Driect Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] On Sunday, January 14, the United States and Great Britain launched new airstrikes against positions of the Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) in Yemen. This was reported by RIA Novosti with reference to a local military source.
“American and British warplanes are attacking targets of the Ansar Allah group in the Al-Luhiya area in the north of the coastal province of Hodeidah on the Red Sea,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
However, these strikes, like the previous more massive attacks by the US and Britain as part of Operation Guardian of Prosperity on Thursday night, are unlikely to convince the Houthis to abandon their naval war, which is being waged in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza against Israel and, apparently, now against his allies who attacked Yemen.
Ansar Allah purposefully ignored Washington's warnings to test where US red lines began and what the response might be. The Houthis deliberately sought to provoke a US response beyond the defensive measures of Operation Guardian of Prosperity.
EXPECTED ATTACK
Obviously, after seven years of war and brutal bombing by the Saudi-Emirati coalition, this American-British strike was rather like a shot to the ground and the Houthis knew what they were getting into.
The American attacks only boosted the prestige of Ansar Allah, which now finds itself at the forefront of the fight for Palestine and has demonstrated that its operations seriously threaten the interests of the United States and its allies, forcing them to deploy entire aircraft carrier formations and form “anti-Houthi” coalitions.
Ansar Allah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi announced this expected scenario in a televised address in late December, noting that the Houthis “will not remain idle if the Americans are tempted to further escalate and do something stupid by attacking our country or unleashing war against her."
We also recall that Regnum news agency has previously quoted Mustafa Noman, a former Yemeni diplomat, who said that the Ansar Allah movement cannot be taken lightly and that the Houthis themselves are not averse to provoking a US attack on Yemen.
“They dream that the Americans or the Israelis will attack them, because this will turn them into a real force of resistance,” he said during a speech at the London think tank Chatham House, an organization considered undesirable in the Russian Federation.
In a word, this attack was quite expected and predictable for the Houthis. And the benefits from it certainly outweigh the damage.
Since November 2023, Ansar Allah has not only intensified the training of its personnel for combat operations at sea, including the use of asymmetric countermeasures, such as the use of light boats and boats for attacks and mining of water areas, along with the creation of “sleepers” and well-covered drone and missile bases on the islands, but also prepared for attacks from the United States and its allies.
In particular, new bunkers were created where weapons were stored, and measures were taken to redeploy missile units and formations equipped with attack UAVs. At the same time, fake military bases were set up, where false objects and targets were located. That is, everything possible was done, using all the experience gained during the seven years of war with the Saudi-Emirati coalition, so that any attacks by the Americans would fall “in the milk.”
With a high degree of probability, we can say that this is exactly what happened.
Washington decided to take this step, considering it more from a political than a military point of view, and that is why it was so clumsy.
An attempt to “at least somehow” respond to the actions of the Houthis without a clear and well-developed military plan only aggravated the situation, not only contributed to the growth of the popularity of the Houthis, but may also become the reason for the intensification of the “naval war”, in which, in addition to the Houthis, others may join members of the “axis of resistance”.
HOW WILL ANSAR ALLAH RESPOND?
“Retaliation strikes” from the forces of the “axis of resistance” can be expected both in the area of the Strait of Hormuz and in the waters of the Persian Gulf.
In these waters in 2019, there have already been a series of attacks on tankers docked in the ports of KSA and the UAE, and then on two British ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The West was quick to blame the attack on Iran, which has not admitted its involvement. Expansion of the naval war into the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which up to 30 percent of oil transportation passes, cannot under any circumstances be ruled out.
In addition, even before the strikes on Yemen, attempts were observed to attack Israeli ships in waters far from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Thus, two Israeli tankers were attacked by UAVs in the west and northwest of the Maldives. According to Jordan News, both ships were heading towards the Bab el-Mandab Strait, but were attacked at a distance of 2000 km from it. After the shelling, the ships changed course.
Let us recall that earlier in December, a ship heading to Israel was attacked in the Indian Ocean near the shores of India.
In addition, the Houthis can now begin to attack not only those ships that are in one way or another connected with Israel, its citizens and companies, but also those countries that are involved in the aggression against Yemen and have joined Operation Guardian of Prosperity.
Therefore, if the Axis of Resistance expands operations throughout the northwest Indian Ocean, the US arsenal of weapons that it can again use against the Houthis will be very limited.
Despite the fact that, obviously, many of these attacks will no longer be the Houthis, but players equipped with much more modern weapons, as happened in 2019 during the attacks on the Saudi Aramco plant, when Yemeni rebels took responsibility, but all evidence indicated that the drones and cruise missiles approached the site from the north and northeast from Iraq and Iran, rather than from the south from Yemen.
AMERICA IS AT A CROSSROADS
The United States itself has set itself new complex tasks.
How to respond to a possible expansion of the “naval war” instead of ending it? How can Ansar Allah be deprived of its propaganda successes based on the results of its own actions within the framework of Operation Guardian of Prosperity? With all this, how can we avoid regional escalation, in which the White House is clearly not interested?
Washington may be the one to finally blow up the peace in the Middle East, all because the Biden administration is being held hostage by the Netanyahu regime.
Let us recall that Biden previously made efforts to help resolve the Yemen crisis and even revised the Trump administration’s approach to the Houthis, removing them from the list of terrorist organizations.
At the same time, for Washington, an early end to the conflict in Yemen would mean that the United States would no longer look in the eyes of the Saudis as a partner that could never be relied upon.
In previous years, the Americans provided limited support to Saudi Arabia, but refused to join the KSA and UAE military operations in Yemen to inflict a decisive defeat on Ansar Allah. Moreover, the American Congress periodically initiated all sorts of anti-Saudi bills, such as introducing restrictions on the supply of weapons to Riyadh, which were caused by the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.
If the United States now provokes a major war in Yemen, it will mean that it has thwarted all its own efforts to end the Yemen conflict as quickly as possible.
It turns out that they refrained from fighting in Yemen when Washington’s “Arab friends” asked them to do so, but now, it turns out, they decided to enter this confrontation “through the front door” for the sake of their Jewish ally.
And it is not so important that the strikes were carried out under the pretext of protecting shipping, since in reality they could not in any way affect the opening of Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea to ship traffic, but, on the contrary, only complicated the situation there.
Thus, the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), under whose auspices the “Guardian of Prosperity” is being conducted, after the American-British strikes on Yemen, updated instructions to ships and warned them against crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Therefore, all these actions of the United States and Britain are viewed more in the context of supporting Israel rather than as an operation to protect shipping.
ISLAMIC WORLD FOR THE HOUTHIS
The position of the majority of Arab and Islamic states is also indicative.
In particular, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States and Britain of using disproportionate force when striking targets of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement.
“They used disproportionate force, they are trying to turn the Red Sea into a sea of blood, Israel is doing the same in Palestine,” the Turkish president emphasized in a conversation with reporters.
Oman condemned the US and British strikes against the Houthis. Muscat called attacks on Yemen "a serious problem while Israel continues its brutal war and siege of the Gaza Strip without accountability or punishment."
In turn, Saudi Arabia, although it drew attention to the need to maintain the safety of navigation, at the same time called on the United States and Britain for “restraint.”
The Houthis have no particular complaints about Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether the Anglo-Saxons used its airspace or not. Riyadh does not participate in the Guardian of Prosperity and, on the contrary, called on the Americans, instead of forming new “anti-Houthi” alliances, to approach the essence of the problem and eliminate the very cause of the Houthi naval war, and force Israel to stop its aggression in Gaza.
Thus, yesterday's opponents Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia pursue common goals of ending Israeli aggression in Gaza, but are moving towards them in different ways.
CASE STUDY OF BAHRAIN
However, Ansar Allah spokesman Yahya Sari said: “The involvement of the Bahrain regime in this attack is a betrayal and an insidious blow to Arab countries. Attacks will not go unanswered and punished. Our forces will not hesitate to attack all sources of threat on land and sea."
Thus, Bahrain was designated “extreme” - the only Arab state that decided to join the “Guardian of Prosperity” participants.
However, possible attempts by the Houthis to launch attacks on Bahrain through Saudi territory could raise tensions between Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia.
Or the Houthis could attack the Bahraini contingent deployed in Saudi Arabia, as happened some time ago, but, it should be noted, then this did not lead to any retaliatory actions by the KSA.
Ansar Allah and Riyadh are more inclined to resolve all contradictions on the way to peace rather than return to confrontation.
While new attacks by the United States and its allies on Yemen will only increase the number of Arab capitals favorable to Ansar Allah, provided, of course, that the Houthis themselves do not cross the “red lines” of Arab countries in their retaliatory actions.
#1
The American attacks only boosted the prestige of Ansar Allah, which now finds itself at the forefront of the fight for Palestine and has demonstrated that its operations seriously threaten the interests of the United States and its allies, forcing them to deploy entire aircraft carrier formations and form “anti-Houthi” coalitions.
So we see the assets required for war on multiple fronts engaged in disparate global regions for 'minor' skirmishes. So do the Russians. Ukraine, the Med, the Horn of Africa, Taiwan, the South China Sea,...and various and sundry low scale social rebellions like DEI, BLM, antifa, drug cartels, global migrations, inner city crime and presidential elections.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] The infrastructure of Makhachkala airport has been completely restored after the riots; 20 million rubles have been spent on this, the airport director said. that's like $4.75
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, the general director of the Makhachkala airport said that as a result of the riots, the airport suffered damage of several million rubles, and State Duma deputy Khizri Abakarov said that the preliminary amount of damage to the Makhachkala airport amounted to 285 million rubles, and proposed to recover it from the participants in the riots, and also add them to the airport’s blacklist. The investigation announced damage “in the hundreds of millions of rubles.”
There were no mass cancellations of tours to Dagestan amid the unrest in Makhachkala, but some tourists refused to travel, representatives of travel agencies said, suggesting that due to the incident, Dagestan risks losing its attractiveness for guests from other regions. On January 1, Uytash Airport reported a record number of passengers for the year.
On October 29, 2023, mass riots occurred at Makhachkala airport due to reports of the arrival of a plane with passengers from Israel. More than 20 people were injured, including nine police officers. About 150 people have been arrested in connection with the criminal case regarding mass riots in Makhachkala. Three people are also accused of using violence against a law enforcement officer, and one is accused of encroaching on the life of a security officer.
For most of those accused in criminal cases of participation in mass riots at the Makhachkala airport, the arrest period has been extended until the end of March, while almost no investigative actions are being carried out, and a number of those arrested are prohibited from visiting, lawyers said. By January 12, the district courts of Dagestan had received administrative cases of 901 people accused in connection with the unrest in Makhachkala. What happened at Uytash airport and how the investigation is proceeding is described in the Caucasian Knot report “ The Case of the Pogrom at Makhachkala Airport.”
The consequences of the unrest that occurred at Uytash airport on October 29, 2023 have been completely eliminated, said the airport’s general director, Said Ramazanov. “Eliminating the consequences of the pogroms at Makhachkala airport cost about 20 million rubles. All infrastructure has been restored, and critical infrastructure was restored the very next day after the pogroms before noon,” Ramazanov said, as quoted by Interfax.
According to him, compensation has not yet been recovered from those who caused the riots, as the investigation into the detainees and suspects continues.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Dmitry Taratorin
[REGNUM] In Ecuador, the local underworld has challenged the official authorities. And declaring itself as a real alternative force, it requires “recognition.” This doesn't happen very often in Latin America. At one time, the legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar actually declared war on the Colombian government. He was killed in the end. But he showed that “it was possible.”
In Mexico, the bloody confrontation has been going on for years. One of the most striking and scandalous examples of the demonstration of the power of drug cartels happened not so long ago. The “Battle of Culiacan” took place on October 17, 2019. Then the military arrested the son of the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman Lopez. But the response to this was immediately full-fledged hostilities - hundreds of militants attacked government and army targets using armored vehicles, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. When the bandits took several hostages and began to threaten the neighborhood where military families lived, the authorities backed down. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered the release of Guzman Lopez.
At the time it seemed like a sign of weakness. But exactly a year ago, Lopez was arrested again and sent to a bunk in the Altiplano maximum security prison.
What is the reason for such power and audacity of the Latin American underworld? Of course, it is not only and not so much the fault of hot blood, but above all the enormous resources that are at their disposal thanks to drugs. These two factors, plus the social problems of the continent, gave rise to such a phenomenon as cartels.
But they should not be confused with the mafia, and it, in turn, with such a phenomenon as megagangs. And although they all actively interact (primarily on the basis of the transit and sale of drugs), these phenomena have different genesis. And it is worth understanding it in order to understand when and under what circumstances they acquire such power that they risk waging wars with states. How they themselves become quasi-states. And why, for example, the Kazan boys would never become a mafia, but they could easily become megagangs.
In the 90s, a horror story called “Russian Mafia” became popular in the West. But, in fact, it did not exist and could not exist. The Russian underworld was initially very unique.
To understand its nature, it is worth turning to “Kolyma Tales” by Varlam Shalamov. In his time, thieves were a completely antisocial caste.
If we take the Sicilian Mafia or the Neapolitan Comorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta or even the Japanese Yakuza, then these are alternative forms of socialization, and not at all a complete denial of the generally accepted human, as in the Russian case.
The mafia does not draw such a sharp line between itself and the world of “suckers” (frayers in the Shalamov period) or “chushpans” in the Kazan version. On the contrary, it acts as an alternative to the state institution for the establishment of order. She grows out of the Family. And this is very typical for Italy.
Until recently, the Yakuza generally had official offices. And they represented a kind of “samurai matrix” in a collapsed form and adapted to modern times.
The thieves, according to Shalamov, are “not people” at all. At the same time, it is extremely characteristic that they call themselves “people.” From which it clearly follows that others are not considered as such.
The thieves, according to Shalamov, are a “damned order.” They are hostile to all social institutions, including the family. They view suckers as completely alien, as pure food supply. And the state for them is an absolute enemy. That is why the famous “bitch war” happened, when the thieves who took part in the Great Patriotic War, as soon as they again found themselves in places not so remote, were harshly charged by their former colleagues for treason to the “order,” calling them “bitches.”
But it never occurred to anyone to charge the legendary Mafia boss Salvatore (Lucky) Luciano for actively facilitating the landing of American troops in Sicily in 1943. The logic of the Mafia was simple - Mussolini persecuted its members very harshly, so why not contribute to his overthrow.
But the Mafia, in principle, precisely because of its “family” genesis, does not see anything catastrophic in its interaction with the authorities (not only its corrupt members, but with its institutions). After all, Cosa Nostra (the name of the mafia in the States) is translated from Italian simply as “our business.” This is a kind of family business.
In Sicily and the southern regions of Italy, criminal communities acted as substitutes for the state due to its inability to control certain regions and/or zones of human activity.
Everything was different with us. Beginning with Peter the Great, the state sought complete control. Zones where there would be space for the formation of some semblance of a mafia simply did not arise.
Therefore, by the way, initially the word “thief” in Rus' meant a rebel, a person who went against the state system itself and everyone who is loyal to it. And the one who simply steals was called a “thief.”
Mega gangs are another matter. Here they could theoretically have developed in the 90s. A couple of decades earlier, they began to appear in the United States. The most serious ones are in Los Angeles. The prefix mega indicates that the gang has more than 10 thousand members. There they consist mainly, again, of Latinos and blacks, between whom there are permanent wars. However, there are also white ones. The most famous is the “Aryan Brotherhood”, which arose as an intra-prison association, but has long since acquired serious influence outside. However, this is a dynamic process - someone’s star rises in the criminal sky, and someone else’s falls.
But it is characteristic that most of the megagangs were formed on the basis of street gangs, from guys “from the area”, just as in the case of the boys from the most popular series of last year. Many people even “sew on” it in about the same way, if not tougher.
For example, in Mara Salvatrucha (one of the largest and most brutal mega-gangs) this is called a “jump in”, when brutal blows are rained down on the newcomer from all sides for a period of time determined by the elders. Mara Salvatrucha was originally created by immigrants from El Salvador. But now, when, according to various estimates, there are from 50 to 100 thousand people in it and it operates in several countries, there is no need to talk about monoethnicity. And here we come to the important difference between such structures and the same mafia. Megaband is a new identity. Mara Salvatrucha's code of honor is simple: "You live for God and Mother, and you die for the Gang."
So, why didn’t “Universam”, “Hadi Taktash” or “Tyap-Lyap” reach the same level? Fortunately for ordinary Russian citizens, they simply didn’t have time.
To form a megagang, you need a special breeding ground: a ghetto atmosphere, a lack of real social elevators and trust in authorities, a large number of passionate boys, plus a resource for development and growth (most often drugs).
And the first four components were adjusted for Soviet specifics. A resource in the form of money from “protected” businesses also appeared in the early 90s. And the state at that time practically “gone away.” But unlike Latin America or Italy, the power vacuum was very short-lived. The state returned too quickly, interrupting the process of building criminal empires and forming alternative identities.
However, this does not mean that the threat has been removed once and for all. The notorious AUE (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) has all the prerequisites and generic characteristics in order to, in the right case, develop into a fan of mega-gangs. Perhaps this seems fantastic to residents of megacities who did not live in the 90s. Therefore, the story of the “boys” Marat and Andrey is just a well-constructed film script for them. And the events in Ecuador are simply something from a completely different bloody and exotic life.
But the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, once told the writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky in order to dispel his illusions: “Russia is an icy desert through which a dashing man wanders.”
The phrase may seem overly pessimistic. However, let's reformulate it slightly: when a power vacuum is formed in Russia, it gives rise to an icy desert, from which a dashing person emerges with the most evil intentions. Does this sound more realistic?
[WRAL] Thousands of people gathered in Germany on Sunday for demonstrations against the far right,
...only thousands? Usually they attract much more than that...
among them Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his foreign minister, following a report that extremists recently met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including German citizens, if they took power. Prost !
There were protests in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, and at the Brandenburg Gate in the German capital. They followed a demonstration on Saturday in the western city of Duisburg.
Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock represent the Potsdam area in the German parliament, and Baerbock told German news agency dpa that she attended the demonstration there as one of thousands of locals “who stand for democracy and against old and new fascism.”
Last week, media outlet Correctiv reported on the alleged far-right meeting in November, which it said was attended by figures from the extremist Identitarian Movement and from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. A prominent member of the Identitarian Movement, Austrian citizen Martin Sellner, presented his “remigration” vision for deportations.
Potsdam Mayor Mike Schubert said that “these plans are reminiscent of the darkest chapter of German history.”
AfD has sought to distance itself from the meeting, saying it had no organizational or financial links to the event, members who apparently attended did so in a purely personal capacity, and it wasn't responsible for what was discussed there.
The furor has prompted some calls for Germany to consider seeking to ban AfD, which has moved steadily to the right since its founding in 2013. Many of its opponents have spoken out against the idea, arguing that the process would be lengthy, success is highly uncertain and it could benefit the party by allowing it to portray itself as a victim.
AfD is currently second in national polls, behind the mainstream center-right opposition and ahead of the parties in the center-left Scholz 's unpopular coalition. Germany faces the European Parliament election in June and then state elections in September in three eastern regions where AfD is very strong. Those include Brandenburg, where Potsdam is located.
[IsraelTimes] Israel’s COGAT military liaison to the Paleostinians says that 227 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were inspected and transferred to the 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 an 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 today, with 111 going through Egypt’s Rafah Crossing and 116 entering via Israel’s Kerem Shalom.
"There is no limit to the amount of humanitarian aid that can be transferred to the people of Gaza," COGAT tweets.
#2
^Genocide been redefined as a snarl word - to use on whomever they dislike.
I expect, soon, a white cop shooting a Wakandan criminal will merit a mention of genocide.
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.
