Megathread for the US war on Iran | Week 42 of 2026

The Israeli military remains unable to determine the precise origin or purpose of an unidentified aerial object that breached the border from Lebanon over the weekend, according to a report by Israeli Army Radio.

Following an extensive multi-day search involving air and ground sweeps, military officials conceded that no physical debris has been located in the field, though they ruled out a attack drone or small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

The breach triggered widespread security alerts across northern settlement communities. Despite the intensive military mobilization and deployment of local defense units, Israeli leadership noted that no changes have been issued to Home Front Command guidelines.

Israeli military officials attributed the hair-trigger response to a policy of launching immediate interception protocols upon any radar detection, citing the extreme difficulty in distinguishing small combat drones from harmless objects.

This incident follows a series of unexplained occurrences along the southern Lebanese frontier. Just days prior, an Israeli military Humvee overturned under mysterious circumstances in southern Lebanon, killing 21 year-old Captain Eliav Haim Tzapalamus and injuring three other occupation soldiers—the latest in a string of deadly events and what the Israeli military has described as ‘false alarms’ along the Lebanese border and in parts of southern Lebanon being occupied by Israeli forces.

Hezbollah has not confirmed or denied carrying out any recent resistance operations in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s Martian craft was not on my prediction list for potential zionist excuses. I guess the Aliens got sick of the Israeli’s shit and decided to share some schematics with the Axis of Resistance.

Joking aside, I’ve got no idea what this could be. I want to just say it’s the zionists making up extra excuses to occupy Lebanon, but it seems like a little too strange of claim to make. Why not just make something up about Israel using surveillance drones, or kites, or whatever other benign bullshit they usually use to justify their crimes?

Why claim that it’s some unmanned aerial vehicle with mysterious functionality when they could just as easily lie and say it’s any amount of hostile machinery.

The alien thing is obviously me just joking about the fact that UAV looks like UAP as well as the fact that the image provided is just some blurry blob. But I do find these reports just a little strange. Not ET strange, obviously, just kinda weird compared to what I’d usually expect from the zionists.

Students in front of the Mujahidin Grand Mosque in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, with an ominous, thick haze obscuring vision.

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My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

The last week has been quite a busy one for world energy markets. The first big piece was the reveal that the US is removing sanctions on Russian fuel exports until April 2027. This has been yet another fascinating collision of the Ukraine and Iran Wars, and, of course, another example of all the complicated situations that countries that are otherwise geopolitically aligned can get themselves into, as obviously Russia being allowed to export more diesel does bend the curve on shortages to a degree. China “helping” the West by reducing their demand for foreign oil purchases for much of this year as they drew from their enormous domestic oil reserves is another example of this kind of dynamic. Given how much Russia has helped Iran - especially now, with large increases of Caspian Sea vessels helping Iran mitigate some of the blockade’s impact - I don’t view this as a betrayal, but more of a unfortunately necessary geopolitical tactic, particularly if increased Russian state revenue lets them defeat the NATO-backed forces they’re fighting a bit easier. Regardless, it would be very unfortunate if most of Russia’s diesel went directly to the US and not to other struggling countries (not least among them, Cuba), as that would give the US a bit more road to kick the can down.

Ukraine has not taken this news well. It can be hard to figure out to what degree Trump is using kayfabe in any particular situation, but Ukraine immediately striking a Russian diesel export station (to which Russia retaliated by knocking out power throughout much of Kiev) seems to have genuinely annoyed him, e.g. saying that Ukraine should get a new leader. He also tried his classic move of willing a ceasefire into existence purely by social media decree. This worked during the Twelve Day War, but not here - at least not yet. I’m currently cautiously disregarding rumors that the US is going to actually take away intelligence or material support from Ukraine. It’s not impossible, and would actually be another data point in the trend of the US withdrawing from Europe (with their bombers evacuating their UK base very recently too), but this antagonization of Russia has been a plot in the making for over a decade, and I would be surprised if Trump was allowed by the powers that be to interrupt this plan in any meaningful way. Perhaps there will be some largely symbolic move instead.

Over in West Asia, Ansarallah is tidying up their encirclement of Taiz, with the noose tightening around PLC forces. The Saudi counteroffensive was very Ukrainian; i.e. it existed mostly as a media phenomenon, but somehow even more half-hearted. Their sole territorial acquisition up to me writing this is 10-20 miles of largely empty coastal plains and an airstrip that Ansarallah, without an airforce, has no real use of. In return for Saudi bombing, Ansarallah has continued hitting oil infrastructure, and additionally escalated by striking terminals at King Khalid airport. Ansarallah gave several warnings to immediately evacuate everybody inside, and the Saudis did not even bother to sound the alarm of an incoming missile, which is emblematic of their desperation to maintain the illusion of the pre-war status quo. The strike on Terminal 3 killed about a dozen people and injured a few hundred. While Saudi airlines are trying to maintain operations, several Western airliners are pausing flights for now, which mirrors the air blockade that the Saudis have forced on Yemen for several years. Meanwhile, Iran has escalated strikes on tankers both inside the Strait of Hormuz and far outside it, as it truly starts to slam the hammer down on what limited illegal transits were making it through. This comes in the form of both missile/drone strikes and naval mines and will keep physical oil prices elevated well into the short and medium terms if maintained. Additionally, the US continues its reported buildup of forces for another try at striking Iran, possibly before the midterms, but I sincerely don’t know what they could possibly hope to achieve beyond trying to get more votes from chest-thumping jingoistic morons while yet further degrading their position in the region militarily and economically.

Meanwhile, over in Southeast Asia, air pollution has dramatically increased over the past few months due to manmade wildfires in Indonesian forests and peatlands, which were caused by profit-seeking slash-and-burn farmers clearing land with fire, and then further exacerbated by one of the worst El Ninos on record. This bourgeois idiocy has caused untold environmental damage, hundreds of thousands of cases of respiratory illnesses throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, prolonged closures of major institutions like schools, and required the distribution of oxygen cylinders throughout parts of the populace to try and keep them alive and at least vaguely healthy.

The incident occurred in the early hours of 27 September, when police responded to reports of suspicious activity involving three vans near the base in Gloucestershire and arrested five men on suspicion of terrorism and explosives-related offences.

Nearby properties were evacuated during the investigation, and police later confirmed that petrol had been found in the vehicles but no explosives. Seven men have since been arrested in connection with the investigation and released on bail, with no charges announced.

No evidence has been provided by UK authorities establishing a link between the incident and the IRGC, and Burnham has not cited intelligence or other material supporting his assertion.