It will not go away.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

And if you had read even the headlines BT, you would have noted that the rockets were not aimed at the city of Damascus, as you claimed, but the Damascus area. There is a world of difference. Not that propagandists worry about such things.

FFS sinkov, you can be grammar school pedantic at times!

[sinkov]

FFS sinkov, you can be grammar school pedantic at times!

All in the interests of truth and accuracy BT, which is what we are both continually striving for............isn't it ?

[Balanbam00]

Israel's latest Syria adventure is a message to Putin https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syxck3i0k

Despite Damascus airing to Moscow its frustration with repeated Israeli-linked attacks on its soil, Jerusalem signals it won't pull any punches to stop Iran's entrenchment along its northern border.

On Monday, two major Iran-related security incidents took place in a span of three hours.

First was an attack on the outskirts of Damascus attributed to Israel targeting warehouses belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
The other was a ballistic missile fired at Abu Dhabi by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen during President Issac Herzog's visit.
Although the missile was launched by the Houthi fighters, it was clearly an Iranian assault on the Gulf nation and could serve to further strengthen Israeli–Emirati security cooperation.

The predawn strike on Damascus came just over a week after a joint flyby of the Russian and Syrian air forces along Israel's Golan Heights border, which some believe signals the Kremlin's dissatisfaction with increasing Israeli attacks against its north-eastern neighbor.
Advanced Russian fighter jets, including Sukhoi Su-34s and 35s and A-50s, as well Syrian MiG-23s and 29s, took part in a drill that Russian defence officials described as the first in what was to become a routine occurrence.

The higher-ups in the Israeli defence establishment were quick to contact their Russian counterparts, voicing their concerns a shift in Moscow's policy in the region would hamper Israel's efforts to prevent Iran's entrenchment along its northern border.
For Tehran, Sunday's strike is a sign that despite Washington's weakness against them — even after attacking U.S. targets in Syria and Iraq — Israel is different. It will not fold, not even in the face of Russian pressures.

As far as Israel is concerned, it has no intention to make any policy changes.

[Balanbam00]

Bennett: Israel to rollout laser-based defence system within a year.

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/rk6kixprk

PM says new system would 'neutralize the ring of fire Iran has set up around our borders' by enhancing country's defensive capabilities and slashing high operation costs.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that the IDF will begin utilizing a high-end laser-based interception system within a year, despite defence officials previously predicting such a system would not become operational before 2025.

"The system will allow Israel to be surrounded by a laser wall that will protect it from missiles, rockets, drones and other threats."

According to the premier, the new system will eventually replace the highly-reliable Iron Dome air defense system currently utilized in all parts of the country and effectively eliminate the high costs incurred by operating it.
“If we can intercept a missile or rocket with an electric pulse that costs only a few dollars, we will by all accounts neutralize the ring of fire Iran has set up around our borders,” Bennett said.

“This new generation of Israeli air defences will also serve our friends in the region, who are also exposed to severe threats from Iran and its proxies."
The prime minister also condemned the ongoing aggressions perpetrated by the Islamic Republic and its proxies across the Middle East as Tehran tries to negotiate the re*****ization of the tattered 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers in Vienna.
"While the Iranian foreign ministry is sitting in Vienna with world superpowers, Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard is busy acting like the neighbourhood bully by attacking the Emirates and elsewhere. That is the definition of negotiations under fire,” he said.

[Balanbam00]

After drone strike, UAE to expand use of Israeli air defence tech.

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/sy049sh6f

Chiefs of Israel-based companies that specialize in tech counteracting drones, say Houthi attack near Abu Dhabi airport earlier this week, which killed 3 people, could have been prevented with anti-drone defence system in place. The United Arab Emirates is looking to expand its arsenal of Israeli counter-drone defense systems following a deadly Houthi drone strike on its capital.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Monday launched a drone attack near Abu Dhabi’s airport that claimed the lives of three people and injured several others. The attack also caused multiple explosions.

“Due to the incident that happened this week, they are now asking us what we can supply them with as soon as possible out of a long list of systems,” Itzik Huber, CEO of Skylock Systems, part of the Avnon HLS Group, said. Based in Israel, Skylock Systems specializes in the design and production of technologies for the detection, verification and neutralization of unauthorized drones. The company’s technology has been deployed in 31 countries, including the United States and, more recently, Morocco.

“Had they deployed such a system there, they would have known ahead of time that a strike was incoming,” he added. “Even if you’re unable to stop the attack, knowing that it is about to happen is very important because you can move people to shelters and look for ways to defend yourself.”
In order to stop a drone attack, the UAV must first be detected. Skylock is able to detect hostile drones from over 20 km, or 12.4 miles away, Huber said.
Once that is accomplished, there are several avenues that can be used to disarm it.
“Most can be blocked electronically, for instance by disabling the drone’s GPS or navigation system, shutting off its video capabilities or by jamming the frequency that the drone uses to fly,” Huber said.

Another option is to send out a high-speed drone to take down its hostile counterpart.

“The biggest challenge with these drones is that they can fly very low and quite fast, and since they are relatively smooth objects it’s more difficult to detect them with traditional radars,” Lior Segal, CEO of ThirdEye Systems, said. “This attack [in Abu Dhabi] happened from a very long distance – hundreds of kilo-meters – so it’s a very challenging object to detect. It’s a very simple but very effective weapon.”

ThirdEye Systems specializes in AI-powered object recognition algorithms and its products are currently being used by the Israel Defence Forces as well as other leading defence bodies around the world. Its electro-optical detection system is used mainly against small drones.
Attack drones such as the one used by the Houthi rebels, Segal said, can carry up to 45 kilograms, or 99 pounds of explosives, and fly at speeds of roughly 200 kph (125 mph) over distances reaching hundreds of miles.
“Because Israel is a small country, I think we have quite a good coverage,” Segal said. “In Israel we’re very aware.”

“Unlike learning to be a pilot and flying a plane into a building, which is complicated, nowadays you can purchase a drone for $500 and have it carry explosives,” he continued. “It’s a big threat that’s only going to get bigger. Unless you have a specific way to stop the drone, then there’s nothing you can do.”

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I'm amazed Bashar al - Assad is still alive and kicking.

Mossad need to up their game methinks.

[Balanbam00]

I'm amazed Bashar al - Assad is still alive and kicking. How do you know BT ? You are still with the West bank of Jerusalem, which does not exist Anyway he is stuffed in Madam Tussauds in Tel Aviv

[Balanbam00]

Mossad or the IDF ? Don't worry everything is under control.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-695261

Israel's laser missile defence system
Israel's powerful laser has many advantages, including the ability to effectively intercept long-range threats at high altitudes regardless of weather conditions and the ability to defend vast areas.

“From the moment a laser is on the target, it takes a few seconds before they are downed,” MAFAT head Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Danny Gold told The Jerusalem Post in a recent interview, adding that such a system would be used alongside the Iron Dome.

Laser is the next thing; it really is Star Wars."

[Balanbam00]

Syria's civil war has claimed more than 3700 lives this year

The year 2021 marked a decade since Syria's uprisings erupted, and the country is still mired in poverty and violence. What started with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, later turned into a complex battlefield involving international armies, local militias, and foreign fighters.
Some 500,000 people during the past 10 years have been killed, and millions were forced to flee the country, but President Bashar al-Assad remains entrenched in power, thanks to military support from Iran and Russia.
Many exiled Syrians remained hesitant to return to the country in 2021, while many people in Syria are still trying to flee.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Jordan and Lebanon have also taken steps to re-establish ties with Syria, and have urged the US to ease sanctions on Damascus in order to bolster trade.In late September, Jordan fully reopened the Nassib-Jaber border crossing to help boost its debt-ridden economy, further damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lebanon, facing a crippling economic crisis of its own, has also taken steps to restore ties with Damascus for security coordination, trade, and facilitating refugee returns.

The country hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees, of which about 90 percent live in extreme poverty, according to the United Nations. The cash-strapped country is also finalising a US-backed agreement to supply it with electricity with Egyptian natural gas through Jordan and Syria.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Stay safe my mate.

[Balanbam00]

Thank you my mate ,all seems very safe here , just the Media want action?? Very peaceful

[sinkov]

I'm amazed Bashar al - Assad is still alive and kicking.

He chooses his friends carefully BT, far better to throw in your lot with Putin and the Mad Mullahs, they don't cut and run like the USA, the UK and France do, as and when it suits them.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

He chooses his friends carefully BT, far better to throw in your lot with Putin and the Mad Mullahs, they don't cut and run like the USA, the UK and France do, as and when it suits them.

That's one of the main reasons I'm amazed he's still breathing God's air sinkov.

[sinkov]

According to the Grauniad and BBC he's just a second rate gangster, running a mafia state. He's been running Syria for 22 years now, that is a long time in such a volatile part of the world, I think that shows that maybe the infants at the Grauniad just might be underestimating him.

[sinkov]

No, it just will not go away, anti-semitism rears it's ugly head again.

"Whoopi Goldberg's gaffe proves that woke 'anti-racism' can all too easily slip into anti-Semitism. Critical Race Theory is constructed so that it can only ever end up landing Jews in the role of the despised".

"There has been much furore over comments made by veteran Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg on an American television show. In a conversation sparked by a Tennessee school board’s ban of Maus, the award-winning graphic novel about the Nazi death camps, Goldberg said that the Holocaust “was not about race” but was instead about “two groups of white people” and “man’s inhumanity to man” – for which she has since apologised. As many were quick to point out, Nazi ideology very explicitly saw Jews as an inferior race.

I found myself underwhelmed by her comments. Not because they didn’t betray terrible distortions in thinking, but because those distortions are now so familiar. Elements of the extreme Right have their own fine purchase on Jew-hatred, but you might expect that of people whose poster boy is Hitler. The apparent ironies are more focussed when anti-Semitism pours from the virtue-signalling Left, as it has done ever since wokeness, amplified by Black Lives Matter, rose to cultural dominance.

But the so-called anti-racism movement, enshrined in Critical Race Theory – a set of beliefs that divides the world into white supremacists and their victims – is not coincidentally or ironically linked to anti-Semitism. It directly produces it.

Throughout history, belief structures have been erected that turn Jews into the enemy and, crucially, legitimise making them the enemy. Critical Race Theory and ardent anti-racism is one of those belief structures. Of course nice people don’t want to be horrible about a minority, and nice people hate racism. They are anti-racist! But thanks to the way “anti-racism” is rigged up today, its insistence on seeing the world as a contest between white oppressors and their victims, they end up being racist anyway.

This is because if you have a system that casts one type of person as a structural baddie – namely white people – there is then a tendency to include Jews in that (never mind that many Jews do not have white skin). And if that same system sees white people as bad because they are oppressive, with power vested in a cruel history of domination over people of colour, then, hey presto, you also get to include Jews in that, too. This is because you’ve already designated Israel a colonial power with, as Amnesty International concluded erroneously yet again this week, an apartheid system in place. And if whiteness and privilege are equated, then Jews can be slotted into that idea too: one of the most enduring anti-Semitic tropes about Jews is that we are all nefariously rich.

Critical Race Theory, therefore, is constructed so that it can only ever end up landing Jews in the role of the despised and this is why, time and again, its ardently anti-racist adherents come out with vicious anti-Semitic comments, whether they’re members of Corbyn’s Labour party or right-on celebrities and popstars.

Anti-Semitism used to plague the Left much less than the Right. But anti-Semitic ways of thinking are shape-shifting. At the moment, its logics are on particularly clear display on the Left in which the urge to insult and malign Jews is not in opposition to its zeal for virtue, but directly fuelled by it. Indeed, in the world of Critical Race Theory, insulting Jews is a kind of virtue, and it will keep happening as long as woke anti-racism remains our culture’s religion."