Блиски исток

Creepy Uncle wrote:nisu ortodoksi kao takvi izuzeti iz vojne službe več ultraortodoksi, Haredi, i to oni koji su se izjasnili da su posvetili život izučavanju Tore.

Saudijska Arabija se slaže sa SAD da Iran stoji iza napada na dva naftna tankera u Omanskom zalivu

TOKYO — The owner of a Japanese tanker attacked in the Strait of Hormuz offered a different account Friday of the nature of the attack than that provided by the United States.

Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo, said the Filipino crew of the Kokuka Courageous thought their vessel had been hit by flying objects rather than a mine.

“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying towards them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel,” he told reporters. “Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”
The United States said the vessel was attacked by limpet mines and released a video that it said showed an Iranian vessel removing an unexploded mine from one of the ships.

But Katada offered an alternative version of how the events unfolded.

“To put a bomb on the side is not something we are thinking,” he said. “If it’s between an explosion and a penetrating bullet, I have a feeling it is a penetrating bullet. If it was an explosion, there would be damage in different places, but this is just an assumption or a guess.”

On Thursday, company officials said the vessel, which had been carrying methanol from Saudi Arabia to Singapore, had first been hit by what appeared to be an artillery shell toward the stern, causing a fire in the engine room which they had been able to extinguish.

Three hours later, the ship was again attacked on the same side in the center of the hull, at which point the captain felt it was no longer safe and ordered the crew to take to the life boats, officials said.

“When the shell hit, it was above the water surface by quite a lot,” Katada said Friday. “Because of that there is no doubt that it wasn’t a torpedo.”

The ship’s crew saw an Iranian military vessel in the vicinity Thursday night Japan time, Katada said, according to Reuters news agency.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japanese-ship-owner-contradicts-us-account-of-how-tanker-was-attacked/2019/06/14/7ea347d0-8eba-11e9-b6f4-033356502dce_story.html?utm_term=.37ea4fa49b46

BREAKING: U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton high-altitude drone shot down by Iranian surface-to-air missile this evening over Strait of Hormuz in international airspace: U.S. official

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) June 20, 2019

Iran releases video of downing RQ-4A pic.twitter.com/wFR0FxjaXS

— Ali Vaez (@AliVaez) June 20, 2019

Sotir wrote:Чудан снимак, нешто су кадрирали из више снимака, не види се континуално лет ракете на основу чега би могла да се оцени даљина до циља.
Али види се лепо експлозија, што личи да је било близу.

New York Times: Trump abruptly calls off military strikes against Iran after approving them

(CNN) President Donald Trump abruptly called off military strikes against Iran on Thursday night after previously approving the strikes in retaliation for Iran shooting down a US military drone, The New York Times reports.

The operation was already underway in its initial stages -- ships were in position and planes were in the air -- but no missiles had been fired when the order came to stand down, a senior administration official told the Times. The strike had been scheduled for just before dawn on Friday in Iran to minimize the risk to civilians and the Iranian military, and military officials received word shortly after then that the strike was off, at least temporarily.

The United States remains locked in a standoff with Iran, with US military or diplomatic responses having the potential to provoke further escalation from Tehran. Iran's downing of a US drone earlier Thursday has left the President caught between Republicans demanding a response and congressional Democrats warning that Trump -- and the Iran policy hardliners on his national security staff, who welcome the confrontation -- could lose control of the situation and lead the US into war.

Military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike as late as 7 p.m. on Thursday after intense debate among Trump's top national security officials and congressional leaders at the White House, multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations told the Times.

Trump initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries, and the Times reports it was not clear whether Trump simply changed his mind or whether his administration pulled back because of strategy or logistics. It was also not clear whether the attacks may still occur.

The Times reporting drew swift reaction from Trump's Democratic rivals.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tweeted that "there is no justification" for escalating tensions with Iran.

"Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict," she wrote. "There is no justification for further escalating this crisis -- we need to step back from the brink of war."

The White House and Pentagon officials declined to comment to the Times, but no government officials asked for the article to be withheld. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

The strikes would have been Trump's third military action against Middle East targets, according to the Times. Trump has twice struck targets in Syria.

Earlier Thursday, before the Times report, a senior White House official told CNN that Trump and national security adviser John Bolton were engaged in an ongoing debate about how to handle Iran.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a CNN military analyst, told CNN's Don Lemon Thursday on "CNN Tonight" that disagreement within the administration about whether to attack is not unusual for a White House.

"That's something that occurs at any strategic decision level," Hertling said, "when you're mitigating risk or you're attempting to understand what the risk might be based on the processes of war gaming and determining what your objectives are."

Trump moved to ease tensions with Iran Thursday morning after Tehran downed a US drone near the Persian Gulf, CNN previously reported. He struck a starkly different tone on Iran from Bolton and other senior security aides.

…

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/21/politics/trump-military-strikes-iran/index.html

KinderLad wrote:Koje blamiranje...