This week of news began with an Israeli strike in the al-Mazzah airport area near Damascus overnight Friday. The targets were the offices of the Syrian army’s air intelligence and a plant where Iranian drones are manufactured. Heavy damage was reported, in addition to three pro-Iranian Syrians being killed and seven wounded.
Tensions continue between Hezbollah and Israel over the Karish gas fields. Hezbollah says that unless it is promised a piece of the action, it will attack as soon as gas is extracted through the Karish rig. They are playing a very dangerous game. Israel is already planning a broad assault on the Hezbollah rocket arsenal before they have a chance to use the weapons. The Israeli philosophy is if you attack small, we will pay back large.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is not above playing some head games with its enemies. Yesterday, they tweeted a set of coordinates, challenging people to enter them into their GPS. When entered, the coordinates took you to the sports field of the Islamic University of Gaza. They left that cryptic message hanging there for an hour, before following up with a short video implying that there is a terrorist tunnel under the field. Surprise, Hamas! Apparently, your secret isn’t quite so secret anymore.
The news organization, Iran International, released a video last Thursday of a senior IRGC official being interrogated by the Israeli Mossad in Iran. In the recording, Yadollah Khedmati, deputy commander of IRGC Logistics, admitted to shipping weapons to proxy terrorist militias in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Following the interrogation, Khedmati was freed.
Two days later, Iran claimed to have arrested a large group of agents operated by the Israeli Mossad. According to Iran, all those arrested were members of a Marxist Kurdish rebel group called Komalah who operate out of the northwestern province of Kurdistan. Explosives were allegedly already planted around sensitive areas in the Isfahan region, an area with numerous nuclear centers. Iranian intelligence thwarted the attack with hours to spare. There is no word on the fate of those arrested.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Friday that Iran’s nuclear program “is advancing at a gallop and we have very little visibility.” Additionally, Iran has announced that they are building a new nuclear reactor for research purposes in the same Isfahan region discussed above. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Iran announced that due to the spike in prices Iran’s profits for oil over the past four months are up 600% compared to the same period last year. The progress in Iran’s nuclear program correlates closely with the increase in its economy because there is little that is pushing Iran back to the table for talks or for oversight.
For those of you in North America who are breathing a sigh of relief that the terrorist regime of Iran is centered over in my part of the world, Venezuela has recently ceded to Iran 250,000 acres of farmland. But don’t worry, they say they’re only going to use the land to grow soybeans and corn. Please watch for a future edition of the newsletter in which I’ll include an address where you can send a “Welcome to the Western Hemisphere” basket.
Protestors stormed the Iraqi parliament building yesterday to protest the nomination of a pro-Iran Shiite cleric for Prime Minister. Mohammed al-Sudani is the nominee of the Coordination Framework bloc, a coalition of Iran-backed parties and others.
Anger continues between the Arab world and Turkey over the massacre of Kurdish tourists during shelling by the Turkish military. Friday saw the downing of two bomb-laden drones bound for a Turkish base in northern Iraq. No one was injured. Turkey remains insistent that they had nothing to do with the incident with the civilians.
In what could be a major strategic victory for Russia, the leadership of the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria is planning to announce that it will join Russia. The ability to position troops in Transnistria, sandwiched between the eastern border of Moldova and the western border of Ukraine, would offer a huge strategic foothold to Russian forces.
In a clarification of Russia’s intent surrounding the shutting down of the Jewish Agency, Moscow has indicated that their focus is on keeping in Russia Jews who work in fields such as science and business in order to not harm Russian potential. This is good news, because it means that only the smart Jews will be trapped in Russia, while all the others can go. This is certainly a step up from 1930s Russia when they were shooting all the smart Jews and simply letting the others starve to death. How Moscow thought that terrible clarification would help their cause is beyond me. Currently, Israel is considering publishing a “price tag” against Russia if they close the agency that assists in the immigration of Jews into Israel. Serious diplomatic changes regarding the level of relationship between the countries, as well as Israel’s policy towards Ukraine, will be considered.
Russia continues to play its gas game with Germany. After a 10-day shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for repairs, Gazprom, a Russian state-owned gas company, restarted the flow to Germany at only 40% of capacity. Now it says that it will further reduce the flow to 20%. If that rate remains into the German winter, it could mean double-digit inflation, the closing of factories, people freezing, and overall despair.
An agreement was signed Friday between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN that will allow the export of Ukrainian grain for 120 days. Russia has agreed to a truce in the specified waters while the shipments move. Why would Moscow agree to this? First, it’s a great public relations move that makes Putin look benevolent. Second, the UN in turn agreed to remove some of Russia’s fertilizer sanctions. Finally, if Russia ultimately conquers those shipping ports, it will take over Ukraine’s role in the shipments.
The US is investigating cell tower equipment owned by the Chinese telecommunications company, Huawei. The concern is whether it has stolen or may steal Defense Department communications related to the US nuclear arsenal, among other highly sensitive information.
Finally, days after the Ezekiel 38 trio (Russia, Turkey, Iran) declared at their trilateral summit that America must leave Syria as soon as possible, four rockets exploded near the al-Shadadi base in northern Syria. This base houses American military forces, and had eight rockets fired towards it in January. There were no casualties or damage reported.
