Hezbollah chief says terror group ready for ‘long confrontation’

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Existential battle’: Hezbollah chief says terror group ready for ‘long confrontation’

 Emanuel Fabian

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Friday his terror group was ready for a long confrontation with Israel, as the latter threatened to make Lebanon pay an “increasing price” in damage to infrastructure.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when the Tehran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.

“We have prepared ourselves for a long confrontation, and God willing, they (Israelis) will be surprised on the battlefield,” Qassem said in his second televised address since the latest war began.

Israel on Friday destroyed a bridge over the Litani River between the towns of Zrarieh and Tayr Falsay, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency. The river bisects southern Lebanon, from east to west.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said the bridge was being used by Hezbollah as a “key crossing” to move from northern to southern Lebanon, “prepare for combat against IDF troops, and operate against the civilians of the State of Israel, while endangering Lebanese civilians and causing extensive destruction in populated areas.”

The attack was the first on Lebanese public infrastructure to be acknowledged by Israel since the start of the Middle East war, with the IDF saying it was necessary to strike the bridge to prevent a “threat to Israeli civilians, and the continued harm to Lebanese civilians.”

The military said Hezbollah also positioned rocket launchers near the bridge and carried out rocket attacks on Israel from the area recently.

“This is only the beginning, and the Lebanese government and the Lebanese state will pay an increasing price through damage to Lebanese national infrastructure that is used by Hezbollah terrorists,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said during an assessment with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and the military’s top brass.

“The Lebanese government, which misled and did not fulfill its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, will pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory, until the central commitment of disarming Hezbollah is fulfilled,” he added.

The IDF bombed several roads in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to the official National News Agency, blocking access from the north of the Litani River and from the Bekaa valley, an eastern area Hezbollah uses to transport weaponry.

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Trump says US Navy will soon begin escorting ships through Strait of Hormuz

Trump says US Navy will soon begin escorting ships through Strait of Hormuz

US President Donald Trump says the US will soon begin escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz to protect them from Iranian attack, as his administration searches for ways to ease high oil prices fueled by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Asked when the US Navy will start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump tells reporters, “It will happen soon.”

He is also asked if US and Israeli objectives in the Iran war might be a little different in terms of ending the fighting.

The Era of Truth and Freedom is Over

The Era of Truth and Freedom is Over

Paul Craig Roberts

The British Parliament is in the process of abolishing the right to trial by jury.  The law, which seems about to pass, removes a jury trial for defendants whose crimes are punishable by a sentence of three years or less.  Instead of a jury of one’s peers, a judge will determine a defendant’s innocence or guilt.  Next the cutoff will be 5 years, then ten, then jury trial will disappear, and England will return to the Dark Ages. The appointed judge will decide according to the wishes of he who rules.

The reason the Labour government gives for abolishing trial by jury is an 80,000 case backlog that is choking the British justice system, a backlog that the Labour government says will rise to 200,000 in 9 years.

So, first British governments for decades allowed massive numbers of third world immigrant-invaders into Britain, many of whom turned out to be practitioners of crime. Their crimes, many of which are never prosecuted such as the 180,000 gang-rapes of British girls covered up by British governments for 30 years, overwhelmed the ability of the court system to process, and the solution is to abolish trial by peers, one of Britain’s greatest contributions to justice.

For eight centuries from Alfred the Great to the Magna Carter to the Glorious Revolution (1680) the British built freedom and the protection of liberty from arbitrary power into law and civil society. And now a great achievement of Western Civilization has been lost to immigrant-invaders.

Possibly, trial by one’s peers had already been lost in Britain.  I do not know if plea bargaining has become a feature of the British justice system.

In the “free” United States plea-bargaining is, according to the US Department of Justice, the dominant way to decide felony cases.  According to the US Department of Justice, only 3 or 4 percent of felony cases are decided by juries. In the US jury trials have already been abolished, not by law, but by non-use.

A plea bargain is self-incrimination, against which the US Constitution and British legal practice protect a defendant from being tortured into a confession, whether innocent or guilty.

Despite the Constitutiion, Americans are coerced into self-incrimination by the cost of paying defense attorneys, by the prosecutor’s threat that he will pile on more charges if the defendant insists on a jury trial. A defendant who insists on a jury trial faces not only a hostile prosecutor, whose time is used up in a jury trial when he could be building his conviction rate with plea bargains, but also a hostile judge whose court docket is clogged by a jury trial. A plea bargain takes a few minutes. A jury trial takes a day or several weeks and requires a lot of effort and resources and attention by the judge..

If the defendant is without financial resources, his public defender knows that if he competently represents his client he will not be assigned more cases by the court.

The defendant is told by his lawyer that a jury that trusts the system will think that of so many charges against the defendant at least one of them will be true.  The defendant will be told that the penalty for one conviction will be worse than the plea bargain that has attorney can negotiate for  him. The process works to break down the defendant’s resistance to self-incrimination.

And, so, prosecutor, defendant and his attorney appear before the judge.  All three swear that no deal has been made, that the defendant admits his guilt to a charge of a crime that never happened, but which carries a lesser sentence than the original crime for which the defendant was indicted.  When I have written that America’s jails are full of innocent people, this is what I mean. Defendants admit to a crime never committed in order to avoid prosecution for one that did, whether or not the accused committed the crime.

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Five Air Force Refueling Planes Struck In Iranian Missile Attack On Saudi Arabia

Five Air Force Refueling Planes Struck In Iranian Missile Attack On Saudi Arabia

TYLER DURDEN

Summary:

• Five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia: WSJ

• Over 3 million people forcibly displaced by US-Israeli war on Iran: UN

• Iran reportedly approves Indian government sending two liquefied petroleum tankers through Hormuz

• Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines headed toward Middle East

• WSJ says Pentagon sends Marine expeditionary unit to Middle East. Oil jumps higher

• Pentagon has just confirms two additional deaths in Thursday's downing of a KC-135 refueling tanker aircraft over Western Iraq: all six US crewmembers are deceased.

• Trump and the Pentagon claim the US and Israel are "totally destroying" Iran as the war enters day 14, with Trump warning Tehran to "watch what happens" and "I am killing them" and "what a great honor it is to"

• Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is reportedly alive but wounded, "damaged," and "disfigured"

• France and Italy open talks with Iran in hope of securing safe Hormuz Strait passage, FT reporting

• Hegseth briefing: US and Israel have hit more than 15,000 enemy targets since conflict began

• Several senior Iranian officials have been openly marching through the streets of Tehran today even amid smoke from US-Israeli bombing lingers in background.

• CENTCOM: four of six crew members aboard a US refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq have died. Active search and rescue operation underway 

• Strategic risks remain high as Iran reportedly begins laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, though oil eased slightly after India said one tanker successfully exited the strait.

  
  

  Update(1955): Things are not OK in the Gulf. Below is a fresh Wall Street Journal update:

  
  

  Five U.S. Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, according to two U.S. officials.

  The tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, the officials said. U.S. Central Command declined to comment. The tankers were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, one of the officials said. No one was killed in the strikes.

  The news brings the total number of Air Force refueling planes damaged or destroyed to at least seven.

  
  

  Update(1715ET): As was reported earlier this afternoon, the Pentagon is moving a Marine expeditionary unit and additional warships to the Middle East, which strongly points to the Iran war escalating and not de-escalating, for the time being at least.

  Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth approved a request from US Central Command for elements of an amphibious ready group and its attached Marine expeditionary unit - typically several warships carrying roughly 5,000 Marines and sailors, as reported in The Wall Street Journal. The reality is that 5,000 Marines still isn't exactly an invasion force - especially for a country the size of Iran.

  Most directly, this seems a response to Iran intensifying attacks around the critical Hormuz Strait shipping lane, but any Marine detachment of this size certainly raises the prospect of deepening involvement, potentially 'on the ground' or on shore at least to some extent. 

  President Trump and admin officials have repeatedly downplayed a 'ground war'. Rejecting ground forces was articulated from day one - but it seems each day has brought some WH variety of a no options off the table response, or more of an open-endedness in terms of timeline. The big question remains, and also something global markets are closely watching is... what's the plan for offramp or achievable 'victory' here? Coupled with that of course is how long?

Trump says US ‘obliterated’ military targets in strike on key Iranian oil hub: 'Powerful bombing raids'

Trump says US ‘obliterated’ military targets in strike on key Iranian oil hub: 'Powerful bombing raids'

Amanda Macias

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. had carried out a bombing raid on Iran’s Kharg Island, a strategically vital island in the Persian Gulf that serves as the country’s largest oil terminal and a crucial hub for its crude exports.

"Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The island, located roughly 35 miles off Iran’s Bushehr province in the country’s southwest, is about the size of New York City’s Central Park, but carries huge importance for Iran’s economy.

It has a loading capacity of about 7 million barrels per day, and roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports pass through it. Most of those exports are shipped to China and India, underscoring the island’s importance not only to Iran’s energy trade but also to broader global oil markets.

That makes Kharg Island one of Iran’s most sensitive and strategically important pieces of infrastructure. Any military action there could have consequences well beyond Iran, raising the risk of disruptions to crude flows, shipping traffic and energy prices across the region.

Trump said the U.S. had deliberately avoided targeting the island’s oil infrastructure, while warning that could change if Iran moved to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

"Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision," he added

The latest revelation comes as the widening conflict in the Middle East rattles global energy markets and raises fresh fears about the security of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint.

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage between Iran the United Arab Emirates and Oman, carries roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day and about one-fifth of the global supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG). When conflict flares in the region, even the threat of disruption can rattle markets because so much of the world’s energy moves through that single corridor.

That threat is already rippling through energy markets.

This week, benchmark oil prices punched back above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, underscoring how quickly geopolitical shocks can ripple through the energy complex.

That jump is showing up at the pump. As oil prices climb, gasoline and diesel prices are rising fast — especially diesel, which can move quickly because it’s tied closely to freight and industrial demand.

On Friday, the national average for regular gasoline rose to about $3.63 a gallon, according to AAA.  Diesel prices have also jumped, with the national average up $1.23 to $4.89 a gallon.

As energy costs accelerate, the White House is weighing steps to safeguard commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and leaning on emergency stockpiles to try to cushion the blow.

Before boarding Air Force One for Mar-a-Lago late Friday, Trump told reporters the U.S. Navy may start escorting tankers through the strait "very soon."

Asked about the risk of disruptions, Trump said Monday evening he would keep the route open and threatened retaliation if Iran tried to interfere.

"I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe's oil supply. And if Iran does anything to do that, they'll get hit at a much, much harder level," Trump said during a press conference in Florida.

"In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles," he added.