U.S Assassinates Top Iranian General

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Mick

What an absolute joke, it’s Trump man bad again with you isn’t it, did you see the news reports coming out of Iran during this Iranian monsters general’s funeral procession, they were running over and crushing their own people to death which in turn caused the stampede which killed a further 58 people. But Trump still bad for killing a Terrorist ******* and as usual, you’re on the side of our enemies.

I'm on the side of not provoking a needless war for someone's political gain. Everyone will lose as usual.

Iran appears to have fired off a load of missiles, deliberately missed, and crossed fingers that Trump would allow them to claim honour had been satisfied. It appears someone at the Pentagon has persuaded Trump to go along with it.

Originally Posted by Chris

Iran appears to have fired off a load of missiles, deliberately missed, and crossed fingers that Trump would allow them to claim honour had been satisfied. It appears someone at the Pentagon has persuaded Trump to go along with it.

Well I guess everyone has got something they wanted out of this?

Iran get to save some face but both sides avoid escalating. Trump doesn't really have anything to lose by not reacting to a intentionally missed airstrike.

Unless you were on board that Ukrainian plane. That was one hell of a coincidence if it’s not related to last night’s events in some way.

Originally Posted by Chris

Unless you were on board that Ukrainian plane. That was one hell of a coincidence if it’s not related to last night’s events in some way.

Must be though? I can't think of any other outcome. If it was the U.S why wouldn't Iran say so, if it was Iran why would the U.S not say so? Why would Ukraine play along?

Maybe it was one of these other actors, i.e Iran, but in the interest of avoid a war everyone is conspiring to say it's an accident on condition Iran plays ball.

Going back to the starting point of this thread, it was stated separately by the Pentagon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Trump, that Soleimani was assassinated because he was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members.

Pentagon statement 2nd January

"At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani," read the statement, which added that Soleimani "was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."

Mike Pompeo 3rd January

On Twitter, Pompeo said Trump had made the decision to eliminate Soleimani "in response to imminent threats to American lives."
During an interview with CNN, Pompeo referred to an active plot the strike was seeking to disrupt.

"We want the world to understand that there was, in fact, an imminent attack taking place," Pompeo said. "The American people should know that this was an intelligence-based assessment that drove this."

Trump 3rd January

"Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him," Trump said.

"We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war."

Why would killing one person stop these attacks happening? Quds is the equivalent (according to US General Stanley McChrystal) of a combination of the CIA and JSOC, with around 20,000 personnel, and his deputy took over the same day - the plans will still be there, and the personnel and equipment.

Originally Posted by Damien

Must be though? I can't think of any other outcome. If it was the U.S why wouldn't Iran say so, if it was Iran why would the U.S not say so? Why would Ukraine play along?

Maybe it was one of these other actors, i.e Iran, but in the interest of avoid a war everyone is conspiring to say it's an accident on condition Iran plays ball.

Ukraine isn’t playing along - it has called for “those responsible” to be brought to justice. And if the plane was brought down by Iranian anti-aircraft defences, the USA wouldn’t be in a position to say so and Iran would have no reason to say so.

[Pierre]

Perfectly good 737-800’s (not super max) tend not to just fall out of the sky. I’d be amazed if there was not a direct or indirect link.

Originally Posted by Chris

Ukraine isn’t playing along - it has called for “those responsible” to be brought to justice. And if the plane was brought down by Iranian anti-aircraft defences, the USA wouldn’t be in a position to say so and Iran would have no reason to say so.

The USA would probably know though right?

Originally Posted by Damien

The USA would probably know though right?

Pretty sure there would be lots of satellite, AWACS, and other ELINT surveillance around that area at the time...

It would explain Iran's suddenly desire to calm this all down and Trump not feeling like he needs to talk tough. IIRC Air case investigations are conducted by an independent body and that is a requirement of any country that wants to have international fights sent and received from them. If this wasn't an accident it's going to come out.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by Damien

It would explain Iran's suddenly desire to calm this all down and Trump not feeling like he needs to talk tough. IIRC Air case investigations are conducted by an independent body and that is a requirement of any country that wants to have international fights sent and received from them. If this wasn't an accident it's going to come out.

It may be independant, but if an AK47 is aimed at you and you are told go away you do.

As you may know I worked for TNT Airways and handled all aircraft manual pertaining to their BAe-146s & A300,

We would often get non public information about crashes (Hudson for one)

As for this crash there was no Mayday, well if the plane has a issue Maday is the last thing on their mind.

In emergencies thay have a checklist book, this is sometimes customised per aircraft, it was just under 2" thick for the a300.


I doubt it was shot down as I believe it happened outside the missile strikes timeline.

Just because the aircraft was checked doesn't mean much. Why, in the UK/USA, you need to be certified on what you can check, just because you can fix an engine doesn't mean yo are allowed to change a wheel.

In some countries the engine does jobs he shouldn't, and thats why those airlines are banned in EU airspace.

I'm putting my money on poor maintenance is the reasom why it crashed.

Could well be, but worth pointing out that the “shot down” theory does not relate to the Iranians launching missiles, but to the possibility that one of their air defence operatives got trigger happy in the hours afterwards, while they waited to see if America would strike back.

[heero_yuy]

Quote from The Sun:

Iran blamed “technical problems” for the deadly fireball, and have locked down the crash site and refused to release the black boxes to international authorities.

But aviation experts have now suggested a “shootdown” was the most likely explanation for the disaster.

The OPS group, an aviation risk monitoring group, said: “We would recommend the starting assumption to be that this was a shootdown event, similar to MH17 – until there is clear evidence to the contrary."

They highlighted pictures of the crash site which they said "show obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section".

Aviation expert Julian Bray told Sun Online: "This is catastrophic and not the type of crash that comes from an engine failing. There would have been nothing that anyone could do.

"It is very unusual, you would expect to see some wreckage but all we can see here is debris."

Debris pictures and story on link above. The holes in the fusilage certainly look like they were made by some sort of small projectile.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Debris pictures and story on link above. The holes in the fusilage certainly look like they were made by some sort of small projectile.

It could also be an uncontained engine failure, the Cowl is Kevlar lined but a major engine failure will punture the fuselage, to the untrained eye will look like something else.