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conflict

Israel launches new form of terrorism with its exploding pager attacks in Lebanon

Published

6 months ago

15 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Israel worked in secret to launch, without warning, a new era of international terror. Recent exploding pager attacks in Lebanon killed or injured mostly civilian, rather than military, members of Hezbollah and many non-members, including children.

Israel has launched a new form of terrorism according to former CIA director Leon Panetta, which he says will have far reaching “repercussions” throughout the world.

The terrorist campaign is said to have killed or injured mostly civilian, rather than military, members of Hezbollah and many non-members, including children, who are not engaged in the fighting against Israel.

Describing last week’s wave of remotely detonated pagers and walkie talkies in Lebanon, Panetta told CBS News on Sunday:

“This has gone right into the supply chain. When you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question, ‘What the hell is next?’ This is a tactic that has repercussions, and we really don’t know what those repercussions are going to be.”

Panetta’s remarks, reported in the Times of Israel on September 23, referred to revelations that Israel had spent 15 years preparing the attacks, infiltrating mobile device supply chains to transform handheld electronics into remotely triggered bombs.

An indication of how far-reaching these repercussions will be was given by Panetta, also the former U.S. Secretary of Defense.

“The forces of war are largely in control right now,” Panetta continued, warning that the “ability to place an explosive in technology that is very prevalent these days” has brought the world into a new “war of terror,” in which anyone with a mobile electronic device may be targeted without warning.

“Mark my word, it is the battlefield of the future,” said Panetta, echoing reports that state “Israel’s pager attacks have changed the world,” leaving “us all vulnerable.”

The New York Times report presented a stark conclusion:

“But now that the line has been crossed, other countries will almost certainly start to consider this sort of tactic as within bounds.”

“It could be deployed against a military during a war or against civilians in the run-up to a war.”

The attacks conducted by Israel have been largely reported to have targeted members of Hezbollah. The examination of the facts tests the claim that the pagers were detonated solely against a “military” in this case. The United Nations has already condemned the tactic as a war crime.

Copycat attacks?

With the initial wave of attacks often presented as a “James Bond” style flash of brilliance, later reports considered the possibility of “copycat” attacks.

Philip Ingram, a former senior British military intelligence officer, told Britain’s inews, “There are real risks of copycat actions. A large organized crime group could do something like this.”

Yet the planting of explosives and ball-bearings in pagers requires a degree of coordination beyond the capability of non-state criminals. Ingram explained, “However, something of the scale and sophistication we have seen this week is really only the purview of a nation state actor.”

So far, only the nation state of Israel has dedicated its resources to the transformation of personal devices into instruments of death.

A war crime?

The attacks have been reported to have killed and injured thousands of “Hezbollah members,” giving the impression of a targeted wave of sophisticated assassinations of enemy soldiers. Yet two children were among the 37 dead, with a UN report showing a diplomat was killed in what it termed an act of “murder” and “a terrifying violation of international law.”

“Simultaneous attacks by thousands of devices … inevitably violate humanitarian law,” the report said, by “failing to distinguish” between civilians and combatants.

The Jerusalem Post reported that only “a majority” of the thousands injured and killed “were members of the group,” which is an admission that civilians were indeed targeted.

In addition to the “war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks,” the UN report pointed out that “[h]umanitarian law additionally prohibits the use of booby-traps disguised as apparently harmless portable objects,” and that “It is also a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, including to intimidate or deter them from supporting an adversary.”

What is Hezbollah?

Hezbollah is not merely a military organization. It also runs supermarkets, provides education and healthcare, and has a political wing, with members elected to over a third of Lebanon’s Parliament. It is designated as a terrorist organization in its entirety by the United States, with various European nations reserving that label for its military wing alone.

The New York Post’s claim that “thousands of Hezbollah fighters” were injured in the attacks excludes this important distinction between civilian and military members, legitimizing the “horrifying wounds to the groins and hands” of people severely injured whilst at home or shopping in supermarkets.

The U.K.’s Channel Four News was more measured, reporting only that “Hezbollah fighters were among thousands injured” in the attacks, which also took place in Syria and in Iraq.

NPR’s report similarly offered no evidence that any of those killed and injured were in fact combat soldiers, stating, “Many, but not all, of the pagers and walkie-talkies that unexpectedly blew up over two days across Lebanon and in some neighboring countries were in the possession of Hezbollah fighters, functionaries or allies.”

Doctors in Lebanon reported “apocalyptic” scenes, with thousands of patients arriving at once with injuries to their eyes and hands.

A media success with no military goal?

Early reports questioned the military success of the operation, with the New York Times describing it as “a tactical success with no strategic goal.” In an additional report, the Times confirmed the operation was ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, September 17.

The wave of heavy airstrikes on Lebanon which followed the detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies have also been reported as strikes on Hezbollah. With up to 500 killed, including 35 children, Reuters warned “tens of thousands of civilians” had begun to flee Southern Lebanon. The same report repeated Netanyahu’s address to the Lebanese people, in which he stated, “Israel’s war is not with you, it’s with Hezbollah.”

Yet the claim that Israel’s attacks are destroying Hezbollah’s military capability have been strongly challenged.

“This is bunkum,” said Alastair Crooke, who lives in Lebanon. The former British diplomat explained to Judge Andrew Napolitano that most of those targeted in the pager attacks were not military members at all.

Secondly, he says, Hezbollah’s missiles are buried deep underground, rendering the airstrikes practically useless in destroying them.

Crooke’s blunt dismissal of these claims follows questions asked about the military purpose of both stages of Israel’s assault on Lebanon.

Israel has ‘no plan for peace’

Israel’s pager attacks have been recognized as a logistical and media victory by intelligence experts, but reports have also shown they have had no effect on Hezbollah’s war-fighting capability.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired CIA officer who served in the Middle East told the Washington Post, “This is the most impressive kinetic operation I can recall in my career.”

“The scope was staggering.”

Yet the Post’s report goes on to cite White House and Israeli insiders expressing doubts over the move – and also concerning Israel’s apparent lack of any clear strategy at all.

“Some officials have questioned how much the United States should support Israel if that conflict spirals into a broader war that drags in the Americans even further,” said the Post, citing one anonymous “inside American adviser.”

“The U.S. will have to decide how much they want to do to help Israel, and I don’t know what the answer to that is,” said the source, who would only speak unidentified due to the “sensitive” nature of openly questioning U.S. support for Israel. The source went on:

“[The U.S. will] likely continue to supply Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself, but there are serious voices in the administration who wonder, ‘Israel did this to themselves – why should we help them?’”

As the Post also notes, “Israel did not inform its most important allies in Washington in advance, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” Israel has neither confirmed nor denied it was responsible for the attacks.

Questions over Israeli grand strategy have persisted for months. In July, the Washington Post reported that Israel “has no plan for peace,” with no end in sight to its war in Gaza. In the wake of the pager attacks, Bronwen Maddox of the U.K.’s Chatham House concluded in a report filed from the Lebanon border, “The Hezbollah pager attacks prove that Israel has no strategy for peace.”

‘What’s the point?’

Additional reports also doubted any military rationale behind the attacks. In an article showcasing “Israel’s James Bond-style operation” former IDF officer Dr. Ahron Bregman asked, “What’s the point?”

Suggesting the goal was towards a media – and non-military impact – Bregman continued: “This Israeli operation will be at the heart of future Hollywood films, and for good reason, but let’s dive into the more grim reality.”

Bregman says in the absence of any “Israeli tanks” to follow up the attacks, their purpose may be to provoke a response from Hezbollah which “legitimizes” a major war.

“The Israelis are trying to humiliate Hezbollah – forcing it to react forcefully, which will give Israel the international legitimacy to embark on an all-out war with its sworn enemy.”

Warning of the dimensions of this conflict, Bregman, senior teaching fellow at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies, said, “These are dangerous days. It might be that we are marching into a big, regional, Middle Eastern war involving not only Israel and Hezbollah but also the likes of Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, as well as Shia militias in Syria and Iraq.”

Both waves of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have been of questionable military value. Both have left the combat power of Hezbollah largely intact. The same cannot be said for the lives of those destroyed in them.

The White House is reportedly frustrated with Israel’s actions, seeing them as attempts to provoke a retaliation from Hezbollah and even Iran which would spark a regional war. According to the Washington Post, “U.S. officials also noted with angst that, for nearly a year, the White House and allies have worked to tamp the flames in Lebanon.”

Israel appears to be desperate to fan these flames. Its often insinuated goal is to draw the United States into a regional crisis the White House says it has been working to avoid.

With no plan for peace, Israel has worked in secret to launch, without warning, a new era of international terror. In the absence of any strategy beyond escalation, Israel appears now to be openly seeking to internationalize its war by any means at its disposal.

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conflict

“HELL WILL RAIN DOWN”: Trump unleashes U.S. military on Yemeni Houthis

Published on March 16, 2025

By

MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

President Trump ordered a massive military assault on Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen on Saturday, vowing to unleash “overwhelming lethal force” after months of attacks on American and allied vessels in the Red Sea.

Key Details:

  • Trump announced the strikes in a Truth Social post, stating, “Today, I have ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.”

  • He criticized former President Joe Biden for failing to contain the Houthis, saying his response was “pathetically weak” and emboldened the group’s ongoing attacks on commercial and military vessels.

  • The U.S. Navy’s USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group, along with three destroyers and a cruiser, launched the assault, targeting radars, air defenses, and missile systems used to disrupt shipping lanes.

Diving Deeper:

President Trump escalated U.S. military action against Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Saturday, ordering airstrikes on targets in Yemen in response to the group’s repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping. Trump, in a Truth Social post, declared that the U.S. military would not tolerate continued aggression and vowed an overwhelming response.

“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated,” Trump wrote. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.” He directly warned the Houthis, stating, “YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

The strikes, carried out by U.S. Central Command, targeted missile sites, drone launch facilities, and command centers used by the Houthis to strike commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea. U.S. warships and carrier-based fighter jets participated in the mission, marking a significant escalation in efforts to protect international shipping routes.

Trump also issued a direct warning to Iran, demanding that its support for the Houthis “must end immediately.” Addressing Tehran, Trump wrote, “Do NOT threaten the American People, their President…or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”

The strikes come after more than a year of escalating attacks by the Houthis, who have targeted over 100 merchant vessels, sunk at least two, and killed multiple sailors since the Israel-Hamas war began. Trump pointed to Biden’s failures in handling the crisis, noting that “it has been over a year since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden.”

With Trump’s order, the U.S. is making clear that hostile actions in the Red Sea will not go unanswered. As military operations continue, all eyes will be on whether the Houthis and their Iranian backers heed the warning—or face even greater firepower from the U.S. military.

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conflict

EU leaders escalate war rhetoric with Russia in stark departure from Trump’s peace push

Published on March 7, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Germany’s leading academic authority on its army has said that Europe’s depleted armed forces would be “washed away” by Russia in weeks, and that it could take at least 15 years before Germany was ready for war.

Last night’s European Council summit responded to Donald Trump’s moves to end the war in Ukraine with a commitment to massive European rearmament.

The EU Council published a statement that, “In 2025, it will provide Ukraine with EUR 30.6 billion” and “increased military support” to Ukraine and proposes “a new EU instrument to provide Member States with loans backed by the EU budget of up to EUR 150 billion” in support to “non-EU members” to rebuild “defense.”

The extraordinary announcement comes two days after EU Chief Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, an elected MEP appointed to the powerful leadership position by other MEPs, proposed to “rearm Europe” with the release of up to 800 billion euros ($867 billion) in funding. Details on how the money will be raised are set to be finalized later in March.

European and British statements on this issue directly contradict and defy moves towards a durable peace made by the Trump administration. They have also been met with stern rebukes from Russia.

Reuters reported two days ago that Trump had vowed to “end this senseless war” and “stop the killing”:

Trump also said he had been in “serious discussions with Russia” and had “received strong signals that they are ready for peace.”

“Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” he said. “It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end this senseless war. If you want to end wars you have to talk to both sides.”

Trump is attempting to return the Western world back to the traditions of international diplomacy before and during international conflicts to save lives and prevent unnecessary massive destruction.

This is a major turn away from the top priority given to military power in recent decades. That appears to have been driven by globalist forces, including giant military-industrial complexes, moneylenders, and globalist investment companies like Blackrock who greatly profit from continuous war.

The Russians responded with “concern” over the “remilitarization” of Europe, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the “confrontational rhetoric and confrontational thinking” from Europe goes against efforts to reach a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict.

France – nuclear escalation?

On Wednesday evening French President Emmanuel Macron made a direct address to the French nation in which he described Russia as a “threat to France and Europe” and said he had decided “to open the strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent by our (nuclear) deterrent.” France is the only nuclear armed member state in the EU.

“If he considers us a threat, gathers a meeting of the chiefs of staff of European countries and Britain, says that it is necessary to use nuclear weapons, to prepare for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia, this is certainly a threat,” Lavrov stated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized Russia has no intention of invading any other nation or trying to resurrect the Soviet Union. It has been having trouble enough trying to protect endangered Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine for the past three years.

There has been no evidence indicating Russia is planning or even capable of invading and conquering other nations, but it has been forced to prepare to repel possible attacks in response to increasing hostility and unwillingness to dialogue from Western globalist leaders.

Reliable analysts have emphasized that the CIA and other deep state entities in the U.S. and Europe, in order to justify their massive military spending and Russian regime change goal, are the ones who have been spreading false rumors that Russia has expansionist objectives.

Putin referred to Macron’s comments with a warning from history:

Some people still can’t sit still. There are still people who want to go back to the times of Napoleon, forgetting how it ended.

In a further sign that the U.S. is pursuing peace independently of the Europeans, Trump has suspended all military aid to Ukraine and cut off U.S. intelligence sharing, moves which dramatically reduce the war fighting capability of the Zelensky regime.

The EU-led initiative to fund European rearmament comes days after U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a “coalition of the willing” to send troops to Ukraine and continue the supply of arms – whilst talk increases of Zelensky himself being replaced.

“We have to learn from the mistakes of the past, we cannot accept a weak deal which Russia can breach with ease, instead any deal must be backed by strength,” Starmer said, while failing to mention any nations actually willing to join his initiative. So far, none have – though suggestions have been made.

Western nations have been the ones breaching one agreement after another with Russia. Some of those are the promise to not expand NATO “one inch eastward” at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, plus the April 1,2022 Ukraine/Russia initialed agreement in Istanbul to end the Ukraine war, among others.

Starmer’s claim to place “boots on the ground, and planes in the air” did not attract any pledges of support from any European nation. A U.K. deal was signed agreeing to a “loan” of over £1.5 billion ($1.94 billion approx.) to permit Ukraine to purchase British missiles, which have not yet been manufactured and could not in fact be aimed or fired without U.S. intelligence and guidance systems.

Starmer’s bold statements produced a stern response from Russia, whose chief diplomat reminded the world that any placement of NATO troops in Ukraine would be seen as a declaration of war.

Speaking ahead of yesterday’s EU-led Ukraine summit, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, “We see no room for compromise,” explaining that sending European troops to Ukraine would mean the “undisguised involvement of NATO countries in a war against the Russian Federation. It’s impossible to allow this.”

Responding to Macron’s televised address, Lavrov added that Macron wished to “fight Russia,” explaining the thinking behind the French president’s outburst:

They said directly “We need to conquer Russia, we need to defeat Russia.”

He [Macron] apparently wants the same thing, but for some reason he says that we need to fight Russia so that it does not defeat France.

Rhetoric and reality

The reality of European and British military capability is simply not reflected in any of these statements. Reports over the last few years have consistently shown that there is in fact no realistic European military power to confront the Russians.

Germany’s leading academic authority on its army has said that Europe’s depleted armed forces would be “washed away” by Russia in weeks, and that it could take at least 15 years before Germany was ready for war.

Speaking at a Berlin defense conference in November 2023, German historian Sönke Neitzel told military chiefs that in the case of a war with Russia, Germany’s soldiers “can only die” in a war they will certainly lose:

We are going to stand by the coffins at the soldiers’ graves and we are going to be asked: “What have you done?” We will have to explain to the mothers and the fathers why the soldiers could not fulfill their jobs. And at the moment we can only die gallantly if there’s a war.

Neitzel warned that men will be sent to certain death by their political leaders:

It’s very clear: if our armed forces are going to fight, they will die without drones, air defenses, without enough supplies. Are we now clear enough on our message [to Germany’s leaders]? They are going to die and it’s your responsibility.

In an updated report published March 7, Bloomberg reports that Europe’s “undersized and fragmented” forces would run out of ammunition within days and cannot manufacture sufficient gunpowder.

“Europe’s Defenses Risk Faltering Within Weeks Without US Support” the report says, noting that, “If attacked, Europe’s ammunition stockpiles could run low within days and rearming will take years.”

A report from the U.K.’s Guardian noted last week that the EU “spends more on Russian oil and gas than financial aid to Ukraine,” saying it had purchased “22 billion euros of fossil fuels” in 2024, against “19 billion in aid” to Kiev.

Real war not realistic

Why are EU and British leaders talking war with no realistic chance of fighting one? U.S. moves to scale down and possibly withdraw from NATO spell the end of the alliance, of course, but the wider implications are obvious for the remaining liberal-globalist governments.

Britain, France, Germany, and the EU itself are led by a political establishment whose only hope of unity is in forging a war coalition in a battle they cannot win. As the “Russianist” Professor Gilbert Doctorow has noted, this spells doom for a liberal coalition which has decided to oppose the United States.

“We have moved on from observations of people like myself from the sidelines saying that the leadership in Europe is not living in the real world but they’re living in a bubble,” Doctorow told Judge Napolitano this week.

“What we have now is the end game – and they have created it for themselves.”

The Ukraine war was never going to be won, and a new war between Russia and the liberals of Europe likewise has no basis in military reality. The moves by these failing states is a desperate bid for unity and relevance in a world which no longer corresponds to their values.

Alone among 27 EU member states in opposing increased arms supplies to Ukraine is Hungary. Its leader, Viktor Orbán, famously defined the values of the liberal order as “LGBT, open borders, and war.”

To protect itself from the widespread rejection of these “values” and the globalist agenda they project, the British and EU liberals have implemented totalitarian restrictions on free speech – and even thought and prayer – and have effectively suspended democracy in refusing to respect the results of elections while dramatically increasing digital surveillance and censorship efforts to maintain control of a narrative which has parted company with reality.

The EU initiative to do so is ridiculously called “The European Democracy Shield.”

 

As Doctorow told Judge Napolitano, it can only be a matter of time before the pro-war parties without an army part company with political power, too. The outbreak of peace is fatal to them, as these leaders have all invested their political capital in the black hole of crime and corruption which is another ugly dimension of reality to the failed proxy war in Ukraine.

Leaders like Von der Leyen, Macron, and Starmer do not fear the lights going out all over Europe. They fear the illumination of the darkness they have used their nations’ wealth to fund in Ukraine, which has been defended by years of outrageous lies. Having fought so long to keep their nations in the dark, the European liberal order is panicked into talk of Armageddon by the fear of the lights coming on at last. It is the end of their world that is nigh. Not ours.

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