#Hezbollah’s pagers go boom, #AntiSemites wax wroth

Israel launched one of the greatest covert action attacks ever yesterday, with some kind of operation that targeted the pagers that Hezbollah were using in Lebanon. Israel had the pager numbers of the Hezbollah operatives, including an Iranian representative to the group in Beirut, and sent a group page than caused the pagers to explode. As nearly as I can see, the only problem with the operation is that the explosions weren’t lethal enough!

Hezbollah had turned to pagers for communications because the Israel Defense Force, IDF, had been successful in tracking Hezbollah’s cell phones, and targeting drones to zero in and whack the terrorists. At least in theory, the pagers couldn’t be tracked.

This was a brilliant operation, because it targeted Hezbollah members specifically, as opposed to having to bomb particular buildings or streets to strike at the terrorists, thus including possibly significant ‘collateral’ casualties. There were a few, few! collateral injuries in this operation; that was unavoidable. Nevertheless, FrumTikTok — who is not Libs of TikTok! — found and tweeted out the frantic response of a pretty but nevertheless silly redhead — and redheads always get a break from me! — to the operation.

Click on the image and you can listen to her entire rant.

She was horrified, horrified, that Israel was able to strike Hezbollah so precisely. Would she have preferred that the IDF would have blown up entire blocks?

Also see: William Teach, “Funny: Hezbollah Pagers Explode

No, of course not. Rather, she is horrified that Israel is fighting back at all against the terrorist group, who have been launching missiles and rockets against northern Israel. Nowhere in her rant did I see any mention that Hezbollah had been attacking Israel, or any condemnation of the terrorists’ actions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have greatly preferred that his country not have to deal with other Islamist enemies while the operation in Gaza was continuing, but Israel is not going to just sit back and take potentially lethal attacks, from anyone.

The odious Edward Snowden, who has had nothing to say about the Islamists attacking Israel, said that this precision attack was “terrorism.”

I will admit to being amused that some of these pagers detonated in ways that could have emasculated some of the terrorists. 🙂 They fully deserve it.

Blogging from France! This is how the good and noble 'Palestinians' treated the hostages they seized.

Ville de Nice, France (8:43 AM local time) — In the ‘First World,’ we at least feed even the worst of the prisoners.

One thing is certain: even if you do not particularly like Jews, or know any Jews, for those of us in the Western world, members of Western civilization, the Jews of Israel are the last, easternmost bastion of Western civilization.

That’s what happened to the six hostages murdered just before the Israel Defense Force got there. The reports from the autopsies found that they had attempted to defend themselves, bravely but futilely, at the end.

One of the female hostages, an adult woman, weighed less than 90 lb when her body was recovered. This is what the Arabs would do to you, if they had the power.

Click on the tweet to see the extension.

Blogging from France! The only way the war can really end

Ville de Nice, 11:12 AM — I’m sitting in our airbnb balcony, French doors open this Sunday morning. The Mediterranean beach is just a couple of blocks away, but, alas! it’s raining this morning.

Even six hours away from the US, I’m still being inundated with social media messages — yes, I have Twitter on my phone — in support of the poor, poor ‘Palestinians,’ the Arabs who live in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Those mean ol’ Jooos stole their land, don’t you know!

Never mentioned, of course, is that the Jews were forced off their land starting in 70 AD by the Roman conquerers, pushed into Europe at the point of a sword. And never mentioned is that our good, Christian forebears in Europe, in all of Europe, hounded and persecuted the Jews living among them; Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were simply the last of the last and worst of the persecutions.

Theodor Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat well before the Nazis, in the last years of the 19th century, following a series of antiSemitic episodes, in which he posited that the only way Jews could truly be safe was to have their own nation. He died before the Nazis came to power, and never knew about the Holocaust.

Why is it, I have to ask, that the Jews returning to Israel is not something that today’s left see as just as much of a homecoming as they see the ‘Palestinians’ deserving what they laughably call ‘Palestine’?

Just as amusing is that so many of the things I see came from Americans, or at least people living in the United States. They whine about “white settler colonialism”, but if you are living in the United States, you are the beneficiary of “white settler colonialism,” the beneficiary of those primarily English settlers who expanded westward, conquering a continent, expelling and often exterminating the Indians, the weaker people who were here before them.

It isn’t just in the US. Every nation on earth, with the exception of Iceland, is ruled by the descendants of the last people to conquer the land. The Norman French conquered England, and imposed their rule, assimilating and in some instances killing the Anglo-Saxons, who themselves had conquered the Britons before them. Today’s Germans are not the people who lived there 2,000 years ago.

Today’s left are screaming for a ceasefire, but what they really want is for Hamas, the terrorists who started the war with a bloody attack last October 7th, to survive, so that they can regroup, rearm, and attack Israel again. Unthinkingly, they want this war to end, but the fighters to be able to start the next war.

Can you imagine today’s left, in January of 1944, advocating a ceasefire, since Germany was obviously beaten, instead of continuing on, to spare the lives of innocent Germans, don’t you know? That would have left Adolf Hitler and his minions alive and in power, to keep on oppressing the people and murdering the Jews.

World War II was the last war we actually won, and that ought to be a lesson: the demand was for unconditional surrender, and we continued on, bombing and burning and killing until that was achieved. Since those dark days of 1945, neither the Germans nor the Japanese nor the Italians have threatened world peace again, because we destroyed their ability to make war, and occupied those countries, installing decent governments and forcing changes in the militaristic cultures. That’s how you win wars!

Right now, Yahya Sinwar is sitting somewhere, in a tunnel, surrounded by his human shields hostages, like Hitler in his bunker, hoping for some kind of miracle to save him. In the end, he shot himself as the Red Army was a few blocks away. His miracle never happened.

Mr Sinwar is hoping for the same kind of miracle, and the lamebrained protesters in the West are trying to give it to him. But this war can only truly end when Mr Sinwar puts a bullet in his own head. Regrettably, he’ll kill his last hostages before he kills himself, because death, other than his own, is meaningless to him.

Kamala Harris Emhoff’s campaign communications director tells us she “shares the goals” of the outside rabble

It was buried far down, as in the 15th paragraph of the article, before Michael Tyler, the campaign communications director for Kamala Harris Emhoff told us a truth he might regret. In an article in The Hill by Alex Gangitano entitled “How Harris wants to handle Gaza at the Democratic convention“, the author told readers that the Democratic National Convention isn’t spending much time on the Israel/Hamas war, because other issues are of greater importance to American voters, but far down, she gave us this:

When asked about the war protesters in Chicago this week, Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler argued that Harris is “somebody who understands the goals of the people who are showing up to demonstrate here and frankly who shares the goals.”

As the campaign’s communications director, one would assume that Mr Tyler understands the importance of words and choosing his words carefully, so when he tells everybody that Mrs Emhoff “shares the goals” of the pro-Hamas demonstrators, I believe him.

NBC News reported:

Tuesday night’s protest was organized by Behind Enemy Lines, a leftist group with militant leanings. Another group behind the protest was Samidoun, which Germany and Israel have banned over allegations that it has ties to terrorist groups. (The U.S. has not declared Samidoun a terrorist group.)

The hyperlinks in the quoted paragraph were not in the original, but added by me. These organizations seek to disrupt civilization itself in their advocacy of fighting for the ‘Palestinians’ and freeing ‘Palestinian’ terrorists in Israeli jails. As we have previously noted, one of the infamous prisoner exchanges, 1,027 ‘Palestinian’ prisoners exchanged for a single Israeli hostage, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7th massacre. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank reported that the demonstrations were smaller than anticipated, but he heard “clarion calls for the destruction of Israel: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.”

Most of the credentialed media failed to publish images of the Hamas flags being waved, but at least Fox News managed to do it.

So, if Mrs Emhoff “shares the goals” of the outside demonstrators, it has to be asked: which of their goals does she share? Most called for the ‘liberation’ of Palestine, but as Mr Milbank noted, there were also chants supporting the elimination of Israel; that’s what “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means! Those waving the Hamas flag are telling us that they support the kidnapping, rapes and murders that Hamas committed last October 7th; when the Democratic presidential nominee “shares the goals” of the protesters, does she support that as well?

Dead man walking: Hamas declare Yahya Sinwar as their new political leader

Following the extermination — I will not use the word assassination to reference the killing of a cockroach — of Ismail Haniyeh as the political leader of Hamas, the leadership of the terrorist group decided that Yahya Sinwar should be their new Fearless Leader.

Israel had long ago declared that that Mr Sinwar is a dead man walking.

Middle East Crisis: Hamas Names an Architect of Oct. 7 Attacks as New Political Leader

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Hamas announced on Tuesday that it had chosen Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds behind the deadly Oct. 7 attack, as the next head of the group’s political office, consolidating his power over the militant group as it continues the 10-month war with Israel.

Mr. Sinwar, who spent two decades in Israeli prisons, has been long viewed by Israeli officials as a sophisticated strategist with a keen understanding of their society. He has been Hamas’s leader in Gaza since 2017. But he will now also replace Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s top political leader, who was a key liaison in the indirect cease-fire talks with Israel.

As The New York Times pointed out on May 12th, Mr Sinwar was among 1,027 ‘Palestinian’ prisoners traded for one Israeli soldier, Staff Sergeant Galid Shalit, in 2011. It is the sad irony of the Middle East that Mr Sinwar planned what turned out to be the deaths of more than 1,027 innocent Israelis on October 7th, along with the capturing of roughly 250 hostages.

In saving one soldier, Israel paid the price of over a thousand innocent non-combatants, plus over 600 soldiers and policemen killed in the current war. I understand the tremendous pressure on the government concerning the return of the remaining hostages, an unknown number of whom are already dead, just as there was during the five-year captivity of Staff Sergeant Shalit, but at some point Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have to realize that releasing multiple numbers of ‘Palestinian’ bad guys in exchange for a few surviving Israelis is not a wise trade.

The Times reported:

While the talks are mediated in Egypt and Qatar, it is Mr. Sinwar — believed to be hiding in a tunnel network beneath Gaza — whose consent is required by Hamas’s negotiators before they agree to any concessions, according to some of those officials.

The psychopath Yahya Sinwar. You can see the crazy in his eyes.

Due to Mr Sinwar’s concealment, it takes considerable time to get any new negotiations communicated to him, and time to get his responses back. If his consent has been required in the past, while Mr Haniyeh was still alive, how much more so is that true now?

He is supposedly hiding in a deep, deep tunnel network, protected by several captured Israelis being used as human shields.

The decision to appoint Mr. Sinwar is an indication that, ten months into the war, the Palestinian group’s leaders remain firmly behind the decision to attack southern Israel on Oct. 7, analysts said. And it signals that Israeli efforts to try and cripple the group by killing off its leaders may have only entrenched the hard-line position Hamas has taken, they said.

Gaza has been, if not completely destroyed, heavily damaged. Whatever jobs they had, whatever infrastructure they had, are gone now.

“This is more about the overall vision for what Hamas wants, which is focusing more on liberation and less on being a governing power,” said Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the official body representing Palestinians internationally.

Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza has driven the Islamist group underground, but Hamas had ruled over the enclave since 2007, fashioning itself into the new government of Gaza and exerting oppressive control over the enclave’s people.

Under Mr. Sinwar’s leadership, Hamas, designated by many Western governments as a terrorist group, had sought to free itself of the challenge of running a civilian government in Gaza, while remaining the ultimate power through its military might.

Mr. Sinwar’s selection was an affirmation of that vision, one that aims to put a greater focus on confronting Israel.

After the Oct. 7 attacks, Hamas leaders said they wanted to ignite a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts to revive the Palestinian cause, knowing Israel’s response would be aggressive.

In other words, they’re fanatics.

As much as they might have thought the Arab or Muslim nations would come to their aid, that hasn’t been the case. Some Islamist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah have tried to bring the battle to Israel, none of the Arab nations have done so, because Arab governments have a responsibility to their nations and people, and the last thing they want is another devastating war with Israel. Iran, which is Persian, not Arabic, and Turkey, which is Turkish, not Arab, have made threatening noises, but Iran is 1,000 miles away from Israel, and Turkey 500 miles away.

Hamas would prefer death before surrender, and Israel just might give it to them.

The Iranians should be worried!

As my good friend Robert Stacy McCain has noted, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it was responsible for the extermination — I refuse to call it an assassination, as one does not assassinate cockroaches — of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, though most people have concluded that they did. Personally, I hope that Israel is responsible! Arash Azizi certainly believes it!

A Wake-Up Call for Iran

Israel can pretty much do what it wants on Iranian soil.

By Arash Azizi | Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | 11:20 AM EDT

Ismail Haniyeh should have known that Tehran wasn’t a safe place for him to be. What has Israel ever wanted to do on Iranian territory that it hasn’t been able to accomplish? In 2018, it stole the country’s entire nuclear archive. In 2020, it killed Iran’s top nuclear-weapons official. In 2022 and 2023, it reportedly abducted, interrogated, and then released security officials who were planning actions against Israeli tourists in the region—and it did this entirely on Iranian soil. Such extensive operations show that Mossad has deeply penetrated Iran’s security architecture, much as it has in the hit Israeli TV show Tehran.

That’s all you get to read at The Atlantic, because the rest falls behind the paywall. But, not to worry, msn.com reproduced it for free! As much as I’m shelling out for subscriptions, free is still my favorite price!

Details are still emerging about the strike on Haniyeh, Hamas’s highest-ranking political leader, who was killed in Tehran in the early hours today. The assassination comes at an incredibly tense moment, less than 24 hours after Israel used an air strike to take out Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah official, in Beirut. Hezbollah has not confirmed Shukr dead, and Israel has not taken responsibility for the attack on Haniyeh. But fingers will naturally point to the country with both the capacity and the motive to go after the Hamas leader.

Israel has a history of targeting militant leaders behind the killing of its citizens. Palestinian militants massacred Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972, and Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, a string of assassinations of militant leaders all over the world that ended only in 1988. Israel was always going to find and kill Haniyeh, a leader of the group that perpetrated October 7, the most lethal terror attack in the country’s history.

“Operation Wrath of God”? Yeah, I like that name!

We are told, of course, just how wrong, wrong, wrong! targeted assassinations are, but let’s tell the truth here: if the United Kingdom had had the ability to take out Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring in 1940, the way Israel supposedly exterminated Mr Haniyeh, does anyone doubt that Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have ordered it done? Does anyone doubt that the world would be a better place today if that had happened?

This supposed capability is hardly surprising. I’m old enough to remember when there was talk in the 1980s, perhaps a bit overblown, that the guidance system for American cruise missiles was so good that we could send it through the men’s room window in the Kremlin. With the ever-increasing capabilities of global positioning satellites, that Israel could put a weapon on any particular building it wished is not really surprising. The more surprising part is that Israel — if it was Israel! — not only knew that Mr Haniyeh was in Tehran, but knew exactly where he was staying. I expect to hear about crackdowns in Iran, as their security apparatus tries to find out how Israel got that information, in time for it to have been actionable. It will not pay to be one of the Usual Suspects in Iran right now!

Oh, who am I kidding? The Usual Suspects have already been in jail in Iran. The Islamic Republic will be scrutinizing anyone who had the information, scouring their computers to see if they can find a Mossad intrusion, interrogating journalists, and putting everyone in the neighborhood to the question. The Ayatollah might want to strike at Israel, but the real strike will be against Iranians themselves.

Ayatollah Ali Khameini has to be worried about something else. If Israel, or whomever, could target and kill Mr Haniyeh in his Tehran safe house, then the mad mullahs could just as easily be killed in their homes. It’s good that he’s worried.

Karma comes for Ismail Haniyeh He started a war he couldn't finish, and now that war has finished him.

Ismail Haniyeh isn’t smiling anymore.

We noted, on June 6th, that Hamas leaders don’t really care about the lives of ordinary Palestinians, and see the sacrifice of their lives as politically useful:

Ismail Haniyeh is the ‘Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,’ and as such is supposedly the chief officer of that terrorist group. On October 7, 2023, he gave a televised speech from Istanbul, telling the world that the October 7th attack was fully justified, which he “highlighted threats to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the continuation of the blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalization with countries in the region.” Safely living in Qatar, Mr Haniyeh is once again rejecting a ceasefire proposal which does not give Hamas complete victory.

Mr Haniyeh is no longer “safely living in Qatar,” and his estimated net worth of $4 billion isn’t going to do him much good now, as someone has sent him straight to Hell.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is killed in Iran by an alleged Israeli strike, threatening escalation

by Abby Sewell | Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | 7:19 AM EDT

BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital Wednesday, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risks escalating the conflict even as the U.S. and other nations were scrambling to prevent an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and only hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

The assassination of Hamas’ top political leader was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile, intertwined conflicts — because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates.

Yahya Sinwar, you’re next!

Also read: William Teach, “Israel Strikes Beirut, Kills Hezbollah Commander

Naturally, the maddest of the mad mullahs, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that revenge was Iran’s duty for “a dear guest in our home,” but Iran has already been striking at Israel, via it’s stooges Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States had no advance knowledge of, and was not in any way involved in, the sending of Mr Haniyeh to his 72 bacha bazi boys virgins, and I believe him: Israel would never have told the US in advance, because they’d rightly fear that the US would warn Mr Haniyeh that the strike was coming.

Israel, under the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, completely evacuated Gaza in 2005, forcibly evacuating the Jewish settlers there, and giving the Arabs in Gaza a chance to build something positive there, build an enclave of peace and prosperity. Instead, the ‘Palestinians,’ led by Hamas, turned it into a fetid and festering sewer of anti-Jewish hatred, terrorist activity, and tunnels for hiding weapons and fighters, and a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Hamas had a chance to strive for peace, by being peaceful, and thus pushing for an Israeli government which would be responsive to that peace. Instead, led in part by Mr Haniyeh, they sought, and got, war.

The diplomats are all worried that this will lead to a wider war, but the truth is that, unless Israel finishes off Hamas, and Hezbollah, too, wider war will come. Mr Haniyeh was living in luxury in Qatar, and frequently traveling around the Muslim Middle East, in seeming impunity, while the people he (supposedly) led were dying in a useless struggle. Now he is in Jahannam.

Hamas delendum est

In November of 2022, I had the privilege of a far-too-short visit to Jerusalem, really just 3 days, and my daughter and I spent almost all of our time in the Old City. We were able to attend Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall, then ascend the Temple Mount to the al-Aqsa Mosque, though we could not enter that. We saw the Garden of Gethsemane, and many of the Christian sites there, along with taking the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross.

The Old City is simply amazing. Jerusalem has been destroyed several times before, and the Old City is not what it was in Jesus’ time, and much of what can be seen is actually Byzantine construction. Some things are clearly fanciful, as the alleged Tomb of Mary and Birthplace of Mary are there, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that Mary was either born or died in that city. Our best guess is that Mary was Galilean, from the area around Nazareth, and even though Nazareth is close to Jerusalem, at least in modern terms, roughly 144 kilometers, it’s not the kind of journey a young woman would normally have made just before the time of Jesus.

One of the places we stopped can be seen in the photo at the beginning of this article. To my American eyes, it looked like some kind of reading room, though SSG Pico — she is an Army Reservist, then deployed to Kuwait, and I met her in Jerusalem when she had a four-day pass — and I had to go along with Islamic respect: a head covering for her, and shoes off for both of us.

It wasn’t a reading room, but actually a mosque, the gentleman shown to the left of the photograph told us. It was quiet, and yes, he did try, gently, to proselytize us — we informed him that we were Catholic — but he was entirely respectful of us.

In November of 2022, the Christians, Jews, and Muslims of Jerusalem were able to live in peaceful coexistence. Yes, there were armed Israeli policemen around and very visible to keep the peace, but we were not bothered by anyone, in any place we walked, including the Temple Mount, run by a Muslim Waqf out of Jordan by mutual agreement, even though we were about as obviously Westerners as can be.

Our hotel was about half a mile north, off of Jaffa Street, and the vast majority of the people we saw walking to and from the Old City were visibly Jewish by their dress, and they, too, never bothered us. The Jewish restaurants outside the Old City, as well as Arabic restaurants inside — there’s an amazing sidewalk-and-inside cafe on the Via Dolorosa, near the fourth Station of the Cross! — served us very politely.

One important point: don’t ever eat at a kosher McDonald’s! They are absolutely awful!

My point is a simple one: these people can live together, if they’ll only try. In 2005, the government under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, forcibly evacuated all of the Jewish settlers from Gaza, and told the ‘Palestinians’ to make of it what they would. The Israelis hoped that reasonable heads would prevail, and the Arabs would take advantage of their unoccupied land to try to build something peaceful and prosperous. Gaza has few natural resources, but also enjoys some of the best beachfront property on the Mediterranean, and could have built resorts which would attract well-to-do European vacationers, and the euros that they’d have to spend.

Obviously, that’s not what they did. Instead, the Arab irredentists fought with each other, Hamas seized control in Gaza, and the whole thing became a big terrorist training camp. Instead of resorts which could bring some prosperity to Gaza, they built a vast tunnel system. What an absolute waste!

What’s happening in Gaza didn’t have to happen. It was started by bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists, who must have thought that, if they started a war, the other Arab nations would join them. Oops!

This is why Hamas must be completely destroyed! Given a chance for peace, being given land where they could develop the beginnings of a peaceful ‘Palestine,’ the Arabs proved that they were not interested in peace, that they were still interested in complete victory. You cannot reason with such people, at least not reason as those of us living in a Western civilization culture would do.

Karma comes for Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka Another 72 virgins assigned to duty

Far too many of the leaders of Hamas have been hiding outside of Gaza, safely ensconced in Lebanon, Egypt, and Qatar. Ismail Haniyeh, net worth $4 billion, is the ‘Chairman of Hamas Political Bureau,’ and has been living a life of luxury in Qatar. Apparently alone among the top leadership, Yahya Sinwar is believed to still be in Gaza, hiding in the tunnel complex under Khan Younis, with some living Israeli hostages serving as human shields.

But there are lower-level military ‘officers,’ including one Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka, who led part of the October 7th attack, who have had to stay behind in Gaza, for Hamas to mount any sort of defense, and he has now been sent to his 72 virgins.

Airstrike eliminates October 7 terror commander Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka

IDF and Shin Bet intelligence led to the elimination of Hamas terrorist Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka in a targeted airstrike, with no civilian casualties.

by Jerusalem Post Staff | Thursday, June 20, 2024 | 11:16 AM Israel Daylight Time | Updated: 1:34 PM IDT

Operating on intelligence provided by the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency,) an Israel Air Force aircraft eliminated Hamas terrorist Ahmed Hassan Salame Alsauarka in a targeted airstrike, the military announced on Thursday morning. Continue reading