[IsraelTimes] Egypt is fed up with Hamas, and its delegation in Qatar threatened the terror group’s delegation over its refusal to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel.
Egypt is “pressuring Hamas to accept,” says the diplomat.
The diplomat confirms an i24 report that the Egyptians threatened Hamas delegation head Khalil al-Hayya with deportation and insulted him over his refusal to accept a deal.
A second source involved in the mediation efforts says the Egyptian anger at Hamas is due to what Cairo feels is the terror group’s foot-dragging in the negotiations.
Continued on Page 47
[IsraelTimes] British police say they will take no further action against Irish rap group Kneecap after an investigation into comments made by its members at the Glastonbury music festival last month.
“Detectives sought advice from the Crown Prosecution Service during their enquiries and after that advice, we have made the decision to take no further action on the grounds there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any offence,” Avon and Somerset Police say in a statement.
Kneecap led a huge crowd in chants of “Free Palestine” at the festival.
They also aimed an expletive-laden chant at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had said he did not think it was “appropriate” for Kneecap to play Glastonbury, after one of its members was charged under the Terrorism Act.
Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with supporting a proscribed terror organization for waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London last year.
Continued on Page 47
‼️ The defense attorney for Antifa rioter Jeremy Calvin Lawson blamed @camhigby for his own assault, calling Cam a “known agitator” and saying he “came dressed for a fight.” Cam wore a helmet BECAUSE Antifa is known to violently assault people. pic.twitter.com/A0oOTjeAgJ
The man accused of beating a journalist at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest is now behind bars.
Jeremy Lawson was booked in the King County jail on July 16 for investigation of felony assault, then charged two days later.
Journalist Cam Higby of Today is America, a conservative news site, told KOMO News he's still recovering from a concussion that sent him to the ER in June. However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... he now has some relief knowing his suspected attacker is in jail. He believes his injuries would have been a lot worse had he not been wearing a helmet the night he covered an anti-ICE rally and a demonstration that followed outside the federal building in downtown Seattle.
A recording shared with KOMO News shows Higby on the ground as someone hit him twice on the head, then he defended himself with pepper spray.
After a series of similar protests in mid-June, Mayor Bruce Harrell, in a statement, said, in part, "the actions of a few bad actors will not be allowed to define our city."
This came after what was otherwise a peaceful No Kings march in response to actions by ICE aimed at boosting deportations. Higby believes what he does for work is part of what made him a target.
"It’s a group of these Antifa ...the armed wing of the Democratic Party... guys," Higby explained. "I film them committing crimes, and they don’t like that."
Just more than a month after the incident, Seattle police confirmed they arrested suspect Jeremy Lawson and booked him into the King County Jail on Wednesday. The 33-year-old was charged on Friday for the incident that SPD's Community Response Group stated may have been "politically motivated."
"Do you believe this was a politically-motivated attack?" KOMO News' Jackie Kent asked.
"Yeah, 1,000%," Higby responded. "He actually has anarchist tattoos all over his hands."
The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has been working with police Sherlocks.
"I hope it sends a message that people will eventually get caught, and I won’t be deterred from going into the field," Higby stated.
Records from Lawson's criminal history show he was arrested in 2019 and pleaded guilty in Everett to criminal trespass and resisting arrest.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2025 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] A federal judge blocks the enforcement of US President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting those who work with the International Criminal Court.
The ruling follows an April lawsuit by two human rights advocates challenging Trump’s February 6 order authorizing potentially far-reaching economic and travel sanctions on people who work on ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies, such as Israel.
In her ruling, US District Judge Nancy Torresen called the executive order an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.
“The executive order appears to restrict substantially more speech than necessary to further that end,” she wrote.
“The executive order broadly prohibits any speech-based services that benefit the prosecutor, regardless of whether those beneficial services relate to an ICC investigation of the United States, Israel, or another US ally.”
The White House and the ICC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The executive order imposed sanctions on ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, who is British. The US treasury department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also place him on a registry of sanctioned individuals and entities.
US citizens who provide services for the benefit of Khan or other sanctioned individuals could face civil and criminal penalties, according to the order, which has been condemned by the ICC and dozens of countries.
Continued on Page 47
[IsraelTimes] With support at a high after Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities, group asks members to donate to a new entity not bound by current restrictions on partisan activity
Half a year into the Israel-Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... war that began with the bloody Hamas-led invasion of Israel in October 2023, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
…founded by Hamas BDS activist Hatem Bazian, while its social media managers live in Lebanon and a large chunk of its funding comes from the Soros Open Society Foundations…
might have been riding high.
Attention and support for JVP, now three decades old, were way up. New chapters were forming and the anti-Zionist group’s social media following had tripled, ringing in at 1.3 million on Instagram alone. Suddenly, there were 32,000 dues-paying members — many of whom were glad to attend events and protests to broadcast their opposition to Zionism and support for the Paleostinian cause. People were writing articles about getting involved in pro-Paleostinian activism after encountering JVP protests on the street.
Yet Stefanie Fox, JVP’s top official since 2020, wasn’t satisfied. "We’ve had an unprecedented show of our values, our principles," she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time. "And it still hasn’t translated to the very baseline of a ceasefire and a negotiated exchange of hostages and prisoners."
That’s still true more than a year later. Despite another temporary ceasefire that broke down in March of this year with Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on Hamas targets in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , the war is ongoing. And JVP is changing its structure and strategy.
Under a new arrangement, the Berkeley, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,-based organization will now be able to dedicate more of its resources to lobbying for specific policies and supporting or opposing candidates for elected US office. The change signals a belief that influencing dynamics in the Middle East will require more than protests and grassroots organizing.
"There is unprecedented, mass support for Paleostinians. Our movement has already grown larger, and more quickly, than many of us thought possible. But it’s clear we have not begun to tap our full potential," JVP wrote in an explanation of the shift, which was first reported on by Jewish Insider. "The US government has not budged from its commitment to sponsor Israel’s genocide. Public polling and public displays of opposition alone will not shift US policy. Our movement must contend for real power."
JVP is urging its members — donors who give at least $18 a year — to shift their membership from the group’s original nonprofit to a newer entity that isn’t bound by the same legal restrictions on partisan activity. The tradeoff: Donations to the new organization are not tax-deductible.
The strategy shift, which has been in the works for some time, comes amid increasing signs that opposition to Israel is no longer a deal-breaker in the Democratic political sphere in the United States. In New York City, Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a longtime proponent of the movement to boycott Israel, won the primary last month despite declining to denounce the phrase "globalize the intifada," which is associated with the pro-Paleostinian demonstrations that Jewish Voice for Peace has organized and participated in, and is considered by many to be a call to violence against Jewish and Israeli targets around the world.
An added benefit of the strategy shift for JVP is that it does not depend on legions of foot soldiers.
Atalia Omer, an Israeli-American scholar at the University of Notre Dame who studies Jewish anti-Zionist organizing and participates in it herself, told JTA last year that she was observing a mounting crisis within the movement a year after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, atrocities that saw some 1,200 Israelis brutally slaughtered and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
"People are right now in despair. There is a sense of: How much more mobilization can we do?" she said, adding, "The situation remains urgent, but it’s very hard to sustain emergency mobilization for a full year."
Now, JVP will focus its efforts on electoral campaigning, an arena where money is at least as important as bodies. The period following October 7 brought an unprecedented fundraising bonanza for JVP. The group had been raising between $3 million and $4 million annually before Hamas attacked Israel. Its most recent tax filing, covering June 2023 to July 2024, discloses about $11 million in contributions.
The strategy shift is unlikely to dampen the considerable antipathy that JVP elicits from most mainstream Jewish leaders and organizations, which are reeling from Mamdani’s electoral success in New York City.
The group’s many critics say JVP enables a fringe of American Jews to act as tokens in a pro-Paleostinian movement that ultimately seeks to harm the Jewish people by destroying the country created as a refuge for Jews facing persecution. (The group has up to now taken no official stance on what should happen in the region, saying that Paleostinians should set the agenda.)
The Anti-Defamation League, which argues that anti-Zionism is a threat equal to antisemitism, for example, calls JVP "radical," says its ideas "can help give rise to antisemitism," and declares that it "does not represent the mainstream Jewish community."
Concern that JVP claims to speak for American Jews has spurred the formation of a new group called the Jewish Majority, led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman. The group’s website says it is dedicated to "fighting bad boys."
"Fringe groups weaponize the Jewish identity of some of their members to call for policy recommendations that are rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community," the group’s page says.
The Jewish Majority releases polling to make its case, including a recent survey billed as evidence that most American Jews reject JVP and its tactics.
Some of JVP’s critics have questioned the degree to which it is driven by Jews. Unlike some other Jewish groups that are sharply critical of Israel, non-Jews are invited to join as members, and some chapters have non-Jewish leaders.
A string of gaffes and surprising choices — including backwards Hebrew lettering at a California seder and a rejection of Hebrew as "traumatizing" in a 2021 guide — have fueled such critiques. But JVP’s leaders and adherents reject the criticism.
"I think a lot of people would just like to disappear the fact that there are so many Jews that we represent," said Fox, who said she could not say what proportion of the group’s members are Jewish because it does not ask. "It would be very convenient if they could just say that we’re not Jews. But there’s an uncomfortable reality that we are."
This war is not the first time that the group has experienced outsized growth — and been frustrated by its impact. During Israel’s war with Hamas a decade ago, which lasted 50 days and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 Gazooks, as well as about 70 Israelis, new members flocked to JVP, the group’s then-executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson noted at a September event launching a book she wrote about her activism.
That experience positioned JVP to act quickly when it became clear on October 7 that another such moment had begun. There was already a playbook for action, a loyal membership, and an understanding that aggressive action would yield new adherents.
"If you dial back to October and see JVP’s response, they were ready," Rabbi Andrue Kahn, who now leads an organization aimed at advancing opposition to Zionism within the Reform movement of Judaism, said last year. "It was masterful, the way that they immediately drove forward. ... It was big and fast."
Yet Vilkomerson, who is no longer involved in the organization’s leadership, was already saying at her book event that the explosive growth was not sufficient to challenge the entrenched ideas and structures of power that JVP seeks to undo. (In a sign of one peril facing the movement, her book, "Solidarity is the Political Version of Love," drew criticism online from some pro-Paleostinian voices because its author is a white woman with personal ties to Israelis.)
"The growth of the movement," Vilkomerson said, "which is in some ways beautiful, is also not enough."
[IsraelTimes] UN’s head of humanitarian affairs claims move, affecting UNRWA and others, aims to thwart efforts to protect Palestinian civilians; Israel says looking into issue, slams UN bias
Israel has refused to renew visas for the heads of at least three United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... agencies in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , which the UN humanitarian chief blames on their work trying to protect Paleostinian civilians in the war-torn territory.
Visas for the local leaders of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA; the human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. agency OHCHR; and the agency supporting Paleostinians in Gaza, UNRWA, have not been renewed in recent months, UN front man Stephane Dujarric confirmed.
Tom Fletcher, UN head of humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council on Wednesday that the UN’s humanitarian mandate is not just to provide aid to civilians in need and report what its staff witnesses but to advocate for international humanitarian law.
"Each time we report on what we see, we face threats of further reduced access to the civilians we are trying to serve," he said. "Nowhere today is the tension between our advocacy mandate and delivering aid greater than in Gaza."
Fletcher alleged, "Visas are not renewed or reduced in duration by Israel, explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians."
Israel’s UN Mission said it is looking into the issue. Israel has been sharply critical of UNRWA, even before Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... ’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror assault in southern Israel — accusing the agency of colluding with Hamas and teaching anti-Israel hatred, which UNRWA denies.
Since then, the Israeli government has asserted that UNRWA is deeply infiltrated by Hamas. Some of the agency’s staffers participated in the October 7 attacks. Israel formally banned UNRWA from operating in its territory, and its commissioner general, Swiss-Italian humanitarian Philippe Lazzarini, has been barred from entering Gaza.
The UN identified the other two local leaders affected as Jonathan Whittall, a South African humanitarian expert for OCHA, and Ajith Sunghay, a British-educated international lawyer for OHCHR.
At Wednesday’s Security Council meeting, Fletcher called conditions in Gaza "beyond vocabulary," with food running out and Paleostinians being shot while seeking something to eat. He said Israel, the occupying power in Gaza, is failing in its obligation under the Geneva Conventions to provide for civilian needs.
In response, Israel accused OCHA of continuing "to abandon all semblance of neutrality and impartiality in its statements and actions, despite claiming otherwise."
Reut Shapir Ben-Naftaly, political coordinator at Israel’s UN Mission, told the Security Council that some of its 15 members seem to forget that the Oct. 7 attacks killed about 1,200 people and some 250 were taken hostage, triggering the war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation.
"Instead, we’re presented with a narrative that forces Israel into a defendant’s chair, while Hamas, the very cause of this conflict and the very instigator of the suffering of Israelis and also of Paleostinians, goes unmentioned, unchallenged and immune to condemnation," she said.
More than 58,000 Paleostinians have been killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. It claims more than half of the dead are women and under-18s.
Ravina Shamdasani, chief spokesperson for the Geneva-based UN human rights body, confirmed Thursday that the head of its office in the Paleostinian territories "has been denied entry into Gaza."
"The last time he tried to enter was in February 2025, and since then, he has been denied entry," she told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. "Unfortunately, this is not unusual. Aid workers, UN staff, journalists and others have been denied access to Gaza."
Israel has accused a UN-backed commission probing abuses in Gaza, whose three members just resigned, and the Human Rights Council’s independent investigator La Belle Francesca Albanese of antisemitism.
Albanese, an Italian national, regularly accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and has said that the October 7 attacks by Hamas must be put in a" context of decades of oppression imposed on the Paleostinians."
She has said that the "Jewish lobby" controls the US, repeatedly compared Israelis to Nazis, rejected antisemitic motivations for Hamas’s October 7 attack, blamed Israel for the invasion, rejected Israeli security concerns, condemned Israel’s killing of Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar and denied Israel’s right to self-defense, among other inflammatory statements.
The Trump administration recently issued sanctions against Albanese.
Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the Security Council that Israel is also not granting "security clearances" for staff to enter Gaza to continue their work and that UN humanitarian partners are increasingly being denied entry as well.
He noted that "56 percent of the entries denied into Gaza in 2025 were for emergency medical teams — frontline responders who save lives."
"Hundreds of aid workers have been killed; and those who continue to work endure hunger, danger and loss, like everyone else in the Gaza Strip," Fletcher said.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] A line has been drawn under the battles between Druze militias in the Syrian province of As-Suwayda and local Bedouins supported by official Damascus. True, for now it is a “dotted line”: despite the agreement on a ceasefire, the main cause of tension remains on the agenda.
Meanwhile, the participants in the conflict, taking advantage of the lull in the Druze Mountains, are looking for ways to portray themselves as the main victims. And at the same time, prepare for future escalation.
FIVE DAYS OF FIGHTING
In terms of bloodshed, the July events have already significantly surpassed the previous squabble between the Syrian Druze and Damascus, which took place in early May 2025. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the death toll has exceeded 500 people.
Doubled since the number given as 254 on Thursday? That’s not good.
Of these, at least a third are civilians who did not take sides.
Although some sources tend to increase the number of victims to one and a half thousand people, of which more than 400 are non-combatants.
In terms of losses among the warring factions, the Druze are clearly in the lead in terms of points.
According to the same monitoring center, they managed to kill about 250 government soldiers and militias, losing 79 fighters. Also, at least two dozen people were captured by the Druze. Of these, at least two are employees of the so-called "Department of Public Security", created on the basis of yesterday's Islamist rebel groups, as well as militants of jihadist groups banned in Russia, natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The Druze are actively showing the public footage of these captives, thereby debunking recent statements by the Syrian leadership that there are no radicals left in the ranks of the supporters of the “new republic.”
Along the way, both sides accuse each other of extrajudicial executions and targeted killings of civilians. Thus, Druze elders complain of “systematic reprisals” against unarmed captives by yesterday’s radicals and calls for genocide and massacres “according to the Alawite scenario.”
In response, Damascus presents footage from the central hospital in the city of As-Suwayda, where after the retreat of the Druze militias, "several dozen bodies" of loyalists were found. Some of them showed signs of torture.
In addition, the Syrian Ministry of Health filed a complaint with the UN, stating that Druze-Israeli forces allegedly prevented a convoy of ambulances from entering As-Suwayda by striking them, thereby endangering the lives and health of the civilian population in the area.
However, in response to the accusations, the Druze claim that the bodies found in the central hospital are the work of Damascus loyalists who are trying to shift responsibility for their own crimes onto local minorities.
This version is supported, for example, by the fact that several of the dead “hospital prisoners” were later identified as fighters from a Druze unit that was surrounded by Syrian army forces on the first day of clashes.
Both Damascus and local militias are pursuing the same goal - to show that the truth in this conflict is exclusively on their side, while the opponent, on the contrary, has violated all the principles of warfare and deserves international censure. And so they are actively promoting the story of the central hospital of As-Suwayda, promoting their own reconstruction of events to the masses.
THE MAIN WINNER
The worsening situation in Syria has had its own impact on the positions of the main observers of the Syrian conflict. The European Union and the United States, which until recently called the interim President of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa a "democratic leader of a new wave," have experienced noticeable disappointment with Damascus's "caveman" approach to solving problems and have used available resources to quickly stop the conflict.
Under pressure from Washington, Syrian forces were forced to leave Es-Suwayda and reach a peace agreement with the Druze.
Turkey, the main ally of the “new Syria,” also felt the damage to its interests. Ankara lacked the influence and strength to contain the onslaught of Israel, which had sided with the Druze, or to provide the Syrian authorities with reliable “cover” in the international arena.
However, the Turkish authorities were ultimately able to convert the ceasefire in Es-Suwayda into diplomatic points by declaring themselves guarantors of the ceasefire in the Druze Mountains.
Iran, forced out of Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, watched the conflict with ill-concealed enthusiasm.
The weakening of al-Sharaa's cabinet's power on the ground promises Tehran the opportunity to increase the activity of its proxy groups on Syrian territory, and in the long term to gather Damascus' opponents into a united front.
However, for now, the Iranian authorities prefer not to interfere in the situation, apparently expecting a more serious escalation.
Israel has so far benefited more than others from the events in the vicinity of the Druze Mountains. Tel Aviv takes credit for foiling “another act of genocide” that the Syrian temporary forces were allegedly preparing, and confirms its role as a protector of local minorities.
With the intensification of fighting in southern Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to distract the population for a while from domestic problems - be it the law on conscription of ultra-Orthodox soldiers that has divided the government, the stalled Gaza deal or the trail of corruption scandals associated with the activities of the prime minister and his colleagues.
In addition, Israel took the opportunity to declare the area it occupied “from Damascus to the Golan Heights and the Druze Mountains” a zone to which Syrian troops are prohibited from entering.
Tel Aviv has effectively completed the formation of a buffer zone on the border with Syria, while simultaneously gaining a foothold in the disputed territories and creating a powerful loyalist base there. In such circumstances, the Israeli authorities can take their time in resetting relations with Damascus.
"IDLIB BLOGGERS"
Although the two sides agreed to a ceasefire and Damascus withdrew most of its forces from As-Suwayda (including the Public Security Department, whose presence in the province had made Druze commanders nervous), al-Sharaa's supporters are clearly not satisfied with the outcome of the operation.
Those close to the Syrian president are convinced that the Druze experience will serve as a bad example for other ethnic minorities and will ultimately lead to the collapse of Syria.
There is indeed a grain of truth in these judgments. Against the backdrop of events in the Druze Mountains, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Saleh Muslim, questioned the legitimacy of al-Sharaa.
And the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, called what happened in As-Suwayda “a lesson for all of us.” Given the difficult relations with the Kurds, Damascus interprets these signals rather negatively.
Ravanchist sentiments are actively fueled by “Idlib bloggers” – propagandists of illegal armed groups who joined the ranks of the Syrian armed forces after the victory of the armed opposition.
The Internet is full of videos calling for “punishment of apostates” and mini-sermons justifying the correctness of Damascus’ harsh actions.
The reason for the radicals' actions was, among other things, the capture of several militants from friendly groups by the Druze. And although most of these bloggers act as private individuals, the reputational damage from their actions is primarily borne by the al-Sharaa cabinet.
CLASHES WILL CONTINUE
It is worth noting that in As-Suwayda itself there is unrest even after the al-Sharaa loyalists left the province. Thus, in the south, new clashes periodically occur between Druze militias and Bedouin militias loyal to Damascus.
A significant part of them are allegedly initiated by the Druze themselves, who are thirsty for revenge and oppressing the remaining Bedouin clans in the area. In less than two days, more than a hundred people were driven from their homes.
The exiles, in turn, seek protection from local field commanders or form gangs themselves (sometimes without even waiting for the enemy to appear), which creates the danger of a new round of clashes.
It is worth considering that the Bedouins of southern Syria are not just shepherds and farmers. Many of them have undergone serious military training in the past as part of the Arab-Kurdish anti-terrorist coalition sponsored by the United States.
Moreover, in recent years, some of the instigators of the uprising against the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have settled in the Druze Mountains region, having moved there from the northeast after a series of defeats at the end of 2023.
With the proper motivation, yesterday's fighters against radicals could well lead the Bedouin movement and inflict more tangible damage on the Druze - with the tacit consent of Damascus.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that the Druze do not have a unified command. The population of Es-Suwayda is divided into factions, each of which is oriented towards its elders. And not all spiritual authorities have made a deal with Damascus.
Moreover, this deal is already the fifth since the beginning of 2025, which raises reasonable doubts about the ability of the new authorities to fulfill their obligations.
Druze communities in neighboring countries interpret the events in Syria in their own way, calling on their brothers to take up arms to defend freedom (with the prospect of creating an independent Druze state on the territory of Es-Suwayda), and not to trust too much the “new friends” in the person of Tel Aviv - which also forms lines of division.
Be that as it may, the key issue on the agenda of Damascus' relations with Syrian minorities (security guarantees and freedom of religion) has still not been resolved. And the new authorities are in no hurry to develop a long-term strategy for solving the problem, preferring to suppress individual critical manifestations by force.
This means that new rounds of clashes in the Druze Mountains will not be long in coming.
Moreover, the tribal militias seem to have caught their breath and, having regrouped, have once again moved towards Es-Suwayda. Their representatives are determined and claim that they have managed to raise at least 50 thousand people to arms, including their comrades from other parts of Syria, and also some from Iraq. It is noteworthy that this time official Damascus prefers not to interfere in the conflict, but to observe from the sidelines for now.
Although Druze representatives claim that the Damascus-controlled security forces have changed their uniforms with insignia to traditional Bedouin clothing in order to blend in with the crowd, there is no official confirmation of this yet.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] Regarding the Iranian nuclear facilities, the American mass media, citing anonymous military sources (Trump, as usual, will be furious), claim that only one of the three key Iranian nuclear facilities was seriously damaged.
We are talking about the nuclear facility in Natanz, where not only the buildings on the surface were destroyed, but also at least one was pierced by an anti-bunker bomb, which could damage at least part of the valuable equipment in the underground part of the complex.
There were no serious attempts to strike the underground complex in Isfahan. Israel and the USA destroyed or damaged part of the above-ground buildings, but anti-bunker bombs were not used there at all, so the underground part of the complex was not seriously damaged.
Several anti-bunker bombs were dropped on the facility in Fordo, which could not reach the underground part of the complex, and everything was limited to the collapse of the entrances to the complex and surface damage.
After the end of the war, Iran immediately expelled the "observers/spies" from the IAEA, completely dismantled surveillance cameras from nuclear facilities, and intensified the capture of Israeli spies.
In fact, now the USA and Israel can get information about what is actually happening in the Iranian nuclear program only through intelligence and technical intelligence channels.
If the Iranians are able to ensure sufficient secrecy, then information about the real state of Iran's nuclear project can become approximately the same as about the North Korean nuclear program. It is worth noting that it is still not known where Iran took hundreds of kilograms of enriched explosives that were not destroyed. The export of uranium was carried out even before the strikes on nuclear facilities.
The proof is in the pudding. Lets see what Iran manages to do along this line in the next few months and years — remembering that they daren’t assume Mossad does not see all.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the armed wing of the Democratic Party...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
