The White House released recently declassified intelligence on Tuesday confirming that the Russian mercenary organization Wagner group has been preparing to provide an air defense capability “to either Hezbollah or Iran,” according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
Wagner was preparing to provide the capability at the direction of the Russian government, Kirby said.
The newly downgraded intelligence did not specify where the missile system would be coming from. But CNN previously reported that the Wagner Group had been tasked with carrying out the delivery of a surface-to-air SA-22 missile system from Syria to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to provide Hezbollah with the Russian-made missile defense system, known as a Pantsir, two people familiar with the intelligence told CNN last month.
Russia is preparing to provide Hezbollah or Iran with air defense capability. Not Wagner, but Russia.
Putin has publicly admitted that Wagner is fully funded by the Kremlin. Wagner is an extension of the Russian government. They no longer even pretend it isn’t.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The White House released recently declassified intelligence on Tuesday confirming that the Russian mercenary organization Wagner group has been preparing to provide an air defense capability “to either Hezbollah or Iran,” according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to provide Hezbollah with the Russian-made missile defense system, known as a Pantsir, two people familiar with the intelligence told CNN last month.
Hezbollah began to pull its fighters out in recent years, but the group is also backed by Iran, which is a close Assad ally.
A source familiar with western intelligence told CNN previously that there has been evidence of increasing collaboration between Hezbollah and Wagner in Syria.
The US has repeatedly warned Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups to stay out of the conflict and has positioned aircraft carriers and troops in the region to try to deter against a potential escalation.
Still, Iran-backed militia groups have launched over 60 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since October 17, prompting the US to respond with strikes on the militants.
The original article contains 526 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Hamas would just target passenger aircraft like the terrorists they are.
The article is about Hezbollah and Iran getting massive S-400 air defense systems. Iran already has S-300 systems from Russia, so this new discussion must be on improving their capability somehow.
We aren’t talking about MANPADS here. An S-400 is an absolutely massive system and suggesting that Hamas could even operate one, nevermind deploy and supply one, frankly, shows a fair bit of ignorance on the issue to make an emotionally-charged statement.
This will age nicely, I’m sure
If they are allowed to even get them, Israel will just destroy them. The United States has a THAAD launch complex southeast of Gaza and that system would prevent defense of Israel from ballistic missiles and ICBMs so it won’t happen. The United States would send on stealth aircraft and destroy them if Israel didn’t.
I’d expect them to target Israeli military aircraft but I wouldn’t rule out a potential MH17 redux
Well hopefully that goes through. Israeli airstrikes cause nothing but needless death.
Another two Lebanese journalists were just killed by IDF in south lebanon. One of which was killed just an hour after having tweeted that israel has been intimidating journalists and that they couldn’t stay quiet. I hope they’ll get air support there because it is absolutely ridiculous at this point how many they’ve killed. I don’t know why Iran would need it, even from Russia’s pov. I haven’t heard of them being directly involved yet.
