The code name in NATO records is explicit: Condor. It is difficult to make it go unnoticed, wherever you place its 73 meters of wingspan and 69 meters of length. A giant of the air, or rather "the" giant, given that the atlas of the skies leaves no room for doubt: the Antonov 124-100 is the largest cargo plane in the world. In its "hold belly" it is capable of ingesting anything, planes, helicopters, trains, tanks and every "evil" that the global war industry orders it to fly from one part of the world to another. After all, it doesn't need a high-altitude distributor to move from one ocean to another.

Flight record

In 1987 he set his world record: 20,151 km on a single tank, 25 hours and 30 minutes in flight with a take-off weight of 455,000 kilograms. It is the engineering son of the ancient Soviet Union, its production, however, for logistical reasons, remained in the Ukrainian enclave after the dissolution of Stalin's land and before the Russian invasion. It was designed in the 1970s to speed up wars and invasions, to fly all kinds of instruments of death without wasting time. It was born as the flying arm of the great Soviet military power, so powerful, however, that it tempted the air fleets of the entire world.

Russian for NATO

It is no coincidence that this pachyderm of the skies is now at the service of none other than NATO: "strategic transport" state the contracts with the western appendages of what was the Russian-Ukrainian flagship. The same planes that NATO and the Americans have rented from «Salis Gmbh» since the 2000s for the landing of heavy vehicles for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Civil aircraft, in theory, dedicated, however, to the most devastating loads, those of death. The first big difference compared to a traditional cargo is in the radar tracks: it is forbidden to know take-off and landing, the departure airport is denied, and the arrival airport is worse. No one, today more than ever, needs to know when and where. Coded messages are reserved only for essential structures, control towers at maximum, security services alerted discreetly.

Undercover

When the mammoth dinosaur of the skies crosses the diagonals for Cagliari-Elmas he knows well that the first rule of the Sardinian mission is secrecy. Nobody or almost no one should know the reason for that landing on runway 14 of the Cagliari airport which has always been dedicated to travelers on short routes, despite the odyssey of territorial continuity. When the imposing facial features of the Russian plane loaned to war traffic worldwide appear on the proscenium of Santa Gilla, it is 11.30 am on January 24th.

Desert in Elmas

For landing, the four-engine plane unknown to radar chooses one of the many time slots designated for the "desert". No planes on the horizon, as befits an airport increasingly at the mercy of state monopolies. The internal dispatch is for very few: «airplane with dimensions exceeding the assigned category is destined for stand 22 of the Cagliari Elmas airport». No hangar for "secret" operations, but a secluded area, "South Apron". Word of mouth is armored: the airport manager will completely block that space "for the loading operations of the aircraft in question". It is the first relevant confirmation that the cargo did not land in Sardinia to deliver belated Christmas gifts.

Empty hold

The hold is empty when it lands, but it is overloaded when it takes off the next day, as foreseen by that security "pizza" in the hands of the airport management alone. It will take long hours for that heavy load and the destination at that moment still unknown to most. No prying eyes to keep watch, with a full internal security mandate: to prevent anyone from approaching the prohibited area. Certainly, however, the alert is not only in the airport grounds. What is happening outside, along the entire axis involved in the operation, is once again entrusted to aeronautical layouts.

Fighter in flight

It is established, for example, that between 24 and 25 January, the Leonardo AW139 war helicopter flew for a long time over the slopes of Marganai, close to the German bomb factory located in the Iglesias-Domusnovas area. A vortex route, with dozens of laps over the entire Iglesiente area and repeated landings at the Decimomannu air force base. Even the "Alenia Aermacchi" war fighter, the "T-346A", did not go unnoticed, engaged in an unprecedented air garrison on the stretch of coast, at low altitude, between Carloforte, Portoscuso, Iglesias and Buggerru, with incursions on the front internal up to Villacidro, flying over the entire Marganai chain. Routes apparently without a reason, outside military bases, between coasts and population centers. All inexplicable, if it weren't for that potential "explosive" cargo that hadn't appeared at the "civilian" airport of Cagliari since 2015, transformed without any hassle into a "public" and "private" military enclave. To have yet another confirmation of the route and mission, we had to wait for the plane to take off. Just before 2.00 pm on January 25th, according to aeronautical and safety provisions.

Mission Red Sea

The aircraft left the island with an unknown direction: the transponder, the satellite signal, indicated a N/A code for the entire mission, destination undeclared. After having flown over Egypt, circumnavigating the Red Sea and the Gaza Strip, skirting the borders of Saudi Arabia, at 8.28pm, Italian time, the plane touched the ground of the Al Reef Base, the military airport of Abu Dhabi, directly connected to the airport hub of the United Arab Emirates capital. The same airport from which, until three years ago, the Emirs' war fighters took off and, together with the Saudi ones, hurled thousands of bombs, the deadly MKs produced in Sardinia by the German Rwm, on the poor and defenseless populations of Yemen. The Antonov's cargo is classified, but the management of the entire Sardinian operation towards the Middle East leaves little doubt.

Green light for bombs

The Italian Government, in the last Council of Ministers before the last summer holidays, at the end of July 2023, had given the green light to the resumption of war supplies from the German Domusnovas factory to two of the most warmongering countries in the hot area of the Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The reason with which the management of UAMA, the Office of the Foreign Ministry which authorizes war exports, had blocked that river of bombs towards those two countries had been put in black and white: violation of the rules on the export of armaments towards States at war.

Instruments of death

Law 185 of 1990 in fact leaves no room for doubt: it is forbidden for Italy to supply "instruments of death" to foreign armies declared at war. With record-breaking "untimeliness", the Bel Paese, on the eve of the conflict in the Middle East, apparently following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, has once again authorized the coming and going of German bombs, produced on Sardinian soil, towards a geographical area where there is a risk of an uncontrollable and unprecedented military escalation at any moment. A shameless pressure for the business and profits of the war industries has, therefore, reopened a front which, today more than ever, is putting Sardinia back at the center of an unprecedented traffic of bombs and drones.

Transversal business

The war "transversalism" of the German industry in Sardinia does not look at anyone in the face: in one fell swoop they are able to supply the deadly Mk bombs to both friends and enemies of Israel. It doesn't take much to bring the Middle Eastern situation up to date with respect to the trafficking of bombs produced in Sardinia. Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates certainly cannot be considered allies of Israel, even if they fight the Houthis in Yemen, who are in turn inspired and supported by Iran. On the other hand, the Domusnovas Rwm which enjoys a commercial and production agreement for the multiplication of deadly attack drones under license from the very powerful Israeli war industry Uvision for the production of that "intelligent" aircraft capable of aiming and devastating a target by the hundreds of kilometers away.

Sardinia, a war hub

A war escalation that is transforming, in everyone's silence, the airport of Cagliari, and therefore Sardinia, into a real further military garrison. An operation marked by a busy start to the year, with the landing in Elmas, in early January, of the three American cargo planes, the Grumman C-2A, supplied to the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the USS Gerald R. Ford , stationed in the Middle East, to the "Russian" cargo with a new "explosive" load destined for the hell of the Red Sea. Therefore, Sardinia, once again, and increasingly, despite itself, a crossroads of war and death. It's a short step from Marganai to the Abu Dhabi desert. This time by plane. There is a rush, war looms.

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