SOUTHFRONT—Late on June 22, Russian air defense units repelled a massive drone attack on Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria. According to local sources, Russian Pantsir and Tor systems launched almost two dozen missiles at unmanned aerial vehicles launched by militants from the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone. Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that Syrian air defenses were also activated in the Jableh area of Latakia province, where the Russian airbase is located.
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ERIC ZUESSE—n March 7th, Al Qaeda’s now largest branch, which is its Syrian organization that used to be called Al Nusra, praised Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan because his Government stands up for Al Qaeda, and for other jihadist organizations which are trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government, which is led by Bashar al-Assad. Al Qaeda in Syria now calls itself Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and their announcement basically reaffirms their continuing 9-year war against Syria’s Government (which war has been armed and funded mainly by the U.S. and the Saud family), and it especially damns Russia for assisting that secular Government’s efforts to destroy Al Qaeda and all other jihadist groups in Syria, which fight to eliminate all secular government and to replace it with God’s government.
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ARAM MIRZAI—Nobody has escaped the news of the so called “popular demonstrations” in Iran during the recent days. Hundreds of thousands of articles, updates and tweets have been made on this matter, and many have talked about what the reasons behind these protests have been. Many videos show groups of so-called Iranians tearing down the pictures of Martyr Qassem Soleimani, while others chant “death to the Islamic Republic” and “death to Khamenei”. Thousands of such people have appeared across Iran and many of those Iranians outside of Iran cheer them on, while the Empire takes every chance to attack Iran.
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Rania Khalek, Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal discuss how the Trump administration’s execution of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was a huge gift to ISIS and al-Qaeda. These military leaders defeated the so-called Islamic State, which was empowered by the US and its allies.
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PEPE ESCOBAR—There cannot be a more startling provocation against Iran — in a long list of sanctions and provocations — than what just happened in Baghdad. Iraq is now the preferred battleground of a proxy war against Iran that may now metastasize into hot war, with devastating consequences.
