Octopus Overlords

A group of Iranian protesters demanded that the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei step down on Saturday after the government said its military had by mistake shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 people on board.

Defiant wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2020 5:47 pm

A group of Iranian protesters demanded that the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei step down on Saturday after the government said its military had by mistake shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 people on board.

Protests erupt in Iran over plane's downing that killed 176

Can't see any reference to the size of these protests, though. My guess is they won't last long, though.

hepcat wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2020 10:07 pm Is it just me, or is Trump one lucky son of a bitch? No matter how much he screws up, something seems to usually happen that either covers it up, or makes it go his way. And trust me, it is blind luck. Nothing about it can be attributed to his being clever.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2020 12:18 pm First its death to America then its death to their own leaders. Iranians are so fickle.

President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.

The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.

That decision explains why assassinating Soleimani was on the menu of options that the military presented to Trump two weeks ago for responding to an attack by Iranian proxies in Iraq, in which a U.S. contractor was killed and four U.S. service members were wounded, the officials said.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:46 pmI hope it's all true, not just messaging.

Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries following the Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq earlier this month, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Friday.

Seventeen service members who were injured have since returned to duty in Iraq, sixteen of whom were treated locally in the country.

Nine service members are still being treated in Germany. An additional eight service members who had been flown to Germany have since been sent to the United States for additional treatment. The eight service members, who arrived in the US Friday morning, will be treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center or at hospitals in their home bases.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 3:11 pm CNN

Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries following the Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq earlier this month, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Friday.

Seventeen service members who were injured have since returned to duty in Iraq, sixteen of whom were treated locally in the country.

Nine service members are still being treated in Germany. An additional eight service members who had been flown to Germany have since been sent to the United States for additional treatment. The eight service members, who arrived in the US Friday morning, will be treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center or at hospitals in their home bases.

A prominent veterans advocacy group is asking President Trump for an apology over his remarks on injuries suffered by U.S. troops stationed at a military base in Iraq that was hit by Iranian airstrikes earlier this month.

Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) said Trump “minimized” the injuries the troops suffered after the Pentagon announced that dozens of U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Trump had referred to the injuries as “headaches" and "not very serious" earlier in the week.
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Trump had initially said no service members had been injured. He later said that he "heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but I would say and I can report that it’s not very serious"

The number of U.S. service members diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after Iranian missile attacks earlier this month has risen to 50 — up from the 34 reported last week. The Pentagon announced the increase Tuesday evening and said 32 of those 50 service members have already received treatment and returned to duty in Iraq.

The remaining 18 were sent to Germany for further evaluation.

Once again, the Pentagon is reporting an uptick in the number of U.S. service members injured in Iranian missile strikes earlier this month. The Department of Defense announced late Thursday that at least 64 service members have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

More than 100 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury from last month's Iranian missile attack on a base in Iraq, the Pentagon announced Monday.

President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his assertion that the injuries suffered by US troops during an Iranian missile attack on US forces are "not very serious."
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While roughly 70% of the injured troops have already returned to duty, at least 21 have been transported elsewhere for additional care, suggesting their injuries may be more severe.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:44 pm BI

President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his assertion that the injuries suffered by US troops during an Iranian missile attack on US forces are "not very serious."
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While roughly 70% of the injured troops have already returned to duty, at least 21 have been transported elsewhere for additional care, suggesting their injuries may be more severe.

Nearly three-quarters of Iran’s main centrifuge assembly hall was destroyed by the recent explosion there, Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) president David Albright told The Jerusalem Post.
Albright indicated that this latest revelation is based on two new satellite overviews showing a much fuller picture than footage that was released last weekend, indicating that the vast majority of the centrifuge assembly hall was wiped out.
This could mean there will be increased delay to Iran’s nuclear program, since it will have to recover from the incident.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:31 am Iran has been having a really bad run of luck when it comes to fires and things blowing up lately. Since Trump hasn't been tweeting about it, I can only presume that America isn't behind it. Or if they are, Trump hasn't been briefed on it.

Remus West wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:51 am

Max Peck wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:31 am Iran has been having a really bad run of luck when it comes to fires and things blowing up lately. Since Trump hasn't been tweeting about it, I can only presume that America isn't behind it. Or if they are, Trump hasn't been briefed on it.

The saddest part is that you could be correct about it being US and the POTUS having no idea because the people involved know he would ruin their cover and get agents killed.

The president of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, a move that drew an angry rebuke from the U.S. ambassador who accused opponents of supporting “terrorists.”

Indonesia’s ambassador to the U.N., Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency, made the announcement in response to requests from Russia and China to disclose the results of his polling of the views of all countries on the 15-member council.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted last Thursday that the United States has the legal right to “snap back” U.N. sanctions, even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

All the council members, except the Dominican Republic, had informed the council president that the U.S. administration’s action was illegal because Trump withdrew in 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

President Donald Trump last week asked senior aides what possibilities he had for an offensive strike on Iran's primary nuclear site, The New York Times reported Monday.

Citing four current and former US officials, the paper reported that the meeting occurred in the Oval Office on Thursday. A day before, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report obtained by the Times stating that Iran's stockpiles of uranium had reached 12 times the 300-kilogram limit set in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the landmark nuclear deal Iran signed with the United States and five other nations in 2015. Trump took the US out of the deal in 2018.

Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley were among the senior advisers who convinced the President not to pursue a military strike

Prominent Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was injured in an assassination attempt near Tehran on Friday and was being treated in a hospital, Iranian media reported.

Fakhrizadeh has long been suspected by Western, Israeli and Iranian exile foes of the Islamic Republic to have masterminded what they said was a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponize nuclear energy.

The semi-official Fars News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, named the nuclear scientist injured in the reported attack as Fakhrizadeh.

Shortly before, several Iranian news outlets including state broadcaster IRIB said a nuclear and missile scientist had been assassinated in an attack. But there was no official confirmation of a death, and Tehran’s nuclear energy body said there had been no incident involving a nuclear scientist.

“News sources say a scientist has been the victim of an assassination attempt in an armed attack by unknown people on his team of bodyguards,” Iranian state television said in rolling coverage of the incident.

Iran's most senior nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has been assassinated near the capital Tehran, the country's defence ministry has confirmed.

Fakhrizadeh died in hospital after being attacked in Damavand county.

Iranian news agencies said assailants targeted his car with a bomb before shooting at him.

An air strike killed a commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at the Iraq-Syria border sometime between Saturday and Sunday, Iraqi security and local militia officials said on Monday.

They could not confirm the identity of the commander, who they said was killed alongside three other men travelling in a vehicle with him.

The vehicle was carrying weapons across the Iraqi border and was hit after it had entered Syrian territory, two Iraqi security officials separately said.

malchior wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:47 pm The theory I've seen is that Isreal is ramping up action against Iran because they assume that Biden is going to take a less hostile stance against Iran.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 10:24 pm If trump were behind aware of it, he'd be tweeting his own congrats.

A satellite-controlled machine-gun with "artificial intelligence" was used to kill Iran's top nuclear scientist, a Revolutionary Guards commander says.
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On the day of the attack, the defence ministry said there was a gunfight between Fakhrizadeh's bodyguards and several gunmen.
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The machine-gun "focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh's face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25cm [10 inches] away, was not shot", he said.

The general reiterated that no human assailants had been present at the scene, saying that "in total 13 bullets were fired and all of them were shot from the [weapon] in the Nissan". Four bullets struck Fakhrizadeh's head of security "as he threw himself" on the scientist, he added.
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The claims made about the attack being carried out using such a sophisticated high-tech weapon are as alarming as they are dystopian.

It's worth stressing that they have not been verified by anybody.