All events

Military · Geopolitical

Ukraine's defence forces have struck a number of Russian military facilities, including a space communications centre in Moscow.

Military · Geopolitical

Canada is deploying two frigates and a submarine to the world’s largest multinational naval exercise this week, in what analysts describe as both a display of Indo-Pacific seriousness and a pointed rebuttal to Washington’s “freeriding” charge. HMCS Ottawa, HMCS Regina and submarine HMCS Corner Brook are slated to join the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac) from Wednesday to July 31, which is expected to draw more than 25,000 military personnel from 31 countries, including Australia,...

Military · Geopolitical

A recent meeting between the leaders of Myanmar and China has given the military junta an opening to persuade Asean to allow it to return to the bloc’s summits. Analysts also say, however, that Myanmar’s regime could feel emboldened to escalate action against resistance forces, revving up its “military approach” to deal with the country’s civil war. Last Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping met his Myanmar counterpart Min Aung Hlaing in Beijing, providing vital political endorsement to the...

Military · Geopolitical

Taiwan began a combat readiness exercise on Monday that aims to boost the military’s ability to quickly move to a wartime footing, amid sustained pressure from the mainland. The Chinese mainland’s increasingly frequent air and naval operations in the region have blurred the line between peacetime and wartime and mean that the Taiwanese military will have less time to respond to a crisis, according to officials. The Immediate Combat Readiness Exercise, which runs through Friday, was designed to...

Military · Geopolitical

Also in today’s newsletter: Philippines warns over Chinese military activity around Scarborough Shoal, and Keir Starmer’s premiership in doubt

Military · Geopolitical

Treasuries fell after President Donald Trump again threatened military action against Iran over Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, sending oil prices higher and prompting investors to reassess inflation risks.

Military · Geopolitical

Ukrainian military intelligence has revealed that Russia's expanding network of "Russian Houses" functions as a recruitment pipeline for its war, luring young Africans with promises of education and jobs before some are sent to the front lines or into drone factories.

Military · Geopolitical

China's commerce ministry on Monday imposed sanctions on 10 US tech companies, blocking them from exporting “dual-use” items, which have military and non-military applications, to the US. The companies barred from doing business with the US include drone makers and some involved in rare earths. Beijing's move comes weeks after the Pentagon slapped similar restrictions on Chinese companies.

Military · Geopolitical

According to the Al Mayadeen television channel, the Iranian negotiators now "not only insist on the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon but demand that Israel withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon. "

Military · Geopolitical

The Russian leader will also lay flowers at memorial signs dedicated to Hero Cities and to cities awarded the honorary title City of Military Glory

Military · Geopolitical

According to Andrey Marochko, the upward casualty trend in the Ukrainian army has persisted for the fifth consecutive week

Military · Geopolitical

Military expert Andrey Marochko said the Ukrainian defenses collapsed in some frontline sectors

Military · Geopolitical

The comments offer new insights into the internal mechanics Trump administration have in mind for re-evaluating force levels on the continent.

Military · Geopolitical

A military name change signals a broader strategic and diplomatic shift.

Military · Geopolitical

Literally defenseless, Dublin is outsourcing security to Paris.

Military · Geopolitical

The Chinese military is fielding an increasingly broad range of “special mission” aircraft, which have advanced in both quantity and quality over the past decade.

Military · Geopolitical

The memorandum of understanding with Vantor marks the third partnership Rheinmetall has signed in recent months in the military space domain.

Military · Geopolitical

Surfers still ride the waves off Gaza despite the ever-present threat of becoming an Israeli military target.

Military · Geopolitical

The Israeli military accused Ahmed Wishah of being a "Hamas sniper operative", without providing evidence.

Military · Geopolitical

“France fears we might see high intensity combat on its territory and to prepare for this possibility we need to be ready,” Thales’ Marc Dehondt said.

Military · Geopolitical

Netanyahu's 'eighth front': Israel's billion-dollar war on the truth is failing Submitted by Sahar Huneidi on Tue, 09/08/2026 - 17:59 Israel has killed record numbers of journalists and spent more than $1bn on influence campaigns - yet the world has never believed it less People attend a vigil organised by Palestinian journalists to commemorate their killed colleagues at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 25 August 2026 (Bashar Taleb/AFP) Off In May 2025, the voice of 14-year-old Hassan Ayyad fell silent. The young Palestinian singer, who captured the world's attention singing "Bear Witness, O World" amid the rubble of the Nuseirat camp, was killed in an air strike. His videos initially went viral, but the reality of the 21st-century information war is that voices like Hassan's are routinely flattened. The systematic silencing of independent war journalism did not happen overnight. It is the result of a 50-year campaign by militaries, governments and now tech monopolies to control what we see - and what we don't. The Vietnam war (1955-1975) was the golden age of independent war journalism. Reporters had remarkable freedom: they could access military transports, follow soldiers on missions and even detach from military escorts. That independence produced graphic, negative coverage that measurably eroded public support for the war. Military commanders blamed what the television critic Michael Arlen had dubbed the "living-room war", the belief that journalistic depictions of bloodshed had created public aversion to conflict. The Pentagon learned its lesson. When the US invaded Grenada in 1983, it banned press coverage entirely. Then came the 1991 Gulf war, which became the template for modern information control. Military jargon like "surgical strikes" and "collateral damage" seeped into reporting unconsciously, and the public largely accepted the official story without question. The 2003 American invasion of Iraq institutionalised the "embed" system. Reporters were assigned to military units in exchange for access, but at the cost of independence, with restrictions on where journalists could go, who they could speak with and what they could cover. It is the result of a 50-year campaign by militaries, governments and now tech monopolies to control what we see - and what we don't Independent "unilateral" journalists found themselves unable to get near the action, and a post-war analysis led by Cardiff University found the system left them at far greater risk. By 2007, blogs and social media had begun to break the corporate media monopoly. War blogs from inside besieged Iraq offered raw, unfiltered perspectives, while public trust in American media plummeted from 72 percent in 1976 to 28 percent today. The establishment's grip on war narratives was slipping. But this digital freedom was about to face a counter-offensive of its own. The active complicity of mainstream networks - a phenomenon I have examined elsewhere in the case of Axios - demonstrates that corporate news remains the baseline template for modern information control. Killing the witnesses On 11 May 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Al Jazeera journalist, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, wearing a vest clearly marked "Press". An investigative documentary later identified the shooter as Alon Scagio of the elite Duvdevan unit. He faced no legal consequences and was instead made a sniper team commander in another special operations unit, before being killed in June 2024 by explosives planted by Palestinian fighters in Jenin - the same city where he had killed Abu Akleh. Her killing fit a pattern the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had already documented, with at least 20 journalists killed by Israeli military fire between 2001 and 2022 and no one ever held accountable. The war on Gaza has since become the deadliest period for journalism in modern history. More than 250 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since October 2023, and CPJ's latest report found 2025 was the deadliest year for journalists on record, with Israel responsible for two-thirds of the deaths worldwide. Israel has also completely barred foreign journalists from independently entering Gaza - an unprecedented step for a state that calls itself democratic. Only controlled military tours are permitted, which participating journalists have described as "theatre". Amid genocide in Gaza, why must Palestinian journalists uphold the illusion of neutrality? Read More » The Foreign Press Association says there are " no security justifications " for the blanket ban, which critics argue serves to maintain a space for denial, allowing Israel to dismiss reports from Palestinian journalists as impossible to verify independently. Israel's obsession with controlling the narrative has its origins in a single defining moment. Those of us old enough remember it vividly. On 30 September 2000, French television captured 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah cowering behind his father as bullets struck him during a firefight at the Netzarim junction in Gaza. The 59 seconds of footage aired around the world, and the boy's death became the defining symbol of the Second Intifada. Israel's immediate response was catastrophic for its image: an army spokesman accepted responsibility, assuming Israeli fire had killed the boy. Years later, Israel tried to reverse course, claiming al-Durrah had likely been killed by Palestinian fire, but it was far too late. The narrative was cemented, with Israeli officials later regarding the al-Durrah case as one of Israel's greatest hasbara failures. The lesson drawn was intense and permanent: occupy the information space immediately with a counter-narrative, even if the facts are unverified. When Abu Akleh was killed in 2022, the army's response was immediate and defensive, releasing a counter-narrative within an hour. The al-Durrah incident marked the moment Israel concluded that controlling the narrative - not the truth - was the key to winning the information war. The eighth front Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly called social media the " eighth front " of Israel's war, alongside the physical battlefields stretching from Gaza to Iran and much in between. He has admitted Israel is losing the propaganda war, attributing the deterioration of support for Israel to the "geometric rise of social media" and the ability of users to share unfiltered imagery from Gaza. Recognition was followed by a historic financial commitment. The budget of Israel's hasbara machine skyrocketed from approximately $7.5m annually to $150m in 2025, and then to $730m in 2026 - nearly 100 times pre-war levels. Total spending on influence campaigns since 2023 has surpassed $1bn. Epstein files: Western media must stop burying the Israel connection Mohamad Elmasry Read More » A central pillar of this is the "Digital Iron Dome", a platform that describes itself as "the world's first pro-Israel influence engine". It invites users worldwide to join a " digital army ", registering to receive pre-written posts, hashtags and visual content optimised for sharing. The platform claims to have delivered more than 200 million targeted ads across the websites of Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC, the Guardian and others, and to have reached more than 200,000 websites. Israel also hired Clock Tower X, the firm of Donald Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale, on contracts worth $46.5m, in part to shape chatbot outputs and search results by seeding pro-Israel content into the data on which AI models are trained. And under the $900,000 "Esther Project", Israel paid 14 to 18 American influencers, none of whom were registered as foreign agents, between $6,143 and $7,372 per post between June and November 2025. And here, the irony is total. If Netanyahu's strategic planners were looking for a biblical blueprint for asymmetric information warfare, they chose the wrong matriarch. They named their operation after Esther, invoking a queen who hid her identity in a foreign palace. But the true biblical archetype for espionage, safe houses and state-level betrayal belongs to Rahab - the prostitute of Jericho who hid foreign spies on her roof and bought her family's survival with a scarlet cord. Israel's digital architecture operates on the same mercenary transaction, paying actors to manipulate the gates of information from the shadows - an ecosystem of enforced invisibility stretching all the way to Epstein's island. Weaponised algorithms Israel's campaign extends into the platforms themselves. The forced restructuring of TikTok's US operations under Oracle - co-founded by Larry Ellison, a staunch supporter of Israel - was described by Netanyahu as potentially " consequential " for Israel and the Jewish people. Shortly afterwards, TikTok hired Erica Mindel, a former Israeli army instructor, as its new hate speech manager. Leaked data indicates Meta has complied with roughly 94 percent of the Israeli government's takedown requests, removing more than 90,000 pro-Palestinian or critical posts. The playing field was already tilted. Internal documents revealed that Meta lowered the certainty threshold at which its algorithms remove hostile Arabic content from 80 percent to 40 percent for the Middle East - and to just 25 percent for content from Palestine. Israel's campaigns exploited this algorithmic inequality, knowing Palestinian content would be flagged and suppressed long before it could challenge the official narrative. As if this massive PR machinery were not enough, political scientist Ian Lustick and investigative journalist Eli Clifton document a parallel domestic front in their 2026 book Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power, showing how the erosion of campaign finance laws has empowered a network of elite donors to manipulate legislative policy and systematically silence dissent. The strategy is clear: kill the journalists, ban the foreign media, co-opt the embeds, weaponise the algorithms and fill the vacuum with curated propaganda. The combination of physical targeting, an embed system that trades access for compliance, corporate consolidation of legacy media, a billion-dollar influence machine and Big Tech's algorithmic bias has created a world in which we no longer see war with our own eyes. We see what the system wants us to see - a staggering reversal, given that the genocide in Gaza was livestreamed in real time by its own victims, who turned smartphones into instruments of unmediated witness. Limits of propaganda For all the billions spent, the influencers recruited and the algorithms weaponised - none of it has worked. The Pew Research Center found this spring that 60 percent of US adults hold an unfavourable view of Israel. Gallup reported in February that, for the first time in a quarter century of polling, more Americans sympathise with Palestinians (41 percent) than with Israelis (36 percent). The numbers in Europe are even more stark. Across six western European countries, between 63 and 70 percent hold an unfavourable view, while in Germany - a nation whose post-war identity is deeply tied to supporting Israel - 73 percent now view the country unfavourably. Among the crucial 18-34 demographic, negative opinions soar to 74 percent in the US and 78 percent in the UK. The Digital Iron Dome has become a monument to the limits of propaganda. No amount of algorithmic manipulation can erase the visual evidence coming from Gaza, the testimony of journalists risking their lives or the growing global moral consensus that what is happening is wrong. What the world has seen during the genocide in Gaza cannot be unseen, no matter how tightly the digital filters are squeezed. We will not simply live in a world of lies; we will live in a world where the truth is no longer available to us - and we will not even realise it is gone Netanyahu's eighth front has not won the war for public opinion; it has lost it and, in doing so, has alienated an entire generation. The silence may have been imposed on social media, but the world is still watching. And the world has made up its mind. We must demand transparency from platforms about their moderation algorithms. We must support independent journalists and the organisations that protect them. We must expose the Digital Iron Dome and the billion-dollar influence industry behind it. And without accountability for murdered journalists, this pattern will repeat itself in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iran and everywhere power seeks to operate in darkness. I was able to write this piece because I could still ask an AI questions about things I did not fully understand - and receive verifiable answers I could cross-check, question and build an argument from. That freedom is not guaranteed. The same forces that silenced the journalists and captured the platforms are now turning to AI itself. This is the terrifying reality of LLM poisoning: states deliberately polluting the digital ecosystem with curated propaganda, forcing future AI models to absorb lies as objective truth until the authentic record is permanently erased. If they succeed, the next time I ask about Gaza, about Iran, about the warships in the Gulf, AI may not show me the evidence. It may show me a carefully crafted answer designed to protect power - and I will never know what I was not shown. I will not even know to ask a different question. That is the final stage of control: not censorship, but the illusion of information. We will not simply live in a world of lies; we will live in a world where the truth is no longer available to us - and we will not even realise it is gone. The voice of Hassan Ayyad was silenced in an instant. The digital erasure that follows is the sound of democracy dying. This is how truth dies in the 21st century. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. Israel's genocide in Gaza Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

9/11 at 25: Has the US learned anything from its 'war on terror'? Submitted by Sami Al-Arian on Fri, 09/11/2026 - 14:25 Imperial defeat abroad, surveillance at home and complicity in Israel's genocide have left a fading superpower none the wiser a quarter century on Men inspect a damaged house following a US strike near a wedding gathering that Iranian officials say killed four people, in Kuhestak, southern Iran, on 4 September 2026 (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters) Off A quarter century is enough time to separate history from hysteria, consequences from intentions and reality from propaganda. On 11 September 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in horrific attacks that shocked the United States and the world. The attacks of 9/11 could have been treated as a grave crime requiring an international effort to identify, apprehend and prosecute those responsible. They could also have triggered a serious national debate about why such intense hostility towards the US had developed in many parts of the Muslim-majority world. Instead, the US's political establishment chose a radically different path. President George W Bush famously declared that the terrorists attacked the US because "they hate our freedoms". It was a convenient explanation because it absolved the American foreign policy establishment of any responsibility. There would be no serious reckoning with decades of support for dictatorships across the Arab and Muslim-majority world, the devastating sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s, American military deployments throughout the region or Washington's unconditional support for Israel and its decades-long occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. If they hated the US because of what the US was, rather than because of what the US did, then American policy did not have to change; it was they who had to change. That premise became the ideological foundation of the so-called global "war on terror". What followed were wars, invasions, occupations, torture, rendition, secret prisons, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, drone assassinations, mass surveillance and the destruction of entire societies. At home came the Patriot Act, watchlists, informants, the infiltration of mosques, racial and religious profiling, entrapment operations and a sweeping expansion of the national security state. Twenty-five years later, what have we learned? A failed project By the time the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, no country could seriously challenge American military supremacy. Many American strategists believed the country had entered a unipolar moment that could last for generations. Francis Fukuyama had even famously proclaimed "the end of history". The neoconservatives and their Zionist allies exploited 9/11 to turn that enormous power into an imperial project. Afghanistan was invaded in 2001, and Iraq followed in 2003, based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction and insinuations linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The objective soon expanded far beyond defeating al-Qaeda: Washington would remake the Middle East, overthrowing governments and imposing a new regional order by force of arms. The project failed spectacularly, and after 20 years of war the United States left Afghanistan in August 2021 in humiliation, while the Taliban, the very movement it had removed from power, returned to Kabul. Iraq was devastated: hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced, sectarianism unleashed and a political order that remains deeply dysfunctional. Washington sought to remake the Middle East, overthrowing governments and imposing a new regional order by force of arms The failure was conceptual rather than a matter of execution, for political legitimacy cannot be bombed into existence or imposed at the barrel of foreign guns. People may fear overwhelming military power, but fear is not legitimacy and occupation inevitably generates resistance. The US won many military confrontations but failed to achieve its larger political objectives, and the wars carried a price that was invisible only because no rival was yet strong enough to collect it. The Costs of War project at Brown University puts the price tag at roughly $8 trillion - resources that could have been invested elsewhere. The wars also consumed political attention and distracted the United States from the era's profound transformations, particularly the rise of China. Even more damaging was what happened to the philosophical foundations of American global leadership. During the Cold War, Washington justified its leadership not merely through power but through ideas: democracy, human rights, international law. After 9/11, the contradiction between those ideas and American practice became increasingly difficult to disguise. The unipolar moment did not disappear in a single event; it was squandered over a quarter century, and many of the US's own decisions accelerated the world's shift towards multiple centres of power. Manufacturing enemies The "war on terror" was supposedly designed to make the US safer, yet the invasion of Iraq destroyed a state and created chaos that violent groups exploited. Torture became a recruiting image, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo became symbols of the era, and drone strikes that killed innocent families generated anger far beyond their immediate targets. Violence does not arise in a political vacuum. To recognise this is not to justify the killing of innocent people; it is to acknowledge that preventing political violence requires understanding the conditions in which it develops. For 25 years, however, attempts to discuss "root causes" were dismissed as somehow excusing violence. 9/11 at 25: Trump finds new targets for America's endless war on terror Read More » The consequences were not confined to Afghanistan and Iraq. After 9/11, the language of counterterrorism gave authoritarian regimes across the region new tools and new legitimacy. Political opponents could be branded extremists and emergency laws justified in the name of security, while Western governments that spoke publicly about democracy cooperated closely with the region's most repressive security establishments. Anger was accumulating beneath the surface, and by the end of 2010 millions of young Arabs had grown up under governments that offered neither political participation nor economic opportunity. The "war on terror" did not create the Arab Spring uprisings - their causes were indigenous and much deeper - but the post-9/11 order intensified the contradictions that produced them. For years, Americans were told that the choice in the Muslim-majority world was between authoritarian regimes and violent extremism. Then millions of ordinary Arabs took to the streets demanding dignity, accountability and representative government, and for a brief moment they shattered that false choice. When those movements threatened entrenched interests, the counterrevolution followed. Egypt's democratic experiment was crushed, Libya fragmented, Syria became one of the century's great catastrophes, Yemen was devastated and Tunisia's opening collapsed. The Arab Spring did not fail alone, but was failed by an international order that preached democracy but preferred compliant authoritarianism. Crossing the Rubicon Perhaps the most dangerous legacy of the past 25 years is the destruction of restraints. International law is not meaningful if it applies only to adversaries, and human rights cannot be universal when friends are exempt. After 9/11, successive American administrations discarded restrictions that earlier generations had considered fundamental. Preventive war was legitimised, torture was redefined, indefinite detention without trial was normalised, extrajudicial assassination became government policy and entire countries became battlefields without declarations of war. How could a state lecture others about human rights while operating Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? How could it defend international law after invading Iraq without UN Security Council authorisation? How could it champion sovereignty while claiming the right to overthrow governments and assassinate people across borders? Each exception created a precedent, and although a great power may believe that rules constrain only others, other states eventually invoke the same logic. If preventive war is legitimate for one state, why not another? If perceived security threats justify attacking another country's territory, why should that principle belong only to Washington or Israel? If international courts can simply be ignored when their decisions become inconvenient, why should the US's adversaries respect them? American support for Israel's destruction of Gaza after October 2023 brought these contradictions together in one place. Washington armed Israel, financed it and repeatedly shielded it while Palestinians were killed, displaced, starved and subjected to genocide. Gaza pushed this crisis to another level. The destruction of international norms does not produce a world without power. It produces a world in which power replaces law - an extraordinarily dangerous prospect, particularly when nuclear weapons exist. The war at home A government that claims extraordinary powers overseas will eventually employ extraordinary powers domestically - a lesson the American Muslim community learned very quickly. Before 9/11, Arab and Muslim Americans were developing an increasingly confident civic and political presence. I witnessed and participated in that development firsthand. During the late 1990s, we built a broad national coalition against the government's use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings, working with civil libertarians, lawyers, churches, human rights organisations and members of Congress. The pressure worked. By 2000, victims of secret evidence had been released, and the House Judiciary Committee approved the Secret Evidence Repeal Act in September 2000 with overwhelming bipartisan support. By September 2001, we expected the White House to finally announce a major policy change, and Muslim leaders had gathered in Washington for the announcement, scheduled for 3.05pm on 11 September. It never happened. FBI whistleblower Terry Albury later provided a rare insider account of this apparatus, confirming what Muslim communities had been saying for years Instead of entering a new period of political empowerment, American Muslims entered an era of suspicion and repression. The FBI developed vast networks of informants; mosques, community leaders and student organisations were monitored; and families were frightened. FBI whistleblower Terry Albury later provided a rare insider account of this apparatus, confirming what Muslim communities had been saying for years: innocent people were targeted because of religion, ethnicity, associations or political activity. This was the institutionalisation of Islamophobia - not merely offensive stereotyping, but a security infrastructure built around the proposition that Muslim religious identity itself constituted a potential threat. Once a community is securitised, ordinary behaviour becomes suspicious. Growing a beard may attract attention, increased religious devotion may become a supposed sign of "radicalisation" and charitable giving may generate an investigation, while a political opinion about Palestine may be interpreted through a security lens rather than as protected political speech. Such policies intimidated communities, discouraged political engagement and encouraged a compliant leadership willing to demonstrate its acceptability by distancing itself from causes considered politically dangerous. Islamophobia was never just personal bigotry; it became an instrument through which political behaviour could be disciplined. Even so, Muslims should never imagine that this is only a Muslim problem. Powers created against unpopular minorities rarely remain confined to those minorities, which is why the defence of Muslim civil liberties was always a defence of American civil liberties. Building power Through the secret evidence struggle, we learned that an organised community could challenge government policy. American Muslims did not have to choose between isolation and assimilation; they could remain faithful to their principles while building alliances with people of different religions, races and political backgrounds around common causes. Political power does not mean access to officials. A photograph at the White House is not power. Invitations to government receptions or Ramadan iftars are not power. Having Muslim faces defending disastrous policies that harm Muslims is certainly not power. Power means the ability to organise people around principles. It means building institutions that survive individuals, developing principled leaders, building independent media and legal capacity and forging alliances with other communities struggling for justice. Our earlier campaign succeeded because it worked at many levels at once: locally and nationally, legally and politically. Communities must never trade principles for access - political engagement requires compromise over tactics, never the surrender of fundamental values. Rights are not protected through submission, and no minority in American history secured its dignity by proving that it would remain silent. The post-9/11 period was intended in part to intimidate Muslims into political passivity; instead, it produced a wiser and bolder generation. Young American Muslims who grew up under surveillance and demonisation have developed a political consciousness far more sophisticated than that of earlier generations. They have joined coalitions for racial justice, immigrant rights, civil liberties and Palestine, supported by remarkable solidarity from young Jews, Christians, African Americans, Latinos and people of conscience across American society. This is where hope lies, for history teaches that power is not invincible, but that it appears invincible until organised people challenge it. Outrage alone is not sufficient - successful movements require vision, strategy, organisation, leadership and the ability to sustain struggle over many years. Palestine at the centre For decades, Washington attempted to separate American policy towards Palestine from the anger generated by American policy in the Middle East - a fiction that has become impossible to maintain. The Palestinian question has always been about much more than a territorial dispute. It is about dispossession, settler colonialism and the denial of an entire people's national and human rights. After 9/11, the "war on terror" gave Israel an extraordinary political opportunity. Palestinian resistance could be incorporated into the global category of "terrorism", while occupation and state violence were repackaged as "counterterrorism". The occupied became the security threat. The occupier became the victim defending itself. At the 9/11 museum, America remembers only its own Read More » The occupation, meanwhile, only deepened, with Gaza placed under siege and the West Bank increasingly fragmented by expanding settlements, checkpoints and settler violence. The political process that supposedly offered Palestinians a path towards statehood became a mechanism for indefinitely managing occupation. The events of 7 October did not emerge from a vacuum. One may debate the wisdom, methods or consequences of Palestinian resistance, but no serious analysis can erase the conditions that produced it. Then came Gaza, and the genocide stripped away the pretences that had sustained American policy. For millions of people around the world, particularly younger generations, the contradiction became impossible to ignore: a people imprisoned, starved and bombarded while the world's most powerful country supplied the weapons and the diplomatic cover. Twenty-five years after 9/11, Palestine remains central to understanding both the failure of American Middle East policy and the erosion of America's claim to moral leadership. The verdict What is the verdict on the post-9/11 era? The United States responded to the 9/11 attacks with a quarter-century of wars that destabilised whole regions, damaged constitutional protections at home, normalised surveillance and torture and wasted enormous wealth and goodwill. The Costs of War project now estimates more than 940,000 direct deaths in post-9/11 war zones, 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths and 38 million people displaced. Societies across the Global South increasingly reject a system in which one power decides which countries may be invaded, which peoples may resist occupation, and whose lives are worthy of protection Moreover, these 25 years taught another lesson that no political order is permanent, no empire remains dominant forever, and no oppressed people surrender their claim to justice merely because the forces arrayed against them appear overwhelming. The world of 2026 is not the world of September 2001. American power remains formidable, but the unipolar moment is fading, and societies across the Global South increasingly reject a system in which one power decides which countries may be invaded, which peoples may resist occupation, and whose lives are worthy of protection. For American Muslims, the choice should be clearer after 25 years. We should neither withdraw from society nor surrender our principles in exchange for acceptance. We must organise, educate, build coalitions, defend civil liberties and speak truthfully about American foreign policy even when doing so carries a price. Twenty-five years ago, fear changed the United States. Our task now is not simply to remember what happened on 11 September 2001 but to understand what was done in its name. History's most important lessons are not learned by commemorating the past; they are learned when societies refuse to repeat it. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. 9/11 Attacks Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

I was 18 when they sent me to Guantanamo. The system that allowed it never went away Submitted by Mansoor Adayfi on Wed, 09/09/2026 - 20:45 Mansoor Adayfi was a student when the 'war on terror' turned him into a number. Twenty-five years later, he argues that the machinery behind his imprisonment has found new targets Growing up as a child in Yemen, I never thought the day would come when I would share my story with a global audience. But little did I know that I would be caught in the violent crosshairs of the "war on terror" launched in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Prior to September 11, 2001, there was nothing extraordinary about my life. I grew up in a humble family, and only when I reached my teens did I begin to think about leaving my country. When I was 18, I took the drastic step and left my village to finish school, armed with a dream of studying computer science abroad. For nearly a year, I asked the head of the institute where I studied and worked for a reference letter. He always told me, "Later. " After the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, the head of the institute was asked to write a book about al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He sent a former student who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan to conduct research and asked me to accompany him. "Come back from this trip," he promised, "and I will give you your letter. " We flew to Dubai, then Pakistan, and travelled overland to Afghanistan, eventually reaching Kabul, where an NGO was helping us with our research. I was still there when the towers fell in New York City. At the 9/11 museum, America remembers only its own Read More » We only learned about the attacks three days later from a radio in a restaurant. Soon after, while helping the NGO move supplies before fleeing the country, armed men stopped our car and abducted us. We eventually ended up in the hands of a warlord who demanded $100,000 for our release. I didn't know then that American planes were dropping leaflets across Afghanistan offering bounties for suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Two weeks later, the warlord's men came for me. Hooded and handcuffed, I remember little of what followed except violence, a truck, a helicopter, a plane, and finally an underground room. They hung me from the ceiling with a hood over my head. When they removed it, five rifles were pointed at me, red dots fixed on my chest. "Hello, Mr Adel," a translator said, confusing me with an Egyptian general. "Do you know who we are, and why we are here? " Of course, I had no idea. Weeks earlier, I had been conducting research in Afghanistan and was expecting to begin university at the end of the year. Now, I was accused of being an al-Qaeda leader, kidnapped by Afghan warlords and handed over to the CIA. The beginning of my ordeal While I was unlawfully detained at an air base in Kandahar, I could see US Air Force aeroplanes taking off and landing from the makeshift site. When an Air Force cargo plane landed, we knew that a group of prisoners would disappear. At the end of December 2001, around a hundred of us were held there, in wooden tents surrounded by barbed-wire walls three metres high. From the tents, I could see US Air Force planes taking off and landing from the makeshift site. US Marines watch a helicopter prepare to leave a US base at Kandahar airport on 23 January 2002 (Banaras Khan/AFP) One afternoon, a group of soldiers in different uniforms from those stationed at the Kandahar site began calling the detainees by their numbers. I was in a tent with a group of men who couldn't walk, after months of torture at the CIA black site. I remember it vividly. The soldiers called out my number and ordered me to lie down. They first set a dog on me and then jumped on my back before restraining me and dragging me to a tent. They called it a processing station. I was hung up and stripped naked. Male and female soldiers stripped us, shaved our bodies, left us with no hair, mocked our genitals and kicked us. I watched a young boy as he cried. I spat at the soldiers and told him not to be afraid. They turned their attention to me and beat my mouth hard, splitting my lip. I spent hours hanging there naked. Then a soldier came with an orange jumpsuit, orange shoes, orange socks, an orange hat - orange everywhere. It was my first time meeting my new "friend": the colour orange. I don't remember ever wearing it before. A uniform given to a detainee lies on a bed in a cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay on 23 August 2004 (Mark Wilson/AFP) At that point, I didn't think much about the colour itself. There were also chains and shackles I'd never seen before, goggles, earmuffs, a mask, and a sign reading "BEAT ME". They dressed me, chained me, hung the sign around my neck, covered my eyes and ears, and forced me to sit on the floor. When it was time for prayer, I called out and tried to stand to pray. I was beaten, thrown to the floor, gagged with duct tape and strapped to a stretcher. I could hear the roar of the Air Force engines. We waited like that for hours, then were loaded onto the plane one by one. We were chained to the floor in a circle. I had no idea where they were taking us or what would happen. The journey On board, the soldiers welcomed us with beatings and humiliation, sitting on us and posing for photos. Every 10 or 15 minutes, I was beaten, as the sign around my neck had instructed. Loud music, loud engines, pain and sensory deprivation. It was hard to breathe. The shackles on my hands and legs were so tight that I could feel the pain shooting to my brain. I prayed the journey wouldn't last long. Hours passed and the pain got worse. I lost feeling in my hands and feet. The earmuff frame dug into my head; I was bleeding, but the beatings never stopped. When the plane landed, I felt a sense of relief that the journey was over. But that didn’t last. We were dragged onto another plane, and the journey continued. I was dying, struggling to breathe, unable to hold my body up any longer. I thought I would die. I prayed to Allah to forgive me and accept me. I heard someone calling out for prayer: "Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. " Soldiers silenced him immediately. After that, whenever we sensed it was prayer time, we would nudge each other with our elbows to pass the message, and we prayed as best we could under the circumstances. The next leg of the journey was longer than the first. Where were they taking us? When would it end? I kept praying to Allah to make it easier for all of us. Someone had already collapsed against me. I was glad I could at least serve as some support. Finally, the plane landed. Despite all the pain, I was relieved: Alhamdulillah. Soldiers started pulling us out one by one. I couldn't walk. I was dragged and passed from one person to another. I could hear laughter. 'Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way' I was chained again, and someone shouted loudly in English while a translator repeated it in Arabic: "You are under the control of the United States Marines. If you try anything, we will eliminate you. " The man kept cursing and humiliating us; the translator added his own insults, too. I didn't care who he was. To me, they were just a group of cowards. Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way. The bus drove a short distance, then stopped, and I felt us moving over water - a sea. I felt a kind of relief at the sea. Welcome, friend, I thought. The sea broke through the sensory deprivation. That was my first clue: the sea was nearby. The boat sailed for 20 or 30 minutes, then the bus drove again for another 30 to 45 minutes. The Marines spent the whole time beating us. One soldier kept hitting my head from the front and back at the same time. I saw flashes of light each time. The bus finally stopped. The Marines pulled us out one by one and forced us to kneel on sharp gravel. Hours passed like that. My body refused to cooperate, and the beatings continued. A dog barked loudly again and sniffed my body. I was barely conscious. I didn’t care much anymore about what came next. I'd stopped worrying long before, back at the CIA black site, where it had been worse. I had no feeling left about what was coming. Oh Allah, I am in your hands. Please don't give them control over me. Our journey had gone by land, sky, sea, and land again. I never wanted to go back in the air again. Arriving at Gitmo After hours of waiting and listening to men scream in pain, soldiers came and dragged my body and threw me onto the concrete, before cutting my orange uniform off my body and stripping me naked again. I wanted them to remove the hood, the earmuffs, the goggles, the duct tape, the cuffs on my hands and legs. I'd lost all feeling. But they didn't. I felt strong pressure from water over my body, then something like liquid soap and a large, rough brush scraping over my skin. They pretended it was a shower, but it was humiliation and more beating. I was dragged again to more humiliation, a cavity search, over and over. They laughed and asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden? Welcome, Mr Commander. " A photo was taken. I couldn't see anything. Fingerprints and other procedures followed, but I couldn't make out most of them. Then a red bracelet was placed on my left hand. A Guantanamo detainee's feet are shackled to the floor as he attends a 'Life Skills' class on 27 April 2009 (Michelle Shephard/AFP) The processing station was a group of tents where we were moved from one to the next for fingerprinting, photographs, height measurements and searches. I couldn’t see what was happening most of the time. After the processing station, I was taken straight to an interrogation room, where team after team came to ask questions. Some offered to remove the duct tape so I could speak, or to loosen my shackles and give me clothes if I cooperated. My body shut down, and I lost consciousness. I collapsed. The soldiers then dragged my body to a cage and threw me down. A soldier knelt on top of me, holding a shield, and began removing the chains, the cuffs, the earmuffs, the goggles and the duct tape. I felt like I could breathe again. They were shouting something I couldn't understand. 'Inside the cage, there were a few things: a plastic mat, a blanket, a water container and two small buckets - one for water and one to be used as a toilet' My hands and legs were swollen, numb, and had turned blue. I could barely see; my face and eyes were swollen, and my lips split. I could only see out of one eye, and even that was blurry. The first thing I wanted was to cover my body and put on the orange jumpsuit. Then I wanted to pray, then sleep. I hadn't eaten or had water in two days, and by then I didn’t feel like it. It was nighttime. I’m not sure I managed to pray on time. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I looked around. I could see figures in orange in the surrounding cages, just like me. Each block held about 10 cages connected to each other, made of mesh fencing screwed to steel pipes. Bright lights, barbed wire on top. A dog barked loudly. Soldiers shouted and yelled at detainees, called out numbers and barked orders: "Shut the fuck up. " "Don't talk. " "Look down. " "Don't look at me. " "Don't move. " Inside the cage, there were a few things: a plastic mat, a blanket, a water container and two small buckets - one for water and one to be used as a toilet. A prisoner (R) prays in his cage on 14 February 2002 as another detainee looks on (Peter Muhly/AFP) There was no real toilet, and no protection from the elements. I managed to put on the orange jumpsuit, crawled to the bucket and made my ablution. Now, which direction was Mecca, so I'd know which way to face to pray? I asked my neighbour, a man who looked strikingly pale, blue-eyed, European. "As-Salaamu Alaikum, brother. " "Wa Alaikum Salaam," he replied, then signalled for me not to talk. I asked again, whispering, where Makkah was. "We don't know," he said. "You can pray toward the guard tower. If I could see the stars, I could tell you. " I stood and started to pray anyway. Soldiers came, calling me by my cage number, and shouted at me to sit down. I could barely stand. I was leaning on the fence. They kept shouting, then stormed my cage, threw me to the floor, beat me, cuffed my hands and legs, and left me lying face down. We weren't allowed to talk, stand or look at the guards. My neighbour was concerned for me. "Please, brother, follow their orders. They want to tame you. Don't give them a reason to beat you," he said. "Wallahi [I swear by God], they will never tame me. I'm not some chicken to be tamed," I replied. I prayed as best I could and eventually couldn't resist sleep any longer. A sea of orange Later, soldiers removed my handcuffs and brought me some food: a US military MRE - Meal, Ready to Eat - a brown bag with a photo of a soldier holding a gun on it, the same meal we’d been given in Kandahar. They tossed the meals through an opening in the cage, calling out our cage numbers. I could see an ocean of orange figures in cages, each block divided into 10 cages, two rows, three blocks per row. Only cages: no ceiling, no toilets, no privacy, mesh fencing filled with shaved men and children. I looked at the bracelet on my wrist. There was a photo on it, and I couldn't tell what I was looking at, a face or something else entirely. Looking at the other detainees, their faces were no different from mine: deformed, unrecognisable as faces, bruised, blue, split lips, broken teeth, bleeding wounds, swollen hands and legs. It was especially painful to see old men and children so badly beaten. I cannot forget that scene. That's how I first came to know these brothers. This is the first memory my mind recorded of them: all of us in those cages, beaten, in orange jumpsuits. Detainees hold onto a fence at Camp 4 in the Camp Deltamaximum security prison at Guantanamo Bay on 26 August 2004 (Mark Wilson/AFP The first thing I noticed, beyond all that, was the warmth. After the cold of Afghanistan, this new place felt strange, warm, even though it was the end of January. The air was heavy and humid, and a strong wind carried the smell of the sea. It felt like a message from the sea, welcoming us, assuring us we were still alive. The smell of the sea was somehow comforting, gentle, as if the sea were telling us that no matter what they did to us, we could still be free. That was the first smell of the new place, and after two days hooded and gagged, it felt like a breath of life into our broken bodies. There was still something they couldn't control. It wasn't just a smell. It was a kind of power and hope, one even they couldn’t stop us from breathing in. I have loved the sea ever since. It felt close by, listening, watching, keeping watch over us. After breakfast, I saw something strange for the first time, maybe for others too: six guards in what looked to me, at that moment, like some kind of strange costume. I had never seen anything like it. I wasn't someone who'd grown up on Hollywood movies and television. I was just a simple tribal man. They walked in a line, moving through the blocks with a dog. The lead guard carried a shield. I wanted to understand what I was looking at. Dark helmets covered their heads and faces; body armour covered them from head to toe. Chains dragged along the gravel. A dog led the way. They wanted to intimidate us, shouting at anyone who looked at them: "Look down, don't look at me. " The best reply anyone had was, "No English. " 9/11 at 25: Trump finds new targets for America's endless war on terror Read More » They kept repeating the order, pointing at their own eyes and then at the floor. Of course we'd look at you, idiots. This was something new. I was curious. What was this? They marched to my cage in that same line, shouting, "Detainee ISN 441, on your knees, now! " I had no idea what they were saying. Their English didn't even sound like English to me. "No English," I said. I was too preoccupied studying their strange armour, trying to work out why they wore it. My Danish neighbour whispered in Arabic, "They want you on your knees. Don't face them. They're going to take you. Please, brother, just do it. " "Why are they dressed like this? " I asked. "I'll explain later," he said. I couldn't have stood anyway. Suddenly they opened the door and released the dog on me. I grabbed the dog by the head; a shield struck me hard, and then they were all on top of me, shouting something I couldn’t understand. The dog barked close to my face, a knee pressed into my neck, and they chained my hands behind my back. They wanted me to walk. I refused, but I also couldn't. They dragged my body across the gravel back to the interrogation room. Another cavity search, this time by someone who seemed to be a medic. It felt like humiliation more than anything medical. I could hear my number, ISN 441, repeated over and over on a radio as I was taken through the gates to the interrogation room. Interrogators kept repeating it. I heard it again when they took me back, and again after that. I didn't understand yet that this was my new number, different from the one I'd had in Kandahar. In the CIA black sites, I did not have one at all. I was just a ghost there. This photo shows unidentified detainees at the Camp 6 detention facility in Guantanamo Bay on 8 April 2014 (Mladen Antonov/AFP) Some Americans, I thought, are full of their own myths. They watch too many movies and shows and expect the rest of the world to see them the way Hollywood does. They want to be treated that way, too. At the time, I didn't speak English, but they expected me to understand them anyway. The interrogation lasted almost the entire day: no breaks, no food, no water, no toilet. I was chained to the floor and to a chair. Most of the interrogators wore civilian clothes; the translators were Arabic speakers of different nationalities. The same questions came again and again. This time they brought a folder full of photographs and asked if I recognised any of the men. A woman flipped through them one by one, hundreds of photos. I didn't recognise a single one. She shouted and shoved my head down towards the folder. "You're a fucking liar. " They all performed anger, and by then I was genuinely angry, too. She held one photo up to my face and pushed again. "Do you know this man? " I spoke to the photo instead: "Do you know you? Tell them. " They slapped my head and face. It was shockingly sad to look at those photos: every face badly beaten, bruised, swollen, blackened eyes, some bleeding, lips split. I didn't even recognise my own photo among them, which was apparently why they were upset, and why I was slapped and beaten further. I was taken back to my cage. When I needed to use the toilet, I tried to cover myself with a blanket so no one could see me. A guard came over, shouting, and hit the fence. I didn't understand the words, but I understood he didn’t want me covering myself. I didn't care. When I finished, a group of guards stormed my cage and took everything I had. I sat on the cement floor, trying to find a moment to think, to process what was happening and why. That was my first day in Guantanamo. Guards served MREs for dinner to the other detainees, but not to me and a couple of others. Two of my neighbours tried to pass me some of their food, a Danish man and a 14-year-old boy. I declined at first, grateful for their kindness, but the Danish brother insisted, so I took a piece of a biscuit with peanut butter. I tried calling one of the guards. I needed water; they'd taken the plastic water container. I called out in Arabic: "Soldier, soldier, come here. " They shouted at me in English to shut up while I kept speaking Arabic. The Danish brother translated what I wanted. First they said no. An hour later, I called again. They talked among themselves over their radios, then came back with a hose, turned it on my face and shouted, "Drink, drink," laughing at me. I stood there looking at them, asking myself: what kind of people are these? My first night in Gitmo That night, when it was time to sleep, I had no blanket, no mat. I lay on the bare cement. Looking up at the sky, I saw large white birds flying close over our cages, the first time I’d seen a bird like that up close: long neck, long legs. Hello there, I thought. Can I fly with you? Can you take me with you? I wonder what you can see from up there. While I was sleeping, guards came banging on the fence. "Detainee 441, wake up, cage search. " I was chained and shackled while they searched an empty cage, then gave my things back. I was relieved to have something to lie on and cover myself with again. They moved to the next cage. I was hungry and tired and fell back asleep. Nasal feeding tubes, like those used to feed detainees on hunger strike, sit on display in the hospital at Guantanamo Bay on 27 October 2009 (John Moore/Getty Images/AFP) A hard bang on the fence and a shout of "Detainee 441" woke me again. I sat up. The guards were holding a piece of paper and wanted me to arrange my belongings in a specific order, pointing to each item in sequence: flip-flops, then water container, water bucket, waste bucket. I arranged them as they asked. They moved on. They came back 30 minutes later with a different order. I did it again. Thirty minutes after that, I ignored them and refused. The Danish brother said, "Brother, don't give them a reason to beat you. " "I don't care, and I don’t need their things anyway,” I replied. A team of guards in full gear stormed my cage, removed everything, cuffed my hands and legs behind my back, and left me lying on my stomach for hours. I slept anyway. My body and mind simply shut down. The next day, after breakfast, a medical team arrived with a box of pills, ordering us to take around 10 each. Some of us refused. We didn't trust these people and had no idea what we were being given. A riot team was called. They stormed my cage, chained me to the fence like a cross, chained my legs too, and held my head while the medical team tried to force pills and water into my mouth and make me swallow. I refused. I kept my mouth shut no matter how many times they tried. The medical team slapped my already swollen face, trying to force the medicine down. They left me chained there for hours, which only gave me more resolve to break their rules. I called the guards' names, talked to everyone. They kept shouting, "Shut up" at me. I shouted it right back. A detainee is escorted by military guards back to his cell after his annual Admistrative Review Board hearing inside Camp Delta's Maximun Security area on 6 December 2006 (Paul J. Richards/AFP) We whispered to each other, asking names, nationalities, stories. Each of us had a different story to tell. We hadn't known each other before Guantanamo; we had no shared life before Guantanamo. And we ran into a serious problem: the language barrier. A young boy from Africa was called a racial slur by some of the white guards. That was where I first came to understand what racism based on skin colour meant. An Afghan man was calling out to the guards, trying to talk to them. Another Afghan translated for him, and what I heard shook me to my core: the man’s infant son had been handed over to the Americans along with him, injured, and he was begging to know if his son was still alive. The Americans apparently believed the baby was somehow connected to Osama bin Laden. Another detainee was moaning in pain from a leg injury; the medical staff told him they would amputate it if he refused treatment. He couldn't sleep, crying from the pain. Another Afghan man shouted, day and night, "Number One. " He"d stripped himself naked, defecated on the floor, but never stopped shouting those two words. The guards punished him anyway; interrogators kept questioning him. "Number One" became his identity. He had lost his mind before he ever reached Guantanamo. All he could say, all he seemed to remember, was "Number One," shouted at the top of his voice. Why were we here? On every face, you could see a thousand questions. We all asked the same things. Why were we here? Until when, and what would happen to us? And where were we? There were different theories, based on speculation, guesses about the weather and other clues. Some said Oman or Bahrain, based on the climate and flight times. Others said India, because of writing stamped on the pipes: "Made in India. " Based on these guesses, different groups faced different directions when they prayed. There was no clear answer. What would happen to us? Some said interrogators had told them we'd all be executed. Others said only men on death row wore orange. My Danish neighbour said no, they couldn't just kill us; there were laws. "But I don't see them," I told him. I didn't know what to think anymore. Too much was happening too fast; my mind couldn’t process everything I’d been through. It was all new to me. 'The guards called her an iguana. I called her Princess' Interrogation never stopped, day or night. Guards moved detainees back and forth to the interrogation rooms constantly. We could only communicate by whispering or hand signals. All of us were searching for any scrap of information, anything new. When we needed the toilet, we had to cover ourselves and watch the guards’ walking pattern along the block, waiting until one had passed before using it. Other detainees would warn each other when a guard was getting close. Getting caught meant punishment. On the third day, at lunchtime, while I was eating, I noticed someone watching me from a short distance, with beautiful eyes. "As-Salaamu Alaikum," I said, and offered to share my meal. She walked closer to my cage, elegant, and we had our first meal together. I'd never seen her before. I named her Princess. We noticed that whenever she walked, the guards stepped aside for her; none of them dared touch her. She could go wherever she wanted. The guards called her an iguana. I called her Princess. This photo made on 9 April 2014 in Guantanamo Bay naval base, Cuba, shows an Iguana walking on a road of the base (Mladen Antonov/AFP) She kept coming back to my cage to share my food, and other detainees grew jealous of her. By the end of the third day, guards ordered us to sit facing one direction, no movement, no talking, no looking around. I heard a helicopter hovering close over the camp, and then soldiers shouting the way they had when we first arrived, chains rattling. A dog barked. We knew they’d brought in a new group of detainees. Hours passed until it was nighttime. No dinner that night, no sleep, no rest. We knew what the new arrivals were about to go through. I prayed to Allah to make it easy on them, to protect them. During the day, the sun beat down on us with nowhere to take cover. We weren’t allowed to cover our heads with towels, or use the plastic mats to shield ourselves. On the fifth day, a group of male and female guards came to our block and ordered us to strip naked in order to be taken for showers. I refused, and so did some others. Wallahi, I will not remove my clothes even if it costs me my life. I simply couldn’t do it. I told them: either give me something to cover myself with, or let me shower in my clothes. Some detainees didn’t mind doing it; they would be beaten and dragged if they refused. An officer came and introduced himself as a Muslim chaplain, bringing with him copies of the Quran, which turned out to be one of the biggest problems. Guards had no respect for our prayers or for the Quran. Whenever they came to search the cage, they would kick it, throw it, and desecrate it. We protested and asked them not to do that, which only made things worse. They threw it into the buckets. They didn't see us as human. They didn’t believe we should be treated as human beings. We started learning about these people, and about our situation. Some detainees who were European nationals, or had lived in Europe, told us they couldn’t keep us forever; it could be up to six months, and then we’d be released. I wanted to believe them. I thought I did. The Danish brother told me that once they figured out who we really were, they would release us. Part of me wanted to believe him, but everything I had already been through - the journey from the CIA black sites, through Kandahar detention and now this - said otherwise. We had no contact with the outside world. No lawyer. No family. Not even contact with the world beyond these fences. Days in Guantanamo stretched into months, years, decades. Guantanamo itself grew, evolved and changed. Around 800 Muslim men and children passed through it, from dozens of different nationalities, speaking dozens of languages: Arabic; Pashto; Dari; Urdu; Uyghur; Russian; French; Bosnian; and many more. Many were captured or handed over to the US military by allied forces while the US was offering bounties for suspected enemies. Each one was labelled the "worst of the worst," a terrorist. It became a laboratory for the US military, a torture chamber, a blueprint. Abu Bakker Qassim, a Chinese Muslim and an ethnic Uighur released from Guantanamo prison and resettled in Albania, makes pizzas in Tirana on 6 January 2012 (Gent Shkullaku/AFP) While the prison stayed open, the CIA ran a parallel network of secret sites, "black sites", with the complicity of governments around the world. During Obama's final years as president, he established Periodic Review Boards - a legal and technical process for reviewing the cases of detainees. In 2015, the Periodic Review Board approved me for transfer out of the prison. Critically, the Periodic Review Board process was yet another measure to obfuscate the fact that I, like most of the other men detained at Guantanamo, was never charged with a crime and never had a trial. For years, I was told I was too dangerous to release. I was even classified as a "forever prisoner. " Then, without any new evidence, I was told I could leave. Notably, even with this approval, I remained detained at Guantanamo for another nine months. Finally, after spending almost half my life in US black holes, I was forcibly released and put on a plane out of Guantanamo on 11 July 2016. Because Yemen was in the middle of a war, and Congress had restricted the transfer of detainees to Yemen, instead of being sent home, I was sent to Serbia, a country I had no connection to: no family, no language, no history there. The fact that I had no connection to Serbia, and despite the fact that I refused to leave for Serbia, was of no concern to the US government. The US was only concerned with disposing of our lives and sweeping our stories and the violence we experienced under the rug. Twenty-five years later As the US and mainstream media mark 9/11 this year with the slogan, "Never Forget, Never Forgive," I want to remind the world who the victims actually are. The world should not forget the millions of innocent Muslims killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. We should not forget the invasions, the torture programmes, the prisoners. With the US marking the anniversary of 9/11, people should be aware that Washington is not pursuing justice; it is full of hatred and vengeful towards Muslims. The "global war on terror" was a campaign of terror. Let's call it what George W Bush himself once called it: a crusade. Today, Guantanamo is not only still open, but it has also become a symbol of torture and indefinite detention. Based on US documents and lawyers' statements, around 98 percent of the men held at Guantanamo were wrongly detained, without charges or a trial. Fifteen men remain imprisoned there today. Three have been cleared. Three have been classified as forever prisoners. I am a product of America's global war on terror: its invasions, its millions killed, its tens of millions displaced, its torture programme, its drone assassinations, its thousands of Muslims kidnapped, tortured and held indefinitely. That war didn't stay in Afghanistan or Iraq. It came home, too, in the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslim neighbourhoods and mosques, the NSA's mass surveillance of Muslim communities, the FBI's use of informants to entrap young Muslims into plots the bureau itself designed, and the Muslim travel ban. It crossed the Atlantic as well. In Britain, the Prevent programme built a surveillance net around Muslim life from childhood to death, from the GP’s office to the school to the mosque. From Palestine Action to policing bill, the UK government is killing free speech Read More » Cage International, the advocacy NGO based in London, documented dozens of cases of people flagged and investigated for nothing more than being visibly Muslim. Across Europe, similar laws followed, passed in the name of security, landing overwhelmingly on Muslim communities. The same label followed us everywhere: suspect, by default. That machinery didn't disappear. It became the foundation for something worse. The infrastructure built to watch, detain and deport Muslims gave the far right a ready-made system to inherit. US President Donald Trump didn’t invent the Muslim ban, the watchlists or the idea that an entire religion could be treated as a security threat; he ran on them, and then he used tools that were already there. White nationalist movements in the US and Europe absorbed the same language, the same suspicion, and pointed it at immigrants and Muslims alike. Twenty-five years of the "war on terror" built the machine. The far right just had to turn it on. That war paved the way for the far right, anti-Islam and anti-migrant politics we see now. The same machinery now reaches beyond Muslims entirely. In Georgia, prosecutors have charged people involved in protests against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center with domestic terrorism and other offences. The FBI has turned its terrorism task forces on Black Lives Matter organisers and Standing Rock water protectors. In 2025, the Trump administration issued directives ordering federal agencies to treat left-wing activist networks and protest movements as domestic terrorist threats. In Britain, the government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and people have subsequently been arrested and charged in connection with alleged support for the group. Dissent itself became suspect. The label that was first fitted to me, and to thousands of Muslims like me, is now fitted to anyone the state decides it doesn’t want speaking. Twenty-five years later, the US government has never brought the 9/11 case to a fair trial. Not one person has ever been convicted in a fair trial for the attacks that were used to justify everything that happened to me. Where are the voices, and where is the media, calling for justice for the millions of victims worldwide of the so-called global war on terror? Where is "Never Forget, Never Forgive" for them? The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. 9/11 Attacks The Big Story Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:28 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

Exclusive: British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry sponsor backs Israeli defence tech fund Submitted by Simon Hooper on Tue, 09/01/2026 - 07:52 Igor Tulchinsky's Tel Aviv-based venture capital fund is headed by a former general who has promoted remote-controlled weapons described by rights group as a 'tool for committing genocide' Igor Tulchinsky, pictured behind King Charles and other dignitaries, at the British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry exhibition launch (The Trustees of the British Museum) On At 10 am on Thursday, the British Museum will open its doors to the general public for the most hotly anticipated exhibition in its history: the return of the Bayeux Tapestry to England. Hundreds of thousands of visitors are expected to file past the fragile 70-metre-long artefact, which tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, during the next 11 months. Since 1931, British governments have tried to negotiate the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry from France, before it finally arrived amid tight security this summer. Tickets for the first four months of the exhibition, described as a "once-in-a-generation show", sold out within hours during the 273-year-old museum's single biggest day of sales. But much of this was made possible by the financial support of a billionaire benefactor whose name is on posters advertising the exhibition, and who kept a discreet profile at the official reception for the Bayeux Tapestry last week, standing near dignitaries including King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham as they pored over the medieval embroidery through its security glass. Igor Tulchinsky is the founder, chief executive and chair of a US -based investment firm, WorldQuant. In February, he was named as the sponsor of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, with media reports valuing the deal at £5m ($6.75m). Next month he is set to chair a fundraising ball at the museum “in recognition of his support for the Bayeux Tapestry”. But among Tuchinsky’s other business interests is a defence tech-focused venture capital fund based in Israel headed by a recently retired army commander who has promoted the use of remote-controlled vehicles in Gaza described by one rights group as a “direct tool for committing genocide”. The sponsorship deal predates WorldQuant Genesis, Tulchinsky’s new Tel Aviv-based fund, which was launched in April. And while at this stage the scale and precise nature of WorldQuant’s investment in defence technologies remains unclear, the revelations about Tulchinsky's business interests in Israel are likely to raise further questions for the museum, which has faced calls from MPs for an investigation into its removal of several references to Palestine in its galleries, as well as criticism over controversial sponsorship deals. Last week, the Guardian revealed that the museum gave a private view of the Bayeux Tapestry to Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of Palantir, a tech firm that supplies the Israeli military with advanced AI and data-analysis software. Artists for Palestine UK, a network of artists and cultural workers, called the British Museum’s decision to partner with Tulchinsky “outrageous”. Neither the British Museum nor WorldQuant offered any response to Middle East Eye's multiple requests for comment for this article. WorldQuant Genesis is headed by Major General Saar Tzur, a senior former soldier who commanded the Israeli army’s Northern Corps and Manoeuvre Array - a military command structure designed to support ground forces tasked with advancing into and securing enemy-held territory - during the first year of the war in Gaza, where Israel is accused of waging a campaign of genocide against Palestinians, and operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. From left: UK PM Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles examine the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum in London on 2 September 2026 (AFP) Tzur was replaced in those roles in October 2024 and retired from the army shortly afterwards. He then joined the advisory board of Ottopia, a tech startup supplying the Israeli military with technology used to control unmanned vehicles remotely. In his work for Ottopia, Tzur has described the deployment of these vehicles as “ force multipliers ” in Gaza. “Teleoperation is essential for unmanned operations, enhancing ground superiority by reducing casualties, improving maneuver resilience, and boosting combat effectiveness,” he is quoted as saying on Ottopia’s website. Ottopia describes its technology as “battle proven” in roles including “direct combat” and “target engagement”. As well as advertising remote-control bulldozers, Ottopia's founder Amit Rosenzweig has also acknowledged the firm has supplied the Israeli military in Gaza with armoured personnel carriers (APCs) laden with explosives. "He or she can drink coffee while using a joystick to control a tank or an APC or whatever it is that he or she needs to control to get the job done," Rosenzweig said. Use of vehicles in Gaza The use of such remote-controlled vehicles by the Israeli army in Gaza and Lebanon has been linked by rights groups to indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the systematic demolition of buildings and neighbourhoods. According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel began using explosive-laden remote-control vehicles in densely populated residential areas of Gaza in May 2024. Their use intensified in October 2024, as Israel implemented the so-called “Generals’ Plan”, which sought to depopulate northern Gaza and forcibly displace its residents. By August, September and October 2025, Euro-Med Monitor documented the destruction of approximately 300 residential units every day, with the Israeli military using about 15 exploding “robots” daily, amounting to an estimated 100 tonnes of explosives used against residential areas. Speaking to MEE in September 2025, residents of Gaza City described the explosions caused by the vehicles as “more devastating than air strikes”, with multi-storey buildings reduced to rubble in an instant. Genocide by remote control: Israel's explosive robots devastate Gaza Read More » Many residents fled their neighbourhoods in terror, they said. “If the building were seven storeys high, it would become rubble. You can’t even tell there used to be a building there. Just tiny pieces of stone,” said Shabaan, a resident of eastern Gaza City. Though the Gaza ceasefire agreement between the US, Hamas and Israel in October last year reduced or halted their use, Euro-Med Monitor has recorded an escalation of exploding vehicles in northern and eastern Gaza over the past two months. “For example, throughout August, we documented the detonation of around two to three remotely operated explosive vehicles per week in areas near the Yellow Line,” said Euro-Med Monitor’s Anas Jerjawi, referring to the demarcation line that Israeli forces are meant to have withdrawn behind. Jerjawi told MEE that the destruction of cultural heritage sites directly as a result of these vehicles has not yet been recorded. However, cultural heritage sites have been affected by Israeli military operations in areas where these explosive vehicles were deployed, including several places in Gaza City's Jabalia, such as the Old al-Omari Mosque, the Byzantine Church, al-Mathaf Hotel, al-Sheikh Saad Mosque and the Rajab Ibrahim Abedrabboh House and Shop. “What is clear is that the use of these weapons has taken place in and around densely populated areas containing homes, religious sites, and other elements of Gaza’s historic and cultural fabric,” Jerjawi said. “Their large-scale use has therefore posed a serious threat not only to civilian lives and residential structures, but also to the cultural heritage embedded within these communities. ” Euro-Med Monitor told MEE that it could not independently verify that the vehicles it had documented in Gaza were controlled using Ottopia's technology. But the vehicles identified in Gaza have a number of features in common with the type of remote-controlled vehicles described by Tzur and in the company's marketing material. An advertisement for the British Museum's Bayeux Tapestry exhibition on the wall of a London Underground station on 4 September 2026 (MEE) Ottopia's website features graphics of an APC-style autonomous vehicle. It describes its work with the Israeli army as enabling "fully unmanned ground operations, even with legacy vehicles". And in an article for the company, Tzur described how it had provided "teleoperation solutions for a wide variety of IDF vehicles - bulldozers, trucks, and more" following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks and the start of the Gaza war. In Lebanon, whole towns and villages along the southern border have been intentionally razed by the Israeli military, including several heritage sites such as the Shrine of the Prophet Benjamin in Muhaibib. Though remote-control vehicles have been spotted in Lebanon, they have not yet been reported as used in the demolitions of Lebanese communities. Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said the military is recreating the model of destruction in Gaza in southern Lebanon. Ottopia did not respond to MEE's multiple requests for comment. There is no suggestion of any association between Tulchinsky and Ottopia. 'Cultural genocide' In April, Israeli business newspaper Calcalist reported that Tulchinsky’s newly launched WorldQuant Genesis would fund “early-stage research companies combining AI, robotics, and biotechnology”. It said the fund had already invested in NavAiro, which it described as an “Israeli defense-tech start-up developing solutions to counter swarms of low-cost drones”. “Even against the backdrop of the complex reality, my commitment to Israel and its future remains intact,” Tulchinsky was quoted as saying. 'How can the museum’s trustees possibly have come to the conclusion that Tulchinsky, with his links to the ongoing erasure of Gaza and parts of Lebanon, was a suitable sponsor? ' - Artists for Palestine UK “Israel has an extraordinary combination of world-class universities, military experience and the ability to deal with a complex and challenging reality, which makes it one of the most fascinating places in the world for growth. ” Tulchinsky was born in Belarus under the Soviet Union but emigrated to the US as a child. He has longstanding business interests in Israel where WorldQuant has maintained an office in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, since 2009. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post in March, Tulchinsky said he had provided financial support to the Israeli army since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks and the start of the Gaza war, and said he visited the country regularly. “First I was helping the army financially,” he said. “I gave them money and they did whatever. ” Pressed by the interviewer for more details about the nature of his donations to the army, Tulchinsky said he had donated money through an organisation. In a statement to MEE, Artists for Palestine UK noted that remote-controlled bulldozers and exploding vehicles have contributed to the damage and destruction of more than 70 percent of Gaza’s total documented cultural heritage sites, including a Unesco World Heritage Endangered Site. “These mosques, shrines, historical houses, archaeological mounds and excavation sites, ancient artifacts, cemeteries, palaces, fortresses, mosaics, fountains, bathhouses, monasteries and churches were built by Palestinians, Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Nabataeans, Assyrians and others over centuries,” it said. “Too many are now lost forever to the rubble in what a UN report states may amount to cultural genocide. ” The network noted that Tulchinksy appeared to be seeking to profit from Israeli military activities through his business interests in the country, and described his sponsorship of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition as "shameful". “How can the museum’s trustees possibly have come to the conclusion that Tulchinsky, with his links to the ongoing erasure of Gaza and parts of Lebanon, was a suitable sponsor? And, more fundamentally, how are basic ethical standards, human rights and international law not guiding factors in such decisions, even before considerations of reputational damage? ” The British Museum has faced criticism and protests over previous corporate sponsorship deals, including a £50m ($67.5m) 10-year deal with oil giant BP to fund its “Masterplan” redevelopment project. Israel's genocide in Gaza Nick Hunt Daniel Hilton News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

Israel threatens senior Palestinian officials with 'all-out war' in occupied West Bank Submitted by Alex MacDonald on Mon, 09/07/2026 - 13:33 Defence Minister Israel Katz says planning is in place for possible operations against Palestinian Authority Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz pictured on 20 January 2026 (Aggelos Nakkas/AFP) Off Israel will launch an "all-out war" in the occupied West Bank if any military operations are discovered being planned by groups linked to the Palestinian Authority, Defence Minister Israel Katz has said. Katz said on Monday that in such an operation they would wage a broad campaign against senior PA officials, its security apparatuses and "terrorist infrastructure" in the occupied territory. He told reporters that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed the Israeli army to prepare for such an operation if the security situation "deteriorated". “We will not allow a return to the reality of an intifada lasting for years, as was the case in the past,” he said. “We will not allow a return to the reality of October 7 - we will ensure the security of Israeli residents and communities everywhere. ” Fighting in the occupied West Bank between 2000 and 2005 - commonly referred to as the Second Intifada - claimed thousands of lives, mainly Palestinians and Israeli settlers. Groups associated with the PA took part in the fighting, including the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades group linked to the ruling Fatah party. In the wake of the intifada, however, the PA has been widely criticised for its cooperation with the Israeli security services and involvement in suppressing Palestinian campaigners and armed groups in the West Bank. Israel Katz says Palestinians will leave Gaza Read More » Katz said any major operation against the PA would emulate the so-called "security zones" established in Gaza and Lebanon. On Monday, the Israeli military said it shot and killed a Palestinian who had stabbed an Israeli settler in the north of the West Bank. Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services said a man in his 20s had been taken to hospital in a moderate to serious condition. Jewish settlers also shot and killed a Palestinian man in Hajeh village, east of Qalqilya, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The ministry confirmed the death after earlier reports that Israeli forces and settlers had opened fire on Palestinians in the village, wounding several people. Occupation News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

Liza Kaminov is pleased to welcome Nadav Weiman, Executive Director of Breaking the Silence. He says there is a troubling gap between how Israeli military operations in Gaza are publicly explained and what soldiers experience on the ground. Testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence suggest that this gap is not simply about individual incidents, but about the policies, assumptions and rules of engagement. The testimony surrounding the Nasser Hospital strike points to “retrospective incrimination”: rather than identifying a legitimate military target before an attack, evidence connecting those killed to Hamas may be sought afterward in order to justify the strike.

Military · Geopolitical

Mecca Agreement gives Turkey new leverage and risk in equal measure Submitted by Fatma Menal Akın on Tue, 08/25/2026 - 09:04 The collective defence commitment has evoked comparisons with Nato, but the three countries still face major political, operational and technological hurdles A woman walks past armoured vehicles at the International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul, 9 May 2017 (Yasin Akgul/AFP) Off The defence pact signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, known for now as the Mecca Agreement, has laid down a firm statement of political intent: to sharpen regional deterrence, and to put the burden of the region's security back in the hands of the region itself. Yet the collective defence promise at the heart of the pact raises as many questions as it answers. Its central clause, that an attack on one member is to be treated as an attack on all, has fuelled expectations that the three countries could build a Nato-style deterrent of their own. But the structure is still in its infancy, and much remains unclear: how far it will hold up on the ground, how durable the political trust between the parties will prove, and how military, intelligence and technological capabilities are to be pooled. For Turkey, the timing of the initiative, and the choice of partners, matter every bit as much as the agreement itself. At a moment when the region's existing deterrents are wearing thin, when Washington's role in Middle Eastern security is being reopened for debate, and when tensions between Israel and Turkey are taking on new dimensions, Ankara appears to be reaching for regional partnerships that widen its own security options. Speaking to Turkish media after the signing, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the talks between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had been running for more than two years. Years of instability, the widening theatres of conflict since 7 October 2023 and a security balance in the Red Sea that has come apart have made the search for a regional answer look all the more urgent. Analysts suggest that what the pact offers Ankara, at least for now, is less a hard military guarantee than fresh diplomatic room to manoeuvre. It is also expected to deepen Turkey's security ties with Saudi Arabia and to multiply its options across the region. The flip side is that Ankara now faces the risk of being dragged into crises that are not its own, of stretching its military and industrial capacity past its limits, and of taking on commitments that sit awkwardly with its obligations inside Nato. New bargaining chip The security landscape that produced the agreement is one in which the regional order that the United States has spent years trying to build in the Middle East is under serious strain. Washington's strategy rested largely on drawing Israel closer to the Gulf states, containing and deterring Iran, and gradually winding down its own direct military footprint in the region. The Abraham Accords supplied the diplomatic scaffolding for that architecture, and the normalisation deal expected between Saudi Arabia and Israel was meant to be its keystone. Mecca Agreement: A Muslim Nato or yet another Baghdad Pact? Read More » For Dr Yasir Atan, deputy director at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), what lies behind the pact is the erosion of the region's deterrent mechanisms and a security balance that grows more brittle by the month. In Atan's reading, Turkey is looking for a new principal partner amid the deepening regional insecurity that followed the 7 October attack by Hamas and the war with Iran. Building that partnership, however, means holding another balance: between Nato membership, relations with Washington and a security rivalry with Israel that is hardening by the day. Turkey and Israel, Atan says, increasingly see each other as a threat across a widening set of arenas with Syria, Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean and Somalia among them. Atan sees the United States acting as the referee in that contest, managing the friction between Turkey and Israel. The partnership with Riyadh and Islamabad, he argues, could strengthen Ankara's hand and its bargaining power in Washington, while making it harder for Israel to isolate Turkey there. That approach dovetails with the argument Ankara has been making for years: that the region should own its own security. But Turkey's aim is probably less to step into America's shoes than to build relationships that keep Washington's Israel-centred policies from leaving it out in the cold. Dr Betul Dogan-Akkas, who works on Gulf politics and regional security as deputy director of Ankara University's centre for Middle Eastern Studies and a faculty member in its international relations department, does not expect any of the three countries to strike out entirely on their own from Washington. But she says the Israel-centred cast of US policy is pushing regional powers to work more closely with one another. Why Riyadh and Islamabad? Ankara's turn towards a new regional security arrangement matters, but so does the question of why Riyadh and Islamabad, of all capitals, emerged as the partners of choice. Turkey's search for new avenues of cooperation against the region's uncertainties, without tearing up the alliances it already has, brought the three countries into the same security equation. Why the Mecca Agreement has given the UAE-Israel alliance the jitters Read More » For Atan, that choice is bound up with how the region's security environment has shifted in recent years. A United States inclined to pare back its commitments in the Middle East, the deepening insecurity since 7 October and the new equation thrown up by the war with Iran have all pushed Turkey to look for fresh partners. Saudi Arabia, Atan says, is seen in Ankara as a "principal partner", both for its weight in the Gulf and for the reach of its ties elsewhere in the region. Pakistan emerges as the third leg of the structure thanks to its long-running military and defence relationship with Turkey and the security bonds it already maintains with Riyadh. In Atan's view, Turkey read the partnership as an opportunity within the new regional equation that took shape after the war with Iran. Whether the trio will widen its circle, though, is a matter of some disagreement. One of the candidates Atan points to is Egypt. Bringing Cairo in at a later stage, he suggests, could help turn the three-way partnership into something closer to a broader regional security framework. Egypt's inclusion would stretch the structure's geographic reach along both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Akkas is more cautious. Egypt may be among the first names raised whenever expansion comes up, she says, but "given its military structure and the security problems it would generate, it isn't actually the most rational partner". Undefined edges Because the trust between the parties has yet to be tested in the field, the limits of the security backing they could actually offer one another remain unclear. Fidan's remarks suggest the parties are alive to the operational and political difficulties ahead. But for all the preparation and planning, the fact that strategic trust between the three, and their capacity to act as one, has never been put to the test is among the pact's biggest unknowns. For Akkas, the real question is how much room the domestic politics of the three countries will leave for a long-term partnership. 'Playing with fire': Israel's Syria strike tests Turkey after Mecca defence pact Read More » The balance of political forces in Pakistan, whether Mohammed bin Salman ascends to the Saudi throne, and elections in Turkey are all, she notes, processes capable of testing the political will behind the arrangement. Atan, for his part, stresses that trust of this kind has to be proven over time, and that the limits of the security support the three could extend to one another have yet to come into focus. For all the talk of security, the pact identifies no adversary and offers no definition of the threat it exists to counter. What it does offer is a window onto Ankara's thinking; a deterrent posture, aimed at heading off dangers before they materialise. That leaves an obvious question hanging: in the event of an actual attack, what would trigger the commitment, and how would it work? Akkas draws attention to Fidan's choice of words: he spoke of a "common threat" rather than a common enemy. "Naming an enemy points to a more aggressive posture," she says, "whereas drawing the boundaries of a threat describes an approach built around defence and deterrence. " Once that common threat is defined, she argues, it will become clearer who the pact is meant to protect and when it would be activated. At this stage, she stresses, the agreement is not concerned with the small-scale attacks the region contends with day to day. Layered regional equation Managing the new partnership, though, leaves Turkey with a set of diplomatic sensitivities and risks to navigate. Ankara has to keep its channels open with Iran, contain the scale of its confrontation with Israel, handle a delicate relationship with the UAE and meet Saudi expectations on security, all at once. Not least because one reading now circulating in public debate holds that the pact amounts to a Sunni security axis aimed at Iran. Fidan insists the agreement is not an offensive structure directed at any country, and that its purpose is to shore up regional stability and build mutual security and solidarity among the parties. Is the Mecca Agreement Israel's worst nightmare come true? Read More » As he frames it, the alliance is less about targeting an outside actor than about members underwriting one another's security. Iran, he underlines, is not in its sights. Atan, too, argues against reading the pact as a sectarian bloc. What drives the region, in his view, is not sectarian dynamics but the national security calculations of the actors involved, their real capabilities and the geopolitics binding them together. Seen in that light, the agreement reflects more than a mutual search for security among its signatories. It also captures Ankara's bid to take on a more active security role at a moment of deep regional uncertainty. Even with the insistence that no country is being targeted, how this new security convergence is read against the region's existing balance of power remains a live question for Ankara. Iran, in particular, is one of the actors Turkey both diverges from on regional files and works with, keeping diplomatic channels running throughout. That leaves Ankara having to weigh the delicate balances in its relationship with Tehran as it develops the new partnership. Akkas, though, says the parties will need to persuade Tehran that the agreement is not aimed at it. With Israel and Iran locked in confrontation, that will be no easy task, and it stands as one of the Mecca Agreement's more serious tests. Nor is Iran the only balance Ankara has to hold. As it builds the new security partnership, it must simultaneously manage its existing relationships inside the Gulf and the differing security outlooks it finds there. Akkas points out that as Turkey deepens security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, it also has to preserve the equilibrium it has built with the UAE. Abu Dhabi's purchase of an air defence system from Israel, she notes, has made the question of what constitutes a shared threat in the Gulf, and how security is perceived there, considerably more tangled. Military planning and cooperation matter, she says, but so does the pact's diplomatic language, and the way it is explained to Western allies. First test Where the limits of this security commitment are drawn may well be settled by Saudi Arabia's own security and by the Red Sea-Bab al-Mandeb corridor, which looms as a proving ground. A fresh crisis along that stretch of water could quickly become a shared security problem for the signatories. Any disruption to maritime trade there would land not only on Riyadh, but directly on the security calculations of Turkey, which has both commercial and strategic interests running through the Red Sea. How the Mecca Agreement aims to manage US separation from Middle East Read More » Should Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia escalate again, Atan says, the question of what exactly Turkey's commitment amounts to under the agreement would come to the fore, and that ambiguity is a test in its own right. He stresses that the Houthis fight in a decentralised, fragmented fashion. In a threat of that kind, he predicts, the classic security scenario of squaring off against a conventional actor simply would not apply and that, in itself, is a problem in waiting. A similar tension surfaces in Yemen. Akkas notes that if Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia flare up again, Ankara will want to honour the security commitment it has made to Riyadh while keeping clear of becoming a direct party to Yemen's chronic conflict. Sending a message of deterrence is one thing. Being obliged to send troops when deterrence fails is quite another. The pact's real credibility, Atan says, will only become visible when a crisis of that sort actually arrives. As Akkas puts it, how the common threat is defined will determine "in what circumstances, and for whom, the pact would be activated". For Turkey, the deeper worry is being pulled into a new and open-ended military front in a theatre that poses it no direct threat. Systems mismatch Militarily and industrially, whether the pact can match its political ambition in the field depends on how far the parties can make their existing capabilities and systems work together. Arda Mevlutoglu, a defence analyst and chief executive of Mergen Analytical Strategies, says the relationship between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has already moved beyond a conventional buyer-seller arrangement, but has yet to reach the level of a genuine multinational consortium along the lines of Eurofighter. Saudi Arabia opposed Egypt's inclusion in Mecca agreement, sources say Read More » The most realistic model, at least to begin with, would be a Turkish-led programme architecture with Saudi and Pakistani industrial work packages settled by negotiation, Mevlutoglu says. Turkey would bring the largest body of platform design and systems engineering know-how; Pakistan its engineering, integration and production experience; Saudi Arabia capital, procurement scale and industrial capacity. Repeated cooperation over time, he adds, could grow into something closer to a genuine consortium. But shared ownership of technology is another matter: source codes, mission-system architecture, propulsion technology, radar algorithms, electronic warfare libraries and the division of export rights are among the far thornier issues standing between the three and genuine joint production. Mevlutoglu would not measure the agreement's success by whether it turns into a "Middle Eastern Nato". A more realistic architecture, he says, would combine strategic consultation, intelligence sharing, exercises, contingency planning, missile warning, air and maritime surveillance, industrial cooperation, and military support packages agreed in advance for specific crisis scenarios. In air defence especially, he suggests a federated model would be the more workable route: each country keeping its own sovereign network, with certain data and early-warning feeds shared across controlled links. Operational risks One of the biggest technical hurdles to the pact is the mismatch between the weapons and command systems the three countries use. On paper, Turkey's platform development capacity, Pakistan's experience in fighter production and integration, and Saudi financial power fit neatly together. But finding the money is not the same thing as speeding the programme up. Mecca agreement: Why Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan teamed up Read More » Turkey's military infrastructure is built to Nato standards. Saudi Arabia relies largely on American and other Western systems. Pakistan's inventory is a patchwork of American, European, Chinese and domestically produced equipment. Past a certain point, Mevlutoglu says, it is engineering integration that sets the critical path, and everything turns on the shape Saudi participation takes. The three countries have the potential to build a broader industrial base between them, he says, but full independence in fighter jet engines, advanced microelectronics and specialist materials is likely to take a decade or longer. Turning political will into a functioning security mechanism depends on clearing away the ambiguities that remain, and on establishing how far the parties can actually act together on technology and intelligence sharing, training, exercises, defence industry and finance. The agreement's true limits, though, will only emerge in the face of shifting regional threats, and above all in how the three behave during the first serious crisis or attack. Whether the Mecca Agreement can become something more than a political declaration will, in large part, be answered there. Turkey At War News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

US satellite imagery restrictions leave journalists in the dark on Iran and Gaza Submitted by Gaspard Rouffin on Thu, 08/27/2026 - 08:52 Tightened satellite‑imagery access over the Middle East raises fears conflicts are slipping out of view and pushes journalists toward Chinese and European providers A satellite view of the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman taken by Nasa's Terra satellite on 5 February 2025 (Nasa Earth Observatory/AFP) Off As the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on 28 February and Tehran retaliated on targets across the Gulf, a quieter contest was taking shape over who could access satellite imagery of the war. One week after the initial strikes, US firm Planet Labs, the leading satellite imagery provider, announced it would release Gulf imagery with a four-day delay. Within days, the delay had been extended to 14 days and expanded to most of the Middle East. By early April, following a request from the US government, Planet Labs had made the restriction on high-quality imagery of the region indefinite. The most recent commercially available images of the Gulf now date from 9 March. Planet Labs said the decision was made in consultation with the government and external experts. But many open-source journalists and analysts are worried this is beginning to resemble censorship. Bill Greer, co-founder of Common Space, a nonprofit satellite initiative, told Middle East Eye: “It has become increasingly clear that access to satellite imagery is gradually disappearing from public view. ” The stated justification is that, in the wrong hands, the imagery could be used to target US troops or allied infrastructure in the Gulf. However, experts in the industry told MEE that while a two-week delay addressed this hypothetical risk, they could not see a comparable justification for the indefinite freeze. On 1 July, Planet Labs lifted some restrictions, particularly over Iran, but most of the suspension over the Gulf remains in place. 'Reduction in transparency' Journalists and analysts also question the logic behind the restrictions, as many of the foreign powers the US considers hostile already operate their own satellite networks. Tom Brown, an open-source investigative reporter, told MEE he was “highly sceptical of the claim that the US or Israel is deterring any adversaries by censoring satellite providers”. For instance, leaked documents from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard suggest Tehran relies on Chinese satellite imagery for military intelligence. Iran operates its own Earth Observation satellites, launched by Russian Soyuz rockets. 'The restrictions on US satellites are more about avoiding embarrassment or accountability than anything else' - Tom Brown, investigative reporter A Columbia Journalism Review investigation found “no evidence that Iranian forces have, in fact, used imagery from any US satellite vendor”, adding it was “unclear” why Iran would need to, “since Tehran has its own sources of satellite data”. “The restrictions on US satellites are more about avoiding embarrassment or accountability than anything else,” Brown said. Jake Godin, a senior researcher at Bellingcat, the open-source investigative group, agreed, telling MEE the restrictions “are just making it harder for news outlets and NGOs to assess and verify damage”. He said this was posing problems for “the information environment in general” and creating “fertile ground for the spread of misinformation”. The consequence, Greer said, is a “reduction in the transparency of events that impact the public at a literal global scale”. Satellite images suggest Iran's attack on Qatar base damaged communications structure Read More » “As satellite imagery is restricted, it is also becoming more politicised,” he added. Greer warned in particular about imagery that remains accessible but selectively released: the images stay “accurate, but will not show the entire story”. That shift, he said, is “accelerating both through financial and regulatory means”. Regulatory, because the US government can restrict satellite imagery providers directly, and financial, because it is also their largest customer, giving companies like Planet Labs a commercial incentive to comply even without formal pressure. “Many of these companies are publicly traded, putting pressure on them to grow at any cost,” Greer added. Planet Lab’s stock has been volatile since the war began, down 15 percent over the past six months. The paradox is that the quantity of imagery is growing even as access to it shrinks. As many as 60 countries now have functional Earth Observation satellites or active construction programmes, from Argentina to Canada, Turkey to India, alongside commercial operators such as China 's and Airbus. “The amount of imagery created is not indicative of the access to that data,” Greer noted. Contradicting official narratives Satellite imagery is a critical tool for journalists, humanitarian groups and open-source analysts monitoring conflicts worldwide, and it is often the clearest way to contradict misleading or incomplete government narratives. The most recent case is the bombing of a school in Minab, Iran, by the US military which killed 156 civilians, including 120 schoolchildren, and which Unesco called “a grave violation of humanitarian law”. The US initially denied responsibility, but the New York Times found a US Tomahawk missile had most likely caused the explosion, and used satellite images to confirm the location. The Pentagon said last month its investigation was still ongoing. An aerial picture showing mourners digging graves during the funeral for children killed in a strike on a primary school in Minab, Iran (Iranian Press Centre/AFP) Satellite images have also been used to show the scale of Israel’s destruction in Gaza. An Oregon State University study using the European Sentinel-1 network found that over three-fifths of all buildings in the Palestinian enclave were damaged or destroyed in the first year of the war, a proportion comparable to the 54 percent of buildings destroyed in Dresden by Allied bombing in the Second World War. CNN used satellite imagery to identify where six US personnel were killed in an Iranian strike on Kuwait in March, before the US government disclosed any details, while the New York Times used it to assess damage to US military sites across the Gulf. Satellite imagery was also used to confirm Israel’s responsibility in the killing of Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon in 2023. An Oregon State University study used satellite imagery to compare building destruction before (left) and after (right) the first year of Israel's war on Gaza, here in central Rafah (Oregon State University) Without reliable access to this imagery, journalists warn, gathering evidence to challenge official accounts will only get harder. “Without safeguards, warzones risk going dark,” Open-Source Intelligence (Osint) analyst Alex Shaw told Middle East Eye. Turn to China and Europe To get around US restrictions, journalists and analysts MEE spoke to are increasingly turning to European and Chinese providers instead. Babak Taghvaee, a defence and Osint journalist, said he repeatedly hit restrictions “while attempting to purchase imagery of locations inside Iran” and turned instead to commercially available Chinese satellite imagery. While this is a viable alternative, he said, it is “more expensive than comparable products” from the US. The European Space Agency (ESA) is another option. Its Sentinel-1 satellite has “become the workhorse for conflict damage mapping in the region in recent years”, Shaw said. 'A public scientific mission, funded by the EU, is delaying imagery release due to US pressures' - Bill Greer, co-founder of Common Space But even the ESA’s service is not immune to US pressure. Since 13 July the ESA has released its imagery of parts of the Middle East, including Hormuz, with a 24 hour delay. The move was made following a formal request by US officials to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Greer said he was “a little confused, and highly concerned” by the move. “A public scientific mission, funded by the EU, is delaying imagery release due to US pressures,” he told MEE. Godin said for Bellingcat, “Sentinel-2 continues to be a valuable resource for getting around satellite restrictions”, but its lower resolution often is insufficient to identify which specific buildings have been damaged or destroyed. This makes it harder, he said, to verify damage to infrastructure like water systems in southern Lebanon “if there are no available photos or videos showing a site suspected of being damaged”. Brown said the restrictions make journalists’ and fact-checkers’ work more difficult without deterring it altogether, pointing to a growing utilisation of user-generated content, such as videos posted directly to social media. Controlling conflict visibility Satellite imagery is often one of the only ways for journalists to assess situations in hard-to-reach or dangerous areas. “Conflict visibility depends not only on events on the ground but also on who controls access to satellite imagery,” Shaw said. He noted high-resolution images are “commonly shared for free after natural disasters but not for conflicts, which limits scientific and humanitarian access”. 'There’s a very real danger journalists and researchers will be blindfolded' - Alex Shaw, open-source analyst In Gaza for example, Israel has banned all foreign journalists from entering the strip since 2023, leaving newsrooms reliant on satellite imagery and local reporters. Godin said the most recent restrictions “have made continued monitoring and verification of damage and destruction in places like Gaza or southern Lebanon more difficult”. Where ground access is dangerous or impossible, Shaw said, journalists and researchers depend on satellite “eyes from above”, and “there's a very real danger they will be blindfolded”. Bias in the selection of satellite coverage of conflicts also leads to uneven visibility. Shaw said “commercial providers often have uneven archive coverage that leaves some conflicts poorly represented”, citing the example of Sudan. Israel's special situation Since 1997, US legislation has required American satellite imagery providers to keep the resolution of Israel imagery below a certain threshold. Israel is the only country to receive this kind of protection by law. The difference is visible even on public tools such as Google Earth, where Israeli imagery has deliberately been blurred. Comparing intersections in Tel Aviv and foreign cities makes it obvious. In Tel Aviv, car edges are blurred and crosswalk stripes indistinguishable, while in Ankara, for example, both are sharp and clear. Top: an intersection in Tel Aviv, Israel. Bottom: an intersection in Ankara, Turkey, both viewed on Google Earth (MEE) This has concerned journalists and humanitarians for decades, as it has complicated not only the monitoring of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but also the growth of its illegal settlements in the West Bank, where satellite imagery would easily reveal the construction of new buildings. Since 1992, US-based satellite imagery providers have needed a government licence to operate, which grants the US “shutter control” - the ability to restrict image releases. That power was never formally invoked, though the Pentagon bought up all available satellite imagery of Afghanistan in 2001 to keep it out of public circulation. 'Worrying precedent' Commercial incentives and regulatory pressure have been pulling satellite imagery providers away from journalists, humanitarian organisations and other civilian customers. Greer said this trend is not new, but “the shift towards defence contracts has dramatically increased in the past 18 months”. Common Space, the non-profit that Greer co-founded as an alternative to commercial providers, aims to “increas[e] independent access to imagery as a tool for transparency”, built specifically for humanitarian groups, journalists and academics. 'Access to the information is being limited for political reasons, in support of an unpopular war' - Bill Greer, co-founder of Common Space The broader problem, he added, is political: “The public's access to the information to make informed decisions is being limited for political reasons, in support of an unpopular war. ” Experts who rely on satellite imagery remain worried about the future. “My biggest concern right now is that we will see further restrictions, and those restrictions will be codified into law and regulatory frameworks taking imagery access permanently out of the hands of the people that need it most to improve the lives of others,” Greer said. Shaw agreed, warning that the “recent restrictions set a worrying precedent for how accessible imagery will be” going forward. He said more “blind spots are likely to emerge in US commercial imagery”, pointing to the proposed 2027 Intelligence Authorisation Act, which would bar US government-contracted providers from publicly releasing “sensitive imagery that could harm national security”, a definition broad enough to be open to misuse. War on Iran News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

'Not sorry': Israeli officer who killed international aid workers in Gaza justifies strike Submitted by MEE staff on Fri, 08/28/2026 - 08:59 Colonel Nochi Mendel ordered the attack on World Central Kitchen workers, which killed Palestinian, British, Australian, Canadian and Polish nationals The aftermath of an Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on 2 April, 2024 (AFP) Off The Israeli army officer who ordered a drone strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in Gaza has said he is “not sorry” for the attack. Colonel Nochi Mendel, who commanded the operation, told Australia’s ABC public broadcaster that he stood by the decision to strike the aid convoy on 1 April 2024. The seven workers killed included Palestinian, British, Australian, Canadian and Polish nationals. Mendel made the remarks in an interview recorded in October 2025, according to ABC. “I’m the commander, and I’m the one who gave the order to carry out the operation. I didn’t run away from the situation. I said I gave the order; don’t look for anyone else,” he said. Mendel said he had not intended to kill the WCK workers, but added: “I’m not sorry for what I did. ” He was removed from his post as chief of staff of the Israeli military’s Nahal infantry brigade following the attack. The Israeli army said the strike resulted from a series of failures, including breaches of its rules of engagement and standard operating procedures. No criminal probe Earlier this month, however, the Israeli military said it would not open a criminal investigation into the attack. The decision was condemned by the UK, Canada and Australia. In a joint statement, the three countries called the decision “shameful”, saying the military had provided no further explanation for its refusal to pursue a criminal investigation. They said the decision to rule out an investigation on World Humanitarian Day was “particularly egregious”. “The victims of this incident and their families deserve justice and accountability, and we will continue to seek answers on their behalf,” they said. 'Shameful:' UK, Canada and Australia condemn Israel's refusal to investigate aid worker attack Read More » In his interview, Mendel blamed what he described as mistakes by WCK and the complexities of operating in Gaza for the deaths. He claimed there was “an intermingling between the WCK and Hamas operatives” on the night of the strike. “So the WCK, too - unfortunately, they aren’t really a neutral organisation. Not really an organisation you can say is innocent and completely clean,” he said. “It had ties to Hamas,” he added. WCK rejected the allegations as “false and outrageous”. “This is the latest attempt to shift blame away from the IDF’s (Israeli army) own actions,” a spokesperson told ABC. “The individual making these slanderous claims has no credibility. “He was directly involved in the decisions that led to the 1 April strikes and was immediately removed from his post for serious failures and breaches of standard operating procedure. “We demand truth and justice for our seven colleagues who were killed, through a full, independent investigation into the attack. ” Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Military · Geopolitical

US lawmaker says Trump facing 'crisis of his own making' amid war on Iran US Senator Mark Kelly said that Donald Trump is facing difficulty in finding an exit from the war on Iran. "This is a crisis of his own making and he has left himself with little options," Kelly told ABC new. Some of the options Trump is left with, according to Kelly, include walking away from the war, put economic pressure amid negotiations, escalating with ground troops - which he warns could lead to "maybe even tens of thousands" of dead Americans. The senator also suggested rebuilding coalitions with European allies, which he says have "fallen apart" in recent times due to Trump's decisions. He added that the American public are "frustrated" as a result because they "can't afford their lives anymore". "I think that sanctions are better than just randomly dropping bombs on thousands and thousands of targets and in some cases killing innocent Iranian kids. I mean that wasn't a good plan," Kelly said. "We need serious people involved in this," he expressed amid concerns that figures in the current administration are not equipped to handle the conflict.