The bombings in Kerman: A critical thinking case study

Okay. Let's look at this. This story, exclusive. US intelligence confirms Islamic State's Afghanistan branch was behind the blast in Iran and Kerman. This was on the January 6 reported by Reuters.

The article says, communications intercepts collected by The United States confirmed that Islamic states, ISIS, Afghanistan based branch carried out twin bombings in Iran that killed nearly 100 people. Two sources familiar with the intelligence told Reuters on Friday. Quote, the intelligence is clear cut and indisputable, said one source, or one source said. That source and a second source, both of both of whom requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said the intelligence comprised communications intercepts without providing further details. The collection of the intercepts has not been previously reported.

So in the beginning, it says that, this is confirmed, that Islamic State, Daesh in Afghanistan carried out the bombings. This is confirmed. It's indisputable, clear cut and indisputable. But the the the sources for that clear cut and indisputable confirmation are anonymous. And the reason for the anonymity is that it's a sensitive issue.

Why is it a sensitive issue to American intelligence? Why would it be a sensitive issue for them to attribute responsibility, to ISIS for bombings in Iran? There's nothing sensitive about that for The United States. That would be in their interest. Why why is it sensitive when you are releasing the information in the first place?

If it was sensitive, then you would conceal the information or you would be very controlled about how you, what details you provide about the information. Now you're saying that it's clear cut and indisputable. So, where's the sensitivity for The United States? Wednesday's bombing, the deadliest of, their kind bombings, the deadliest of their kind in Iran since the nineteen seventy nine Islamic revolution added to regional tensions over the Israel Hamas war on Gaza and attacks by Yemen's, Tehran aligned Houthi group on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Okay.

There's a few things that need to be broken down there. First of all, it's not an Israel Hamas war in Gaza. It's in Israel carpet bombing, indiscriminate violence, indiscriminate killing, indiscriminate destruction against the entirety of the Gaza Strip. If you say that it's if it's between if it's between Hamas Israel and Hamas, then why are there close to 30,000 people who have been killed? That's roughly the size of the membership of Hamas itself.

So if you were only fighting Hamas, then you should have already wiped them out. You've you've murdered 30,000 people, at least 12 to 15,000 of whom are children. Those are not Hamas members. So this is not an Israel Hamas war in Gaza. That is already an inaccurate presentation of what's happening.

Yemen's Tehran aligned Houthi group. What does that mean exactly? What's the evidence that they are, aligned to Tehran? Maybe it will say further in the article. And, also, it says that they are attacking on commercial shipping in in the Red Sea.

They are targeting specifically Israeli bound and Israeli flagged vessels. So it's not an a a general attack on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. So just in that what is it? One sentence? In one sentence, they have a number of, inaccuracies.

I'm also not sure whether or not it is the deadliest bombings in Iran since 1979, considering the fact that they did have a war with Iraq in the nineteen eighties. ISIS on Thursday claimed responsibility for the bombings, and there you have what they actually meant when they said that they intercepted communication. What they intercepted was, ISIS claiming responsibility for the bombings. That's what they intercepted on from from the ISIS telegram group where they claimed responsibility. That's what the intelligence agency, intercepted, so called.

Means they read it like everybody else. It also doesn't say also going back to the first paragraph, two sources familiar with the intelligence. Well, that that says that tells us nothing about about their actual access to any intelligence. It doesn't tell us that, what agency what intelligence agency intercepted this information, and what the relationship is of these anonymous sources, to that intelligence agency and to the end so called intelligence that's being discussed here that is a clear cut and indisputable confirmation. What they mean is here you find and this the, this paragraph.

Which paragraph is this now? One, two, three, four, five. The fifth paragraph, is where we actually know what it is. It's the fact that ISIS already claimed responsibility. That's that's their clear cut and indisputable confirmation.

The Sunni Muslim militant group, however, did not specify that its Afghanistan based affiliate known as ISIS Khorsand was responsible for the bombing, in the South, South East Southeastern Iranian city of Kirman. The US has pretty clear intel, quote unquote, that ISIS k conducted the attack, the first source said. It it went now from being, clear cut and indisputable to pretty clear. The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment, so this is not a confirmation. ISIS, harbors a virulent hatred for Shiites, Iran's dominant sect and targets its, targets of its affiliates, attack attacks in Afghanistan.

Wait a minute. ISIS harbors a virulent hatred for Shiites. Iran's dominant sect and targets of its affiliates attacks in Afghanistan, who it views as apostates. That sentence doesn't make sense to me, badly written. ISIS claimed responsibility for a 2022 attack on Shiite, shrine in Iran that killed 15 people, 2017.

And 2017 bombings that, hit the parliament, and the bomb, I'm sorry, and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, Khomeini. And on on Friday, said security forces had arrested, 11 people suspected of involvement in yesterday's attacks and had seized explosive devices and vests. So it it has arrested the suspects, but it but the Iranian authorities have not themselves released any information about who is responsible. While Taliban crackdowns have weakened ISS k's ISS k and prompted some members to leave Afghanistan for neighboring countries, the affiliate has continued focusing on plotting foreign operations, US officials say. Also, US officials is anonymous.

So there is very little actual information in this article. There's very little actual information in this article. The only thing that you can actually take from this article is that bombings happened, and some people think some things about it. That's really all there is. There's no information in this article, actually.

Because it's it's clear that they're they're saying, we we intercepted, yeah, unknown sources, anonymous sources who are who are well, that's the that's the point. You you you begin by making it sound like something it's not. You make it sound like, oh, the intelligence has intercepted this and it's clear cut and what in indisputable. And then later it talks about the announcement, and then I said, just in my head I said, oh, well, that that's what it is. That's they just saw it on telegram, and they're pretending that they have intercepted.

So then so then if you put the the these couple of facts together, it what it would indicate to me is that you put out the claim of responsibility, and then you make it sound like it's been intercepted. So that gives it validity to make it sound like this is a thing that actually happened, not just it was you know, It's like you're you're you're you're giving validity and authenticity to something that you yourself put out by saying that we intercepted this thing. We intercepted this intelligence. You you fabricated the intelligence. You put out the statement.

That's your telegram channel. You you did that. You're you're running the telegram channel of ISIS k. That's you. And that you put you put it out with them claiming responsibility, and then, you verify that they put out this statement.

And our intelligence agencies have verified that they're responsible. It's it's all in house. The whole thing is in house. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's so so in other words and then and then if you if you if you, put everything together that's in that in that article, All of the things that are that are in there that are not information. Here here's maybe a here's maybe a, like a rule of thumb. Everything that's in an article that isn't real information is just narrative creation. That's all that's all they're doing, is trying to create a narrative. They're creating a narrative about, ISIS and Iran, that they're doing these, attacks.

They said, and they they tried to give a reason for the attacks, meaning, ISIS is anti Shia, so, and the, Houthis are Tehran aligned, you're trying to tell people that that's what's going on. And then the idea that that the intelligence agencies have intercepted this information, have intercepted this intelligence, and then that ISIS put this out. All of this is narrative creation, and because the only fact, the literally, only fact in that article is that there were two bombings. That's literally the only fact. And the rest of it is packaging to try to sell a narrative, about the bombings, which is which is, which then you have to try to understand why what okay.

When you can identify what's narrative what's information and what's narrative, then you have to look at what's the point of the narrative that they're creating. Yeah. Yeah. What's the why of of of why they want to push this narrative? I mean, you can then then, you know, then there's a certain degree of speculation, and and of course, you have to do like what I what what what I said and what it is written here to use, different sources of information.

So then you would have to do a little bit of research and look at to like, for example, is there any could we find any information about any allegations or research or studies about, funding provided to ISIS Khorsand. Are there any allegations, that it is supported by The Gulf? Are there any allegations that, for example, Qatar has sent money to them, has funded them, or anything like that to see what allegations are there about, who's behind ISSK? Because because the the the the obvious sort of, assumption that you would have is that this attack, was intended to break the diplomatic coordination between Iran and The Gulf States, to try to sow Shia Sunni discord to break down the diplomatic coordination between Iran and and The Gulf States, Saudi Arabia in in particular. Because since the beginning of something called ISIS, Saudi Arabia has been implicated, alleged to be, you know, funding, arming, training ISIS.

Because they they, you know, they they follow this extremist sort of quasi Salafi jihadi ideology. And the The Gulf States were responsible for a lot of the, you know, the the the militant groups in Syria. Okay. You could also think, okay, America has faced problems during the last three months in Iraq from mostly Shia militia groups. The The US bases and US, facilities in Iraq have faced attacks from Shia militia groups.

One of the one of the management control mechanisms that they used in Iraq was Shi'asini discord and tit for tat violence between the between groups like ISIS, Daesh and and Muqta Dasadar's group and others between the Shia and the Sunnis in Iraq to keep them fighting each other so that they wouldn't fight the Americans. So now they've been facing attacks from Shia groups, so maybe let's try to make the the Shia aligned groups angry at the Sunnis so that they won't they won't attack the Americans. Maybe they'll get busy trying to attack the the Sunnis, and maybe we can have that that that same animosity affect the ability of Saudi Arabia, The Gulf, and BRICS overall cooperating even with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Because Hassan, Yeah. Because I mean, he's because he he's the major figure.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah is the major Shia militant figure. And then you because like you have the Houthis. Okay. But just name someone who's who's a Houthi. Who's the leader of the Houthi?

Nobody knows. It's just the Houthis. Nobody knows. Everybody knows Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah. Everybody knows them.

So I mean, it's it's it's it looks like it's something like that, and they're trying to it's very important to them. I mean, because think about that. He said they said it's it's sensitive, we can't really talk about it, we can't really can't really say my name. I can't say that I'm the guy who saw it on telegram, basically. But it's really important for us to be able to officially assign responsibility for this.

That's the main thing. We're just trying to assign responsibility for this because we don't want there to be any doubt about who's responsible because that's why we did it in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you in my opinion, Allah Mo'alam, you did the thing.

You you did it. And so then after you've done the thing, then you have to assign responsibility to somebody else because that's the reason yeah. Because that's the reason you did it, so that you could assign responsibility to somebody else. So then you so then the only intelligence that you've intercepted is amazingly an assignment of responsibility from a telegram channel that no doubt you control. And then you pretend that it was intercepted intelligence like you like you, you know, like you hacked you yeah.

Yeah. You were spying. You you were hacking the calls, you know, from satellite phones of ISIS or something. This internal communication, we picked it up, you know. No.

They put it on telegram. Everybody saw it. You didn't intercept it. Yeah. I could be a source for that article.

You know? Anyone who read the anyone who read the Telegram channel could say a a source yeah. A source an anonymous source close to the intelligence. I anyone with a Telegram account. So, I mean, to do it to do it to do, like, a really proper job, you have all of what I just said, and then you would research to try to find things that can substantiate that or disprove it.

Like the idea of Like I said, you wanna do some research about, funding and connections between, the ISIS K and any other, nation nation states, particularly Khaleji, Gulfi and so on. And and and and, yeah, and see, and that's the thing. That's that's how the this is why I think I I always say, like, the news is just propaganda. Because this this the the the most people won't get past the headline that of that article that I sent you. They'll just go by the headline, and they'll say, oh, well, that's it.

ISIS did it. But when you read it, if the article doesn't even actually tell you that ISIS did it, it said it said on on on a telegram channel, the the administration of which telegram channel, the owner of which telegram channel isn't, completely unknown to anyone. And, I mean I mean really, honestly, you have telegram channels that get deleted from telegram because they're controversial. Really? ISIS has a telegram channel and everyone knows about it?

Really? Come on. That's your story? That means that that whole channel is is is narrative creation about ISIS. The whole thing is is an intelligence operation.

What do they say? With with with knowledge of the intelligence or close knowledge of the intelligence? Because he's the guy who wrote the statement. You know? That's the the guy who's who they're who they're quoting is the guy who wrote the claim of responsibility on behalf of ISIS.

I posted I I there's no doubt. It's it's in this it's clear cut and indisputable. I know this because I'm the one who posted it. And also, just even some some some little choices of words like, ISIS has a virulent hatred of Shiites. Okay.

Virulent means irrational. Right? It's just like a virus. You just have a it just in other words, we don't have to explain any animosity. It's just a given.

This is this is so you put in people's minds, oh, well, there's the these two these these two people will always fight. These two people will always hate each other because it's just in their blood. Not that there's any reason. So so because because the the fact of the matter is that terrorists, militant, you know, radical, whatever, violence actually is always political. It's it's always for political reasons, and it's never based on this kind of thing.

But but they when they when they try to explain the way, just like when nine eleven happened, The US kept saying, they hate us for our freedom. This is this is why the the Muslims hate us, because of our freedom. Never mind that that's not what anyone has ever said, and that it's actually because of mostly because of Israel, and and and your policies in The Middle East, your policies in the Muslim world. We don't wanna talk about that. No.

They just hate us. So any any, you know, any if you if you create the idea that there's just certain people, certain groups of people that have a virulent inherent intrinsic hatred for each other, then you can always use them, against each other in terms of your narrative because no one will ever question, well, why are these people so violent towards each other? Well, because they virulently hate each other. It's not because of any reason, and there doesn't have to be any reason. And you can always, commit irrational violence that no one will ever have to investigate or try to understand why it happened, and why it happened also includes who actually did it.

No one will investigate it because well, you know, the Sunnis and the Shia are just veered and they hate hate each other. So it's it's a given, these people are gonna kill each other. So you can always do violent acts and say and put it in the in the narrative in the the narrative context of Sunni Shi'a hatred. So anytime you wanna blow up something for your own reasons, you you already have a ready made narrative that can explain it away. You know what I'm saying?

So like if the if the intelligence wants to blow something up or they wanna kill somebody, just make sure that you can frame it to make it look like Sunni Shi'at hatred. Because no one will ever question that. If everyone just takes it as a given that these two groups of people hate each other and kill each other all the time for no reason because they it's a virulent hatred. Well, they wanna stir Sunni Shia discord and for the and and specifically for the purpose of breaking the diplomatic coordination between The Gulf, Arab states, Iran, which would then also break down the the entire coordination because the coordination to a certain extent, to a great extent, is held together because of the the normalization between Saudi Arabia specifically and Iran specifically because both China and Russia have important relations with Iran. So this this is one of the ways that gives Saudi Arabia a relationship with Russia as an alternative to The United States.

So if the if the if if relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran break down, then potentially they will that will that will sour the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia, and potentially between Saudi Arabia and China. And I think that this is one of the reasons why there even was a normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yeah. Well, no. Because they were because they were to to to strengthen and and make sure that because I really believe that BRICS is actually a real political entity and that they are are are truly working like a team.

And they want everybody on the team to be on one plan. Everyone needs to work together and really coordinate and and and be unified in a in a in an approach and a strategy for the region. And in a in a a in an approach and a strategy in terms of confrontation with The US, confronting The US, and counterbalancing The US. So and so so if if Saudi Arabia wants to have an alternative to The United States, and they want that to be Russia and China, well, Russia and China, the the condition for that is that you have to be part of the full team, the whole team. And we want Iran on that team.

So you have to make nice with Iran. You have to get along with Iran because we're all gonna be on the same team. So so it's it you know, for for Russia and China, are the biggest, you know, and most important BRICS members, they they're and and I think that they're also probably among the main planners for BRICS is in Beijing and Moscow, The main planners for BRICS strategy. So so for them, it was, okay. We'll we'll because no one no one was even talking just just a few months ago.

No one was even talking about Saudi Arabia joining BRICS or The UAE joining BRICS. That was an unthinkable. That was unthinkable just a few months ago. Yeah. I mean I mean, just I mean, until yesterday, The UAE was just understood as a client state of The US.

You know? Like, it it was it was unthinkable that there would be any separation between The UAE specifically and The US. Like all of this, this has happened so rapidly. And and the idea is you we all have to actually work as a coordinated team. So you have to make repair your relationship with Iran.

And if that breaks down, it's gonna be a big problem for BRICS as a as a as a whole team if if relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran break down. Because like like if you look at like the Houthis, like if you if you're gonna say that the Houthis are, as it says in that article, aligned with Tehran, which the extent of that is not really known, but we know that there has been funding, we know that they are Shia. So anyone who's Shia anywhere in the world is regarded as aligned with Tehran, even if there's not a real quantifiable relationship. But there is, there's some degree of arming and and and funding that we know of between Iran and the Houthis. Saudi Arabia has been fighting the Houthis for ten years.

Right? Now, when they start attacking Israeli commercial ships, Saudi Arabia is asking The United States and asking the West not to not to engage in their military conflict with the Houthis. You've been fighting them for ten years. Yeah. You you you yeah.

Now you say stop, and you and you accelerate peace negotiations with the Houthis. Like, you can't not understand what's happening. That that that this is all coordinated, and Hezbollah is also connected with Iran. So Iran Iran has these two, well, important They have these three important militant types of activities in they have Hezbollah, they have the Houthis, and they have the different militant groups in Iraq. All of them to one degree or another are under Iranian guidance and instruction, and to to one degree or another, accountability to Iran.

Saudi Arabia and and and already anyway, Iran is a is a so called Pariah state. So they can engage in those types of things. It's understood that they could that they will engage in these types of things. Saudi Arabia can't get away with that now. UAE can't get away with that.

Qatar can't get away with that. They're trying to be normal countries that don't engage in these types of militias. Yeah. Unless it's officially, what do you call it, a private military con contractor. That's that's that's fine.

Everybody can use those Wagner, you know, everybody can use the private the PMCs, the private military contractors. But if it's a religious militia, no, we don't do that. That's that has to be off the books. But Iran does it, and everyone knows. So they can activate them, they can use them.

So the the Houthis, like I said in the in the in the video recently, the Houthis have been activated to do what they're doing because nobody else is in a position to do it without consequences on their state. There's no there's no consequences on Saudi Arabia for allowing or for encouraging the Houthis to do what they're doing. There's no consequences for anybody because they oh, this is a oh, what to do with these crazy people, you know, these militants in Yemen with the, you know, with their drones. They're not under anybody's control. They're just doing it's it's unfortunate.

But if it's your if it's your army, well, then your whole state will bear responsibility for that. So you have militant you you activate militant groups to do things. And and Hezbollah in Lebanon and then the Shia groups in Iraq. All of that is a way of putting pressure on The US, putting pressure on the West to make them abandon support for Israel. And that's all, happening as a result of the coordination and the, normalized relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is happening within the context of the entirety of the BRICS team.

So all of that will break down if you are able to successfully reignite Sunnisia, violent hatred by doing attacks like the one in Kerma.