Bulletins and News Discussion from September 16th to September 22nd, 2024 - This Megathread Is Dedicated To The Brave Mujahideen Fighters of Afghanistan - COTW: Afghanistan

Image is of China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.

I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.

The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat?

Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Afghanistan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

You're viewing a single thread.

1.6K comments

It sounds like Israel believes Hezbollah will finally retaliate tonight with a massive rocket attack. It's 21:00 in Lebanon, so the night is young.
Israel claims to have destroyed many Hezbollah launchers, which... honestly I don't really doubt at this point. Hopefully they have plenty of decoys and hidden launchers.
Inshallah, we will see the Zionazis pooping their diapers tonight
- Israel claims to have destroyed many Hezbollah launchers, which... honestly I don't really doubt at this point
  The last time Hezbollah did a major attack, Israel also claimed to have destroyed a bunch of launchers and then Hezbollah performed their big attack with no issues. Clearly Hezbollah is competent at protecting their missile launching sites.
  From 27 days ago, quoting myself:
  From what I can gather, Hezbollah fired 320 missiles at Israel in various waves in order to deplete the Iron Dome and allow their drones to pass through and hit their intended targets, most of which were military bases and important headquarters. Israeli air defense, including hundreds of jets, were unable to prevent the drones from hitting their targets, and clearly the attack by Israel to try and degrade Hezbollah's launchers was unsuccessful, given, uh, all the missiles and drones. Hezbollah has said that the operation was a complete success, while I imagine Israel is re-using the Ukraine narrative and saying that 150% of Russia's Hezbollah's rockets were shot down, but also that they're dangerous and evil because they hit big targets. Westerners are stupid enough to believe both things simultaneously.
  then from @Al_Sham@hexbear.net:
  The Sayyed says that not a single missile launching site or drone launching site was struck before they launched their weapons.
  He also says the missiles were used to distract air defenses so the drones could get through.
  Then myself:
  Really impressive success by Hezbollah that reveals just how damaging the War of the Towers has been for Israeli surveillance. Used to be that they'd figure out something was happening and building up hours and days before it actually happened; now we're talking about Israel only having like an hour and then being misled by relatively basic guerrilla strategies. Sending out jets that cost tens of millions of dollars to use expensive bombs to hit missile launchers which Hezbollah has in the thousands and costs almost nothing compared to Western equipment, and not even killing any of Hezbollah's soldiers, nor damaging the response? Holy moly.

1619 comments