In the first CounterVortex meta-podcast of February 2018, we noted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists‘ decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight, citing the threats of nuclear weapons, climate change and “cyber-based disinformation.” The clock… Read moreCounterVortex meta-podcast: ranting against the apocalypse
UN officials warn of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as death tolls mount from Israeli air-strikes. Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council: “Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation.” Human Rights Watch has called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes have killed at least 700 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of four days. The UN Refugee Agency reveals that some 90,000 Lebanese residents had been displaced. (Photo: UNICEF/Dar Al Mussawir via UN News)
Over 26 rights organizations, including the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Center for Human Rights in Iran, issued a joint statement calling for the immediate revocation of the death sentence imposed on Kurdish women’s rights activist Pakhshan Azizi. This sentence, handed down by the Iranian judiciary, has sparked international outrage, with the organizations calling it “a blatant violation of human rights principles and standards as well as international conventions and treaties.” Held in solitary confinement for months, during which time she was subjected to torture to coerce confessions, Azizi was sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran on charges of “armed insurrection” and “membership in opposition groups.” Her lawyers maintain that Azizi has no involvement in any armed groups, but that she spent years working in displaced persons’ camps in Syria’s Rojava region, providing humanitarian aid to those displaced by ISIS violence. (Image: ANF)
A fresh round of ceasefire negotiations got underway in Doha, Qatar, aiming to bring an end to Israel’s more than 10-month-long war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the estimated 115 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Forty-one of the hostages are believed to be dead, and the recorded death toll from Israel’s military campaign has now reached over 40,000, according to health authorities in the Strip. That’s roughly 2% of Gaza’s pre-war population—or one out of every 50 residents—that has been killed. (Photo: WAFA via Jurist)
Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility, asserting that a projectile from Israel’s own Iron Dome missile defense system hit the village amid strikes on military targets elsewhere in the area by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed organization. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading strikes over the Lebanese border since Oct. 8, a day after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has killed 527 people in Lebanon since then, according to an AFP tally, including at least 104 civilians. Israel says 23 of its civilians and 17 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah rocket-fire over this period. (Image: Pixabay)
The Argentine government of far-right President Javier Milei announced that it has placed its borders on alert due to potential infiltration of operatives linked to Iran and Hezbollah. There have long been concerns about a Hezbollah presence in the Triborder Region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. But Interior Minister Patricia Bullrich in making the announcement this time emphasized a supposed threat from Bolivia. Following years of closer ties, including security cooperation, Bolivia and Iran signed a formal defense pact in July 2023. The deal was said to inlcude an Iranian pledge to provide Bolivia with drones for narcotics enforcement, but the terms were secretive, with both Argentina and the Bolivian opposition demanding clarity on the details. (Photo: Khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons)
The insurgent Sunni Baluch group Jaish al-Adl carried out simultaneous attacks on bases of the security forces in Iran’s southeastern Sistan & Baluchestan province, leaving five troops dead. The attacks targeted a Border Guard post in Chabahar, and a Revolutionary Guards base in Rask. Troops gave pursuit, and skirmishes in the areas continue, with several more reported dead on both sides. Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, is largely made up of followers of the banned militant organization Jundullah (Soldiers of God), and claims to “defend the rights of the Sunni Baluch people.” (Map: PCL)
At least 42 people were reported killed in Israeli air-strikes near the Syrian city of Aleppo, allegedly targeting an arms depot belonging to militant group Hezbollah. Those killed included Hezbollah members and Syrian soldiers—as well as civilians, by some reports. Israeli air-strikes in southern Lebanon meanwhile killed 16 people, and one in Israel was killed by a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah from south Lebanon. Earlier, a series of air-strikes on Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zor killed 15 people, including a World Health Organization staff member as well as an Iranian military adviser. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for those strikes. But Israel’s intermittent air-strikes on Iran-backed militia forces in Syria have been escalating since the Gaza bombardment began. (Image: Pixabay)
In Episode 212 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the latest escalation in the Middle East—and continues to note discrepancies in the reportage. US air-strikes on Iraq are said to have targeted the self-declared Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and its constituent militias such as Kataib Hezbollah. But some reports indicate the actual target has often been the Popular Mobilization Forces, a paramilitary network integrated into Iraq’s official security services. Meanwhile, insufficiently noted media accounts report “no evidence” to back up Israeli claims of Hamas co-optation of UNWRA, which has led to a devastating cut-off of funds to the UN agency by the Western powers. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Pixabay)
In Episode 211 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the potential for escalation to world war as Joe Biden retaliates for a deadly drone strike on US forces by an Iran-backed militia with air raids on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria. The same militias that have been attacking US forces in Iraq and Syria have also brutally repressed protesters in Iraq, and fought for the genocidal Bashar Assad regime in Syria. Tehran’s paramilitary network has also carried out deadly repression of protests within Iran itself. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, now also coming under US bombardment, are responsible for war crimes against the Yemeni people and repression of their popular movements. It is necessary to oppose Biden’s widening of air-strikes against Iran’s paramilitaries, but also to oppose the Islamic Republic, equally a force of regional reaction. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: London rally in solidarity with Iranian protesters, October 2022. Credit: Sinai Noor via Wikimedia Commons)
President Biden is pledging undefined retaliation after three US troops were killed and dozens injured in a drone strike being blamed on one of the Iran-backed militias that have been harassing US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria. It is widely reported that the target was a site in Jordan known as Tower 22, which provides logistical support for the US outpost across the border at al-Tanf, Syria—near where the borders of Jordan, Syria and Iraq intersect. However, a communique from the umbrella group for Iran-backed factions known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq did not mention Tower 22, but claimed responsibility for drone strikes on three sites within Syria. These are al-Tanf, the nearby border outpost of Rukban, and Shaddadi—over 200 kilometers away in Hasakah governorate, in Syria’s northeast corner, near oil fields that are under the control of US-backed Kurdish forces. (Image: Pixabay)
In Episode 209 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the frightening international escalation set off by the Gaza cataclysm, with Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan all coming under aerial bombardment over the past week, in a cascading regional crisis. The 1937 aerial bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica by Nazi warplanes shocked the world. Today, what happened there is a near-daily occurrence in countries around the world. And the media (“mainstream,” “alternative” and “social”) are more concerned with how the various actors line up in the Great Power game than the horrific realities on the ground. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: WAFA via WikimediaCommons)
