Open Source America

Independent in-depth coverage & analysis of current geopolitical & strategic developments.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

Post-Soviet dictator Ilham Aliyev’s government has effectively banned hijabs in Azerbaijan’s state schools. It calls this a uniform rule. Girls who wear the hijab face the consequences.

This is part of a longer record of suppressing Muslim religious practice outside state control. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that Azerbaijan unjustly imprisoned hundreds of Muslims for practicing their faith outside the government’s approved boundaries. Yet Aliyev’s government boasts of its strategic partnership with Israel and presents itself as a model of religious tolerance.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

It's been 3 years since Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed Artsakh of its Armenian Christian population. Now it is destroying their churches and trying to strip the surviving ones of their Armenian identity.

The pattern began in Nakhchivan. Researcher Argam Ayvazyan documented 89 Armenian churches and 5,840 carved cross-stones there before their destruction. A later satellite investigation confirmed the destruction of 108 out of 110 Armenian churches, monasteries and cemeteries it identified.

In Artsakh, churches including Kanach Zham in Shushi and the Holy Mother of God Church in Stepanakert have been demolished. Azerbaijani officials now claim surviving Armenian heritage sites are “Caucasian Albanian,” a revisionist claim widely rejected by historians and heritage experts.

Destroy the churches that can be destroyed. Rename the ones still standing. That is how Ilham Aliyev’s government attempts to erase  Christianity while advertising Azerbaijan as a place of religious tolerance and boasting of its close partnership with Israel.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇩🇪 | Hours ago, shots were fired and heavy police activity in Stade, Germany.

The shooting is over. The police has confirmed at least five deaths and two arrests.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇹🇷 | Theologian JD Hall to Tucker Carlson:
“The Muslim rulers didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians.

As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Holy Sepulchre three different times over the centuries.

They had a law protecting Christian pilgrims on their journey. Nobody messed with the pilgrims.”

The Ottoman Empire’s reign culminated in the massive genocide of ancient Christian communities of Anatolia - Greeks and Armenians, which has left a deep scar on the Christian World.

Thousands of ancient churches were laid waste, countless christian texts were lost, millions were barbarically murdered in the lands that is the womb of Christian cultures.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸 | BREAKING: Karmelo Anthony has been found guilty for the murder of Austin Metcalf.

After Karmelo Anthony broke down sobbing following his murder conviction, his attorney asked to take him somewhere private to compose himself. The judge refused: “He’s now in the custody of the sheriff. Things move differently now.”

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸 | Brett Scrogham, a 23-year-old recent graduate from Indiana University, was shot and killed while on the way to watch a baseball game in Indianapolis with his family by a “14-year-old boy” who has not had his name released to the public.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇦🇲🇺🇸 | Massive gathering of Armenia’s leading opposition force.

Armenia’s current Prime Minister, whose tenure saw the end of the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Republic, has led the country for over 8 years and was recently endorsed by Trump.

Will Trump’s endorsement prove fatal for Pashinyan, as it did for Orbán in Hungary?

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸🇮🇷 | BREAKING: US CENTCOM:
U.S. forces successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and conducted self-defense strikes on Qeshm Island in response to attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East.

Iran launched several ballistic missiles toward regional neighbors; however, all failed to hit their intended targets. Two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke apart enroute, and three missiles launched at Bahrain were immediately intercepted by U.S. and Bahrain air defense forces.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇬🇧 | Pakistani Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood commends the police’s response in Southampton and claims the protesters are hijacking Nowak’s death to further “division, hatred, or tension.”

She then proceeds to threaten the protesters with a declaration to punish them “with the full force of the law.”

Mahmood has also voted against a national inquiry into the Muslim rape gangs in Britain last year, and now promises to wield the state to punish British protesters rioting after the murder of Henry Nowak, on behalf of a foreigner and the British state.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇮🇷🇺🇸🇰🇼🇧🇭 | Iran's IRGC says the attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain were in response to the US attacks on Qeshm Island in the Gulf earlier today.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇮🇷🇮🇶 | BREAKING: Reports that the Iranian air force bombed Kurdish positions in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇮🇷🇰🇼 | More missile launches from Darab, Fars province, Iran, moments ago.

Sirens in Kuwait activated again.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇰🇼 | BREAKING: Iran targeted both Ali Al-Salem Air Base and Camp Arifjan in a single attack.

The US and Iran have been exchanging small-scale strikes over Qeshm Island and Kuwait in recent days - a decision by the IRGC to one-up American strikes on Qeshm.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇰🇼 | BREAKING: Ballisyic missile launches towards Ali Al-Salem base in Kuwait.

The Kuwaiti Army confirms they are intercepting hostile missile and drone attacks.

The attack comes after reports of explosions in Iran’s Qeshm island.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇰🇼 | BREAKING: Ballisyic missile launches towards Ali Al-Salem base in Kuwait.

The Kuwaiti Army confirms they are intercepting hostile missile and drone attacks.

The attack comes after reports of explosions in Iran’s Qeshm island.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇬🇧 | The bodycam footage of the officer who responded and detained a dying Henry Nowak has been released.

The officer dragged Nowak away from a wall, briefly searched him, and detained him after his Sikh attacker, Vikrum Digwa, claimed he'd been racially attacked.

A female officer then searched Nowak as he bled out in police custody.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇩🇪 | In Kevelaer, western Germany, a class was given the assignment titled, “Brothel for All,” in which the 13-15 year old students would simulate operating an “inclusive brothel.”

Questions such as “How do sexual preferences need to be served and addressed in the rooms?” were intended for students to complete and discuss afterward. - WDR.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇦 | “Mixing Ukrainians and Indians is our path; Ukrainians can become métis (mixed-race people),” says the head of the Ukrainian Office of Migration Policy, Voskoboynik.

“The main thing is that the people who come to us pay taxes and become part of our political nation,” he added.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸 | Thomas Massie:
“I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallein in Tel Aviv.”

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇺🇸🇮🇱 | Ed Gallrein has defeated Representative Thomas Massie in the Kentucky 4th Congressional District primary in a major win for Israel and Trump.

This was the most expensive House primary in American history totaling close to $33 million in campaign spending alongside normal payments to zionist and pro-Trump influencers.

[Open Source America @USAopens]

🇮🇹 | At least eight injured in car ramming in Italian city of Modena

The North African Muslim driver was arrested after deliberately driving into pedestrians and stabbing a bystander who tried to stop him.

The Italian PM Giorgia Meloni condemned the terror attack in Modena, Italy, but did not mention the Muslim North African attacker