According to a report by US paper Capitol Hill on the 15th local time, quoted by Chinanews on Sept. 16, the US Department of Defense told US Congress on August 13 that the cost of the war on Iran has now climbed to more than $42 billion, which is higher than the latest public estimate by the Department of Defense. The cost increased by $4.5 billion since July 2026.
Some US experts believe that the actual figure is much higher. Linda J. Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, said at the time that the cost of the war was about $100 billion.
Increasing cost might be, at least, partly due to recent Iranian missile and drone attacks on US bases in the Middle East where expensive assets of the US Air Force had been targeted.
قال القناة العربية إرم نيوز في أبو ظبي: طائرة أميركية بوينغ سينتري
متضررة بشدة في قاعدة الأمير سلطان بالسعودية. ايضا كان هجوم على
بوهيرنغ و عريفجان بالكويت. قدر خسائير المعدات 3.7 مليارات دولار
A video from Abu Dhabi based Erem TV is showing a severely damaged 'Boeing E-35 Sentinel' at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia, probably a total loss, the cost of replacement being $3 billion. Additional damage of buildings and vehicles is being reported from two other US bases in Kuwait, Camp Boehring and Arifjan. The estimated equipment loss is at approximately $3.7 billion.
يا لحسن الحظ أن الأمريكيين يشتبهون في
طـالــبـين فقط، وليس في المدرسة بأكملها
Fortunately, the Americans
only suspect two students,
not the entire school.
Osama bin Laden (r),
Ayman al-Zawahiri (l),
defunct leadership of
Al-Qaeda organisation.
The above joke is based on the fact that Arabic nouns in the singular form not only possess at least one plural form but a dual form as well, for things coming in pairs. That's why the dual of 'student' [spoken: Talib] becomes [Taliban] or 'two students' which is the same expression the Taliban of Afghanistan are using to name themselves. Such, this joke is mocking the Americans who didn't recognize that their enemies in Muslimic countries were far more numerous than they imagined.
After September 11, 2001, the Afghan Taliban were accused of hiding Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the disastrous attack. As a consequence, they were "Bombed into Stone Age" on behalf of US President Bush. No wonder they are actually practising some kind of "Stone Age Islam".
This Turkish video by TRT tells us about the disastrous wars on
Afghanistan & Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, and which helped
to create the Islamic State (Daesh or ISIS) out of the remnants
of Al-Qaeda. Their consequences raised a huge wave of human
displacement in Afghanistan, Iraq & Syria, leaving these nations
in a state of unstability.
And here is another suspect in the September 11 case, rarely mentioned together with the sufficiently known terrorists who staged the September 11 attacks: Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi agent with direct contact to some of the terrorists, a direct connection with the Saudi government, and special knowledge of aircraft navigation. Despite his personal background, he was never charged in the frame of FBI investigations. The following video was presented yesterday, September 9, by MONITOR, a special format on the 1st public TV channel of Germany:
If you watch this video directly on YouTube,you can listen to the auto-dubbed English comment.
Editor's Note:
You might remember the September 11 documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' by US activst Michael Moore. I watched the film myself, and I still memember the scene, when it was mentioned that all air traffic was immediately halted that day after the impact of three passenger planes on the WTC twin towers and the Pentagon, emphasizing that only a few Saudi dignitaries, allegedly members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave the country in a hurry [background music: "We have to get out of that place"].
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): A highly controversial critique of the George W. Bush administration, the September 11 attacks, and the subsequent Iraq War. It won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour in
a live interview with former Israeli PM
Ehud Olmert on a neglected warning
of PM Netanyahu from UAE, prior to
the October 7 attacks of Hamas.
PM Netanyahu has
advised his lawyers
to sue HAARETZ for
their report on the
October 7 attack.
Netanyahu caught hushing up the mistakes he made ...
Did he plan to provoke the October 7 attack of Hamas on Israeli
citizens deliberately to have an excuse for the Gaza Genocide ?
...............................................
Edwin Samuel Montagu (6 February 1879 – 15 November 1924) was a British Liberal politician who served as Secretary of State for India between 1917 and 1922. Montagu was a "radical" Liberal and the third practising Jew (after Sir Herbert Samuel and Sir Rufus Isaacs) to serve in the British cabinet.
These days, Otto the Great, originally Otto of Saxony, since 962 AD Holy Roman Emperor of German Nationality, found his final resting-place in Magdeburg Cathedral, Eastern Germany. Reason enough to focus on a forgotten chapter of German history: The slave trade crossing wide parts of medieval Europe and which was impossible to realize without imperial protection.
The Israeli military has told [Israel's] Supreme Court that residents displaced from the Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps will not be permitted to return at this stage, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The newspaper said the army intends to maintain a military presence in the northern West Bank camps in order to preserve what it describes as operational and security control, and has not provided a timetable for residents to return.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the three camps since the start of large-scale Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank. Palestinian residents and aid organisations have described the evacuations as abrupt and highly disruptive, leaving many families dependent on limited humanitarian assistance.
According to Haaretz, Israeli forces have also carried out extensive demolition and engineering works inside the camps, including widening roads and creating new routes intended to facilitate the movement of military vehicles.
The Israeli military has said such changes are necessary to improve access for security operations and prevent armed groups from rebuilding infrastructure inside densely populated camp areas.
Palestinian officials and rights organisations argue that the destruction and prolonged displacement are fundamentally altering the camps and could prevent residents from returning to their homes.
Human Rights Watch has previously accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with forced displacement and destruction in the northern West Bank. Israel rejects such characterisations and maintains that its operations are directed against Palestinian armed groups and are necessary for security reasons.
[Middle East Monitor on August 27]
[شبكة قدس الإخبارية, independent Palestinian news center on August 26]
.........................
Related Subject:
History of Palestine
Hanan Ashrawi (*1946), who quoted the above X-post, is a Palestinian politician, activist and scholar. Ashrawi started her career as a scientist at Birzeit University in 1990. She became a member of the PLO's Leadership Committee, serving as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. In 1996, she was appointed Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Palestinian Authority under Yassir Arafat. She became an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from where she resigned in 2020.
Count Folke Bernadotte (1895 - 1948) was a Swedish diplomat and nobleman who served as the Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II. He became the face of international humanitarianism in the final, desperate months of the conflict, negotiating directly with Heinrich Himmler for the release of prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. His work was a solitary race against time to save the last remnants of the Holocaust.
In the chaos of early 1945, Bernadotte successfully negotiated with the collapsing Nazi regime for the release of prisoners. This mission, known as the White Buses operation, rescued approximately 15,000 people, including thousands of Jewish men and women who were among the last survivors of camps like Ravensbrück and Neuengamme.
According to sources quoted, the absolute numbers might differ as for the total of people rescued or the amount of Jews among them. Nevertheless, the whole operation ended as an extraordinary success.
Editor's Note:
And there should have been even more. I remember a TV documentation I watched in my youth and which was about some other Swedish diplomat, not Count Bernadotte, at the embassy in Berlin who should have tried to save refugees from Nazi persecution with 'illegally provided' German passports in 1945, only weeks before the end of the 'Reich'. While the heavily bombed Swedish embassy had already been transferred to Hamburg, there was still an 'emergency bureau', left in a bunker on the abandoned embassy compound. That diplomat later allegedly tried to contact a commander of the Soviet 'Red Army' whose troops were just approaching Berlin. After his attempt to cross the military front at a rather quiet place, he should have disappeared without a trace. - I am sure that this wasn't just 'great cinema' about some mysteries of World War II but a pictorial record of what had really happened. Yet, I haven't heard the same story, still present in my memory, again at any time later.
Maybe Hanan Ashrawi, born into a Palestinian family in 1946, might have heard from her parents about the Jewish refugees that came to Palestine during the war. Those were probably much different from other Jews, followers of a Zionist doctrine, who simultaneously or later invaded Palestine, pressing for the foundation of Israel as a 'State of the Jews' in 1948.
يُختزل التوتر بين إيران وبعض الدول العربية في كثير من الأحيان في كونه صراعًا مذهبيًا بين السنة والشيعة، لكن هذه القراءة المبسطة لا تعكس التعقيد الحقيقي للعلاقات في الشرق الأوسط. فهذه العلاقة تشكلت عبر قرون طويلة من التفاعل الحضاري والتنافس السياسي والتحولات الجيوسياسية. وبين الإرث التاريخي للصراعات الإمبراطورية، والتحولات التي شهدتها المنطقة بعد الثورة الإيرانية عام 1979، والعوامل المرتبطة بالجغرافيا السياسية للشرق الأوسط، تتداخل عدة عناصر لفهم طبيعة هذه العلاقة المتشابكة. ومن هنا تبرز الحاجة إلى قراءة استراتيجية أعمق تتجاوز التفسيرات الاختزالية وتضع التوترات الحالية في سياقها التاريخي والسياسي الأوسع.
The tension between Iran and some Arab countries is often reduced to a sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, but this simplistic reading does not reflect the true complexity of relations in the Middle East. This relationship was formed through long centuries of civilizational interaction, political competition, and geopolitical transformations. Between the historical legacy of imperial conflicts, the transformations that the region witnessed after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and factors related to the geopolitics of the Middle East, several elements overlap to understand the nature of this intertwined relationship. Hence the need for a deeper strategic reading that goes beyond reductionist interpretations and places current tensions in their broader historical and political context.
إيران والعالم العربي: قراءة استراتيجية في جذور
التوتر بين التاريخ والمذهب والجغرافيا السياسية
Iran and the Arab World: A Strategic Reading at the Roots
of Tension Between History, Sectarianism, and Geopolitics.
Another related article written for blueprint news can be
found here. It is about the peak of Central Asian culture
at the times when Islam reached the Sassanid kingdoms
and the ruler was honoured as a 'defender of the faithful'.
The United States has threatened to exclude countries that continue to trade with Iran from the dollar-based financial system, and Iraq may be an example of how it implements that threat.
Washington has already imposed sanctions on a number of Iraqi banks accused of dealing with Tehran, but it has avoided taking measures that would destroy the economy of the two countries' strategic ally.
US President Donald Trump warned that any country that provides Iran with vital economic support will face dire consequences.
This may put Iran's main trading partners in the past few years, namely China, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and the Sultanate of Oman, in the targeting circle.
..........
Since its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has exercised effective control over Iraqi oil revenues in dollars, primarily through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, giving Washington exceptional influence over Baghdad's affairs.
Iraq is a rare ally of both the United States and Iran and maintains reserves exceeding $100 billion in the United States, and relies heavily on Washington's good faith to ensure the continued flow of its oil revenues and money.
In late 2024, Reuters revealed a fuel oil smuggling network that generates at least $1 billion annually for Iran and its agents in Iraq.
Other countries neighboring Iran involved in similar schemes may similarly face US scrutiny.
..........
Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at the British-based Chatham House think tank, said US pressure had raised the costs and risks of financial dealings with Iran, forcing Iraqi institutions to improve compliance.
But this pressure did not sever Iraq's economic relations with Iran, which bypass the financial system, leaving Baghdad stuck between its dependence on both Washington and Tehran.
«Countries like China or Turkey have larger economies and a broader ability to withstand pressure, Quilliam said. As for Iraq, it has much fewer alternatives and capacity for financial resilience.
Former Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab Affairs, Ambassador Mohamed Badr El-Din Zayed, said on Thursday that the tension between Turkey and Israel in Syria will not develop into a direct confrontation, noting that Ankara is a strong country and a member of NATO «NATO».
Badr al-Din Zayed's statement comes after Israel bombed Abu al-Duhur Air Base in Syria, warning that Syria was about to violate the status quo in security matters with Israel, by allowing Turkish forces to deploy at the air base.
The American envoy to Syria and the American ambassador to Ankara, Tom Barak, warned that Israel's targeting of Abu al-Duhur Airport in Syria could have led to a confrontation with Turkey, especially since it is located near the Turkish border.
The former Egyptian diplomat added, during his participation in the «Madar Al-Ghad» program with journalist Sami Kleib, that tensions between Turkey and Israel are currently escalating for reasons related to rearranging the Middle East, indicating that each party realizes that its expansion comes at the expense of the other party, which leads to a conflict during which each party seeks to maximize its tools and strategic presence in various files.
...............
For his part, the senior researcher at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Dr.Samir Al-Taqi, said that there are many controversial issues between Israel and Turkey in more than one file, including oil and the future of the Syrian army in the period after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Taqi added that the tension between Israel and Turkey is not new, noting that Israel wants to send a message that it will not allow Turkey to arm Syria, in light of the existing differences between the two countries regarding the future of the situation in Syria.
He explained that the media of the two countries do not know when the crises between Israel and Turkey will end, pointing out that the differences overlap with a number of regional files that witness competition between the two sides.
Trump: J'ai demandé au président sud-coréen s'il souhaitait se joindre à nos efforts pour désarmer l'Iran de ses armes nucléaires, et sa réponse a été négative.
Trump: I asked the South Korean president if he wished to join our efforts to disarm Iran of its nuclear weapons, and his answer was negative.
[Al-Jazeera الجزيرة on August 17]
Palestine Westbank
أحد السكان المحاصرين في بلدة القصرة بالضفة للجزيرة: لن نخلي بيوتنا ولن نرضخ للتضييقات التي يفرضها الاحتلال علينا
- الاحتلال أغلق الطريق ومنعنا من التزود باحتياجاتنا الأساسية
- الاحتلال يمنع أي زيارات ويسمح بوصول المستوطنين لبيوتنا لمهاجمتنا
One of the besieged residents in the town of Al-Qasra in the West Bank to Al Jazeera: We will not abandon our homes and will not succumb to the restrictions imposed on us by the occupation:
- The occupation closed the road and prevented us from stocking up on our basic needs.
- The occupation prevents any visits and allows settlers to reach our homes to attack us.
[Al-Jazeera الجزيرة on August 15]
Information confirmed by Al-Arabiya العربية on its Arabic radio station. They seemed to have had a telephone call from Nablus with one of the besieged Palestinians.
Latest News on August 17:
On early morning of August 17, AL-Jazeera الجزيرة reported on its Arabic X-account that a huge unit of Israel's occupation army has stormed a village near Ramallah.
مراسلة الجزيرة: قوة كبيرة من جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي تقتحم قرية المغير بقضاء رام الله
Nour News, Iran, on its English site on August 11 (above).
A foreign user comment was later republished on the Arabic site on August 13 (below).
[Editor's Note: Only days ago, I heard on CNN that some US journalist questioned Trump about an "unusual security measurement". Trump downplayed the matter and said he was used to accept everything the secret service would ask him to do without going into the details.]
Iran in Arabic on August 13 provided the picture of how Trump avoided an alleged assassination threat (below).
A mutual defense treaty earlier signed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on September 17, 2025, finally got new importance. Now, Turkey also joined the alliance, which was formally established in talks in Mecca between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Sheikhbaz Sharif. Turkey's accession brought Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), into an independent treaty that also united a nuclear power and one of the largest Arab economies.
Reports on August 7, 2026 stated that the three leaders met in Jeddah, while other accounts stated that the agreement was signed in Mecca. The agreement has since been known as the Mecca Agreement, but its full text has not been made public. However, available information indicates that the agreement demonstrates much greater cooperation than the ordinary military partnerships previously maintained in Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad, although states still each follow their own troop deployment procedures.
Any armed attack against any of the three states must therefore be considered an attack on all the signatory states.The guarantee is based on the right to self-defence recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. This wording establishes a collective guarantee covering a vast area from Anatolia to South Asia, including the Arabian Peninsula. However, it did not specify the nature of the expected assistance, the time of response, and the conditions under which Turkish, Saudi Arabian or Pakistani forces would be deployed.
....................
Russia Today Radio (RT) reported that the agreement signed by the three countries has sparked discussion about the establishment of a NATO-like bloc, which could change the regional balance of power.
The report stated that the military alliance between the three Sunni Muslim states had strong symbolic significance in conflict-torn areas. All three countries have very strong assets: Pakistan is the only Muslim country with a nuclear arsenal; Turkey has a strong defense industry and NATO's second-largest army; and Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, has strong financial resources in addition to its army with a large number of U.S. weapons.
....................
Since April 2026, some information that has not yet been fully publicly recorded has been circulating, covering Islamabad sent 8,000 troops to Saudi Arabia, 16 JF-17 Block III fighter jets, a drone squadron and HQ-9 air defense systems.These resources were reportedly deployed during Iran's attack on the Kingdom. However, the deployment of these resources, the level of readiness and the chain of command have not been officially detailed, so it is impossible to determine the exact size of Pakistan's operations or their level of integration with the Saudi forces.
The Turkish Armed Forces, the 2nd largest military force in terms of NATO personnel, are now operating in Syria, Iraq, the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, Ankara has a well-developed aerospace and electronics technology base, with core businesses including Turkish Aerospace, Rocket Manufacturing and Aselsan. However, Turkey's accession to NATO doesn't imply that its new allies will also be protected by NATO. The Mecca Agreement is legally independent of the Treaty of Washington, and in crises involving Riyadh or Islamabad, it is not binding on Turkey's other allies.
Individual partnerships within the new alliance must cover production of military equipment, unmanned systems and electronic warfare countermeasures simultaneously.
Riyadh can provide financial capacity and logistics, while Turkey has an industrial complex for the production of drones, missiles, armoured vehicles and warships. Pakistan can add combat experience, its own military production facilities and its status as a nuclear power. Implementation of national projects can reduce partial dependence on external suppliers, but this dependence cannot be completely eliminated in the short term.
....................
In a statement from the organization, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Hisein Brahim Taha, said that he expressed strong appreciation and support for this agreement and called it a reflection of the three countries' commitment to strengthening regional and international cooperation. Important strategic steps.
....................
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced two days ago that he expected Egypt's accession "in the next stage" to the joint defense agreement, which was concluded last Friday between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Ankara. Although Cairo has not yet announced an official position on joining the agreement.
[Different sources on August 7-11, 2026, 土耳其-沙特阿拉伯-巴基斯坦协议]
....................
Ce que devez vous intéresser:
La religion chrétienne aux âges bibliques comme moyen de la politique moderne.
Documentaire du canal allemand / français ARTE, version française.
Pour une meilleure compréhension du vidéo; voici la première partie du documentaire:
L'accès gratuit aux vidéos ci-dessus prend fin le 30 août 2026. Alors, dépêchez-vous !
Here is a short list including latest US statistics highlighting the acceptance of Israel and its Prime Minister Netanyahu in the United States. It contains, as well, a visualisation of the remarkable changes, the population of Palestine / Israel has undergone between 1850 and 1960, seen as one decisive element in the development of a regional crisis that is now going global.
كانت الأشهر الأولى من الحرب قد تركزت على الخليج ومضيق هرمز، لكن الأيام الأخيرة أظهرت بوضوح أن خطوط المواجهة تتوسع بصورة متسارعة، لتشمل مناطق كانت حتى وقت قريب بعيدة نسبياً عن دائرة القتال.
وفي مصر، أدى هجوم بطائرة مسيرة إلى اندلاع حريق في ناقلتين للغاز داخل ميناء دمياط على البحر المتوسط، في أول حادث من نوعه يطال منشأة طاقة مصرية منذ اندلاع الحرب.
وأكدت السلطات المصرية أن التحقيقات الأولية تشير إلى أن الحريق نتج عن هجوم بطائرة مسيرة، بينما سارعت الحكومة إلى تأمين بدائل لضمان استمرار إمدادات الغاز وعدم تأثر السوق المحلية.
ورغم عدم إعلان أي جهة مسؤوليتها عن الهجوم، فإن توقيته أثار قلقاً واسعاً، لأن ميناء دمياط يمثل إحدى المحطات الأساسية لاستقبال وإعادة تغويز الغاز الطبيعي المسال، كما أن أي تهديد للموانئ المصرية ينعكس مباشرة على أمن قناة السويس، التي أصبحت خلال الحرب أحد أهم البدائل لنقل النفط الخليجي إلى الأسواق الأوروبية.
أما التطور الأكثر دلالة، فتمثل في امتداد الحرب إلى بحر قزوين القريب من البحر الاسود والذي يصل إيران بروسيا، وذلك بعد تعرض سفينة مرتبطة بإيران لهجوم نُسب إلى أوكرانيا، وهو تطور يربط بصورة مباشرة بين الحرب الدائرة في الشرق الأوسط والحرب الروسية الأوكرانية، ويعكس تزايد الترابط بين ساحات الصراع المختلفة، حيث لم تعد الحدود الجغرافية التقليدية كافية لفصل النزاعات عن بعضها البعض.
From Hormuz to the Red Sea to Egypt to the Caspian Sea
The first months of the war were focused on the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, but recent days have clearly shown that the front lines are expanding rapidly, to include areas that until recently were relatively far from the circle of fighting.
In Egypt, a drone attack led to a fire breaking out in two gas tankers inside the port of Damietta on the Mediterranean Sea, in the first accident of its kind affecting an Egyptian energy facility since the outbreak of the war.
The Egyptian authorities confirmed that preliminary investigations indicate that the fire resulted from a drone attack, while the government was quick to secure alternatives to ensure continued gas supplies and that the local market was not affected.
Although no party claimed responsibility for the attack, its timing raised widespread concern, because Damietta Port represents one of the main stations for receiving and regasifying liquefied natural gas, and any threat to Egyptian ports is directly reflected in the security of the Suez Canal, which during the war became one of the most important alternatives for transporting Gulf oil to European markets.
As for the most significant development, it was the extension of the war to the Caspian Sea, which is close to the Black Sea and connects Iran to Russia, after a ship linked to Iran was attacked attributed to Ukraine, a development that directly links the ongoing war in the Middle East to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and reflects the increasing interconnection between different arenas of conflict, where traditional geographical borders are no longer sufficient to separate conflicts from each other.
[Monte Carlo Doualiya مونت كارلو الدولية , associated with RFI France, on July 30, 2026]
The Caspian Sea and its geopolitical importance in the frame
of the International North - South Transit Corridor (INSTC)
The International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC) is crucial for diversifying global trade routes and reducing dependency on traditional maritime channels like the Suez Canal. It offers a faster and more cost-effective alternative, enhancing economic collaboration among participating nations. By facilitating regional integration, the INSTC contributes to economic growth, stability, and geopolitical balance, particularly in the context of shifting global power dynamics and the rise of the Global South.
In the frame of the current US-Israeli war on Iran the INSTC route got strategic importance for trading Iranian and Russian crude oil and natural gas. That is why Ukraine targeted the INSTC network which is independent from western influence.
An important update, seemingly in support of earlier Chinese news, was added on July 25:
If necessary, you can click (left) to all pictures, then click (right) to open them in a new tab, if you want to read included text without damaging your eyes.
Update on July 25: Iran allegedly forces American troops to run away. US troops evacuate bases in Qatar and UAE. [oneindia & AFP on July 25]
On of the rare Arabic videos, auto-dubbed in English, on the proceedings of July 23, when two Saudi oil tankers were targeted by Houthis in the Red Sea. One of them was hit and caught fire.
Please Note: ناة المهرية الفضائية is a Yemenite TV station. The English translation is only available, if you switch to watch the video directly on YouTube !
The above video can be stopped at any time to watch the nice animations and maps from the region of war described in English. You don't even need to understand the Arabic speaking guy.
