
🔹The Israeli enemy committed a heinous crime by forcibly kidnapping infant children from their mothers and separating thousands of children from their families during the displacement.
🔹There are 17,000 children separated from their families, according to unofficial statistics, and they are in a difficult situation.

— Given the scale of the tragedy, injustice and criminality, the Israeli enemy failed to achieve its declared goals, the most prominent of which is the return of its prisoners.
🔹The enemy has failed miserably in recovering its prisoners, despite the passage of 20 weeks of the war and in a [tiny] limited geographic area.
🔹The enemy was unable to eliminate the Mujahideen in Gaza, who are still holding on and fighting valiantly and effectively.
🔹The Mujahideen in Gaza are humiliating the enemy, despite living the same suffering that their families are experiencing in the sector.
🔹The enemy’s barbarism and its comprehensive targeting of the Palestinian people did not benefit it and did not obtain a picture of victory.

— The enemy accumulates its criminal record in terms of destruction, killing, siege and starvation, but it is becoming increasingly frustrated.
🔹 The enemy’s human losses are in the thousands, but it is trying to hide it and makes an effort in this regard.
🔹Some of the Zionist soldiers suffer from mental disorders as a result of the horrors of the battles and the clash with the Mujahideen from zero distance.
🔹The transformation of the Zionist soldier into a mentally ill or mentally disturbed person is a widespread condition among them because of their criminality and tyranny and their keenness to live.
🔹The psychological and moral harm is a disaster for the Zionists because their situation is shaky, they do not live in a state of reassurance.
🔹It is estimated that more than a million Zionists have fled the occupied territories, either permanently or temporarily, due to instability.
🔹There is a path for reverse migration because the Zionists live the act of existential threat.

— The enemy’s military losses are large and its economic losses are unprecedented, despite the huge American and Western support it enjoys.
🔹The Israeli currency is no longer stable, with a decline in foreign exchange reserves and a rise in public debt, and on the level of the large deficit in the enemy’s budget.
🔹There are repercussions in all economic fields from production and investment to labor shortage and the real estate sector.
🔹There is paralysis in the ports, a decline in tourism, and a decline in air navigation.
🔹There are terrible losses in the Israeli enemy’s economy, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
🔹The enemy’s losses are an important lesson despite the [western] support he enjoys.

— The enemy’s losses in confronting the modest capabilities of the Mujahideen in Gaza mean that it is an enemy that can be defeated, just as it was defeated in Lebanon and Gaza before.
🔹The support fronts continue from Lebanon with high efficiency and inflict major direct losses on the enemy.
🔹Brothers Mujahideen in Iraq continue, despite the enemy’s intensive targeting of them.

— In the Yemeni front, we have moved towards escalating our operations in response to the enemy’s increased escalation in the Gaza Strip.
🔹Our operations on “israeli” targets in the occupied lands have reached 183 missiles and drones.
🔹Support operations for Gaza in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait are ongoing and we have escalated them.
🔹Escalation in sea operations has increased both in quantity and quality, with the activation of missiles, drones, and military boats.
🔹Submarines have been introduced into our naval operations, which is worrying for the enemy.
🔹The number of targeted ships in the sea reached 48, despite the enemy reducing its movement and camouflaging and withholding information about them.
🔹All means used by them to withhold information about the ships have been used and failed; we still manage to obtain accurate information.
🔹The available missiles have been developed to a level that the American cannot intercept or shoot down with all its technologies.
🔹There are significant real victories in the confrontation in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. There are real victories over American technologies, capabilities, and expertise. There are victories at the level of tactics, weapons, and means, and American experts were amazed by our Armed Forces’ tactics.

This week, 13 distinguished and effective operations were executed.
🔹Among the most prominent and important operations this week was the targeting of a British ship that was hit with a devastating strike that sank it.
🔹By Allah’s will, this week succeeded in downing an American MQ-9 drone, which is one of the most important American aircraft.

— The enemy failed before our sea operations; they were neither able to prevent them nor deter them nor limit them.
🔹Americans, their leaders, and officials admit, according to the established reality, that they failed to prevent Yemeni operations and protect their ships and those associated with the “israeli” entity. The American has put itself in trouble after its barges, destroyers, and military pieces were hit in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.
🔹The maritime situation halted 40% of the enemy’s commercial maritime movement, affecting its economy, shrinking its exports, and imports.

— The American has a military problem and admits that it has not faced such a problem since World War II, indicating the effectiveness of the Yemeni front.
🔹The British are implicated, harmed, foolish, and stupid for involving themselves in what does not concern them. British newspapers talk about the impacts on the British economy and predictions of a sharp increase in all prices due to the rise in shipping costs.
🔹Instead of aggression against Yemen, it was supposed to stop war crimes in Gaza and introduce aid to ensure regional stability and prevent the conflict from expanding.

— The number of American and British aggression raids on Yemen and missile strikes from the sea reached 278, yet they failed to destroy Yemeni capabilities and limit their impact.
🔹The American is causing our military capabilities to develop as it tries to move others and implicate them, including Europeans and some Arab countries.
🔹We will provide protection for any ships carrying aid to the people of Gaza, contrary to what the American propagates.

— One of the silliest new American propaganda is that Yemen is extorting some European countries to allow their ships to pass through the Red Sea without targeting them. Propaganda about extorting countries is silly and false, part of countless lies launched by hypocrites.

— Military mobilization is active, with military training outputs reaching 237,123 trainees as a popular army, preceded by hundreds of thousands trained appropriately.
🔹Military parades reached 248, maneuvers reached 566, and military marches reached 359.
🔹Popular stands are part of the distinguished and honorable activity, reaching 70,670, and awareness evenings reached 30,571.
🔹Events are very important for spreading awareness, reaching 23,738 events, and demonstrations reached 2,081 in provinces and directorates.

— The Yemeni people have set an example and become a source of admiration for all free people in the world and anyone with a human conscience.
🔹Our people’s stance in this phase is historic and will remain a proud lesson in freedom, dignity, and honor that generations will be proud of for thousands of years.

Galloway: Israel Has DESTROYED Itself

Par : AHH

Host of the Mother of All Talk [MOAT] Shows and former UK MP George Galloway came on the show to discuss the situation in the Middle East and how the growing opposition to Israel’s war spells doom for Netanyahu and the regime. This conversation took place last month but is just as prescient as Yemen’s Red Sea blockage continues and Iran, Lebanon prepare for broader regional war.

 

Axis of Asymmetry In Da House!

Par : AHH

“The Houthis down a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper with a 10k missile.
Axis of Asymmetry in da house.” — Pepe Escobar

with thanks from FiveGunsWest and penned by Bones!

“I had to go to the black soil of Novorossiya to watch where the rules-based international order came to die,” — @RealPepeEscobar told the #NewRulesPodcast

“So the cowardly genocidals say Lula is persona non grata in Israel.”

“Lula did not assassinate 29k+ Palestinians – and counting, the overwhelming majority women and children.”

“History will eventually judge the genocidals as personae non grata for all of humanity.”


“ADVEEVKA.”

“Everything in Donbass is always pregnant with meaning.”

“Russian soldiers plant flags on the monument to USSR heroes – many from Donbass – who fought the Nazis in 1943.”

“History repeating.”

As much as I think Hypocracy Now is pretty much complete BS, it must also be pointed out it is also covered by CNN, another bastion of CIA rodents.

“Americans are watching CNN and just learning they are the bad guys. LOL.”

“Evidence of a plot to murder a citizen of another country, in the embassy of a third country, located in the sovereign nation of another country.”

“Not sure how many intl laws that breaches but just asking is conspiracy.” – @JerryTakesChina

From Vice News;

“As international conflicts and natural disasters rage on, billionaires are now looking toward self-preservation—by investing in multi-million dollar bunkers complete with water cannons and a moat that sets on fire in case of intruders.”

Umlait the Bumbo Klat sez:

“Billionaires: when the shit hits the fan and we aren’t stuck toiling away in your trinket factories; all we will have is time. And anger. Lots of anger.”

“Imagine how fun it will be to haul these evil pussies out of their bunkers after overwhelming their defenses.”

“Funny thing is…life in a bunker will inevitably become completely miserable, and they will understand that all they’ve done is create a fancy prison, occupied with a bunch of people they do not love.”


The Houthis’ Allah is kicking the shit out of the West’s pretend Judeo-Christian Super Friends Dept.

From @Wire Dispatch:

“#Yemen #Houthis are the first entity in the history of the world to use anti-ship ballistic missiles ever, against commercial and #US navy ships, in addition to being the first to have a ballistic missile interception in Space.”

I don’t yet now what the interception in space is but I’m sure we’ll find out.

Military Overload opines thusly –

“Yemens “Houthis” Capture American Recon Submarine: 📍#Yemen | #Houthis

“The Yemeni Houthis have seized the American Remus 600 unmanned underwater vehicle.

“This is regarded as one of the most advanced underwater reconnaissance units in the United States.”

The fellator capitalist press says this about that …

$1.3 million apiece.

“One of the most capable Hydroid UUVs is the REMUS 600, a torpedo-shaped underwater drone designed to carry a large payload of sensors to great depths for meteorological and oceanographic surveying. The MK18 Mod 2 Kingfish, a variant of the REMUS 600, costs the Navy around $1.3 million apiece.”

The reverse engineering is going to be great. Soon the entire Global South that wants them, shall have them.

Add up these costs to USUK and it’s astronomical with all these sunken and damaged ships.

The self-proclaimed greatest power on earth and their lap poodle are being house trained about life on the planet by the down trodden. If nothing else, these brave and valiant men are putting the world on notice that the US is a paper leech and not a tiger.

If you live in the US you’ve been bullied, one way another, all your lives. Where do you think garage and punk rock came from? Most of us want to be left alone. Some will violently oppose anything that interferes with their rights to privacy and the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

One must admit that their shitty lifestyle, at this point, depends on Uncle Spam fucking over the world.

From the point of view of making people around the world realize what a modern liberal-democratic dictatorship is, which is vividly represented in today’s US ruling class. VVP

The FWG palatial estate and experimental farm has been woe beset with three atmospheric rivers as of late. Many structures damaged. Two missing animals, presumed dead. One missing for four months returns. Intense coyote predation. A rodent invasion. We’re a flooded island in the mountains.

Marty and friends will be glad to know I hadn’t set my Cuban tobacco plants out yet. Other larger plants were damaged as was the barn roof. We have a lot to accomplish in little time on our hands.

Our STEM kiddie tried to AI automate the blog. You could set parameters for comments, whether or not you were kindly disposed to someone or not. The thing went completely apeshit, like it was drunk, flinging complements out left and right. So, you know, the marriage proposals are null and void.

Walking the Streets of Old Yemen

Par : AHH

A beautiful trip among the northern Yemeni territories of the Ansarullah (Houthis). Well done by the traveller Ale Salvino.

≈≈

Video Description: It’s hard to believe that I’m walking the streets of Yemen, truly surreal and unbelievable to experience the culture and meet this amazing people in Shibam and other areas.

≈≈≈≈≈

WHO AM I
👋 I’m Ale, based in Madrid and London. I’ve travelled to 90+ countries, lived in 4 countries in the last 10 years and speak 4 languages. I make weekly videos around the world.

LET’S BE FRIENDS
🌍 Web/blog – https://alesalvino.com/
💌 Newsletter – https://news.alesalvino.com/
📸 Instagram – @alec.salvino
🐦 Twitter – @alec_salvino

≈≈


☝☝ the last photo is of the city of Shibam that he visited in this video, in Al Hodeidah governerate. This region has been the focus of intense Zionist-USUK bombing in last week

1914 – 1933… du Kaiser au Führer

Adolf Hitler dans la foule à Munich en 1914

Adolf Hitler dans la foule à Munich en 1914Août 1914, à Munich en Bavière, c’est la mobilisation. La première guerre mondiale commence… Dans la foule un autrichien inconnu

L’article 1914 – 1933… du Kaiser au Führer est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Ansarullah reunites Yemen around Gaza

Par : AHH

The Gaza war and renewed US–UK strikes on Yemen are shattering what remains of the UAE–Saudi-led coalition. Now Yemenis of all stripes are flocking to embrace the Sanaa government and its resistance stance.

by Mohammed Moqeibel at The Cradle.

While the Red Sea military operations of Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah have shaken up geopolitical calculations of Israel’s war on Gaza, they have also had far-reaching consequences on the country’s internal political and military dynamics. 

By successfully obstructing Israeli vessels from traversing the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance in defense of the Palestinian people – a cause deeply popular across Yemen’s many demographics. Sanaa’s position stands in stark contrast to that of the Saudi and Emirati-backed government in Aden, which, to the horror of Yemenis, welcomed attacks by US and British forces on 12 January.

The US–UK airstrikes have offended Yemenis fairly universally, prompting some heavyweight internal defections. Quite suddenly, Sanaa has transformed into a destination for a number of Yemeni militias previously aligned with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, now publicly declaring their allegiance to Ansarallah.

One such figure, Colonel Hussein al-Qushaybi, formerly with the Saudi–UAE coalition forces, announced in a tweet:

“I am Colonel Hussein al-Qushaybi, I declare my resignation from my rank and my defection from the Legitimacy Army [army backed by Saudi-led coalition] that did not allow us, as members of the Ministry of Defense, to show solidarity with Palestine.
My message to army members: Go back to your homes, for our leaders have begun to protect Zionist ships at sea and support the [Israeli] entity, even if they try to deceive, but their support has become clear and it is still there.”

Qushaybi claims he was incarcerated in Saudi prisons for 50 days – along with other Yemeni officers – for his outspoken defense of Gaza, during which he endured torture and interrogation by an Israeli intelligence officer.

Major Hammam al-Maqdishi, responsible for personal protection of Yemen’s former Defense Minister in the coalition-backed government, has also arrived in Sanaa, pledging allegiance to Ansarallah.

Simultaneously, a leaked ‘top-secret’ document from the Saudi-backed, UN-recognized Yemeni Ministry of Defense instructs military leaders to suppress any sympathy or support for Hamas or Ansarallah, as “this might arouse the ire of brotherly and friendly countries” – an implicit reference to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Defections and dissent

The wave of defections within the ranks of Saudi–Emirati coalition forces is not limited to officers. Many regular troops have openly rebelled against their commanders – abandoning their positions and pledging allegiance to Ansarallah – following the recent airstrikes on Yemen. Dozens of these soldiers have been arrested and detained for displaying solidarity with Gaza. 

Yemeni news reports claim the US government, in a missive to the coalition’s Chief of Staff Saghir bin Aziz, expressed “dissatisfaction” with the lack of solidarity among his forces and demanded action.

While this trend of defections in the Saudi–Emirati coalition is not entirely new, it has accelerated considerably since the onset of the war in Gaza and the recent US-UK strikes on Yemen. 

Last February, high-ranking coalition officers, including brigade commanders from various fronts, began a series of defections, though none as significant as the current rebellion. 

These earlier defections were primarily driven by financial conditions and dissatisfaction with Saudi Arabia and the UAE for their dismissal of military commanders associated with the Islah Party (Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen), who were replaced by members of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) militias and those commanded by Tariq Saleh, nephew of pro-Saudi former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

Most of these defections were by officer and troops associated with the Islah Party during a time when the foreign coalition began marginalizing the party’s military and political leadership, and dismantling several military sectors under their control – in favor of the UAE-controlled STC.

Now, the Gaza war has the Islah Party leadership fully breaking with its old alliances. As party official Mukhtar al-Rahbi tweeted upon the launch of US-UK strikes:

“Any Yemeni who stands with the US, UK, and the countries of the coalition protecting Zionist ships should reconsider their Yemeni identity and Arab affiliation. These countries protect and support the Zionist entity, and when Yemen closed the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea to the ships of this terrorist entity, this dirty alliance struck Yemen and punished it for its noble stance towards Gaza and Palestine.”

In stark contrast, the UAE-backed STC and the Tareq Saleh-led National Resistance Forces expressed readiness to protect Israeli interests. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, STC President Aidarus al-Zoubaidi reaffirmed his support for the British attacks against Yemen, conveying this stance to British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Following these statements, an entire battalion under Saleh’s command defected to Ansarallah, while many other fighters now refuse his authority because they reject supporting US–UK strikes against Sanaa and its resistance leaders. 

A shift in public sentiment

In response to the latest western aggression against Yemen, media outlets affiliated with the STC and its supporters have launched a campaign against Ansarallah and the Palestinian resistance, casting doubt on the Yemeni resistance movement’s capabilities and motives. But, their efforts have backfired badly, instead leading to widespread public fury in the country’s southern regions controlled by the UAE and Saudi-backed government. 


Their anger is directed at the 
Aden-based government‘s perceived alignment with Israel’s regional projects, sparking both protests and symbolic acts, such as burning pictures of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and the Israeli flag.

According to Fernando Carvajal, a former member of the UN Security Council’s Yemen expert team, Ansarallah have managed to leverage – to their benefit – the untenable position of Abu Dhabi, which normalized relations with Israel as part of the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords. This, he argues, has helped them gain widespread support both within Yemen and internationally.

In the wake of this unexpected public outrage, the STC has experienced a further wave of defections within its ranks. Several leaders have joined the Southern Revolutionary Movement, and openly expressed their objective of liberating southern Yemen from what they see as “Saudi–Emirati occupation.”

Amidst the wave of military realignments, prominent Al-Mahra tribal Sheikh Ali al-Huraizi – arguably the most influential figure in eastern Yemen – has come out to praise Ansarallah‘s military operations against Israel-bound shipping in the Red Sea, hailing its actions as a resolute and national response to the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Huraizi stressed that the US and British aggression against Yemen was launched to protect the Zionist state, because Ansarallah’s targeted strikes were negatively impacting Israel’s economy. Calling for unity among Yemenis, the tribal leader urged steadfast resistance against Israeli influence in the country. He also called on other Yemeni factions to follow the bold leadership of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi as a means to halt the genocide taking place in Gaza.

Countdown to the coalition’s collapse

Yemen’s deteriorating economic conditions, currency collapse in coalition-ruled areas, and ongoing conflicts among southern militias have left many Yemenis disillusioned with Emirati and Saudi proxies, whom they had hoped would bring – at the very least – economic prosperity. 

In contrast, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has managed to maintain a relatively stable economic situation in the areas under its control, despite the foreign-backed war aimed at toppling it. This disparity has led to a growing sentiment among UAE-aligned soldiers that they are merely pawns fighting for the interests of Persian Gulf Arab rulers, without receiving due recognition from these governments.

The contrasting stances on Palestine between the coalition and Ansarallah have deepened the Yemeni divide since the events of 7 October. Sanaa’s support for the Palestinian cause has significantly boosted its domestic standing, while US–UK strikes on the country have complicated their Persian Gulf allies’ position by prioritizing Israeli interests over all other calculations. 

Disillusionment with the coalition will have profound political and military implications for Yemen, reshaping alliances, and casting the UAE and Saudi Arabia as national adversaries. Palestine continues to serve as a revealing litmus test throughout West Asia – and now in Yemen too – exposing those who only-rhetorically claim the mantle of justice and Arab solidarity. 

The Houthis & Yemen: A History

Par : AHH

Guest: Shireen Al-Adeimi is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and assistant professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University’s College of Education.

More versions of the podcast at:

The Houthis & Yemen: A History

An eloquent short historical profile of the Ansarullah movement by a fair critic from south Yemen. She is from Aden, the traditional rival of north Yemen of the last centuries, and the third most important global sea port in the 19th century.

She dispels Anglo-Zionist agitprop that Yemenis serve Iran, or that Ansarullah are a minority; they control 80-85% of the total population that lives bunched in the smaller but more secure highland north. Zaidi Islam is followed by 40% of all Yemenis and coexists peacefully with Sunni and Shia, being not of either, but a bridge respected by all except fringe salafi extremists imported from the GCC. She reminds us that ALL Yemenis have been devotees of Palestine and their liberation cause for over a century now, starting with the British occupation.

Ansarullah represent and merely discharge the will of at least 30-32 Million of the 40 M Yemenis. 

China ignores US entreaties of mediation

Par : AHH

Lavrov: “They believe that for 500 years they have ruled the world as they wish, living at the expense of others, and they think this should continue…”


by Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar at Indian Punchline

There is an old proverb that when misfortunes come, they come in battalions. Coming on top of reports of American soldiers going down like nine-pins on a drone strike against the super secret CIA station for intelligence and covert operations on the Syrian-Jordanian border, ’nyet’ is the word from Beijing to the Biden administration’s entreaties seeking  intervention with Tehran to rein in the Houthis of Yemen, against the foreboding backdrop of the Axis of Resistance expanding its operations against American and Israeli interests. 

President Biden deputed his National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to handle this highly delicate mission with Beijing, instead of the US’s top diplomat Antony Blinken. Sullivan is uniquely placed to switch roles between the US’ domestic and foreign policies. He is a trusted hatchet man of the president and is actively involved in Biden’s re-election campaign. 

Sullivan stayed overnight in Thailand On Friday/Saturday to launch his charm offensive vis-a-vis Foreign Minister Wang Yi. But he came away with no sign that China is willing to use its influence with Tehran. 

Later, an unattributable media briefing by a senior NSC official via teleconference was hastily arranged by the White House to cover Sullivan’s back side. It brought home that reading the Chinese tea leaves is an art in itself. As the NSC official put it, “Beijing says they are raising this with the Iranians … but we’re certainly going to wait before we comment further on how effectively we think they’re actually raising it.” 

Sullivan seems to have hit a brick wall. This is curious because the Biden Administration should have learnt from previous experience with Beijing in trying to prod China to convince close ally North Korea to scale back its nuclear weapons programme or roll back its “no limits” friendship with Russia over Ukraine. 

Actually, South Korea’s military said on Sunday that North Korea fired several cruise missiles, extending a streak in weapons tests that are worsening tensions with the US and reflecting Pyongyang’s efforts to expand its arsenal of weapons designed to overwhelm remote US targets in the Pacific, including Guam!   

Evidently, the Biden administration failed to comprehend that Beijing was under no obligation to use its influence on Pyongyang for serving American interests. It is sheer naïveté to expect Beijing to fall for selective engagement on issues that aim to buy time for the president to give his best shot in the upcoming November elections. 

What does China get in return? The question doesn’t occur to the Biden Administration. The assumption in DC is that China is on an ego trip and begging for selective engagement with the No 1 military and economic power on the planet. On the contrary, China too has some legitimate demands to make — such as, for instance, the US not inciting Taiwan surreptitiously to travel on the path of independence, or allowing China a level playing field for setting new technology standards at the global level as an innovative country.

Interestingly, compared to the taciturn readout by the White House on the Sullivan-Wang Yi meeting in Thailand, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a candid full-bodied statement on Saturday to set the record straight and pre-empt the spin doctors in the Biden White House from scripting some false narrative. The relevant excerpts from the Chinese statement titled  Wang Yi held a meeting with Sullivan, assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Affairs are reproduced below: 

(Unofficial translation)

“The two sides conducted frank, substantive and fruitful strategic communications around the implementation of the consensus of the San Francisco meeting between the heads of state of the two countries and the proper handling of important and sensitive issues in Sino-US relations.

“Wang Yi said that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States.The two sides should take this as an opportunity to summarise their experiences and learn lessons, treat each other equally rather than condescendingly, seek common ground while preserving differences rather than highlighting differences, effectively respect rather than harm each other’s core interests, and work together to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation to build a correct way for China and the United States to get along.

“Wang Yi emphasised that the Taiwan issue is China’s internal affairs, and Taiwan’s regional elections cannot change the basic fact that Taiwan is a part of China.The biggest risk to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is “Taiwan independence”, and the biggest challenge to Sino-US relations is also “Taiwan independence”.The United States must abide by the one-China principle and the three joint communiqués between China and the United States, implement the commitment not to support “Taiwan independence” into actions, and support China’s peaceful reunification.

“ Wang Yi pointed out that all countries have national security concerns, but they must be justified and reasonable. They cannot engage in pan-politicisation and pan-security, let alone curb and suppress the development of other countries.The two sides agreed to further discuss the boundary between national security and economic activities…

“The two sides also discussed international and regional issues such as the Middle East, Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula, and the South China Sea.” 


The Chinese readout did not even make any specific mention of the Houthis or Tehran! Instead, it underscored the perceived threat of Taiwan independence as “the biggest challenge to China—US relations.” And, furthermore, it reiterated Beijing’s concerns that the US is using export restrictions “to contain and suppress the development of other countries” and said that the two countries will discuss “the boundary between national security and economic activities” in future meetings.

What do we make out of this? Simply put, China’s reluctance to use its diplomatic and economic heft to support US moves to address the Red Sea disruptions by reining in the Axis of Resistance (or restrain North Korea’s behaviour) underscores the limitations of the Biden administration’s diplomatic outreach efforts or charm offensive to win over Beijing and get it committed to a selective engagement over Washington’s priorities on flash points that might otherwise become raging controversies in electoral politics till November. 

By the way, the Chinese readout also acknowledged that there are areas where Beijing is indeed interested in an engagement with the US at this transformative point in time — viz., the joint implementation of the so-called “San Francisco Vision,” which translates as: 

  • regular contacts between the two presidents so as to “give strategic guidance to bilateral relations”; 
  • promotion of bilateral exchanges; 
  • making good use of the current strategic communication channels and a series of dialogue and consultation mechanisms” in various fields ranging from diplomacy, mil-to-mil ties, economy, finance, commerce, climate change, etc.; 
  • continuing the discussion over the “guiding principles” of Sino-US relations; 
  • cooperation in drug control; 
  • Artificial intelligence intergovernmental dialogue mechanism; and,
  • cultural exchanges.

How come the US and its western allies get it all horribly wrong? For an answer, the final word must go to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who said in New York while on a brief visit to the UN hqs last weekend:

“They believe that for 500 years they have ruled the world as they wish, living at the expense of others, and they think this should continue. This logic completely ignores the objective reality, in particular the fact that the vast majority of former colonies have gained independence, become aware of their national interests, want to strengthen their national, cultural and religious identity and are growing so fast that they have left the West behind – at least the BRICS members are.”

The bottom line is, Beijing will not fall for US attempts to create misperceptions in China’s relations with Iran or North Korea. China has no intentions to help the US to pull its chestnuts out of the fire in West Asia or the Far East. The international environment is rather fraught and Beijing has set its compass to be on the right side of history.

Galloway interviews Ansar Allah’s Al-Bukhaiti

Par : AHH

George Galloway interviews Muhammed Al-Bukhaiti of Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) Political Bureau, and Governor of the Dhamar Governorate, an area bombed recently by the United States and Britain.

Washington’s entanglement in Yemen

Par : AHH

The US will regret being lured into multiple Middle East wars on Israel’s behalf

By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.

Israel’s success in luring the Biden administration into multiple wars on its behalf, especially in Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen, will inevitably bleed the US politically, financially, and militarily and erode not only its global standing but also the leadership of the Western world, whose throne it has occupied since the end of the Second World War.

Yemen is the latest front in the Middle East to be opened up directly by the US to safeguard Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, where most of the occupation state’s trade with Asia transits. That is a strategic mistake that has plunged it into a bottomless pit. It is taking on a people with a history of invincibility and of humbling mighty empires, including the British one, whose heirs are now playing second fiddle in the misnamed ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ coalition.

The Biden administration aims to achieve a number of objectives in addition to reopening the Red Sea to Israeli shipping. It seeks to intimidate and destabilise Ansarullah-led Yemen by blockading the country and bombing its military facilities, to isolate it by redesignating its government as ‘terrorist’, and to prevent the expansion of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip into a regional war via the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab strait.

This policy is doomed to fail and backfire against its authors. It will face fierce resistance by the Yemenis who have a long legacy of vanquishing invaders. Israel, which duped the hapless US administration into this trap, wouldn’t dare fire a single missile at Yemen itself. It knows what the repercussions would be. That is why it delegated the task to the US and Britain, in the process causing one of the biggest rifts within the Western world for decades.

The US had no trouble mustering a coalition of 36 countries to invade and occupy Iraq. It succeeded in recruiting 65 states to topple Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. It mobilised more than 75 (the ‘Friends of Syria’) and hundreds of billions of dollars to attack and dismember Syria and depose its regime. But it only managed to sign ten governments up to the cause of controlling the Red Sea, largely members of the Anglosphere (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) plus two islands with flags (Bahrain and Seychelles). Most of the major European countries including France, Spain, and Italy declined to join and opted not to be part of this losing gamble.

Airstrikes on military targets in Yemen will not weaken the Ansarullah movement and its coalition, The US seems to forget that it was subjected to eight years of merciless bombardment — with direct US and British support — and emerged not only undefeated, but as a nascent regional power.

The movement’s spiritual leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi and affirmed on Thursday that US and UK attacks will not affect Yemen’s military capabilities, and retaliatory attacks on American and British vessels, along with Israeli-linked shipping, will continue so long as the Israel assault on Gaza does. Millions of Yemenis took to the streets on Friday to condemn US aggression, support the government’s stance, express solidarity with the people of Gaza, and honour the Yemeni martyrs killed in US attacks at sea and on land.

The US administration, blinded by its Zionist friends, does not understand the Middle East, and certainly does not know Yemen and its indomitable people. The State Department’s explanation that Ansarullah’s terrorist designation will make its officials ineligible for US visas is an illustration of this ignorance. I doubt Abdelmalek al-Houthi will lose sleep over being deprived of his customary shopping trips to New York or winter vacations in Miami.

The US has been entangled in Yemen, and it will regret it.

Galloway & Medhurst: State of the Six Fronts

Par : AHH

“The Yemenis intervention in support of Gaza by targeting ships in the Red Sea has disrupted global trade and effectively taken shipping back 200 years”

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

Par : amarynth

First part of address: https://globalsouth.co/2024/01/03/highlights-from-hezbollah-secretary-general-sayyed-hassan-nasrullahs-speech-on-the-fourth-anniversary-of-the-martyrdom-of-leaders-hajj-qassem-soleimani-and-hajj-abu-mahdi-al-muhandis/

If you recall, he said that his speech will be too long and he will continue today.

—o0o—

Since October 8, we have entered into combat with the enemy in the south over a stretch of more than 100 km.

The Islamic Resistance carried out more than 670 operations in 3 months, targeting 48 border sites more than once.

The Islamic Resistance executed 494 targetings, including 50 border points targeted more than once.

The Islamic Resistance also targeted technical and intelligence equipment along the border, completely destroying them.

“Israeli” soldiers fled from the sites towards the settlements, fearing the advancement of the fighters towards the sites and their occupation.

A large number of vehicles and tanks were destroyed along the border.

The operations were very draining for the enemy, who practiced extreme secrecy on their large losses.

The enemy does not acknowledge any killed or wounded, which is part of their policy of general secrecy about their losses.

Experts in the entity say that the losses of the enemy’s army are three times more than the announced numbers.

In 8 hospitals in the north alone, the statistics show that there are more than 2,000 wounded soldiers.

What is happening on the northern front is a true humiliation of the enemy’s army.

The Islamic Resistance did not target the inhabitants of the settlements, although they are occupiers. The displaced from these areas exert pressure on the government of the occupation.

From the beginning, we stated that the objective of the front in the south is to pressure the government of the enemy to stop the aggression on Gaza and to relieve the burden on the resistance there.

We are facing a real opportunity to liberate every inch of our Lebanese land and prevent the enemy from violating our borders and airspace.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (2/3):

Regarding Netanyahu’s statement about Hezbollah’s tent (https://t.me/PalestineResist/13558): This is stupidity, ignorance, and foolishness to talk about the tent. Talk about 48 border sites being destroyed, 11 rear sites being destroyed, 17 settlements being attacked, 50 enemy border points, and your soldiers hiding like mice. Is the resistance, which carries out this scale of operations every day, really deterred? The tent is a thing of the past; today, there is a real war on the borders.

When targeting occurs in Lebanon, particularly in the southern suburbs [Dahiye], we cannot accept such a significant and dangerous breach.

The killing of Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri, a friend, a beloved, and a dear person with whom I had a high degree of friendship, love, understanding, and comprehension, I tell you for certain: this will not go unanswered or unpunished. (https://t.me/PalestineResist/25208)

We will not use the phrase “in the appropriate time and place.” The battlefield will respond, and this response is inevitably coming. We cannot remain silent over a breach of this gravity because this means that all of Lebanon, the cities, and the figures will become exposed.

The magnitude of the evils resulting from remaining silent over this breach is greater than any risks that may come from the response. Therefore, the decision is for the battlefield.

The American administration is concerned about the expansion of the war in the region because it has no interest in it.

The United States does not want to expand the war as it is preoccupied with the Ukrainian front and is preparing for a strategic defeat against Russia.

Today, there is an opportunity to rid Iraq of the presence of American forces and to expose the American narrative of fighting “ISIS.”

The Americans operate “ISIS” in Iran and then claim they have no relation to the bombing in Kerman. It is your creation that committed it.

Who is activating “ISIS” today in Syria? Look to the American forces, who are nurturing “ISIS” in Syria, providing support, and releasing its members from prisons.

The opportunity for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq today will be followed by the withdrawal of American forces from east of the Euphrates, and this is one of the national blessings of solidarity with Gaza.

Today, there is a historic opportunity in front of the Iraqi people for these criminal occupiers, these killers who spilled the blood of Iraqis, Syrians, and Lebanese, and who are full partners in all the crimes currently being committed in Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon, to leave.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (3/3):

Those who belittle the actions of the Axis of Resistance today are the ones who have contributed nothing since the aggression began on Gaza.

The silent and failing regimes were surprised by what the Yemenis did in the Red Sea.

Sanaa’s stance has led many Yemeni factions to reconsider their position towards Ansarallah.

The government of Sanaa and Ansarallah are no longer just an internal faction, but a part of an international equation that the world stands before with great attention.

The massive turnout in Yemen is a message to the United States: You are not facing a government or a faction, but tens of millions of the Yemeni people with a history full of victories and inflicting defeats on aggressors.

To the families of the martyrs of the Islamic Resistance: If not for my security circumstances, what I wish and hope for is to stand beside you and to kiss your hands and foreheads.

To those steadfast in the frontline villages and the environment that pays the direct price with their homes and livelihoods, this is a patient environment, accountable, patient, insightful, and knows what this battle means.

O our people in the south, if it had been decreed for the enemy to defeat the resistance in Gaza and displace its people, the turn after Gaza would be in south Lebanon, specifically south of the Litani. You are the ones who broke their ambitions.

To the fighters, we salute them with respect, appreciation, and honor, and pray for their steadfastness and victory. May Allah guide their aim and all their shots, and may He help them to create this victory for Lebanon, Palestine, and the entire nation.


Today’s massive million-person march in support of Palestine in Sana’a, Yemen, under the slogan “The blood of the free on the path to victory,” with the participation of the Yemeni Air Force.  Similarly, large marches are taking place in other cities across Yemen.

More:  https://t.me/PalestineResist/25262

How Yemen changed everything

Par : AHH

In a single move, Yemen’s Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order.

By Pepe Escobar and first posted at The Cradle.

Whether invented in northern India, eastern China or Central Asia – from Persia to Turkestan – chess is an Asian game. In chess, there always comes a time when a simple pawn is able to upset the whole chessboard, usually via a move in the back rank whose effect simply cannot be calculated.

Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That’s where we are, geopolitically, right now.

The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard – Yemen’s Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea – reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded US Navy force projection to irrelevancy.

Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers – as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships – continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea.

Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its ‘rules-based order.’ It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions.

It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift – with no return – that is adding to the Hegemon’s apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route – which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road.

Map of North-East and North-West Passage shipping routes

For the dumbfounded Europeans, the Russians have detailed three options: First, sail 15,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope. Second, use Russia’s cheaper and faster Northern Sea Route. Third, send the cargo via Russian Railways.

Rosatom, which oversees the Northern Sea Route, has emphasized that non-ice-class ships are now able to sail throughout summer and autumn, and year-round navigation will soon be possible with the help of a fleet of nuclear icebreakers.

All that as direct consequences of the single Yemeni move. What next? Yemen entering BRICS+ at the summit in Kazan in late 2024, under the Russian presidency?

The new architecture will be framed in West Asia 

The US-led Armada put together for Operation Genocide Protection, which collapsed even before birth, may have been set up to “warn Iran,” apart from giving Ansarallah a scare. Just as the Houthis, Tehran is hardly intimidated because, as West Asia analyst ace Alastair Crooke succinctly put it: “Sykes-Picot is dead.”

This is a quantum shift on the chessboard. It means West Asian powers will frame the new regional architecture from now on, not US Navy “projection.”

That carries an ineffable corollary: those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.

Everyone across West Asia is well aware that Ansarallah’s missiles are capable of hitting Saudi and Emirati oil fields, and knocking them out of commission. So it is little wonder that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would never accept becoming part of a US-led maritime force to challenge the Yemeni resistance.

Add to it the role of underwater drones now in the possession of Russia and Iran. Think of fifty of these aimed at a US aircraft carrier: it has no defense. While the Americans still have very advanced submarines, they cannot keep the Bab al-Mandeb and Red Sea open to western operators.

On the energy front, Moscow and Tehran don’t even need to think – at least not yet – about using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, “that would irretrievably implode the international financial system.”

For those still determined to support the genocide in Gaza there have been warnings. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has mentioned it explicitly. Tehran has already called for a total oil and gas embargo against nations that support Israel.

A total naval blockade of Israel, meticulously engineered, remains a distinct possibility. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.”

Keep in mind we’re not yet even talking about a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; we’re still on Red Sea/Bab al-Mandeb.

Because if the Straussian neo-cons in the Beltway get really unhinged by the paradigm shift and act in desperation to “teach a lesson” to Iran, a chokepoint Hormuz-Bab al-Mandeb combo blockade might skyrocket the price of oil to at least $500 a barrel, triggering the implosion of the $618 trillion derivatives market and crashing the entire international banking system.

The paper tiger is in a jam 

Mao Zedong was right after all: the US may be in fact a paper tiger. Putin, though, is way more careful, cold, and calculating. With this Russian president, it’s all about an asymmetric response, exactly when no one is expecting it.

That brings us to the prime working hypothesis perhaps capable of explaining the shadow play masking the single Ansarallah move on the chessboard.

When Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Sy (Seymour) Hersh proved how Team Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, there was no Russian response to what was, in effect, an act of terrorism against Gazprom, against Germany, against the EU, and against a bunch of European companies. Yet Yemen, now, with a simple blockade, turns global shipping upside down.

So what is more vulnerable? The physical networks of global energy supply (Pipelineistan) or the Thalassocracy, states that derive their power from naval supremacy?

Russia privileges Pipelineistan: see, for instance, the Nord Streams and Power of Siberia 1 and 2. But the US, the Hegemon, always relied on its thalassocratic power, heir to “Britannia rules the waves.”

Well, not anymore. And, surprisingly, getting there did not even entail the “nuclear” option, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington games and scaremongers like crazy.

Of course we won’t have a smoking gun. But it’s a fascinating proposition that the single Yemeni move may have been coordinated at the highest level between three BRICS members – Russia, China, and Iran, the neocon new “axis of evil” – plus other two BRICS+, energy powerhouses Saudi Arabia and the UAE. As in, “if you do it, we’ve got your back”.

None of that, of course, detracts from Yemeni purity: their defense of Palestine is a sacred duty.

Western imperialism and then turbo-capitalism have always been obsessed with gobbling up Yemen, a process that Isa Blumi, in his splendid book Destroying Yemen, described as “necessarily stripping Yemenis of their historic role as the economic, cultural, spiritual, and political engine for much of the Indian Ocean world.”

Yemen, though, is unconquerable and, true to a local proverb, “deadly” (Yemen Fataakah). As part of the Axis of Resistance, Yemen’s Ansarallah is now a key actor in a complex Eurasia-wide drama that redefines Heartland connectivity; and alongside China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the India-Iran-Russia-led International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), and Russia’s new Northern Sea Route, also includes control over strategic chokepoints around the Mediterranean Seas and the Arabian peninsula.

This is another trade connectivity paradigm entirely, smashing to bits western colonial and neocolonial control of Afro-Eurasia. So yes, BRICS+ supports Yemen, who with a single move has presented Pax Americana with The Mother of All Geopolitical Jams.

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