Trump says he bombed Iran

[Oldcarpy2]

You folks do realize that Trump is not a dictator, nor a king, so he cannot unilaterally reduce the debt, open the Strait, or win the war all by himself, don't you?

Of course.  But he is Commander - in Chief of US military, is he not?

[worldstarcountry]

We really got to split up this thread. One for the actual kinetic  and general newsworthy bits, and the other for you all to spit all over each other and pull each others hair in while calling each other names. Fucking 'ey, and half of 'ye are past retirement, the lot of us over 40. The internet has clearly  done humanity no favors in how they communicate when not face to face.

I bet the thread with actual updates would only have five pages right now.

So from what we got over the weekend that was the main plot driver is Iran did successfully shoot down an F-15E, its crew ejected, there has been a Search and rescue for the weapons officer. Trump says he was collected. Hindustan Times did a little piece on it with some information that will come out more tomorrow.

What followed was nearly 48 hours of evasion, deception and pursuit, ending in a daring rescue operation that will go down in US Special Forces history — the kind on which Hollywood movies are made. 
The colonel landed somewhere in mountainous terrain in a part of Iran where, according to US officials, there is significant opposition to the Islamic Republic regime that faced protests in the weeks before US and Israel launched this war on February 28.
Iranian military said the crash and rescue took place by using an abandoned airstrip in Isfahan province, which is in central Iran. Unnamed US officials mentioned southwestern Iran to NYT, not mentioning the exact area.
Wherever he fell after ejecting from the jet, the colonel had a handgun, a beacon, and a secure communications device besides survival ration supplies. That was largely it. ..... Military training for downed aircrew — Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE — tells pilots to put some distance between themselves and the crash site. Enemy forces would usually head to the site first.

 
At some stage during his evasion, the officer hiked up a ridgeline that rose to 7,000 feet, said US media reports. A senior American military official described to NYT the terrain as a significant factor in what made the rescue “one of the most challenging in US special operations history”.
The mountains offered cover for the officer, but also made any rescue far harder to execute for those who went in for him.
Throughout this period, Iranian forces, including units from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij paramilitary force, were actively searching for him.
The Iranian government put out a public call for citizens to help locate the "enemy pilot" and offered a reward. Tribesmen in the area reportedly opened fire on US helicopters during the search, CNN reported.

 
The officer used his beacon sparingly because Iranian forces could detect the same signal. He also carried a secure communications device, which allowed him to coordinate with US forces without broadcasting openly. US officials have not specified the exact equipment, but military aircrew in combat zones are typically equipped with devices that combine GPS positioning, encrypted radio communications and a satellite beacon. This allows them to transmit their location digitally without relying on open radio frequencies.
Deception as coverWhile the officer evaded on the ground, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a separate operation at a psychological level too, NYT reported. The agency launched a deception campaign aimed at convincing Iranian forces that the search by US forces had already found the airman, and that he was being moved out of the country in a ground convoy.

The US lost at least two aircraft in the process. These were two US transport planes that “malfunctioned” at the staging base inside Iranian territory, officials told the Wall Street Journal.
 
The US lost at least two aircraft in the process. These were two US transport planes that “malfunctioned” at the staging base inside Iranian territory, officials told the Wall Street Journal.
To keep the rescue going, US commanders flew in three replacement aircraft, extracted all personnel, and destroyed the two disabled planes on the ground to not leave any evidences or signals. The officer was flown to Kuwait for medical treatment.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed they shot down two C-130 military transport aircraft involved in the operation. It was not clear if these were the same two that US officials mentioned, or in addition to them. Also, they claimed to have hit two Black Hawk helicopters too in the initial hours of the US search operation.
 

This was an expensive mission that cost us damage/loss of an additional 5 craft. The A-10 that was hit, the 2 C-130's , and the two blackhawks. 
This video shows the moment of impact of the A-10 that  allegedly made it to Kuwait before crashing, as well as various shots of the transport craft escorted by two black hawks, the ones in question as being shot at by tribesman. 

This is the image  provided by going around of the destroyed ground transports, which may  have occurred during what is to alleged to have been a brief firefight. Regardless of the material losses, this is still an impressive as fuck rescue op.
This particular live feed is showing that wreckage more thoroughly as well as what looks like actual shooting at the helicopters at night, or possibly the tanker based on the size and trajectory of that crash. This feed will probably change and update or go dead within an hour or so, but its there for now.


What a dirty dirty modern  war.

[DBCowboy]

No wars are perfect, all wars are ugly.
 "No Plan Survives First Contact With the Enemy"-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

[worldstarcountry]

Well, we finally going into full opSEC mode and ordering satellite companies not to disclose images from the region.

Hindustan Times
As the US-Iran war rages on, the Trump administration has reportedly called for a halt to satellite images from Iran. According to a Bloomberg report, the US government has called on satellite imagery providers to withhold images of designated areas of interest.

Following this order, Planet Labs PBC has begun restricting access to data from the region.
“These are extraordinary circumstances, and we are doing all we can to balance the needs of all our stakeholders. We will continue to monitor the situation and make adjustments as possible to minimise the impact on data availability to our customers," the company said in a statement as per Bloomberg.
A comment from the Pentagon and the US government regarding the same is awaited.

"These controls can include limiting who is able to task new imagery or purchase historical imagery over areas where U.S., NATO, and other allied and partner forces are actively operating, as well as over areas that are being actively targeted by adversaries,” Tomi Maxted, a spokesperson for the company, told The Washington Post.

[cherokeetroy]

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/204079...15928?s=20

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2040725...23356?s=20

[cherokeetroy]

No wars are perfect, all wars are ugly.
 "No Plan Survives First Contact With the Enemy"-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

But we have a choice to be in this war or not be in this war
This is our war

Or, we did have that choice
The window is closed by now

[cherokeetroy]

https://x.com/DavidLe76335983/status/204...77871?s=20

[worldstarcountry]

But we have a choice to be in this war or not be in this war
This is our war

Or, we did have that choice
The window is closed by now

This has been established a hundred times over in this thread. We just beating a dead horse now. We must shift our energy to simply documenting the ordeal. The battle has to run its course. Think of the game of civilization. You got to denounce or be denounced, wait five turns then attack. After that attack, you cannot make peace or negotiate for ten turns. We are near the end of that ten turns. Enough stuff has to be blown up on all sides before either side begins to cool. It is just the nature of things when both sides believe they have the advantage, attrition has to run its course.

If anything, our documenting it here helps to disseminate to the US general public which could hasten decision making processes. The folks who come here do not frequent non European or American media to see the uncensored data, so when we post it they can share with their groups, and so on and  so on. It does make a difference to document this, even if it does not feel like it. You never know whose eyes will land here.

I noticed it is translated from Urdu the claim  of US troops leaving Qatar. That is heavy in Afghanistan, which is where I found the only other article talking about this. The other article showed up responding to that search term was from February 26 covering a general evacuation  of troops from various bases in the region. It is early though,  so maybe it is still making its way around,  but I am going  to leave that one in the gossip mill for now.

This Substack on the Existentialist Republic went down this rabbit hole last week it looks like.
Some interesting bits:

A country that spent thirty years anchoring its security to American military presence is now putting distance between itself and that presence, because the presence stopped meaning safety and started meaning target. This is not a tactical adjustment. This is the visible fracture point of an eighty-year arrangement, and Qatar is not the only country doing the math right now.
Qatar's Advisor to the Prime Minister and Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Majed Al-Ansari, said publicly: "Total annihilation of Iran is not an option. We will live next to each other and we will be neighbors and we have to find a way to live next to each other." He added something even more damning: "One of the key outcomes of this war is that it revealed the breakdown of the concept of the regional security system in the Gulf region. This system was based on certain principles, and it became clear during the current war that many of these principles have been disregarded." Qatar's own government is announcing the end of the security architecture. On the record.

................
 
America's basing strategy has been on auto-pilot since the end of the Cold War. Nobody designed this arrangement so much as accumulated it, adding bases after 9/11, expanding after the Iraq War, layering obligation on top of obligation across decades until the whole structure required more than any country can deliver when every commitment starts demanding attention at once. That moment has arrived. You can rebuild a damaged base. You cannot rebuild the moment when nations handed you the keys because they believed you would protect them, and you used those keys to start a foolish and evil war they didn't vote for and couldn't stop.
This is the end of an era. The era that began in 1945, when American power was trusted by enough of the world to make this scale of global military presence possible, is closing in 2026 in Qatar, with ballistic missile craters and a host nation showing us the door.
The world and Americans have watched the U.S. style for-profit war crime industry and will not mourn its death. That reaction is understandable and not wrong. But what replaces American military hegemony is not yet written, and anyone who tells you they know what international geopolitical stability looks like on the other side of this moment is telling you more than they can actually know.
1945-2026. RIP US Geopolitical Military Dominance.

[cherokeetroy]

https://x.com/SprinterPress/status/20407...83317?s=20

 https://x.com/Tabassum1131604/status/204...93804?s=20

[cherokeetroy]

This has been established a hundred times over in this thread. We just beating a dead horse now. We must shift our energy to simply documenting the ordeal. The battle has to run its course. Think of the game of civilization. You got to denounce or be denounced, wait five turns then attack. After that attack, you cannot make peace or negotiate for ten turns. We are near the end of that ten turns. Enough stuff has to be blown up on all sides before either side begins to cool. It is just the nature of things when both sides believe they have the advantage, attrition has to run its course.

If anything, our documenting it here helps to disseminate to the US general public which could hasten decision making processes. The folks who come here do not frequent non European or American media to see the uncensored data, so when we post it they can share with their groups, and so on and  so on. It does make a difference to document this, even if it does not feel like it. You never know whose eyes will land here.

I noticed it is translated from Urdu the claim  of US troops leaving Qatar. That is heavy in Afghanistan, which is where I found the only other article talking about this. The other article showed up responding to that search term was from February 26 covering a general evacuation  of troops from various bases in the region. It is early though,  so maybe it is still making its way around,  but I am going  to leave that one in the gossip mill for now.

That's the only article I was able to find as well

I'm seeing debate over whether it's official withdrawl or a precautionary measure

"Qatar’s Foreign Minister, in rare remarks on Wednesday evening, stated: “Qatar has paid a heavy price for hosting foreign bases. Our relationship with Iran is fraternal, and we will not allow harm to come through Qatari soil again”

These comments follow repeated attacks on Al-Udeid, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East, which have damaged some equipment. Earlier reports indicated that the U.S. had already evacuated hundreds of personnel from the base to safer locations"

https://x.com/MohamadShamass/status/2038...30249?s=20