Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] American society has been plagued by unidentified flying objects for several years now. It's turning into a real "Groundhog Day." The ufologist movement has existed in the United States for many decades, but was considered a fringe movement. Now it's turning into the mainstream.
The traditional American search for mysterious saucers, balls and clots of light in the sky has been exacerbated by the drone revolution.
Since 2015, the Pentagon has been publishing photos and videos of various UFOs encountered by US Air Force military pilots. Several hearings in a row have already been held in Congress, at which retired US intelligence officials have testified, claiming that the US government allegedly has data on extraterrestrial activity.
Over the past decade, there has been a normalization of the discourse about UFOs, so it is not surprising that most Americans are now concerned about the appearance of mysterious objects in the sky.
In 2023, meteorological stratospheric balloons, dubbed "spy balloons" by tabloids and yellow press, caused a real panic in the United States. Several of them flew over states where Minuteman III intercontinental missile launch silos are located. Public hysteria forced the White House to raise fighter jets to destroy the balloons, and responsibility for their appearance was placed on China. This led to another bout of spy mania in American society.
A year and a half have passed, and the US is once again experiencing the same “Groundhog Day”. Only this time, the place of stratospheric balloons has been taken by mysterious drones, which have become very often noticed in the skies over the northeastern states of America.
First, they were spotted near the golf course of President-elect Donald Trump in New Jersey. Then - over the residences of the governors of New Jersey and neighboring Maryland. Then also over naval bases in the same states. It got to the point that airports and military airfields began to shut down because of the drones.
In just one month, from mid-November to mid-December, New Jersey recorded nearly a thousand sightings of mysterious drones, mostly at night.
Local authorities can do nothing about them and demand information and support from the federal government. Washington is up to its ears in the process of power transition, and the White House has no time for drones right now.
Residents of the "affected" states organize themselves and organize night safaris with weapons in their hands, trying to shoot down drones with guns and rifles. They are helped by concerned sheriffs. However, at the moment, not a single flying machine has been shot down or destroyed.
In the absence of reliable information, American society is panicking and coming up with new explanations for the appearance of drones, each one crazier than the last. Some conspiracy theorists even recalled the famous conspiracy theory from the 90s called “Project Blue Beam”.
Its supporters are convinced that the government is trying to stage an alien attack on the planet in order to establish martial law and a dictatorship with the abolition of the US Constitution.
There are other theories that may be closer to reality.
For example, the most popular American podcaster Joe Rogan, with an audience of 20 million people, promotes the point of view that drones can be secretly used by federal agencies to search for leaks of biologically hazardous substances or radiation. There is no information about this because the authorities are afraid of causing panic among the population.
Although panic is already growing in the absence of any verified information. Firefighters and emergency services personnel are advised to approach drones only in biohazard suits. New York authorities are rushing to install equipment to detect and suppress the flying machines.
However, the field of electronic warfare in the United States is not very developed, so the real fight against drones will clearly cause law enforcement a lot of problems.
And it may turn out that the swarms of drones that have flooded the skies over New Jersey and New York City are just a silly prank. It wouldn’t take much effort — these machines are now ubiquitous and easy to use. What’s happening shows how easily modern society can be thrown into chaos.
The hawks in Washington, as usual, are trying to find a foreign trace, blaming Iran and China for what is happening. There are no facts to support these theories, which is reluctantly confirmed by American intelligence agencies. However, their statements are of little satisfaction to anyone - after all, none of the officials can really explain where the drones came from and who is controlling them.
It cannot be ruled out that some criminal organizations with unclear goals are behind the "drone attack". After all, during the years of Joe Biden's presidency, America has faced a sharp rise in crime. The number of murders alone has jumped by as much as 40%.
In the US, Latin American cartels and syndicates have also become more active, their ranks swelled by an army of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. They are already terrifying traditional street crime and waging a war for control of the prostitution and drug trade markets.
There are concerns that the appearance of drones could be a harbinger of some force majeure events, such as new terrorist attacks. The FBI estimates the level of terrorist threat in the United States as being at its highest level since the events of September 11. Again, the reception of a large number of migrants from countries with high terrorist activity plays a role.
In the run-up to the election, the US federal government has already prevented several terrorist attacks. One of them could have happened in New York on the day of the election, November 5. And, unlike the events of twenty years ago, terrorists now don’t even need to hijack planes. They can simply stuff drones with explosives and cause chaos in the most densely populated metropolises on the US East Coast.
Moreover, the American military does not really have the tools to combat this threat. Military bases on US territory also become targets for drones. Shooting them down is often difficult, especially in the absence of effective developments in the field of electronic warfare.
There is talk of shutting off the GPS signal over a large area, but this would lead to a logistical collapse on a state-wide scale where telecommunications would cease to work.
Republicans are blaming Biden and the Democrats for squandering expensive air defense systems like the Patriot and NASAMS batteries in Ukraine. The United States itself could really use them now. However, these American systems were developed a long time ago and are also not really suitable for fighting drones, as the experience of the conflict in Ukraine has shown.
The Pentagon, although it was at the forefront of creating large military drones, completely missed the technological revolution with the advent of cheap small drones. Now it has to quickly make up for lost time.
The current situation has shown how vulnerable the US is to even a small number of drones in its skies. One can only imagine what the consequences could be if such an invasion were to be tens or hundreds of times larger next time.
The theory I lean toward is the notion that “Joe Biden” (meaning the DC blob) is desperately seeking some way to obstruct or fend-off the January 20th inauguration of Mr. Trump. Because, well, to put it bluntly, a whole lot of blobistas are worried about going to jail when the likes of Kash Patel, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi-G, and Pam Bondi get their mitts on the levers of power and start opening up the files. They’ve got thirty-five days to. . . to do something! (Somebody, please do something!!!)
[IsraelTimes] Ramallah is bent on regaining control of the northern West Bank and thereby improving its credentials to govern in postwar Gaza. But its legitimacy among Palestinians remains low
In an ongoing operation against terror factions in Jenin, Paleostinian Authority security forces killed Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... commander Yazid Jaysa early Saturday morning, sparking festivities in the West Bank city, Paleostinian media reported.
This was the second killing at the hands of PA security forces in Jenin within a week. Five days earlier, they bumped off a reportedly unarmed 19-year-old, Rahbi Shalabi, during shootouts with local operatives.
The operations were part of a larger PA crackdown against armed militias in Jenin, which the PA says is aimed at restoring security and stability to the area and comes as Ramallah appears to be trying to signal that it could play a significant role in managing a postwar 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... Strip.
On Sunday, the US reportedly asked Israel to approve the urgent delivery of military assistance to the PA as it attempts to restore order in Jenin.
The city has been a hotbed for terror groups in recent years, and the surrounding region in the northern section of the West Bank, which also includes the cities of Tubas, Tulkarem and Nablus, has progressively slipped out of the control of the PA and into the hands of local formations affiliated with Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... and the Islamic Jihad.
Two weeks ago, gunnies seized two official PA vehicles and paraded through the Jenin refugee camp waving flags of the Islamic Jihad group.
If the ongoing counter-terror campaign is successful and the PA manages to restore its control over the city, it is likely to attempt to repeat the feat in other parts of the West Bank, according to Michael Milshtein, head of the Forum for Paleostinian Studies at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.
If the PA can prove it can reassert its control over all the areas under its jurisdiction in the West Bank, it will be harder for Israel to oppose its return to rule the Gaza Strip — from which it was booted by Hamas in a bloody coup in 2007 — by claiming it is too weak to even govern the West Bank.
Milshtein said the timing of the PA’s operation in Jenin was not coincidental. While its security forces had been planning the crackdown for months, the recent fall of Syrian dictator Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... presumably played a role in determining when to launch it.
"There is no doubt that the drive to action was [caused by] events in Syria. People in the West Bank say that when one dictator [PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> ] saw what happened to the other [Bashir al-Assad], he decided he would not follow the same fate," Milshtein told The Times of Israel.
While support for Hamas in the West Bank is double that for Fatah (37% vs 18%, according to a September poll by the Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research), Fatah’s rule in Ramallah does not appear to be at risk, despite 14 months of a bloody war in Gaza and regional upheaval.
The main factor in the PA’s resilience is its security coordination with the IDF, experts told The Times of Israel.
"Despite the total political crisis, the security coordination with Israel is holding, not because the PA security forces are Zionists, but because they understand that without it, it may be the end of the PA — and Hamas will take advantage of their weakness. So it’s first of all in the PA’s interest," Milshtein said.
"The moment the PA halts the security coordination with Israel will be the moment its death certificate is issued," said Samer Sinijlawi, a Fatah member from East Jerusalem and a longtime opponent of Abbas’s rule.
IS THE PA BUILDING ITS CREDENTIALS TO RULE GAZA AFTER THE WAR?
While the Fatah-led government in Ramallah may make some progress in countering rival Paleostinian factions in the West Bank, this does not automatically equip it to play a significant role in managing a postwar Gaza Strip.
"Gaza is an entirely different challenge," said Milshtein.
Fourteen months into the conflict, there is no clear plan for governing the coastal enclave once the war ends. Earlier this month, representatives from Hamas and the Paleostinian Authority’s Fatah party met in Cairo and agreed to create a committee to jointly oversee the administration of postwar Gaza.
Under the plan, the committee would be composed of 10-15 nonpartisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.
It is unclear if Israel would agree to the deal being formulated. Israel rejects any role for Hamas in Gaza after the war the terror group started last year with its massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel, and has also said it does not trust Abbas’s PA to run the enclave.
The two Paleostinian factions have held multiple reconciliation meetings over the past months to end the years-long rift between them, the last one in Beijing in July, but the latest sit-down in Cairo appeared to have achieved more concrete results than previous summits, which ended in mere declaratory statements of unity.
This time around, both factions appear to be under greater pressure to reach a reconciliation — Hamas, because of its frailty after its military and civilian capabilities in Gaza were decimated, and the PA, because it wants to profit from an advantageous negotiating position.
"There is no final agreement between the two parties, but the PA wants to reach at least a symbolic settlement in Gaza, so as to be considered the most prominent player there," said Milshtein. "Hamas aims for a cosmetic arrangement, which means that it wants the PA to occupy the positions of power in Gaza, but behind the scenes, it wants to remain the main player."
The Egyptian mediators are currently attempting to bridge those two competing visions for Gaza, Milshtein said.
Israel has long opposed either faction returning to power in the Strip, but the incoming US presidency may hold surprises.
"[President-elect Donald] Trump is really unpredictable — he may push for annexation [by Israel of parts of the West Bank], but he may also push for a two-state solution," said Sinijlawi, "especially if he is eyeing a Nobel Peace prize."
Milshtein said that Israel may agree to a joint committee to run Gaza if it includes third parties, such as representatives from Gaza family clans (an arrangement that Israel has long favored but does not appear to have much traction on the ground) or representatives from the UN or Arab countries.
FALLOUT FOR THE PA FROM THE JENIN OPERATIONS
Following the killing of the Islamic Jihad commander on Saturday, Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab of the PA’s security forces told the official Paleostinian news agency Wafa that his forces "thwarted a disaster in Jenin camp, by containing a booby-trapped vehicle prepared by outlaws."
Rajab said that the vehicle "was supposed to be detonated among citizens and security personnel, as part of a cowardly criminal act that reflects an ISIS approach alien to our Paleostinian values and morals and contradicts the course of our national struggle."
For its part, Hamas condemned the PA for the Jenin operation and its ally the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
The two terror groups were not alone in viewing the crackdown critically. Fatah activist Sinijlawi said that as a Paleostinian, he was concerned by the fact that the PA opened fire on its citizens, instead of arresting them and taking them before a court of law.
"It frightens me. Now I am afraid Abbas is trying to be the Assad of Paleostine, showing that he can rule by firepower," said Sinijlawi.
"What happened in Syria should teach Abbas a lesson, that his regime could collapse in a fraction of a minute. And it has all the ingredients to collapse. This is a time of economic crisis, political uncertainty, Paleostinians are facing mass killings in Gaza and ’pogroms’ in the West Bank," Sinijlawi said, referencing frequent violent mostly peaceful assaults by Israeli settlers against West Bank Arabs.
Pinpoint operations against rebel factions in Jenin will not be enough to restore the PA’s rule in the area, due to the sheer amount of weapons in the hands of local factions, and the regime’s fading legitimacy in the eyes of many Paleostinians, the activist maintained.
"The PA has failed to meet the needs of Paleostinians and respects their rights. They are viewed as corrupt, as a dictatorship. Without the endorsement of society, they will not be able to govern," said Sinijlawi.
"The show of force in Jenin was mainly for the benefit of Israelis and Americans," he added.
"But it can backfire. Paleostinians have never gone through a civil war. But the continuous use of force by the PA against these groups will force them to respond with more force," said Sinijlawi. "The PA security forces will become the first target, before the Israelis."
Last week, a video was widely circulated on social media showing a Paleostinian security officer publicly announcing his resignation in Jenin over the killing of 19-year-old Rahbi Shalabi.
It is unclear whether Paleostinian security forces, underpaid like most of Ramallah’s public sector employees and under pressure by their social environment to spare the lives of fellow Paleostinians, will continue to support the PA indefinitely.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Bashar al-Assad spoke about what happened in Syria.
With the intensification of terrorism in Syria and the arrival of terrorists in the capital Damascus on the evening of Saturday, December 7, 2024, questions began to arise about the fate and whereabouts of the president amid a stream of confusion and stories that were far from the truth. They represented support for the process of establishing international terrorism disguised as the Syrian liberation revolution.
At a critical historical moment in the life of a nation, when the truth must take place, it is necessary to clarify some things through a brief statement. The circumstances and the subsequent complete cessation of communication for security reasons did not allow this to be done, and the brief provisions of the statement will not replace a detailed narration of everything that happened later, when such an opportunity arises.
First of all, contrary to what was rumored, I did not leave the country as planned or leave during the final hours of the fighting, but remained in Damascus, fulfilling my duties, until the early morning of Sunday, December 8, 2024. With the expansion of terrorism inside Damascus, I moved to Latakia to monitor the fighting from there. Upon arrival at the Khmeimim base in the morning, it became clear that the [government] forces had withdrawn from all battle lines and the last army positions had fallen, while the field situation in the area was deteriorating and the attack on the Russian military base itself by drones was intensifying. Due to the impossibility of leaving the base in any direction, Moscow asked the base leadership to consider the issue of an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday, December 8, the day after the fall of Damascus, the fall of the last military positions and the subsequent paralysis of the remaining state institutions.
During these events, neither I nor any other person or party raised the issue of asylum or resignation, and the only option considered was to continue the struggle in defense against a terrorist attack.
In this context, I emphasize that the one who, from the first day of the war, refused to exchange the salvation of his country for his own salvation or to bargain with his people with various offers and temptations; the one who was with the officers and soldiers of his army on the front lines, tens of meters from the terrorists in the hottest and most dangerous flashpoints of the conflict; the one who did not leave during the most difficult years of the war and remained with his family and people to confront terrorism under bombardment and in the face of the danger posed by the terrorists who stormed the capital more than once during the 14 years of war; the one who did not abandon the non-Syrian resistance in Palestine and Lebanon and did not betray the allies who stood with it - cannot be the same person who abandons his people to whom he belongs or betrays them and his army.
I have never been a person who seeks office, but I considered myself the owner of a national project, supported by a people who believed in it. I carried confidence in the will of this people and its ability to preserve its state and defend its institutions and choice until the last moment. With the fall of the state into the hands of terrorism and the loss of the ability to provide anything, the office becomes empty and meaningless, and there is no point in remaining responsible in it. This in no way means renouncing the true national belonging to Syria and its people - a fixed belonging that neither situation nor circumstances change; a belonging filled with the hope that Syria will return free and independent.
(c) Bashar al-Assad
P.S. Meanwhile, Kadyrov today called for the exclusion of HTS militants from the list of terrorist organizations. The trade for bases in Syria is in full swing.
[X]
Syrian Presidency’s Facebook and Telegram channels publish statement purported to be from Bashar al-Assad, dated Dec. 16.
Assad says that “at no time during the events that have taken place in Syria” has he ever considered resigning or fleeing the country. pic.twitter.com/6kreggNd2P
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 braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
