Ballistic missiles hit Iraq's Kurdish capital, no casualties – officials

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/multiple-rockets-fall-erbil-northern-iraq-state-media-2022-03-12/

by awb • 4 years ago

56 71 4 years ago

Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq
…
Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Twitter: "Erbil is under fire... as if Kurds were not Iraqis".

For such a short article, it packs a lot of historical bread crumbs if one wants to follow/knows to look for them.

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

Can’t edit now but for context: at the time I wrote this comment, there were only three paragraphs in the article and those were the only substantive parts of it. It’s still a short article, but not what was published when I shared that reaction.

eunos2• 4 years ago

There goes the Iran Nuclear deal

sudosysgen7• 4 years ago

The nuclear deal was killed off a few days ago when the US seized Iranian oil tankers.

selimthegrim2• 4 years ago

On top of the Russians holding things up in Vienna.

aaomidi4• 4 years ago

Biden could've revived the JCPOA the second he took office.

There's literally no point in Iran joining a new deal. The only way I can see Iran would join a new deal is reperations from America for having trump just get up and leave from the agreement for no good reason. Oh and for assassinating a military personnel.

wolverine8763• 4 years ago

There's literally no point in Iran joining a new deal.

Iran doesn't agree.

blinding-streak• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/j7lPZ

monkeybutton3• 4 years ago

2022 is going to be balls to the walls geopolitical drama isn't it. The impact on food, fuel prices around the world from all the ongoing conflicts is going to cause even further instability.

newsclues• 4 years ago

It’s going to be more than a year.

riggsdk• 4 years ago

Suddenly having deja-vu’s from when Covid-19 emerged.

Arubis• 4 years ago

Pax Americana was mostly nice.

throwawaylinux6• 4 years ago

That's okay, a bunch of crooked politicians who became super rich on insider trading and other shady deals said increased gas and food prices was a sacrifice they were willing to make, and only traitors would question their generosity.

haliskerbas• 4 years ago

I thought oil was in a free market and the invisible hand of all glorious capitalism decides what’s best for us.

dirtyid• 4 years ago

One day after nuclear India accidentally fire a missile at nuclear Pakistan.

"Interesting Times" intensifies.

koheripbal• 4 years ago

With Russia so heavily committed in Ukraine, everywhere else they are active is going to become hotter as their opponents take advantage.

1MachineElf• 4 years ago

[Japan claims disputed islands annexed by Russia after WWII | Israel National News - Arutz Sheva](https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323757 )

dehrmann• 4 years ago

If they care that much about them, it's strategically smart. It gets lost in the news and Russia is dealing with other things.

eunos2• 4 years ago

Unipolar is dead, long live multipolar!

DantesKite• 4 years ago

I always feel out of my depth whenever something happens in the Middle East or Europe. Wouldn't mind getting a few classes on all the conflicts between these groups.

awb• 4 years ago

If you’re looking for a high-level, fast-paced overview of some of the major points, Crash Course has some entertaining content.

European history: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMsMTfmRomkVQG8...

World history: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9

ars2• 4 years ago

It's very difficult for a Westerner to understand the Middle East - they don't think like you do, their, I don't know how to put it, "value metric" is different from yours. So their action as a result of information will be different from yours (they value different things than you do).

Even if you learn the information, and you can, you still won't understand why they act as they do, unless you really immerse yourself in their culture.

steve_adams_864• 4 years ago

Frankly I think this fact is a major barrier for people with Ukraine and Russia as well. People can’t comprehend that people there, especially in Russia, see the conflict much differently than people in Canada or the USA might. It’s almost as though instead they assume people are dysfunctional or stupid. It seems very detrimental to collectively moving forward. People really do seem well-suited to living in small and homogenous groups, not billions upon billions in a global civilization.

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

How astonishingly racist. And how astonishingly uncurious.

If you find this reaction shocking and you sincerely want to find more understanding of the Middle East, your ancestors or peers almost certainly have also been colonized, or have neighbors who have. This reaction to colonized people is so banal you should be able to find troves of understanding if you bother to look.

Edit: I expect this to continue to be downvoted, because I know the way things go here. But honestly every one of you downvoting me who think it’s a reasonable thing to say ‘they don't think like you do, their, I don't know how to put it, "value metric" is different from yours’… take a moment and think about that.

newobj• 4 years ago

Start here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XN8UG3C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

sudosysgen7• 4 years ago

Rumours are that this is retaliation from Iran for the American seizure of Iranian vessels a few days ago, as well as for Israel killing 2 Iranian servicemen in Syria (supposedly, Israel is operating on the Erbil base).

The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

babyshake• 4 years ago

Is the suggestion that the USAF/Navy was previously better at intercepting SRBMs? What would have changed to make it worse - I would assume this sort of thing would be improving every few years.

sudosysgen7• 4 years ago

No, it's newer weapons that cause this to be necessary while it wasn't needed previously.

Historically, ballistic missiles were not accurate enough to hit a moving a ship. Nowadays, they are.

It also used to be the case that SRBMs and MRBMs weren't able to acquire a target on their own - the plasma would interfere with radar, and optical sensors were completely unfeasible. However, it seems China and Russia managed to find a way to keep radar working.

That wasn't that big of a problem either, because a warship should be able to jam the radar, but last year the Chinese claimed to have managed to get optical guidance work on an MRBM (DF-21D).

It also used to be the case that finding large surface warship was unpractical, but modern satellites can spot them even from GEO while LEO SAR and optical satellites exploded in numbers, meaning that it's now possible to track large surface warships accurately around the clock.

If that is actually the case, and it seems likely, then unless the US Navy gets very good at intercepting ballistic missiles, the entire fleet, and perhaps even the entire concept of large surface warships, may become untractable.

ZanyProgrammer2• 4 years ago

You’re making speculative leaps of logic based on jack shit as evidence.

sudosysgen7• 4 years ago

How so?

cheaprentalyeti2• 4 years ago

The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

I don't know if this has anything to do with that:

"Biden Orders Major Reversal Of Trump’s Missile Battery Build-Up In Gulf" [0]

"A major “realignment” of US defense priorities is resulting in a new extended drawdown of troops, aircraft, and anti-aircraft missiles from the Middle East, The Wall Street journal says in a new report, especially a prior missile battery build-up under Trump in Saudi Arabia."

The article mentions Iraq but not Erbil.

[0] https://zububrothers.com/2021/06/18/biden-orders-major-rever...

rascul2• 4 years ago

The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

I don't know if it shows a failure. Were there even appropriate air defenses in range?

Edit for more info:

If the launch location is as mentioned in a Twitter thread [0] then there's approximately 165 miles for the missile to travel. If the nearest US air defenses are in, say, Kuwait, that's over 500 miles to travel to intercept. I don't know where the US has their air defenses currently.

[0] https://twitter.com/obretix/status/1502794434999730177

rascul2• 4 years ago

I don't know if it shows a failure. Were there even appropriate air defenses in range?

Found one source [0] saying that there are Patriot and C-RAM systems in place at Erbil airport, from September 2021. I guess we'll have to wait for some official statement in the next few days.

[0] https://globalcomment.com/how-effective-air-defences-in-iraq...

rectang• 4 years ago

This is a developing story and a lot of people are leaping to conclusions. It's not clear yet who launched the missiles, or from where.

williamtwild• 4 years ago

There is a video from a truckdriver showing them leave. It is very clear where they came from.

gameswithgo• 4 years ago

But I am skilled in the arts of war and militry tactics, sire

jacquesm• 4 years ago

They appear to have been launched from Khasabad military base in Iran according to this thread:

https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1502787804463607810

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2022-03-12/irbi...

Ballistic missiles hit Iraq's Kurdish capital, no casualties – officials

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