Strikes Hit Rear Areas On The Eve Of Offensive
South Front, Mar 28 2023
While the Ukrainian army prepares for the large-scale offensive and brings new NATO equipment to the fronts, both warring sides intensified strikes in the each other’s rear areas. On the night of Mar 28, air-raid alarms sounded in about half of Ukrainian oblasts. Russian Geranium UAVs hit their targets in Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk. Several explosions thundered in the capital. The mayor of Kiev confirmed the destruction in the Svyatoshinsky and Obolonsky districts of the city. At least three explosions were reported in Dnepropetrovsk. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast confirmed the strikes, reporting that a private enterprise was destroyed. Amid Ukrainian preparations for counter-attack near Bakhmut, Russian forces are launching almost daily high-precision strikes in the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk region. On the morning of Mar 28, several explosions thundered on the eastern outskirts of Slavyansk. Footage confirmed that the military recruitment center on Torskaya street was destroyed. According to the Ukrainian officials, two people were killed and 29 others were wounded. The real number of casualties may be much higher. On Mar 26, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that an ammunition depot of the 56th Ukrainian Motorized Infantry Brigade was destroyed in Kramatorsk. On the same day, Russian troops launched missile strikes on the Kramatorsk Institute of Economics and Humanities building, where there was very likely a location for the Ukrainian military.
Russian forces also conduct daily strikes against military targets in the Ukrainian Sumy and Kharkiv regions to prevent Ukrainian reinforcement on the northern fronts of Donbass. Amid the endless artillery shelling, the Russian Aerospace Forces have been conducting regular strikes with gliding air bombs. The most massive attack took place on the night of Mar 24. According to the Ukrainian Air Force Command, at least 10 Russian aircraft dropped more than 10 bombs in the region. Massive artillery duels continue along the entire front line in Zaporizhzhia region, which is expected to become the main direction of the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. On Mar 27, Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8 near Temirivka village. In their turn, Ukrainian forces launched a massive shelling on the city of Melitopol, which Kiev surrendered to the Russians without a fight a year ago. One of the targets of the Ukrainian attack was a local college where classes were being held. Fortunately, casualties were avoided. In the Kherson region, the Ukrainian military stepped up preparations for sabotage and landing operations on the Dnieper River. At the same time, Russian forces have not stopped strikes on military positions on the western bank. On Mar 27, an anti-radar missile destroyed a Ukrainian S-300 complex near Davydov Brod. Explosions thundered near Kherson and other settlements. Ukrainian forces, in turn, struck Russian rear area logistical facilities with US-made HIMARS MLRS.
20 Years On, US Failure In Iraq Still Lingers On, With A Stronger Iran
Uriel Araujo, South Front, Mar 28 2023
A US coalition forward base near West Mosul, Iraq Jun 21 2017
On Mar 19 Iran and Iraq signed a border security agreement during the visit to Baghdad of Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. On that occasion, referring to Iranian Kurdish factions which operate in Iraq, in the so-called Kurdistan area, Shamkhani stated that the interests of Tehran and Baghdad “must not be sacrificed for the mischief of America and its terrorist mercenaries.” It is a well-known fact that Washington considers the Iraqi Kurdistan a geopolitical and strategic ally. This new development is thus yet another blow to the US. Iran has also mediated the Saudi rapprochement with neighboring Syria, after Tehran and Riyadh have restored ties, all of which is a kind of a nightmare to Washington. One should keep in mind that the Oct 2022 OPEC+ decision to cut oil output might have marked the very end of the historic US-Saudi relationship. How has the US lost so much influence in the Middle East?
20 years ago, the US was enjoying the triumph of having won the Cold War, and in the words of Mina Al-Oraibi, the UAE National’s Editor-in-Chief, was “at the peak of its influence in the Arab world.” Many Middle Eastern leaders, she writes, considered Washington to be their closest ally and even “took direction” from it. Moreover, the US promoted itself as a human rights champion, a narrative that today has lost much of its credibility but which was already dubious back then, to say the least. That influence has clearly declined, and the Iraq war certainly had everything to do with the start of such decline. All the bad decisions taken by the American superpower have contributed to mining the political and moral authority it still enjoyed in the region, at least among some local political elites. One could argue that back then many Arab leaders resented the American support for Israel and missed the good relationship they had with the Soviet Union, but in 2001 Washington could still count on a great deal of support from the Arab world. For example, the UAE even sent troops to the American-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Overthrowing Saddam Hussein was also a cause of concern concern to many Middle Eastern political actors. Al-Oraibi writes that Arab leaders as well as non-Arab ones, such as Afghanistan’s Taliban, worried that a new Iraqi government could be dominated by pro-Iranian politicians, thus enabling the emergence of a new “Shiite crescent” stretching from Iran into Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, something which some analysts think has partly happened. For instance Frank Sobchak, retired Army Special Forces Colonel, and Matthew Zais, retired infantry Colonel, co-authors of “The US Army in the Iraq War”, argue that Iran could be considered the main winner of the Iraq war. According to Al-Oraibi, the fact that the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority decided to disband the Iraqi Army and security forces brought chaos and made it difficult to rebuild the country. Washington had the local army broken up and yet did not show itself capable of ensuring law and order in the territory it was occupying. Other scandals have further damaged the US image in the region and abroad, such as the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay tortures, as well as the illegal CIA renditions of suspects. The misleading presentation regarding Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMDs that was given by Colin Powell at the UNSC in Feb 2003 also turned out to be unfounded, thus further undermining US credibility. Washington pushed religious and ethnic representation in Iraq in the hopes of thus establishing a kind of democratic rule there, especially during Barack Obama’s presidency. However, according to Al-Oraibi, this backfired:
Most Iraqis did not identify along sectarian lines and representation was more tied to geographies and societal affiliations.
Therefore, these policies only further enhanced divisions. Although the exact demographic figures are still uncertain, in 2015, the CIA World Factbook estimated that between 29% and 34% of the Iraqi population were Sunni Muslims and 64% to 69% were Shia Muslims. Be it as it may, it is a fact that during Saddam Hussein’s nationalist and secular Baath government, which was mostly backed by Christians and Sunnis, the Shia population was largely discriminated against. The Iran-Iraq war in turn intensified these tensions, Iran being a Shia regional power. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the situation seems to have inverted, with Sunni leaders claiming to face discrimination. Iran’s influence clearly matters, but should not be inflated: according to Jeffrey Haynes, Director of London Metropolitan University’s Center for the Study of Religion, Conflict and Cooperation, Iranian transnational religious networks have but a limited capacity to pursue their goals of pushing Iranian religious soft-power. This has been made increasingly clear by the late 2022 Iraq crisis: different Shia groups have their own local loyalties and agendas, with intra-Shia conflict also taking place.
As I have written, Washington’s neocolonial nation-building has been a major failure. While Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan was described by many analysts as the worst US foreign policy failure in decades, the follies of the American invasion of Iraq too still linger on. Al-Oraibi argues that the fact that in 2022 Washington failed to convince its key Arab allies and partners to “follow its lead” on Ukraine is related to that decline. To sum it up, the American occupation of Iraq might have come to an end, but Al-Oraibi concludes that Washington somehow still pays the political price for that. One can argue that in fact this is part of a larger context, beyond the Middle East: that of the decline of the US world order. The overextended and overburdened superpower has no choice but to exercise restraint, and thus can be seen as a declining global hegemon.
35 Years Ago Biden Came To Kremlin To Discuss INF Treaty
South Front, Mar 28 2023
The President of the USA Joseph Biden has repeatedly visited the USSR and Russia during his almost half-century political career. On Jan 15 1988, a meeting was held between Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Andrei Gromyko and American Senator Biden in the Kremlin. It was mainly devoted to the upcoming ratification of the Soviet-American treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. The Russian state media covered the meeting, emphasizing the Kremlin’s position on the signing of the treaty:
Today in the Kremlin, Andrei Andreevich Gromyko received the famous American Senator, a member of the Commission on Foreign Affairs of the US Senate Joseph Biden, who is in Moscow at the invitation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The conversation was devoted mainly to the upcoming ratification of the Soviet-American Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. Comrade Gromyko said: “Now the main task is to ratify the signed treaty. The Soviet leadership proceeds from the fact that the American side will act in this direction with full awareness of its high responsibility. The Soviet Union would like to believe that the negotiations currently taking place between our countries will also succeed and it expects that the American side will show a constructive approach to them.”
In 2012, Washington decided to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty. In 2019, the treaty was terminated on the initiative of the US. From Oct 1999 to Aug 2 2019, the US conducted 108 tests of the missile defense systems, when medium- and shorter-range missiles were used as training intercepted target missiles. In total during this period of time they used 117 such missiles. They committed 117 violations of the INF Treaty.
US Politicians Urge Biden To Send Cluster Bombs To Kiev
Lucas Leiroz, South Front, Mar 28 2023
Once again, American politicians are pushing for new escalations in the Ukrainian conflict. Now, lawmakers want the Biden government to supply cluster munitions to the Ukrainian armed forces. This type of measure would be seen as a serious provocation by Russia and would certainly have strong impacts on the battlefield and in the current diplomatic crisis. Recently, some Republican senators formally asked the government to “not hesitate” to send cluster arms to Ukraine. James Risch and Roger Wickers, both from Mississippi, led the Congress campaign, and were also supported by Michael McCaul from Texas, and Mike Rogers from Alabama. According to them, Washington should ship such bombs as quickly as possible to Kiev, ignoring what they think to be “vague concerns about the reaction of allies and partners and unfounded fears of ‘escalation.’” The pressure comes amid a context of “despair” on the part of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev and the more pro-war groups of American domestic politics. Faced with the Ukrainian military failure and the imminent Russian victory, despite the systematic sending of weapons by NATO, the only solution seems to be to resort to the use of “non-conventional” arms.
In this sense, the use of cluster bombs would be one of the “alternatives,” which is why Ukrainian politicians have asked US congressmen to increase the pressure for the government to allow the export of such equipment. Cluster bombs are banned in at least 110 countries by a 2008 UN-brokered treaty. These arms are notorious for their fragmentation power. Cluster munitions include countless small projectiles inside. When launched, these bombs explode ejecting projectiles that injure a much greater number of victims than conventional weapons. The most dangerous thing is that many of these small projectiles do not detonate immediately after being ejected, and can remain inactive for a long time, which is why civilians can be mutilated or killed by bomblets that explode long after a conflict ends. In addition to the absolutely anti-humanitarian aspect of these arms, it is necessary to emphasize that American law prohibits their export in any situation. For the US government to authorize the shipment of cluster munitions to Ukraine, it would be necessary to change national legislation, or simply act illegally. Also, NSC spox Adm (Retd) Kirby had already made it clear that there was no possibility of sending these arms to Kiev, stating:
According to our own policy, we have concerns about the use of those kinds of munitions.
However, for warmongers, no limits should be respected. Failing to convince the US government directly, the Ukrainians appealed to parliamentarians, who then used their power of political mobilization to form pro-war coalitions and encourage the violation of the country’s laws. Parliamentary pressure is one of the most frequently used mechanisms by Western powers to promote institutional changes in other countries. Now, the US government itself is under pressure from Congress, which echoes the interests of pro-war elites. On the part of Ukrainians, there is no interest in respecting any humanitarian limits. There are already several reports stating that the Ukrainian armed forces used Soviet-era cluster weapons in civilian residential areas in Donbass since 2014. In March last year, for example, a Tochka-U missile containing cluster munitions killed more than 20 people and injured dozens of civilians in Donetsk. Faced with the collapse of the Ukrainian arsenals, what interests the neo-Nazi regime now is to obtain cluster arms from American stockpiles.
It is important to emphasize that the pressure in Washington comes in parallel with the British decision to send depleted uranium radioactive weapons to Kiev. This reinforces that Western pro-war elites are interested in raising the level of aid to Kiev, openly promoting the shipment of illegal weapons banned by international treaties. The practical result of this will obviously be an unprecedented escalation. Commenting on the case at a recent press conference, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Ryabkov, said that American lawmakers do not seem aware of the tragic consequences that sending such armaments would generate. According to him, the very security of NATO countries would be threatened if such a measure were taken, since international tensions would escalate to a point of no return. Ryabkov also warned that this would block any possibility of normalization of relations between Moscow and Washington. Obviously, Moscow will not remain inert while citizens in the special military operation zone are exposed to attacks with illegal weapons with high destructive power. In order to defend the inhabitants of territories reintegrated into the Russian Federation, extraordinary military measures will certainly be taken, which will have high impacts on the battlefield.
US And Taiwan Plan To Equip Kiev Regime Forces With ‘Swarms-Of-Swarms’ Drones
Drago Bosnic, South Front, Mar 28 2023
There’s very little doubt that warfare has changed dramatically in recent decades, with the tactical gap between leading militaries and those of local powers (or even the usually overlooked small countries) narrowing as the proliferation of unmanned systems continues unabated. With the advent of the information era, the abundance of war footage has essentially eliminated the once-assured readiness of tens of millions to go to war, leaving militaries around the globe struggling to meet their recruitment quotas. Losing even a hundred drones is certainly preferable to having ten soldiers (or even one) killed and/or wounded in action, particularly for politicians and their respective parties seeking reelection. As a result, drones, robots and other unmanned vehicles have become increasingly important.
The combination of these factors created the “perfect storm” for the dramatic rise and adoption of unmanned systems by most militaries around the world. Perhaps the best proof of this has been the mass usage of drones by both sides of the Ukrainian conflict. Ranging from commercial quadcopters to HALE (high-altitude, long-endurance) military drones, these weapons are changing the face of warfare in a manner no less revolutionary than airplanes and tanks did during the First World War. Interestingly, as both the Russian military and the Kiev regime forces deploy advanced long-range air defenses (particularly the former), the role of larger drones has subsided, leaving smaller platforms as the more cost-effective alternative, while also providing significant tactical advantages.
Aside from circumventing advanced SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems, miniature drones offer an important upper hand in terms of first-strike capabilities and forward reconnaissance. Apart from Russia and the Kiev regime, the US-led political West is also taking this into account, especially when considering the fact that NATO’s massive ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) capabilities have been used to observe virtually every inch of the vast Ukrainian battlefields. Precisely this is pushing the belligerent alliance to equip the neo-Nazi junta forces with the latest unmanned technologies, both as a way of providing its favorite puppet regime with weapons to counter the Russian military, as well as battle-testing the said drones against an advanced state adversary.
And while the Kiev regime’s pompous announcements of an upcoming offensive may be dismissed as routine propaganda stunts, Russian intelligence found solid evidence that such weapons are being supplied to the Neo-Nazi junta. Needless to say, the political West sending advanced weapons to Kiev is hardly breaking news, but what’s unusual is the participation of Taiwan. Apparently, China’s breakaway island province is working directly with the US on developing and manufacturing the new unmanned systems. Another novelty in this particular case is the ostensible ability of these drones to autonomously coordinate their attacks and act as a swarm, or more precisely, “swarms-of-swarms,” as the program’s name clearly indicates.
The project, named AMASS (Autonomous Multi-Domain Adaptive Swarms-of-Swarms), is directly supervised by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Pentagon’s top advanced weapons programs agency. In order to accomplish the task of controlling hundreds of drones simultaneously, the use of advanced artificial intelligence (AAI) is a given in this case. Considering that AAI is one of DARPA’s main fields of study, its involvement in the project is effectively guaranteed. Military experts estimate that several hundred kamikaze drones can function within one network, further connected to a much larger system that includes thousands of drones. DARPA’s share in the project is by far the largest, although Taiwan seems to be providing key manufacturing facilities.
Back in early February, several media reports emerged that the AMASS project was fast-tracked by DARPA due to Pentagon’s plans to create a “swarms-of-swarms” system that would “simultaneously counter multiple adversarial assets and enable warfighters to operate within the A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] environment”. With Russia and China being the only countries with such capabilities, it’s essentially guaranteed they are the primary targets. This is further reinforced by the involvement of the government in Taipei, which clearly aims to counter China’s A2/AD “bubbles.” These still represent an insurmountable obstacle against which the Taiwanese military is effectively powerless, both in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities.
However, before the possible deployment of AMASS in Taiwan, the system needs to be battle-tested in Ukraine. If it were to be proven effective, Washington DC and Taipei would certainly mass-produce it. Thus, it’s extremely likely that the project was discussed by Russian and Chinese military delegates during President Xi Jinping’s latest visit to Moscow, as it’s in the interest of both to see the program fail. Otherwise, if it proves successful in Ukraine, the Chinese military itself would most certainly face it in Taiwan, endangering the success of a possible amphibious operation in case of a US-orchestrated escalation. And while China has advanced systems capable of countering such weapons (including its own drone swarms), the best possible defense is preventing their deployment altogether.
Nevertheless, with the Russian military poised to be the first to encounter weapons such as the AMASS, Moscow has already started crucial upgrades to its air defense systems. Still, Russia’s A2/AD, better known as “echeloned defense” in Russian military nomenclature, is only one segment of its (recently revised) strategy, with the so-called “active defense” being the key to neutralizing immediate threats. This includes adopting new offensive capabilities and precisely this could have been one of the main topics of behind-closed-doors talks about Sino-Russian technological cooperation, which almost certainly includes the exchange of information on drone swarms.
One Day Overview Of Ukrainian Crimes Against Civilians In Donbass
South Front, Mar 28 2023
The AFU do not stop heavy shelling of the DPR and LPR, terrorising the local civilians amid the upcoming offensive. On Mar 28, Ukrainian troops remotely installed German AT2 anti-tank mines in the north-west of Donetsk. According to the representative office of the DPR in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination, “as a result of remote mining in the village of the Oktyabrsky mine, AT2 anti—tank mines made in Germany have been found.” The Ukrainian military scattered the German-made mines with the help of multiple rocket launchers. The charge of such a mine carries 907 g of explosive. The mass of the ammunition is about 2 kg. Some of the missiles were intercepted by the air defense system but more than 20 pieces were discovered around the area at night. As a result of the mining of the village of the Oktyabrskaya mine, 2 civilians were heavily wounded. As a result of the explosion, a man lost both of his legs. He later died in a hospital. Doctors are now fighting for the life of a woman who became the second victim.
Ukrainian Nazis are regularly mining the residential areas in the cities of the DPR and LPR, including with foreign weapons. Previously, they used petal mines, which were scattered in the parcs and on the streets. Today, foreign military equipment which causes more damage to civilians is used more and more often. For example, on Mar 15, Ukrainian security forces mined the town of Svatovo in the LPR with at least 60 anti-tank German mines. The Ukrainian shelling on the city of Donetsk does not stop. Dozens of artillery rounds hit civilians on a daily basis. The most devastating damaged is caused by the Ukrainian attacks with foreign-made systems. On the evening of Mar 27, at about 10 pm local time, the AFU launched massive attack on the city of Donetsk. One of the rockets fired by Ukrainian Nazis hit a residential building in the Kievsky district. The nine-storey building collapsed. A woman was heavily wounded during the strike. On the morning of Mar 28, Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin announced that the bodies of a man and another woman were found under the rubble of the house. At the same time, another multi-storey building was struck in the Kuybishev district of Donetsk.
The residential areas of Donetsk are often heavily shelled in the evening, when people return to their homes. The Kiev regime continues to follow this criminal tactics aiming to kill as much civilians as possible. On Mar 27, the Kalininsky district was heavily shelled yb Ukrainian Nazis. At least one civilian was killed. As a result of the attack by HIMARS MLRS, civilian houses were struck, the building of the Druzhba Sports Palace was destroyed. The school and kindergarten buildings were also damaged.
On the same day, Ukrainian Nazis shelled the State Unitary Enterprise “Styrol” in the Kalininsky district of Gorlovka. As a result of the night attack, the nitric acid production shop was severely damaged, the flare pipe was partially destroyed. As a result of a direct hit of the Ukrainian shell, the administrative building of the power supply shop was damaged.
On the morning of Mar 28, the AFU continued the massive shelling. Civilian houses in the Oktyabrsky microdistrict of Donetsk city were destroyed by Ukrainian forces. Civilians were wounded in the Kievsky district of the city. Gorlovka, Yasinovataya, Kalininsky, Volnovakha districts of the city were also shelled. The Kiev regime also does not stop terrorist attacks and assassinations in the territories it lost. On Mar 27, the head of the police survived an assassination attempt in Mariupol. He was shell-shocked by the explosion of a car bomb.
Ukrainian attacks in the LPR also do not stop. On Mar 27, Ukrainian formations struck the city of Lisichansk. As a result of the shelling with the use of 155 mm artillery, the local hospital, the Biryuza kindergarten, 5 residential buildings, a service station and a gas pipeline were damaged.
On Mar 25, the AFU fired two missiles from the HIMARS MLRS at the frontline town of Svatovo in the LPR. Seven residential buildings suffered damage, one of which was completely destroyed. As a result of the attack, one young man was killed, and a girl was injured.
These are only few of Ukrainian crimes against civilians in one day. There was not a single military target. Residents of the Donbass have been suffering daily bloody attacks for nine years. However, the so-called international community led by the terrorist West, the main patron of the Kiev regime, continues to hide the truth about this war against civilians.
First Foreign Tanks Came To Ukraine After Their Crews Were Trained In Use Of DU Shells By US And UK Military
South Front, Mar 28 2023
(UPD: Three Portuguese Leopard 2A6 have also arrived in Ukraine.) Ukrainian servicemen who are undergoing training by the British Royal Army are trained in the use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition. This type of shells may be fired by the Challenger 2 tank equipped with an L30 120mm rifled tank gun. Declassified UK noted that depleted uranium shells were seen on the official video shared by the British Ministry of Defence. The video showed British military instructors showing various types of ammunition for Challenger 2 tanks, including DU shells, to the members of the Ukrainian tank crews. A DU projectile colored in orange and black colors was spotted on the table in front of the military instructors. The DU ammunition seen in the MoD documentary is marked “inert,” suggesting it could be a replica:
Declassified UK cited a specialist engaged in research on the impact of armed conflicts on the environment. Doug Weir from the Conflict and Environment Observatory said:
The orange and black munition in the video appears to be an inert display version of the UK’s 120mm CHARM3 DU ammunition. When DU munitions hit hard targets such as tanks or armoured vehicles, they fragment and burn, generating chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate that poses an inhalational risk to people. Managing DU contamination appropriately will be a further burden for Ukraine, in a conflict that has already generated serious pollution problems.
CHARM3 is a code name for Britain’s stockpile of depleted uranium shells. The very fact that Kiev is ready to use such ammunition speaks of the complete negligence of the Kiev regime to its own citizens, the environment, urban and rural infrastructure.
The video shared by the UK Defence Ministry also revealed that the US military is involved in training of Ukrainian servicemen in the UK. In addition to British military specialists, the footage showed at least one US military instructor. Declassified UK wrote:
The presence of a US soldier at the training session could escalate tensions further, after the White House denied sending its own depleted uranium stocks to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US claims that it does not transfer depleted uranium shells to the Kiev regime. It turns out that the claims from Washington are another lie and the US military is involved in the transfer of DU shells to the Kiev regime and in training Ukrainian militants to use them.
On Mar 27, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov claimed that British Challenger tanks, US Stryker and Cougar armored vehicles, German Marder infantry fighting vehicles have already entered service with the AFU. He shared the video of him riding the Challenger tank:
At the same time, the Guardian reported with reference to the Ministry of Defense of the UK that Ukrainian tank crews have returned to their homeland after undergoing training in the UK. The training included instructions on command, control and teamwork, as well as on the effective identification and destruction of targets, the military department clarified. In his turn, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed reports that the AFU had received 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks from Germany. The foreign tanks are expected to take part in the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. According to various estimations it may begin in the middle or in the end of April.
Niqnaq 