Chris Covert

Chris Covert was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1954. He has a BA degree in Journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma. US Army tank driver 1972-73.

[The National Context @NatlContext]

A US and Israeli plan to open a Kurdish ground front inside Iran moved through months of preparation to forward deployment at Haj Omran in the first week of March. It was halted at the last minute. But how advances the plans were?

The most useful way to understand how far the operation progressed is to trace it as a physical sequence, from long-term groundwork to the moment the order did not come.

For months before the war, Iranian Kurdish parties maintained clandestine networks in the west of the country, tracking the movements of the IRGC, police and border guards and running routes across the frontier through smugglers and sympathetic border personnel. Starlink terminals were reportedly moved in before the strikes began, and Kurdish networks supplied targeting intelligence on security installations to Israel and the United States. This meant the operation did not depend on moving every fighter through a single crossing on a single night. Reconnaissance teams, local contacts and communications were already in place well before February.

The force that would eventually move had three layers. Small clandestine cadres were already inside Iran. The main cross-border element comprised Iranian Kurdish factions based in Iraq, lightly equipped and reliant on pickups and mountain routes. Behind them, KDP and KRG Peshmerga would hold the Iraqi rear, securing roads, border villages, supply lines and medical facilities.

In the weeks before the war began, hundreds of Iranian Kurdish personnel reportedly moved from camps in Iraq towards the frontier. A Turkish account, later carried by Israeli media, put the figure at around 500; a reliable source on the ground told The National Context it was closer to 1,000, and that the fighters were well trained.

The intended axis ran from KDP-held Haj Omran on the Iraqi side through Tamarchin to Piranshahr and then to Oshnavieh, a town with a strong Kurdish population situated near routes towards Urmia. Sources identified these as the initial objectives. Holding that ground would establish a border enclave supplied from Iraq, while other factions operated further south around Baneh and Marivan.

The clearest physical evidence of how far the operation progressed comes from a field report by a correspondent for The Economist at Haj Omran on 4 March. It recorded armoured columns on the border road, hundreds of Peshmerga arriving in unmarked white buses, fighters dispersing into nearby villages, commanders watching the Iranian side, and a hospital converted overnight into a barracks.

Foreign journalists were also brought forward. Israeli reporting states that journalists interviewed commanders and fighters who had joined the intended invasion formation, and at least one embedded contact was told a crossing would come within days. Footage of the crossing, captured border posts, defections and civilians receiving the fighters was intended to generate momentum and signal to the wider Iranian population that the state was losing control. The press element was part of the plan.

Iran appear not to have been strategically surprised. It restricted crossings, reinforced Kurdish areas, attacked telecom towers on the Iraqi Kurdistan side, dispersed security personnel into civilian buildings, moved IRGC units to the frontier and threatened the KRG directly. Iranian intelligence reportedly detected the mobilisation and passed word to Turkish intelligence. The sheer scale of the effort, six factions, hundreds of fighters, buses, journalists and local recruits, produced a signature that could not be concealed.

A conventional special operation would not have generated this volume of disclosures before a single main-force soldier crossed. The pattern points to a contest inside Washington, and possibly inside the Kurdistan Region, waged partly through deliberate leaks. Some disclosures plausibly came from officials seeking to abort the operation by triggering the Turkish, Iraqi and Iranian reactions that exposure would bring. Others may have come from supporters trying to make the operation irreversible, calculating that reports of fighters already inside Iran would pressure Washington into providing air cover rather than abandoning them.

The full story: https://t.co/U9PMjvuY26

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

We Asked AI To Simulate If The U.S. Had A Second Civil War

[Rougarou @AkWxWho]

Frame from @CHERTAnews interview with Chernarussian "Novigrad" Battalions Force-Recon squad after they captured a valuable trench, supporting the main CDF force. Soldier with callsign "Rybak" tells journalists about the battle.

You can see an ATGM team walking in the background

[Monitoring Jihadism Project (MjP) @MonitorJihadism]

📍#UK 20 June 2026: 20-year-old Shuja Gibraeel #Mohsin was found #guilty of sharing and possessing Islamist #terrorist material. He was being drawn into extremist and terrorist material and ideologies from when he was only 14 or 15 years old.
https://t.co/7pkARcFpqI

[Monitoring Jihadism Project (MjP) @MonitorJihadism]

📍#Germany 23 June 2026: Searches were carried out on 5 individuals suspected of being members of the #IslamicState. Further searches took place at the homes of eleven other individuals not under suspicion.
https://t.co/dxzNFRgJvD

[Digby_ @AjaxuselssDigby]

2016 - Ingnition of First Dogechen-Cherno War. These belligerents we're apart of the many who we're formed as part of the new "Dogechen Armed Forces".

*(The day the CS95 stops clipping is the day I do a backflip)*

[Chris Covert @badanov]

ANALYSIS: OPERATION AT NOVOSELOVKA PERVAYA SECURES VILLAGE BUT EXPOSES COMMAND FRACTURES
By Svetlana Golikova, Defense Issues Correspondent

https://t.co/6mbc7liCBe

[Digby_ @AjaxuselssDigby]

Free Dogechnya Legion in Operation Red Tide II - An operation to seize the Monetsk area, c2026.

The operation is still ongoing, with Chernarus appearing to be victorious in a few current assaults.

[Chris Covert @badanov]

24 hours later 1st Bn, 4th Light Mountain Rifle Brigade launched a new attack on an enemy troop concentration two kilometers due east of Vybor.

The task force ultimately succeeded in eliminating enemy forces, but casualties were heavy.

#arma3

https://t.co/ay5JPl4Fcg

[Chernarussian government @ChernarussiaGOV]

A mass grave was discovered during construction work on the very-high-speed railway line.

It is a grave created by the terrorist group Chedaki during the temporary occupation of the Chernogorsk area.

Thus, yet another war crime is added to their long list of crimes.
#Chernarus

[Mustache @David_Mustache_]

OpFor #Arma3

[Chernarussian government @ChernarussiaGOV]

Grozovian paratrooper volunteers at Chernarus airfield.

(This photo is based on the story that is being made in a Spanish Arma 3 clan).
#CDF
#Chernarus
#Arma3

[Basha باشا @BashaReport]

Southern Lebanon Situation Report #SITREP
Reporting Period: 16-17 June 2026
Continued fighting in the Nabatieh basin has the potential to undermine the ceasefire in southern Lebanon and complicate ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations.
https://t.co/DkVNmEyFaY

[Digby_ @AjaxuselssDigby]

43rd SPAB (CDF Airborne) W.O Petr Novák talking with his team on how to assault the Hamlet, prior to the 10th Separate Marine Air Assault Battalion landing detachment.

[Chris Covert @badanov]

1st Bn, Chernarus 4th Light Mountain Rifle Brigade was assigned the task of attacking an enemy deployment near Vybor in Chernarus.

The operation failed after enemy artillery and counterfire caused catastrophic casualties on the task force.

#arma3

https://t.co/BsIZWnmzIu

[Chris Covert @badanov]

3rd Bn, Chernarus 3rd Tank Brigade struck at an enemy held position at Stary Saltov in Northwestern Chernarus driving enemy forces out and defending against enemy counterattacks.

Task force infantry casualties were heavy.

#arma3 @ArmaPlatform
https://t.co/SMsuy7AhGP

[Mustache @David_Mustache_]

Second Dragoons - "Toujours Prêt (Always Ready)"
#Arma3

[Chris Covert @badanov]

4th Bn, Chernarus 3rd Tank Brigade launched an attack and clear operation on the enemy occupied village of Yalmta in Northwest Chernarus, clearing it of enemies.

Task force infantry casualties were heavy.
#arma3 @ArmaPlatform

https://t.co/Gi6hhDCrLZ

[HumAngle_ @HumAngle_]

Zamfara Farmers Displaced Despite Paying Millions to Terrorists in ‘Farming Tax’

https://t.co/lYQajeBdvI

[POPULAR FRONT @PopularFront_]

🇮🇷 #Iran - 🇧🇭 #Bahrain / 🇰🇼 #Kuwait / 🇺🇸 #US: Iranian media has shared satellite imagery, as well as 3D reconstructions, of US bases hit in Bahrain and Kuwait during the latest Iranian missile and drone attacks.

1. The first three satellite images show a destroyed US early-warning radar system (radome) in Bahrain, as well as damage to jet fuel tanks located at Sheikh Isa Air Base.

2. Another satellite image reportedly shows a second early-warning radar system destroyed in Kuwait at Ali Al Salem Air Base.

So far, the official position of Bahrain’s Ministry of Defence is that the incoming missiles were successfully intercepted and destroyed.