US President Donald Trump’s ‘Economic D-Day’ is following home as the daunting reality of America’s dwindling Strategic Petroleum Reserves becomes inescapable. In this episode of The Target, Mint Press News’ Robert Inlakesh explores the latest revelations to emerge regarding “beyond critical” shortages in air key munitions.
The damage inflicted to US military and intelligence sites by Iranian strikes has been far more extensive than we were previously led to believe. Over the months the extent of the damage has become clearer, as satellite imagery and independent investigations uncover extensive damage to 20 US bases across West Asia, many of them having been completely destroyed or rendered inoperable.
Now the statistics are beginning to pour in. The CIA and other US spy agencies have confirmed that their sites were struck, amounting to billions of dollars in damage to American intelligence facilities and equipment. Prior to this, only Iran had claimed these strikes, without any verification from the other side. What this demonstrates is that Iran’s munitions are not only accurate, but so is their intelligence on US targets.
Then came the bombshell story this Thursday morning, as a US defence official alongside an NATO official both divulged to the Associated Press that there is a “beyond critical” shortage in Patriot air defence munitions. Such a shortage could mean that US and other NATO targets will be left wide open in the event of potential Russian strikes. The reason for the shortage in the MIM-104 Patriot missiles is the war on Iran, which has weakened the security of the US and its allies.
This, when combined with the fact that some 80% of US THAAD air defence munitions have already been used, along with a large portion of the military’s long-range standoff munitions, represents a disaster that limits US military power.
In this Thursday’s edition of The Target, we also look at the battle-front in Yemen and the recent downing of Saudi reconnaissance aircraft, along with the latest evidence of damage inflicted to Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in Jazan.
The Lebanon so-called ceasefire is also breaking down after the Israeli occupying army declared its agreement with Beirut to begin operating controversial “pilot zones” in south Lebanon has failed, choosing instead to raise its level of alert and begin ramping up its air campaign, inflicting a number of civilian casualties in the process.
Palestine Action has also been declared by the Trump administration to be a “terrorist organisation”, just days apart from the decision to remove Syria from the ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ list. An interesting move considering the new Syrian leadership and its party Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are a rebrand of Syria’s Al-Qaeda wing Jabhat al-Nusra. According to Donald Trump, Al-Qaeda is permissible, but a group of activists who seek to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the United Kingdom go a step too far.
