Who's behind the mysterious 'Iran-backed terror cell' haunting Europe?

Wyatt Reed | The Gray zone

Claims that an Iran-backed group is carrying out attacks in European cities raise questions about why they're not targeting countries directly involved in the US-Israeli war, and why they appear to communicate like Israelis. Strangely, suspects arrested in the attacks have been released on bail.

A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of Ashab al-Yamin. Officially known as "Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI)," or the "Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right," the group mysteriously appeared in early March, and, according to mainstream media, it's taking the continent by storm.

But a closer look at the supposedly Iran-backed terror organization suggests that it does not exist in any concrete form, and may be a confection of Israeli intelligence.

Though the nebulous HAYI claimed credit for torching ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization in London on March 23, two suspects in the attack have been released on bail, and are not charged with any terror-related crimes. What's more, London Metropolitan Police have so far refused to release the men's names, raising questions about their identities. Were they even Muslim?

HAYI's first public mention in the West came on March 9, when the previously non-existent organization released a video showing an explosive device detonating outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, alongside a statement taking credit for the attack. Within hours, the group had somehow been identified by the "SITE Intelligence Group," an Israeli-led private intelligence firm founded in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to cash in on the newly-minted Global War on Terror.

The materials HAYI published were promptly circulated on social media by Joe Truzman, a self-described "Senior Research analyst examining Palestinian armed groups and Iranian proxy organizations" at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative DC-based think tank founded in 2001 with the stated goal of working to "enhance Israel's image." As The Grayzone reported, the Trump White House plagiarized its public justification for attacking Iran word-for-word from an FDD paper.

Though Truzman declined to state where he'd found the materials, he wrote that "Telegram channels linked to the Axis of Resistance... widely disseminated the publications," using a reference to a variety of resistance factions sympathetic to Iran and Palestine throughout the greater Middle East. The group he linked to, a popular Telegram channel called Sabereen News, made it clear they were reposting the video, which they said was the work of a group calling themselves "the companions."

Almost immediately, Truzman began asserting that these "companions" were all but guaranteed to be a Tehran-linked cutout. For starters, he told British media, "their logo with the wording is a sign of a classic Iranian front organization." And Iran had already threatened to carry out just such a wave of attacks, Truzman claimed. After all, he wrote, "On March 8, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's deputy-foreign minister, warned that if a European country joined the US and Israel in the current war against the Islamic Republic, it would be a 'legitimate' target 'for Iranian retaliation.'"

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Barbaria strategically surrenders. Civilization wins. For now

Pepe Escobar | Strategic Culture Foundation

This was always about Civilization.

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." History will register it with a gaze as pitiless as the Sun. An astonishing barbarian imprimatur, courtesy of the President of the United States, via a social media post.

In a nutshell, this was a trashy "civilization" that gave the world the Big Mac threatening to wipe out an ancient civilization that gave the world algebra; influenced art, science, governance in unparalleled ways; produced stars from Cyrus the Great to Avicenna, from Omar Khayyam to poet supreme Jalaladdin Rumi; developed serial, sublime gardens, carpets, architectural wonders and philosophical and ethical frameworks.

Crucially, there was not a single peep about this Barbaria outburst from the political leadership of the entire "civilized" collective West, not even feigning outrage, once again proving their absolute, irreversible moral and political bankruptcy.

Iranians answered Barbaria in kind. Over 14 million people registered to form human walls around their power stations all across the nation, simultaneously protecting their livelihood and confronting head on the firepower of the Epstein Syndicate.

As a hair-raising cliffhanger approached, the Baboon of Barbaria pivoted into - what else - TACO: the LEGO guys immortalized it.

There's absolutely no way that Pakistan could have offered "guarantees" to Iran that a ceasefire was the way for the war to eventually end. As confirmed by diplomatic sources, what really happened is that Beijing, at the 11th moment, placed itself as the guarantor, assuring Tehran that the US would accept at least some of Iran's demands included in its 10-point plan.

That was further confirmed by Iranian ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rhamani Fazili. The negotiations start this Friday in Islamabad.

POTUS, the Drooling Baboon of Barbaria, confronted with the inevitable, dire consequences of his own strategic blunder, used Pakistan for his off-ramp. That was confirmed by another epic blunder by the Pakistani Prime Minister himself: he forgot to remove the header of the tweet/X post drafted by the White House for him to publish.

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"Agents of Influence": How Netanyahu, through Trump's family circle, dragged America into war to save his own skin

Viktor Mikhin | New Eastern Outlook

The Resignation That Exposed the Mechanism of Betrayal of U.S. National Interests.

On March 19, 2026, an event occurred that, in a normal political system, should have caused an earthquake. Joe Kent, Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, resigned. But not for family reasons or due to "differences over strategic issues" — the euphemisms Washington typically uses to cover up the departure of those who have fallen out of favor. Kent stepped down with a public statement that reads like an indictment: "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran."

This is not just a resignation. It's the removal of a seal behind which lay the ugly truth about how foreign policy decisions are actually made in the United States. Kent, a veteran of special forces and the CIA, a man whose wife died in Syria while on duty, stated what Washington usually prefers to keep quiet: the Trump administration launched a war with Iran under pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby.

Iran did not pose an "imminent threat" to the United States. This was acknowledged by a man who, by virtue of his position, had access to the most classified information on terrorist threats. Yet America found itself drawn into a full-scale military conflict that has already cost the lives of American service members — at least 13 killed and about 200 wounded (at the time of this writing).

How did this become possible? The answer to this question leads straight to Jerusalem, to the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, who found a way to use the U.S. president as a tool to achieve his own political and personal goals.

The Puppeteers from the Family Circle: Trump's Sons-in-Law and "Mossad Agents"

For those still doubting how deeply Israeli influence has penetrated the highest offices of the White House, one need only look at Donald Trump's inner circle. At the center of decision-making are two of the president's sons-in-law — Jared Kushner and, according to some reports, his other son-in-law as well — who hold Israeli passports and, according to informed sources, maintain direct contact with Israeli intelligence agencies.

It was Kushner who, according to reports, played a key role in orchestrating deals and military decisions in Israel's interest. And this is not speculation: Netanyahu himself, in his memoir "Bibi: My Story," described how his close adviser Ron Dermer used "golf terminology" to communicate with Trump, finding common ground with him that was beyond the reach of professional diplomats. Trump, as experts note, is "hungry for flattery," and this weakness was masterfully exploited.

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Made in Israel: Trump White House plagiarized Iran war manifesto from Israel-aligned think tank

Wyatt Reed and Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone

The Trump White House plagiarized its justification for attacking Iran from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the main DC outfit promoting war with Tehran. The think tank was originally founded to "enhance Israel's image," and partners closely with the Israeli government.

The Trump Administration appeared to plagiarize its official justification for its war on Iran, copying almost word-for-word a document originally produced by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-war think tank with close ties to Israeli intelligence which was originally founded to "enhance Israel's image."

The FDD document was authored by Tzvi Kahn, the former assistant director for policy and government affairs at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

A March 2, 2026 statement issued by the White House accusing Tehran of 44 instances of terrorism against American citizens is "virtually identical" to the list published by FDD in June 2025, analyst Stephen McIntyre noted Thursday.

While the White House did make superficial alterations to the text, they largely consisted of appending the label "Iran-backed" to every mention of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. In the few instances where Trump administration officials bothered to make significant changes to the original FDD list, the edits were almost always made in service of "ratcheting up the underlying allegation," McIntyre concluded.

Among the most egregious examples was a 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which FDD originally said merely that Hezbollah al-Hejaz was "deemed responsible" for. In the White House version, however, the group's responsibility was "asserted as factual," explained McIntyre, noting that serious questions about the incident remain unanswered to this day. "Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry subsequently wondered (along with many others) whether Khobar Towers should have been attributed to Al Qaeda," he wrote.

A 2009 investigation by journalist Gareth Porter based on interviews with over a dozen former CIA, FBI and Clinton administration officials demonstrated that the FBI's inquiry into the Khobar Towers attack was precooked to blame Iran, when Al Qaeda was mostly like the culprit. Porter found that Shia citizens of Saudi Arabia had been tortured into confessing to the crime by Saudi secret police.

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Join The US Military - Kill And Die For Israel

Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities

President Trump's decision to join Israel in launching a regime-change war on Iran has so far cost the lives of at least 13 American service members. More than 200 have been wounded, dozens seriously enough to require evacuations to military hospitals in Europe and the United States. Among them are individuals who've suffered traumatic brain injuries, burns and shrapnel wounds. One was facing potential amputation of an arm or leg.

As much as these service members and their families are victims of Iran's justified retaliation for a surprise attack perpetrated amid ongoing negotiations, they're victims of a betrayal perpetrated by their president and the joint chiefs of staff, who cast them into an unconstitutional war of aggression, packaged in lies and initiated to advance the agenda of a foreign government, while undermining the security of their own country.

Of course, US casualties comprise a small subset of the total bloodshed. In executing this unjust war, Americans have collectively inflicted far more death and dismemberment than they've endured, teaming up with their Israeli counterparts to kill more than 3,000 Iranians, including some 150 schoolgirls — mostly between age 7 and 12 — whose school was destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles at the war's very start.

Though it should have already been apparent, Operation Epic Fury should make clear that — service members' good intentions aside — combat waged under the US flag rarely has anything to do with American security. Moreover — and I say this as former Army Reserve enlistee and Regular Army officer — anyone thinking of starting or extending a military career should understand that their government may send them to be killed, maimed or psychologically damaged, and to slaughter foreign innocents, so long as it helps those in power remain in the good graces of the extremists who rule Israel, and their powerful collaborators inside the United States.

A New Regime-Change War Built On False Premises

Under international law, a war of aggression is considered a supreme war crime unto itself, and Operation Epic Fury is precisely that. Like so many of America's wars before it, this one was launched on false premises. Contrary to the US-Israeli narrative...

Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. In 2007, the US intelligence community assessed that Iran halted any effort to develop a nuclear weapon in 2003. Since then, the intelligence community has periodically re-validated that conclusion, most recently in March 2025. Belying Trump's claim that the United States had only two weeks in which to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this week testified that Iran had made "no efforts" to rebuild its enrichment capacity after it was devastated by last summer's US bombing.

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Screw the Pooch, Betray the Base

Comment: Excellent article and well worth reading in full.

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Harrison Koehli | Political Ponerology

According to Gallup polling from last year, up to 45% of adult Americans identify as political independents. That's a plurality, as the remainder is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with 27% each. Forty-five percent is around 120 million adults, and that number has been growing for the past 20 years, driven largely by the younger generations. It's easy to see why. Neither party represents them.

Every four years, independents are put in the position of either throwing their vote away for a third-party candidate who will get at most 3% of the popular vote, or choosing what they see as the lesser of two evils. (In the last 50 years, only Ross Perot came close, winning 19% in 1992.)

That's not to say independents are a homogeneous group. Slightly more independents lean Democrat than Republican (20% vs. 15%), with a core 10% who explicitly reject both parties. Given the choice (and an electoral system that would support it), their votes might be split among a handful of parties, as is the case in most democracies. The end result is that the largest segment of the American voting population does not have consistent political representation, at least on the federal level.

That's not always the case, however. Independents may genuinely favor a particular candidate, despite his alignment with one of the parties. This was arguably the case with Donald Trump. As Bret Weinstein — a liberal Democrat who voted for him — described it recently on Tucker, Trump did the impossible: "he beat the duopoly, both sides of it, took over the Republican party, defeated the Democratic party soundly." He did that by dipping into the pool of independents and disaffected liberals like Weinstein. And he did that by presenting a platform that voters largely agreed with, e.g., no new wars, MAHA, unrigging elections, mass deportations, DOGE.

In the first year of his second term, he seems to have at least tried to follow through on many of these promises, despite obstruction from judges and the immobility of Congress. And even when his decisions were controversial among some of his base, such as last year's Iran strikes and January's kidnapping of an El Presidente, those operations were successful one-and-dones, over as soon as the news reached the homeland, with any ex-post-facto criticism just coming across as lame.

All of that seems to have changed with Operation Epic Fury. (And the only reason I say "seems" is because of the meme.) Regime-change war is back on the menu (but it's not a regime change war, in fact, it's not a war, it's an excursion to prevent a war, which might still turn into one, but it's war for peace) and the price of gas is no longer important. Within days, the White House was already caving on another central policy, mass deportations: "Don't mention them anymore." Along with the handling of the Epstein files, voters who aren't Catturd are notably pissed. For many, not going to war with Iran was the main reason they voted for Trump. Here's how Weinstein put it:

Now, I will say I'm very upset with President Trump at the moment. I feel personally burned as somebody who worked to get him elected. I did it for a reason and frankly if given the same choice today I would have to make the same vote, because I think what the Democratic party offered was anti-constitutional. We had a demented president who they pretended wasn't, and then we had somebody who hadn't won a primary installed by the party. This is not the consent of the governed. So I would have to vote for Trump again just because he's at least a qualified person who was the nominee of his party through a lawful process. But I'm angry at him because I voted for no new wars. And when I voted for no new wars, Iran was top of mind for me because I knew that it was on the agenda of the neocons. So I expected somebody to try to force this to happen.

This was Vance in 2024: "America doesn't have to constantly police every region of the world. Our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country."

When Trump said "no new wars" on the campaign trail, and when voters gave their support to that policy with their votes, they had precisely Iran in mind. The neocons have been blue-balled for decades over Iran. They have gotten practically every other country on their list: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Iran was the last one, probably because it was the biggest challenge. (Unless they really want to try Turkey after this.) Now the Lindsay Grahams and Mark Levins have their war — a war that never would have happened if Trump were president, I'm sure.

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The price of war on Iran: Washington’s mounting military and financial drain

Abbas al-Zein | The Cradle

The US-Israeli war on Iran has triggered one of the most dangerous escalations witnessed in West Asia in recent years. US military bases spread across the Persian Gulf region have increasingly come under direct missile and drone attack, marking a significant shift in the nature of regional warfare. 

While initial coverage concentrated on battlefield developments and the pace of aerial bombardment, the broader and more consequential cost of confrontation – both military and economic – has gradually begun to take shape.

Alongside reciprocal strikes, there are growing indications of rapid depletion in high‑value missile defense systems, extensive use of expensive strategic munitions, and rising operational strain across US forces. 

At the same time, global markets and energy supply chains have begun to respond to the expanding confrontation. These overlapping dynamics raise fundamental questions about the distribution of losses during the early phase of the war and about the long‑term trajectory of escalation.

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The US-Israeli murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

Eva Bartlett | RT

Graves being prepared for the victims, mostly children, of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on February 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, March 2, 2026. ©  Iranian Foreign Media Department via AP

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed 'Operation Epic Fury', attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters' murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children's desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child's shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media - only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting:

"These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how "rescue" promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood."

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

International reaction: Silence

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children's lives don't merit Western media outrage. Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC's report, which describes the massacre as a "reported" strike on a school, which "Iran has blamed the US and Israel" for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel's crimes. The US is "looking into reports." Israel is "not aware." Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing:

"Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: "the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control." The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist "moderates" east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no "Israel says."

CNN ran the headline "A girls' elementary school was hit in Iran. Here's what we know." Its video report not only doesn't mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel's claiming Gaza's Shifa hospital was a "Hamas base", and staging weapons as "proof"), CNN claims the children's school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN's report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as "proof" of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn't a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military's Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was "looking into reports of the incident," and the Israeli army as saying it was "not aware of any IDF operations in the area." Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized - if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

Since the February 28 Minab school massacre, US-Israeli strikes have attacked still more civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring more Iranian civilians.

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran's Enghelab Square he'd seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT's Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

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Tony Blair claims crisis in Gaza due to 'extremism' and 'corruption'

Imran Mulla | Middle East Eye

"Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), said ... Blair "has been a serial failure in Palestine ... He has scant understanding of the issues, a colonial mindset, [and] is addicted to cosying up to power and money, in this case Trump."

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Tony Blair blamed the crisis in Gaza on "extremism" and "corruption" in his speech on Thursday at the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" in Washington DC.

"For decades," the former British prime minister claimed, "Gaza's governance has been characterised by extremism, corruption, ineffective institutions and the complete absence of a route to prosperity for the Gazan people."

The Palestinian enclave has been under Israeli occupation for decades. 

Blair said Gaza has "vast potential" due to its "25 miles of Mediterranean coastline, proximity to great regional and global markets, and a young, dynamic population with a median age of 19".

He hailed the Board of Peace and said it would "rebuild Gaza for Gazans".

"Whether you're a Muslim, Jew, Christian, of any faith or none, you can rise by your own efforts and feel your government by your side, not on your back," Blair said.

"That is the vision behind President Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza, and it remains the best, indeed the only hope for Gaza, the region and the wider world."

Despite Blair's presence, Britain has not joined Trump's board, which has been boycotted by several European countries for inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to join it.

Significantly, Keir Starmer's Labour government has distanced itself from the former prime minister.

In November, when it was rumoured that Blair would be on the board, Jonathan Powell, Starmer's national security advisor and Blair's former chief of staff in Downing Street, said privately that Blair did not represent the British state.

Powell lobbied actively against Blair's nomination, according to two separate informed sources who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

'A colonial mindset'

Blair's comments at the meeting have drawn criticism, since he did not refer to Israel's role in his account of the situation in Gaza. 

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Journalist Tucker Carlson 'DETAINED' at Israeli airport

Phillip Nieto | The Daily Mail

Journalist 'dragged into interrogation room' as explosive interview sparks diplomatic firestorm

Conservative podcasting titan Tucker Carlson said he and his staff were detained in Israel on Wednesday following an interview with Donald Trump's ambassador to the country.

The former Fox News host flew into Tel Aviv for a sit-down with Mike Huckabee, who challenged Carlson to speak to him directly following an online spat about the country's treatment of Christians.

Carlson, who also frequently criticizes Israel for its military actions in Gaza, took Huckabee up on his offer.

But as critics and pro-Israel activists began piling on Carlson for purportedly not leaving the airport during his brief visit, he revealed that he was met with hostility in the Middle Eastern country.

Carlson exclusively told the Daily Mail that shortly after the interview, Israeli officials confiscated his passport and hauled one of his colleagues off to an interrogation room.

'Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about,' Carlson told the Daily Mail.

'It was bizarre. We're now out of the country.'

Prior to the interview, Carlson posted a photo on X of himself and his business partner, Neil Patel, in front of Ben Gurion airport on Wednesday with the caption: 'Greetings from Israel.'

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The Unelected Overlord: How Kushner Turned the White House into Israel’s Backroom Deal Den

21st Century Wire |  Freddie Ponton

"Trump did not walk into the White House alone. He stormed in with a promise to "drain the swamp," but trailing in his shadow was Jared Kushner, carrying a tangled web of private financial networks, offshore holdings, and foreign capital so deeply embedded it functioned like a quiet engine at the heart of the presidency. Years later, FBI documents released alongside the Epstein files crystallised the danger, with a Confidential Human Source (CHS) alleging that Trump had been compromised by Israel, and that Kushner was the true centre of gravity, orchestrating both the Trump Organisation and the White House from within.

This is not theatre. Intelligence reporting rarely accuses outright; it maps vulnerability, flags leverage, and exposes the invisible pathways through which foreign influence can seep into the corridors of American power, remaining unnoticed, unchallenged, and structurally unstoppable.

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Zero Hour approaching

Pepe Escobar | Strategic Culture Foundation

The hour is getting late. Virtually all pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.

Even as his "massive armada" is being deployed, neo-Caligula social posts/vociferates to Iran: "MAKE A DEAL" (originally in caps). That's maximum pressure in effect. Not even the possibility of negotiation. It's Capitulation or War.

Neo-Caligula's Top Three demands:

Iran should ditch its - civilian - nuclear program, as in total cessation of uranium enrichment.

Iran must reduce its missile program to a minimum.

Iran must stop supporting "proxy forces" - as in Hezbollah, Yemen's Ansarallah and Iraqi militias.

There's absolutely no way that Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC and the Majlis - the Iranian Parliament - will agree to any item on this ultimatum, dictated, of course, by the Zionist axis. Hence no capitulation.

Cue to Tehran dramatically raising the stakes.

The Majlis has already approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The final decision is in the hands of the Iranian government/security apparatus. This is in fact binding for the government and the military, de facto authorizing the IRGC, under full constitutional cover, to seal the Strait of Hormuz.

I've extensively written about that on Asia Times during the past decade. At the time, Goldman Sachs derivative experts were adamant: if Hormuz is blocked, before or during a full-scale naval war in the Gulf, oil may reach $700.00 a barrel.

And this will only be temporary - because the entire global economy will collapse.

Most of all, the blocking of Hormuz would trigger the detonation of the TWO QUADRILLION (caps mine) dollars derivative market - updating the initial, misleading calculation by the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), placed at $700 trillion. Over the years, several Gulf traders, off the record, have agreed with the "quadrillion" numbers.

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US operation in Venezuela a 'flagrant violation' of international law - Lavrov

RT

The US attack on Venezuela earlier this month in which President Nicolas Maduro was abducted was a blatant violation of international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a press conference after meeting with Namibian Foreign Minister Selma Ashipala-Musavyi, Lavrov stated that Moscow's assessment of the US operation in Caracas remains unchanged. He added that the condemnation is shared by the overwhelming "global majority," including the Global South and East.

"Only Western Europeans and other allies of Washington try to shamefully avoid the principled assessments, although everybody understands that we're talking about a flagrant violation of international law," the foreign minister said.

Speaking at the UN Security Council last week, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia described Maduro's abduction as "a cynical crime that cannot be justified." Chinese envoy Sun Lei also condemned the US, saying the military intervention in Venezuela threatens peace and security in the region.

The US military launched an attack against the oil-rich country on January 3, abducting Maduro and his wife. They were taken to a US warship and later flown to New York, where they appeared in court last week on charges of drug-trafficking conspiracy. Both pleaded not guilty.

After the kidnapping, US President Donald Trump said Washington would "run" Venezuela while cooperating with officials in Caracas until a transition is achieved. He stressed that the US needs "total access... to the oil and to other things in their country."

Days later, Trump announced that Venezuela's interim authorities would "turn over" 30 to 50 million barrels of "sanctioned oil" to be sold and "used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States."

Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, a close ally of Maduro, said neither the US nor any other "foreign agent" will control Venezuela. Rodriguez signaled openness to "cooperation" with the US, but vowed that her country "will never return to being the colony of another empire."

Behind The DoJ's Politicized Indictment of Maduro: a CIA-created 'Network' And Coerced Star Witness

 Max Blumenthal | The Gray Zone

The US Department of Justice indictment of Venezuela’s kidnapped leader, Nicolas Maduro, is a political rant that relies heavily on coerced testimony from an unreliable witness. Despite DOJ edits, it could expose more Americans to the CIA’s own history of drug trafficking.

The January 3 US military raid on Venezuela to kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores was followed by the Department of Justice’s release of its superseding indictment of the two abductees as well as their son, Nicolasito Maduro, and two close political allies: former Minister of Justice Ramon Chacin and ex-Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello. The DOJ has also thrown Tren De Aragua (TDA) cartel leader Hector “Niño” Guerrero into the mix of defendants, situating him at the heart of its narrative.

The indictment amounts to a 25 page rant accusing Maduro and Flores of a conspiracy to traffic “thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,” relying heavily on testimony from coerced witnesses about alleged shipments that largely took place outside US jurisdiction. It accuses Maduro of “having partnered with narco-terrorists” like TDA, ignoring a recent US intelligence assessment that concluded he had no control over the Venezuelan gang. Finally, the prosecutors stacked the indictment by charging Maduro with “possession of machine guns,” a laughable offense which could easily be applied to hundreds of thousands of gun-loving Americans under an antiquated 1934 law.

DOJ prosecutors carefully avoid precise data on Venezuelan cocaine exports to the US. At one point, they describe “tons” of cocaine; at another, they refer to the shipment of “thousands of tons,” an astronomical figure that could hypothetically generate hundreds of billions in revenue. At no point did they mention fentanyl, the drug responsible for the overdose deaths of close to 50,000 Americans in 2024. In fact, the DEA National Drug Threat Assessment issued under Trump’s watch this year scarcely mentioned Venezuela.

By resorting to vague, deliberately expansive language larded with subjective terms like “corrupt” and “terrorism,” the DOJ has constructed a political narrative against Maduro in place of a concrete legal case. While repeatedly referring to Maduro as the “de facto… illegitimate ruler of the country,” the DOJ fails to demonstrate that he is de jure illegitimate under Venezuelan law, and will therefore be unable to bypass established international legal precedent granting immunity to heads of state.

Further, the indictment relies on transparently unreliable, coerced witnesses like Hugo “Pollo” Carvajal, a former Venezuelan general who has cut a secret plea deal to reduce his sentence for drug trafficking by supplying dirt on Maduro. Carvajal was said to be a key figure in the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” drug network which the DOJ claims was run by Maduro. If and when he appears to testify against the abducted Venezuelan leader, the American public could learn that the “cartel” was founded not by the deposed Venezuelan president or one of his allies, but by the CIA to traffic drugs into US cities.

As sloppy and politicized as the DOJ’s indictment might be, it has enabled Trump to frame his lawless “Monroe Doctrine” as an aggressive policy of legal enforcement, emboldening the US president to levy further threats to abduct or bump off heads of state who stand in the way of his resource rampage. This appears to be the real purpose of the imperial courtroom spectacle to come.

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Five takeaways from the US' "special military operation" in Venezuela

Andrew Korybko

It was astoundingly successful and will likely serve to coerce the rest of the hemisphere into strategically capitulating to the US.

The US launched a half-hour-long "special military operation" in Venezuela on Saturday morning that culminated in Delta Force's capture of President Nicolas Maduro. Several military sites were bombed, US helicopters flew freely over Caracas in a surreal display of the US' aerial supremacy, and there were reportedly no US casualties. The US' "special military operation" was therefore an astounding success regardless of one's personal opinions about its merits. Here are five takeaways from this event:

1. The US' Grand Strategic Goal Is To Build "Fortress America"

It was assessed here that the National Security Strategy's prioritization of the Western Hemisphere is all about building "Fortress America", which refers to the restoration of the US' hegemony over the Americas in order for it to survive and even thrive if it loses control of the Eastern Hemisphere. It might not happen right away, but the US' "special military operation" will likely result in it obtaining control over Venezuela's oil reserves, the world's largest. That would help make "Fortress America" a reality.

2. Maduro Should Have Taken Trump's Deal In Hindsight

Trump earlier claimed that Maduro had "offered everything" to the US when asked about a report that the Venezuelan leader agreed to let American companies take control of his country's resources. The only sticking point appeared to be Maduro's political fate, with Trump wanting him to go into exile likely at the urging of Marco Rubio (his powerful Secretary of State and National Security Advisor), while Maduro seemingly refused. He should have taken Trump's deal in hindsight to avoid this humiliating end.

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U.S. strikes Venezuela and captures Maduro; Trump says "we're going to run the country" for now

Comment: Nothing to do with drug trafficking which the CIA has been involved in for decades. It's all about the oil. Trump has joined the same Zio-Con playbook as his predecessors. 

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CBS News

• President Trump said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were "captured and flown out of the Country" early Saturday morning, confirming a "large scale strike" by the U.S. that drew quick condemnation and concern from across the globe.
• Mr. Trump said in a press conference that the U.S. will "run" Venezuela on a temporary basis.
• The U.S. Army's Delta Force, an elite special forces unit, carried out the operation to capture Maduro, officials told CBS News.
• A Republican senator said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had indicated that Maduro would face criminal charges in the U.S., where he was indicted years ago, and that Rubio "anticipates no further action in Venezuela." The Trump administration has long accused Maduro of drug trafficking and working with gangs designated as terrorist organizations, which Maduro denies.
• The strikes follow months of U.S. military buildup in the region, with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and numerous other warships positioned in the Caribbean.
• In recent weeks, the U.S. has seized two oil tankers off Venezuela, launched deadly strikes on more than 30 boats the administration says were carrying drugs, and struck what President Trump called "the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs."

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