Who gives a shit? All’s fair in love and war.Originally Posted by 0ddl0t
Who gives a shit? All’s fair in love and war.
Competent, and quality, by whose standards?
Just because they are pretty good at training, supplying, equipping, and enabling terrorists doesn't make them "good" or competent, or capable.
They were employing human wave attacks during the Iran-Iraq War (AKA "Who cares who wins?"). They keep touting new weapon systems, which are vapor ware.
Iran is the North Korea of the Middle East.
Last edited by Drang; 01-04-2020 at 06:14 PM.
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“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
What he was planning was not a mystery. There is no need speculate. It was linked up thread. He was covertly supplying Iranian puppet Shia militias in Iraq with sophisticated weapons and ISR to attack American forces and stage a pro Iranian coup in Iraq.
A lot of people are talking shit in this thread without even knowing the facts available open source.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-....4fj78iIIXIfeZk
Inside the plot by Iran’s Soleimani to attack U.S. forces in Iraq
The Revolutionary Guards commander instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran, two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters.
The strategy session, which has not been previously reported, came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight. Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.
Soleimani’s efforts ended up provoking the U.S. attack on Friday that killed him and Muhandis, marking a major escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. The two men died in air strikes on their convoy at a Baghdad airport as they headed to the capital, dealing a major blow to the Islamic Republic and the Iraqi paramilitary groups it supports.
Interviews with the Iraqi security sources and Shi’ite militia commanders offer a rare glimpse of how Soleimani operated in Iraq, which he once told a Reuters reporter he knew like the back of his hand.Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons - such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters - to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.
At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah - a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran - to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings.
Soleimani told them such a group “would be difficult to detect by the Americans,” one of the militia sources told Reuters.
Before the attacks, the U.S. intelligence community had reason to believe that Soleimani was involved in “late stage” planning to strike Americans in multiple countries, including Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, U.S. officials told Reuters Friday on condition of anonymity. One senior U.S. official said Soleimani had supplied advanced weaponry to Kataib Hezbollah.
White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters on Friday that Soleimani had just come from Damascus, “where he was planning attacks on American soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and against our diplomats.”PICKING U.S. TARGETS WITH DRONES
The United States has grown increasingly concerned about Iran’s influence over the ruling elite in Iraq, which has been beset for months by protesters who accuse the government of enriching itself and serving the interests of foreign powers, especially Iran, as Iraqis languish in poverty without jobs or basic services.
Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, was instrumental in expanding Iran’s military influence in the Middle East as the operative who handles clandestine operations outside Iran. The 62-year-old general was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Muhandis, a former Iraqi lawmaker, oversaw Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of paramilitary forces mostly consisting of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that was formally integrated into Iraq’s armed forces.
Muhandis, like Soleimani, had long been on the radar of the United States, which had declared Muhandis a terrorist. In 2007, a Kuwaiti court sentenced him to death in absentia for his involvement in the 1983 U.S. and French embassy bombings in Kuwait.
Soleimani picked Kataib Hezbollah to lead the attacks on U.S. forces in the region because it had the capability to use drones to scout targets for Katyusha rocket attacks, one of the militia commanders told Reuters. Among the weapons that Soleimani’s forces supplied to its Iraqi militia allies last fall was a drone Iran had developed that could elude radar systems, the militia commanders said.
Kataib Hezbollah used the drones to gather aerial footage of locations where U.S. troops were deployed, according to two Iraqi security officials who monitor the movements of militias.
On December 11, a senior U.S. military official said attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were increasing and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.
His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but a U.S. military official said intelligence and forensic analyses of the rockets and launchers pointed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia groups, notably Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
On December 11, a senior U.S. military official said attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were increasing and becoming more sophisticated, pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.
His warning came two days after four Katyusha rockets struck a base near Baghdad international airport, wounding five members of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but a U.S. military official said intelligence and forensic analyses of the rockets and launchers pointed to Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia groups, notably Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
On Dec. 27 more than 30 rockets were fired at an Iraqi military base near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk. The attack killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four American and two Iraq servicemen.
Washington accused Kataib Hezbollah of carrying out the attack, an allegation it denied. The United States then launched air strikes two days later against the militia, killing at least 25 militia fighters and wounding 55.
The attacks sparked two days of violent protests by supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary groups who stormed the U.S. Embassy’s perimeter and hurled rocks, prompting Washington to dispatch extra troops to the region and threaten reprisals against Tehran.
On Thursday – the day before the attack that killed Soleimani - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned that the United States might have to take preemptive action to protect American lives from expected attacks by Iran-backed militias.
“The game has changed,” he said.
Last edited by HCM; 01-04-2020 at 06:30 PM.
Hear, hear. 100%.
GardoneVT has a hard-on for them because they bought some top end AA missile systems from Russia a few years ago, and completely forgets the rest of their military is 70s and 80s grade tech in dilapidated condition due to sanctions and the inability of their economy to replace such or successfully integrate what tech they can buy into their old ass shit.
As opposed to the technological advantages we enjoyed in Desert Storm not being a factor, we would enjoy even more of a technological superiority. It wouldn't be 1990s America vs 1990s Soviet tech......it'd be 2020 America vs 1990s Soviet Tech (for the most part).
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Iran is like Israel, noticeably better than their neighbors but a 4th rate Army that looks better than they are because they are fighting an bunch of 12th rate armies.
"All I remember is going to the door and asking 'who is it?' The last thing I heard was 'Landshark!'"
There's nothing civil about this war.
"All I remember is going to the door and asking 'who is it?' The last thing I heard was 'Landshark!'"
Run-Tin-Tin got nothing on Conan.
Last edited by HCM; 01-04-2020 at 06:53 PM.
You’ve said that before based on Iran having some 80s era tech, and I think the same thing was said about the US versus Iraq in early 1991.
We have some pretty damn good ISR capability now. What makes you think it doesn’t apply any more? What kind of conflict do you envision happening?
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Iran could employ IRGC naval assets to harass shipping and commerce in the Persian gulf and Straits of Hormuz, and use Qods Force / proxies to attack Western targets in the region. Should they choose to do so, I predict they’ll get a 55 gallon drum of whoop-ass opened on them via increased sanctions and direct military action directed at the IRGC.
I still stand by my theory that the Soleimani op was sanctioned by the Iraqi government, media narrative notwithstanding.
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How so?
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
