World War 5

Greater Middle East

Podcast: flashpoint Golan Heights

In Episode 237 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides some under-reported context for the international crisis that has quickly spiraled since last week’s deadly rocket strike on a Golan Heights village, and now threatens to escalate to the unthinkable. Under international law, the Golan is Syrian territory not Israeli. And the kids who were killed in the rocket strike were Druze not Jews. Most of the Druze residents of the Golan have refused Israeli citizenship and remain loyal to Syria. Only one country on Earth recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan—the USA, thanks to Donald Trump. Israel has a complicated history with the Druze, going back well before the occupation of the Golan in 1967. But the origins of the current trajectory toward regional war in a massacre of Druze youth points again to how peoples on the ground are exploited as pawns and propaganda in the cynical Great Power game. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Freedom’s Falcon via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

Regional war looms closer after Golan rocket strike

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)

East Asia

China and Russia launch joint naval exercise

Chinese and Russian naval forces have begun a joint exercise at a southern Chinese military port, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced. The “Maritime Joint-2024” exercise is taking place off Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, on the South China Sea. The operations encompass reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, anti-missile and air defense maneuvers. This naval cooperation unfolds against a backdrop of mounting tensions between China and NATO allies. At their Washington summit, NATO members designated China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, citing the two nations’ declared “no-holds-barred partnership” and China’s support for the Russian defense industry. (Map: Google)

East Asia

Russia-DPRK defense pact: Cold War redux

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense assistance pact during Putin’s first visit to Pyongyang since 2000. According to a statement from the Russian government, the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership stipulates “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties thereto.” Article 4 of the pact states: “If either side faces an armed invasion and is in a state of war, the other side will immediately use all available means to provide military and other assistance.” While full details were not made public, this appears to revive provisions of the 1961 treaty between the Soviet Union and North Korea that stipulated automatic military intervention if either nation came under attack. (Photo: gfs_mizuta/Pixabay via Jurist)

Europe

Baltic brinkmanship amid NATO war games

Sweden’s armed forces charged that a Russian SU-24 fighter plane violated the country’s airspace just east of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, calling the act “unacceptable.” Just days before the incident, Sweden and other NATO allies were conducting naval exercises in the area as part of the annual Baltic Operations drill (BALTOPS). Amid the exercise, the Finnish military reported a similar airspace violation by four Russian warplanes over the Gulf of Finland. This was the first time Sweden and Finland had taken part in BALTOPS. (Photo: NATO)

Greater Middle East

Gaza: flashpoint for regional war? (redux redux)

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)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: Iraq, Palestine, escalation and errata

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)

Greater Middle East

Gaza: flashpoint for regional war? (redux)

The Pentagon carried out air-strikes on Iran-backed militia forces in Iraq in retaliation for a drone attack on a US airbase in Erbil, while a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in a presumed Israeli strike in Syria. Israel continues to trade cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, while Yemen’s Houthi armed movement claimed responsibility for drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is now fighting on “seven fronts”—Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. (Image: Pixabay)

Palestine

Israeli official broaches nuclear strike on Gaza

A member of the Israeli cabinet broached a nuclear strike on the Gaza Strip, making outraged headlines in the Arab world. Jerusalem Affairs & Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party said in a radio interview that there are “no non-combatants in Gaza,” and using a nuclear weapon on the Palestinian enclave is “one of the possibilities.” The comment was immediately repudiated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who issued a statement saying that Eliyahu has been suspended from cabinet meetings “until further notice.” Nonetheless, this comes as the death toll in nearly a month of Gaza bombardment approaches 10,000, with increasingly genocidal rhetoric voiced by Israeli officials up to and including Netanyahu. And despite a supposed relaxation of international tensions after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s highly anticipated speech was less bellicose than expected, the nuclear-powered (and presumably nuclear-armed) submarine USS Florida has arrived in the Middle East. The Ohio-class submarine is now operating under the command of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which polices the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Arabian Sea—a clear signal to Iran and its regional allies. (Photo: Maan News Agency)

Europe

Russia conducts simulated nuclear strike

Russia’s military conducted exercises with nuclear-capable missiles, shortly after the State Duma unanimously voted to revoke ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Russian Strategic Missile Forces command claimed the exercises were part of a regularly scheduled annual training drill held every October. But Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the exercises were to simulate a retaliatory nuclear strike to be carried out if Russia were attacked with nuclear firepower first. The Russian military widely publicized videos of the exercises across state media. According to the Kremlin, the exercises were overseen by President Vladimir Putin from a Moscow command center. (Photo: Kremlin)

Greater Middle East

Gaza: flashpoint for regional war?

As Israel intensifies air-strikes in the Gaza Strip, a northern front appears to be opening in the war. Civilians are fleeing both north Israel and south Lebanon as Israeli and Hezbollah forces exchange fire across the border. Following Israeli air-strikes on targets in Syria, drone attacks by presumed Iranian-backed forces hit US military bases and outposts in both Syria and Iraq. The US responded with air-strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guards positions in eastern Syria. The Iranian military has announced that it will launch large-scale maneuvers, involving infantry, air and naval forces. (Image: Pixabay)

South Asia

Podcast: Himalayan fault lines in BRICS

In Episode 189 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that despite all the tankie pseudo-left enthusiasm for the BRICS summit in South Africa, the notion of a unified bloc against Western hegemony is illusory. The Johannesburg confab was immediately followed by a diplomatic spat between China and India, sparked by Beijing’s release of an official map of the territory of the People’s Republic—showing two Himalayan enclaves claimed by India as Chinese territory: Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which have both been the scene of border skirmishes in recent years. The map also shows an island in the Amur River, by mutual agreement half controlled by Russia, as entirely Chinese. Moscow, depending on China’s acquiescence in the Ukraine war, has lodged no protest over this. But the border disputes between nuclear-armed India and China have the potential to escalate to the unthinkable. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map: CIA via Wikipedia)