Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas have launched a video game that invites players to relive their successes in last year's war against Israel and shoot down "the myth of an invincible army."
The game, called Special Force 2, is based on fighting which actually took place, one of its creators, Ali Ahmed, said, adding: "The player is involved as a resistance fighter and relives the high points of the destruction of the Israeli military machine."
The game was created in order to "reaffirm the destruction of the myth of an invincible army," he said.
Each day there is a "martyr" from among a list of Hezbollah fighters killed during the war.
The six-step game starts with the capture of two Israeli soldiers on the Israeli-Lebanese border, which triggered the conflict from July 12 to Aug. 14 last year.
It involves pinpointing a patrol, launching the attack, destroying Israeli vehicles, blowing up a security enclosure and capturing the soldiers.
Every player is guided by the "resistance command center" and chooses his level, whether beginner, intermediate or professional, Ahmed said.
Missions also include destroying an Israeli Saar-5 class gunship off the coast of Beirut, as well as destroying dozens of Merkava tanks and launching missiles on northern Israel.
The game is in Arabic, but will soon have French and English versions, and it sells for "[US]10 dollars because the goal is not for profit," Ahmed said.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
The dramatic US operation that deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro this month might have left North Korean leader Kim Jong-un feeling he was also vulnerable to “decapitation,” a former Pyongyang envoy to Havana said. Lee Il-kyu — who served as Pyongyang’s political counselor in Cuba from 2019 until 2023 — said that Washington’s lightning extraction in Caracas was a worst-case scenario for his former boss. “Kim must have felt that a so-called decapitation operation is actually possible,” said Lee, who now works for a state-backed think tank in Seoul. North Korea’s leadership has long accused Washington of seeking to remove it from power