Cartoon by Marian Kamensky
Iran helping Russia commit war crimes
John Dobson
Sunday Guardian: Just before midnight on Friday 19 August, two Russian Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft took off from a military airfield near Moscow. Their destination was Mehrabad International airport near Teheran. Satellite imagery, time-stamped 1.17 am Saturday 20th, shows the two aircraft parked close to two hangers on the airfield. Six hours later they had gone. What was the purpose of the visit? What were they carrying?
A clue came from the Biden administration. Speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, an official said that one plane carried $150m in cash and a number of captured UK and US weapons to Iran in exchange for a large number of deadly drones for Russia’s use in its war against Ukraine. Iranian scientists and engineers working for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are well known for their ability to “reverse engineer” weapons systems obtained on the black market. They would have been particularly excited to receive Russia’s side of the barter, reported to be three much-wanted weapons: a British Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW)—a “fire and forget” lightweight shoulder-fired weapon; a US Javelin anti-tank missile; and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile. These had all been shipped to Ukraine for their use against the invaders, but had “fallen into Russian hands”.
For their part, the Iranians supplied Russia in excess of 200 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which included more than 100 Shahed-136 and Shahed-191 drones, nicknamed “kamikaze” drones because they are designed to crash into their targets and explode on impact. They are capable of delivering explosive payloads at distances of up to 1,500 miles. The rest of the load was the larger Mohajer-6 single-engine multirole UAVs, able to carry guided missiles or bombs.
The arrival of the Iranian drones helped fill a crucial gap in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Although Russia is believed to have up to 2000 military surveillance UAVs, it has relatively few attack drones of the type that can precisely attack targets deep inside enemy territory. Which is where Iran comes in. Since August, Russia has deployed hundreds of Iranian-made drones against Ukraine, many being used in strikes against civilian infrastructure targets such as power plants. This is clearly a war crime. Russia’s actions are contrary to the Geneva Convention which prohibits military forces from deliberately attacking civilians—or the infrastructure that’s vital to their survival.
Moscow shifted to a strategy of relentless air assaults on Ukrainian cities after being forced to abandon Ukrainian territory captured early in the war. Its use of a combination of cruise missiles and Iranian self-detonating UAVs, packed with explosives, has deprived millions of Ukrainian citizens of electricity and running water, deliberately contravening the Geneva Convention.
Last week Russia continued to hit more energy installations and civilian buildings in one of its heaviest aerial bombardments of the war, using many of those UAVs obtained from Iran in August. According to the World Health Authority, more than half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is now either damaged or destroyed, and some 10 million people are currently without power. This, as temperatures are predicted to plummet as low as -20C (-4F) in some areas. “Put simply, this winter will be about survival”, Dr Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told the BBC >>>
The US and many Western nations have been doing the exact same thing for over 50 years by providing weapons to the OCCUPYING power and far worse war crimes.
Thumbs down for the hypocrisy
There is NO "hypocrisy". There is war between evil and angel. One takes side with evil and one takes side angel. US takes side with angel. Terrorists takes side with evil.
In Persian mythology from ancient time, we have had the battle of Evil (Ahreeman) with Angel (Malakeh) as well. That believe system has been conceptualized in the religions of Mithraism and Zorasterian.
What Palestinian refers to "Occupation" is nonsense. The Jews who survived from Holocaust had no place to hide or to go and the only solution was to find a safe place. Brits decided to relocate them to Palestine. They were survival of Nazi Germany concentration camps (Evil). The land had been under control of British after fall of Ottoman Empire in WWI. That was British call (Angel), NOT Jews call. Many of Jews who survived Auschwitz did NOT want to go to Israel. They wanted to go back to Europe or to their motherland, but they face execution. 46 of them returned to Poland and got shot and kiled, so to relocate them to the bare land of Palestine was the only solution for British who won the war in WWI. Palestinians didn't have any civilazation. They were no mad tribes in bare land, but they did NOT welcome Jews. Zero tolerance for Jews till today.
#Mahsa_Amini