Reader’s Links for July 26th, 2024

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Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

For those interested, please check out https://vladtepesblog.substack.com/ as an another avenue of expression.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

33 Replies to “Reader’s Links for July 26th, 2024”

  1. ‘Massive’ sabotage acts hit Paris trains ahead of Olympics
    Fires were set off at several rail-line nodes, with people seen fleeing the sites in vans
    https://www.luxtimes.lu/europeanunion/massive-sabotage-acts-hit-paris-trains-ahead-of-olympics/16661093.html
    [..]
    Fires were set off at several rail-line nodes, with people seen fleeing the sites in vans, Jean-Pierre Farandou, the head of the national rail company SNCF, said on BFM TV, adding that the company will have to repair its network cable by cable. About 800,000 passengers will be affected by the attack, he said.
    The disruptions come amid heightened security across Paris, with tens of thousands of police deployed to secure the Games. In preparation, large sections of the city have been cordoned off, with Olympic sites, train stations, tourist landmarks guarded by gun-toting officers, including counter-terrorism units and the military.
    [..]
    Farandou suggested the attacks were aimed at disrupting the traditional vacation period in France.
    They were timed for the “day of big departures,” when a large number of French leave, he said.
    “It’s the French that were attacked,” Farandou said.
    [..]

    France’s high-speed train network TGV disrupted due to ‘sabotage’
    https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240726_24/
    The national railway operator said on Friday that lines of the TGV network connecting Paris with the country’s northern and eastern regions became the victim of “several acts of malicious damage” overnight.
    Eurostar, a high-speed train network linking the European continent and Britain, is also affected and many services have been canceled.
    The operator also says arson attacks were carried out to damage its facilities and cables have been cut.
    It adds that teams “are already on site to diagnose the problem and begin repairs” but “this situation is expected to last at least through the weekend while repairs are carried out.”
    [..]

    France’s train network hit by “massive and serious” sabotage just ahead of Olympics, officials say
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/frances-high-speed-train-system-hit-by-sabotage-just-ahead-of-olympics-operator-says/
    [..]
    Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said on local television that incendiary devices had been discovered, The Associated Press reported.
    “Everything indicates these are criminal fires,” he said.
    SNFC chief executive Jean-Pierre Farandou said the fires targeted intersections of train tracks and thus doubled their impact, according to the AP.
    It was “a premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack” that indicates “a desire to seriously harm” the French people, he said.
    [..]

    Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics
    https://apnews.com/article/france-trains-olympics-74c9727d33ac86bfc126f98e45cb874f

    Precautions Failed to Halt Rail Sabotage
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/world/olympics/olympics-paris-train-arson.html

    • Frankly, I have absolutely 0 empathy for anything or anyone to do anything with The Olympics.

      It is the most fascistic organization that operates in a very oppressive manner – and is not just tolerated, but downright celebrated.

      If you have a small or, really, anything other than a supra-national megaCorp, and The Olympics come to your town, you will be prevented from working, operating, earning a business. Like COVID closedowns, but on steroids…

      And people who participate are celebrated! Oh, this person competed at THE OLYMPICS! What a wonderful person that is!

      No, they are not.

      Everyone and anyone who takes part in THE OLYMPICS should earn our contempt.

      Especially the athletes, who make it possible.

      The second time I had been asked to represent Canada at THE OLYMPICS, it was for the Judo team: and no, I had not earned a high enough belt by this time to qualify, but Judo Canada offered to just promote me to a black belt without the necessary pre-requisites, if I only agreed to represent join the Olympic team.

      Yes, the whole thing is corrupt and rotten to the core and the athletes who prostitute themselves to it ought to be ostracized and shamed. They know this is corruption, yet they pretend it is about ‘training’ and athletic performance and excellence in their sport.

      No, it isn’t.

      It is about corruption.

      Take this from a former athlete who had been scouted, courted then bullied into joining Canada’s Olympic team: first for women’s weight lifting, then 4 years later, for the Judo team.

      Of course I refused, but it also meant I left those sports because calling out the corruption and refusing to be a part of it had a bit of a fall-out…of course, more factors, but this was a biggie.

      So, no, I have absolutely zero empathy when bad things happen to THE OLYMPICS.

      Yes, of course, I understand the saboteurs don’t know this and are simply attacking a symbol of our civilization.

      But, we ought to recognize that THE OLYMPICS is a manifestation of the worst form of corruption of our society and, frankly, a test-run to see just how far we are willing to compromise our core priciples if they just provide us with ‘games’.

      And, shame on us – it is working!

      • Your remarks are interesting to me because of what I have seen in local sports. I saw how the waterski shows in Ontario were dominated by a certain psychopathic athlete. Lots of people knew what he was. He should have been kicked off the team but instead he was doing volunteer work at a waterski club to promote the sport. He ruined the club. People who joined to have fun left the club because of him. I guess promoting boat sales is more important than public safety?

  2. “Kamala Harris Blasts Israel For ‘Human Suffering’ In Gaza After Meeting Netanyahu” by Joel B. Pollak – July 25, 2024
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/25/kamala-harris-blames-israel-meeting-netanyahu/

    Scroll down to subtitle:
    Refusing to Sue a Professor Who Used Public University Website
    to Promote the Anti-Semitic BDS Movement
    https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individuals/kamala-harris/

    DERSHOWITZ: Harris Trying To Appeal To ‘Anti-Israel’ Crowd With ‘Moral Equivalence’ Between Hamas, Israel
    by Ian Hanchett – July 25, 2024
    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/07/25/dershowitz-harris-trying-to-appeal-to-anti-israel-crowd-with-moral-equivalence-between-hamas-israel/

    Democrats supporting Hamas are driving people like me out:
    Alan Dershowitz | The Record
    Newsmax – July 25, 2024

    • Put on your best Klaus Schwab accent: you will eat zee bugs and you will like it!

      May be they were just thoughtfully providing snacks…

    • Please tell me, how do you come up with that many maggots on demand, who produces them?

  4. More sabotage in France:

    Franco-Swiss Basel-Mulhouse airport briefly evacuated after bomb alert
    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/franco-swiss-basel-mulhouse-airport-evacuated-after-bomb-alert-french-police-2024-07-26/
    The Franco-Swiss airport of Basel-Mulhouse was evacuated and closed for a short while on Friday due to a bomb alert, hours before the start of the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, airport authoriti es said.
    “For safety reasons, the terminal had to be evacuated,” the airport said on its website on Friday morning. Around midday, the airport said it was reopening and that flight operations would gradually resume.
    An air traffic controller at the airport told Reuters it was the seventh alert since last October.
    “An Air France flight to Paris was delayed following the evacuation of the terminal building,” an Air France representative told Reuters.
    Hours before, saboteurs targeted France’s high-speed TGV train network with a series of coordinated actions that brought major disruption to some of the country’s busiest rail lines ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

  7. Venezuela will hold a sham presidential “election” on Sunday expected to grant dictator Nicolas Maduro another six years in power, starting in January 2025.

    Venezuelan citizens will “choose” among a total of ten candidates on a ballot that will show Maduro’s face on it 13 times. The candidates are all handpicked by the ruling socialist regime, eight of them left-wing “opposition” figures and one representing everyone to the right of Maduro – 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González. González is the only legitimate opposition candidate that the Venezuelan National Electoral Center (CNE) — controlled by the ruling regime’s socialist party — allowed to participate.

    The sham election is the result of the Maduro regime trashing an agreement signed in Barbados with the opposition in October that called for a “free and fair” election to be held sometime during the second half of 2024. The document, known as the “Barbados Agreements,” was signed by both sides under the observation of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2024/07/26/mass-arrests-and-threat-of-socialist-bloodbath-mark-tense-days-before-venezuela-sham-election/

  8. The United Kingdom will no longer object to the International Criminal Court seeking an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a major foreign policy change for the country’s new left-globalist government.

    The British government had submitted a brief to the International Criminal Court (ICC) questioning the body’s jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Israel back in June, throwing into question the move by the court’s move to seek the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Now a spokesman for 10 Downing Street, the official office and residence of the British Prime Minister, has made implicit this will not be pursued any further and the new British government, which flipped from globalist centre-right to globalist social democrat left in this month’s national elections.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/07/26/uks-new-left-wing-govt-withdraws-opposition-to-icc-netanyahu-arrest/

  9. ABC News
    VIDEO
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    Search Headlines, News and Video…

    Stream on
    hulu
    Prosecutor says the New Jersey man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie was trying to carry out a fatwa
    Government prosecutors have for the first time offered a possible motive for a New Jersey man’s knife attack on author Salman Rushdie in western New York two years ago

    https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/man-attacked-author-salman-rushdie-charged-supporting-terrorist-112233808

  10. (July 25, 2024 / Israel Hayom)
    A controversial mural depicting Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh has appeared in Bergen, Norway, igniting a fierce debate about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

    The work, created by anonymous street artist Töddel, draws parallels between Holocaust victims and Palestinian civilians while criticizing Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.

    https://www.jns.org/antisemitic-anne-frank-mural-displayed-in-norway/

  12. Residents living near the Tesalonika Church in Kampung Melayu Timur, Teluk Naga District, Tangerang, recently rioted and demanded that the church cease its worship activities. Footage of the rioters ridiculing the church for having to gather inside a home went viral on social media this week.

    One resident stated that the mob stopped the church’s worship because the service occurred in a majority-Muslim community. A representative of Tesalonika Church shared that the church had been gathering inside a home because their lease for their previous place of worship at the Puri Naga Indah complex had expired.

    https://www.persecution.org/2024/07/24/muslim-residents-prohibit-indonesian-church-from-worshiping/

  14. D.C. Faces Challenge to Off-Body Carry Prohibition
    By John Petrolino | 3:31 PM | July 25, 2024
    AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim

    The post-Bruen United States is a place where people in progressive strongholds are dealing with different challenges. The District of Columbia is one of those places tha already has some really harsh laws, but seems to be trying to fly somewhat under the radar. Let’s be honest, the District has caused a ton of harm to the Second Amendment already, including a little-known law in our nation’s capital that prohibits those with lawfully obtained carry permits from being able to engage in “off-body” carry.
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    Off-body carry, as a general concept, is carrying in a manner where a firearm is not directly attached to the body of the bearer. What that actually means though, is different, depending on who you ask. For example, one of the only other jurisdictions that has a similar prohibition is New Jersey, and their law differs a little bit from the District’s.

    Case number 2024-cv-1820 Russell et.al. v. District of Columbia et.al. was filed last month to try and address the issues around the district’s prohibitions.

    This is not a conversation about tactics and whether or not off-body carry is or is not a good idea. Regardless of one’s opinion, off-body situations and carry makes sense at different times for different people. We’re going to see that in the complaint.

    Former CNN Headline News Anchor Lynne Russell is convinced a handgun in her purse saved her life and the life of her husband. Yet, a District regulation prohibits purse carry and all other forms of “off-body” carry on pain of revocation of Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) issued Concealed Pistol Licenses (“CPL”) and potential arrest. See DCMR § 24-2344.2. The District actively enforces this provision and has sought to revoke the CPLs of Plaintiffs Eric Christian and Timothy Beck for alleged violation of this provision. Because the provision in question is not consistent with the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation, Plaintiffs bring this action for declaratory and injunctive relief and for damages to vindicate their Second Amendment rights. IN addition, Plaintiff Beck brings this action for damages resulting from his false arrest and false imprisonment at the hands of MPD and officers of MPD’s Third District.

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    Plaintiff Russell’s situation was one that ended up being a best-case scenario for her and her husband. The story that’s told in the complaint said that Russell and her husband were staying at a motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico when they suffered an armed and violent push-in robbery.

    Russell was returning to her room when the violent encounter happened and the armed assailant snuck up behind her, pushing her into the room. Russell’s husband was showering at the time and came out upon hearing the commotion. Russell handed her husband her purse, which had her firearm within it. A volley of fire resulted after Russell’s husband engaged the aggressor, with the perpetrator being struck four. The assailant died subsequently from his injuries.

    In the complaint, it was noted that “Plaintiff Russell credits the gun in her purse with saving her and her husband’s life.” A very real and unimagined reality is also highlighted, “Due to limitations on women’s fashion, Plaintiff Russell often carries a handgun in a purse or other device designed for off-body carry.” Off-body carry prohibitions are sexist, to just get started.

    Other plaintiffs in the complaint bring forward a similar injury claim. The individuals would like to engage in off-body carry, or in an instance with one plaintiff, allegedly got caught engaging in off-body carry, but these law-abiding citizens do not in the district due to the strict regulation.

    D.C. Municipal Regulation § 24-2344.1 and § 24-2344.2 state the following:

    2344.1A licensee shall carry any pistol in a manner that it is entirely hidden from view of the public when carried on or about a person, or when in a vehicle in such a way as it is entirely hidden from view of the public.

    2344.2A licensee shall carry any pistol in a holster on their person in a firmly secure manner that is reasonably designed to prevent loss, theft, or accidental discharge of the pistol.

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    The provision in D.C.’s law, as noted earlier, is very similar to New Jersey statute; one of the only other jurisdictions in the country that takes issue with off-body carry. The complaint points this fact out, observing that their “research shows that holster regulations currently are exceedingly rare with only New Jersey having a regulation approaching that of the District’s.”

    It’s going to be difficult for D.C. to meet the burden of proof in finding analogues on whether or not such restrictions are Constitutional. The complaint finds one modern – never mind one from the founding – similar law from New Jersey. The New Jersey law was changed to what it is today through their own Bruen-response tantrum, and it is not going to cut the mustard. Prior to Bruen, off-body carry was permissible for those that did, in fact, actually have a permit to carry in the Garden State.

    This challenge to D.C.’s regulation comes from the offices of George L. Lyon, Jr., from Arsenal Attorneys, with Lyon and his partner, Matthew J. Bergstrom, serving as attorneys for the plaintiffs. Russell et.al. is the third filing we’ve reported on in recent weeks concerning challenges from Lyon’s office seeking to enjoin a D.C. Second Amendment infringement.

    This challenge to D.C.’s ban is ripe for a win. Prohibiting this manner of carry is burdensome, regardless of one’s view on off-body carry, it’s only common sense that this regulation be enjoined from enforcement.

    As pointed out in numerous instances in the complaint, restraining permit carry holders in the district in this manner is not only unconstitutional, but also a safety risk. Further, a matter of preference should be accounted for, with anyone asking “why” to the off-body carry question, being given back the sound legal reasoning of, “It’s none of your business ‘why.’” We should be able to if we want to. It’s not a bill of needs.
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    We’ll be watching closely how this case fleshes out and will be reporting back when we hear something further.

    https://bearingarms.com/john-petrolino/2024/07/25/dc-off-body-carry-prohibition-challenge-n1225723#google_vignette

  15. Blocking a protein may extend life span
    By Hans Bader July 25, 2024
    Blocking a protein may extend life span
    Pixabay

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    “A protein that promotes inflammation could hold the key to a longer, healthier life,” reports Nature:

    Blocking the protein, called IL-11, in middle-aged mice boosted metabolism, reduced frailty and increased lifespan by about 25%. Although a research team tested for these health effects only in mice, IL-11 and its molecular partners…also exist in humans. And drug candidates that block IL-11 are already in human trials against cancer and fibrosis, a condition associated with ageing in which scar tissue replaces healthy tissue.

    Researchers have long known that chronic inflammation contributes to diseases associated with ageing. As the body grows older and accumulates damaged proteins and other molecules, the immune system often sees these as signs of a possible infection…This can trigger inflammatory responses that might cause further damage and contribute to diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders….When [researchers] deleted the gene that codes for the IL-11 protein in some mice, the animals had improved healthspans — they were healthy for longer — and lived 25% longer than mice with normal levels of IL-11.

    But “determining the effect of anti-IL-11 drug candidates on longevity in people could be a challenge. A clinical trial examining the impacts on lifespan would be long and expensive, and the results could be difficult to interpret because many confounding factors can affect longevity.”

    So it may be difficult to get regulators to approve such drugs to expand people’s lifespans, even if they do in fact expand people’s lifespans.

    Regulators can be very slow to approve life-saving drugs, medical devices, and tests. The FDA didn’t approve a home test for HIV until 24 years after it first received an application. According to an FDA advisory committee, the test held “the potential to prevent the transmission of more than 4,000 new HIV infections in its first year of use alone.” That means thousands of people likely got infected with AIDS as a result of the delay in approving it. At least a hundred thousand people died waiting years for the FDA to approve beta blockers.

    A virus is being used to cure deafness in a new gene therapy. Researchers also discovered that a plant virus could be used to save crops from root-eating pests.

    Gene therapies are being used to cure inherited blindness and deafness in some people, and to block a painful hereditary disorder. A new gene therapy may cure sickle-cell anemia.

    Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. And Arizona State University scientists “have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply,” eliminating cancers.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2024/07/25/blocking-a-protein-may-extend-life-span/

  16. Israeli strikes in Yemen put us all past “Go”

    First into battle.

    Inevitably, emerging events demand comment before moving on to the main story here. The story is worth the telling. And even more so because of the excellent speech PM Netanyahu gave to a joint session of Congress today, and the mobs marauding in the streets of Washington, D.C. outside, pulling down the U.S. flags at Union Station – to replace them with “Palestinian” flags – while shouting “Allahu akbar” and waving the black flag of jihad, or ar-Raya.

    The mob actions, which also including vandalizing U.S. public monuments, are a reminder that the war on Israel has already gone global. We’re not waiting for it to get to America’s doorstep. It’s already here.

    https://twitter.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1816174435289714725/photo/1

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1816215029102072313

    https://twitter.com/VictoriaCoates/status/1816175585347133577

    you will find the rest of the X posts on site

    That’s why it matters to take in the import of the Israeli air strikes on Yemen on 20 July. Israel’s strikes were the first that attempted to genuinely set the Houthis back and so deter them from fresh terrorism. The tale here is of a West pulling its punches and ignoring a serious deteriorating condition (the safety of global shipping); of Houthi terrorists openly assembling, and using, an infrastructure for hybrid warfare; of a UN mission cognizant and even complicit in the Houthi procurement scheme; of a U.S.-led coalition late to the table, but apparently equipped with plenty of intel; and of the catalyst Israel had to deliver to make all this clear and highlight that we could have done better months ago.

    Strap in.

    If you didn’t think the Israeli strikes on Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah port infrastructure on Saturday were a matter of striking an oil depot and a power plant used by the Houthis to keep up their fuel supply for attacking commercial shipping, while a UN mission of more than 200 industrious representatives inspects the fuel as it arrives by ship, simultaneously implementing projects to empower women in Houthi-controlled territory – you’re probably in pretty good company. My estimate would be that hardly anyone on earth, relatively speaking, is aware that’s the context in which the Houthi terrorists are supplied with fuel.

    It may also be the context in which they’re supplied with crude oil for resale, if they still are. Back in early 2019, when the UN’s Hudaydah Agreement was put in effect, and the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) landed in Houthi territory, Iran was shipping crude to the Houthis so the Houthis could earn revenue to fund their attacks on Saudi Arabia, and on Saudi and other shipping, by reselling the oil.

    At the time, the Houthis couldn’t refine the oil from Iran, because they didn’t control any Yemeni territory with an operable refinery on it. And although infrastructure for an oil refinery has been built north of Hudaydah, next to the minimally-resourced port of Ras Isa, it’s not clear that that refinery is in operation. A few months ago, it reportedly was not. (See a link and imagery below on that.)

    If the Ras Isa refinery isn’t operating, that means the Houthis can’t produce their own fuel. They rely on fuel supplies coming in via the theoretically UN-inspected deliveries in Hudaydah. They then, just to reiterate, use the fuel for their war on commercial shipping.

    The central practical purpose of the UNMHA, as it administers the cargo inspection element of the Hudaydah Agreement (see link above), is to prevent arms proliferation to the Houthis through the ports in Al-Hudaydah Governorate.

    That’s why a disclosure from Israeli officials reported at Jerusalem Post after the strike is on point: “Although the Houthis try to present the port as being used for humanitarian purposes, multiple top Israeli officials said that it is a shield for mixing massive weapons imports with humanitarian aid.”

    Food and fuel are explicitly authorized for delivery in the Houthi-controlled governorate, for humanitarian purposes. The significance of Hudaydah is that about 70% of all imports into Houthi-held territory comes through the port. It’s even more vital for fuel imports, at least according to longstanding, still-unadjusted assessments by expert observers.

    As far as I can discern, UNMHA has no effective charter to follow up on the use of the fuel delivered into Hudaydah. The UNMHA task is to inspect for prohibited arms and other materials. (It also does “observer” follow-up on damage incurred in Houthi territory from the internal strife, and from foreign counterattacks against the Houthis. As with most such UN missions, the UNMHA complains of being restricted in its movements by the Houthis, which tends to limit its overall effectiveness.)

    In a triumph of elegant timing, the UNMHA charter was renewed on 14 July 2024, just days before the Israeli strikes.

    I had had a general sense of this situation since its implementation, though I’ve slept since then and couldn’t have told you exactly when UNMHA came into force. I ran some verification research to be sure of the current state of play for this article.

    So it was bemusing to see after-action reports in the Western media proclaiming that Israel’s air force hadn’t succeeded in doing much to the Houthis (points for brilliant execution, dudes, but it’s just some random oil storage), but instead would have its main impact on civilians.

    For arriving fuel, however, civilians in the Houthis’ area of Yemen have been in line behind the terrorists for years. The UN knows all about that, and it doesn’t change with the strikes. The civilians are still as much behind as they ever were. But now the damage that has indeed been done to Houthi resources affects both the Houthis and the civilians.

    The Houthis have lost a big chunk of their holding capacity for both fuel and oil. That’s a core element of what the IDF has accomplished.

    Imagery posted after the Israeli strikes shows that the infrastructure attacked by the IAF at Hudaydah comprised the holding facilities of a storage depot, and a power station adjacent to it.

    X posts and picture at site

    A #MeToo operation by the U.S. coalition

    Shortly after the Israeli strike, meanwhile, U.S. and UK aircraft reportedly conducted strikes on port facilities to the north of Hudaydah at Al-Salif and Ras Isa, where there is a connection to additional fuel storage.

    At the outset, two points. One, this set of strikes, which appears to be of a different quality from the previous reactive strikes against occasional lone launchers and radars, was reported as also involving oil or fuel facilities (i.e., in addition to the Israeli strikes at Hudaydah.

    The second point is thought-provoking, and sets up a speculative theme about what’s going on. That point is that, shortly before Israel went in to do serious damage to Houthi logistics infrastructure, America’s CENTCOM commander, General Michael E. “Erik” Kurilla (U.S. Army), forwarded a classified letter up his chain of command suggesting that the U.S. needed to up its interdiction game, because what we’ve been doing to date hasn’t been deterring the Houthis. They’ve held global shipping at grave risk for months now, with no improvement in that situation.

    Interestingly, Kurilla apparently sent this letter in or around the time of his visit last week to senior Israeli military officials, 14-17 July 2024.

    The point is as much, however, about what forms of interdiction we’ve been leaving unattended to, as it is about the link to discussions with the Israelis. To expand on that, I’ve put some additional effort into illustrating what the Houthis have been building and improving in their infrastructure at the ports hit by the U.S. and UK strikers on Sunday. Much of the oil- and fuel-related infrastructure is relatively new, or at least has been added to in the last couple of years, or even months.

    This is all while the Houthis have been menacing shipping since 10/7. It’s clear that, whether the work began before 10/7 or after it, it has continued and become more important to the Houthis’ terror operations against global shipping and the regional nations (i.e., missile and drone attacks). The target set at Ras Isa and Al-Salif is one that seems to badly need hitting: to undo in an instant work that took the Houthis years, and blast their hopes and dreams for terror activities to smithereens.

    These remote ports create a much-needed alternate logistics path for the Houthis: one that bypasses Hudaydah. Given the many months in which global shipping has been diverted due to the Houthis’ attacks, none of it should even have still been there to strike.

    It seems likely that at least one reason for failing to mount more robust attacks to take out Houthi capabilities is the continued operation of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement. Surreally, the UNMHA continues to make regular fuel deliveries to Hudaydah possible – and those deliveries are controlled entirely by the Houthis once they arrive.

    But the Houthis are taking no chances, and are working to expand their options outside of Hudaydah – with the help of the UN.

    It is to be remembered, of course, that the UN support that quite transparently aids the Houthis continued so robustly in large part because the Biden administration de-listed the Houthis as designated terrorists in February 2021.

    I am given to wonder if General Kurilla obtained the go-ahead for the obviously needed interdiction strikes north of Hudaydah at least partly because the Biden administration is preoccupied and in disorder due to the campaign- and leadership-related dramas of the last 10 days.

    But on 19 July, The Wall Street Journal reported of his letter that “Many people found the tone of the memo to be a bit shocking.” By implication these were officials in Kurilla’s chain of command; it’s not clear if the level of shock was at the Pentagon or perhaps the National Security Council.

    According to a defense official, continued WSJ, “It [the letter] said essentially that ‘U.S. service members will die if we continue going this way.’”

    We may hope that point alone had some impact on the decision to conduct the coalition strikes on Saturday.

    The target complexes at Ras Isa and Al-Salif

    To resume: the additional known storage at Ras Isa is for diesel fuel, so it would fuel transportation as opposed to rockets and drones. As of this writing on Sunday 21 July, there is no confirmed information on the effects of the strikes there, but they could have done significant damage to the oil facilities.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/us-uk-israeli-strikes-jul-2024-yemen.jpg

    Inevitably, emerging events demand comment before moving on to the main story here. The story is worth the telling. And even more so because of the excellent speech PM Netanyahu gave to a joint session of Congress today, and the mobs marauding in the streets of Washington, D.C. outside, pulling down the U.S. flags at Union Station – to replace them with “Palestinian” flags – while shouting “Allahu akbar” and waving the black flag of jihad, or ar-Raya.

    The mob actions, which also including vandalizing U.S. public monuments, are a reminder that the war on Israel has already gone global. We’re not waiting for it to get to America’s doorstep. It’s already here.

    Advertisement

    That’s why it matters to take in the import of the Israeli air strikes on Yemen on 20 July. Israel’s strikes were the first that attempted to genuinely set the Houthis back and so deter them from fresh terrorism. The tale here is of a West pulling its punches and ignoring a serious deteriorating condition (the safety of global shipping); of Houthi terrorists openly assembling, and using, an infrastructure for hybrid warfare; of a UN mission cognizant and even complicit in the Houthi procurement scheme; of a U.S.-led coalition late to the table, but apparently equipped with plenty of intel; and of the catalyst Israel had to deliver to make all this clear and highlight that we could have done better months ago.

    Strap in.

    If you didn’t think the Israeli strikes on Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah port infrastructure on Saturday were a matter of striking an oil depot and a power plant used by the Houthis to keep up their fuel supply for attacking commercial shipping, while a UN mission of more than 200 industrious representatives inspects the fuel as it arrives by ship, simultaneously implementing projects to empower women in Houthi-controlled territory – you’re probably in pretty good company. My estimate would be that hardly anyone on earth, relatively speaking, is aware that’s the context in which the Houthi terrorists are supplied with fuel.

    It may also be the context in which they’re supplied with crude oil for resale, if they still are. Back in early 2019, when the UN’s Hudaydah Agreement was put in effect, and the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) landed in Houthi territory, Iran was shipping crude to the Houthis so the Houthis could earn revenue to fund their attacks on Saudi Arabia, and on Saudi and other shipping, by reselling the oil.

    At the time, the Houthis couldn’t refine the oil from Iran, because they didn’t control any Yemeni territory with an operable refinery on it. And although infrastructure for an oil refinery has been built north of Hudaydah, next to the minimally-resourced port of Ras Isa, it’s not clear that that refinery is in operation. A few months ago, it reportedly was not. (See a link and imagery below on that.)

    If the Ras Isa refinery isn’t operating, that means the Houthis can’t produce their own fuel. They rely on fuel supplies coming in via the theoretically UN-inspected deliveries in Hudaydah. They then, just to reiterate, use the fuel for their war on commercial shipping.

    The central practical purpose of the UNMHA, as it administers the cargo inspection element of the Hudaydah Agreement (see link above), is to prevent arms proliferation to the Houthis through the ports in Al-Hudaydah Governorate.

    That’s why a disclosure from Israeli officials reported at Jerusalem Post after the strike is on point: “Although the Houthis try to present the port as being used for humanitarian purposes, multiple top Israeli officials said that it is a shield for mixing massive weapons imports with humanitarian aid.”

    Food and fuel are explicitly authorized for delivery in the Houthi-controlled governorate, for humanitarian purposes. The significance of Hudaydah is that about 70% of all imports into Houthi-held territory comes through the port. It’s even more vital for fuel imports, at least according to longstanding, still-unadjusted assessments by expert observers.

    As far as I can discern, UNMHA has no effective charter to follow up on the use of the fuel delivered into Hudaydah. The UNMHA task is to inspect for prohibited arms and other materials. (It also does “observer” follow-up on damage incurred in Houthi territory from the internal strife, and from foreign counterattacks against the Houthis. As with most such UN missions, the UNMHA complains of being restricted in its movements by the Houthis, which tends to limit its overall effectiveness.)

    In a triumph of elegant timing, the UNMHA charter was renewed on 14 July 2024, just days before the Israeli strikes.

    I had had a general sense of this situation since its implementation, though I’ve slept since then and couldn’t have told you exactly when UNMHA came into force. I ran some verification research to be sure of the current state of play for this article.

    So it was bemusing to see after-action reports in the Western media proclaiming that Israel’s air force hadn’t succeeded in doing much to the Houthis (points for brilliant execution, dudes, but it’s just some random oil storage), but instead would have its main impact on civilians.

    For arriving fuel, however, civilians in the Houthis’ area of Yemen have been in line behind the terrorists for years. The UN knows all about that, and it doesn’t change with the strikes. The civilians are still as much behind as they ever were. But now the damage that has indeed been done to Houthi resources affects both the Houthis and the civilians.

    The Houthis have lost a big chunk of their holding capacity for both fuel and oil. That’s a core element of what the IDF has accomplished.

    Imagery posted after the Israeli strikes shows that the infrastructure attacked by the IAF at Hudaydah comprised the holding facilities of a storage depot, and a power station adjacent to it.

    Graphic credit: UN Development Programme Yemen Port Assessment 2019. Author annotation.

    A #MeToo operation by the U.S. coalition

    Shortly after the Israeli strike, meanwhile, U.S. and UK aircraft reportedly conducted strikes on port facilities to the north of Hudaydah at Al-Salif and Ras Isa, where there is a connection to additional fuel storage.
    Advertisement

    At the outset, two points. One, this set of strikes, which appears to be of a different quality from the previous reactive strikes against occasional lone launchers and radars, was reported as also involving oil or fuel facilities (i.e., in addition to the Israeli strikes at Hudaydah.

    The second point is thought-provoking, and sets up a speculative theme about what’s going on. That point is that, shortly before Israel went in to do serious damage to Houthi logistics infrastructure, America’s CENTCOM commander, General Michael E. “Erik” Kurilla (U.S. Army), forwarded a classified letter up his chain of command suggesting that the U.S. needed to up its interdiction game, because what we’ve been doing to date hasn’t been deterring the Houthis. They’ve held global shipping at grave risk for months now, with no improvement in that situation.

    Interestingly, Kurilla apparently sent this letter in or around the time of his visit last week to senior Israeli military officials, 14-17 July 2024.

    The point is as much, however, about what forms of interdiction we’ve been leaving unattended to, as it is about the link to discussions with the Israelis. To expand on that, I’ve put some additional effort into illustrating what the Houthis have been building and improving in their infrastructure at the ports hit by the U.S. and UK strikers on Sunday. Much of the oil- and fuel-related infrastructure is relatively new, or at least has been added to in the last couple of years, or even months.

    This is all while the Houthis have been menacing shipping since 10/7. It’s clear that, whether the work began before 10/7 or after it, it has continued and become more important to the Houthis’ terror operations against global shipping and the regional nations (i.e., missile and drone attacks). The target set at Ras Isa and Al-Salif is one that seems to badly need hitting: to undo in an instant work that took the Houthis years, and blast their hopes and dreams for terror activities to smithereens.

    These remote ports create a much-needed alternate logistics path for the Houthis: one that bypasses Hudaydah. Given the many months in which global shipping has been diverted due to the Houthis’ attacks, none of it should even have still been there to strike.

    It seems likely that at least one reason for failing to mount more robust attacks to take out Houthi capabilities is the continued operation of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement. Surreally, the UNMHA continues to make regular fuel deliveries to Hudaydah possible – and those deliveries are controlled entirely by the Houthis once they arrive.

    But the Houthis are taking no chances, and are working to expand their options outside of Hudaydah – with the help of the UN.

    It is to be remembered, of course, that the UN support that quite transparently aids the Houthis continued so robustly in large part because the Biden administration de-listed the Houthis as designated terrorists in February 2021.

    I am given to wonder if General Kurilla obtained the go-ahead for the obviously needed interdiction strikes north of Hudaydah at least partly because the Biden administration is preoccupied and in disorder due to the campaign- and leadership-related dramas of the last 10 days.

    But on 19 July, The Wall Street Journal reported of his letter that “Many people found the tone of the memo to be a bit shocking.” By implication these were officials in Kurilla’s chain of command; it’s not clear if the level of shock was at the Pentagon or perhaps the National Security Council.

    According to a defense official, continued WSJ, “It [the letter] said essentially that ‘U.S. service members will die if we continue going this way.’”

    We may hope that point alone had some impact on the decision to conduct the coalition strikes on Saturday.

    The target complexes at Ras Isa and Al-Salif

    To resume: the additional known storage at Ras Isa is for diesel fuel, so it would fuel transportation as opposed to rockets and drones. As of this writing on Sunday 21 July, there is no confirmed information on the effects of the strikes there, but they could have done significant damage to the oil facilities.
    The location of the U.S. and UK strikes on 21 July 2024 in relation to Al-Hudaydah, the main Yemeni port serving Houthi-controlled territory. Click through for legibility (all graphics).

    The images below give an indication of the unique, unfinished nature of the limited infrastructure at the ports struck by U.S. and UK forces. Ras Isa is especially peculiar, featuring a single offloading location for diesel fuel at which an arriving tanker moors offshore and transfers its cargo to a floating storage tanker permanently moored in a position next to the beach (the depth increases rapidly offshore).

    Inevitably, emerging events demand comment before moving on to the main story here. The story is worth the telling. And even more so because of the excellent speech PM Netanyahu gave to a joint session of Congress today, and the mobs marauding in the streets of Washington, D.C. outside, pulling down the U.S. flags at Union Station – to replace them with “Palestinian” flags – while shouting “Allahu akbar” and waving the black flag of jihad, or ar-Raya.

    The mob actions, which also including vandalizing U.S. public monuments, are a reminder that the war on Israel has already gone global. We’re not waiting for it to get to America’s doorstep. It’s already here.

    Advertisement

    That’s why it matters to take in the import of the Israeli air strikes on Yemen on 20 July. Israel’s strikes were the first that attempted to genuinely set the Houthis back and so deter them from fresh terrorism. The tale here is of a West pulling its punches and ignoring a serious deteriorating condition (the safety of global shipping); of Houthi terrorists openly assembling, and using, an infrastructure for hybrid warfare; of a UN mission cognizant and even complicit in the Houthi procurement scheme; of a U.S.-led coalition late to the table, but apparently equipped with plenty of intel; and of the catalyst Israel had to deliver to make all this clear and highlight that we could have done better months ago.

    Strap in.

    If you didn’t think the Israeli strikes on Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah port infrastructure on Saturday were a matter of striking an oil depot and a power plant used by the Houthis to keep up their fuel supply for attacking commercial shipping, while a UN mission of more than 200 industrious representatives inspects the fuel as it arrives by ship, simultaneously implementing projects to empower women in Houthi-controlled territory – you’re probably in pretty good company. My estimate would be that hardly anyone on earth, relatively speaking, is aware that’s the context in which the Houthi terrorists are supplied with fuel.

    It may also be the context in which they’re supplied with crude oil for resale, if they still are. Back in early 2019, when the UN’s Hudaydah Agreement was put in effect, and the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) landed in Houthi territory, Iran was shipping crude to the Houthis so the Houthis could earn revenue to fund their attacks on Saudi Arabia, and on Saudi and other shipping, by reselling the oil.

    At the time, the Houthis couldn’t refine the oil from Iran, because they didn’t control any Yemeni territory with an operable refinery on it. And although infrastructure for an oil refinery has been built north of Hudaydah, next to the minimally-resourced port of Ras Isa, it’s not clear that that refinery is in operation. A few months ago, it reportedly was not. (See a link and imagery below on that.)

    If the Ras Isa refinery isn’t operating, that means the Houthis can’t produce their own fuel. They rely on fuel supplies coming in via the theoretically UN-inspected deliveries in Hudaydah. They then, just to reiterate, use the fuel for their war on commercial shipping.

    The central practical purpose of the UNMHA, as it administers the cargo inspection element of the Hudaydah Agreement (see link above), is to prevent arms proliferation to the Houthis through the ports in Al-Hudaydah Governorate.

    That’s why a disclosure from Israeli officials reported at Jerusalem Post after the strike is on point: “Although the Houthis try to present the port as being used for humanitarian purposes, multiple top Israeli officials said that it is a shield for mixing massive weapons imports with humanitarian aid.”

    Food and fuel are explicitly authorized for delivery in the Houthi-controlled governorate, for humanitarian purposes. The significance of Hudaydah is that about 70% of all imports into Houthi-held territory comes through the port. It’s even more vital for fuel imports, at least according to longstanding, still-unadjusted assessments by expert observers.

    As far as I can discern, UNMHA has no effective charter to follow up on the use of the fuel delivered into Hudaydah. The UNMHA task is to inspect for prohibited arms and other materials. (It also does “observer” follow-up on damage incurred in Houthi territory from the internal strife, and from foreign counterattacks against the Houthis. As with most such UN missions, the UNMHA complains of being restricted in its movements by the Houthis, which tends to limit its overall effectiveness.)

    In a triumph of elegant timing, the UNMHA charter was renewed on 14 July 2024, just days before the Israeli strikes.

    I had had a general sense of this situation since its implementation, though I’ve slept since then and couldn’t have told you exactly when UNMHA came into force. I ran some verification research to be sure of the current state of play for this article.

    So it was bemusing to see after-action reports in the Western media proclaiming that Israel’s air force hadn’t succeeded in doing much to the Houthis (points for brilliant execution, dudes, but it’s just some random oil storage), but instead would have its main impact on civilians.

    For arriving fuel, however, civilians in the Houthis’ area of Yemen have been in line behind the terrorists for years. The UN knows all about that, and it doesn’t change with the strikes. The civilians are still as much behind as they ever were. But now the damage that has indeed been done to Houthi resources affects both the Houthis and the civilians.

    The Houthis have lost a big chunk of their holding capacity for both fuel and oil. That’s a core element of what the IDF has accomplished.

    Imagery posted after the Israeli strikes shows that the infrastructure attacked by the IAF at Hudaydah comprised the holding facilities of a storage depot, and a power station adjacent to it.

    Graphic credit: UN Development Programme Yemen Port Assessment 2019. Author annotation.

    A #MeToo operation by the U.S. coalition

    Shortly after the Israeli strike, meanwhile, U.S. and UK aircraft reportedly conducted strikes on port facilities to the north of Hudaydah at Al-Salif and Ras Isa, where there is a connection to additional fuel storage.
    Advertisement

    At the outset, two points. One, this set of strikes, which appears to be of a different quality from the previous reactive strikes against occasional lone launchers and radars, was reported as also involving oil or fuel facilities (i.e., in addition to the Israeli strikes at Hudaydah.

    The second point is thought-provoking, and sets up a speculative theme about what’s going on. That point is that, shortly before Israel went in to do serious damage to Houthi logistics infrastructure, America’s CENTCOM commander, General Michael E. “Erik” Kurilla (U.S. Army), forwarded a classified letter up his chain of command suggesting that the U.S. needed to up its interdiction game, because what we’ve been doing to date hasn’t been deterring the Houthis. They’ve held global shipping at grave risk for months now, with no improvement in that situation.

    Interestingly, Kurilla apparently sent this letter in or around the time of his visit last week to senior Israeli military officials, 14-17 July 2024.

    The point is as much, however, about what forms of interdiction we’ve been leaving unattended to, as it is about the link to discussions with the Israelis. To expand on that, I’ve put some additional effort into illustrating what the Houthis have been building and improving in their infrastructure at the ports hit by the U.S. and UK strikers on Sunday. Much of the oil- and fuel-related infrastructure is relatively new, or at least has been added to in the last couple of years, or even months.

    This is all while the Houthis have been menacing shipping since 10/7. It’s clear that, whether the work began before 10/7 or after it, it has continued and become more important to the Houthis’ terror operations against global shipping and the regional nations (i.e., missile and drone attacks). The target set at Ras Isa and Al-Salif is one that seems to badly need hitting: to undo in an instant work that took the Houthis years, and blast their hopes and dreams for terror activities to smithereens.

    These remote ports create a much-needed alternate logistics path for the Houthis: one that bypasses Hudaydah. Given the many months in which global shipping has been diverted due to the Houthis’ attacks, none of it should even have still been there to strike.

    It seems likely that at least one reason for failing to mount more robust attacks to take out Houthi capabilities is the continued operation of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement. Surreally, the UNMHA continues to make regular fuel deliveries to Hudaydah possible – and those deliveries are controlled entirely by the Houthis once they arrive.

    But the Houthis are taking no chances, and are working to expand their options outside of Hudaydah – with the help of the UN.

    It is to be remembered, of course, that the UN support that quite transparently aids the Houthis continued so robustly in large part because the Biden administration de-listed the Houthis as designated terrorists in February 2021.

    I am given to wonder if General Kurilla obtained the go-ahead for the obviously needed interdiction strikes north of Hudaydah at least partly because the Biden administration is preoccupied and in disorder due to the campaign- and leadership-related dramas of the last 10 days.

    But on 19 July, The Wall Street Journal reported of his letter that “Many people found the tone of the memo to be a bit shocking.” By implication these were officials in Kurilla’s chain of command; it’s not clear if the level of shock was at the Pentagon or perhaps the National Security Council.

    According to a defense official, continued WSJ, “It [the letter] said essentially that ‘U.S. service members will die if we continue going this way.’”

    We may hope that point alone had some impact on the decision to conduct the coalition strikes on Saturday.

    The target complexes at Ras Isa and Al-Salif

    To resume: the additional known storage at Ras Isa is for diesel fuel, so it would fuel transportation as opposed to rockets and drones. As of this writing on Sunday 21 July, there is no confirmed information on the effects of the strikes there, but they could have done significant damage to the oil facilities.
    The location of the U.S. and UK strikes on 21 July 2024 in relation to Al-Hudaydah, the main Yemeni port serving Houthi-controlled territory. Click through for legibility (all graphics).

    The images below give an indication of the unique, unfinished nature of the limited infrastructure at the ports struck by U.S. and UK forces. Ras Isa is especially peculiar, featuring a single offloading location for diesel fuel at which an arriving tanker moors offshore and transfers its cargo to a floating storage tanker permanently moored in a position next to the beach (the depth increases rapidly offshore).
    Ras Isa, the lonely “port.” The port has no pier, only the floating storage tanker moored offshore, and nearby mooring buoys for arriving tankers. Ras Isa, incidentally (sometimes spelled Ras Issa), literally means Port Yeshua, or Port Jesus. Google satellite image; author annotation.

    The storage tanker now present was actually purchased in 2023 by the UN, as part of its UNMHA exertions, to replace a previous tanker, known as FSO Safer, which was deteriorating and expected to begin leaking its 1.1 million barrels of fuel after serving offshore at Ras Isa for some years. UN officials wanted to remove the storage tanker as a growing environmental hazard, and enlisted worldwide support to raise funds for it.

    Reuters reported in March 2023 that the cost of the replacement was to run about $129 million, including the fuel transfer and mooring of the new vessel. The UN Mission chief in Yemen, in order to encourage public donations, “praised students at an elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland, for raising $200 by selling lemonade.”

    So it does seem rather a pity that U.S. coalition forces bombed the port this past weekend in an effort to damage infrastructure used by the Houthis.

    From the moored storage tanker, fuel then flows ashore to a pipeline, via what appear to be fuel hoses reposing informally on the beach.

    The pipeline runs underground to an initial set of tanks just south of the mooring point offshore.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ras-isa-fuel-supplier-tank-1.jpg

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ras-isa-fuel-supplier-tank-2.jpg

    Inevitably, emerging events demand comment before moving on to the main story here. The story is worth the telling. And even more so because of the excellent speech PM Netanyahu gave to a joint session of Congress today, and the mobs marauding in the streets of Washington, D.C. outside, pulling down the U.S. flags at Union Station – to replace them with “Palestinian” flags – while shouting “Allahu akbar” and waving the black flag of jihad, or ar-Raya.

    The mob actions, which also including vandalizing U.S. public monuments, are a reminder that the war on Israel has already gone global. We’re not waiting for it to get to America’s doorstep. It’s already here.

    Advertisement

    That’s why it matters to take in the import of the Israeli air strikes on Yemen on 20 July. Israel’s strikes were the first that attempted to genuinely set the Houthis back and so deter them from fresh terrorism. The tale here is of a West pulling its punches and ignoring a serious deteriorating condition (the safety of global shipping); of Houthi terrorists openly assembling, and using, an infrastructure for hybrid warfare; of a UN mission cognizant and even complicit in the Houthi procurement scheme; of a U.S.-led coalition late to the table, but apparently equipped with plenty of intel; and of the catalyst Israel had to deliver to make all this clear and highlight that we could have done better months ago.

    Strap in.

    If you didn’t think the Israeli strikes on Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah port infrastructure on Saturday were a matter of striking an oil depot and a power plant used by the Houthis to keep up their fuel supply for attacking commercial shipping, while a UN mission of more than 200 industrious representatives inspects the fuel as it arrives by ship, simultaneously implementing projects to empower women in Houthi-controlled territory – you’re probably in pretty good company. My estimate would be that hardly anyone on earth, relatively speaking, is aware that’s the context in which the Houthi terrorists are supplied with fuel.

    It may also be the context in which they’re supplied with crude oil for resale, if they still are. Back in early 2019, when the UN’s Hudaydah Agreement was put in effect, and the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) landed in Houthi territory, Iran was shipping crude to the Houthis so the Houthis could earn revenue to fund their attacks on Saudi Arabia, and on Saudi and other shipping, by reselling the oil.

    At the time, the Houthis couldn’t refine the oil from Iran, because they didn’t control any Yemeni territory with an operable refinery on it. And although infrastructure for an oil refinery has been built north of Hudaydah, next to the minimally-resourced port of Ras Isa, it’s not clear that that refinery is in operation. A few months ago, it reportedly was not. (See a link and imagery below on that.)

    If the Ras Isa refinery isn’t operating, that means the Houthis can’t produce their own fuel. They rely on fuel supplies coming in via the theoretically UN-inspected deliveries in Hudaydah. They then, just to reiterate, use the fuel for their war on commercial shipping.

    The central practical purpose of the UNMHA, as it administers the cargo inspection element of the Hudaydah Agreement (see link above), is to prevent arms proliferation to the Houthis through the ports in Al-Hudaydah Governorate.

    That’s why a disclosure from Israeli officials reported at Jerusalem Post after the strike is on point: “Although the Houthis try to present the port as being used for humanitarian purposes, multiple top Israeli officials said that it is a shield for mixing massive weapons imports with humanitarian aid.”

    Food and fuel are explicitly authorized for delivery in the Houthi-controlled governorate, for humanitarian purposes. The significance of Hudaydah is that about 70% of all imports into Houthi-held territory comes through the port. It’s even more vital for fuel imports, at least according to longstanding, still-unadjusted assessments by expert observers.

    As far as I can discern, UNMHA has no effective charter to follow up on the use of the fuel delivered into Hudaydah. The UNMHA task is to inspect for prohibited arms and other materials. (It also does “observer” follow-up on damage incurred in Houthi territory from the internal strife, and from foreign counterattacks against the Houthis. As with most such UN missions, the UNMHA complains of being restricted in its movements by the Houthis, which tends to limit its overall effectiveness.)

    In a triumph of elegant timing, the UNMHA charter was renewed on 14 July 2024, just days before the Israeli strikes.

    I had had a general sense of this situation since its implementation, though I’ve slept since then and couldn’t have told you exactly when UNMHA came into force. I ran some verification research to be sure of the current state of play for this article.

    So it was bemusing to see after-action reports in the Western media proclaiming that Israel’s air force hadn’t succeeded in doing much to the Houthis (points for brilliant execution, dudes, but it’s just some random oil storage), but instead would have its main impact on civilians.

    For arriving fuel, however, civilians in the Houthis’ area of Yemen have been in line behind the terrorists for years. The UN knows all about that, and it doesn’t change with the strikes. The civilians are still as much behind as they ever were. But now the damage that has indeed been done to Houthi resources affects both the Houthis and the civilians.

    The Houthis have lost a big chunk of their holding capacity for both fuel and oil. That’s a core element of what the IDF has accomplished.

    Imagery posted after the Israeli strikes shows that the infrastructure attacked by the IAF at Hudaydah comprised the holding facilities of a storage depot, and a power station adjacent to it.

    Graphic credit: UN Development Programme Yemen Port Assessment 2019. Author annotation.

    A #MeToo operation by the U.S. coalition

    Shortly after the Israeli strike, meanwhile, U.S. and UK aircraft reportedly conducted strikes on port facilities to the north of Hudaydah at Al-Salif and Ras Isa, where there is a connection to additional fuel storage.
    Advertisement

    At the outset, two points. One, this set of strikes, which appears to be of a different quality from the previous reactive strikes against occasional lone launchers and radars, was reported as also involving oil or fuel facilities (i.e., in addition to the Israeli strikes at Hudaydah.

    The second point is thought-provoking, and sets up a speculative theme about what’s going on. That point is that, shortly before Israel went in to do serious damage to Houthi logistics infrastructure, America’s CENTCOM commander, General Michael E. “Erik” Kurilla (U.S. Army), forwarded a classified letter up his chain of command suggesting that the U.S. needed to up its interdiction game, because what we’ve been doing to date hasn’t been deterring the Houthis. They’ve held global shipping at grave risk for months now, with no improvement in that situation.

    Interestingly, Kurilla apparently sent this letter in or around the time of his visit last week to senior Israeli military officials, 14-17 July 2024.

    The point is as much, however, about what forms of interdiction we’ve been leaving unattended to, as it is about the link to discussions with the Israelis. To expand on that, I’ve put some additional effort into illustrating what the Houthis have been building and improving in their infrastructure at the ports hit by the U.S. and UK strikers on Sunday. Much of the oil- and fuel-related infrastructure is relatively new, or at least has been added to in the last couple of years, or even months.

    This is all while the Houthis have been menacing shipping since 10/7. It’s clear that, whether the work began before 10/7 or after it, it has continued and become more important to the Houthis’ terror operations against global shipping and the regional nations (i.e., missile and drone attacks). The target set at Ras Isa and Al-Salif is one that seems to badly need hitting: to undo in an instant work that took the Houthis years, and blast their hopes and dreams for terror activities to smithereens.

    These remote ports create a much-needed alternate logistics path for the Houthis: one that bypasses Hudaydah. Given the many months in which global shipping has been diverted due to the Houthis’ attacks, none of it should even have still been there to strike.

    It seems likely that at least one reason for failing to mount more robust attacks to take out Houthi capabilities is the continued operation of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement. Surreally, the UNMHA continues to make regular fuel deliveries to Hudaydah possible – and those deliveries are controlled entirely by the Houthis once they arrive.

    But the Houthis are taking no chances, and are working to expand their options outside of Hudaydah – with the help of the UN.

    It is to be remembered, of course, that the UN support that quite transparently aids the Houthis continued so robustly in large part because the Biden administration de-listed the Houthis as designated terrorists in February 2021.

    I am given to wonder if General Kurilla obtained the go-ahead for the obviously needed interdiction strikes north of Hudaydah at least partly because the Biden administration is preoccupied and in disorder due to the campaign- and leadership-related dramas of the last 10 days.

    But on 19 July, The Wall Street Journal reported of his letter that “Many people found the tone of the memo to be a bit shocking.” By implication these were officials in Kurilla’s chain of command; it’s not clear if the level of shock was at the Pentagon or perhaps the National Security Council.

    According to a defense official, continued WSJ, “It [the letter] said essentially that ‘U.S. service members will die if we continue going this way.’”

    We may hope that point alone had some impact on the decision to conduct the coalition strikes on Saturday.

    The target complexes at Ras Isa and Al-Salif

    To resume: the additional known storage at Ras Isa is for diesel fuel, so it would fuel transportation as opposed to rockets and drones. As of this writing on Sunday 21 July, there is no confirmed information on the effects of the strikes there, but they could have done significant damage to the oil facilities.
    The location of the U.S. and UK strikes on 21 July 2024 in relation to Al-Hudaydah, the main Yemeni port serving Houthi-controlled territory. Click through for legibility (all graphics).

    The images below give an indication of the unique, unfinished nature of the limited infrastructure at the ports struck by U.S. and UK forces. Ras Isa is especially peculiar, featuring a single offloading location for diesel fuel at which an arriving tanker moors offshore and transfers its cargo to a floating storage tanker permanently moored in a position next to the beach (the depth increases rapidly offshore).
    Ras Isa, the lonely “port.” The port has no pier, only the floating storage tanker moored offshore, and nearby mooring buoys for arriving tankers. Ras Isa, incidentally (sometimes spelled Ras Issa), literally means Port Yeshua, or Port Jesus. Google satellite image; author annotation.

    The storage tanker now present was actually purchased in 2023 by the UN, as part of its UNMHA exertions, to replace a previous tanker, known as FSO Safer, which was deteriorating and expected to begin leaking its 1.1 million barrels of fuel after serving offshore at Ras Isa for some years. UN officials wanted to remove the storage tanker as a growing environmental hazard, and enlisted worldwide support to raise funds for it.

    Reuters reported in March 2023 that the cost of the replacement was to run about $129 million, including the fuel transfer and mooring of the new vessel. The UN Mission chief in Yemen, in order to encourage public donations, “praised students at an elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland, for raising $200 by selling lemonade.”

    So it does seem rather a pity that U.S. coalition forces bombed the port this past weekend in an effort to damage infrastructure used by the Houthis.

    From the moored storage tanker, fuel then flows ashore to a pipeline, via what appear to be fuel hoses reposing informally on the beach.

    The pipeline runs underground to an initial set of tanks just south of the mooring point offshore.
    Google satellite image; author annotation.
    Google satellite imagery; author annotation.

    From those tanks, which are labeled in Arabic as operating for a fuel supplier, the pipeline runs underground to a point on the peninsula about 5 km (3 miles) south of Ras Isa, and southwest of (but very close to) a location designated as Al-Jazirah. The emerging pipeline can be observed as indicated on the image. Southeast of where the pipeline pops up is the infrastructure that would be of special interest to the attacking force on Sunday: what appears to be an underground fuel farm. (A description of the whole interesting arrangement can be found at this port information website.) https://shipnext.com/port/ras-isa-marine-terminal-yerai-yem

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ras-isa-facilities-overview.jpg

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ras-isa-fuel-farm-overview.jpg

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ras-isa-fuel-farm-close-up.jpg

    An indispensable port survey done for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) at the behest of the hard-working UNMHA in 2019 confirms that the offloading arrangement at Ras Isa is for diesel fuel.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/screen-undp-ras-isa.jpg

    read the rest and see the photos at

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2024/07/24/israeli-strikes-in-yemen-put-us-all-past-go/#more-9380

  17. I tried to put a large portion of this interesting monograph here for you to read, I am afraid I may have mess up and put some of it in the posting twice.

    Here is an early warning about what is happening: The mob actions, which also including vandalizing U.S. public monuments, are a reminder that the war on Israel has already gone global. We’re not waiting for it to get to America’s doorstep. It’s already here.

    later on the in the article she warns us to strap in for a very rough ride, in my opinion this is probably an understatement. The US currently has a weak President and his anointed successor is openly supporting Hamas and Iran, we (both the US and Canada) can expect terror attacks by the left and by Hamas and others who want to scare us into voting for the Dems and scare us out of supporting Israel. We are fighting for the survival of freedom, if we lose freedom dies for several generations possibly several Centuries.

    • Attack of the Crypto-Nazis!

      Working-class Americans say they’re voting for their interests. NPR apostles say they suffer from ‘white rage’ and ‘precarious manhood.’ Who’s right?

      Gentry liberals today control the Democratic Party under Biden, in alliance with billionaires in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. Because they are few in number, the gentry liberals need alliances with blocs of non-college-educated voters who are promised the spoils of new, enlightened forms of grievance-based ethnic politics just like old fashioned Tammany Hall bosses.

      By licensing the new identity-based spoils system, progressive leaders hope that Democratic voting by “people of color,” both native and imported, can allow them to create a permanent one-party regime based on enlightened technocracy.

      Needless to say, progressive Democrats do not seek votes from icky white Catholics, white Southerners and white rural Americans who have been driven out of the party, and whose desires for full-time jobs at decent wages and an end to destructive corporate offshoring might lead to higher taxes and lower corporate profits.

      https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/attack-of-the-crypto-nazis

      • Yup the left is driving the non Marxist from the Dem party, it is going to get much worse for them in the near future and they will turn more violent.

  18. The advanced radar system that thwarted 75 Iranian drones

    The cutting-edge technology showcased at Farnborough Airshow proves vital in Israel’s recent conflict, and would be implemented in the new F-15EX model.

    https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/07/24/the-advanced-radar-system-that-thwarted-75-iranian-drones/
    ……..
    Expert suspects occular capability of Iranian-designed Hezbollah drone

    The Israel-Hamas conflict intensified as Houthi rebels launched a drone attack on Tel Aviv, killing one and wounding others, leading to Israeli airstrikes on Hodeida.

    “The drones may have been assembled by Houthi or Hizbullah terrorists, but all the drones fired at Israel since the beginning of the war are manufactured, designed, and financed by Iran,” said Rotem Mey-Tal, CEO of Asgard Systems, a military technology company specializing in defense, homeland security, and aerospace…

    “Most of Iran’s defense budget is allocated to its proxies…
    “Israel is the most defended country in the world in terms of air defense, although there cannot be complete 100% defense,…

    “The challenge that drones pose is great. They fly very low for a very, very long time, and it is very difficult for radars to detect them.”

    He says the way to thwart the threat is to use satellite imaging and artificial intelligence (AI)-based acoustic detection sensors that will recognize the different noises that drones generate and other intelligence abilities.

    https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-811563
    ~~~~~
    ~~~~~
    They’ve got to speed up implementation of lazar interceptors. At a fraction of the cost, they throw a net over drone swarms. Tested, but still buggy.

    My Russki served as a radar expert for our enemies. Now he’s in Israel doing whatever he can to help. My “airplane brother” worked on the F-35 for a decade, became disillusioned and got into drone tech.
    (We made fun of his “downsizing”.)

    My Russki’s two sons are in the same field, one in Kiev, the other in Israel. The Kiev side is barking mad; not on speaking terms with their closest kin. I was unable to convince any family members to evacuate their kids. Both adults and children we brought here are in need of treatment for severe PTSD.

    My nephew is stationed somewhere in the north. Nightmare. But Israel is so tiny, no place is safe.

  19. Pix of the swastika keffiyeh symbolism over time.
    They reveal a history of terrorist violence.
    https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-nation-airbrushes-violent-symbolism.html
    …….
    A comment to the above link:

    “Even Wikipedia admits that the Keffiyeh was popularized by Jew hating POS John Glubb to differentiate soldiers under the British led and funded Jordan Army.

    “The black and white chequered keffiyeh dates to the 1950s when Glubb Pasha, a British officer, wanted to distinguish his Palestinian soldiers (black and white keffiyeh) from his Jordanian forces (red and white keffiyeh).[12] The black and white keffiyeh’s prominence increased during the 1960s with the beginning of the Palestinian resistance movement and its adoption by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.[13]”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh#Palestinian_national_symbol

  22. Gadi Taub:
    The Gantz Megillah

    How America is using ex-IDF Chief Benny Gantz as its Trojan horse to impose U.S. demands – and ensure Israel’s defeat in Gaza

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/gantz-megillah-biden-gaza
    ………

    U.S. Scheming for a Palestinian State Unwittingly Strengthens Netanyahu

    Overwhelming Israeli opposition to rewarding Palestinian terrorism with a state puts the prime minister’s adversaries in a bind

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-scheme-for-palestinian-state-strengthens-netanyahu

  23. Gadi Taub:
    The Gantz Megillah

    How America is using ex-IDF Chief Benny Gantz as its Trojan horse to impose U.S. demands – and ensure Israel’s defeat in Gaza

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/gantz-megillah-biden-gaza
    ………

    U.S. Scheming for a Palestinian State Unwittingly Strengthens Netanyahu

    Overwhelming Israeli opposition to rewarding Palestinian terrorism with a state puts the prime minister’s adversaries in a bind

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-scheme-for-palestinian-state-strengthens-netanyahu