Iran strikes pierce US missile defenses, with Jon Elmer

You are watching and listening to the Electronic Intifada. I am Jon Elmer. This is the Resistance Report on day 1,028 of Israel's genocide in Gaza, day 153 of the US's illegal aggression against Iran. I am reporting this on the afternoon of Thursday, July 30th, and things are, as always, moving quickly. Uh, we will get into that more on the show. Let's take a look at the maps as we always do. Again, this war was started, uh, as Craig pointed out, with the supreme international crime of aggression but by the Israelis and the Americans, um, that launched the war on February 28th. More than 10,000 US, uh, airstrikes on Iran, a comparable, comparable number of missiles and drones launched from Iran towards, um, couple dozen US bases across the region. Particularly, as you see on this map in the far left, Kuwait, uh, Bahrain, and beside Bahrain there, the peninsula of Qatar, uh, repeatedly hit. And then Jordan, um, over along the border with Israel further to the west have been, have made up the, um, the the thrust of the targeted, uh, bases. Um, the [clears throat] real point actually this week in our weekly show was that for 5 days this week there was an undeclared, uh, pause in fighting. The US, uh, stopped, uh, after 13 straight nights, um, in the middle of July till, till this week, um, 13 straight nights of attacks that were responded to by the Iranians. And then after the final response to the final US, um, attack, overnight attacks, the US were doing the nightly attacks, uh, um, Iran responded to the final one, and then there was, um, a pause, in effect, uh, an undeclared ceasefire because Iran wasn't acting in a out of a in a wasn't aggressing. They were being attacked and they responded and again this has taken off and now as we are on the air US strikes last night overnight resumed and Iranian missile attacks have resumed as well and we'll get into some of those as we move forward but just on the Strait of Hormuz as we look at the next map we can see the Strait of Hormuz the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Navy said that again I've read you this pretty much every week this this is exactly what they say every time it's also what they say on channel 16 which is the the channel the radio channel that all ships in the Gulf Persian Gulf are communicating on but it says we warn against the use of alternative routes in the Strait of Hormuz the entrance to and exit from the Strait of Hormuz are clearly defined and remain under our full control the alternative routes are unsafe and dangerous and we warn against using them as doing so will have serious consequences that route they're talking about is the Omani route with so-called US escort but it's not ship escort cuz they don't have enough resources for that it's an aerial escort at best it's also a a hotline that ships that are about to get struck by Iranian projectiles for violating memorandum of understanding number five uh uh uh are attacked in that channel and the crossings of the Strait of Hormuz have become a trickle in the Gulf in the Omani route it's less than one a day and it's a 10 or 12 a day through the northern channel again this is a significant reduction from the more than 120 um, oil tanker crossings uh before the war um down to a trickle now. And again, the World Bank has has said that this is the large They said actually weeks ago um that this was the largest oil disruption in uh the history of oil. Um and so that was as of a couple of weeks ago. So it's uh it's that much worse today. And the the understanding um from industry sources is the flow rate um to recover for each of these is what Each day it's closed is at least 1 week uh to resume. And so now we have been closed for months. And we're talking multiple years uh to recover the oil flows um back up to the global supplies that are necessary. Let's take a look at the next map. We can see uh the I showed you this lat map last week. It's handy to see the whole region. If you look at the bottom uh in the middle there, you see it's just cut off at the bottom, but that is the Bab el-Mandeb. That is the strait into the Red Sea that is being blockaded by uh the Yemenis. We'll get to the Yemeni front uh a little bit later, but just to show you that. And then you can see here clearly the US base architecture throughout the Middle East um that has been targeted. And again, primarily being targeted in Jordan, Kuwait, uh Bahrain, and Qatar. Saudi Arabia has um is apparently not allowing their um airbases to be used in the same way uh for attacks. Um and so they have been largely spared from this round. Uh this round of fighting at least. We'll see how long that uh holds up. Now let's take a look at this missile stockpiles because um I'll just say it straight up from the New York Times. We don't quote from the New York Times very often, but they uh put it uh pretty concisely here when they said Trump has set aside, at at for now, plans to sharply escalate American military assault against Iran with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon's already diminished stockpile of Patriot uh and THAAD anti-missile interceptors uh across the Middle East. General Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has cautioned privately that resuming major combat operations against Iran uh was doable but that it would be that would dangerously deplete interceptors available to the United States military Central Command, which is responsible for operations all over the Middle East. Now, this is the CSIS map, the Center for Strategic and International Studies uh graphic, sorry. They put this graphic up as of April. Um and you can see the unit costs, particularly we're looking at the air defense costs are the bottom two, the SM-3 and the SM-6. Those are interceptor missiles that are on Navy ships on the Aegis program. Um and the Navy ships, as I've reported week after week, are far too uh far away from the battle to actually impact it with their interceptors. They're too far away. Um they're too far offshore. They were too far offshore in the Mediterranean worried about Hezbollah attacks. They're too far uh out into the Arabian Sea um because of uh IRGC attacks. So, those are really off the table. Uh we saw those SM-3s and SM-6s being used in the Yemen war uh with the US when the um Yemenis were firing constantly on American uh aircraft carriers and destroyers. But, the bottom two are the key. First of all, the THAAD, the uh Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, which is their most um significant air defense system. Uh $15.5 million per interceptor. Less than 100 interceptors can be made in a year. The uh production line for these is a four and five years out from an order. Orders that are already in the production line are one to three years away. Um so, this is just really limits absolutely and completely limits the uh American's ability uh to carry out this war. And that's why you see the stops and starts, the threats, the breaks, the pauses, um because the US cannot uh con- continue this. And you can see just just in the first uh 39 days of actual combat from February to April, um you can see the amount of uh uh munitions used. The THAAD goes from uh 360 to 190, Patriots 2300 down to just over 1,000. Again, this is April. We have now been covering 3 weeks of exchange of fire in July alone. So, why don't we take a look at the next one cuz they updated this um to show. And again, you're seeing uh finite resources. You can see it with your very eyes here. There's no secret stocks. There's no ability to recall these weapons from around the world. Previous packages that have sold have been sold to uh allied nations. Most of those allied nations are using them right now to defend US airbases against Iranian attacks. Um but look at those numbers just in um you know, down to triple digits for for the Patriot system. We've seen Patriots be fired in uh groups versus a single ballistic missile. We were watching that in the first round in those first 39 days. Um I showed you videos where we were counting five interceptors for a single missile. So, this is just not sustainable for the United States. Um and this doesn't even include the destruction of the radars. And the radars um you know, in some cases in many cases, hundreds of millions of dollars uh per radar that are knocked out have created large gaps in this system. So, it's not just the missile interceptors, but it's as this war goes on, as the US bases are degraded, as Iran targets um the radar installations in particular, these missiles become less effective. And when they're less effective, they fire more of them to make up for the gaps in the radar. Um and so this is really a situation that the Americans can't get themselves out of. They um you know, the Strait of Hormuz was opened the day before the United States launched their act of aggression um during negotiations um the massacring people uh who are part of the negotiations in a secret strike um the ultimate act of aggression. Um this this doesn't have an end where the US wins this war. And for Iran, it's existential. They cannot lose this war. So they're exerting control in the Strait of Hormuz, a massive choke point for the global economy, and there's no signs of that changing anytime soon. We are going to show you uh a few Iranian missile operations. This first one is from last night, and it has sound in, so people uh be forewarned that you're going to hear the launch of multiple Emad ballistic missiles coming up right now. >> [snorts] >> So that is a an Emad uh liquid fuel uh ballistic missile traveling at 8,600 mph. As Trump pointed out today, he seemed really impressed by that. Uh he said that they uh intercepted everything fired at Jordan. Just as we came on air, uh satellite footage emerged of what appears to be multiple F-35s struck on the apron at Muwaffaq al-Salti airbase in Jordan. We will follow that up for next week's show for sure. Um but uh again, the Emad has a maneuverable maneuverable re-entry vehicle. It is very uh difficult to intercept. It is why they fire multiple uh at each one um and has a 750 kg warhead, which means that when it strikes, uh it does very considerable damage. let's look at the next strikes. These were from uh earlier just uh earlier in the week just before the pause. Here we're seeing the launch um of a series of Fateh-110s, Zolfaqar. There you see a wave of them launched all at once. The IRGC said this was the 27th wave launched. They said against uh a devastating attack against the American base at al-Azraq. That is Muwaffaq al-Salti airbase causing significant damage to several fighter jets and killing and injuring a number of American soldiers by destroying uh their military base housing. Um so, significant strikes. Uh also at Muwaffaq al-Salti is the base where three soldiers were killed. Um and I showed you that video last week and appealed to the United States military of soldiers in the Middle East. There's 4,000 of them in Jordan alone and 50,000 in the Middle East. I said to send us um what it looks like when it's when you're under attack on a US airbase in the Middle East. Well, uh just after saying that um uh Admiral Brad Cooper, who's the head of CENTCOM, uh he he was said that he issued an internal warning about operational security after videos surfaced of the Muwaffaq al-Salti airbase attack that was hit on July 17th. Obviously not implying uh that was a response to my call, but just that uh they're aware of the uh operational security and how impactful it is when the world sees the missile strikes on US bases as we saw on last week's show. You can always find Resistance Report back episodes on our YouTube channel and the Resistance Report playlist. Let's take a look at the other strike number seven here. We're looking at an Emad launched here. You can see it in a daylight launch there. The first one we showed was a nighttime launch, but you can see the debris falling on it. And then there's a a Fattah ballistic missile that travels at Mach 15. So that's what they're attempting to show you there the the speed at which it travels. Um that was launched in in that last grade. Then you're going to see a group after this Khyber Shekan and Zolfaghar's and Fattah 110s. Those are the solid fuel missiles that they use. You can see there with the opaque white colored smoke that exhaust smoke from the missile to give you a sense of the solid fuel. And again, the solid fuel can be fired in less than 10 minutes. They can be deployed road deployed. They could be missile silo deployed. Here's Shahed drones again that have been pinpoint accurate and striking bases across the region particularly just across the Gulf where all the states that are being targeted. That's a Shahed 101 that you're seeing going up there at the end. Let's take a look at number eight. We've got some more drones here from the 27th wave. And again, the 27th wave targeted air bases in Jordan and Kuwait. And you can see the Shahed 136 here be launched off the rack launchers there. You'll see them as they get closer. This is a drone swarm that's being launched simultaneously. And you can see the racks. These next two ones you can really see it better there. That's how simple it is to launch these Shahed drones. You can see the rocket booster is what falls off there as it flies after the rocket boost there. It drops off the rocket booster to reduce its weight. And these have been obviously a devastating weapon throughout this war. Let's take a look at number nine because again, I always want to bring in the fact that it's not just the IRGC that's fighting, it's also the Iranian the Iranian armed forces them selves, the Iranian army, the Artesh. This is an operation on Camp Buehring, Camp [snorts] Doha, and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. And you can see them launching their Arash 2 long-range drones there, effectively a cross between a drone and a cruise missile that were designed specifically for targeting Israel. And they have announced 25 phases, so 27 phases for the IRGC plus what happened today. Um and 20 25 [clears throat] for the the army. That's how they are doing their their accounting. And again, a phase for the army is not a single launch, it's that whole series of launches. And a wave for the IRGC is not a single barrage. Sometimes a wave can last many hours and include many dozens of munitions fired at various targets. But that is how they are classifying their operations so far. Let's take a look at some battle damage assessment because we're really starting to get these put together. Let's look at number 10. We can see the before and after on the Kuwaiti airbase of Ali Al Salem. You can see the containerized base housing here. Again, I showed you this last week when it was destroyed at Muwaffaq al-Salti and also at Tower 22, the American base on the border between Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. And again, we can see the next slide 11 shows you significant damage into these containerized housing units. We can see the after shot here from number 11. Uh just maybe they're empty. Maybe they're all empty every single time they're hit. Um because we know the numbers that are coming out are not accurate, although the US did update their casualty database to over 200 just in the July exchanges of fire. after that is on top of the more than 450 from the first stage of the war, the first 39 days from February till April. Let's take a look at number 12 cuz you can see the way that um that we can use this sore atlas, this 3D atlas to show you um this destruction on the base using multiple maps here that you can see the containerized housing destroyed. Um on last week's show, I showed you this containerized housing on bases in Germany. This is how the US houses their troops. And we know just before coming on air that satellite footage revealed battle damage at Ali Al Salem airbase, the same airbase at the hangers of their MQ-9 Reaper drones. We'll have to follow that up for next week and get you visuals on that and on the strike on Muwaffaq Al Salti airbase that apparently uh targeted three F-35s on the apron. Let's take a look at number 13 now. This is King Faisal airbase and this just gives you a sense of the size of the base. Uh and then we focus in here on these hangers that are destroyed and you can watch on the right-hand side, um you can see the panels get blown out of those three uh hangers. The IRGC said this was a ammunition storage facility. It doesn't appear to be. that wouldn't be where they would store their ammunition, but it's clearly hangars for fighter jets and drones which in many ways is a lot more significant of a target. Let's look at number 14 that shows the before and after of that same strike here on the hangar. You can see the vehicles around it and watch it get blown out in this next one. 15 shows the after effects and again you can see the blowout panels on that as well. So these satellite images that the Iranians are giving to add into the mix of the sore 3D Atlas effects which was launched just over a month ago and has been a real asset after the United States banned all satellite commercial satellite companies from distributing battle damage in the Middle East, but there's those same satellites are allowed to show you battle damage in Iran. Because the Americans are bragging about the battle damage in Iran and lying about the battle damage on their own bases. Let's take a look at 16. This is Ahmed Al Jaber airbase in Kuwait and this is an FPS 117 radar and you can see the radar dome there and the IRGC said continuing the dark night campaign against US air defense systems and radars in the region. They struck and destroyed one early warning radar, one missile defense radar system and one FPS 117 radar and and one Patriot air defense missile system and a satellite communication system related to the US military air defense all located at Ahmed Al Jaber base in Kuwait. So those F-117 FPS 117 radars. I'll show you this in the next slide number 18. This is the original GE slide from the Cold War. This is a poster of them advertising this type of radar and you can see a cross-section of what the previous map just showed you as a radar dome and whenever we see that just looks like a white ball. But this GE promotional poster which was sent out during the Cold War, this is part of the US missile defense program that is literally a $750 billion plus program that is being deployed in the Middle East right now and failing is a Cold War is a process that began in the Cold War and these were early warning radar stations that were set up in many cases in Canada for to track Soviet launches. And so you can see on this one inside that looks like the dome is broken, but it's the cross-section. You can see the massive size of the phased array radar that's in there. Multiple stories high and then below it the the base on which the FPS-117 sits can be command center underneath. So maybe that's empty too because we're not getting casualties like these ballistic missile strikes seem to indicate. Let's look at number 19 cuz this is an interesting one. The US um the US relationship with Bahrain here being targeted. These are data centers. Amazon data centers being targeted in Bahrain. Two of them were targeted. Bloomberg verified this that satellite imagery shows two damaged Amazon.com Inc. data centers in Bahrain supporting supporting Iran's claims last week that they actually did this which every single one of these does. The significant damage to the two data centers in the towns of Zalec and Askar alleging that they were targeted because of Amazon support for US military operations. ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Organization, reported on July 24th the Iranian forces fired projectiles and hit Amazon's data center in Salalah following an earlier attack on 22 July. The Bahrain tele- telecommunications company RJR data center in Askar, which hosts AWS cloud infrastructure, was struck on the 18th and the 21st. So, repeated strikes on this uh cloud and Amazon on data center infrastructure that you can see here clearly uh being targeted in this SOAR Atlas map. So, that is the battle damage from Iran this week. And again, we had five of the days this week there was no exchanges of fire. So, um I expect next week we'll have much more on Iran. Already today we have much more. As I have stated multiple times, we are seeing satellite footage emerge just before coming on air of multiple F-35s being struck on the apron at Muaffaq al-Salti airbase. Let's take a look at Yemen now because Yemen has joined uh this battle and locked down the strait uh the the strait that you see there. This is a photograph from the International Space Station. Um you can see the strait running off the Yemeni coast. And again, where Ansar Allah and the Yemeni armed forces are strongest is along that border in the country. Um so, they have overwatch over the strait and they have turned back dozens of Saudi vessels. And the key to this is that Saudi has a pipeline that runs to Yanbu, which is just up in the Red Sea. And that pipeline was supposed to be a way to bypass the Strait of Hormuz with 4 to 6 million barrels a day. Um probably on the lower end of that. I think the higher end is the um the wish wish casting. But in any case, uh some several millions of barrels in addition to the straight of Hormuz being taken off the off the oil market globally. And the Iranians are backing this. The head of the Quds Force said that lifting the 11-year blockade on Yemen is a legitimate and humanitarian demand for the oppressed people of that country of Yemen. General Ismail Qaani said lifting the 11-year blockade is necessary. And the other thing that's interesting about this is the fact that the ships the Saudi ships are very large crude carriers that are being loaded at Yanbu. And they're loaded too heavy. They're too deep to go through the Suez Canal. And so they're essentially they either have to go with a lower flow rate multiple ships. Uh whatever the oil equivalent of roll-on roll-off. You know, they have to put it on a ship in Yanbu, take it to the edge of the Suez Canal, unload it onto a different ship, send that ship through, unload the other half onto the another ship, send that ship through, get through the Suez, and then reload them. This is just something that is a really impactful blockade on the straight. And some people might ask how did this begin other than the fact that Saudi has blockaded Yemen for the past 11 years. Deadly blockade, a humanitarian catastrophe that has been said many times by all humanitarian organizations, the United Nations, everyone involved in humanitarian work has called this a catastrophe for more than a decade and no one does anything about it. But the Yemeni resistance is deciding to do something about it at this time when the deal between Iran and the US says that the there will be a halt to aggression in all countries of the axis. So, Yemen getting in on this, but what started this latest round, uh I'm going to show you this with audio in. This is a missile strike by um Saudi Arabia on Sana'a, the international airport in Yemen, in an attempt to block an Iranian plane from landing, a blockade of the airport uh as long also in addition to the seaport. So, here's a report by Yemeni television that was shown uh by Tasnim, the um Iranian news channel, but this is Yemeni reporters who are um watching these strikes um and there's a going to be audio again in you're going to hear explosions in this next round. Let's go to number 30B. That falling debris that you can hear is always the telltale uh sound of authenticity. Um you can hear it you can watch here. These are standoff um Storm Shadow uh air-launched cruise missiles. multi-million dollar cruise missiles and they launched 10 of them, more than 20 million um to try to stop this landing, but they failed. They didn't even hit their targets as you could see in that. They're just hitting the uh the runway, um but that is what led um Yemen to respond, a blockade for a blockade. Um and in response, the Yemeni armed forces attacked Saudi Aramco, their major oil facilities in Yanbu and Jizan. Um and you can see that in the next slide. They responded immediately and uh you can see here from NASA um fire tracking uh satellites, again using the sore Atlas 3D Atlas. You can see what targets here oil depots. It could be a lot worse. They could target the physical refinery as well. I think these are just the opening shots, but the main the main export artery for Saudi Arabia through Yanbu is under attack as a result of that first video that I showed you. If we look at 32, we can see the UK Maritime Transportation Organization trade operation. Sorry, run by the UK Navy. You can see this is a ship a Saudi very large crude carrier being turned around. The notice from the UKMTO says has received a report of suspicious activity. The master of a tanker has reported hearing an explosion while transiting the southern Red Sea. The report confirms that the crew and the vessel are safe. No environmental damage has been reported. The vessels are advised to transit with caution, but that vessel turned around like several dozen others have turned around so as not to be fired on by the blockade that is being enforced by the Yemenis. And also [snorts] this week if we take a look at 33, you could see the Yemeni armed forces here downing downing Bayraktar radar radar drone the Akinci which is a strategic 30 million plus dollar high altitude long range drone. You can see it's massive burning on the ground with the um Yemeni tribesmen circling it. Something we've watched on this show for almost 3 years now watching these drones literally by the dozens by the scores if you will that we have tracked. These this drone uh was part of a major strategic uh alliance between Turkey and um Saudi Arabia, $3 billion deal to uh get these drones into the Saudi. We can look at the next ones have uh photos of the same thing. This was this drone was shot down in Al Jawf, which is in the north um of Yemen uh earlier this week and you can see it. And this is a joint project that Bayraktar uh Akinci project is such that they are training they trained they trained the first group of pilots uh graduated late last year and at the graduation ceremony was the Air Force commanders um from the Saudi and Turkey uh Air Force. So, this is a real joint project here. Um and this particular drone, this Bayraktar drone um has 24 hours endurance, it can carry a 1,500 kg payload, so it has offensive capabilities. It's a sophisticated drone that can be um that can be interoperable with fighter aircraft. Um and so, this is really the crown jewel of the uh of the of Turkey's um military industries um that we're looking at burning here on the ground and Yemen didn't let that pass. They put out the psychological operations video this week uh about the uh Bayraktar drone being dropped. You can see it here. There um it's the crown jewel of the military manufacturing. It says here it's going to talk about the September uh the summer of 2023 deal um that just had its first pilots graduated late in 2025 um and it's one of the largest deals in uh Turkish military uh export history. And you can see the plane there is very significant. They're showing us there the radar of the um I mean, the assumption is that as a 358, we can't see it enough, but the this drone flies 10,000 plus feet higher than than the MQ-9 that had been picked off time and time again with the 358 missile. And this says your gamble failed. What remains is debris. So, your gamble of sharing military technology with Saudi and then deploying that in Yemen. That gamble failed according to the Yemeni armed forces. And just one quick note from Lebanon, the Israelis said that an FPV drone overnight on Tuesday struck an Israeli D9 armored bulldozer at the Ali al-Taher Ridge. That is the ridge that the that the Israelis said they controlled and Hezbollah said they will not control and do not control. That's the strategic ridgeline north of Beaufort Castle. So, that FPV strike Hezbollah did not take credit for that strike. They have otherwise adhered to the ceasefire and of course, Israel has not with daily violations as ever. So, this has been the resistance report on day 1028 of Israel's genocide in Gaza, day 153 of the Iran war. And again, you can find past episodes of the resistance report on our YouTube channel at the resistance report playlist.