The Pentagon said on Thursday that about 900 troops are in the process of deploying to the Middle East as the US is bolstering its defenses in the region amid a spate of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria over President Biden’s support for Israel’s Gaza war.
The deployment includes troops who were recently notified to be prepared to be deployed. Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said the deployment was part of the US effort to send more air defense systems to the region, including a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and Patriot systems. Ryder did not say where the troops were being deployed, just that they weren’t going to Israel.
US troops based in Iraq and Syria have come under rocket and drone attacks over a dozen times since last week, resulting in at least 21 injuries. Ryder said 19 troops had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
The attacks have continued, as Ryder said a base housing US troops in Iraq was targeted again on Thursday. A militia group that calls itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it launched two drones in the northern Erbil province and described the attack as “unsuccessful.”
The US has not attributed blame for the attacks to a specific group but is pointing the finger at Iran as it supports Shia militias that operate in Iraq and Syria. However, the groups can act independently, and the Pentagon has acknowledged it has no evidence Iran has ordered the attacks.
“I’m not going to have more specific information to provide to you from here in terms of specific groups that have claimed responsibility, other than to say we know that these groups are affiliated with Iran,” Ryder said.
P.S. If you were not parked there, NO. targets. Basic logic. Hawaii is nice this time of year…
Air defense? The local militias will shut down the resupply roads by force. And which Arab country are these American aircraft flying from? That will soon end.
I think the US needs to reconsider, where it wants to be parked.
Maybe time for some new ideas?… Before you know it, we could be at war, this time, with a country that seems to be able to fight back.
Some free advice… Get as many peace deals done, as you can, pack your bags and come home. For everyones sake.
WAR with Iran is not advisable…….
War against Iran and the nation of Islam is asinine and potentionally suicidal.
Dire reading of the situation by Alastair Crooke:
Escalations Cannot Be Stopped – The White House Is Rattled; Escalations Might All Fuse Into ‘One’
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/26/escalations-cannot-be-stopped-the-white-house-is-rattled-escalations-might-all-fuse-into-one/
….In other words, the Israeli ‘paradigm’ hinges on manifesting overwhelming, crushing force directed to any emerging challenge. This has had its origin in the U.S. insistence that Israel have both the political leading-edge (all strategic decisions lay with Israel uniquely under Oslo), and equally, that it has the military cutting leading-edge over all its neighbours too.
Despite being presented as such, this is not a formula by which to reach any sustainable, peaceful accord by which the 1947 UNGA Resolution 181 (the division of Mandate-era Palestine) into two states can be reached. Rather, Israel under the Netanyahu government has been moving closer and closer to an eschatological founding of Israel on the (Biblical) ‘Land of Israel’ – a move that expunges Palestine totally.
It is no coincidence that Netanyahu flourished a map of Israel during his General Assembly address last month in which Israel dominated from the River to the Sea – and Palestine (indeed any Palestinian territory) was non-existent.
Tom Friedman in his NYT reflections may fear that just as NATO’s impaired performance in Ukraine has ruptured ‘the NATO myth’, so too the 7 October Israeli military and intelligence collapse and what happens in its wake in Gaza ‘might explode the entire pro-American alliance structure’ in the Middle East.
The confluence of two such humiliations might break the spine of western primacy. This seems to be the gist to Friedman’s analysis. (He likely is correct).
Hamas has succeeded in smashing the Israel deterrence paradigm: They were not afraid, the IDF proved far from invincible, and the Arab street mobilised as never before (confounding western cynics who laugh at the very notion of there being an ‘Arab Street’)….The anger across the region is real and threatens ‘moderate’ Arab leaders, whose room for manoeuvre is now circumscribed.
So hotspots are proliferating, as are attacks on U.S. deployments around the region. Some in Washington claim to perceive an Iranian hand, and are hoping to expand a window for war with Iran.
The panicked White House is over-reacting – sending huge convoys (100s) of heavy-lift cargo planes loaded with bombs, missiles and air defences (THAAD and Patriot) to Israel but also to the Gulf, Jordan and Cyprus. Special Forces and 2,000 marines are being deployed too. Plus two aircraft carriers and their attendant vessels.
The U.S. thus is sending a veritable full-scale war Armada. This can only escalate tensions – and provoke counter-moves: Russia now is deploying on Black Sea patrol, MiG-31 aircraft equipped with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles (that can reach the U.S. carrier force off Cyprus), and China reportedly has dispatched naval vessels to the area. China, Russia, Iran and Gulf States are engaged in a frenzy of diplomacy to contain the conflict, even were Hizbullah to enter deeper into the conflict.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/26/escalations-cannot-be-stopped-the-white-house-is-rattled-escalations-might-all-fuse-into-one/
Disgusting:
Israel kills Al-Jazeera correspondent’s family days after Blinken demands the channel’s coverage be ‘toned down’
Wael El-Dahdouh, Al-Jazeera Bureau Chief in Gaza, was reporting live when an Israeli airstrike targeted the southern Gaza building where his family sheltered, killing his wife, son, daughter, and grandson.
The news came hours after Axios reported that Secretary Antony Blinken told U.S. Jewish leaders he asked Qatar to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage” of the Israeli genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip, accusing the network of being “anti-Israel.”
Mondoweiss reached out to journalists in Gaza who shared their anxiety that their families could fall victim to punitive shelling solely for doing their job. “I’ve started to feel that I’m a danger to those around me,” one journalist confessed.
I was feeling this from the beginning of the war, since my voice started being heard… There are so many innocents around me, people that have nothing to do with me or my writings or my work.
The journalist, who remained anonymous for fear of retaliation, said, “Targeting someone’s family is more painful than targeting that person only.” “Maybe,” he added,
this is the message they want to send to every journalist: ‘you aren’t the only one we will target; we can burn your heart by targeting your family and robbing you of the will to live afterward.’
https://mronline.org/2023/10/27/israel-kills-al-jazeera-correspondents-family-days-after-blinken-demands-the-channels-coverage-be-toned-down/