the dangerous petrogame, unmentioned in the western media....

Just before midnight on 15 January, Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, was rocked by a targeted missile attack by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Eleven Fateh 110 ballistic missiles homed in on the private residence of the affluent and connected Kurdish tycoon Peshraw Dizayee, aged 61, who was killed along with members of his family and a fellow business associate.

The Cradle's Iraq Correspondent

The IRGC said in a statement that it hit "one of the main headquarters of the Israeli Mossad in the Kurdistan region of Iraq," noting that this action was in response to the occupation state’s assassination of leaders within the IRGC and its Axis of Resistance.

“We assure our nation that the Guards’ offensive operations will continue until avenging the last drops of martyrs’ blood,” the IRGC said.

This military strike has roots in the recent assassinations of several IRGC members in Syria, including a high-ranking commander, to which Tehran promised to retaliate. The IRGC also struck ISIS positions in Syria’s restive Idlib province.

Covert oil connections

Dizayee, a man of influence with deep connections to Iraqi-Kurdistan's ruling Barzani clan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), had an estimated wealth of $2.5 billion from founding the Falcon Group, which engaged in diverse sectors including security, oil, gas, construction, and agriculture.

His pivotal role in facilitating oil exports from Kurdistan to Israel drew attention to his intricate, but illegal ties with Tel Aviv, in addition to the Kurdish security and intelligence apparatus.

Despite Iraqi laws explicitly forbidding any dealings with Israel, reports and experts suggest that a significant portion of Israel's oil imports —approximately 70 percent, by some accounts — originates from Iraq's Kurdistan region, at prices 50 percent lower than market values.
Iraq exports about 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, including 390,000 barrels from oil fields in the Kurdistan region, through the 970-km northern pipeline that stretches from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, before making its way to Israel.

In 2014, with ISIS taking control of Mosul and large swathes across Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) began directly exporting crude oil to Turkiye and selling it on the international markets without going through Baghdad's State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) company responsible for all Iraqi oil exports.

Iraqi lawmaker Uday Awad tells The Cradle that these direct oil sales were both illegal and secretive:

“For years, the Kurdistan region tried to hide oil sales to Tel Aviv, but all shipments to Israeli ports are documented by SOMO which tracked every barrel sold to Israel.”

On 17 February, 2022, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Kurdistan government’s approval of the oil and gas law in the region was unconstitutional, basing its decision on the KRG’s admission in 2015 — before the US Court of Appeals in a lawsuit filed by Iraq — of unloading oil shipments in Israeli ports.
Israeli influence and intrigue in Iraq

Dizayee's expansive Falcon Group conglomerate has become a focal point in the Iraq-Israel nexus. Iranian media alleges a web of connections, including EIA, a company purportedly affiliated with the US Census Bureau, nestled within the US Department of Commerce.

Of particular concern is Falcon Security Company, a subsidiary believed to employ around 600 individuals, primarily former military personnel from the US Army. Speculation swirls that this security arm maintains direct ties with the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), serving as a conduit for valuable information gathering on Iraq's internal affairs.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to The Cradle, Iranian sources claim that Dizayee was a Mossad collaborator in Erbil, orchestrating covert operations and providing logistical support through his vast business empire. Private Iraqi sources corroborate this narrative, and say an intricate Israeli influence network has entrenched itself in Kurdistan, with the Mossad allegedly training groups antagonistic to Iran and the Axis of Resistance.

Importantly, the focus of these groups reportedly encompasses security operations, including the targeted assassination of scientists engaged in Iran's nuclear program.

Over the past decades, the Israeli Mossad has persistently worked to establish spy cells across Arab states — whether hostile or friendly — but has continually encountered resistance in Iraq. Notable instances include the case of Ezra Naji Zalka, an Iraqi Jew, whose spy network faced exposure by Iraqi intelligence, leading to their execution in 1969.

The Mossad, however, received a boost in Iraq facilitated by the illegal 2003 US invasion of the country. The American occupation opened a new chapter for Israel's espionage and sabotage activities, in which it targeted Iraq's northern regions to create a strategic vantage point against neighboring countries, particularly Iran.

Mossad objectives extend beyond mere intelligence gathering: Its focus encompasses collecting information on military sites, security installations, and potential threats posed by countries resistant to Tel Aviv's interests.

Economic espionage became a key facet, with the Mossad seeking data on investment projects, tourism, agriculture, stock exchanges, and influential businessmen in targeted states.

The scope broadened further with the Mossad's notoriously engagement in subversive activities, influencing societal values and norms. Accusations range from drug proliferation to the sponsorship of international prostitution networks and involvement in the slave trade.

Resistance to Zionism and Israeli espionage

Equipped with cutting-edge technology, the Israeli intel agency strives not only to identify the whereabouts of resistance leaders but also to manipulate public sentiment in its pursuit of broader geopolitical objectives.

Iraqi intelligence services have historically thwarted many of the Israeli penetration activities, particularly in the formation of spy cells in the center and south of the country.

One such instance was the cell established by Ezra Naji Zalka, an Iraqi Jew who was able to recruit many spies to work for Israel. According to Iraqi government data, there were, at one time, 35 spies in the Zalkha network, including 13 Jews who were identified and captured by Iraqi intelligence.

Zalkha's main task at the beginning of his tenure with the Mossad was to collect information about poor Jews in popular neighborhoods, their living conditions, numbers, education, and attitudes on the issue of immigration. His cell later expanded its work to include military and security dimensions and began collecting information on Iraqi institutions.

According to memoirs published last year by Israeli-British historian and Iraqi Jew Avi Shlaim, between 1950 and 1951, the Mossad was linked to five bomb attacks on Jewish targets in an operation known as Ali Baba. The purpose was to instill fear amongst and hostility toward Iraqi Jews from the wider public. This would lead to over 120,000 Jews — at the time, 95 percent of the Jewish population in Iraq — being airlifted to Israel in a mission known as Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.

Mossad’s subversive tactics are thus a security threat to all West Asian states, with the recent flurry of normalization agreements effectively installing a Trojan horse for Zionism.

The offer on the table is not for peace; it is a do-or-die threat: those states resistant to normalization face increased acts of terrorism, sabotage, or assassination — and, as a punishing last resort for those unwilling to fall in line, conventional air strikes by the US-backed Israeli military, or the US itself.

https://thecradle.co/articles/iraqi-kurdistan-pays-a-deadly-price-for-hosting-the-mossad

in the sand...

Lost in the sands of Iraq…

Lost in the sands of Iraq

A reward for fantasy WMDs may just spark

A reality check for those who refused to accept

The flimsiest of flimsy intelligence was maybe incorrect

That danger did not lurk under the hot blazing desert sands

Now benign with the thousands of bodies unstirred

Given in vain and without remorse

Blown to pieces on three white men’s unreliable source

No court of justice ever invoked

For the futile war that these leaders of supposed democracy provoked

How can this trio ever claim credibility

And not make a mockery of sensibility

They that in luxurious retirement their infamy might wallow

Which they fervently wish the sands of time would swallow

By Graham Black

https://johnmenadue.com/the-bloodied-sands-of-time/

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By Gus Leonisky at 28 Jan 2024 - 5:31am
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dead US soldiers...

Three US Army soldiers have been killed and many others wounded by an overnight drone attack in Jordan, President Joe Biden has announced. The strike on a US army outpost represents a significant escalation of simmering tensions in the Middle East.

A press release issued by US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Sunday listed the number of American personnel injured in the attack at 25.

“Last night, three US service members were killed – and many wounded – during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House on Sunday. “While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”

Prior to Friday there had been at least 158 attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, according to CNN. However, the vast majority of the operations have not posed a serious threat or caused major damage to infrastructure.

On this occasion, US air defenses appear to have failed to intercept the drone strike, which was the first on the facility, known as Tower 22, since attacks on US and coalition targets in the region escalated on October 17. US forces are stationed in the region to provide training and assistance to Jordanian troops.

“The three American service members we lost were patriots in the highest sense,” Biden said in his official statement. “And their ultimate sacrifice will never be forgotten by our nation.”

The US president added: “We will carry their commitment to fight terrorism. And have no doubt – we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”

The attack in Jordan comes as tensions ramp up in the Middle East, and as regional powers continue to object to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas’ cross-border offensive on October 7. Washington, as well as other nations, have warned that the conflict could expand into a broader regional war.

The US has struck several groups in Iraq and Syria recently that it claims are backed by Iran, including one last week. It has also conducted a bombing campaign alongside the UK against Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to a series of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

The deaths of the three US service members comes ahead of talks between US and Iraqi officials over the future US military presence in the country. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said last week that discussions would begin “in the coming days.”

https://www.rt.com/news/591410-us-troops-killed-jordan/

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By Gus Leonisky at 29 Jan 2024 - 5:33am
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not in jordan....

What U.S. ‘news’-media are hiding about the January 28th drone attack that killed 3 U.S. servicemen

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

They are hiding that Jordan’s Government denies that the 3 servicemen were killed in Jordan as the U.S. Government alleges but 12 miles away at America’s illegal military base in Syria to train ISIS and al-Qaeda there to overthrow Syria’s Government, and that the “Tower 22” U.S. military base that the U.S. Government alleges was hit in Jordan is hidden from the Jordanian public because the U.S. Government and the King of Jordan don’t want Jordanians to know that Jordan is a colony in the U.S. empire instead of a sovereign and independent country, and that the secret “Tower 22” U.S. military base in Jordan is where the U.S. trainers of ISIS are housed but they work at the illegal al-Tanf military base in Syria, and that according to Jordan’s Government, the three were killed at al-Tanf not at Tower 22. (A Reuters reporter tweeted on January 28th, “An attack that killed three American servicemen was not on Jordanian soil but in Syria, a spokesperson for Jordan’s government said on Sunday.” but couldn’t get published by Reuters a news-story, and even that tweet didn’t so much as mention the al-Tanf U.S. base where — according to Jordan’s Government — the servicemen were killed.) No U.S. news-report has been published on these matters.

The reason for these deceits by the U.S. Government is that the U.S. Government wants the U.S. public to support invading Iran, which backs Syria’s Government, which Government the U.S. Government has been actively trying to overthrow ever since 2011. Whereas Jordan is not allied with Iran, Syria’s Government is; and that’s the Government America is trying to overthrow. So: the U.S. Government doesn’t want the American people to know that those troops are the occupying power, which occupier Jordan’s Government secretly obeys, but which Syria’s Government has constantly urged to leave their country.

The SouthFront site has lots more about this that the U.S. Government wants the American people NOT to know.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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By Gus Leonisky at 30 Jan 2024 - 4:57pm
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dancing with wolves.....

The Hamas offensive of October 7 caught the Israel Defence Forces asleep at their posts. This weekend’s drone strike against Tower-22, a US troop base in northeastern Jordan, caught the US Army troops asleep.

The response, according to President Joseph Biden’s statement, is that “we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing….we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.” General Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, repeated: “Iran-backed militias are responsible for these continued attacks on U.S. forces, and we will respond at a time and place of our choosing.”

Donald Trump, campaigning to defeat Biden in the November election, declared in an election statement, reported in full by a Russian military blogger, “this brazen attack on the United States is yet another horrific and tragic consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness and surrender. Three years ago, Iran was weak, broke, and totally under control. Thanks to my Maximum Pressure policy…This attack would NEVER have happened if I was President, not even a chance. Just like the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel would never have happened, the war in Ukraine would never have happened, and we would right now have peace throughout the World. Instead, we are on the brink of World War 3.”

This is how the psychopathic liar now fights the demented on behalf of the genocidalists to trigger all-fronts war in the Middle East.

The details of the Tower-22 attack, and Iran’s reinforcement at the Strait of Hormuz, reveal that the Arabs and the Iranians are ready and waiting. The Russians too.

The drone attack on the US troop base known as Tower-22, in the northeastern corner of Jordan, caught the US forces, reportedly reservists, asleep. The base reportedly holds 350 Army and Air Force personnel. At least three have been confirmed killed; eight have been evacuated with life threatening injuries, according to US Central Command (CENTCOM); about three dozen have been counted as wounded.

The distance between the two American bases is about 30 kilometres. The location of Tower-22 on Jordanian territory has been confirmed by CENTCOM. This flatly contradicts claims on Jordanian state television by a government spokesman; he announced that the base is outside Jordanian territory in Syria. This lie indicates how fearful Jordanian officials are of the majority Palestinian community in Jordan who are hostile to the Jordan king’s collaboration with the Israelis, as well as with the US and British forces. To date, the Palestinians in Jordan have organized crowd protests in Amman in support of the Gaza and West Bank fights, but they have not yet taken their protests to the foreign bases on Jordanian territory.

With a 350-man complement, Tower-22 is a bigger base than Al-Tanf, which has about 200 special forces.

The operational success of the strike for the attackers is strategic. Tower-22 is a logistics, supply, and rear guard post for the Al-Tanf base which US troops are operating thirty kilometres north across the border in Syria. The attack demonstrates that both Tower-22 and Al-Tanf, Jordan and Syria, are newly vulnerable to weapons which the US forces have failed to detect and neutralize. Just as significantly, the massive US airbase called Muwaffaq Salti, 230 kilometres west across Jordan, is also vulnerable now.

For analysis of how these bases, and other anti-Palestinian targets in Jordan, are connected and targeted by the Axis of Resistance, read this from October.

Biden’s statement said only “we are still gathering the facts of this attack”.

The aircraft visible in the satellite image of the base include USAF F-15Es, which were redeployed there in October from the RAF Lakenheath base in England; read more here.

Reporters of the New York Times were told by their official briefers that “the drone strike in Jordan on Sunday demonstrated that the Iran-backed militias — whether in Iran or Syria, or the Houthis in Yemen — remained capable of inflicting serious consequences on American troops despite the U.S. military’s efforts to weaken them and avoid tumbling into a wider conflict, possibly with Iran itself.”

The newspaper added a warning against escalation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon: “ ‘We don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict within the region,’ Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday. Asked in a pre-recorded session on ABC News’s This Week whether he thought Iran wanted war with the United States, General Brown, echoing assessments from the U.S. intelligence agencies, said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ ”

Brown is also believed to have been one of the prompters for public release of the Pentagon warnings against the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” in the so-called social media releases published by Jack Texeira in April of 2023.

The official line in Washington on Sunday evening, according to its New York platform, is that “the Americans killed on Sunday were the first known fatalities from hostile fire in the region since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas…It was unclear on Sunday why air defences at the outpost failed to intercept the drone, which former military commanders said appeared to be the first known assault on the location since attacks on U.S. forces began soon after the Oct. 7 incursion.”

Well-informed military sources are emphatic that the Tower-22 operation has strategic significance in quite another way. They believe Pentagon officials have already told the White House.

“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”

Confirmation that C-RAM units are the principal air defence systems operating at US bases in Syria and Iraq, including Al-Tanf and Tower-22, came last October from former Pentagon official, Stephen Bryen. Bryen claimed at the time “for years I have complained that vulnerable American bases in Iraq and Syria lacked adequate air defenses. Bottom line: they still do.” When Bryen was at the Pentagon, he was also unusually close to the Israeli government.

For details of the C-RAM system, its US Army development history and its allied counterparts, click to read this. The evidence that C-RAM was delivered to Kiev last October, test-fired, and then installed to become part of Kiev’s air defence supporting the Patriot missile units, can be viewed in this 10-minute video from Night Hawk Veterans.

Starting last May, there have been several effective Russian missile attacks against the Patriot batteries in Kiev. At the start of this month, there were fresh Russian missile and drone attacks across Kiev.

While there has been no announcement from the Russian Defense Ministry of a successful hit against C-RAM in Kiev, military sources believe Russia’s General Staff have acquired the technical capability to neutralize the American system, allowing drones through to hit their ground targets, including the C-RAM mounted truck unit.

The Iranians have been observing, as have the Arab forces planning and executing drone attacks against C-RAM defended US bases. How much of the Russian intelligence on C-RAM is being shared with them?

For details of last week’s detailed talks in Moscow with visiting delegations from the Yemen Ansarallah government (Houthis) and the Iranian Security Council, read this.

Apart from US reports of the Tower-22 drone attack striking the troop living quarters, there is no information yet on how many drones detonated, and what equipment at the base may also have been hit.

The military source again: “If there’s no coincidence, and if this isn’t a lucky strike for the Arabs, then this may reflect a step-change up in Russian military assistance to the Iranians. Maybe Tower-22 was selected as a small target for demonstration effect, so as to send a message about the bigger targets, Al-Tanf and Muwaffaq Salti. Hitting them next makes ‘regional war’, and then US ground forces are going to be in the thick of it — the Biden Administration will have a new war on its hands — and bodybags, instead of votes, for Election Day. “

For the time being, Russian military bloggers – the only open-source reporters of Russian military operations in the Ukraine and worldwide – are not analyzing the implications of the Tower-22 operation.

However, Militarist has reported the deployment of the Iranian naval drone carrier and electronic warfare vessel, the Shah Mahdavi, in the Gulf of Oman. There is no open-source western vessel tracking source for this report and the map.

US Navy and other western media have been reporting for almost a year the conversion of the older container carrier into a warship by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The current positioning of the Shah Mahdavi is a signal that if the Biden Administration, or the Trump election campaign, or their claques in the US Congress decide on making a direct, retaliatory strike against Iranian targets — military personnel, territorial units, or naval vessels — the IGRC will close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran will then be at war with the US, and so will the rest of the world which, until Israel started its war against the Palestinians, depended on the Suez Canal, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean for its energy supply and trade lifelines.

“This is a major embarrassment and a message for the US and its allies”, the military source concludes. “It should resonate with all of them. It’s the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the systems they have relied on have been defeated on land [in the Ukraine] and are now defending their ships on the Red Sea, and being defeated there too. The implications of all of this are enormous. Now, even the smallest maritime country, at a relatively low cost, can project force and inflict harm on the traditionally dominant actors. No need for expensive fighter or strike aircraft, let alone the pilots to operate them, or technicians and facilities to maintain them. No need for specialized military ship-building facilities. Any bulk transport, cheaply got, will do.”

Republished from Dances with Bears

https://www.unz.com/article/the-tower-22-strike-in-jordan-triggers-us-israel-into-all-front-war/

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