/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Officials in Egypt and Iran are protesting the scheduling of a FIFA World Cup match between the two teams next June in Seattle, where local organizers had planned Pride festivities around the match.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/10/nx-s1-5639958/egypt-iran-seattle-pride-match-fifa-world-cup

US pushes Netanyahu–el-Sissi meeting as Egypt ties summit to major Israel gas deal
Cairo links a three-way summit with Netanyahu and Trump to Israel approving a multibillion-dollar Leviathan gas deal; Energy Minister Eli Cohen objects without guarantees on domestic prices, though officials say talks are narrowing gaps with Egypt

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1ozkarf11x

Syria: How Turkey helped engineer Ahmed al-Sharaa's rise to power

It was the spring of 2019, and Syrian government forces were beginning to push towards Idlib with the help of the Russian air force. 
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the commander of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, was sitting with his entourage and some foreign guests, including Turks, at a safe house in the heart of Idlib.
As the night progressed, he opened up, and began sharing some personal stories.
"When I was a child, I once had a dream about my future," he said slowly, with deliberate intensity. "In the dream, I became the Emir of Damascus."
Now going by his birth name Ahmed al-Shaara, the 43-year-old has quickly transformed himself from a "jihadi terrorist" into a statesman. 
"Turkey played a practical role in his transformation," a Turkish official who met him years ago, when he was still the leader of HTS, told Middle East Eye.

>First engagements

According to the official, Sharaa had his own reasons to change. He needed to survive the war and relied on Turkey, as he was cornered in a territory where Ankara was his only lifeline.
His first significant engagement with Turkey began after his group, then known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, seized the Bab al-Hawa border gate in Idlib in 2017, a vital passage for UN humanitarian aid. 
His first significant engagement with Turkey began after his group, then known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, seized the Bab al-Hawa border gate in Idlib in 2017, a vital passage for UN humanitarian aid. 
After Turkey decided to close the crossing, Sharaa established a civilian administration to manage it, distancing his group from direct control.
Although Turkey continued supporting rival opposition groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Nureddin Zengi against him, Sharaa ultimately emerged as the dominant force in Idlib, forcing Ankara to reconsider its stance. 
The Turkish security team that previously handled the Syria file and opposed Sharaa was gradually replaced as he consolidated power.
Under the Astana process, it was assigned to build observation posts around Idlib, which required establishing a working mechanism with HTS.
"Sharaa was eventually convinced, though reluctantly, by Turkey's messages that Idlib's issue could not be resolved under the dominance of a single faction. That is how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was born," a Turkish security source familiar with the process told MEE.
Founded in 2017, HTS brought together some of its former rivals, adopted a more Syrian identity, and established a council including other factions, granting it more legitimacy and flexibility to cooperate with or oppose Turkey as needed. 
Soon after, the so-called Salvation Government, a civilian administration for Idlib, was created.
Turkey believed that a more civilian and governance-focused structure would ease the legitimacy problem. 
"If we establish it this way, we can frame it as a continuation of the Syrian revolution, a defensive struggle and the protection of civilians," a Turkish official said during a meeting at the time. 

>A new strategy

Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group (ICG), said that both Sharaa's decision to open up, and Turkey’s engagement with HTS, happened simultaneously, as both parties sought a new strategy.
"He began changing his messaging toward Turkey's deployment and softened his tone," she said. 
"It was clear that he was signalling to Turkey because he needed their help."
Khalifa added that Sharaa understood Turkey was shifting gears, and that Ankara and Moscow’s fragile ceasefire was unlikely to hold.
"When we talk about Turkey, you have to distinguish between the intelligence services and the state institutions like the army," Jerome Drevon, co-author of Transformed by the People: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s Road to Power in Syria, told MEE.
"The military and bureaucracy never liked HTS and continued to treat it as a terrorist organisation, arresting its members. 
"Only the intelligence branch dealt with HTS pragmatically."
According to Drevon, both sides understood they shared interests. 
Turkey wanted Idlib to remain under opposition control, to prevent another massive refugee wave. Nearly 1.9 million people lived there, which could destabilise Turkey. Ankara also wanted to curb threats from foreign fighters. 
"They reached a kind of understanding," Drevon said.
When Syrian government forces, backed by Iran-aligned militias and the Russian air force, launched a new offensive in early 2020, Turkey was forced to intervene directly to prevent another refugee influx. 
Ankara struck hundreds of Syrian government targets and stationed more than 12,000 soldiers across the province, establishing practical ties with HTS.
These interactions gradually changed the nature of HTS. 
"Turkey's influence was indirect but powerful," Drevon said. 
"Every time Russia made new demands, like withdrawing heavy weapons or organising joint patrols, HTS had to comply, even if unwillingly."
Some within HTS opposed these concessions, pressuring Sharaa to sideline or purge them.
"HTS had to transform and remove radicals who rejected such compromises," Drevon added. "That was the main impact of Turkey's engagement."

>More responsive after jihadist splits

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government last December, a senior Turkish official said Ankara managed to influence HTS "through engagement".
Omer Ozkizilcik, a fellow at the Atlantic Council and a longtime Syria observer, described the strategy as "change through engagement".
"For the first time in history, a jihadist organisation labelled as a terrorist group became a legitimate entity through this approach," he told MEE.
The key turning point came when HTS began targeting the Hurras al-Din group, which had remained loyal to Al-Qaeda after Sharaa's split. 
"Sharaa became more responsive to Turkey after confronting Hurras al-Din," Ozkizilcik said. "It proved his claim that HTS had genuinely broken from Al-Qaeda."
Ozkizilcik adds that Turkey understood the division and formulated a policy to divide the dogmatists from the pragmatists in Idlib.  
Over time, Sharaa's close associate Shaibani was allowed to enter and leave Turkey and to meet foreign officials there with Ankara’s tacit approval. 
Turkish insiders believe Ankara shared intelligence on Hurras al-Din with the United States, which then targeted senior commanders, though Drevon disputes that claim.
Khalifa emphasised that Turkey also cared deeply about how HTS presented itself publicly, encouraging moderation and tolerance toward minorities. 
"Turkey had much more leverage than anyone else," she said. "It was important for Ankara that HTS adjusted its relations to minorities such as Christians and avoided imposing a strict Islamist rule. Turkey did not want to appear as protecting a problematic group."

>Outreach to the west

Several Turkish officials later said their influence over Sharaa helped him evolve from a jihadist commander into a revolutionary figure focused on protecting civilians in Idlib.
Ozkizilcik said that once Idlib was secured, HTS began building a small functioning state - expelling rival armed groups from urban areas, deploying a police force, collecting taxes, and supporting businesses. 
"Money started to enter the province once basic security was guaranteed," he said, describing this as a key step in the group's transformation.
A senior regional official recalled a Turkish envoy advising Sharaa: "You are good-looking. If you want to die, you will be a handsome martyr, but if you want to live, you could be the ruler of Syria."
Drevon noted that the more Sharaa contained radicals within his ranks, the more openly he could express his pragmatic side. 
"He is an Islamist who believes that Islam has a political and social role, but he has no clear ideology," he said. "He is more a man of action than of ideas."

>A distracted Russia

By 2022, both Turkey and Sharaa reached a new turning point. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine quickly reduced Moscow’s military presence in Syria, shifting the balance. 
At the end of that year, during a conversation at a house in Sarmin, Sharaa reportedly said: "There is little time left before all the knots are untied. The revolution will return to the pre-2015 process."
By then, Turkey had already invested in the military academy established under HTS control in Idlib. Books had been translated, training programmes prepared, and full curriculums developed. 
The academy drew on the combat experience of fighters from Afghanistan, Mali and Chechnya, and became highly active. Meanwhile, Turkish-backed opposition groups in northern Syria still lacked a military school, though they would establish one by 2023.
One Turkish official said they were also able to convince some of the British interlocutors to engage with Sharaa and HTS. This eventually led to a role for Jonathan Powell - then the chairman of conflict resolution NGO Inter Mediate, now the UK prime minister's national security adviser - who organised trips and workshops in 2023 to help the group reform itself.
As HTS expanded its capabilities and strengthened its control, Sharaa began pressuring Ankara for permission to launch new offensives to seize additional territory.
For months, Turkish officials resisted, warning that such action would provoke Russia and trigger another humanitarian catastrophe.
Ozkizilcik said Turkey eventually lifted its veto after reconciliation efforts with Damascus failed and Russian officials began issuing hostile statements. In November 2024, Russia’s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said Turkey should "stop acting as an occupying power" in Syria.
"It is very difficult for Damascus to engage in dialogue without guarantees from Ankara regarding the withdrawal of its troops," he added.
The subsequent Astana meeting did not improve the situation. Russia demanded a withdrawal timeline for Turkish forces, prompting Ankara to reconsider.
"The Turkish view then was that HTS could launch an offensive to seize the western countryside of Aleppo and reach the city," Ozkizilcik said. 
"No one expected the lightning speed of the operation, which saw city after city fall to Sharaa's forces."
A Syrian source who was with him at the time described Sharaa's euphoria:
"As the Aleppo operation that reignited the revolution advanced, the capture of Qaptan al-Jabal and, one after another, the surrounding villages made Sharaa extremely happy. 
"From the operations room, he spoke to units over the radios as they pushed toward central Aleppo. At one point, the offensive stalled on the western front, but fighters, including some Uyghurs, infiltrated through an old water tunnel and resolved the issue.
"Aleppo fell. Sharaa was overjoyed. They turned south. When Hama fell, he became convinced that the revolution would triumph. 
"In the operations room, unable to contain himself, he stood up, lifted both hands, and shouted joyfully: 'Bear witness, O people of Damascus! History is being written here!'
"Those around him later said it was the first time they had ever seen him so emotional."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/syria-how-turkey-helped-engineer-ahmed-al-sharaa-rise-power

Sudan's Heglig: Why the oil field taken by the RSF matters

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the country’s largest oil field on Monday, as the paramilitary group continues to gain ground from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the strategic, resource-rich south. 
Heglig, a small town that sits in the Muglad Basin on the border between Sudan’s South Kordofan state and South Sudan’s Unity State, hosts some of Sudan’s most important oil fields and key infrastructure, including about 75 wells, as well as tanks and processing stations.
It is a crucial stop on the approximately 1,600km-long Greater Nile Oil Pipeline, which runs from the Unity oil field in South Sudan to Port Sudan, where the oil is exported to the international market. 
The stretch of pipeline that runs through West Kordofan to the vicinity of el-Obeid, the SAF-held state capital of North Kordofan, is now under the control of the RSF, which has brought engineers with it to Heglig.
“The liberation of the Heglig oil region is a pivotal point in the liberation of the entire homeland, given the region's economic importance,” the RSF said.
Emadeddin Badi, the author of a recent report on Sudan’s war economy, told Middle East Eye: “Militarily, the fall of West Kordofan opens a corridor towards el-Obeid, and ultimately a pathway back to Omdurman and Khartoum."
"This is the RSF’s strategic aim, and one the UAE is facilitating by ensuring supplies and financial backing,” he added.
“Economically, Heglig is a critical transfer node, while el-Obeid hosts a major refinery. Securing both would give the RSF an additional revenue stream and further entrench its wartime economy,” Badi said. 

>RSF advances across southern Sudan
At the end of October, the RSF captured el-Fasher, the army’s last holdout in the vast western region of Darfur, after a siege of over 500 days.
Victims and eyewitnesses told MEE that the paramilitary fighters raped and executed civilians in large numbers.
Since then, it has - with the support of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu - turned its attention to Kordofan, which neighbours Darfur and is rich in gold and oil, both resources exported to the UAE.
Earlier this month, it took Babanusa, the headquarters of the SAF’s 22nd infantry division. 
The capture of Heglig means the RSF now controls the whole of West Kordofan and a vital part of the Sudanese and South Sudanese economy.
On Tuesday, the paramilitaries began targeting Um Rawaba in North Kordofan with drones. The key city had been recaptured by the army in January.
The RSF also has its sights set on the strategically vital city of el-Obeid, where there is an oil refinery and where the SAF’s fifth infantry division has been heavily reinforced.
El-Obeid sits on the road from Darfur to Khartoum, which the RSF’s chief, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has not given up retaking. 

>SAF withdrawal from Heglig

Military sources told Middle East Eye that the SAF’s 90th infantry brigade withdrew from Heglig and its oil fields after striking an agreement with leaders from the local Messiria group and South Sudan’s army, the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF). 
The 90th infantry brigade and the SSPDF previously worked together to secure the oil fields that straddle the border between Sudan and South Sudan.
These are vital to landlocked South Sudan’s economy, which is almost entirely reliant on oil and the pipeline that leads to Port Sudan.
South Sudanese television broadcast footage of South Sudanese soldiers with RSF fighters in Heglig, but MEE understands that faced with advancing Rapid Support Forces, the SSPDF had little choice but to facilitate the departure of the Sudanese army and welcome in the RSF.
“I suspect that South Sudanese officials are divided on whether to support the RSF,” Jihad Mashamoun, a Sudanese analyst on Sudan and Horn of Africa affairs, told MEE. 
“One reason is that the government might be beholden to the UAE’s control of the RSF in terms of ensuring the RSF does not attack the oil pipelines,” he said, pointing also to a $12bn “loan deal” struck between South Sudan and a junior member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling Al Nayhan family.

>Oil in Sudan and South Sudan

In April 2023, just as the war between the RSF and the SAF broke out, data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea showed that 130,400 bpd of crude was shipped from Port Sudan’s Bashayer terminal to the UAE and Malaysia. 
At the same time, Heglig itself produced about 40,000 bpd and processed some 130,000 bpd of South Sudanese crude, according to government data. It was the main processing facility for South Sudan’s oil exports.
Earlier this year, a UN panel of experts reported that South Sudan’s oil exports had fallen by 70 percent, and before its capture, operations at Heglig were regularly disrupted by RSF drone strikes, which in November forced the South Sudanese government to shut the field and reduce its capacity.
One source briefed by RSF commanders told MEE that the paramilitary group wants a greater cut of the revenue from Heglig’s oil. In the past, the SAF and RSF have struck resource revenue-sharing agreements.
At the same time, sources briefed on the plans told MEE that businessmen connected to the RSF in Darfur want to take oil from Heglig and elsewhere in Kordofan and East Darfur, put it into container trucks and drive it overland to be refined outside Sudan.
The RSF controls major oil fields in Darfur operated since the 1990s by China before being forced to shut early in the war. Last month, the China National Petroleum Corporation informed Sudan it would end its investments there.

>Split Sudan

The RSF’s control of Darfur and its gains in Kordofan mean that Sudan is now effectively split in two, with the army holding the north, east and centre, and the RSF in control of the west and, with the help of its allies, swathes of the south.
The situation raises, once again, the prospect that Sudan will, like Libya, split in two.
Mashamoun said he did not think this was likely to happen yet. “That is because Libya is split down the middle with each side having seashores,” he said. In Sudan, the Red Sea coast is effectively controlled by Sudan's army-backed government and its allies.
“The RSF has a lack of bureaucracy compared to Haftar in Libya, while General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his de facto Sudanese government has the bureaucracy of a state.”
Badi sees clear parallels between the way the UAE-backed RSF operates and the way eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, another Emirati ally, works.
“The parallel with Haftar in Libya is clear. Politically, his UAE-enabled control of Libya’s oil crescent became a decisive bargaining chip, with shutdowns used to force concessions,” he said. 
“The RSF can now replicate a similar model. Economically, both cases involve leveraging oil infrastructure to underwrite military operations and negotiate from a position of strength.”

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudans-heglig-why-oil-field-taken-rsf-matters

My dad was syrian btw

>>2591251
>In 2017, Leviathan was estimated to hold enough gas to meet Israel's domestic needs for 40 years, having 22 trillion cubic feet in recoverable natural gas.[9][10][11] The field began commercial production of gas on 31 December 2019.[12] As of 2024, 90% of the field's production was being exported to Egypt and Jordan. [13]
oh my fucking god

>>2591251
>The deal with Egypt is at $7.4 per gas unit.
can anyone with knowledge on this area explain if this is an exceedingly high price? normal? or below average?

الموت للوطن

الموت للامة

عاشت الثورة العالمية
لا اله الا الحزب
لا رسول الا ماركس

Death to the Ummah. Long live world revolution.

chances he gains power?

>>2591382
Al-Based

>>2591809
What did the polyp say?

Saudi Arabia Extends Alcohol Sales to Higher-Earning Residents

Saudi Arabia has taken further steps to relax rules around the sale of alcohol by allowing non-Muslim foreign residents with monthly earnings of 50,000 riyals ($13,300) or more to make purchases, according to people familiar with the matter.

Residents must prove their income by showing a salary certificate to gain entry to the country’s only liquor outlet, located in Riyadh, said the people, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. The store opened last year for sales to foreign diplomats and recently extended access to non-Muslims with so-called premium residency status.
<what is that?

Customers at the Riyadh outlet can make purchases under a monthly point-based allowance system, the people said. New liquor stores are also being built in two cities elsewhere in the country, Bloomberg has previously reported.

https://archive.is/5XFHv

>>2592090
Another W for Saudi Robespierre

Unlimited genocide on Islamists

[Long article]

Assad's exiled spy chief and billionaire cousin plot Syrian uprisings from Russia

>From exile in Moscow, ex-intel chief Kamal Hassan and Assad cousin Rami Makhlouf are spending millions of dollars in competing efforts to build fighting forces that would lead a revolt along Syria’s coast. They are also vying for control of a network of 14 underground command rooms stocked with arms and ammunition that were built in the dictatorship’s last days. Syria's government has deployed another former Assad insider – a childhood friend of the new president – to neutralize the plotters.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/assads-exiled-spy-chief-billionaire-cousin-plot-syrian-uprisings-russia-2025-12-05/

>>2592189
He's a zionist piece of shit

How do we feel about this? Fed shit?

>>2591336
if you look at the price of gaz in Europe before the meme sanctions,it's perfectly average

>MENA
"Middle East" is an orientalist term. The preferred term is SWANA (southwest Asia + northern Africa)

>>2592484
asia doesn't exist. it's eurasia

>>2592475
where does one check this kind of stuff?
>t. dumb

>>2592455
So are Iran (2003 peace proposal), Qatar and Turkey. And every other state in existence. What's your point?

What I'm referring to is his historically progressive role in giving the saudi proletariat an international character by lifting them from their old reactionary dogma. Social openness is of course a consequence of economic openness and capital's need for expansion.

>>2592465
I understood not a word of that as a MENAoid.

You must suffer of burger brain syndrome

there is no proletariat in saudi arabia

>>2592562
>population of 40 million
>majority natives
Seems legit

Why the hell do all the leaders and advocates there make it so hard to sympathize with the legitimately normal populace? I’ve never seen such a bundle of fucked up countries in need lf serious support from each other and from external countries legitimately make it this hard for anyone to care for them. Why are y’all still at each others throats for at this point?

>>2592643
>we need more pan arapoosim and wholesome chungus photo ops and islamic summits!111

100 more years of class collaboration I swear to allah it will work this time akhiiii the past 100 years weren't REAL class collaboration

>>2592646
That over whatever fucked up nonsense we have today. Why the fuck are you guys attacking Sudan of all countries, why the hell are you guys eirher not helping or actively working against Palestinian citizens while outsiders from Islam have to remind you guys that you’re responsible for protecting those people? It’s disgraceful and undignified for any Muslim leader to have to confront

>>2592654
We have what you want. We are living your liberal utopia. All parties that are scrambling for Africa are in the same bed, even within each country there are parties supporting opposite sides of the conflict. It's in the interest of everyone (but workers) to rape Sudan. This is the wholesome bourgeois ruling class unity you advocate for.

>b-but how could they what about muh moralism
*Laughs in Marx*

>>2592665
Interesting take. You can support it after you can convince me why an organization as ratty and stuck up as the African union of all things is currently cutting off relations with UAE for attacking one of its member states and funding a genocide while other Muslim nations (not African ones since they’re doing more at this point for Sudan) are sitting on their asses and paying more money to Israel.

>>2592675
African states are just as complicit in the war the fuck are you on about. You think token aid and stunts could wash away blood? Then you must love the UAE

>>2592684
Complicit? The fuck, if it weren’t for the fact that the dickhead running the SAF is an actual convict with a history of funding violence like the one going on in that country, the AU would’ve had the right and appropriate reason to deploy AU troops there just like what they did and are still doing in Somalia so a stable government could form. Otherwise, every state surrounding Sudan is either donating volunteers and soldiers outright to protect civilians or letting refugees flee to neighbouring states (unlike a certain set of countries that couldn’t even do that little for Palestinians in recent months)

Remember to donate to Palestinian and Sudanese NGOs and boycott Israeli and Emirati products

>>2592686
>(unlike a certain set of countries that couldn’t even do that little for Palestinians in recent months)
tbf they're right that if they let palestinian refugees in israel would never allow them back in
>is either donating volunteers
what are you referring to here?

>>2592711
You know very well no one will do that here

the uae is getting away with everything
the uae is getting away with everything
the uae is getting away with everything
the uae is getting away with everything
the uae is getting away with everything

i'm going nuts. someone fucking nuke that shithole

>>2592711
I was gonna buy some gold from the UAE to decorate my home with but man, this post convinced me otherwise!

>>2592806
That shithole is already spiraling into its own grave which is why it involved itself with shit like the genocide in Sudan to begin with if that makes you feel better

>>2592711
I like my labubu dubai chocolate

>>2592931
but those are pragmatic socialist commodities

Crosspost from newsanon's thread

France Unbowed 'has become a target' of the UAE, Melenchon says

The leader of French left-wing party France Unbowed (LFI) and former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has denounced “the influence of networks linked to the United Arab Emirates” following a series of accusations levelled against the party and some of its MPs.

“LFI has become a target of the Emirates,” he wrote on his blog on Tuesday, shortly after his party, the largest left-wing group in parliament, filed a complaint to the public prosecutor regarding a highly controversial poll on Muslims in France, suggesting it could be part of an Emirati “influence operation” in the country.

The survey, which suggests that there is “a phenomenon of 're-Islamisation'" in France "accompanied by a worrying increase in adherence to Islamist ideology”, has been the subject of several legal complaints from Muslim organisations, who accused it of being “based on biased questions” to spread “the poison of hatred in the public sphere”.

The poll, conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), was commissioned by a magazine, Écran de Veille (Screen Watch), which is said to be linked to an alleged Emirati smear campaign against Muslim individuals and groups.

Several media outlets have exposed links between the UAE and some staff members of Écran de Veille.

The monthly publication is owned by Global Watch Analysis (GWA), a media company that is highly critical of political Islam, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood - a movement banned by the UAE - and harbours open hostility toward Qatar.

According to Le Monde, the founder and editor-in-chief of Écran de Veille and GWA, Atmane Tazaghart, was in contact with an anonymous email account linked to a former Emirati agent who was a key figure in influence operations orchestrated by a Swiss intelligence agency, Alp Services, on behalf of the UAE.

In July 2023, the French investigative media outlet Mediapart revealed how Alp Services spied on more than 1,000 people and hundreds of organisations from 18 different European countries.

According to Mediapart, Alp Services portrayed them as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, before sending the information to Emirati intelligence services who further targeted them through press campaigns.

LFI was among the approximately 200 individuals and 120 organisations that were targeted in France, Mediapart said.

LFI's complaint to the public prosecutor argued that if the links exposed in the press are proven, this could violate a law that forbids "maintaining intelligence with a foreign power […] or with their agents, when it is likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation".

Écran de Veille, virtually unknown to the general public, is distributed free of charge to all members of parliament every month.

>Inquiry on 'Islamist infiltration itself infiltrated'

In its complaint, LFI warned that “an Emirati influence network may have infiltrated our institutions”.

It notes that two consultants from Écran de Veille, Nora Bussigny and Emmanuel Razavi, “who present themselves as journalists”, recently testified before a parliamentary inquiry committee on “the links between representatives of political movements and organisations and networks supporting terrorist activity or propagating Islamist ideology”.

The inquiry was requested by right-wing MPs, who sought to establish links between LFI and "Islamism" and the "risk of entryism" during the upcoming elections, in reference to the supposed infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood feared by the authorities.

On Saturday, Melanchon himself appeared before the inquiry committee. He noted that all of the French intelligence officials who had given evidence to the MPs denied any links between his party and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, Melenchon questioned why no one had focused instead on the Emirati “external interference”, which he said “aimed at provoking a public debate against Qatar”.

"Beware, there is a power outside of France that is manipulating and interfering in all sorts of circumstances to settle its scores with Qatar," he told the committee.

Bussigny and Razavi, authors of books accusing LFI of links with Iran and "new antisemitism", were both questioned by the committee.

They told its members that “close, extremely dangerous links exist between Islamist organisations and certain political parties in France".

"Often, these links are revealed during large Parisian demonstrations organised in support of Palestine,” the rapporteur quoted them as saying.

LFI has consistently supported the Palestinian cause, particularly since the early days of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has led to accusations of antisemitism and its members being summoned by police over suspicions they have engaged in "apology for terrorism".

Asking why Bussigny and Razavi were selected by a parliamentarian inquiry committee despite the alleged links of the media company they work for to a foreign state, Melenchon wrote on his blog: "The conclusion could well be this: the inquiry committee on Islamist infiltration has itself been infiltrated to further a conflict between Islamic states…"

Denouncing the media's “stinking” silence on this issue, he asked whether the "solidarity" of some of his accusers with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extends to Arab countries that allied themselves with Israel, "as is the case with the Emirates but not Qatar?”

>Scandal

Melenchon also mentioned the UAE’s involvement in what he calls “the Carlos Martens Bilongo defamation case”, referring to a LFI MP who was the object of an investigation “for tax fraud and money laundering” in 2023 following a report from Tracfin, the French financial intelligence unit that tracks money laundering.

Two years later, the case was dismissed by the prosecutor’s office, which acknowledged the absence of any wrongdoing.

On 20 October, the investigative outlet L’Informe revealed that the Tracfin report, which triggered the preliminary investigation, was riddled with “implausible errors, difficult to explain unless intentional”, and reported suspicions that it was produced under pressure from the UAE, whose policies Bilongo had criticised.

The MP had protested the fact that the COP 28, the climate conference held that year in the UAE, was organised by the head of the Emirati national oil company.

Bilongo reacted to L’Informe’s revelation by denouncing "a real scandal, against a backdrop of foreign interference" and filed a complaint against persons unknown for "false denunciation" and "collusion with a foreign power".

Several reports in recent years have investigated the influence campaigns allegedly orchestrated by the UAE to persuade public opinion, especially in the West, that Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islam are a danger.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/france-unbowed-has-become-target-uae-left-wing-party-leader-says

>>2593900
>bro I swear it's Israel get rid of it and the world is utopia
>mm actualy it is the UAE then we can have eternal peace
>it is the gulf states… i mean turkey… i mean syria… i mean egypt…. i mean

ITS EVERYTHING BUT CAPITALISM I <3 GOOD VS EVIL AHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHHA

>>2593957
go back to /isg/ or usapol this is serious thread

>>2593960
>t. amerigoblin

مص زبي

>>2593957
if you don't have anything good to contribute then just go post on the /mena/ thread of 4chan's /int/. it's clear your posts would fit better there

>>2593965
refer to the instructions @ >>2593962

>UAE is targeting social democrats in my shithole nooo not my heckin superprofit-based welfare

Long live the UAE that works in spite of itself to bring about the conditions for world revolution 👍

i've been finding a lot of articles on the uae. not sure if i should post them all cause they'll be walls of texts and might discourage ppl to read them

[Long Article]

The United Arab Emirates allies of the European far-righ

This alarmist discourse toward the Muslim Brotherhood—which ultimately fuels fear of Islam—is promoted in France by certain media outlets and research centers, such as Global Watch Analysis or the European Center for Research and Information on “Frérisme” (Cerif). It can also be heard from the mouths of far-right political figures such as Sébastien Chenu, National Rally (RN) deputy from the Nord and vice-president of the party, or Thierry Mariani, another RN member and MEP with the Patriots for Europe group. As a reminder, the third-largest parliamentary group in Europe, led by Jordan Bardella, was founded in June 2024 by the Hungarian far-right of Viktor Orbán—who has recently benefited from significant Emirati investments. Questioned about the Emirates, Mariani acknowledges that they have “significant financial resources” and notes “shared values,” particularly concerning the fight against Islamism—a struggle that includes “the Muslim Brotherhood,” he told us.

Widely discussed and analyzed, the rise of the far right is materializing across Europe; yet its development is not due solely to rural sociology or the failure of the left. As part of their political agenda, certain third countries stir up fear of Islam in France. “There is synergy on this issue. Russia seeks to destabilize Europe by creating social unrest. For its part, Israel wants to fuel hatred of Islam to justify its actions in Palestine,” explains political risk and strategy consultant Andreas Krieg. And the Emirates? “They have a phobic fear of political Islam and of the Muslim Brotherhood, which must at no cost be allowed to become a possible political path in the Middle East,” the researcher continues.

Created in Egypt in the 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood movement expanded throughout the world, adapting to each country where it established itself, aspiring to take part in political life. Displaying conservative moral positions, it manifests as an association, a political party, or even a politico-military movement in the case of Hamas. But except for the attacks committed in Palestine in the context of nationalist struggle, the movement has renounced violence and cannot be faulted on that point. The Arab revolutions of 2011 saw the Brotherhood rise in power, supported by Qatar and its channel Al-Jazeera.

After 2011, the election of presidents affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia alarmed other Gulf monarchies—particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—which fear democracy and a potential overthrow of their power. They therefore launched a counteroffensive, first through the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, then with the 2017 blockade of Qatar, but also, more subtly, through a large-scale propaganda campaign. “The discourse—clear, unified, and harmonized—is an integral part of the arsenal of weapons used,” notes Andreas Krieg. “It is disseminated over the long term: the mechanisms at work have lasted nearly fifteen years. The United Arab Emirates, whose regime is autocratic, have time and strategic patience,” he adds. Their objective? To persuade public opinion, including in the West, of the dangers associated with Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, more broadly, democracy in Arab countries.

“Abu Dhabi began promoting the notion of ‘authoritarian stability,’ asserting a simplistic dichotomy: either you have the stability of autocratic rulers, or you have Islamist terrorism and chaos.”

But the Emirates go even further, emphasizing the potential danger Islam itself poses to Western countries. “Some European countries do not realize that there are 50 million Muslims in Europe. You do not realize that Islam is another European religion,” warned Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan in 2017 during a forum on countering radicalization in Riyadh. He added: “A day will come when we will see many more radical extremists and terrorists coming from Europe due to the absence of decision-making [or] due to political correctness.”

Long concealed, the Emirati propaganda strategy was revealed in France in 2023 after a series of articles based on documents originating from the hacking of the email inbox of the Swiss firm Alp Services, specializing in public affairs consulting and communications. The data from this hack—whose original source is unknown—was made available to The New Yorker, Austrian media outlet Profil, and a group of European media, including Mediapart. They were then able to document how, starting in 2017, the Swiss agency allegedly conducted an influence campaign on behalf of Abu Dhabi.

According to them, this campaign consisted of several components: first, identifying and disparaging target individuals supposedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood; next, spreading through social networks and traditional media general critical content about Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood; finally, influencing decision-makers. “The goal: to provoke a public and political debate. We will choose the most appropriate media and lobbying channels for each case and to reach the most relevant actors,” reports Profil, quoting the action plan Alp Services proposed to the Emirates, based on the documents in its possession.

What are these “appropriate” channels? They range from the center to the right. “Politically, the United Arab Emirates do not want political opposition to emerge among Muslims. They therefore align well with European strategies that are centrist or right-leaning, which seek to create a ‘European Islam’ with controlled structures,” explains political scientist Farid Hafez, who says he himself was targeted by Alp Services and has filed one of two ongoing lawsuits in the United States.

Thus, media situated at the center or right of the political spectrum more readily disseminate the message expected by the United Arab Emirates than left-leaning outlets. And while well-established newspapers do occasionally publish articles aligned with Abu Dhabi’s views, a smaller structure is very active on the subject. A small, almost unknown French media group presenting itself as distanced from the National Rally, Global Watch Analysis (GWA) includes a website, a magazine (Écran de veille), a publishing house, and a web-TV broadcasting numerous critical pieces on the Muslim Brotherhood. Among the group’s contributors are several names cited in the Alp Services affair—including that of Lorenzo Vidino, an American researcher whose latest essay, Muslim Brotherhood: The Inner Circle, was translated into French by Global Watch Analysis. “The United Arab Emirates enlisted Atmane Tazaghart, editor-in-chief of the Global Watch Analysis website, […] described as a ‘competitor’ [by Alp Services], to publish false and misleading articles,” according to a second U.S. lawsuit filed by oil trader Hazim Nada. Contacted, Atmane Tazaghart denies any connection and threatens us with legal action.

Lorenzo Vidino, who heads the extremism program at George Washington University, has clear ties to the Emirates since he also works for Hedayah, an Emirati counter-radicalization think tank that brings together international researchers and spreads its message worldwide. According to the aforementioned Profil article, he also signed a consulting contract with Alp Services. Although Vidino did not respond to our inquiries, he confirmed to The New Yorker in a March 27, 2023 article that he had worked for the Swiss firm on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe—without being sure of the final client, though he suspected it was Abu Dhabi. “It wasn’t obvious whether it was the Emiratis, the Saudis, the Israelis, or a private entity in the United States,” he said.

Substantively, Vidino identifies two main dangers threatening the European Union. The Brotherhood’s narrative “can potentially represent the first stepping stone on a trajectory of radicalization that could evolve into violent militancy,” he writes in The Pan-European Structure of the Muslim Brotherhood, a report he co-authored in 2021 for the Documentation Center for Political Islam, an Austrian institute. Does this continuum really exist? “Numerous academic studies show […] that this is not necessarily the case,” argue researchers Juliette Galonnier, Stéphane Lacroix, and Nadia Marzouki in an interview published on the Sciences Po website in 2022 about their book Policies to Combat Radicalization. “Plenty of terrorists (such as the perpetrator of the July 14, 2016 Nice attack, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel) were drawn to violent action without prior religious radicalization, and many staunchly religious individuals are radically opposed to violence.” The three academics believe that by focusing on religion, such narratives underestimate the political and socio-economic dimensions of radicalization.

The second danger, for Lorenzo Vidino, is that the Muslim Brotherhood also threatens social cohesion. “On certain key issues such as religious freedom, women’s rights, and homosexuality, numerous Muslim Brotherhood leaders adopt positions that are in flagrant contradiction not only with dominant European values but also with fundamental human rights,” he analyzes. The question of the politicization of religion is indeed central today for democracies—it also concerns conservative Christianity.

In France, Lorenzo Vidino appeared among the speakers at a conference on Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood organized in May by the European Center for Research and Information on “Frérisme” (Cerif), a think tank created in January 2025 by academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler. Ubiquitous in the media and on X, and guaranteeing a response within twenty-four hours on her website, the researcher nevertheless never responded to our interview requests. Bergeaud-Blackler published in 2023 Frérisme and its Networks, a controversial book on the Brotherhood. Following the Hamas attacks in October 2023, she gave a Figaro interview on October 16, 2023, denouncing, among other things, the Brotherhood’s “entryism” without providing specific examples. In 2024, she was invited in Belgium to the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon), alongside, among other far-right figures, Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, polemicist Éric Zemmour, UKIP founder Nigel Farage, and former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Law and Justice. She also took part in the “1st Spring of Freedom of Expression,” a series of far-right-themed conferences organized in Perpignan under the auspices of RN mayor Louis Aliot, former partner of Marine Le Pen.

Abu Dhabi does not hesitate to court French far-right representatives directly. The story may have begun in 2014 with a meeting, revealed by Intelligence Online and detailed by Mediapart in October 2016, between Marine Le Pen and a liaison officer from the UAE intelligence services, in Saint-Cloud. The party—then the National Front (FN)—was actively seeking funding for its campaigns. Facing difficulties with French banks, it turned abroad. Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, “the pro-Russian MEP who arranged the FN loan,” as Libération headlined, recounted to the newspaper in a 2014 article the negotiation of a loan with an Emirati bank, a deal that ultimately fell through—the funds eventually came from Russia. Mediapart later revealed that an €8 million loan handled through an Emirati bank—Noor Capital—had saved the party at the end of 2017. The origin of the funds remains obscure.

What is clear, however, is the FN’s, then RN’s, discourse. As early as 2012, Marine Le Pen called for the dissolution of the association representing the Brotherhood in France, the Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF, now Muslims of France—MF). The RN’s discourse has remained aligned with this position ever since. In December 2022, during the World Cup and the outbreak of the Qatar corruption scandal in the European Parliament, RN deputy from the Nord Sébastien Chenu told TF1 that Doha “poses a number of problems, supports terrorism, opposes human rights, behaves badly, and tries to influence the public sphere.” He then announced the creation of a commission of inquiry on foreign interference. Chaired by the RN, the body published its conclusions in June 2023, identifying the maneuvers of Russia, China, and to a lesser extent Iran, Morocco, Qatar, and Turkey. But it remained silent on the influence efforts of Israel or the United Arab Emirates.

It turns out that between late 2022 and early 2025, Sébastien Chenu was precisely the head of the France–Emirates parliamentary friendship group. What did this group do during his presidency? It is difficult to know, as no information is available on the Assembly’s website. However, we learn on X that the RN deputy took advantage of COP28 in Dubai in November 2023 to visit the Emirates. “It was an opportunity to discuss international cooperation in the fight against terrorism,” Sébastien Chenu explained in a tweet, referring to his meeting with Ali Rashid Al-Nuaimi, president of the defense, interior, and foreign affairs committee within the Federal National Council—the Emirati pseudo-Parliament—as well as head of Hedayah, the Emirati counter-radicalization think tank. Contacted, Sébastien Chenu did not wish to respond to us.

In April 2024, the Hungarian Parliament approved a new economic cooperation agreement that includes real-estate development of the Rákosrendező railway station neighborhood in Budapest. Under the agreement, private Emirati actors chosen by Abu Dhabi must invest €5 billion to purchase the land and properties in the district and then construct a mixed-use complex. In return, the Hungarian government commits to limiting VAT on the goods sold to 5% and investing €800 million in transportation infrastructure.

At the same time, the European Commission attempted to remove the UAE from its list of high-risk countries for money laundering. But some MEPs pushed back. “This decision was absolutely scandalous,” explains MEP Damien Carême (formerly Greens, now France Insoumise), who served as rapporteur for the latest EU regulation on preventing the use of the financial system for money laundering or terrorist financing. “For example, the UAE flagrantly violates financial sanctions against Russia. They are also involved in financing the war in Sudan. We therefore opposed the Commission’s decision and succeeded in passing this objection” on April 23, 2024, the lawmaker says with satisfaction. The UAE would thus remain on the list, despite support for the removal from Hungarian and Italian far-right MEPs.

What will happen in the future? The latest European elections increased the number of far-right MEPs, many of whom—including the RN—have joined the new Patriots for Europe coalition. “For the UAE, far-right parties uniting across Europe represent a reliable partner whose networks can be easily mobilized,” analyzes political risk and strategy consultant Andreas Krieg. In July 2024, Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the EU, which it would hold until the end of the year. “Viktor Orbán does not believe in what the Union represents, nor in multilateralism. He wants a Europe of nation-states, with more power to states at the expense of the EU,” explains Mujtaba Rahman. All this accompanied by a certain sympathy for autocracies such as Russia or the Emirates. “Hungary is committed to working toward closer relations between the EU and the United Arab Emirates,” the Hungarian minister of trade and foreign affairs stated in the spring. The worldview of the small monarchy may thus still have a bright future ahead. It remains to be seen whether its priorities truly align with those of Europeans.

https://orientxxi.info/les-emirats-arabes-unis-allies-de-l-extreme-droite-europeenne,8034

https://orientxxi.info/les-emirats-arabes-unis-allies-de-l-extreme-droite-europeenne,8034

>translated using chatgpt. if you don't understand a sentence please ask me

>>2594044
No one cares, post your shit liberal analsyis somewhere else

>>2594044
keep posting them out of spite for this poster >>2594112

>>2593957
wow, you're a fucking moron, go touch grass

>>2594112
fucking kys retard

How Dirty Money Finds a Home in Dubai Real Estate

But the key to the UAE’s transformation was a set of policies that enticed foreigners from around the globe, including laws that made it easy for them to purchase real estate and the creation of free-trade zones with major tax exemptions.
But the key was a set of policies that enticed foreigners from around the globe, including laws that made it easy for them to purchase real estate and the creation of free-trade zones with major tax exemptions.

But behind the glittering facade is another factor that aided the city’s rise:
Dubai’s high-rises and villas have served as a safe haven for some of the world’s most wanted criminals, due in part to the secrecy its real estate sector affords.

The city’s property records are difficult to obtain and cannot be easily searched. In some cases, even international law enforcement officials have been unaware that people in their sights owned property in Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. But thanks to a new leak of data, reporters have identified scores of alleged criminals, individuals facing sanctions, and political figures accused of corruption who have owned property there.

Take, for example, the iconic palm-shaped artificial archipelago known as Palm Jumeirah, where we found an apartment belonging to Obaid Khanani,a Pakistani national who, along with his father, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2016 for allegedly running a money laundering organization that has moved billions of dollars across the globe on behalf of drug traffickers and organized crime groups.

Then over in the nearby Palm Tower Dubai is an apartment owned by Danilo Vunjao Santana Gouveia, a Brazilian businessman better known as “Dubaiano,” who was indicted in 2018 on charges including money laundering and fraud for allegedly running a massive Bitcoin pyramid scheme. Since moving to Dubai, he has taken up a new career in the city as a musician, which he details on an Instagram account alongside photographs of him posing in front of various locations in the city, including the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab Jumeirah skyscraper.

And in the Grandeur Residences is Joseph Johannes Leijdekkers, a.k.a. Bolle Jos (“Chubby Jos”), alleged by Dutch authorities to be a major player in the global cocaine trade.

A short trip over to the Jumeirah Bay Tower-X3 is an apartment belonging to Daniel Kinahan, an alleged leader of the Kinahan Organized Crime Group, a major Irish drug trafficking cartel that also has a presence in Spain, the U.K., and the UAE, according to U.S. authorities. The U.S. has offered up to $5 million for information that could lead to his arrest.

Heading across town to the Avanti Tower, we find Salam Shebani. Formerly one of Europe’s Most Wanted, currently serving a life sentence in Sweden for money laundering and inciting two murders. He was initially under investigation for receiving fraudulent money into a Dubai account. While Swedish authorities were investigating, Shebani ordered two murders in Sweden, and a 16-year-old was accidentally killed in the crossfire. He still owns his Dubai apartment and records show he rents it out.

At Ridge Towers (Near the Burj Khalifa), we find Vinod Adani, an Indian billionaire facing allegations of stock market manipulation and money laundering across India as a senior member of the Adani Group conglomerate.

And Othman El Ballouti, wanted in Belgium for allegedly running one of Europe’s top cocaine trafficking networks. He was sanctioned in 2023 by the U.S., where authorities allege his money laundering and narcotics supply chain networks are linked to businesses based in China, as well as South American cocaine suppliers.

Then finally, the Burj Khalifa, Dubai’s iconic skyscraper and the tallest man-made structure ever built.

Thanks to these videos posted on TikTok by the wife of Dženis Kadrić, who Bosnian authorities suspect belongs to a major drug cartel, geolocation specialists from investigative outlet Bellingcat were able to pinpoint which apartment the couple lived in.

Kadrić, it turns out, was renting the apartment from another target of law enforcement: Candido Nsue Okomo, the former head of Equatorial Guinea’s scandal-plagued national oil company.
Okomo, who is also the brother-in-law of the country’s controversial president, is under investigation in Spain for embezzlement and money laundering.

Kadrić, a former policeman, was arrested in Bosnia in February on suspicion of participation in organized crime, drug smuggling, and money laundering. He was released in May but remains a suspect in an ongoing investigation. Images on social media show Kadrić in Dubai alongside Bosnian-Dutch citizen Edin Gačanin, the alleged leader of the drug cartel, who was convicted in late 2023 of drug trafficking offenses and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Thanks to the leaked property data, reporters have uncovered dozens of other convicted criminals, fugitives, and sanctioned individuals who have owned at least one piece of real estate in Dubai. There are also political figures and their associates, including those accused of corruption or who have kept their properties hidden from the public.

>Why Dubai?

Dubai is far from the only place where criminals and others looking to stash their wealth have been able to scoop up properties — New York City and London real estate have also been known to attract dirty money.

One pull factor, experts say, has been the emirate’s inconsistent responses to requests from foreign authorities for help arresting and extraditing fugitives.

Despite the city’s reputation for heavy surveillance, a number of alleged drug traffickers and other criminals have sought refuge there over the past decade.

Others, such as Isabel Dos Santos, the ultra-wealthy daughter of Angola’s longtime dictator — who has been charged in Angola with money laundering, embezzlement, and tax fraud, had her properties frozen in several countries, and is barred from entering the U.S. — not only own property in Dubai but have been openly seen enjoying the city’s luxuries.

According to Radha Stirling, an attorney and human rights advocate who leads the legal assistance organization Detained in Dubai, UAE authorities use high-profile fugitives as “bargaining chips.”

“The presence of extradition agreements between nations are not necessarily key to whether or not people are extradited,” she said.

“What matters is what Dubai wants in return and whether that nation has something they want enough to barter.”

Jodi Vittori, a professor at Georgetown University who studies corruption and illicit finance, described the inner workings of the authoritarian country’s justice system as opaque.

She cited the India-born Gupta brothers, who are accused of looting South Africa’s public funds through their close links with the country's former President Jacob Zuma, as a recent example.

Despite an extradition treaty between the two nations, last year the UAE quietly dismissed South Africa’s request to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta, who face charges of money laundering and fraud.

>‘Bags of Cash’

In addition to its vast offerings of high-end real estate, Dubai holds another allure for those with ill-gotten cash to spend: the reputation among some of the city’s realtors for a few-questions-asked approach when it comes to the origins of investors' funds.

Between their status as politically-exposed persons (PEPs) or appearance on sanctions lists, the dozens of individuals found by OCCRP should have immediately raised red flags under any basic risk assessment.

Emirati authorities have tightened regulations in recent years, particularly since the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental anti-money laundering watchdog, placed the country on a “gray list” for its failures to effectively combat illicit money flows in 2022. After reportedly lobbying hard to get off the list, Emirati authorities were rewarded with good news in February 2024: FATF welcomed “significant progress” and cleared the UAE from the extra monitoring.

In an undercover consultation in March with a salesperson from the leading Dubai real estate development firm Damac, SVT reporters were told they could pay in “bags of cash” or cryptocurrency to purchase a flat, and that they would face “zero question(s)” about their funds.

“In properties you are not going to be questioned from any department…especially the developer himself. Anyone who wants to buy can buy,” the realtor assured them.

He also described how pouring cash into real estate is one way to avoid questions from banks about the source of their funds.

“There are people, they have cash… and they don’t know where to put it. They cannot put like 100 million dirhams ($27.2 million) in the bank. There will be hundreds of questions,” he explained.

But, “if you sell the property and then you transfer all the amount in the bank account, then there is no problem, you will not be questioned from where you bring the cash to buy the property and then to put it in the bank,” he said.

“You still have this option in Dubai. So why not use it?”

“Dubai is not a safe haven for illicit funds for illicit actors. Dubai is a safe haven for legitimate commerce, for legitimate individuals who are hardworking and have earned what they have otherwise,” Sauod Abdulaziz Almutawa, officer from Dubai police’s anti-money laundering police unit, added.

In April 2024, a large majority of the European Parliament voted to keep the UAE on the EU’s list of “high-risk third countries” after it had been removed in response to the FATF decision.

https://www.occrp.org/interactives/dubai-unlocked/en/

related to an earlier article

'Islamophobic' poll on Muslims in France accused of links to UAE

A controversial poll on Muslims in France, conducted by one of the country’s leading survey institutes, was commissioned by a media company linked to an alleged Emirati smear campaign.

The survey concludes that there is "a phenomenon of ‘re-Islamisation’ that particularly affects younger generations and is accompanied by a worrying increase in adherence to Islamist ideology".

According to Ifop: "This data gives grist to the mill of those who fear that the Muslim population is developing into a ‘counter-society’, that is, seeking to organise its daily life according to religious norms distinct from, or even opposed to, those of the majority society.

>Muslims as an ‘internal enemy’

The poll has been widely reported by the French media and political class, particularly in conservative circles, where it was seen as proof of a desire among Muslims to place themselves in opposition to the republic and its laws.

Speaking of "terrifying figures", far-right politician Marion Marechal Le Pen, the niece of Marine Le Pen, described the possibility that France "will find itself facing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of radical Muslims who will want to implement sharia law".

On Tuesday evening, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also appeared to react to the poll, stressing "the urgency of launching the third phase" of the government's action against "the entryism of political Islam", including the possibility of creating a new offence of "undermining national cohesion".

The survey has, however, been accused of bias, both in its methodology and interpretations, and of paving the way for "Islamophobic" and "alarmist" narratives aimed at "fuelling fear, hatred and division".

The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, for instance, lamented that Muslim religious practice was being treated as a threat. He denounced "a naive statistic [that] is transformed, through a rhetorical shift, into a discourse of danger", in which "spirituality" becomes associated with "rigorism, therefore 'Islamist temptation', therefore 'radicalisation'".

Several left-wing politicians also spoke out, particularly within France Unbowed (LFI), the party of presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who saw it as an "Islamophobic hoax".

"Once again, [young Muslims] are being singled out as a kind of internal enemy, as a danger to our country," said LFI MP Paul Vannier, denouncing "the foul conflation at the heart of this survey", which "aims to turn millions of our fellow citizens into potential Islamists and terrorists."

Regarding the methodology, many pointed to the unrepresentative sample size of 1,005 people who identify as "Muslim".

For example, while only 149 women who wear headscarves were included, Ifop concluded that one in two Muslim women aged 18 to 24 now wear the veil (45 percent), demonstrating a "gender separatism" that "primarily involves making the female body invisible".

Despite the conclusions drawn about "sharia", the pollsters never actually used the word; instead, they referred to "Islamic law".

To reach the "46 percent" figure of respondents who believe that sharia "must be applied", the poll combined the 15 percent of Muslims who said Islamic law "must be applied in full" with the 31 percent who said it "should be applied in part and can be adapted to the rules of the country where one lives".

>Alleged Emirati campaigns

Some have pointed the finger at the survey’s sponsor, the magazine Écran de Veille (Screen Watch), which describes itself as a "monthly magazine for resisting fanaticism" and is published by a website called Global Watch Analysis.

The editorial output of these media outlets is almost exclusively focused on denouncing "Islamism" and in particular the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated groups (such as the Palestinian Hamas). Qatar is also regularly targeted.

The two outlets reportedly received funding from Countries Reports Publishing, an apparent shell company registered in the UK that conceals its shareholders’ identities and is linked to other publications hostile to political Islam and to Qatar.

According to French newspaper Liberation, the director of publications, Atmane Tazaghart, as well as many of his contributors, are mentioned in a large-scale case of interference and disinformation that was allegedly orchestrated by the United Arab Emirates in France, via the Swiss intelligence firm Alp Services, and revealed by Mediapart in March 2023.

The campaign's objective was, in particular, "to influence the press and publish false articles attacking Qatar" as well as movements linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the UAE.

A few months later, the French investigative media also revealed that the UAE was involved in a smear campaign that targeted more than a thousand people and hundreds of organisations from 18 different European countries that had been spied on by Alp Services and were portrayed as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The investigations, dubbed the Abu Dhabi Secrets, found that Emirati authorities paid at least €5.7m ($6.5m) for the campaign.

Once information on the identified individuals was gathered by the Swiss group and sent to Emirati intelligence services, agents were able to further target them through press campaigns, forums published about them, the creation of fake profiles, and the modification of Wikipedia pages.

Contacted by Liberation about the poll, Tazaghart denied "any suspicion of foreign interference" and refused to reveal who was behind Countries Reports Publishing, saying the company stopped funding Ecran de Veille in "2022 or 2023" and that it is now self-funding.

"The operation to stigmatise our Muslim compatriots, orchestrated by Ifop and amplified by Le Pen and the entire French far right, was commissioned by an organisation linked to the Emirati intelligence services," Vannier wrote on X.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/islamophic-poll-muslims-france-linked-uae

saw it on newsanon's thread

Joint Saudi-Emirate delegation in Aden for talks after STC takeover

A joint Saudi-Emirati military ​delegation arrived in ​Aden to discuss measures aimed at ⁠defusing tensions in southern Yemen days after the country’s main southern separatist group ​claimed broad control across the ‍south, a government ​source told Reuters on Friday.

The Southern Transitional Council said the takeover included the eastern provinces of Hadhramaut and ⁠Mahra, and that the separatist group is present in all eastern provinces of south Yemen, including Aden, the base of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.

Discussions to be held by the ​delegation in Aden ⁠will address ways ⁠to rectify recent unilateral actions, including the withdrawal of any forces brought in from outside the eastern provinces, a ‌source in the presidential office ​told the state news agency SABA.

The STC, which has been backed in the past by the United ‍Arab Emirates during Yemen's decade-old civil war, has clashed with other groups, ‌which relocated to Aden after ‌the Iran-aligned Houthi movement captured the capital Sanaa in 2014.

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2025/12/joint-saudi-emirate-delegation-aden-talks-after-stc-takeover

saw it on newsanon's thread

Egypt: Organi-linked armed groups looting, confiscating Gaza aid trucks in Sinai

Armed groups affiliated with the Union of Sinai Tribes, based in the Egyptian peninsula, are reportedly inspecting and looting trucks carrying aid and goods headed towards the Gaza Strip, exclusive reports from The New Arab's sister site revealed on Sunday.

The armed groups are reportedly stationed at several points on the international highway linking the Egyptian city of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah in the war-battered Gaza Strip. The individuals stop trucks headed towards Gaza, whether carrying humanitarian relief or goods intended for Palestinian traders, meticulously looking for allegedly banned goods.

Such items include cigarettes, mobile phones, certain types of medicines and medical supplies, among others.

One truck driver told Al-Araby that armed men routinely stop trucks, unload several boxes, and manually search them.

He added that all vehicles are inspected without exception. The driver also said such searches often result in the destruction of goods, with the armed individuals often tearing open bags of flour and other foodstuffs, rendering them unfit for consumption.

In the event that a "prohibited" item is found, the armed groups will photograph it, confiscate it entirely – including the truck – before transferring it to warehouses belonging to Sons of Sinai, owned by the controversial businessman Ibrahim Al-Organi (also spelt Al-Arjani).

Organi, a native of Sheikh Zuweid and a member of the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, is the head of the Union of Sinai Tribes, a pro-government coalition that works closely with Cairo to combat insurgency in the peninsula.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported that it obtained footage showing a number of members of the group searching trucks and emptying cargo boxes of their contents, as part of the ongoing policy of tightening restrictions on Palestinians in Gaza.

Organi, a wealthy businessman and a close ally of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has been embroiled in a series of controversies over the past couple of years.

He was accused of profiteering from the crisis in Gaza, when Palestinians sought to evacuate to neighbouring Egypt with the help of smugglers, who demanded bribes up to $10,000 to help them exit the war-torn enclave.

He has also been accused of engaging in smuggling activities to Gaza and Israel, and of using his ties to Egyptian leadership to expand his business and influence in the volatile peninsula.

A Palestinian trader living in Cairo told Al-Araby that Palestinian traders are forced to pay exorbitant sums to the Sons of Sinai company as guarantees. He said that the company requires a security deposit of up to one million USD to ensure that traders do not import any materials "banned" by Israel.

The merchant added that coordinating the entry of each truck into the Gaza Strip costs approximately $100,000, paid to the Al-Organi’s group to facilitate the passage of goods through Egypt to the Kerem Abu Salem crossing, and from there into the Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that if any prohibited materials are found in the shipment, the company imposes a fine of $70,000 per truck, which is deducted directly from the deposited security amount, in addition to confiscating the entire shipment without returning it to its owner.

These incidents come amid Al-Organi’s wider moves to monopolise and control the movement of commercial and humanitarian trucks to the Gaza Strip, notably Rafah.

During the war on Gaza, the businessman was found to have demanded fees up to $20,000 for the entry of trucks into the battered enclave.

Other companies of his, such as the Golden Eagle, have also been in charge of the entry of trucks into Gaza, leaving the Egyptian Red Crescent unable to challenge Al-Organi's mammoth influence.

https://www.newarab.com/news/egypt-organi-linked-groups-looting-gaza-aid-trucks-sinai

UAE influencers repeating israel talking points about Bondi Beach

>>2601338
Fuck the UAE
Fuck the Middle East Eye as well, bunch of jihadi cocksuckers

>>2601338
wonder how much of the "muslim brotherhood is behind campus protests" rhetoric some years back was funded by the uae. surprised no one has bothered to look into it

>>2601498
Fuck off zionist

>>2601825
Fuck off Al Baghdadi

>>2601825
Isnt UAE against axis of resistance? Why did ISIS never attack Israel?

>>2592090
Sounds like a reasonable approach tbh, not full prohibition, we already know that doesn't work, just make booze hard to get.

>>2601858
I'm sorry are you under the impression this was made to combat illegal alcohol sales and secret alcoholism? Lmao

Drone attacks kill over 100 civilians across war-torn Sudan’s Kordofan

At least 104 civilians have been killed in drone attacks across Sudan’s Kordofan region as fighting between rival military factions reached deadly new heights in the brutal civil war deep into its third year.

The attacks have battered the central region since early December, right up to Friday, following the capture of a significant army base by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Babnusa after a week of intense fighting.

The escalation has displaced tens of thousands and overwhelmed health facilities already strained by cholera and dengue outbreaks, as the main fighting shifts from Darfur in the west to the vast central region of Kordofan.

The deadliest attack was reported from a kindergarten and a hospital in Kalogi, South Kordofan, where 89 people were killed, including 43 children and eight women. United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said he was “alarmed by the further intensification in hostilities” and warned that targeting medical facilities violates international humanitarian law.

Six Bangladeshi peacekeepers serving with the UN mission were killed when drones hit their base in Kadugli, South Kordofan’s capital, on December 13. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned what he termed “horrific drone attacks”, noting that attacks on peacekeepers “may constitute war crimes under international law”.

A day later, Dilling Military Hospital came under fire, with casualty figures varying. The Sudan Doctors Network reported nine deaths and 17 injuries, calling it “systematic targeting of health institutions”.

UN officials said six people were killed and 12 wounded, many of them medical staff.

More than 40,000 people have fled North Kordofan, while civilians remain trapped in besieged cities, including Kadugli and Dilling.

The escalation comes as international efforts to broker peace have restarted. SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on December 15, expressing readiness to work with United States President Donald Trump on peace efforts.

The following day, Egypt and the US jointly rejected “any attempts to divide Sudan” and called for a comprehensive ceasefire.

Sudan has topped the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist for three consecutive years. The war, which began in April 2023, has killed more than 40,000 people according to UN figures, though aid groups believe the true toll is far higher. More than 14 million people have been displaced in what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/17/drone-attacks-kill-over-100-civilians-across-war-torn-sudans-kordofan

>>2601829>>2601829

MEE denounces zionist crimes daily, how are they """jihadi""" ?

Burning bodies, mass graves. Sudan’s RSF trying to hide atrocities: Report

The Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have carried out a systematic, weeks-long campaign to erase evidence of mass killings in the city of el-Fasher, according to a recent report released by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).

“RSF’s mass killing campaign targeted civilians attempting to flee the city and those seeking refuge in the Daraja Oula neighborhood,” the report, released on Tuesday, said, referring to a neighbourhood in el-Fasher where massacres occurred. “RSF subsequently engaged in a systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence of its mass killings through burial, burning, and removal of human remains on a mass scale. This pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing.”

El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, was formerly the Sudanese Armed Forces’s last stronghold in the region and had been besieged by the RSF for more than 18 months before falling on October 26. At least 1,500 people were killed in 48 hours after the RSF took control of el-Fasher, according to monitoring groups.

The Yale report, titled the “RSF’s Systematic Mass Killings and Body Disposal in el-Fasher, North Darfur between October 26 and November 28, 2025, relied on satellite imagery, open source data, local news reporting, and remote sensing data. Yale researchers, who have spent years tracking the war in Sudan, also found that the RSF engaged in certain patterns of killings, including the murder of people as they fled attacks, mass killings including door-to-door and execution-style killings, mass killings at sites affiliated with detention, and mass killings at military installations.

HRL found that in 72 percent of the incidents it observed by November 28, the size of these clusters had gotten smaller, while 38 percent were no longer visible at all, indicating an effort to conceal the killing of people.

It also recorded “at least 20 instances of burning objects and 8 instances of disturbed earth”.

Earlier this month, a prominent Sudanese doctor’s group accused the RSF of raping at least 19 women as they overtook el-Fasher. As el-Fasher fell to the RSF in late October, the paramilitary group simultaneously launched an offensive against the Kordofan region, potentially further expanding the territory under its control.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/16/yale-report-unveils-rsf-attempt-to-cover-up-sudan-atrocities-mass-burials

Yemeni Separatists Set Sights on Houthi-Controlled Capital

The leader of an Emirati-backed separatist group that has taken control of parts of Yemen over the past week said on Wednesday that its next objective should be the capital, Sanaa.

That move threatens to intensify Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014 when the Houthis, a militant group backed by Iran, seized Sanaa. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The remarks by Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the leader of the Southern Transitional Council separatist group, were published on the group’s website on Wednesday. The Houthis, which still control Sanaa, have not yet responded.

On Wednesday, the S.T.C. website cited Mr. al-Zubaidi as saying that “the next goal must be Sanaa, peacefully or through war, until justice returns to its people and aggression is defeated.”

The south is effectively controlled by a patchwork of competing armed groups, the most powerful of which is the S.T.C., which was founded in 2017 with significant financial and military support from the United Arab Emirates.

The S.T.C. website cited Mr. al-Zubaidi as saying on Tuesday that there would be a period of institution building for a future “south Arabian state,” solidifying its breakaway ambitions in the areas it now controls.

On Friday, Rashad al-Alimi, the chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, left Aden for the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for urgent talks with officials there. Days later, he condemned the separatists’ advance as “unilateral measures.” His office did not immediately respond to questions about Mr. al-Zubaidi’s comments.

Mr. al-Zubaidi has been openly building a parallel state structure. In recent days, he has convened high-level meetings at the Presidential Palace in Aden, acting with the authority of a de facto ruler.

In a seemingly symbolic move, photographs released by the S.T.C. on Tuesday showed that the national flag of the Republic of Yemen was absent from Mr. al-Zubaidi’s meetings at the palace.

On Tuesday, a Saudi delegation met with tribal leaders in Seiyun, a city in southern Yemen that was seized by S.T.C. forces, and called for the group to withdraw.

https://archive.is/d9wXb

The (Axis of Resistance) 'coordination network' government of Iraq opened its second largest oil field exclusively to US bidders

ie the corporations that pushed for the invasion and consequently brought the current islamists to power

>>2602495
Hakim is busy on The Deprogram tho

>>2601956
While they are great in uncovering Hasbara and shitting on tbe zionists
On the matters (disconnected to palestine), they often whitewash jihadists and present them as innocent smol bean victims.
Fuck them.

>>2602613
Hakim isn't an Iraqi national. He admitted to have studied outside the country and he regularly travels to the US ostensibly using the worst passport in the world, luxuries the average Iraqi prole doesn't have access to.

His father used to be a Ba'athist officer killing Iranian and Iraqi proles which he feels no remorse for and I bet daddy's wealth transitioned with the new regime. This guy is so disconnected from class struggle in general and in Iraq in particular it's laughable that anyone takes him as authority on anything.

>>2591811
35% chance. The greens have influence in Libya and are forming alliances within Libya for an eventual takeover.

>>2602728
>iraqi proles
your lying, twisting tongue is up there with Israeli hasbara

>>2603053
Incompressible

from newsanon's thread

Drone strike plunges Sudan major cities into darkness as civil war rages

Major cities across Sudan, including the capital, Khartoum, and coastal city Port Sudan, have been plunged into darkness after drone strikes hit a key power plant in the country’s east.

Flames and smoke rose from the facility in Atbara, River Nile state on Thursday, which is controlled by the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and under attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing civil war that has ripped the nation apart.

Two civil defence members were killed, power plant officials said, while trying to extinguish the fire that erupted after the first strike, adding that rescue workers were injured when a second drone hit as they battled the flames.

The attack marks the latest escalation in a devastating drone campaign that has killed at least 104 civilians across Sudan’s Kordofan region since early December. The deadliest strike hit a kindergarten and hospital in Kalogi, South Kordofan, where 89 people died, including 43 children and eight women.

Six Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed when drones struck their base in Kadugli on December 13, prompting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to warn that targeting peacekeepers “may constitute war crimes under international law”.

A day later, the Dilling Military Hospital came under fire, killing at least six people and wounding 12, many of them medical staff.

According to the US-based think tank Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 484 drone strikes occurred across 13 African countries in 2024, with Sudan accounting for 264 of them, more than half the continental total. By March 2025, the intensity had surged further, with the SAF claiming it shot down more than 100 drones in just 10 days.

>Sexual violence ‘escalating alarmingly’

The conflict has created what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people displaced and at least 30 million needing vital assistance. More than 40,000 people have fled North Kordofan alone, while civilians remain trapped in besieged cities.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed on Wednesday that more than 1,600 people have been killed in 65 attacks on medical facilities across Sudan this year. “Every attack deprives more people from health services and medicines,” he said.

Seif Magango, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office, also told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that sexual violence was also “escalating alarmingly”, with women bearing the conflict’s greatest cost. Women face “gang rape while simultaneously trying to flee from killing and bombs,” he said, describing conditions as particularly horrific in el-Fasher.

A report released on Tuesday by Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab found that RSF forces engaged in a “systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence” of mass killings in el-Fasher through burial, burning and removal of human remains after the city fell in October.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/drone-strike-plunges-sudan-major-cities-into-darkness-as-civil-war-rages

<seems the emirates and their thugs have learned how to handle conflict from israel very well

another one from newsanon's thread

Egypt says gas deal with Israel is ‘purely commercial’

“The deal is a purely commercial transaction concluded on the basis of strictly economic and investment considerations, and entails no political dimensions or understandings of any kind,” Egypt’s State Information Service chief Diaa Rashwan said in a statement.

“The agreement serves a clear strategic interest for Egypt, namely strengthening its position as the sole regional hub for gas trading in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Rashwan added.

Egypt’s announcement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the approval of the gas agreement with Egypt on Wednesday evening and called it “the largest gas deal in Israel’s history”.

“Today, I approved the largest gas deal in Israel’s history. The deal is worth 112 billion shekels [$34.7bn]. Of this total, 58 billion shekels [$18bn] will go to the state coffers,” Netanyahu said during a televised address in Israel, alongside energy minister Eli Cohen.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/egypt-says-gas-deal-with-israel-is-purely-commercial

trump had been pushing netanyahu to let the deal go through so he could have another peace summit photo op:

However, Egyptian officials have conditioned el-Sissi’s participation on Israel signing a major natural gas deal involving the Leviathan offshore field, according to Israeli energy industry sources, who warn Netanyahu may agree without receiving concessions in return.

However, Egyptian officials have conditioned el-Sissi’s participation on Israel signing a major natural gas deal involving the Leviathan offshore field, according to Israeli energy industry sources, who warn Netanyahu may agree without receiving concessions in return.

People familiar with the talks said el-Sissi is also linking the meeting to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor, which stretches along the Egyptian border, and the Netzarim Corridor, which bisects the enclave, demands Israel opposes. Netanyahu and el-Sissi have not spoken since the start of the war in Gaza, and the Egyptian leader previously declined to invite the Israeli prime minister to a peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
<this didn't happen of course

A source familiar with the talks criticized the dynamic, asking, “Since when does Israel hand out gifts before meetings?” The person said that if Netanyahu approves the gas deal before receiving Egyptian commitments to combat weapons smuggling and drop the demand for an Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor, “it would be absurd. On what basis does el-Sissi set such conditions? Israeli gas is a first-order strategic asset, and any agreement with Egypt must ensure Israel’s interests are protected.”

The person added that an agreement supplying gas to Egypt would cover roughly 20 percent of Egypt’s electricity needs and could limit Israel’s ability to export elsewhere. “Israel is giving them the whole cake and securing Egypt’s energy needs before securing its own,” the person said.
<what will be the consequences of israel controlling 1/5 of egypt's energy supply? :)

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1ozkarf11x

anyone know what's going around the toshka lakes in southern egypt? agricultural fields seem to have increased a LOT since 2020. is the toshka project actually being revived or what's going on?

>>2604241
>The Israeli Corporations Authority, which oversees the country's non-profit organisations, told us that if it has evidence founders are using entities as "a cover for illegal activity", then registration inside Israel may be denied and the founder could be barred from working in the sector.
why are they incapable of policing their own people?

>>2604241
this was the article that was deleted. a group headed by a group of israelis is apparently swindling millions of dollars from families with kids with cancer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgz318y8elo

>>2604303
the agricultural area west of the toshka lakes seems to have expanded a lot too the last few years

>>2604714
damn

>>2604303
>>2604714
i found what they are connected to
https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/136258/Egypt-works-to-cultivate-4-million-acres-in-desert-areas
https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/136258/Egypt-works-to-cultivate-4-million-acres-in-desert-areas
they're all part of interlinked land reclamation for agriculture projects spearheaded by pharaoh sisi and judging from the images on google earth they seem to be coming along

>>2592189
How can a king be Robespierre lmao

>>2591314
I am your dad. Don't talk to me or my son ever again.

>>2605007
By working in spite of himself to bring about the conditions for world revolution

Far-right Tommy Robinson backs STC in Yemen in bizarre X post

UK far-right figure Tommy Robinson has raised eyebrows for weighing in on the latest crisis in Yemen, which has seen the secessionist Southern Transitional Council take broad control of the country’s south amid separatist concerns.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, took aim at Western governments for "not fighting terrorism" in the Middle East, and not supporting the STC in Yemen, which he claimed is combating such.

He said on X on Thursday: "I want you to look at one of the cases of peoples who want to liberate themselves from the terrorism of Al-Qaeda and the Houthis in Yemen. These people want independence and self-determination by establishing the state of the South in Yemen. WHY NOT!!"

The STC separatists are backed by the United Arab Emirates and are aiming to revert Yemen into two separate states, as was the case until 1990.

The STC, established in 2017, has called for the secession of a proposed South Arabia state from the rest of the country, and has been since financed by the UAE.

In his post, Robinson continued to claim that the "radicals that the STC are combating" will "come to us," i.e. the West, if Western governments don’t cooperate with them.

The far-right figurehead continued to say that the STC are "defending their right to political independence from these radical regimes that control these countries," without elaborating further.

https://www.newarab.com/news/far-right-tommy-robinson-backs-yemens-stc-bizarre-x-post

<tommy robinson is currently in dubai for a sporting event

Israel to quadruple hasbara spend in bid to salvage international reputation

Israel plans to more than quadruple the amount of money spent on overseas influence operations in 2026 as it tries to salvage its international reputation, battered by its two-year genocidal assault on Gaza.

The foreign ministry will be allocated NIS 2.35 billion ($729 million) to spend on public diplomacy – known as hasbara in Hebrew - next year, up from NIS 545 million ($150 million) in 2025, according to Israeli media.

The money will be used to fund social media campaigns, partnerships with NGOs, and trips to Israel for elected officials, civil society representatives, and influencers.

Israel's reputation among Western publics has nosedived over the past two years on the back of the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has killed at least 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Palestinian ministry of health.

Polling by Pew Research in October found that more than half of US adults held a negative view of Israel, rising to 77 percent of Democratic voters.

An opinion poll in Germany from September, conducted by YouGov, showed almost two-thirds of voters believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, despite the country being one of Israel's staunchest European allies

Earlier this year, it emerged that the government was paying social media influencers thousands of dollars per post to promote its narratives about its war in Gaza and the Palestinians.

Israeli media recently reported a $145 million campaign by the foreign ministry to manipulate popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT to promote its narratives.

The foreign ministry last week hosted 1,000 American pastors and influencers to a conference in Jerusalem to train them to promote Israeli interests in the US.

https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-quadruple-hasbara-spend-bid-salvage-reputation

According to local stations, Iran's lapdogs in Iraq have come forward and proclaimed their support for disarmament.

Doubtful since aside from a small riot police force, they're the only effective state arm that can beat disgruntled workers down. Their interests are aligned with US (that is calling for disarmament) more often than it is not. I doubt the US will get its hand dirty again so militias are prefect tools.

>>2607622
>campists camp for a civil war from 1400 years ago
كسمك يا ابن القحبة

from newsanon's thread:

Colombian mercenaries in Sudan ‘recruited by UK-registered firms’

The one-bedroom flat off north London’s Creighton Road is, according to UK government records, tied to a transnational network of companies involved in the mass recruitment of mercenaries to fight in Sudan alongside paramilitaries accused of myriad war crimes and genocide.

Hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have been enlisted to fight with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group responsible for mass rapes, ethnic slaughter and the systematic killing of women and children.

Colombian mercenaries were directly involved in the paramilitaries’ seizure of the south-western Sudanese city of El Fasher in late October, which prompted a killing frenzy that analysts say has cost at least 60,000 lives.

The flat in Tottenham is registered to a company called Zeuz Global, set up by two individuals named and sanctioned last week by the US treasury for hiring Colombian mercenaries to fight for the RSF.

Both figures – Colombian nationals in their 50s – are described in documents at Companies House, the government register of firms operating in the UK, as living in Britain.

When Companies House was asked if it had any knowledge of what Zeuz Global actually did, or is doing, it did not respond. The government agency would also not confirm whether the sanctioned individuals were, in fact, resident in the UK.

According to the US treasury, the man at the centre of the Colombian recruiting network for the RSF is a dual Colombian-Italian national and retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) called Álvaro Andrés Quijano Becerra.

The US treasury accuses Quijano of playing a central role in recruiting former Colombian soldiers to be deployed to Sudan using a Bogotá-based employment agency he co-founded. His wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, was also sanctioned for owning and managing the agency.

A dual Colombian-Spanish national called Mateo Andrés Duque Botero was similarly censured by the US for managing a business accused of handling funds and payroll for the network hiring the Colombian fighters.

On 8 April this year Duque and Oliveros registered a company in north London called ODP8 Ltd – later renamed Zeuz Global – with £10,000 capital.

Three days later, the RSF attacked Zamzam displacement camp, slaughtering more than 1,500 civilians. After its capture, the camp was handed over to Colombian mercenaries who began the preparations for attacking El Fasher, eight miles to the north.

Duque and Oliveros are named in Companies House records as owning “initial shareholdings”, with the latter named as a person of “significant control” within the company.

Oliveros, a 52-year-old Colombian, describes Britain as her “country of residence”.

On 17 July 2025 Duque was appointed as a director and is also described as resident in the UK. The hiring of the Colombians has had a profound impact on the trajectory of the conflict, analysts say, and its nationals have trained children to be soldiers, as well fighting as snipers and infantrymen.

They have also served as instructors and pilots for the drones that proved instrumental in the fall of El Fasher and during fighting in Kordofan, the region bordering Darfur.

Lewis said: “The war in Sudan is a hi-tech one, with guided weapons and long-range drones causing daily civilian deaths. These weapons require external help to operate. We know that the Colombian mercenary operation has been a major component of this external assistance.”

“Having a UK company like this is a passport for criminals to do business with legitimate counterparts. It’s still harder to join a gym in most cases than to set up a UK company,” said Lewis.

“As a result, there is a long, well publicised history of UK shell companies being used to broker weapons and military assistance to embargoed actors in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, North Korea – even to Isis [Islamic State].”

The Colombians’ involvement in Sudan first emerged last year, when an investigation by the Bogotá-based outlet La Silla Vacía revealed that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted to fight. The revelation prompted an apology from Colombia’s foreign ministry.

One of the mercenaries recently confirmed to the Guardian that he had trained children in Sudan and fought in El Fasher.

The UAE, which has long been accused of arming the RSF, has also been linked to the hiring of Colombian mercenaries.

A report by the investigative organisation the Sentry alleged last month that Emirati business people supplying Colombians to the RSF were linked to a senior UAE government official. The United Arab Emirates has consistently denied these allegations.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/19/colombian-mercenaries-sudan-rsf-us-sanctions-recruited-uk-registered-firms-investigation

>>2607120
israel>britain>UAE

>>2607594
Yeah like 90% of them officially agreed to disarm. Only Hezbollah refused which is a relatively insignificant militia in Iraq. Hezbollah receives its orders from the same place as the others, so guess to save face?

Either way there won't be any real disarmament because the police aren't capable of beating down workers alone. At most they'll agree to become a shared property of Washington since they de facto serve its interests.

>>2608682
Kata'ib Hezbollah isn't that insignificant to be honest. There's also Nujaba militia which also refused.

>>2592711
I have considered donating to Sudanese NGOs before but I couldn't find anything trustworthy, do you know any? My only preference is that the aid goes to areas under SAF control, not RSF/Darfour.

crosspost from /africa/

Why Maids Keep Dying in Saudi Arabia

>A Kenyan housekeeper, Eunice Achieng, called home in a panic in 2022, saying that her boss had threatened to kill her and throw her in a water tank. “She was screaming, ‘Please come save me!’” her mother recalled. Ms. Achieng soon turned up dead in a rooftop water tank, her mother said. Saudi health officials said her body was too decomposed to determine how she died. The Saudi police labeled it a “natural death.”

>In Uganda, Isiko Moses Waiswa said that when he learned his wife had died in Saudi Arabia, her employer there gave him a choice: her body or her $2,800 in wages. A Saudi autopsy found that his wife, Aisha Meeme, was emaciated. She had extensive bruising, three broken ribs and what appeared to be severe electrocution burns on her ear, hand and feet. The Saudi authorities declared that she had died of natural causes.

>One young mother jumped from a third-story roof to escape an abusive employer, breaking her back. Another said that her boss had raped her and then sent her home pregnant and broke.

>Last month, four Ugandan women in maids’ uniforms sent a video plea to an aid group, saying that they had been detained for six months in Saudi Arabia. “We are exhausted from being held against our will,” one woman said on the video. The company that sent her abroad is owned by Sedrack Nzaire, an official with Uganda’s governing party who is identified in Ugandan media as the brother of the president, Yoweri Museveni.

>Ms. Nassanga found her housekeeping job as pleasant as recruiters had promised. She had her own room. The woman she worked for sometimes even helped with chores. Then one day, she said, her boss’s husband walked into her room and raped her. Afterward, she said, he kicked and slapped her. He threw her underwear at her as she retreated to the kitchen, Ms. Nassanga said. When she became pregnant, Ms. Nassanga’s boss accused her of sleeping with the husband. The Saudi family put her on a plane back to Uganda.

>Mwanakombo Ngao was hospitalized in a mental institution after returning home. She has no recollection of what happened in Saudi Arabia.

>Esther Kerubo Moranga said her Saudi boss abused her. Now, she says, her uncle beats her for returning home without money.

>Josephine Uchi says she worked a demanding housekeeping job while also caring for a Saudi family of 12. She was allowed four hours of sleep a night.

>Mary Nsiimenta, a single mother with big, mournful eyes, cleaned house for a family with five children in Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia. She said the children, ages 9 to 18, hit her with a stick and put bleach in her eyes. (Several women told The Times that they were assaulted with bleach or forced to soak their hands in it as punishment.) According to Ms. Nsiimenta, her employer was stingy with her salary. After she repeatedly asked to be paid, she said, the family locked her on a third-story rooftop.

>At least 274 Kenyan workers, mostly women, have died in Saudi Arabia in the past five years — an extraordinary figure for a young work force doing jobs that, in most countries, are considered extremely safe. At least 55 Kenyan workers died last year, twice as many as the previous year.

>A spokesman for the human resources ministry in Saudi Arabia said it had taken steps to protect workers. “Any form of exploitation or abuse of domestic workers is entirely unacceptable, and allegations of such behavior are thoroughly investigated,” the spokesman, Mike GOLDSTEIN, wrote in an email.

>Because visas are tied to employment, workers who leave their jobs can lose their legal status. To help address that, the Saudi government paid a company, Sakan, to provide housing and legal assistance to foreign workers in trouble. Hannah Njeri Miriam ended up at a Sakan center in 2022, about a year after she left Kenya’s Rift Valley for Saudi Arabia. Ms. Miriam’s employer fired her after a dispute. Jobless and homeless, Sakan was the only place to go. Once there, according to her family, the staff said she could leave only if she paid about $300 for her travel.

>She called home, saying she was being mistreated and underfed. Nobody could afford to help. The Kenyan agency that had sent her abroad had gone out of business. Finally, her family got a call from another woman at the center. She said Ms. Miriam had tried to escape through an air-conditioning opening but had slipped and fallen two stories. A forensic report said that Ms. Miriam had died of head wounds. The Saudi police later said that she died of “congestive cardiac and respiratory failure.”

>“Under no circumstances does a worker bear any financial responsibility for repatriation,” wrote Mr. GOLDSTEIN, the Saudi ministry spokesman.

>Mr. GOLDSTEIN, the Saudi ministry spokesman, declined to comment on individual deaths but said that every case was thoroughly investigated. He did not comment on the inconsistencies between autopsies and police reports and would not say how many people had been arrested or prosecuted in labor cases.

>Mr. GOLDSTEIN said the government stopped funding Sakan in 2023. Now, he said, it pays the recruiting agency Smasco to run worker-assistance centers. Three Kenyan women spoke to The Times from inside a Smasco center. The women, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that they could not go home unless they paid about $400. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

>People should not have been surprised. The leaders of Kenya and Uganda had ample warning of abuse, yet they signed agreements with Saudi Arabia that lacked protections that other leaders demanded.

>The Philippines deal in 2012, for example, guaranteed a $400 monthly minimum wage, access to bank accounts and a promise that workers’ passports would not be confiscated. Kenya initially demanded similar wages, according to a government report, but when Saudi Arabia balked, Kenya agreed to a deal in 2015 with no minimum wage at all.

>Mr. Mohamed, the Kenyan president’s spokesman, said that the government later negotiated $225 monthly wages. He said Kenyan workers were simply not as highly regarded in Saudi Arabia. “Philippines is able to dictate the price,” he said.

>In 2021, a Kenyan Senate committee found “deteriorating conditions” in Saudi Arabia and an “increase in distress calls by those alleging torture and mistreatment.” The committee recommended suspending worker transfers. When Mr. Ruto was elected president in 2022, though, the campaign to send workers abroad intensified. His government reached a new Saudi labor agreement the following year without a wage increase or substantive new protections.

https://archive.is/u3Dea

Over 1,000 Were Killed in Attack on Famine-Stricken Camp in Sudan, U.N. Says

Paramilitaries in Sudan killed over 1,000 people, one-third of them in summary executions, in an attack in April against a famine-stricken camp for displaced people, the United Nations human rights body said on Thursday.

The revised toll was over three times as great as earlier estimates from one of the most notorious episodes of Sudan’s atrocity-filled civil war.

The slaughter occurred over three days in April in the western region of Darfur as R.S.F. fighters seized control of the sprawling Zamzam camp, the largest in Sudan. At the time, about 500,000 people were estimated to live in the camp.

Most residents fled. In the report published on Thursday, the United Nations said its investigators had since documented the killing of 1,013 people, 319 of whom were summarily executed. In one incident, fighters killed the entire staff of the largest medical clinic in the camp. They also set homes on fire and carried out widespread sexual violence.

The United Nations said in its report that it had documented 104 cases of sexual assault — against 75 women, 26 girls and three boys, mostly from the Zaghawa ethnic group.

The United Arab Emirates has ramped up its support for the R.S.F. even as it has repeatedly denied providing any assistance to the group, according to Western officials and analysts who follow the crisis. At the same time, Emirati officials are stepping up efforts to present themselves as peace brokers in Sudan, meeting and posing for photos with the same American, European and United Nations officials who have decried R.S.F. atrocities.

Advanced Chinese-made drones, most likely supplied by the Emirates, are playing a significant role in those gains, Western officials and military analysts say.

https://archive.is/Sj1Y3

Escape From the Abyss: Surviving the Atrocities in El Fasher

>Only days before El Fasher fell to the R.S.F., Manahil Ishaq, 35, sent her 14-year-old son, Rami, out to look for some food. Rami was not gone long before he was critically wounded in an explosion, his mother said. Neighbors brought him back to the family home.

>“He couldn’t speak or say anything,” Ms. Ishaq recalled. “His belly was out and his bones were fractured.”

>As more fighting erupted, Ms. Ishaq, who was three months pregnant at the time, prepared to flee. Rami was still alive, she said, but she knew he would not survive his wounds.

>“I told him that I wished him forgiveness and well-being, in this life and the hereafter,” she recalled telling him.

>Then she left.

The capture of the city of El Fasher in late October marked a bloody milestone in the nearly three-year conflict in Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group battling the Sudanese Army in a catastrophic civil war, took control of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan, handing the R.S.F. almost total control of the region.

As it tore through the city, the R.S.F. embarked on a killing spree. Aid groups reported widespread accounts of rape and sexual violence.

The United Nations’ migration agency estimates that 100,000 people have fled El Fasher since its collapse. That would leave more than 150,000 people still unaccounted for.

No one knows the true toll of the massacre, and the city remains closed to the outside world, although some aid has started to reach other parts of Darfur. One of the few ways to report on the siege is by traveling to refugee camps in eastern Chad, now home to about 900,000 displaced Sudanese from Darfur and other parts of the country.

While sitting outside the dusty, rundown hospital of Oure Cassoni refugee camp in eastern Chad, Ms. Ishaq said her brother was killed as the family fled. Ms. Ishaq said she was shot in the back by a sniper.

Miraculously, the baby she is carrying survived, and she reached the camp with her other children.

Adjusting to the harsh conditions of the camp has not offered her much relief. Oure Cassoni is one of the most remote camps in Chad. It was founded by the government of Chad in 2004, when tens of thousands of people fled Darfur to escape mass killings led by the Janjaweed, the militia that became the precursor to the Rapid Support Forces.

The camp has doubled in size over the past year, but support from Chad and international aid have not kept pace with its needs.

Mustafa said he and four of his friends, all in their late teens and twenties, knew they had to leave El Fasher.

He recalled watching four members of his neighbor’s family be executed by R.S.F. fighters as the group took over the city. He requested that only his first name be used for fear of his safety.

Mustafa and his friends made a plan to leave under cover of darkness. But they did not get far before they were captured by R.S.F. troops near the village of Qarni, he said. He and his friends were lined up and questioned.

Two of his friends asked for food and water. Instead, their captors shot and killed them, Mustafa said.

“We were frightened,” he said. “They told us, ‘Calm down, we are not going to kill you.’”

He and his friends were tied to a tree and left there for two days until local villagers untied them and told them to run. Three survived and made it to the camp. Mustafa stayed in Oure Cassoni. His two friends went on to Libya.

Hussam Altaher grimaced as doctors at the small hospital in Oure Cassoni cleaned the wound on his leg. While sitting at home with his father and cousins in El Fasher in late August, Mr. Altaher suddenly heard a drone overhead.

“I recognized it because we had heard the sound many times before. Moments later, the bomb fell directly on our house,” he said. His father and cousins were killed instantly, and Mr. Altaher was badly injured.

He spent the next two months in Al Saudi maternity hospital, the last functioning hospital in El Fasher. Doctors struggled to give him proper care because they lacked basic medicine.

Mr. Altaher was still unable to walk by the time El Fasher fell to the paramilitary group. His mother, who had been by his side at the hospital, secured a donkey cart to help them escape on Oct. 26.

‘’’Two days later, more than 400 patients were reportedly massacred at Al Saudi by R.S.F. troops, according to the World Health Organization.’’’

Mr. Altaher and his mother were detained by R.S.F. fighters as they fled. “They demanded 20 million Sudanese pounds to let us go,” he said.

Relatives outside of Sudan paid the steep ransom, roughly $5,600.

Before reaching permanent camps like Oure Cassoni, many Sudanese pass through Tine, a small border town about 100 miles south in Chad.

Several hundred refugees gathered in Tine in late November. Among them were two young men: Ali Ishag, in a wheelchair, and his friend Yahia Rizig.

Mr. Ishag had lost a leg in an airstrike on his family home in El Fasher last year, he said. The same attack killed his entire family.

When it became clear that the city would fall, Mr. Ishag and Mr. Rizig looked for a way out. They decided to leave at night, only days before the city was captured.

“We’re like bats, have to move only at night. If they find you in the morning, they will cut you,” said Mr. Rizig, recalling their escape. Mr. Ishag was unable to walk quickly enough on crutches, so Mr. Rizig carried his friend out of the city on his back.

Having reached Chad, they planned to pass through Tine to a more permanent camp farther west. As a convoy of trucks prepared to depart, Mr. Rizig once again lifted his friend to embark on the next part of their journey away from Darfur.

https://archive.is/lJOet

Turkey says captured senior IS figure on Afghan-Pakistan border

Turkey's intelligence agency has conducted a major operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, capturing a Turkish national who held a senior role within the Islamic State group, state media reported on Monday.

The suspect was identified as Mehmet Goren, who allegedly served for the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) province, Anadolu news agency said, citing security sources.

Goren had been tasked with organising suicide attacks targeting civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Europe.

IS-K, the local branch of the IS group, has claimed responsibility for some of the worst attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond in recent years, many targeting civilians.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official said on Friday the country had captured a leader from an offshoot of IS, after the arrest was reported by a United Nations sanctions monitoring group.

Turkey has intensified intelligence and counterterrorism operations in recent years against IS networks operating both domestically and abroad, particularly those linked to the group's Khorasan affiliate.

Following intelligence-led tracking, Turkey's MIT identified Goren's location and apprehended him in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, Anadolu said.

He was subsequently brought to Turkey, it added.

Goren allegedly worked alongside Ozgur Altun, known by the code name "Abu Yasir Al Turki".

The latter was previously arrested, transferred to Turkey and jailed for facilitating the movement of militants from Turkey to the region.

https://www.newarab.com/news/turkey-says-captured-senior-figure-afghan-pakistan-border

Turkey Plans Drone Facility in Pakistan in Global Defense Push

Turkey plans to set up a facility in Pakistan to assemble combat drones, part of Ankara’s drive to boost its defense industry in international markets.

Talks over the project, which would see Turkey export stealth and long-endurance drones to be put together in Pakistan, have advanced significantly since October.

The discussions are part of Turkey’s efforts to grow its defense industry, a strategy that underpins President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions to strengthen his influence in the Middle East and further afield. The country has announced deals this year including an order by Indonesia for fighter planes and has plans to supply more arms to Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Turkey’s defense exports increased 30% in the first 11 months of this year to a record $7.5 billion, Haluk Gorgun, who heads the presidency’s defense-industry body, said on Thursday.

Turkey has long-standing ties with Pakistan and is building corvette warships for its navy under a co-production deal, according to both countries. Turkey has upgraded dozens of Pakistan’s F-16s and now wants Islamabad to join its Kaan fifth-generation fighter program, the people said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-05/turkey-plans-drone-facility-in-pakistan-in-global-defense-push
https://archive.ph/Khwyb

Turkey Strikes Major Oil and Gas Deals With Pakistan for 2026 Launch

Turkey and Pakistan have taken a major step toward deepening their energy partnership after Turkey’s state oil company TPAO signed a series of hydrocarbon exploration and production agreements with leading Pakistani energy firms. The deals, announced Tuesday by Turkey’s Energy Ministry, cover three offshore blocks in Pakistani territorial waters and two additional onshore fields.

Under the new arrangements, TPAO (Turkish Petroleum Corporation) will partner with Pakistani companies Mari Energy, Fatima, OGDCL, PPL, Prime, and GHPL to jointly explore for crude oil and natural gas. Turkey will operate one of the offshore blocks, while seismic survey vessels and drilling equipment are expected to arrive in Pakistan in 2026.

“Our aim is to start work in these fields within 2026,” Bayraktar said, noting that operations will include both seismic research and direct drilling. “We are extremely hopeful about the work here and confident these efforts will deliver concrete results for Türkiye–Pakistan cooperation.”

Bayraktar also emphasized broader plans to expand cooperation into mining. Turkey’s state-owned mining enterprises, including MTAIC and Eti Maden, are set to increase their activity in Pakistan, a country with significant untapped mineral potential.

https://oilprice.com/Company-News/Turkey-Strikes-Major-Oil-and-Gas-Deals-With-Pakistan-for-2026-Launch.html

good news anons, more and more people are falling in love with saudi arabia, yay.

Saudi Arabia surpasses 116m tourists in 2024, exceeds goal for 2nd year

Saudi Arabia welcomed 116 million tourists in 2024, exceeding its annual visitor target for the second year in a row, the official data showed.

According to the Ministry of Tourism’s latest annual statistical report, the figure includes 29.7 million inbound tourists, an 8 percent increase year on year, and 86.2 million domestic trips, up 5 percent from 2023.

The milestone reflects the continued acceleration of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 strategy, which positions tourism as a central driver of economic diversification.

After surpassing its original 100 million visitor goal six years ahead of schedule in 2023, Saudi Arabia has revised its ambitions upward, now aiming to attract 150 million tourists annually by 2030. This figure is split between 70 million international and 80 million domestic visitors.

Inbound tourism also reached a record monthly peak in March with 3.2 million visitors. The average international tourist stayed 19 nights and spent SR5,669 per trip.

A standout development in 2024 was the continued rise in non-religious tourism, now representing 59 percent of inbound visits compared to 44 percent in 2019.

Regional analysis revealed that Asia and the Pacific accounted for the largest share of inbound tourists, at 33 percent, followed by the Middle East and North Africa at 28 percent, and the Gulf Cooperation Council at 27 percent.

Europe contributed 8 percent, while both the Americas and Africa each made up 2 percent of total visitors.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2605395/business-economy

>>2613149
is Saudi Arabia AES?

>>2613162
The oil industry is state owned, actually.

>>2613162
It has islam so its AES enough

This article is excellent it has endless amounts of data to prove this. I feel some would get too butthurt to even read it but I hope one of you passerby people does. Bad empanada liked it btw. It has several other articles breaking this one down into pieces as well if you prefer that instead on this guy's sub stack.

https://tariqacknickulous.substack.com/p/no-jews-today-are-not-oppressed

>Jews Are NOT Oppressed: The Myth of Systemic Antisemitism

>Jews today are not a systemically oppressed group; they are extremely privileged. Antisemitism is not systemic oppression. This narrative only serves Zionism.

I hope someone eats it

>Israel has recognised Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an "independent and sovereign state," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, making Israel the first country to do so.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-recognises-somaliland-somalias-breakway-region-independent-state-2025-12-26/ .

Update

>>2613939
Islamophobic bigots for sure.

Russia reportedly mediating security pact between Israel and Syria with US approval

Russia is reportedly working behind the scenes, with US approval, to mediate a security agreement between Syria and Israel, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said on Wednesday.

This came as Saudi Arabia warned Israel that its continued incursions, attacks, and intervention in Syria is pushing away the prospect of a normalisation deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Kan quoted an Israeli security source as saying that Moscow and Damascus are working to restore and strengthen their relations. Russia previously provided critical military backing to the regime of deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad, and many Syrians still view it with suspicion.

However, in a sign of improving relations, Russia has recently deployed forces and military equipment in the Latakia region, having previously reduced its presence there after the December 2024 fall of the Assad regime.

The same source said that Moscow is seeking to redeploy Syrian army forces in southern Syria near the border with Israel, similar to the situation that prevailed before December 2024.

Israel has however said that the whole of southern Syria needs to be demilitarised. The same source said that Israel prefers allowing a Russian presence in the area rather than potential Turkish attempts to expand their influence there.

Turkey backed the opposition to the Assad regime during the civil war, and the new Syrian government continues to receive support from Ankara.

The Israeli YNet news website said on Wednesday that Syria will be among the topics US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to discuss when they meet at the end of this month in Mar-a-Lago.

>Saudi anger at Israel’s aggression

Trump is expected to press Netanyahu to give Sharaa “another chance” and reach a security deal. Since December 2024, Israel has carried out regular strikes and incursions into Syria, occupying territory beyond the Syrian Golan Heights, which it captured in 1967.

Kan also said that Saudi Arabia continues to harden its position regarding a potential normalisation agreement with Israel, making clear to the US that Israel’s behaviour in Syria is distancing the possibility of a Saudi-Israeli normalisation deal.

The Israeli broadcaster quoted an unnamed Saudi royal official as saying that in recent days Saudi Arabia has become convinced that “Israel does not want a stable state in Syria, but rather wants it divided.”

The official added that Riyadh believes Israel is not interested in peace but wants war, and that its behaviour toward Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank is undermining normalisation efforts—a message that has been conveyed to the US.

https://www.newarab.com/news/russia-mediating-security-pact-between-israel-syria-report

from newsanon's thread

‘No negotiation, no truce’ with RSF, says senior Sudan official

A senior official in Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) has ruled out any negotiations with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as fighting continues to devastate the country.

Speaking to ministers and state officials in Port Sudan, the eastern city where the government is based, he dismissed the narrative that the war is aimed at achieving “democracy”. Instead, he described the war as a “conflict over resources and a desire to change Sudan’s demographics” and emphasised an opportunity to strengthen national unity.

This comes days after Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris presented a plan to end the country’s nearly three-year war before the United Nations Security Council.

Consistent with the Sudanese army and the government’s position, the plan stipulates that RSF fighters must withdraw from vast areas of land that they have taken by force in the western and central parts of Sudan.

They would then have to be placed in camps and disarmed, before those who are not implicated in war crimes can be reintegrated into society.

The RSF has repeatedly rejected the idea of giving up territory, with Al-Basha Tibiq, a top adviser to commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, describing it as “closer to fantasy than to politics”.

>RSF reports gains

RSF fighters have continued to commit mass killings, systematic sexual violence, and the burying and burning of bodies in Darfur to cover up the evidence of war crimes over the past several months, according to international aid agencies working on the ground.

The RSF announced on Thursday that its forces established control over the Abu Qumra region in North Darfur.

Despite the mounting evidence of widespread atrocities committed in western Sudan, the RSF claimed that the primary duty of its fighters is to “protect civilians and end the presence of remnants of armed pockets and mercenary movements”.

The group also released footage of its armed fighters, who claimed they were making advances towards el-Obeid, a strategic city in North Kordofan state.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/25/no-negotiation-no-truce-with-rsf-says-senior-sudan-official

Pakistan army chief, Libya's Haftar pledge stronger military ties

Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir met with Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi on Wednesday to discuss enhancing relations and defence cooperation, Pakistan's military said in a statement on Thursday.

Munir met with the military commander, who heads a military force in Libya's east that rivals the Tripoli-based government, and his deputy and son, Saddam Khalifa Haftar, the army's media wing said.

"Both sides underscored the importance of collaboration in training, capacity building and counterterrorism domains," the statement continued.

It added that the Pakistani military chief emphasised his country's "commitment to strengthening defense ties with Libya, based on shared interests".

<literally why the fuck is pakistan doing this if it's supposedly allied with turkey and turkey supports the tripoli government
<what can pakistan possibly hope to gain from this?

https://www.newarab.com/news/pakistan-army-chief-libyas-haftar-pledge-greater-military-ties

>>2614073
well nevermind
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-strikes-4-billion-deal-sell-weapons-libyan-force-officials-say-2025-12-22/
>A copy of the deal before it was finalised that was seen by Reuters listed the purchase of 16 JF-17 fighter jets, a multi-role combat aircraft that has been jointly developed by Pakistan and China, and 12 Super Mushak trainer aircraft, used for basic pilot training.

am i just ignorant or kuwait seems very passive in comparison with the other gulf states?
i never heard them funding shit and chaos across mena like saudi, qatar and the uae.
i never even hear of extravagant vanity projects coming from them.

>>2614149
Kuwait is fullt commited to the grindset
No time for chit chat

courtesy of newsanon's thread

Southern separatists in Yemen report Saudi airstrikes near positions

A separatist group in southern Yemen that this month seized two oil-rich provinces has claimed that Saudi Arabia has fired warning airstrikes directed at its forces.

Videos issued on Friday by media linked to the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) showed airstrikes that it said were close to its positions in Wadi Nahab, Hadramaut province.

The strikes – which were not independently confirmed – would be the first military step by Saudi Arabia since it made a diplomatic appeal urging the separatist forces to relinquish newly captured Hadramaut and al-Mahra.

Amr al-Bidh, a foreign affairs special representative for the STC, said in a statement to the Associated Press that airstrikes came after its fighters in eastern Hadramaut were involved in ambushes that left two dead. Officials in Saudi Arabia have not so far commented.

The capture of the huge governorates of Hadramaut and al-Mahra, the province bordering Oman, occurred without much sign of resistance, as the Hadramaut forces retreated in the face of well-armed STC troops.

Since then, the Saudi-backed and UN-recognised elements in Yemen’s divided southern government have been trying to mount a political and diplomatic counteroffensive against “STC unilateralism”, arguing that there is no support across the south for the STC’s call for separation from the north.

European countries and Gulf states such as Kuwait and Qatar, as well as the Arab League secretary general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, have called for Yemen to remain a unified country – backing the Saudi position – but the US has said little so far.

The STC said the UN-recognised government had done little to take the battle to the Houthis, and that a separated, cohesive south would be a more effective bulwark against the Iranian-backed Houthis, and would be better equipped to protect the ports along Yemen’s southern coast.

There were demonstrations on Thursday in the south-western port city of Aden calling for the STC president, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, to declare independence, a step he is considering.

Most observers do not believe the STC could survive without UAE military and political endorsement. If the UAE does not, publicly or privately, withdraw its reassurances to back the STC, then the UAE and Saudi Arabia face a major confrontation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/26/southern-separatists-on-rise-in-yemen-report-saudi-airstrikes-near-positions

courtesy of newsanon's thread

Five people killed in firefight on Tajik-Afghan border, Tajikistan says

Heavily armed raiders from Afghanistan crossed into Tajikistan at the village of Kavo in the Shamsiddin Shokhin district on Tuesday and were located on Wednesday, according to a statement by the border agency published by Tajik news agency Khovar.

The agency said the incident was the third of its kind in recent weeks in which Tajik border guards and civilians were killed.

The border guards secured the weapons and ammunition used by the intruders, including grenades, three M-16 rifles, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, three foreign-made pistols with silencers, 10 hand grenades, a night-vision scope, explosives and other ammunition at the scene, the agency said.

The latest incident demonstrated “the Taliban government’s failure to fulfil their international obligations and repeated commitments to ensuring security and stability along the state border with the Republic of Tajikistan and to combating members of terrorist organisations, reflecting serious and recurring irresponsibility”, the statement added.

It agency said that it expected an apology from the Afghan leadership.

Drugs from Afghanistan are smuggled into Central Asia across the largely unsecured 1,340km (830-mile) border. Russian forces are stationed in Tajikistan and have in the past participated in joint exercises with Tajik forces to help secure the border.

>>2614570
Could u stop killing the thread w your spam?

>>2614607
I'm the OP of this thread. I initially created so I could post news pieces and articles tbh and I thought more ppl would contribute but it's mostly me so the thread is now largely a wall of text

Therefore I'd like some input from other anons as to whether they'd prefer I just post the title and lede or keep posting most of the article?

>>2614149
They have their share of chaos in Iraq, just not militarily but rather economically.

>>2614616
I like your post but yes, just post the title so that replies get a chance to be read.

>>2615157
pls elaborate

>>2615176
They pay pro-Iran cucks like hadi al amiri in order to delay critical projects so Iraq can never develop coastline ports and compete with it

>>2615233
Iran is good multipolar comrade though
Iraq follow Ameriqa

2026 Syria predictions?

>>2615233
do iraqi exports go through kuwait's port?

>>2615261
IraKKK follows America because Iranian cucks rule it and they have to bend over to uncle sam in order to smuggle hard currency
>>2615349
no but that's the plan

Protests spread across Iran for third day after currency hits record low

Protests and strikes in Iran over inflation and currency devaluation have spread from the capital, Tehran, to several other cities on a third day of unrest.

The protests began on Sunday after shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar staged a strike when the Iranian rial hit a record low against the US dollar on the open market.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqj2llkjv8vo

International Coalition forces will withdraw from Ain al-Asad base.
Deputy Commander of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, Qais Muhammadawi, issued a press statement regarding the withdrawal of the International Coalition to Fight ISIS from Iraq.

Kays Muhammedawi stated that 2025 was a successful year in terms of security and that the number of gangs had decreased.

Muhammedawi announced that the International Coalition forces will withdraw from the Ain al-Asad air base next week.

Kays Muhammedawi reported that 39 ISIS members were killed in operations carried out by warplanes, and noted that the rate of theft on the Iraqi border was close to zero.

Kays Muhammedawi added: “In the new year, the Ministry of Interior will be responsible for the security of the cities. Coordination with the Peshmerga forces continues for the protection and security of the Kurdistan Region.”

More than 2,000 US troops were stationed at the Ain al-Asad air base near Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The withdrawal of US troops, as officially announced, was expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Somalia hails oil drilling deal with Türkiye ahead of offshore operations in 2026

The presidents of the two countries announced on Tuesday that oil and gas exploration activities will begin next year following successful completion of surveys.

https://www.trtafrika.com/english/article/b1e65ab19b79

Türkiye begins construction of space port in Somalia: Minister

The port will serve the global commercial space market, generating revenue for Türkiye while contributing to Somalia’s economic development, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir says.

https://www.trtafrika.com/english/article/490ae367795f

>>2619965
The US already promised to never leave, and the Iranian cucks in power are happy about it.

This is just relocation.

This nothing burger news has been around since 2014.

Saudi Arabia and UAE bank on different military strengths in Yemen rivalry

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are leaning on their respective military strengths in Yemen should the situation between the Gulf allies turned foes escalate further.

On Tuesday, tensions between the two regional powers spiked dramatically when Saudi-led forces bombed the southern Yemeni port of al-Mukalla, targeting what Riyadh said was a UAE-linked weapons shipment destined for the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).

The STC, which has publicly supported Yemen's internationally recognised government against the Houthi rebels, launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops earlier this month, seeking an independent state in the south.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-uae-different-military-strengths-tensions-mount-yemen

I can’t wait for there to be a Maoist PPW to overthrow the Controlled Opposition U$/Zionist Puppet State Fascist Iranian Theocracy and create a Persian SSR (which will join the future Global USSR created by a World Maoist PPW in either the more likely Global Nuclear War Shining Path to Communism or the less likely Social Democratic/UBI/4th Industrial Revolution/AI/Multipolar Shining Path to Communism), which will include all of the ethnic Persian majority regions of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, while granting National Liberation/Self-Determination to the Oppressed Nations of South Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Arabistan, and Balochistan in their own Azeri SSR, Kurdish SSR, Arab SFSR, and Baloch SSR, respectively, as shown in my Map of the SSRs and SFSRs of the future Global USSR in West Asia in the Second Image I posted, ✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🚀☢️!

This is because the entire “Axis of Resistance” of the “Islamic Republic of Iran”, “Hezbollah”, and “Hamas”, are Crypto-Zionist Controlled Opposition to U$ Imperialism and the Zionist State that promote Fascist Islamist Theocracy and Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict which has divided the Arab Nation, along with collaborating in the Genocidal U$ Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with the latter overthrowing the great Leftist Arab Nationalist Baathist leader Saddam Hussein who sought to unite the Arab Nation into one country stretching from Morocco to Mesopotamia and from Syria to Sudan (The Arab SFSR that includes all of the ethnic Arab majority regions of West Asia and North Africa that is shown in my World Map of all of the SSRs and SFSRs of the future Global USSR in the first Image I posted), which caused the U$ and Zionist State to use the Mossad Mullah Iranian Theocracy as a proxy to wage War against Baathist Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, which contrary to the lies spread by Anti-Arab Bourgeois Zionist Historians, was a defensive War launched by Saddam Hussein to save Baathist Iraq from Shia Islamist Terrorism and to liberate the Oppressed Nation of Arabistan from Crypto-Zionist Anti-Arab Shia Islamist Theocratic Persian Fascism, with Baathist Iraq being a Socialist-leaning State backed by the USSR and Maoist China, while the Mossad Mullah Fascist Iranian Shia Islamist Theocracy was backed by the U$ and the Zionist State during Iran Contra (Spare parts to keep Iranian F-14s flying were shipped in from Tel Aviv using money from generated by the Anti-Communist Contras Crack trade that was also used to create the Fascist/Classist/Racist “War on Drugs” to incarcerate millions of New Afrikans while stopping Communist Revolution in Latin America), while Hamas was created by Mossad both to destroy Leftist Palestinian groups such as the Maoist DFLP and the Marxist-Leninist PFLP and as a bogeyman to “justify” the Apartheid Zionist Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that prevents the creation of a Palestinian Arab State (that will eventually join the Arab SFSR of the future Global USSR created by a World Maoist PPW in either the more likely Global Nuclear War Shining Path to Communism or the less likely Social Democratic/UBI/4th Industrial Revolution/AI/Multipolar Shining Path to Communism) on the 1967 borders with 1:1 Land Swaps (Arab villages in the “Triangle” region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_(Israel) on the Jewish side of the 1967 borders will be exchanged for Jewish Settlements on the Arab side of the 1967 borders that are inside the “Seam Zone” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seam_Zone , so most Arabs and Jews that are in the “population transfer”, will not have to leave their homes, ✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🚀☢️!) as laid out in the Olmert/Lieberman Plans (The Mossad threw the Leftist Labor Zionist Ehud Olmert in prison on phony “Corruption” charges for presenting this Fair Two-State Solution to the Zionist-Palestinian Conflict, with Olmert being forcibly removed from power and replaced by the Genocidal Fascist Zionist Netanyahu who has ruled the Zionist State ever since) shown in the Maps in the Third Image I posted, with the October 7th attack being a Mossad False Flag designed to give a Casus Belli for the Zionist Genocide of Gaza (and to guarantee that the Christian Zionist Nationalist Fascist Republican Trump won the 2024 U$ Presidential Election, which the Biden/Harris administration ensured by supporting the Zionist Genocide of Gaza), just like the CIA/Mossad 9/11 False Flag attack provided the Casus Belli for the Genocidal U$ Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (and the cover up of the CIA/Mossad/MI6/GRU Project Hammer that destroyed the USSR in coordination with the Khrushchevite Social Fascist/Social Imperialist Capitalist Roader Revisionist clique that poisoned Stalin and seized power in 1953 and included Gorbachev and Yeltsin who staged the False Flag 1991 “Coup Attempt” that dissolved the USSR) and the 1999 FSB/GRU Moscow Apartment Bombing False Flag attack provided the Casus Belli for the Genocidal Russian Imperialist Invasion of Chechnya and put the Controlled Opposition U$/Zionist Puppet Putin in power, so with all of these facts in consideration I can’t wait for the fall of the Fascist Iranian Theocracy in a Communist Revolution, 😂🤣✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🚀☢️!

>>2592090
>allowing non-Muslim foreign residents with monthly earnings of 50,000 riyals ($13,300) or more to make purchases
What is the explanation for the income to be the criteria?

>>2620363
don't want foreign workers to feel human

>>2620365
Makes sense.

'The resistance of the Alawites could pave the way for a democratic future in Syria'
Attacks against the Alawite community in Syria have reached massacre proportions. Massacres, kidnappings, village raids, and forced displacement in Homs, Latakia, Tartus, and surrounding areas have completely eliminated the safety and security of the Alawite people.

Researcher and author Aziz Tunç stated that the events in Syria are not isolated attacks, but the result of a planned and systematic policy of annihilation.

Tunç stated that attacks against Alawites have increased with the collapse of the Assad regime and the rise of radical jihadist groups to power in Damascus, emphasizing that the recent attacks have entered a new phase with the organization of both the interim Damascus government and radical groups.

Tunç pointed out that these attacks have taken on the direct character of genocide since March, and said that the messages given to the international community that "the attacks have been limited or prevented" do not reflect the truth.

Tunç stated, “Attacks against Alevis never stopped. Homes were raided and looted one by one; women and children were abducted, and people were murdered in the streets. Throughout this process, villages were plundered, and Alevis were forced to live in a constant climate of fear.”

<'ALEVI ORGANIZATION WAS BORN OUT OF NECESSITY'
Tunç emphasized that Alevis have no option but to resist in the face of this situation, noting that the reactions developing in Europe, Türkiye, and Kurdistan have also influenced the resistance on the ground. He underlined that the struggle waged by the Kurdish autonomous structure in Rojava and the Druze community is an important source of morale and experience for Alevis, saying, “The Druze are resisting, and the Kurds are supporting them. The Kurds are providing morale through their resistance and example of struggle. Alevis didn't resist for a while, but this void was noticed. Alevis reorganized themselves. The process, which began with a five-day strike, demonstrated the will of the people despite all the pressure.”

Tunç stated that the Alevi resistance was not limited to street protests; it also encompassed a process of organization, solidarity, and clarifying political demands within the Alevi community itself.

<'THE DEMAND FOR FEDERATION AND DECENTRALIZATION IS LEGITIMATE.'
Tunç stated that one of the most important outcomes of the resistance was the clarification of political demands, noting that Alevis would no longer accept a centralized Syrian government and that the demand for a decentralized system would have positive results for the entire country.

Aziz Tunç continued: “The Druze want a federation, the Kurds want a federation. The Alawites are now openly expressing this demand as well. This is a historic step that will prevent the establishment of a radical jihadist dictatorship in Syria. This demand is not only for the Alawites, but it signifies a democratic future for all the peoples of Syria. A federative structure will strengthen the coexistence of peoples.”

Tunç stated that the resistance developed by the Alevis would affect not only the internal balance of power in Syria but also regional and international policies, pointing out that ISIS and similar structures have no social support in Syria and that these groups are kept alive by external support.

Tunç stated that the rise to power of radical groups like ISIS and those with similar mindsets would not change the reality on the ground, and added the following:

“Today in Syria, Arabs, Kurds, Druze, and other diverse peoples and faiths do not support these structures. With the resistance of the Alawites, the social foundation of these structures has completely collapsed. International actors can no longer ignore the resistance shown by the Alawite community. America, European countries, Russia, and regional actors will have to re-evaluate their policies regarding Syria in light of this new reality.”

<'THIS RESISTANCE SHOULD NOT BE EVALUATED SOLELY AS A STRUGGLE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE ALEVIS.'
Tunç emphasized that the resistance of the Alevis is a dynamic that could pave the way for a democratic future in Syria, and said the following:

“This resistance cannot be seen merely as a struggle for the existence of the Alevis. This is a struggle for a democratic Syria; for a future where peoples will live equally and freely. When this happens, not only Syria but the entire region will change.”

Countries like Europe, America, Israel, and Russia de facto recognize HTS as a legitimate government; however, it will become clear that this approach is not permanent. It is also understood that they do not place much trust in this and do not attribute long-term legitimacy to HTS. It is known that HTS and its leadership do not have any social support among the people in Syria. It is also a known fact that HTS survives thanks to the power and support of the Turkish state.

Seeing this, other actor states will likely distance themselves from their relations with HTS due to the impact of the resistance shown by the Alawites. They may distance themselves from HTS, taking into account the Alawite resistance and the stance of the Druze and Kurds. At the same time, they may pressure HTS to consider the demands of the Alawites, Kurds, and Druze.

Under these circumstances, the demand for a democratic federation in Syria could become a reality that HTS must accept, and a development in that direction could occur. If this does not happen and the attacks continue with their intensity, this will further limit HTS's chances of coming to power. These attacks cannot save HTS; they cannot save Ahmed al-Shara, nor can they save the Turkish state.

If international powers, at the level of international relations, take a stance that supports HTS's attacks against Alawites, this will not save HTS. It cannot suppress the Alawite resistance; it cannot suppress the resistance of the Kurds and the Druze. In this case, the formation of a democratic Syria will only be prolonged, and the process will become somewhat more difficult. However, it is highly likely that international powers will see and take into account the Alawite resistance. Based on this, they may reconsider and change their support for HTS in Syria.”

Tunç emphasized that the resistance shown by the Alevis could have consequences that extend beyond Syria, and called on all democratic public opinion and Alevis living in Europe and Türkiye to support this resistance.

The area around Aleppo Citadel was bombed by an unidentified aircraft.
The area surrounding the Aleppo Citadel in Aleppo, Syria, was targeted by an unidentified aircraft. While no information about the attack has been released so far, images show that the attack caused a large explosion around the citadel.

Sources in the region reported that the effects of the explosion were felt over a wide area.

from newsanon's thread

Several killed as Iran protests over rising cost of living spread

At least six people have been killed as demonstrations over the soaring cost of living in Iran spread to more parts of the country.
At least three people were killed and 17 others were injured at protests in the city of Azna in Lorestan province, some 300km (185 miles) southwest of Tehran, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported on Thursday.
Earlier, Fars said two people were killed during protests in the city of Lordegan, about 470km (290 miles) south of the capital Tehran in the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
“Some protesters began throwing stones at the city’s administrative buildings, including the provincial governor’s office, the mosque, the Martyrs’ Foundation, the town hall and banks,” Fars said, adding that police responded with tear gas.
Earlier on Thursday, Iranian state television also reported that a member of security forces was killed overnight during protests in the western city of Kouhdasht.
The reports come days after shopkeepers began protesting on Sunday over the government’s handling of a currency slide and rapidly rising prices.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi explained that the government has taken a more cautious approach to this week’s protests than it did to previous demonstrations.
The latest protests began peacefully in Tehran and spread after students from at least 10 universities joined in on Tuesday.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has sought to calm tensions, acknowledging protesters’ “legitimate demands” and calling on the government to take action to improve the economic situation.
Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Thursday the authorities would hold a direct dialogue with representatives of trade unions and merchants, without providing details.
Meanwhile, the Tasnim news agency on Wednesday evening reported the arrests of seven people it described as being affiliated with “groups hostile to the Islamic Republic based in the United States and Europe”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/1/several-killed-as-iran-protests-over-rising-cost-of-living-spread