General Audino at Frontlines Report

Trump could open the Strait of Hormuz with military force and this would put a huge financial squeeze on Iran, while getting critical oil out of the Gulf Arab states.

The Iranian regime is fractured at the top, now is the time to put maximum pressure on it economically and militarily.

The collapse of the Iranian regime is in progress. We should continue dominant military action against the regime. Finish the job. Keep the pressure on. End the ceasefire, it only benefits the regime. youtu.be/2EbWFsqqp48?si…

Diplomacy won’t eliminate all threats from Tehran’s regime. To protect the interests of the U.S., the administration must eliminate Iran’s nuclear menace and destroy its terrorist capabilities and capacity for economic extortion. That can’t be accomplished with negotiations—it requires regime change. wsj.com/opinion/negoti…

If the U.S. tries to get out of Iran without demonstrating military dominance of the Strait of Hormuz, the regime will use the Strait like a light switch. They will turn it on and off when it suits them. When will we be willing to use military force to open the Strait if not now? youtu.be/3y3_wvVYeyw?si…

Son of Iran’s former Ambassador to Venezuela flaunts his private jet travel while carrying Louis Vuitton bag as he heads to party in Ibiza. Meanwhile, millions of Iranians struggle to survive on $4 per day.

The regime in Tehran has clearly been badly damaged. We’ve had enormous impact, this is not the time to pull back. We must finish the job, which includes working with the Opposition to overthrow this regime.

Yes, destruction of those localized levers of repression is an essential precondition to Iranian protestors retaking the streets in compelling numbers...but 57 Basij sites and 43 police facilities is not close to enough. Although I do not know the precise total of Basij and police facilities across Iran, it must be a high number, given that Iran covers 1.6M square kilometers and contains 93M people. Historically, uprisings that begin transitioning to revolution cross a psychological tipping point where citizens become convinced that regime forces of repression are no longer invincible to crowds in the streets. The USA and Israel must do more to set these conditions in order to topple the regime.

Strikes in Iran reached beyond missile sites and military targets to hit the three layers of the Islamic Republic’s repression apparatus, including intelligence compounds, Basij bases, police stations and judicial centers.  Amirhadi Anvari’s investigation found at least 130 sites tied to internal repression were hit in about a month, including 57 Basij sites and 43 police facilities.

IRAN - CEASEFIRES, BRIDGES & INFRASTRUCTURE and THE LAWS OF WAR:  Joining me on the Frontlines Report last week was an old friend and colleague, Marshal Billingslea. He most recently served as Assistant Secretary for Counter-Terror Financing, and combined with his previous assignments, he knows Iran's networks and nuclear sleight-of-hand like few others in the world. We discussed the so-called "ceasefire", the Straits of Hormuz, the potential for an armed uprising and likely 2nd & 3rd order effects for Iran, the USA, Israel, the Gulf Arab states and Russia and China. So, let's start with this...rational Americans should want us to win this war. Only toppling the regime can produce a permanently non-nuclear Iran (our stated vital national interest). An agreement with Islamic Regime leaves the Regime in power. Unfortunately, a ceasefire ain't helping. Here's why: In the face of overwhelming, offensive combat power, any pause in combat, is advantagous to the defender. The defender immediately uses any pause to reorganize and improve his defense. In fact, this current ceasefire with Iran has already given us an early example…once our fires lifted Iran immediately began re-fortifying the tunnel entrances at Isfahan. Likely the other nuke sites, too.  Now is the time to EXPLOIT the successes of the military objectives we’ve accomplished so far, not cede them to the enemy. Despite talk of ceasefires, this war ain’t over. Wars end by breaking the enemy’s will to fight. We can do that, but consider the following: 1) On 28Feb we commenced combat against Iran. 2) Iran closed the Straits to compel us to cease combat. 3) We ceased combat. Let that sink in. The world's greatest superpower blinked. If we don't soon "un-blink", enormous geopolitical consequences will follow. So, resumption of combat likely means resuming plans for Bridge and Power Plant Day, controlling Hormuz and seizing/controlling Kharg Island.  But don't fall for the narrative that targeting bridges or power plants is automatically a war crime. It’s not.  Refer to the Geneva Accords (primarily Arts 51-57) and the Hague Conventions (Rules of Aerial Warfare). Here are the Cliff Notes: 1) Bridges and power plants are generally protected as civilian objects, BUT…. 2) They may be targeted IF they are being used for military purposes and the attack is proportionate to the military advantage gained. So, hitting bridges and powerplants is NOT a war crime, per se. Whether any given strike is a war crime depends on the facts of each specific target/strike. Little different from any other target on the battlefield. But here’s the irony...rather than OUTLAWING strikes on bridges and power plants, the Laws of Land Warfare establish how such strikes can be PERMISSABLE. If a war is worth fighting, it’s worth winning. Let's get on with it. Click on this link to hear the discussion: frontlinesoffreedom.com/frontlines-04-…

On the 38th anniversary of the Anfal genocide campaign, we pay tribute to the thousands of innocent lives that were taken by the former Iraqi regime. We reaffirm that the Iraqi government must fulfill its moral and constitutional responsibility and provide proper reparations to the families of Kurdistan’s martyrs and victims.

The remaining elements of the Islamic Republic have one goal: survival. Any pause or negotiation is tactical — to regroup, regain power, and pursue a nuclear bomb, threatening the US and its allies. What’s left is even more radical than what was eliminated.

The Iranian regime is at its weakest. Internal factions don’t trust each other. Even the IRGC is signaling divisions. This is not a system that can be reformed. As long as it survives, the threats remain: regional instability, terror networks, and a nuclear risk to the US, Israel, and allies. The only solution is clear: End the regime. Work with real opposition. #Kurds are the main part of the answer.

Strait of Hormuz Strait of Malacca Strait of Bab el-Mandeb Strait of Gibraltar Bosporus Strait Lombok Strait Sunda Strait Bering Strait Strait of Mozambique Luzon Strait Korea Strait No country gets to hold the world hostage for leverage just because they happen to sit next to a Strait. Not Iran. Not anyone.

Iranian Kurds deny receiving US weapons to arm Iran's protesters middleeasteye.net/news/iranian-k…

Siamand Moeini, a senior figure in the armed Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), denied the report. “We as PJAK, as I know, have not received anything. As for others, I cannot answer,” he told Middle East Eye.

Hana Yazdanpanah, a foreign relations coordinator for the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), said that they still have their “old Kalashnikov that we fought ISIS [the Islamic State group] with for five years and the weapons they abandoned after its defeat”.

President Trump’s statement does not add up and may reflect a misunderstanding for several reasons: 1.#Kurdish groups have access primarily to Kurdish-populated regions, not to Tehran, Tabriz, or Isfahan. The geography alone would make it extremely difficult to deliver shipments to the major Iranian cities where protests were taking place. 2.Existing Kurdish militia access to western #Iran is largely limited to pedestrian routes for small groups, effectively making large-scale weapons transfers nearly impossible. 3.There is no coherent political entity that could hypothetically receive a weapons shipment from #Kurdistan. The non-Kurdish Iranian opposition is highly fragmented and lacks leadership. Sad but true. 4.The fragmented opposition also lacks the capacity to maintain secure logistical corridors to Iraq, Turkey, or Afghanistan, namely the border areas. If such networks existed, protester groups would not require US-supplied weapons to reach major cities. There is no shortage of weapons in Iran’s rural border regions. These regions even serve as this the main weapons distribution points for insurgencies from Pakistan to Lebanon. Tehran is well aware of this and has worked smartly to sever potential links between protest groups and these porous, guns-rich areas. 5.Had the US government sent weapons to protesters in Iran, at least some non-Kurdish opposition groups would likely have been aware of it. They are not. They heard of this from Fox News too. Taken together, the statement by President Trump appears to stem from a significant misunderstanding or mischaracterization.

As the Democratic party of Iranian Kurdistan, we firmly reject the information reported by Fox News. Any claims suggesting that we have received weapons from any administration are inaccurate and do not reflect reality.

Fox News can confirm that the 2nd crew member of the downed F15E fighter jet has been rescued and he and the members of the rescue team that extracted him from behind enemy lines in Iran are all safely out of Iran. That according to two senior US officials and multiple well placed sources in the region. The Weapons Systems Officer ejected along with the pilot when their F15E Strike Eagle they were flying was struck Thursday night (early Friday local time) in southwest Iran.  The WSO used the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training to evade capture, hiding on an elevated ridge after hiking away from the wreckage and putting out an emergency beacon.) US Special Operations rescue forces to include PJs (United States Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs) and many layers of elite rescue forces took part in the complex, layered mission to both find the crew member and also keep the Iranian forces who were hunting the American weapons system operator at bay. There are videos that have appeared from local eyewitnesses that show what appear to have been  injured and dead Iranian members of the IRGC and Basij who were looking for the downed American crew member. Fox has learned there was fighting on the ground but no Americans killed during the operation. “It was a very complex operation to retrieve the downed service member,” a well placed source briefed on the operation told me. Many different branches of the US military were involved in the rescue. Fox News can confirm the A10 Warthog that crashed Friday was involved in providing cover for the rescue teams searching for the pilot. That A10 crashed in Kuwait (first reported by ABC Friday) but the A10 pilot managed to eject safely and was rescued. There was destruction of aircraft which have sensitive equipment on board, I am told, all part of this complex CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) mission. The F15E was pretty much destroyed on impact. Two rescue helicopters were hit by enemy fire on  Friday and crew members onboard were injured by enemy fire but managed to make it out of Iran. There were a lot of elements to this rescue, I am told.