Brief Middle East Update: Ike, Hezbollah
Controversy still swirls around what’s up with the Ike. The resupply plane from Bahrain, whose regular daily flights to the Ike were suspended for six days, is apparently now landing on the carrier again—as we reported yesterday. Those flights included mail and stuff for crew members—a big deal for the crew on these super long deployments. Some maintain that something happened to the Ike that precluded landing by that C2 plane. In addition, the ship is said to be under some sort of OPSEC lockdown. That could be related to an incident—a Houthi attack—but could also be related to coming operations in the Levant region: Syria, Lebanon, Israel. Or both. As I said earlier, there appears to be lots of activity in the area (also, India flew in explosives to Israel overnight). Go to Will Schryver for detailed discussion re Ike.
This, by the way, suggests that the Eisenhower is actually locked down to some extent for OPSEC.
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Sam Lockhart @soil_owner
Jun 4
Replying to @ArmchairW and @ChowdahHill
I don't know how credible it is but I did ask a navy friend to sniff around the NSN family groups on FB and there is quite a bit of angst.Apparently some cases of crewmen missing expected calls on the sailor phone, and that's causing worry. They're not sure what's going on.
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More Eisenhower Rumors and Mystery There are now anecdotal stories swirling that the USS Eisenhower is in some sort of OPSEC (operations security) condition. Supposedly regular communications between family in the US with their shipboard relatives are currently prohibited, [security re future ops, past attack?] …
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Hezbollah has apparently introduced a new model of strike drone into the northern theater of the ever-escalating war. These drones attest stealthy properties, and are defeating Israel's "Iron Dome" air defenses, striking targets without being detected; no warning sirens.
I’ve been seeing reports for the last week or so that Hezbollah drones are evading the Israeli warning systems. I wasn’t sure whether this had to do with Hezbollah degrading Israeli systems, or new capabilities.
Al Mayadeen English @MayadeenEnglish
15h
Israeli Major General (Res.) Giora Eiland suggested that if "Israel" declared war on #Hezbollah, it [Israel] would lose the war from the first day. #Lebanon https://en.mdn.tv/7pqA
Several interesting side points in that post, Mark. Firstly, why is India sending explosives to Israel? Modi has just lost his absolute majority and I wonder if one of the reasons is that many Indians are sick of him sitting on the fence where Brics is concerned. He seems to be doing an Erdogan by playing off both sides against each other. India, like Turkey (and Europe, for that matter) are going to have to choose whose side they are on. Secondly, what the hell are Muslim Arab states doing helping US warships with resupply? I wonder how that plays out with the Arab street? I don't think the Ike was damaged, and probably wasn't even hit. It looks like it's shaking down into full war mode for a desperate Israeli hit on Hezbollah.
Latest from Larry Johnson over at Sonar21: "I fully anticipate that Russia will provide Islamic insurgents in Syria and Iraq, as well as the Houthis, with weapons that can hit US and NATO targets in Syria and the Red Sea, if Ukraine expands attacks in Russia with Western weapons. Putin and Lavrov are dead-ass serious."