Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Dec 11, 2022 19 tweets 9 min read Read on X
This Tuesday Dec 13th, @AbiyAhmedAli will be received in the @WhiteHouse during an African Leaders Summit convened by @POTUS @JoeBiden.

Ethiopia PM Abiy's return to center stage, is more important than understood & will doubtless be controversial for he wrong reasons. THREAD Image
This thread provides additional data and context to this report, recorded in Alamata - in Raya, Tigray November 4th, 2 days after the signing of the Pretoria Peace Agreement.
The video shows my first walk through the grave site which we found at Alamata after we arrived in Tigray on Nov 3rd, on the first journalism trip to Tigray since TPLF's resumption of warfare on 24th August.

This >> scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211… was published Nov. 13th during #COP27. Image
Thanks to the fantastic satellite sleuthery of @Dinlas3 we have an update on the story - confirming witness accounts wrt the timing of the mass grave's construction. Image
In the video above at 2.54 minutes I approach the shed you see in the satellite image above - with excavation equipment and two large holes in front of the shed.

We can now see that there are clearly 2 mass graves there. The 2nd marked with stakes.
This still from the video shows the area where the southernmost hole is located. Watching the video it seems possible the excation of the hole took place in an area bodies had already been burried. Image
From this starting point in the video you can see a pan across the northernmost of the two large holes in the satellite imagery. At the time I had no idea that there wer two holes. There is also recently disturbed ground in the foreground & a newer hole.
What is mosty important about this image however is what it tells us about the timing of construction. On December 4th 2021 TPLF was in control of Alamata, and it remained in control of Alamata untill two weeks before I arrived there on November 4th 2022. Image
This confirms witness accounts that the mass grave, a source of terror in the city of of Alamata belongs to the TPLF, and is not evidence as TPLF may soon try to claim of #TigrayGenocide, a claim which remains at the core of many media accounts of this war and TPLF propaganda.
This is the summary of my initial findings from my 13th November report, which is based on these witnesses testimony.

The claim that the mass grave was established after Op. Alula - the triumphant retaking of Mekelle by TPLF is critically important. ImageImage
And Dinlas's satellite imagery research while not completely conclusive on this point is pretty clear. Theseimages show the site in March 21st 2021, before the rains - while Alamata was in control of the Govt. During the period that the #TigrayGenocide was supposedly occurring. ImageImage
Here we see January 11th 2022. Same spot. By then the two holes close to the shed are filled. And given the timing, filled during the TPLF's retreat which by December 4th had begun. ImageImageImage
TPLF announced a "withdrawal" of its forces to Tigray on Dec 21st ending a destructive "revenge" invasion of Amhara whch began on July 13th 2021, during which the great bulk of the lives were lost in this conflict: civilians, TPLF forces/child soldiers & ENDF & ASF.
The limited imagery we have from 2021 is constrained by the rains which came fairly early in 2021 around April and were strong through to September. But we can see from the Dec4th images that the site was already completely full at the time the two large holes were dug. ImageImage
And the video shows significant numbers of relatively fresh graves dug in the period since. Locals put the number burried there at at least 3000 - and this figure could be very conservative. Witnesses report seeing lots of Sinotrucks entering the site carrying bodies. Image
The satellite imagery now suggests that the graveyard wasn't big enough to take all the bodies, leading in December to a scramble by the TPLF to expand capacity including digging up areas in which people had already been burried.
As I am unlikely to complete my full account of my visit to Alamata in time for the Washington DC African Leaders summit - advance release of this new information seemed important. My thanks to @Dinlas3 whose work made this possible.
The above does not include all of the findings from the satellite imagery, investigation of which is continuing. The imagery here - and some not yet published - belongs to @Dinlas3 and anyone else wishing to use it should contact him.
@Dinlas3 /ends @threadreaderapp unroll

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More from @althecat

Jul 21
THREAD: Some thoughts on October 7th and the importance of their being global transparency over what we know about what really happened on that terrible day.

1/ This (see screenshots in the first few posts in this thread) is one of the most important pieces of conflict related journalism published in recent years.

It relates to the orders given to soldiers on October 7th to fire on any vehicle seeking to return to the Gaza Strip to prevent the taking of hostages and was published on July 7th, 10 months later in Haaretz.Image
2/ As @IsraeliPM Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address congress it is vital that the public in the US, Israel and globally is fully aware of what exactly happened on October 7th in Gaza. Image
3/ The account in this story published by Haaretz is at this time still behind a paywall and it has therefore not been read by the very large number of people who ought to have done so. I have not seen very many reports containing the detail of this report elsewhere though I presume there are many.

A copy of the report can be found however on here >> Archive.is
archive.md/zqUntImage
Read 16 tweets
Jul 8
OK so clearly #HurricaneBeryl is not the same as #HurricaneHarvey. But there are some striking similarities in terms of what has made it so much more persistent than either forecast or as modeled.

This thread is going to look at this issue a bit more deeply.
- The overall cloud mass of the #HurricaneBeryl thunderstorm complex proved much more resilient than expected once it came over land. Why?
- Also Like #Harvey Beryl did slow down after making landfall and continued to spin over land. Why?
- I think the answer to both questions relates to the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Like Harvey back in 2017, Beryl has been fueled by a constant stream of warm wet atmospheric flows of energy off of the Gulf of Mexico.
- This is obvious in part simply from observing the astonishing expansion of the cloud field after #Beryl made landfall early this morning.

A clue to understanding this can be found in looking at the the astonishing growth progression of #HurricaneBeryl's cloud field over landafter Beryl strengthened and formed itself into a Hurricane in the period after making landfall south of Houston.

Over the course of the rest of the morning you can see in these images how much the wind field expanded.
Like Harvey #Beryl also grew and strengthened itself by feeding off of the gulf of mexico, specifically the area between the Texas coastline and what looks like the outer boundary of the convection field which expanded extremely strongly to the north.

The only source for all this additional atmospheric moisture can be the oceanic convection which took place in what is a fairly clearly bounded 136,000 km2 area of ocean which as you can see in this animation is very closely bound to the rest of the circulation.

This is a much much larger area than the area of active rainfall which settled over the city and metropolis of Houston for the morning and which is finally starting to move off to the north now.
This version of the graphic shows the comparative sizes of the area of water which is responsible for the astonitising growth of post landfall #HurricaneBeryl - and the area of the storm that remained over the ocean and which is almost certainly responsible for both why this storm was so persistent and why it (like Harvey) slowed down after coming ashore.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 8
#HurricaneBerylis not expected to give up lightly as it moves onshore and turns north eastward over Texas and then heads north east across the great planes towards the great lakes.

Typically we expect hurricanes to weaken rapidly over land - especially wind wise. But #Berylis not forecast to behave as normal - probably because like Harvey, its tail over the Gulf is keeping it fueled. - the currently forecast pattern from Fox News's exclusive model shown in these images was present in some of the simulations of Beryl after it crossed the Yucutan a couple of days ago.

To my mind questions ought to be asked about the accuracy of the forecasting for this storm, as - like the last super destructive Texas Hurricane, Harvey in 2017 [] Beryl is proving to be a LOT more destructive in its impacts than initially forecast.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane…Image
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The final image in this sequence of screenshots of Fox Weather Graphics is worth drawing attention to as it shows how much broader the impacts of this hurricane are expected to be as it moves across the great planes roughly speaking heading up the Mississippi river, and continuing to dump potential flooding rain as it goes.Image
This image shows the forecast expected severe weather threat from the remnants of #HurricaneBeryl in Arkansas and Missouri up as far as Saint Louis. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 8
ALERT: High Target News Environment in play - numerous consequential news events with global implications.

1. British elections - (Thursday July 4th-Friday July 5th): Delivering an unprecedented landslide win to the left's @UKLabour Party + strong showings for the Liberals and Greens . The UK Chancellor @RachelReevesMP will shortly set out her economic policy in a speech.

2. French elections (Sunday July 7th) deliver a remarkable 2nd big win for the left in politics in France - dashing the hopes of Marine le Pen's hard right wing "Rassemblement National" of first parliamentary victory

3. Overnight (7th-8th July): an unprecedented huge Hurricane , #Hurricane Beryl - makes landfall in Houston as a Category 1 Hurricane, its main threat to the epicenter of the global fossil fuel industry will be flooding. It is still night in Houston at present.
You can watch the new UK Chancellor's speech live here now >> youtube.com/live/oJUvTVdTM…
English language coverage of the French Election from @France24_en can be watched here >>
Read 5 tweets
Jul 1
Hmmmmmm…. Why is the audio of the @youtube version of the UNSG office daily briefing for 1st July missing sound from 5:24 to 6:07?

Afghanistan, Lebanon, Myanmar & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (1 J... via @YouTube

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The content of this portion is available as it is simply a quote from written remarks of UNSG @antonioguterres made to a meeting in Austria. But the missing YouTube audio is unprecedented in my experience and hard to explain.
Video from the un platform is here. webtv.un.org/en/asset/k12/k…
Read 10 tweets

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