TGR Weekly Review - 6.28.21
US strikes multiple targets in Iraq and Syria and the Apple Daily suffers a painful death.
Sorry guys for the late TGR. But we have a big interview with Tahir Imin coming later this week. Keep an eye out.
US launches three airstrikes at Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria
Early Sunday morning, local time, American forces launched multiple airstrikes on Iran-backed militia facilities in Iraq and Syria, killing between four and seven jihadists. The strikes were in response to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes on US personnel in the region.
“As demonstrated by this evening’s strikes, President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect US personnel. Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting US interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement. “The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation—but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message.”
Between four and seven jihadists were killed and one facility used to launch and recover drones was completely destroyed.
Multiple Iran-backed militia groups released a statement in which they pledged to “avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs against the perpetrators of this heinous crime and with god’s help we will make the enemy taste the bitterness of revenge.”
And the Iraqi military called the strikes a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and national security.”
The strikes were Biden’s second known military action, his first being an airstrike on a Kait’ib Hezbollah compound in Syria in February.
The day after the airstrikes, several rockets were fired at US forces in eastern Syria. According to a tweet by Col. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman for the US-led mission in Syria, “multiple rockets” landed near the al-Omar oil field and there were no injuries. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The increase in tensions comes as negotiations to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal enter their seventh round and Ebrahim Raisi—a former judge and hardline cleric—prepares to enter the presidency.
Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the American Progress Action Fund and a former assistant secretary of defense, said that Biden was “serving notice” to Tehran.
“I think it was no accident that he did it to send that signal to Iran. The fact that he’s doing it now while they are about to undergo the seventh round of talks on the JCPOA is him saying: ‘Just because we are there, it doesn’t mean we are going to ignore [these other problems].’”
Apple Daily, the pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper, is forced to close
Twenty-six years and four days after its inception, the Apple Daily newspaper was murdered. In one swift move, Hong Kong authorities raided the Apple Daily’s headquarters, arrested multiple top executives, and froze their bank accounts. Jimmy Lai, the founder of Apple Daily, has been in prison for months, where some expect him to spend the rest of his life.
Apple Daily was singled out and destroyed because they dared to challenge the ruling regime. On July 1, 2020—the day the National Security Law went into effect—they broke with the pack. Newsstands were filled with papers and magazines heralding the NSL as a breakthrough for the proud city. Apple Daily told a different story: “Draconian law takes effect. One country, two systems dead.”
Less than a year later, not only was 1C2S dead, so was the newspaper. June 24, 2021, the Apple Daily printed its last edition. Over one million copies were produced and sold, with people lining up at midnight to get the paper.
The headline read: “Hong Kongers bid a painful farewell in the rain.”
“The fate of Apple Daily,” one of the paper’s senior reporters told The Atlantic, “has always been aligned with the political atmosphere in Hong Kong.” And now it is no more. The colorful tabloid-esque paper that has been a beacon of light amid the darkness of the CCP no longer shines.
Around the world, activists and Hong Kongers held funerals for the murdered newspaper. In Paris, activists with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) placed a coffin and flowers in front of the Chinese embassy. In Berlin, the RSF buried copies of the paper in front of the Chinese embassy.
“Today’s funeral is for Apple Daily, but tomorrow’s maybe for press freedom in China. It’s time for the international community to act in line with their own values and obligations and defend what’s left of the free press in Hong Kong before China’s model of information control claims another victim.”
The attitude in Hong Kong can be summed up by a caption on a webcomic by Hong Kong artist Ah To: “Who will be next?”
Other stories from around the globe:
🇦🇫 The Taliban captures Afghanistan’s main border crossing with Tajikistan as they storm across the country (Radio Free Europe)
🇺🇸 🇮🇱 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid meet in Rome to talk amid US efforts to revive the JCPOA (The Jerusalem Post)
🇧🇾 Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian opposition-journalist who was arrested after his Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced down in Minsk, has been moved to house arrest (BBC)
🇰🇵 State TV: North Koreans “heartbroken” over Kim Jong Un’s “emaciated” look (Associated Press)
🇪🇹 Ethiopia declares ceasefire after rebels take the Tigray capital (Reuters)
🇮🇱 The IDF demonstrates an airborne laser weapon taking down a drone (Popular Mechanics)
Quote of the week:
This is clearly genocide against the people of Tigray. This is not just fighting; they are killing everybody—that is a sign of genocide. Many people are escaping from Tigray to Sudan and some of them, especially the young, are escaping because they are being targeted. They are deliberately targeting the young. Young people are killed, our ladies and women are abused with sexual harassment—that is a sign of genocide itself.
~ An anonymous Tigrayan woman describing conditions in the Tigray region of Ethiopia
We will be having an upcoming interview with Tahir Imin, an Uyghur activist who was held in the concentration camps in the Xinjiang region of China for a period of time. Subscribe so you don’t miss it!