US kills Iran's General Soleimani

Caporegime
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There is that aspect as well - especially the Revolutionary Guard but I was referring more to smaller factions along the lines of the restart movement, etc. I'm not sure with some of them whether they have any presence in Iran versus their existence on social media, etc. though but definitely some advocate trying to bring revolution to Iran through any means possible even stuff like shooting down a civilian airliner if it could be pinned on the regime and others buy wholly into the whole religious war stuff and that God will give them victory over the US.

They seem more like a bunch of social media groups tbh. If the plane was brought down intentionally it would have to be by someone in the military, which none of the small activist groups are going to be.

Also worth pointing out that I can’t see those sort of groups being that “stupid”. They want change, but I doubt they want it by killing potentially millions of Iranians and forcing the country into a major war.

The best likelihood (assuming it was intentional, which I’m still going to go with the consensus on this - it not being so) is it would have been members of the RG.
 
Man of Honour
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Also worth pointing out that I can’t see those sort of groups being that “stupid”. They want change, but I doubt they want it by killing potentially millions of Iranians and forcing the country into a major war.

Some of them advocate just that - though how much that is activists on the internet sitting safely behind their computer in another country versus the agenda of those actually on the ground is another story.
 
Associate
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Conversely it could hurt Trump significantly. He almost started a war the US didn’t want with some rather sketchy evidence (if any) which was only defused by Iran’s moderate actions. The deaths on that plane could also be pinned indirectly to him too. The JCPOA was already dead, but this won’t change Europe’s stance on it. With Iraq wanting foreign forces out of their country it could be argued it’s a bit of disastrous foreign policy.

It has shifted news from the impeachment, but that’s been stalled anyway. When it’s passed up to the senate and the trial begins then it’ll come back as front page news again.

The opinion polls will tell us which way it’s gone. So far there are two from 6-8th Jan that show a 1% drop from the previous polls from the same companies. That doesn’t really tell us much yet, but the ones in the next few days will indicate which way things may go.

It wasn’t that Iran acted moderately. It was that Trump used effective deterrence. Iran knows Trump was willing to retaliate to any further provocations.
 
Soldato
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According to the guy from Sky news, it sounds as though Iran have bulldozed the crash site, and what remains of the wreckage is now in piles. So any attempt for a clean forensic investigation of the remains is now impossible, how convenient....
 
Soldato
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Why? The majority of them were Iranian citizens. A lot of dual nationals on that plane. The three Brits were also Iranian as far as I know, as were a lot of the Canadians.

Considering Iran doesn't recognise dual citizenship, they are simply Iranian citizens which makes you think it would be a big deal for them.
 
Soldato
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According to the guy from Sky news, it sounds as though Iran have bulldozed the crash site, and what remains of the wreckage is now in piles. So any attempt for a clean forensic investigation of the remains is now impossible, how convenient....

This is telling, if they were serious that they had nothing to do with it they'd openly invite an independent team to come in and examine everything to show they're whiter than white.
 
Soldato
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This is telling, if they were serious that they had nothing to do with it they'd openly invite an independent team to come in and examine everything to show they're whiter than white.

Yeah I mean, presumably they know that the moment a legit accident investigator turns up, and starts collecting samples of explosive residue, shrapnel, and measuring the impact damage and holes on the remains, consistent with damage from a SAM, their goose would be well and truly cooked. Far simpler to just bulldoze the entire site and claim it's all "Psychological warfare against Iran"
 
Soldato
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I buy in to the notion that it was a militia group or hardline revolutionaries. So the government have quickly taken to task the cover up operation in order to prevent international backlash.
 
Man of Honour
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According to the guy from Sky news, it sounds as though Iran have bulldozed the crash site, and what remains of the wreckage is now in piles. So any attempt for a clean forensic investigation of the remains is now impossible, how convenient....

That explains their invite to the investigators. Cover it up before they arrive.
 
Soldato
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From what I saw of the crash site on the news sites this morning, there was a photo of the nose section of what looks like a Russian built 9M330 missile among the wreckage, which is fired from a Tor-M1 system. The Tor system itself is a mobile SAM system mounted on a tank chassis, and quite a serious bit of hardware. If it was that used to bring down the flight, would anyone else other than the Iranian Military be in charge of that, especially around Tehran? Or were you thinking rogue faction in the Iranian military/Revolutionary Guard?
 
Soldato
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From what I saw of the crash site on the news sites this morning, there was a photo of the nose section of what looks like a Russian built 9M330 missile among the wreckage, which is fired from a Tor-M1 system. The Tor system itself is a mobile SAM system mounted on a tank chassis, and quite a serious bit of hardware. If it was that used to bring down the flight, would anyone else other than the Iranian Military be in charge of that, especially around Tehran? Or were you thinking rogue faction in the Iranian military/Revolutionary Guard?

Yeah this is what I've also been reading, that missile system isn't the sort of thing you go handing out to a faction or hardline group, according to Wiki each one of those systems has a list-price unit cost of $25M, so I imagine they were either donated by Russia or part of some sort of deal, so probably exclusively reserved for the Iranian air defense farce.
 
Soldato
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Its a bit sick really those 170 people will become patsys for all this. Its going to be one hell of a cover up.

Hardly as the rest of the world knows that some group with the backing of the Iranian state shot down a civilian airliner. Unless Iran is going to claim that some terrorist group with tracked SAM systems is happily operating inside their borders.
 
Soldato
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America did exactly that in 1988 when they shot down an Iranian commercial jet killing 290 people including 66 children! They claimed they thought it was a fighter jet!!

As was pointed out at the time. The radar cross section of the aircraft and the fighter they suspected it to be were actually really very similar.

They tried repeatedly to contact the aircraft but owing to a communication foul up were using the wrong frequencies.

The Airliner was flying straight towards USS Vincennes and all this happened in the middle of a low level battle (Iranian gunboats were firing on US helicopters) that was initiated by the Iranians right under the flightpath of the airliner at the time that the plane was due to fly over the area.

Bearing in mind that the US were dealing with a people with a mindset that makes suicide missions not only possible but actually considered honourable. The idea that the Iranians deliberately sacrificed an airliner full of innocent civilians just to embarras the US seems to me entirely credible.

I have always felt that this was a sort of fully intentional "Suicide by Cop" scenario.
 
Caporegime
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Hardly as the rest of the world knows that some group with the backing of the Iranian state shot down a civilian airliner. Unless Iran is going to claim that some terrorist group with tracked SAM systems is happily operating inside their borders.


Ok so now we know again Iran is run by idiots. I knew this last year. Same story just another chapter.

The Iranian own goal will be the bargaining chip to deescalate the situation, "before any more accidents" happen. It'll be put down to faulty training of an advanced "new" Russian system blah blah, i pushed fire and i didn't know it would oops. Sham military court-martial.
 
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