Several big explosions rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Friday as Israel said it carried out strikes on the headquarters of the Iran-backed paramilitary group Hezbollah.
Here’s what we know so far:
Where: CNN has geolocated a video shared on social media which showed multiple large plumes of smoke in an area of the city’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which is a densely populated area with a strong Hezbollah presence, and where many of the group’s leadership is based.
Intended target: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of Israel’s strikes, an Israeli official told CNN. The country’s military is now working to verify whether he was killed in the strike, with a senior Israeli official saying it’s “too early to say” if Nasrallah is dead.
Impact: At least two people were killed and 76 injured, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said. Six buildings were completely destroyed, state news agency NNA reported. Video from the immediate aftermath of the attack showed a massive crater that dwarfed the rescuers navigating the rubble nearby. The area affected by the strikes appeared to be considerably larger than previous Israeli strikes on Beirut.
Weapons used: Images of the aftermath of Israeli strikes on Beirut suggest 2,000-pound bombs were used, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal expert has told CNN. “With the level of damage, it is hard to determine the exact munitions and amount, but likely multiple 2,000-pound bombs, Mk 84s, MPR-2000, or BLU-109 “bunker busters,” or a combination of them,” specialist Trevor Ball said after analyzing video and images of the strike on the Lebanese capital.
What Lebanon has said: Prime Minister Najib Mikati has urged the international community to help stop what he called Israeli “tyranny,” state news agency NNA reported Friday.
Netanyahu’s movements: The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office shared an image of Benjamin Netanyahu approving a strike on Beirut. He is returning to Israel a day early from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he made a combative speech earlier today.
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-lebanon-war-hezbollah-09-27-24/index.html
Comment: I’ve seen no confirmation that he’s dead or alive or even if he was in the bunkers under the apartment buildings. I have seen photos and videos of Syrians handing out sweets in celebration of his death. At the mosque in Idlib, the muezzin is calling out, “Thank Allah for the death of the oppressive Hassan Nasrallah.” Iranian women are celebrating inside Iran. The people of Idlib are crowding the streets in celebration.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian condemns the Israeli bombing in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, calling it an “open and fragrant war crime that once again revealed the nature of state terrorism of this regime.”
I imagine we’ll get confirmation one way or the other very soon.
TTG
The Israelis killed the leader of Hibz’Allah before him. It fundamentally changes nothing.
Well, Well….
Israel is a terrorist state, in Netanyahu’s speech to UN, replace the state Iran with the state named Israel, and then you can realize truth!!!
NEXT: We’ve been wondering about the 2nd largest US-embassy in Lebanon (43-acres), I propose this!
Why has Hezbollah been so compromised?
In its construction the spy/electronic network would be some of the FIRST infrastructure installed !!!
I told Col Lang years ago about that Embassy and predicted it would be used to film Netflix movies glorifying the CIA, Mossad and British SAS. The bozos who believe that Joe Biden has been trying to end this are even bigger clowns than the Bozos who believe anything Antony Blinken says.
Ok it’s quiz time again, your favorite. Honor system.
1-Who here has already noticed that Vladimir Putin’s birthday is October 7?
TTG, Leith, Fred, Walrus, mcohen, Eric Newhill, Yeah Right and everyone –
Holy Shittsky Section Championship Division Tournament:
Instructions – first read this, between dashed lines:
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The constellation Andromeda is known a “The Chained Woman.” Two of its most noticeable stars are Sirrah (its head) and Alamak (its feet), which are roughly on a line.
Read those names backwards.
https://www.star-registration.com/blogs/constellations-and-zodiac-signs/constellation-andromeda
http://www.helulf.se/Rongorongo/Dream%20Voyager/G/The%203rd%20Hour/Alamak/Alamak-1.htm
—————————-
Ok. No rush. You can click the links of course and read them in a browser. Ready? Honor system.
A) Raise your hand if your first thought was that the Democrats paid whichever organizations which maintain such astronomical data and bribed them to alter the names so that the great unwashed understand that the giggler is destined for victory and nothing under the heavens can change it?
B) Same for those who think the idea in A is absurd.
Tie breaker question.
For those who have digested the Oct 7 birthday factoid immediately above:
Do any of you still believe that the US and or UK gubbermints had nothing to do with the Oct 7th jailbreak into Israel?
(If you need help knowing why I ask that, maybe Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and Law or Medical school isn’t exactly suited for you).
F&L,
The star names are indeed interesting, but I don’t see it as anything more than an interesting coincidence. Those stars were named long before Kamala Harris came on the scene. Unless you think her presidency was ordained by the heavens long ago.
TTG if you actually think I was doing anything other than goofing on the sort of nitwits who would make an inference like that then you need to get out more. Yes I also believe the names of the planets were invented by the same genius American senator or congressman who proposed legislation that pi should be changed to 3 for convenience. If it was proposed today the bill would stand a good chance of passing. And the ancient Greeks and Romans got their architectural ideas by time traveling to Washington DC and saying “well lookey here!” (Kindly take no offense, none intended).
Meanwhile
“First the message came, and then it was slambled”: a phone exploded in the hands of a man in Volgograd.
The phone was on the desktop. But after a strange text message, it caught fire.
(In Russian):
https://v1.ru/text/incidents/2024/09/28/74147261/
In Volgograd, a gas industry employee had an exploded phone in his hands. The emergency happened when a message came to the mobile device, which the man did not even have time to read. As a result, there was practically nothing left of the phone, and the man himself inhaled a pungent smell and got burns.
The phone exploded at work today. I got a message from Google, I didn’t even have time to read it, there are some lines there. I took it in my hands and it was a snay. Flame, fire, smoke. I managed to dodge, but I still got small burns. There was a lot of smoke. The phone burned tightly, – says the man. – The room of 12 squares was so smoked in five seconds that there was nothing to breathe. If it happened at home at night, when everyone was asleep, you could have suffocated. The smoke was yellow, acrustic, a couple of sighs – and the cough began. There was a flame for seven seconds. I saw a lot of this shit on YouTube, in the news, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. (More at link).
——————-
No I don’t necessarily think that the tribe who worship Exploding-Pager-Yahweh did it. But Exploding-Pager-Yahweh is also the deity of a much larger country whose capitol is not too far from you, and that country is a sworn enemy of Russia where Volgograd is located as I believe you know.
F&L,
I did think it was one of your numerology excursions. I’m still not sure those are for our entertainment or something you fervently believe.
There are occasionally stories about phones bursting into flames across this country. Those cheesy-assed Chinese made electric bikes and scooters seem to have the same problem.
F&L,
It’s an omen. Kamala is chained to evil forces. No coincidence that she was recently endorsed by Dick Cheney.
How much more ‘in your face’ could it be?
OK?
Eric I don’t dispute that if Dick Chainsaw is your bestie then you are chained to evil forces, not for one femto-second do I. May I ask however how you suddenly have switched to disliking a man who, while the oval office was occupied by an utterly unicellularly endowed President, one Dubya, you don’t appreciate a man who to defend his country only sequestered himself 43 floors below the naval observatory, broke every law of war concerning torture, had his own personal hit squad of assassin’s etc etc? Perhaps you never watched W, starring the manly Josh Brolin, where one learns that even his dad, the USN war hero, Yale graduate, former Director of the CIA, VP under Reagan for 8 yrs and then President for 4 yrs GHW Bush, despised his son the former cocaine addict and alcoholic etc. You cheer on Netanyahu for murdering untold and mounting numbers of babies, but poor old Dick Cheney comes in for a non-5 star review? Tis a puzzlement as our esteemed host might say.
In addition Eric, old Dick, that great man, shot his grouse hunting buddy, a prominent Texan who controlled the TX state funeral guild, in the face, And thought it was funny! As my boyhood friends would say while sharpening their switchblades: How can you not like a guy like that?
F&L,
I keep telling you that you mustn’t allow your perceptions to be colored by media memes, leading to sweeping false assumptions based on characterizations created by ninnies sequestered in truthless abysses like Washington DC and NYC.
I despised Bush Jr and Cheney for the same reason I despise Biden and Harris. They are all part of the same blob of scum. Left nostril or right nostril matters not. It’s all snot from the same nose.
Israel defending itself from homicidal maniacs has nothing to do with that. What you don’t seem to understand is that if Israel ceased to exist – or never existed – those same homicidal maniacs that Israel is eliminating would simply revert to killing each other. Israel is not robbing them of the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Those people have no appreciation of those things.
For them, happiness, freedom and peace means all of their enemies are dead, but within short time, someone will offend their honor or exhibit weakness and, like wolves, they will respond by initiating a new conflict, a new attempt to utterly vanquish the others. You can’t view the situation over there through American eyes.
TTG – what am I missing? Why are Syrians in Idlib province celebrating — doesn’t it sound like Israeli Infowar? “See how gleeful they are over our massive strike – so how can we be criticized?
F&L,
Idlib was where Damascus shipped all the defeated/captured jihadis during the war. Hezbollah isn’t popular there.
TTG,
Isn’t Idlib province the open soar Col. Lang said had to be removed for the Syrian government to remain stable? Can’t imagine why anti Assad jihadis would not be welcomed in an anti Assad area.
Fred,
Exactly.
Fred
Shipping those jihadis to Idlib was the least bad option for the severely depleted SAA and the Syrian state.
It did however create a problem that remains and festers till this day. Our actions, as well as those of some of our “allies”, like Turkey made this problem almost impossible to solve.
F&L,
Things are not as they seem in western propaganda, especially the stuff created by liberals. In the MENA there are more factions and Machiavellian machinations than in the most dysfunctional Mafia family. They could very well be celebrating Nasrallah’s death and for reasons beyond your simple comprehension level.
As an aside, I am most impressed with the Israelis lately. Just when I think they’d be hard pressed to be any more awesome, they take it to the next level. I really shouldn’t be surprised, though, because I recognized – and predicted here many times – beginning years ago that Israel had learned from their last Lebanon incursion and would not repeat those mistakes, while Col Lang – and everyone else – allowed fantasy to cloud his judgment, relishing the imagined ass-kicking Israel would endure should they face-off again with Hezbollah.
I’ll say it again, for the hundredth time, these enemies of Israel are going to be, quite deservedly, beaten like bad dogs; and they’re going to take it, albeit with occasionally fits of whining and barking, because it’s the best they can do.
Eric you’re right about all of that except my low level of comprehension. I think they’re awesome too – in the military sense. How difficult is that with mighty America behind them? And I enjoy watching a good ass-whuppin’ as much as the next Neanderthal. You didn’t wonder that Colonel Lang was spreading disinformation intentionally so as to inspire unwarranted confidence in the sandal wearers minds, the better to congratulate yourself or did you eliminate that possibly by some reasoning process heretofore undisclosed to us? Everyone I know personally thought that meme of the heavily armed and therefore untouchable Hezbollah was codswallop. Granted some invasions are hard. But Israeli’s AF versus the sandal wearer’s tunnels always seemed a mismatch to me. A Saturday Night Live episode was: Napoleon with a fleet of B-52s at the Battle of Waterloo vs the duke of Wellington – who Wins? It’s roughly the same matchup in Lebanon today. Don’t forget that huge Beirut blast a few yrs ago. It was obvious what was coming then.
I would think that the odds of a single Hezbollah person being anywhere near their normal HQ is close to zero.
Thats what I was thinking.Frog of war.
Yeah, Right:
Was the ring with which Hezbollah claimed to have identified Nazi-rally’s death faked? It would also be a great way to keep him alive I guess. It’s difficult to forensically identify vaporized flesh and other tissue on short notice one might presume. Both Israel and Hezbollah have officially verified hid death by now. Being an 11th century superstitious terrorist madman isn’t an easy life these days. Nor is being a 21st century religious terrorist fanatic either — am I not right mcohen? But it’s easier on the feet than sandals and you don’t have to bow down on a carpet and face Mecca 5 times a day while your sheiks buy $5000 bottles of Champagne and drop tens of millions in the infidel’s casinos as they order their besties to bonesaw oh slowly away. “Oh the old bonesaw saws as I cheat Sharia law ..” (Sung to the tune of My Old Kentucky Home”
Apparently some Lebanese Sunnis are also celebrating Nasrallah’s demise:
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1839828076743598439
I guess Bibi is trying to take care of all family business.
Does Israel want to reoccupy southern Lebanon? and Gaza? That didn’t work out so well the last time.
Just to point out that when IDF spokesman Mr Pointy held a press conference saying that the IDF is going to bomb these three buildings his entire justification was that the basement of those buildings were stuffed full of anti-ship missiles.
Not a word about it being a Hezbollah leadership hangout. It was entirely about the missiles that the IDF knew – absolutely knew, beyond a doubt – were in the basement.
So they bombed it and…. nothing. No secondary explosions. No erratic missiles screaming into the sky.
Nothing.
Did we say missiles? Nah, we never said that. That’s anti-semetism. We hit Nasrallah. We were always aiming for Nasrallah.
Yeah right ……….LOL “Mr pointy” weird looking dude indeed.ex special forces unit 812..
Evidently his parachute malfunctioned,and he descended quite rapidly,decided to land on a camel and took a hump.Never been the same since
The whole thing is unhinged.No stone must be left unturned until the hostages are returned safely.Tomorrow will be interesting.
YR –
Pointy? I take you mean Admiral Hagari. I see he wears that batwings badge signifying that he served with the Shayetet 13 naval commandos. So I have to wonder if he was involved in the failed Raid on Tyre in 2006? Or the Gaza flotilla raid in 2010 that turned into a PR disaster and breakdown of relations with Turkey?
TTG – this isn’t like the Ukrainian war. Right or wrong the Ukrainian war had seemed from the start, at least to me personally, to be a relatively simple business with the conclusion foreordained. Not here. It’s a cat’s cradle of forces, some of those forces being major powers well outside the region, and the outcome entirely unpredictable.
Unpredictable except in that the Palestinian Arabs, and the remnants of the Christian community there, are quite obviously due for more of the hammering they’ve been getting for a century. Naqba II, if the Israelis can achieve their ambition. Warsaw Ghetto, as we’re seeing at present, if they can’t.
Against that background of monstrous injustice and suffering it seems callous, or at least calculating, to enquire into how the conflict affects us in the West. But it’s undeniable that the conflict signals a final loss of Western credibility and that, to an extent, within the West itself.
We – the Americans, the Europeans, all of us – supply the bombs that rain down on civilians and the weapons and support that hold the Palestinians in subjection. And the world is not fooled by our fake attempts to stop the carnage, or the crocodile tears we shed as it continues. “Mr Netanyahu, we really must insist you stop bombing and shooting up civilians. You really are going too far. Absolutely awful. Here, have some more weapons and ammunition so you can keep doing it.” That fools nobody.
The Western Rules Based International Order had been tottering in Ukraine. Backing neo-Nazis always looked odd in our ostentatiously “Nie Wieder” West. But few in the West noticed the contradiction and the rest of the world was slow on the uptake. Here the entire world can see an attempted Endlösung – but conducted corpse by corpse on our screens for all to see. Biden’s lame attempts to hold the Israelis back, and the often vehement protests emerging from the EU, demonstrate that even in the West it is recognised that what is happening in wrong. But even as we recognise that that is so, we continue to enable it! What price that Rules Based Order when those who pretend to uphold it flout is so publicly themselves?
…………………….
So the big picture, as I see it. As I have seen it since that big discussion on the subject of Israel on Colonel Lang’s SST. I think the outcome of that discussion was that Israel would cease to exist without US backing, which seems even more obvious now.
Most put that US backing down to the influence of AIPAC. Most still do. For me, that’s another example of Mearsheimer getting it wrong – I believe that that US backing for Israel is inevitable given the large number of Evangelicals, Christian Zionists and Mormons in the American electorate, for whom support of Israel in a primary doctrinal imperative; AIPAC, therefore, being something of a red herring. That dispute aside, there’s no doubt that US backing is critical to Israel as was agreed in that discussion.
Also no doubt that that “cat’s cradle” of contending factions within the ME makes the Arab/Turkish response to the current crisis most difficult to evaluate. What are the Kurds up to, or the Saudis? What of the embittered Jihadis penned up in Idlib? How’s Erdogan using his Grey Wolves these days? And is the Sunni/Shia split manifesting itself again? Did it ever go away?
Such questions make of the ME an impenetrable tangle for most of us. Not for you, who with Colonel Lang took us expertly through the Syrian war on the old SST. These are the two of the questions that immediately sprang to mind after reading the article above.
1. I had assumed the Israeli attacks in Lebanon are made in the hope of provoking a major Hezbollah response that would bring the US in directly. Is this correct?
2. Why the celebrations in Iran?
EO,
I do think Israel expects the US to enter a wider war against Hezbollah. At least they want us to actively assist in shooting down Hezbollah, and possibly Iranian, rockets, drones and missiles. Or they may be fully convinced of their own superiority over Hezbollah that they want to end it now whether we are brought in or not.
The celebrations in Iran reflect the unrest across large swaths of the Iranian people against the current regime, the IRGC and any group associated with them.
“Right or wrong the Ukrainian war had seemed from the start, at least to me personally, to be a relatively simple business with the conclusion foreordained.”
Funny you say this. I just read a paper by CSIS that examines the failure of the Western analytical community in assessing the outcome of the war prior to February 2022. The broad consensus at that time was in consonance with your view. The same analytical failure seems to have occurred in Kremlin circles. In reality, the outcome in both wars is unpredictable.
@EO – “2. Why the celebrations in Iran?”
Could also be that they were celebrating the death of IRGC General Abbas Nilforushan who was in the room with Nasrallah and was also taken out by the Israeli bombs. Nilforushan was much hated because of his actions in suppression of protests after Mahsa Amini died after being beaten by Tehran’s hijab gendarme squad. Hundreds died in those protests including minors, 19,000 were arrested, several executed.
EO it sure isn’t like the Yourcranium war. If it was we’d have seen photos of the green drug addict’s ring and his severed limbs on our screens by mid March 2022. But “we’re not that way” and “we were led by the nose” says meek, gentle VVP. The Israelis don’t dick around. The world is impressed. Of course as you say, they have the entire arsenal and power of the USA and it’s degenerate Epstein-ed elite behind them. The only thing the Russians have behind them is whatever the Plywood Marshall (aka the Tuvan reindeer herder) and his thieving staff didn’t steal or sell to the enemy. Not to mention that the Ukrainians are a far cry from 11th century sandal wearers. Never on Exploding-Pager Yahweh’s Green Acres has there lived or breathed a more inept or incompetent commander than the RF President.
English, my friend, I am in the process of writing a long essay which exposes, I hope, the very troubling subconscious motivations behind his destruction of his huge, rich country. It’s complex, and extremely disturbing. As you know, Hitler utterly destroyed his country and Stalin, an equally prolific mass murderer, very nearly did the same. As a teaser I’ll leave this here.
Each of the triplet of dictators Hitler, Stalin and Putin have an astounding aspect of their childhood in common. They were preceded in birth order in their respective families by one or more sons who died early in childhood, leaving their parents grief stricken and hopelessly discouraged that they would never be able to conceive again. When that happens the parents treat a child who finally manages to be conceived and born as a miracle and live in excessive fear that that child will die too, causing them to be overprotective and adoring in the extreme. They can and do also elevate.the dead child to a status of sainthood and very unwisely compare the miracle survivor child to unbearable stress and unrealizable (in helpless childhood) desires for murderous revenge by comparing him unfavorably to the dead child, saying that he can never possibly live up. The personality splits induced by such ambiguity can drive the child mad. Think for a second what a strange historical coincidence that is — Hitler, Stalin and Putin all sharing that formative experience. Each a massively armed dictator – this latest one with the world’s largest nuclear weapon arsenal. I also think if I am right about the rest of my analysis that it may provide a roadmap for how to stop this thing. The crap about hitting deep into Russia absolutely must end, because you are thereby fulfilling his most deeply desired subconscious fantasy — to recreate the devastated conditions of the his post siege Leningrad childhood and the USSR more widely where his deeply resented younger brother who his parents worshipped and compared him with still lives because the subconscious is timeless and eternal. He wants everything for himself, and he will desrtoy everyone in Holy Mother Russia and the rest of the world if he doesn’t get his way. Remember. Think. I know how to stop him, and you can’t do it militarily because that’s his deepest wish. You have no conception how disturbed the man is. The formal “you”, my dear friend English Outsider, of course not you who can understand everything.
I don’t understand everything, F&L. Still puzzling out your star wars comment. And while you’re here, the other day I thought I’d solved your anagram in a flash. Until I realised that BibliCal is not a word. That’s not how we spell it in England at any rate. I think you have some explaining to do there, setting your readers an insoluble puzzle.
I don’t understand Putin either. Don’t know a lot about him. Nor about the Russians. I may know a little, though only a little, about the early days of the war in the Donbass. That’s why I’m still glad the Russians finally got round to rescuing the people there. Hope that rescue wasn’t at the cost of mushroom clouds and don’t think it will be. Wish it hadn’t been at the cost of a million dead.
We could have avoided all that if we’d not ditched Minsk II. Or the Belarusian or Istanbul peace talks. I blame Merkel/Scholz and your President for that. Though I note that many Russians and not a few Americans blame the Brits. Don’t think we can blame Putin, anyway.