//The Wire//2300Z July 20, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CENTCOM CONFIRMS FOUR AMERICAN CASUALTIES FOLLOWING IRANIAN STRIKES IN MIDDLE EAST. ARSON ATTACK REPORTED AT FEDERAL BUILDING IN NYC.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Jordan: Over the weekend CENTCOM confirmed the deaths of three US service members, who were killed as a result of the strikes on a barracks building at Muwaffaq al Salti Airbase. Two of the casualties have been identified as 1LT Tyler James Feehan, and Private Isabella Gonzales. The third casualty officially remains classified as Missing in Action as the remains will require DNA analysis to confirm identity, and has not yet been officially identified. A fourth casualty was also reported somewhere in Iraq, which was the result of an Iranian drone strike. Middle East: Following Iranian targeting of the al-Subiya Power Station, Kuwait has begun to rely on portable substations and generators to provide electricity while repairs are made. The scale of the power outages is not known, but Iranian forces have struck several logistical hubs and electrical power plants over the past few days. In Bahrain, Iranian targeting has remained heavy over the weekend, with several ballistic missile strikes reported at American installations around the country. Strait of Hormuz: Several more merchant vessels were struck over the past few days, most of which were tankers attempting to use the southern Omani route instead of the Iranian route. At least one of these vessels resulted in the crew abandoning ship before being rescued. Iran: After these collective strikes over the weekend, American targeting efforts intensified with the latest bombing campaign focusing on the targeting of bridges and civilian roadway tunnels around Bandar Abbas. Many of the roads that lead to the port city are now cut off, with only a few major roadways allowing access to the city. Several bridges have also already been repaired, and the status of others remains unclear until better satellite imagery is available. -HomeFront- New York: This morning an arson attack was reported at the Federal building in downtown Manhattan. One assailant approached the building with a bucket of gasoline, dumping the bucket at the northeast side of the structure. The suspect immediately ignited the pool of gas, which also contained a mix of commercial grade fireworks. The suspect was immediately detained by the plethora of police already on scene, as the accelerant burned on the sidewalk. Analyst Comment: No motive has yet been conveyed regarding this attack, however some of the paraphernalia scattered throughout the scene of the attack appears to be political in nature, opposing ICE. Washington D.C. - This morning, the latest numbers for Strategic Petroleum Reserve levels were released indicating that over the past week, the US has drained the SPR by an additional 5.1 million barrels, to it's lowest level since the Tanker War in 1983. Analyst Comment: Many might have assumed that the US might have re-stocked the SPR during the two-week ceasefire in the Middle East, however very little oil actually made it out of the region during that time, which amounted to only a tiny fraction of US daily usage. Since the war began five months ago, only a very small percentage of oil has exited the region, and the US has been draining the SPR at breakneck pace in order to keep the country going. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Concerning the American casualties sustained over the weekend, it is extremely important to note that the deaths of 1LT Feehan and PVT Gonzales are officially classified under Operation INHERENT RESOLVE (OIR)...not under Operation EPIC FURY (OEFU). Inherent Resolve is the long-standing mission to combat ISIS in Syria, and not in any way linked to the current war in Iran. As a result, the true number of casualties sustained warrants further investigation. This classification could have been an administrative error, but this would also be a way of camouflaging casualty figures. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) is the main database for logging all American casualties, which are defined by military operation. In this case, these deaths are not cataloged under either operation yet, adding to the more broad (but also growing) concerns that the database has been concealing the true number of casualties, specifically the numbers of personnel wounded. In fact, while admonishing these concerns as "baseless and malicious accusations" Assistant Secretary of War Sean Parnell directly contradicted the numbers his own department was producing. He stated in an interview with CBS News that roughly 100 personnel had been wounded throughout the war over the past month....while his own database states that a grand total of zero personnel had been wounded for the month of July, and three in June. If this testimony is accurate, this confirms beyond all doubt that the Pentagon is lying about the number of troops wounded during this campaign. Considering that the Pentagon has disclosed a total of 413x soldiers wounded during this entire campaign, ~100x WIA being reported within a month (which also included a two-week ceasefire) is alarming to say the least. The cause of the fatalities reported over the weekend is also important to note as these deaths were very likely preventable. In the days leading up to the ballistic missile striking the housing at this base, the Iranians successfully struck the Patriot battery in Erbil, Iraq. This missile defense site would have been one of the sites providing protection for missiles launched into Jordan. With this battery offline or at least degraded in some way, it is possible that a clear air corridor existed that allowed Iranian ballistic missiles to fly unchallenged through a gap in air defense coverage. If the Erbil strike also damaged the radar array, it is also very possible that the warning time for an incoming ballistic missile would have been reduced, so any defenses at the target base would have been less effective. Obviously, the true scale of the damage to this air defense site would be classified, so in the public eye we have to guess as to how bad it was based on blurry satellite imagery. However the military commanders who knew the systems and did NOT have to guess, were also the same commanders who had the authority to either issue warnings or orders to disperse from the unprotected Containerized Housing Units (CHUs) that were struck by Iran. The failure of command to disperse their soldiers is what led to these fatalities. The very minute that the Patriot battery was struck in Erbil was a major clue that the Iranians were conducting shaping fires of their own...they were striking the air defense sites so as to open up a gap in air defense coverage, and reach out to American positions with their larger ballistic missiles. Though it is usually in poor taste to reflect on failures in the immediate aftermath of the death of troops, in the interest of expediency sometimes uncomfortable conversations must be had in order to prevent further loss of life. If a gap in air defense coverage is what allowed this strike to happen, it is almost certain that this gap still exists and that the danger to American service members is still not mitigated. For ALL American troops in the Middle East, this observation must be noted: If the Iranians are striking air defense sites, the next assumption must be that the Iranians are planning to strike something that would have been protected by that site. In retrospect this is common sense, but even at this very moment, the continued strikes on American positions (and the nearly total lack of fortification efforts at these bases, even to this day) continues to indicate that the Iranian targeting efforts are not being taken seriously by senior American decision makers. Five months into this war, CENTCOM leadership has still not figured out that the Iranians can strike their bases at will, and as demonstrated by the strikes in Kuwait and Jordan, the US is still not digging in, and also not dispersing enough to avoid troops getting killed. No underground fortification efforts have been undertaken at any base in the Middle East, and satellite imagery indicates that no substantial fortifications have been undertaken either. Granting as much leeway to the Pentagon's decision making process as possible, it is possible that no hardening of defenses would have mattered considering the missiles Iran is launching. Drone defense is one thing, but it would take years to build a bunker that would withstand the impact of an Iranian Fattah or Ghadr missile. Nevertheless, when it comes to defending American positions, doing something is better than doing nothing, and concrete does not take half a year to dry. Even if large-scale construction projects are off the menu, ALL military publications, textbooks, and training scenarios dictate and demand what has been obvious since World War One...Dispersion is the name of the game. This is what kept casualties to a minimum in Bahrain, but different theater commanders have different personal initiatives. Some are more proactive with their defense, and others have done nothing at all, besides making sure that all of the vehicles in the motorpool are lined up neatly. Where this goes from here is anyone's guess, but unless radical and immediate changes are made, the United States will continue to suffer casualties. And as long as the bombing continues which is motivating Iran to target our bases, this indirectly highlights the deficiencies with American air defense technologies, not just for this war, but for the wars to come. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 20, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CENTCOM CONFIRMS FOUR AMERICAN CASUALTIES FOLLOWING IRANIAN STRIKES IN MIDDLE EAST. ARSON ATTACK REPORTED AT FEDERAL BUILDING IN NYC.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Jordan: Over the weekend CENTCOM confirmed the deaths of three US service members, who were killed as a result of the strikes on a barracks building at Muwaffaq al Salti Airbase. Two of the casualties have been identified as 1LT Tyler James Feehan, and Private Isabella Gonzales. The third casualty officially remains classified as Missing in Action as the remains will require DNA analysis to confirm identity, and has not yet been officially identified. A fourth casualty was also reported somewhere in Iraq, which was the result of an Iranian drone strike. Middle East: Following Iranian targeting of the al-Subiya Power Station, Kuwait has begun to rely on portable substations and generators to provide electricity while repairs are made. The scale of the power outages is not known, but Iranian forces have struck several logistical hubs and electrical power plants over the past few days. In Bahrain, Iranian targeting has remained heavy over the weekend, with several ballistic missile strikes reported at American installations around the country. Strait of Hormuz: Several more merchant vessels were struck over the past few days, most of which were tankers attempting to use the southern Omani route instead of the Iranian route. At least one of these vessels resulted in the crew abandoning ship before being rescued. Iran: After these collective strikes over the weekend, American targeting efforts intensified with the latest bombing campaign focusing on the targeting of bridges and civilian roadway tunnels around Bandar Abbas. Many of the roads that lead to the port city are now cut off, with only a few major roadways allowing access to the city. Several bridges have also already been repaired, and the status of others remains unclear until better satellite imagery is available. -HomeFront- New York: This morning an arson attack was reported at the Federal building in downtown Manhattan. One assailant approached the building with a bucket of gasoline, dumping the bucket at the northeast side of the structure. The suspect immediately ignited the pool of gas, which also contained a mix of commercial grade fireworks. The suspect was immediately detained by the plethora of police already on scene, as the accelerant burned on the sidewalk. Analyst Comment: No motive has yet been conveyed regarding this attack, however some of the paraphernalia scattered throughout the scene of the attack appears to be political in nature, opposing ICE. Washington D.C. - This morning, the latest numbers for Strategic Petroleum Reserve levels were released indicating that over the past week, the US has drained the SPR by an additional 5.1 million barrels, to it's lowest level since the Tanker War in 1983. Analyst Comment: Many might have assumed that the US might have re-stocked the SPR during the two-week ceasefire in the Middle East, however very little oil actually made it out of the region during that time, which amounted to only a tiny fraction of US daily usage. Since the war began five months ago, only a very small percentage of oil has exited the region, and the US has been draining the SPR at breakneck pace in order to keep the country going. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Concerning the American casualties sustained over the weekend, it is extremely important to note that the deaths of 1LT Feehan and PVT Gonzales are officially classified under Operation INHERENT RESOLVE (OIR)...not under Operation EPIC FURY (OEFU). Inherent Resolve is the long-standing mission to combat ISIS in Syria, and not in any way linked to the current war in Iran. As a result, the true number of casualties sustained warrants further investigation. This classification could have been an administrative error, but this would also be a way of camouflaging casualty figures. The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) is the main database for logging all American casualties, which are defined by military operation. In this case, these deaths are not cataloged under either operation yet, adding to the more broad (but also growing) concerns that the database has been concealing the true number of casualties, specifically the numbers of personnel wounded. In fact, while admonishing these concerns as "baseless and malicious accusations" Assistant Secretary of War Sean Parnell directly contradicted the numbers his own department was producing. He stated in an interview with CBS News that roughly 100 personnel had been wounded throughout the war over the past month....while his own database states that a grand total of zero personnel had been wounded for the month of July, and three in June. If this testimony is accurate, this confirms beyond all doubt that the Pentagon is lying about the number of troops wounded during this campaign. Considering that the Pentagon has disclosed a total of 413x soldiers wounded during this entire campaign, ~100x WIA being reported within a month (which also included a two-week ceasefire) is alarming to say the least. The cause of the fatalities reported over the weekend is also important to note as these deaths were very likely preventable. In the days leading up to the ballistic missile striking the housing at this base, the Iranians successfully struck the Patriot battery in Erbil, Iraq. This missile defense site would have been one of the sites providing protection for missiles launched into Jordan. With this battery offline or at least degraded in some way, it is possible that a clear air corridor existed that allowed Iranian ballistic missiles to fly unchallenged through a gap in air defense coverage. If the Erbil strike also damaged the radar array, it is also very possible that the warning time for an incoming ballistic missile would have been reduced, so any defenses at the target base would have been less effective. Obviously, the true scale of the damage to this air defense site would be classified, so in the public eye we have to guess as to how bad it was based on blurry satellite imagery. However the military commanders who knew the systems and did NOT have to guess, were also the same commanders who had the authority to either issue warnings or orders to disperse from the unprotected Containerized Housing Units (CHUs) that were struck by Iran. The failure of command to disperse their soldiers is what led to these fatalities. The very minute that the Patriot battery was struck in Erbil was a major clue that the Iranians were conducting shaping fires of their own...they were striking the air defense sites so as to open up a gap in air defense coverage, and reach out to American positions with their larger ballistic missiles. Though it is usually in poor taste to reflect on failures in the immediate aftermath of the death of troops, in the interest of expediency sometimes uncomfortable conversations must be had in order to prevent further loss of life. If a gap in air defense coverage is what allowed this strike to happen, it is almost certain that this gap still exists and that the danger to American service members is still not mitigated. For ALL American troops in the Middle East, this observation must be noted: If the Iranians are striking air defense sites, the next assumption must be that the Iranians are planning to strike something that would have been protected by that site. In retrospect this is common sense, but even at this very moment, the continued strikes on American positions (and the nearly total lack of fortification efforts at these bases, even to this day) continues to indicate that the Iranian targeting efforts are not being taken seriously by senior American decision makers. Five months into this war, CENTCOM leadership has still not figured out that the Iranians can strike their bases at will, and as demonstrated by the strikes in Kuwait and Jordan, the US is still not digging in, and also not dispersing enough to avoid troops getting killed. No underground fortification efforts have been undertaken at any base in the Middle East, and satellite imagery indicates that no substantial fortifications have been undertaken either. Granting as much leeway to the Pentagon's decision making process as possible, it is possible that no hardening of defenses would have mattered considering the missiles Iran is launching. Drone defense is one thing, but it would take years to build a bunker that would withstand the impact of an Iranian Fattah or Ghadr missile. Nevertheless, when it comes to defending American positions, doing something is better than doing nothing, and concrete does not take half a year to dry. Even if large-scale construction projects are off the menu, ALL military publications, textbooks, and training scenarios dictate and demand what has been obvious since World War One...Dispersion is the name of the game. This is what kept casualties to a minimum in Bahrain, but different theater commanders have different personal initiatives. Some are more proactive with their defense, and others have done nothing at all, besides making sure that all of the vehicles in the motorpool are lined up neatly. Where this goes from here is anyone's guess, but unless radical and immediate changes are made, the United States will continue to suffer casualties. And as long as the bombing continues which is motivating Iran to target our bases, this indirectly highlights the deficiencies with American air defense technologies, not just for this war, but for the wars to come. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z December 5, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: POTENTIAL TERROR PLOT HALTED IN DELAWARE AS INFORMATION WARFARE CAMPAIGN COMPLICATES THE CASE. WHITE HOUSE RELEASES NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY FOR 2025.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Asia: President Macron continues his state visit to China, as part of France's growing desire to strengthen economic ties with Beijing. No major policy changes have been announced yet, however Macron is trying to smooth over the impact of EU tariffs on Chinese vehicles (which were implemented last year), in addition to securing other trade deals. Analyst Comment: So far, nothing major has been agreed upon, but France has indirectly reiterated support for the "One China" policy, namely the Chinese position that Taiwan should be under the control of the mainland. This is not surprising, but when it comes to security in the region it's becoming more clear that France (a big power-player within the EU) won't intervene in the event hostilities kick off with Taiwan. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - Last night, the White House released the National Security Strategy for 2025. This is a standard document published every year which highlights the priorities for the United States in the international arena. Analyst Comment: Normally, this document is fairly boring and uneventful, but this year's document signaled some pretty significant shifts in policy interests. This year, the top priority is immigration, as one might expect. Other high priorities are countering hostile influence, rebuilding infrastructure, as well as domestic manufacturing. A sharp increase in military might was also heavily mentioned in the form of general military technologies, but also missile defense. In terms of focus on specific regions, the US is now less focused on security in Europe, shifting priorities to dominating our own American hemisphere. The Far East also a priority as the document specifically mentioned a strengthening of the First Island Chain defense strategy. The section on Europe largely revolved around how Europe can help itself, and the very short section on the Middle East more or less stated that the region is not really a concern anymore. Of course, all of this is quite subjective and thus will be debated for some time. However the more boring document releases like this one often provide the gameplan for where senior politicians are allocating resources. Delaware: Yesterday more details came to light regarding a potential mass shooting plot at the University of Delaware. A few days ago, a man was arrested after a routine traffic stop revealed his attack plot. The incident deteriorated once the officer discovered that the driver was Luqmaan Khan, an immigrant from either Afghanistan or Pakistan who came to the US when he was a child. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comment: Regarding the incident in Delaware, what happened on the night of the original arrest is not clear, and it's not known what caused the initial encounter. Either way, at some point Khan was approached by police in his vehicle and became uncooperative, at which point he was subsequently taken in to the station for further investigation. From there, his attack plan came to light. A notebook was found with sector sketches of the University of Delaware police station floor plan, as well as other attack planning details indicating that he was moving into the final stages of preparation before an attack. A search of Khan's vehicle on the night of the initial incident allegedly revealed a Glock with a pistol brace, and a search of his home discovered a Glock 19 with a switch and an AR-style rifle. The contents of the notebook were provided today, which helps round out the story. This bit of evidence is the most important to figure out what was going on here, and it's quite helpful when terrorists write down their attack plans in excruciating detail, leaving a massive paper trail of evidence for investigators to find. However any time a terror attack is halted right before it begins, and the circumstances are not clear as to how or why the initial suspect got detained, there's probably more to the story than meets the eye. As such, once the full indictment comes out we'll have to see what this case was really about. It wouldn't be surprising in the slightest for a would-be terrorist to be bagged by a random traffic stop, which is an unfortunate sentiment that points to the saturation rate of just how many potential terrorists there are throughout society. One detail that is important to consider is that police allegedly found references to the name of one officer who worked for the UD Police Department in the notebook found during the vehicle search. This provides a clue which might indicate a personal grievance was the motive for this incident. This is supported by the comparatively small cache of weapons found at the suspects residence; it wouldn't be enough for a mass shooting spree, but a few mags would be adequate to carry out a murder of one specific employee that the student had a personal grievance with. Regarding the origin of Khan, it's not entirely clear which nation he is from, and there is significant propaganda efforts to obscure the truth on that front. Initially, most media sources claimed he was from Afghanistan, having immigrated to the United States as a child. However, this story came under fire after pro-Pakistan social media accounts started circulating a fake Afghan Citizen Card with his name and photo, which is quite obviously fake. One can go down the rabbit hole of forensic analysis on imagery such as this, however it's also easy to identify as fake because it's very unlikely that Afghanistan would be using a Delaware Driver's License photo on their identification documents. The photo of Khan came directly from the New Castle County Police Department Facebook page, so the Afghan ID card circulating online can be easily dismissed as a fake. It's also easy to find the original ID card that was used to produce this fake, because when the term "Afghan Citizen Card" is put into Google, the original photo is right at the top of the search results. Despite this lazy propaganda effort, this fake image of the suspect's ID card circulated so widely that even mainstream media sources referenced the suspect as an Afghan citizen. By this evening, most groups have retracted initial claims about the suspect's citizenship, simply because no one really knows for sure where he's from. There are some claims that Khan is actually Pakistani, or might have been ethnically Pashtun, but physically born in a refugee camp inside Pakistan. In the Third World, it's often hard to determine exactly where a person is from, and this might be one of those cases. It's also equally possible that the suspect is actually Afghan, but the Pakistani propaganda farms picked this one up just naturally, even before they knew who he was themselves. Officially, no authority figure in the United States has yet confirmed where he's from in the court documents provided to the public. This is a basic detail of the case, so it will come to light eventually, but it's still quite interesting to observe the international information warfare being waged after a random guy gets arrested with a Glock switch in Delaware. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 15, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: STRIKES CONTINUE TO ESCALATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AS WAR REMAINS HOT. PARASITIC INFECTION CONTINUES TO SPREAD IN USA. POLICE OFFICERS AROUND THE NATION INVESTIGATED FOR ILLEGALLY SPYING ON AMERICANS.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: Mutual targeting continued overnight throughout the region, with Iranian forces striking many American-aligned military bases in several Gulf states. Isa Air Base in Qatar was hit hard overnight, and several storage warehouses were hit in Kuwait. Iran claims to have also struck the parking apron at Muwaffaq Al-Salti Air Base in Jordan, targeting the fighter aircraft which have been staged at the base for weeks. On the American side, the US has conducted several waves of attacks, with constant bombings continuing in many major port facilities. The ports of Bandar Abbas, Jask, and Chabarhar have been targeted regularly for several days, in addition to the Gulf Islands which have served as communications nodes for ships transiting the Strait. Throughout the morning, the Strait remained somewhat navigable via the Iranian route. Several ships were observed making the crossing using only the northern Iranian traffic scheme. After the targeting of several merchant vessels over the past few days in the southern route, no ship has taken the Omani route, all ships are diverting north. Analyst Comment: In terms of how much oil is getting out, it's not much. No American tankers were observed transiting overnight via either route, and the severity of the oil crisis remains a major concern for impacts to the homeland. This afternoon CENTCOM struck a merchant vessel themselves, highlighting that the American blockade of the Strait is still in effect. -HomeFront- USA: Around the nation, an outbreak of Cyclosporiasis has continued to sweep through the country, with roughly 7,000 cases of parasitic infection being reported. Most of the cases are clustered in Michigan, but the food-borne illness has been reported in many other states. Health authorities are working to narrow down the point of origin for the parasite, which appears to be linked to contaminated lettuce or unclean food preparation practices at fast food chains. Georgia: This morning, five police officers with the Albany Police Department were fired after an internal investigation revealed that they were using their access to the Flock camera/sensor database to stalk and illegally surveil citizens. South Carolina: This morning, two police officers in the city of Greer were fired after an internal investigation revealed that they were using their access to the Flock camera/sensor database to stalk and illegally surveil citizens. Texas: Yesterday, one police officer with the Pasadena Police Department resigned after an investigation was launched into his misuse of the Flock camera/sensor network. Sgt. Michael Palitz is currently under investigation for allegedly using the intelligence network to stalk a female police officer. No further details on this incident have been provided as the investigation is still ongoing. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Though it is purely anecdotal at the moment, locals on the ground in many Middle Eastern countries are reporting that this time, the fighting is different as fewer successful interceptions are being reported. As always, if interceptions of drones and missiles are successful, these munitions are usually destroyed out over the waters of the Gulf, out of view of the civilian populace. However, a lot of people have been rather dismayed that the fighting has resumed, and from their perspective it looks like their country is not intercepting anything because they are out of interceptor missiles. The stockpiles of interceptors running low for Gulf states has been a common theory for a while, after the war drew to a lull two months ago. After the ceasefire went into effect, it was generally assumed that the United States would sell more interceptor missiles to the Gulf countries (in addition to resupplying our own missile defense sites), but now that the fighting has resumed and locals are observing slow-flying drones very clearly not being intercepted in many cases, the concerns of missile stockpiles have come to the front page once again. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z July 15, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: STRIKES CONTINUE TO ESCALATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AS WAR REMAINS HOT. PARASITIC INFECTION CONTINUES TO SPREAD IN USA. POLICE OFFICERS AROUND THE NATION INVESTIGATED FOR ILLEGALLY SPYING ON AMERICANS.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: Mutual targeting continued overnight throughout the region, with Iranian forces striking many American-aligned military bases in several Gulf states. Isa Air Base in Qatar was hit hard overnight, and several storage warehouses were hit in Kuwait. Iran claims to have also struck the parking apron at Muwaffaq Al-Salti Air Base in Jordan, targeting the fighter aircraft which have been staged at the base for weeks. On the American side, the US has conducted several waves of attacks, with constant bombings continuing in many major port facilities. The ports of Bandar Abbas, Jask, and Chabarhar have been targeted regularly for several days, in addition to the Gulf Islands which have served as communications nodes for ships transiting the Strait. Throughout the morning, the Strait remained somewhat navigable via the Iranian route. Several ships were observed making the crossing using only the northern Iranian traffic scheme. After the targeting of several merchant vessels over the past few days in the southern route, no ship has taken the Omani route, all ships are diverting north. Analyst Comment: In terms of how much oil is getting out, it's not much. No American tankers were observed transiting overnight via either route, and the severity of the oil crisis remains a major concern for impacts to the homeland. This afternoon CENTCOM struck a merchant vessel themselves, highlighting that the American blockade of the Strait is still in effect. -HomeFront- USA: Around the nation, an outbreak of Cyclosporiasis has continued to sweep through the country, with roughly 7,000 cases of parasitic infection being reported. Most of the cases are clustered in Michigan, but the food-borne illness has been reported in many other states. Health authorities are working to narrow down the point of origin for the parasite, which appears to be linked to contaminated lettuce or unclean food preparation practices at fast food chains. Georgia: This morning, five police officers with the Albany Police Department were fired after an internal investigation revealed that they were using their access to the Flock camera/sensor database to stalk and illegally surveil citizens. South Carolina: This morning, two police officers in the city of Greer were fired after an internal investigation revealed that they were using their access to the Flock camera/sensor database to stalk and illegally surveil citizens. Texas: Yesterday, one police officer with the Pasadena Police Department resigned after an investigation was launched into his misuse of the Flock camera/sensor network. Sgt. Michael Palitz is currently under investigation for allegedly using the intelligence network to stalk a female police officer. No further details on this incident have been provided as the investigation is still ongoing. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Though it is purely anecdotal at the moment, locals on the ground in many Middle Eastern countries are reporting that this time, the fighting is different as fewer successful interceptions are being reported. As always, if interceptions of drones and missiles are successful, these munitions are usually destroyed out over the waters of the Gulf, out of view of the civilian populace. However, a lot of people have been rather dismayed that the fighting has resumed, and from their perspective it looks like their country is not intercepting anything because they are out of interceptor missiles. The stockpiles of interceptors running low for Gulf states has been a common theory for a while, after the war drew to a lull two months ago. After the ceasefire went into effect, it was generally assumed that the United States would sell more interceptor missiles to the Gulf countries (in addition to resupplying our own missile defense sites), but now that the fighting has resumed and locals are observing slow-flying drones very clearly not being intercepted in many cases, the concerns of missile stockpiles have come to the front page once again. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z April 17, 2025// //PRIORITY// //BLUF: MASS SHOOTING ATTACK AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, MULTIPLE CASUALTIES REPORTED. PLANE HIJACKED IN BELIZE, HIJACKER SHOT DEAD BY PASSENGER. DNI DECLASSIFIES DOCUMENT OUTLINING DOMESTIC DISARMAMENT INITIATIVES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Belize: A man with a knife attempted to hijack a small Tropicair flight (registration: V3-HIG) this morning. During the regional flight, authorities state that American passenger Akinyela Sawa Taylor produced a knife and attempted to seize control of the aircraft. The hijacker's demands included transit out of the country, and enough fuel to do so. In the ensuing fray, multiple passengers were stabbed, with at least one passenger receiving severe lacerations. After some time, the pilots were able to barricade themselves in the cockpit to conduct an emergency landing at Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport. After the aircraft came to a halt on the runway, a brief hostage situation ensued before Taylor was shot dead by another passenger onboard the aircraft who had a firearm. AC: While it may seem odd for a passenger to have a gun on a plane, this was a local charter flight and the passenger who shot the hijacker was properly licensed as per the local police commissioner. Additionally, local authorities state that the hijacker was illegally in the country, and had been denied entry just a few days prior.    -HomeFront- Florida: An active shooter was reported at Florida State University this afternoon. Initial reports indicate that two separate gunmen conducted a complex small arms (SMARMS) attack at the FSU Student Union. As of this report, 2x victims are deceased, and 4x others are wounded. Reports have varied throughout the day, however many locals suggest that one of the shooters was neutralized at the scene by police, and the second shooter was taken into custody. One of the shooters has been identified as Phoenix Eichner, the son of a local Sheriff's Deputy who used his parent's service weapons in the attack. AC: This incident could meet the technical criteria for a Complex Coordinated Attack (CCA). For the past several days the Tallahassee Police Department has been warning locals of a training exercise that would involve loud explosions and sounds of gunfire. This exercise was scheduled for the exact time the shooting occurred. If this timing was deliberately chosen, this indicates more deliberate planning efforts on the part of the shooters, who likely sought to use the confusion of a training exercise to increase the effectiveness of their attack. Since one of the shooters has been identified as the son of a Sheriff's Deputy, he would probably have had even more knowledge of this drill taking place. Choosing to conduct an attack during a training exercise would have increased confusion on the part of first responders, maybe even delayed a response time, and would have reduced the number of people calling 911, since most people would have thought that gunshots would be related to the drill, and not a legitimate terror attack. Additionally, some of the videos and photos of the aftermath that are circulating social media right now are exceptionally anger-inducing for reasons that would not be wise to comment on at the moment. Virginia: Throughout the defense community, several personnel shakeups have taken place at the Pentagon over the past few days. So far, the list of personnel placed on suspension is as follows: 1. Colin Carroll, Chief of Staff for the Deputy Secretary of Defense 2. Dan Caldwell, Senior Advisor to the SECDEF 3. Darin Selnick, Deputy Chief of Staff All three have been placed on administrative leave following developments in investigations pertaining to various leaks of defense policy. AC: At the moment, it's not really clear as to what is going on. These firings could be due to legitimate security leak reasons, or it could be for other reasons. So far, no high ranking official has commented on these suspensions, so the official story itself is hard to determine for now. Texas: The situation regarding the Anthony trial continues to deteriorate. This afternoon, the family of the self-confessed killer held a public press conference whereby the team of attorneys chastised the father of the victim for being there, and called the police to remove him from the public venue. AC: While it is again unfortunate to analyze situations like this, the atmospherics regarding this case are approaching a tipping point. The efforts to stoke as much hatred as possible are probably a good indicator of how the trial might go, and thus also indicative of the likelihood of civil unrest. Though this is completely speculative, one theory (that is at least possible to discuss in public forum) that carries some weight involves this spectacle being a key part of the defense itself. By allowing the family of the self-confessed killer to conduct outlandish activities while being in front of a camera as much as possible (knowing full well that this will reduce civil discourse to pre-1850's levels) the defense counsel effectively taints the jury pool, so that an acquittal is overwhelmingly likely in what normally would be one of the most open-and-shut cases of recent memory. All it takes is one juror sympathetic to the killer's racially-based defense, and the trial is over. Washington D.C. - Last night, the Director of National Intelligence declassified a major initiative of the Biden White House to classify gun control efforts. The document, titled "Strategic Implementation Plan For Countering Domestic Terrorism" outlines the plans undertaken by the federal government to expand the scope of what is considered to be "Domestic Terrorism", to include highly controversial initiatives. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Unlike the previous disclosures-that-never-were, this declassification of prior plans to target gun ownership is indeed an important disclosure that provided indisputable evidence that federal agencies are simply classifying ideas that they disagreed with, as terrorism. Since this document was classified and not available to the public, the American people had no avenue to challenge these illegal policies in court. As such, it is STRONGLY advised to read this primary-source document for yourself. While many people will focus on the gun control angle, nearly every aspect of existence was flagged and tagged as being an indicator for terrorism. Photographs that a person may like, phrases in common use, travel habits, the banking institutions you use...all of this is not just being targeted for surveillance, but unilaterally being classified as being supportive of domestic terrorism. Granted, in a larger sense all of this is not entirely new, the Patriot Act alone helped lay the groundwork for the more in-the-weeds efforts to crackdown on the American population. This document is merely a smoking-gun from recent memory that confirms this activity was not only authorized, but being undertaken on an industrial scale. And, since this document was classified, this concealment unilaterally marked a substantial number of American citizens as terrorists, who had no means of disputing this categorization. However, important as this document may be, it is very likely that the pages that have been released are not the full document. There is no properly-formatted coversheet (just a title page), no introductory letter by the producing agency, nor any reference to who actually wrote this document or which agency it was for. Of course, this could simply be a series of errors, but this is very much at odds with the standard handling procedures for classified information. What's more likely is that this document was part of a larger publication and/or memo that was circulated as part of a larger project, and the more damning pages were declassified by the DNI, but not the entire parent document. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z April 3, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: PERSONNEL SHAKEUPS CONTINUE AT PENTAGON. AMERICAN AIRCRAFT SHOT DOWN DEEP BEHIND ENEMY LINES IN IRAN, SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS ONGOING. ANOTHER AMERICAN AIRCRAFT DOWNED IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ, PILOT RECOVERED.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: The war continues to grow in scope and severity every day. Last night Iranian forces conducted multiple strikes throughout the region, with the most significant strikes targeting the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery in Kuwait. The UAE also experienced a surge of attacks throughout the day, with a total of 47x drones and 22x missiles being engaged by Emirati air defenses. Iran: This morning a shootdown incident was reported within Khuzestan Province, after an American F-15 was successfully engaged by Iranian air defense systems. Photos of the crash site and one ACES II ejection seat recovered from the scene circulated on social media throughout the day, along with videos of American Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) teams maneuvering into the area to secure the downed pilots. As of this evening, the status of the pilot and weapons officer is not confirmed, and two HH-60W helicopters were damaged by effective ground fire during the rescue operation earlier this morning. Separately, another aircraft was reportedly shot down near the Strait of Hormuz, with locals reporting shooting down an American A-10 this afternoon. Fewer details are present regarding this incident, however mainstream media is reporting that the pilot of this aircraft was recovered successfully. In addition to the two shootdowns, two other aircraft were observed squawking emergencies on their transponders throughout the region. An F-16 along the Iraqi border and a KC-135 departing Tel Aviv both had their transponders switched to 7700 (the universal emergency mode) earlier today, though there aren't any indicators of what caused either emergency. Analyst Comment: Officially, neither shootdown within Iran has not been acknowledged yet, which is expected as rescue operations are ongoing. CENTCOM has stated that all American aircraft are accounted for, which does not address the issue as technically an aircraft that was shot down is indeed "accounted for". Strait of Hormuz: Maritime traffic is beginning to increase for non-Western-aligned vessels, which have been transiting the strait regularly through the Larak tollbooth arrangement. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - The mass firings at the Pentagon have continued, as several more military commanders were fired last night. So far, the full list of military commanders fired over the past 24 hours is as follows: General Randy George - Chief of Staff of the United States Army General David Hodne - Commanding General, U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command (TRADOC) Major General William Green Jr. - Chief of Chaplains of the United States Army -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Concerning the sweeping changes throughout the upper echelons of military leadership within the United States, differing theories are emerging regarding what is going on, all of which carry some weight. At a minimum, it would be very telling for any nation to replace high-level military leaders during a time of war. Among the services themselves, firing military leadership for a variety of reasons is fairly common, so it's not surprising that President Trump fired his Chief of the Army. It is purely the timing of all of this that is interesting. As a result of these rather interesting firings, many have been quick to attribute some sort of motive or scandal to such personnel shifts, which cannot be confirmed at this time. We don't know, what we don't know, but this many personnel shifts at the height of the most high-stakes war the US has fought in 20 years can't be ignored. We cannot know what took place behind closed doors, but we can glean some information from the replacements. General George, for example, is currently being replaced by former Vice Chief of Staff General Chris LaNeve for the time being. General LaNeve is the expeditionary solution for the Army, having most recently (and most notably) lead the 82nd Airborne Division, which he served in multiple times throughout his career before eventually commanding the unit back in 2023. Considering the daily escalations of events in CENTCOM and the forward deployment of the 82nd Airborne right now, it is very likely that these personnel shifts are related to the operational vision that is desired as the war continues. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z June 30, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: FIREFIGHTERS TARGETED IN IDAHO AMBUSH, MULTIPLE FATALITIES REPORTED. TARGETING CONTINUES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: The situation remains tenuous throughout the region as another drone attack strikes Tehran. This afternoon, locals reported witnessing a kamikaze drone attack taking place in Tehran, which is being claimed to have targeted a senior IRGC official. Analyst Comment: As this is a developing situation, very few details are confirmed. However, yesterday anti-aircraft batteries throughout the city were observed engaging targets, which would add more validity to the claims of small drones being used to target senior defense officials. Reports from last night also suggest that Iranian leadership is continuing to crack down on spies and insurgents carrying out attacks within Tehran, which is continuing to be a problem despite the ceasefire. -HomeFront- Idaho: Yesterday afternoon a small arms engagement was reported on Canfield Mountain just east of Cour d'Alene. At approximately 1330L, firefighters responded to a call of a brush fire on Canfield Mountain, in the vicinity of Nettleton Gulch Road. Upon arrival on scene, firefighters unknowingly maneuvered into the kill zone of a deliberately laid ambush, with the fire being started to lure authorities in to the location. In the initial ambush, 2x firefighters were KIA, and several others were wounded. After some time, local authorities stated that the body of a male individual (presumed to be the shooter) was recovered from the scene, along with a firearm. This morning, the shooter was identified as Wess Roley. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Regarding the verbiage used to describe the situation in Idaho, additional context would be helpful to discern the threat. The term "ambush" is technically correct in describing the shooting, however this term is also likely to imply that a classic L-shaped ambush was laid by a professional military force. In this case, this is not what happened at all. The shooter briefly spoke to firefighters who were arriving on scene, before climbing a tree and engaging them with a shotgun from close range. Considering that many people around the nation are currently concerned with various threats of terrorism, it is important to understand that while horrific, this incident does not bear the hallmarks of a more professional and sophisticated terror attack. Incidents like this often highlight additional concerns that would be wise to consider. For instance, even before the shooter's identity was even known, many "journalists" were pushing a narrative for political purposes even as the incident was ongoing. Even now, a full day after the attack (and knowing the shooter's identity), many news organizations have not issued corrections to their articles that attempted to paint this situation as some sort of crazed militia activity related to White Supremacy groups (or the general idea of such). This horrific attack was the result of one individual who's success relied not upon military planning tactics, but on the fire department (understandably) not expecting to roll up to a fire and find someone shooting at them from a tree. However, regardless of the rhetoric that is already being spread, it is extremely crucial to remember that in the heat of the moment, the underlying politics and ideology are less important than the situation at hand; political discussions are best served after the situation is resolved, not while bullets are still whizzing by overhead. It is also easy to forget that, regardless of the suspicious nature of attacks like this, at the end of the day real people are dead. This will be important to remember as multiple sides will seek to spin this event to suit their narratives. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2000Z March 3, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: DRONE AND MISSILE ATTACKS CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE PERSIAN GULF. SAUDI FORCES DEPLOY TO QUELL RIOTS IN BAHRAIN. MAJOR OIL FACILITIES SHUT DOWN THROUGHOUT MIDDLE EAST DUE TO STRIKES. ISRAEL LAUNCHES GROUND INVASION OF LEBANON.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: The Gulf War continues as Iranian forces begin shifting to strategic targets. Most of the drone/missile attacks overnight targeted oil production facilities, such as the Fujairah Industrial Zone in the UAE, which has been taken offline. Otherwise, the attacks on American installations continue, with the American Embassy in Riyadh being hit multiple times by drones overnight. Bahrain: Significant riots have broken out around the country, as the majority-Shia population begins expressing dissent with the Sunni government, and more specifically the American presence within the nation. Saudi Forces crossed the bridge this morning with anti-riot forces to help quell the more kinetic protests, which have become intense over the past 24 hours. Analyst Comment: Politics in Bahrain were complicated before the war, as the population is mostly Shia (and aligned with the Ayatollah), but the country is ruled by a Kingdom that is Sunni. Even before the shooting started the situation was tenuous at best, and the assassination of the Ayatollah might have been the spark needed to kick off a civil conflict within the island nation. This is a complicating factor for the United States, as Bahrain has long served as a major Center of Gravity for American combat power in the region. Now that some locals are getting rowdy (and are also aligned with Iran), this will make things more difficult. Lebanon: This morning Israeli forces launched a ground invasion in the south, opening up another front so as to seize terrain along the border. Lebanese Army forces have withdrawn from the border as Israeli units advance. Analyst Comment: It is not clear as to if this is a legitimate, full-scale ground invasion, or limited border incursions that Israel is known to do throughout southern Lebanon. So far, Israeli forces haven't crossed their limit of advance set during the height of the conflict two years ago. United Kingdom: A stabbing attack was reported in Edinburgh, which resulted in a standoff lasting several hours yesterday afternoon. One unidentified assailant began stabbing people an apartment building, which resulted in two people being wounded. After the attack, the suspect fled into the apartment building, which resulted in a standoff situation that lasted seven hours. Eventually, police were able to breach the building and detain the suspect. Separately, in Birmingham a different stabbing attack was captured on film this morning, which involved an assailant stabbing a man on the street outside a Catholic school in Alum Rock. This attacker was arrested at the scene, and very few details remain public regarding his identity. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Yesterday afternoon the US State Department published the list of nations that Americans should evacuate from, which includes the entire Middle East. The "depart now" order has been issued for the nations of: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, and Yemen. However, the US State Department has stated that Americans are on their own regarding evacuations. Even though the start of this combat operation was easily predicted down to the exact day (and nearly the exact hour) that it began, the United States somehow believes that they needed to maintain the element of surprise. The State Department believed that if they made attempts to evacuate the Middle East before the attack, the world would know that the war was imminent. This is also why many American bases appear to not be fortified as much as they could have been. In many cases, the Pentagon appears to not understand that their operation was very observable to the public, and their attempts to maintain the secrecy that they thought they had, resulted in little preparation in some areas. False sense of operational security aside, what this means at the moment is logistical challenges because everyone is having to sit tight for the moment until the war calms down enough to make evacuation flights reliable. A handful of flights have been able to make it in and out of Dubai, despite heavy GPS jamming efforts in the region. The governments of Britain and Poland are tentatively looking to start militarily-organized evacuation flights throughout the region over the next few days, however details are not yet solidified regarding these efforts. Italy has already conducted the military evacuation of some of their citizens from the region, who arrived back in Italy this morning. So far, the official policy of the US State Department is that US Citizens are on their own, and not a single evacuation flight of Americans has yet taken place to evacuate American citizens from the region. Right now, it might not seem like much, but time is in fact running out. Every single western-aligned Arab nation in the region is running out of interceptor missiles, with some nations reporting that they have burned through many years worth of their supply in just the past two days. Just this morning alone, the UAE blew through 172 interceptor missiles to take out 172 Iranian munitions that would have otherwise impacted targets inside their country. While it is unconfirmed hearsay at the moment, the rumor throughout the region is that the US has declined to restock these supplies, as most stockpiles of interceptor missiles have been allocated for Israel. As a result, this war is now a marathon to see who has more missiles, the Iranians or the other Persian Gulf states. At the moment, hundreds of drones and missiles are being intercepted out over the Gulf every day...the viral videos of drones slamming into targets on land are merely the munitions that have made it through missile defenses, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the true number of drones and missiles that are being launched. This has lead many to the false assumption that this war will fade away within a few days, because they can't visually see the interceptions that are taking place out over the water. However, it's now Day Four of this conflict, and the drone attacks have remained constant. When/if missile interceptors dwindle, these munitions will have nothing stopping them from reaching their targets. Last night, President Trump stated that American stockpiles of munitions are at adequate levels, and that "Wars can be fought 'forever'" at current stockpile levels of medium-grade munitions. Despite the rather unfortunate choice of vocabulary in this post, the cold hard truth is that the US has not been supplying the Arab nations that are now getting hit, with the munitions necessary for their defense, or more importantly, the defense of American assets (and citizens) in the region. This will complicate the self-evacuation of Americans over the next few weeks, in addition to sharply increasing the potential for more widespread drone strikes over the next few days. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z November 12, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: FORD CARRIER STRIKE GROUP ARRIVES IN CARIBBEAN. APPLE ROLLS OUT DIGITAL ID. JOBS REPORT FOR OCTOBER NOT PUBLISHED DUE TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Caribbean: Overnight the USS GERALD FORD (CVN-78) arrived in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility, and is expected to be in position to carry out operations in theatre within a couple of days. Analyst Comment: Venezuela continues wartime preparations, same as before, with various internal militia and homeland defensive efforts being publicized over the past few weeks. Most of these efforts appear to mostly be just for show, but preparations continue all around nonetheless. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - This afternoon the White House stated that a handful of financial reports for the month of October might not be released due to the government shutdown. Press Secretary Leavitt stated that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report and various other jobs reports might not ever be released for last month, due to federal employees not being on the job to gather the data at the time in which it was most valuable (the data needed to make the jobs reports accurate must be gathered in real time throughout the month, and not in retrospect). Analyst Comment: At a time where the White House is facing increased scrutiny, this isn't a great omen since this is extremely important financial data to consider on the general state of the economy. Economic indicators are also a data point to consider even in the world of national defense, to set conditions and expectations on the homefront before a military campaign, for instance. Now, right at the crux of major economic concerns, the data simply isn't available because federal workers stopped doing their jobs during the shutdown. The data probably does exist, but by the time it's compiled and released it will be stale, and we'll be on to the next crisis. USA: This morning Apple announced the release of a Digital ID product, intended to digitize identification documents such as American passport data. The plan involves partnering with the Transportation Security Administration to integrate Digital ID efforts into air travel around the United States. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Apple's efforts are not to create a universal new identification scheme, but rather to digitize identity documents that already exist. TSA in particular has already had their own varying levels of subscription-based identity-check procedures for a while now, so in the grand scheme of things this has been coming for a long time. Of course, any Digital ID effort requires universal acceptance to work. It is not the ability to save an ID on one's phone that is new...it's the widespread adoption in such a short period of time that is the more concerning detail. This, coupled with the note that this is set up within the Apple Wallet ecosystem, has caused even more eyebrow-raising since it's not a huge jump to speculate that this ID scheme will be linked to finances at some point. In this case, Apple announced that this plan is already streamlined to work with TSA for air travel at over 250 airports around the nation. This plan was announced about two weeks ago, so in just that time, we've gone from announcement to implementation to full integration with TSA in ways that haven't really been done before. Individual states are also partnering with Apple to integrate their Driver's Licenses into the app, and 12x states/territories have done so already. As such data security concerns have abounded...while Americans have been watching the developments of a Digital ID system being implemented in the United Kingdom, a very similar system was being worked on here at home. But because it's a private company digitizing already-existing documents, less attention has been placed on this practice. However it is worthy to note just how quickly this has all come about, and the very obvious shift toward Digital ID practices being not just a problem for Europe, but for the American homeland as well. It must be noted that this Digital ID effort is not simply the effort of a private company, this is a government project too. This initiative has *only* come about due to partnerships with US governmental agencies (like the TSA), which could be revoked at any time by the White House, since the TSA is nested under the Department of Homeland Security. Apple may be the administrator of this plan, but at the end of the day this is a government program. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2100Z April 25, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: INDIA-PAKISTAN TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH. POSSIBLE IED DISCOVERED AT FORT BRAGG GATE. TWO JUDGES ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF HARBORING ILLEGALS.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- India/Pakistan: Overnight the situation deteriorated significantly as both sides escalate the situation as expected. So far, no military unit appears to have crossed the Line of Control (LoC) yet, save for one lone Indian soldier who was captured by Pakistani border guards yesterday. This morning an Indian Air Force aircraft jettisoned a fuel tank while over one of their own towns in Shivpuri district, which landed on a house and killed one civilian. Russia/Ukraine: Tensions have briefly escalated amid peace talks. Two days ago, Russia launched a missile strike on Kiev, striking the Antonov aircraft factory in the industrial sector of the city. This morning, Russian Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was assassinated via an explosive device that was planted in a parked vehicle near his home in a suburb of Moscow. When the General walked past, the device was detonated. AC: Even without any evidence indicating blame whatsoever, the overall context strongly indicates that the assassination of a high-ranking Russian General was almost certainly retaliation for the strike at the Antonov factory in Kiev. The attack method was identical to that which killed another Russian General, Igor Kirillov, who was assassinated in the same area (the eastern suburbs of Moscow) back in December of last year.  -HomeFront- North Carolina: Last night one of the entrances to Fort Bragg was briefly locked down due to a possible explosive device being detected at the All American Gate. Details are very unconfirmed and highly speculative at the moment, but most local media is stating that a Jordanian national was stopped after he attempted to smuggled an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) through the gate. No official confirmation of exactly what happened has been released by base personnel. Wisconsin: This morning county Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested by the FBI on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly harboring an illegal alien at her courthouse. In a statement provided by the U.S. Marshalls Service, Judge Dugan aided and abetted an illegal immigrant to evade capture by using off-limits passageways in the courthouse to escape. Judge Dugan also directly lied to federal officials about the illegal's whereabouts when presented with a lawful court order for his detention. New Mexico: Judge Cano, the infamous Judge who openly admitted to harboring an illegal alien and TdA member in the guesthouse at his home, was also arrested yesterday afternoon along with his wife. AC: This somewhat surprising arrest appears to have been conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, which could indicate that the immigration status of the immigrant he was harboring was the lesser concern, in favor of the individual actually being a TdA member. Even for New Mexico, where various cartels have a huge influence over the justice system, that TdA label was probably a bridge too far for this Judge to be able to quietly retire and forget about the whole affair (as he tried to do a few days ago). -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Some reports have emerged that claim hostilities have already commenced throughout the northern border districts of Kashmir, however at the moment it's not clear if these are legitimate military advances, or just border guards shooting at each other as usual. Reports of heavy artillery being used are more concerning, however at the moment it appears that translation errors could be in play with some of these reports in Indian media. What locals are describing as "heavy artillery" in their native language seems to in actuality be mortar fire, which affects the seriousness of the situation. Cross border fires are quite common by both nations in the region, but the use of what the western world calls "heavy artillery" to fire across the border randomly is less common. What are more frequent (and almost impossible to track and/or verify in this part of the world) are random military units that unilaterally decide to lob a few mortar rounds into abandoned regions across the border. Regarding the escalations in Ukraine, often times wars flare up on the eve of peace. Of course, no ceasefire has been arrived at yet, much less a long-standing peace deal. However, the normalization of asymmetric warfare among superpowers is not necessarily great for stability. It was a big deal back in December when Ukraine openly claimed credit for the Kirillov assassination. Now that it's happened again, the implications are palpable. Regardless of how justified Ukraine is in her own defense, the stark reality is that Ukraine's actions will always be tainted by the fact that Russia is a superpower, and Ukraine is not. It doesn't make it morally right or fair, but this is the situation that cannot be ignored. In the context of almost all of Ukraine's military decision making being undertaken by the United States, a rather sobering prospect becomes rather obvious. When Kirillov was assassinated, the United States' official position was that the US was not involved nor did any American advisor have any prior knowledge of the attack being planned. While the truth of this will be debated on the internet forever, one must remember that "beyond reasonable doubt" rarely has any place in the world of international diplomacy between superpowers. In short, since the United States is funding and (either directly or indirectly) assisting Ukraine in conducting asymmetric warfare in Russia's capital city...there's quite literally nothing stopping Russia from arming cartels or criminal organizations to do the same within the American homeland. Fairness and morality do not necessarily protect from the consequences of actions, such as arming a proxy to conduct asymmetric warfare in your adversary's home turf. Now that routine and regular assassinations of high-ranking officials in an adversary's capital city are on the menu, the level of instability that this brings will probably complicate negotiations moving forward. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z February 16, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CONCERNS ARE GROWING FOR TWO CAPTURED AMERICAN PILOTS DETAINED IN WEST AFRICA. UNITED STATES SEIZES OIL TANKER IN INDIAN OCEAN.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Indian Ocean: Over the weekend the United States seized the M/T *VERONICA III*, one of the tankers which fled Venezuela in the wake of the fall of the Maduro government. The vessel was boarded and seized due to carrying oil in violation of American sanctions. West Africa: Concerns are growing concerning the safety of Two American pilots who were illegally detained by authorities in Guinea almost 6 weeks ago. On December 29th, Brad Schlenker and Fabio Espinal Nunez were piloting a private charter flight when they diverted to Guinea to refuel. They were given permission to land, and upon taxiing to the terminal, were greeted by armed soldiers. Both pilots have been detained since the incident. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: As of right now, the issue of the pilots in Guinea is still in the realm of diplomacy, as the families of the captives have been working with the Embassy to secure the pilots' release. Since this line of effort has not yielded any progress, the families have gone to the media with the hope that a media blitz will pressure the White House to speed along their release. All of this can probably be handled with a phone call, but just in case a more active response is called for, an understanding of the terrain might be helpful. So far, many details remain unknown as the initial circumstances of the detention are hard to verify. Flying for a regional charter airline in Africa is one of the most dangerous jobs a pilot can take, simply due to the corruption that is rampant throughout the continent. As such, it was an odd choice to choose to land in this country in particular, which has led many to assess that there is more to the story than meets the eye. The status of the original charter itself is also not known; some reports state that this flight was a ferry flight moving an aircraft that was recently sold (i.e. no passengers on board), whereas other reports state that they were flying a Brazilian family to Dubai. In any case, taking the story at face-value, the pilots diverted to Guinea for fuel and upon landing probably did not have enough cash on hand for the required bribes. Verbal permission to land is not good enough in Africa, and every stage along the way involves greasing palms, which always demand more. In this case, these pilots are currently serving as a bargaining chip, having chosen to land in Guinea at the worst possible time...during a state of military coup. General Mamadi Doumbouya is currently running the country after "winning" the election one day before these pilots landed. Doumbouya was the leader of the 2021 coup that overthrew the previous government, and over the past few years, the beleaguered nation has been host to the standard West African experience of poverty and violence while under military rule. Now that he's made his warlord status official, his government is probably looking to increase his standing. Nothing pads the ego of an African warlord quite like snatching a couple of Americans so as to get the attention of the United States (the mere dialog with the US alone will increase the legitimacy of his government). However, Doumbouya might find that his little stunt gets the wrong kind of attention from the United States if the pilots are not released immediately. Whatever the pilots did (if anything) to get detained is not a good enough excuse to avoid American involvement; the United States has proven over the past year that the US military will bomb a country back to the stone age for nothing more than a Klondike bar, so Doumbouya would be wise to correct this issue immediately. Local media reports (such that they are) indicate that the courts have actually declined to press charges against the pilots as they have done nothing wrong, but the military council running the administration of the country has refused to release them. On the ground, the situation is not great. Schlenker and Nunez have been allowed access to a phone semi-regularly, and have been making contact with family after their detention. State Department officials have also reportedly visited the prisoners in person, confirming that they are still alive. The exact facility that the pilots are being held in is not known, however they have stated that they are located in Conakry, so they are probably being held somewhere inside Conakry Central Prison (also known as Maison Centrale in French), which is the only known detention facility in the area. It is possible the pilots are being held elsewhere, however historically most leaders of African nations tend to keep a close eye on their political prisoners, and Guinea's history is no different, with the main prison being located a short distance from the Presidential Residences. This is important as if this is where the pilots are being held, they probably will not survive much longer. This facility is nestled in the heart of heavily urbanized terrain at the southwestern end of the peninsula which contains Guinea's capital city of Conakry. As far as prisons go, this facility is a standard example of the typical African prison, and conditions inside the compound are horrific at best and non-survivable at worst due to extremely harsh living conditions brought on by overcrowding, as well as the brutality of the guards who frequently torture prisoners. The terrain surrounding the compound is dense urban city, with little open ground. The target compound itself is encircled by slums to the North and East, and protected by a mud-brick wall approximately 8 feet tall, and 1-2 feet thick. Inside the perimeter sits a scattered array of one-story buildings, most of which are of cinderblock construction. Otherwise, defenses throughout the peninsula are sparse, with most weapons systems being centered around the standard Technical with a mounted crew-served weapon. It is likely that no MANPADs or other more sophisticated air defenses are located in the area. Most military forces are scattered sporadically, with the main bulk of somewhat-organized forces being concentrated at the Airport 7 miles to the northeast. All in all, if Doumbouya wants to take his chances, he's certainly welcome to do so, however it would be wise for him to seek a diplomatic solution immediately. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z January 28, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: DEPORTATION OPERATIONS CONTINUE NATIONWIDE. CONFLICT WIDENS IN DRC. WHITE HOUSE STATES NEW JERSEY DRONES WERE FRIENDLY FORCES.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): The situation regarding the rapid advance of M23 rebels has gone from bad to worse. Despite being located on the exact opposite side of the country (and thus 1,000 miles away from) the rebel advance in Goma, mass pandemonium and widespread looting was reported in the capitol city of Kinshasa. Various media outlets have claimed that the Embassies of the United Nations, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and even the United States were all either assaulted or overrun by rioters overnight. AC: As of this report, no statements have been made with regards to status of the American diplomatic mission in the DRC. However, this afternoon the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa urged American citizens to either shelter in place, or immediately evacuate the country, whichever option is possible for them. As is typical for the region, civil unrest can (and usually does) emerge without much warning, which presents logistical challenges. Right now, the usual extortionary roadblocks are being emplaced on most major roads, which makes travel difficult. As a reminder, there are two main airports in Kinshasa that are likely to be used for evacuation operations. The N'Dolo Airport is located in the city center, but has a shorter runway (roughly 1,000 ft) which is only capable of hosting smaller aircraft or helicopters. The other, much larger international airport (N'Djili Airport) is located east of the city. This airport, while larger, is a roughly 1-2 hour drive from the Kinshasa city center under ideal conditions, and has dubious perimeter security. Alternative evacuation plans can be carried out terrestrially, as Kinshasa sits on the border with the Republic of the Congo, which lies across the river to the north and hosts another international airport. However, there is no bridge between these nations, so highly unreliable ferry crossings are the only means of amphibious transport out of Kinshasa, in the event that airports become overrun. -HomeFront- New Jersey: During a press conference, the White House has stated that the recent drone scare that swept through the region was not activity from a malign actor, but research platforms that were authorized to fly by the FAA. No further comment was provided regarding who was operating these aerial platforms. AC: This statement will be interpreted in many ways. For one, if this statement is to be believed, this is more evidence in the pile that supports this whole scandal largely involving testing being done at Picatinny Arsenal or by some other unknown clandestine government agency. This was always the most likely theory from the very beginning, but in the absence of any real data to analyze, any theory was just as good as the next. However, for those who personally do not believe this narrative, no piece of evidence is likely to alter their view. USA: ICE raids began in New York City this morning, mostly focusing on well-known strongholds harboring illegals in the Bronx. Similar raids were conducted in Maryland. In Miami, local media reported that 40x illegals from China were arrested in Coral Gables this morning. During this morning's raids, at least one High Value Individual (HVI) was captured, who was allegedly a senior leader involved in the Tren de Aragua (TdA) cells operating in Denver. Throughout Colorado, raids have intensified following renewed efforts to target TdA enclaves throughout the state. Sunday morning, a TdA-operated nightclub in Adams County, CO was raided by federal and local officials, resulting in the arrest of 49x people affiliated with the infamous Venezuelan gang. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Various opposition/protest movements are beginning to take form with regards to the federal deportation campaign. In addition to these protest actions, other efforts are being undertaken specifically to train immigrant populations to oppose federal immigration authorities. For instance, several schoolteachers around the nation have taken to social media to share their plans for ICE raids taking place in schools. In short, many teachers plan to use their school's active shooter plans against ICE agents, barricading their classrooms in the event of a raid. Further efforts to solidify plans are taking form, such as intelligence collection efforts, community notification efforts, obstacle emplacement, the works. A classic, low-effort example of such has arisen on TikTok and other social media platforms, whereby users will produce a short video about their "cute winter boots", while splicing in tutorials on how to avoid ICE raids (thus the poorly-coded language referring to ice occurring in the winter, thus the need for the "boots"). This poorly-coded language is a mainstay of many groups (much like the "in minecraft" verbiage used by other communities), and rarely results in any sort of plausible deniability defense actually working in court. Nevertheless, these half-hearted attempts at being sneaky continue, while also not really conveying any information that's actually helpful for those seeking to resist ICE. So far, most of these efforts appear to be largely uncoordinated, disorganized, and most importantly...not cartel affiliated. Cartel operations to counter ICE are always vastly more sophisticated, and in line with common insurgent doctrine...not some TikTok trend. However, in due time, the various politically-leftist groups that are driving these operations will become more organized. Though to what degree remains far less significant than the vastly more serious and complex operations that various Cartel-affiliated groups bring to the table. Though no solid information on the raids has yet been provided by ICE (which is fairly common as they don't normally provide many details, other than arrest numbers) most of the raids this morning appear to be largely symbolic and/or targeting individual people known to ICE for some time. Large-scale operations that result in the arrest of dozens (if not hundreds) of illegals in one area alone has largely not come to fruition yet, probably due to the logistical challenges of such operations. However, one point of consideration must be that resistance to deportation operations is likely to also arise from within ICE itself (or more likely, local authorities' partnerships with ICE). One must remember, Trump has only been President for 8 days...all of the authorities who are currently arresting illegals right now were also employed under the Biden regime. Of course, the claim can be made that the orders from the top prevented any real sort of investigation and/or deportation operations. This idea requires much more nuance to understand, as there are absolutely cases in which LE agencies around the country have hidden behind the excuse of "but the feds told us to not do our job", when in reality there was certainly much more they could have done over the past four years. Within the federal government, there is no excuse as common as "my boss won't let me" when it comes to the reasons as to why someone did not do their job. Of course, general orders (and national-level policy) comes from the leadership at the top. But anyone who's ever worked in government knows that there is always leeway at the mid-to-lower levels of bureaucracy that allow people to do good and wholesome work, despite a very oppressively top-down leadership style. Now that a political change has occurred, the American people have kept the receipts, and are now wondering about the exact details of why certain departments are suddenly able to do their job...what exactly was preventing them from policing before Trump took office? Was it a direct order to halt certain investigations, or was it agencies hiding their laziness behind a general policy? Once again, after every major political regime change, those who were serving under the previous regime will be questioned as to what they did during those times, and how they carried on the best they could, despite the policies from the top. If arrests couldn't be made, what else was done? Were targeting packages created or intelligence networks developed? What investigative evidence was gathered, even without express internal permission to do so? If the orders from the top were indeed the biggest barrier to enforcing the law over the past four years, what work was done to tie up everything with a neat bow to present to a new administration? In some cases, this was exactly how it worked out, with many investigators coming forward with roughly 4 years of investigative work that wasn't able to be acted on. In others, many agencies are finding out that some investigators just sat on their hands for four years, and didn't really make any attempt to do the best they could despite the circumstances. This will be an important observation to consider as deportation operations continue to ramp up. More broadly, it must be considered that there may be some resistance from among LE groups who, after many years of stagnation, finally will be doing real work. For many, the chance to finally do good is appreciated...but others might not be so motivated. Others still probably are on the payroll of the Cartels, or are immigrants themselves (as many LE jurisdictions around the US allowed illegals to become badged Law Enforcement Officers). How big of a problem this will become (or is right now) remains to be certain, but it is an idea that must be considered now, in the early stages of what is likely to be a large-scale deportation campaign. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z July 22, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: VIOLENCE CONTINUES IN SYRIA. MICROSOFT SOFTWARE VULNERABILITY RESULTS IN CYBERATTACKS ON SHAREPOINT USERS. AIRMAN KILLED DUE TO MALFUNCTIONING SERVICE PISTOL, INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY TO DETERMINE CAUSATION.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: The civil war in Syria continues as before, with various tribes continuing to consolidate gains in their respective areas. The Jolani government remains largely centered in Damascus, and most of the violence continues in Suwayda. Analyst Comment: Most western nations are still pretending that a ceasefire exists and is in effect, when in practice there is no such cessation of hostilities as tribal violence and random executions of civilians are becoming more common on all sides. An American citizen aligned with the Druze was executed a few days ago, drawing concerns of what the international response will be to the escalating violence throughout the region. So far, there hasn't been much interest from the international community to get involved in Syria again, with the exception of Israel and Turkey (who are the biggest external nationstates involved in the conflict so far). However, this is Syria and things happen quickly here. -HomeFront- USA: Microsoft has faced scrutiny for their response to a recent software vulnerability that was recently announced. Over the weekend Microsoft revealed the discovery of a critical vulnerability within the Sharepoint ecosystem, which was discovered after thousands of government and enterprise-level customers experienced significant cyberattacks (mostly from well-known Chinese hacking groups). Analyst Comment: This morning, it became known that this vulnerability was actually already known, and was identified by Trend Micro (a cybersecurity firm) which found the exploit back on July 8th during a hacking competition. Microsoft allegedly issued software fixes to patch the vulnerability, however a few days ago malign actors were observed utilizing the exploit anyway, confirming that Microsoft's efforts to patch this Sharepoint bug were ineffective. Washington D.C. - The Department of the Air Force has launched an investigation into the M18 service pistol following the death of a service member due to safety concerns. The US Air Force will cease all issuance of the M18 platform while the investigation is ongoing, following several other government agencies which have already halted the use of this weapon system due to safety concerns. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: For those who are not aware of the implications of the M18 scandal, this scandal has been building for some time and opinions are sharply divided. Sig Sauer has been the center of much controversy surrounding the P320 (the civilian designation of the M18 service pistol) after multiple reports emerged from owners regarding the pistol not being drop-safe. Most modern handguns incorporate some sort of "drop safety" into their design, which prevents the pistol from firing if the gun is dropped. After admitting there was a problem regarding the drop safety on early P320's, Sig issued a recall and allegedly fixed the issue. However, after some time, an entirely separate series of issues began to be reported, namely that in some cases, the pistol would discharge on it's own at random while holstered. When these reports came out, Sig Sauer did everything in their power to silence these concerns, and several Public Relations efforts were undertaken to shame and gaslight P320 owners into thinking that the problems were entirely the result of the end user and not a design flaw. However, despite the months of denial, problems remained. Several law enforcement agencies halted the use of the M18 a few months ago after very-well-documented cases confirmed that sometimes the M18 will fire a chambered round while holstered, in some cases without even being jostled or otherwise manipulated (thus removing the potential for user error from the equation). Ten days ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated that they will be transitioning back to the Glock 19 service pistol due to the concerns with the P320 platform. Five days ago, the FBI released a report at the behest of the Michigan State Police, who requested a forensic evaluation of the P320 handgun involved in a completely unprovoked discharge that occurred last month. This forensic analysis did not indicate much, as the FBI was not able to figure out what happened in this specific case. However, their testing did indicate that Sig's claims regarding some of the internal safeties could be overridden under certain conditions. But by and large, this report was mostly inconclusive in determining exactly what is causing these pistols to fire unintentionally. Immediately after this report was released, the US Army stated that they will take no action regarding their adoption of this handgun. A few days later, a USAF Airman at the 90th Security Forces Squadron took his pistol off his belt (while still holstered), and placed the firearm on his desk. The holstered pistol then fired the round that was in the chamber, striking the service member in the chest, killing him. As most people outside the gun world may not grasp the gravity of this situation (understandably so), this incident has the potential to be the "Ford Pinto" of the gun world. Thus, once more details come to light, this may end up being one of the biggest defense procurement scandals of all time. In short, everyone knows there's a problem with the P320/M18 platform, but right now Sig Sauer is the only entity that seems to know what's going on with their pistols, and they aren't talking. The FBI doesn't have the technical know-how to engineer a test to re-create what is going on, but pistols keep going off regardless. And this time, a service member is dead because of the hesitation and lack of aggressiveness to investigate these incidents. Sig Sauer has been sued well over a dozen times regarding this handgun's safety concerns, but once again this has been a tough problem to solve and not many people are willing to put in the work to find the flaw....or to fight VERY well funded legal efforts to stifle the identification of a problem with the P320 platform. Most people are treating this situation with kid-gloves because the firearms community is big-business, and throwing around allegations of a design flaw that can kill someone is a dangerous game. In the civilian world, most firearms enthusiasts have been aware of the problems for some time, but once again haven't been able to nail down exactly what the problem is. Since there are other alternatives to the P320 platform on the market, often times the juice wasn't worth the squeeze when it came to figuring out what is going on here. Most people didn't feel particularly strongly about the issue either way; if someone was concerned about it then they would select a different firearm and move on, no big deal. The issues couldn't be reproduced reliably, and there was enough grey area in the civilian world to allow for some people to keep using the P320 with no issues, but others deciding that it just wasn't worth the risk after years of scandal, especially with a wealth of other firearms on the market at a similar price point that didn't have the headache of scandal surrounding them. In the professional defense procurement world, however, it's a much different game. Regarding the M18's in the US Army alone, the contract that was awarded for this pistol was over $580 million, which means that Sig's company is on the line. And (to speculate slightly) if it eventually becomes known that Sig had prior knowledge of a design flaw that could have prevented deaths...but did nothing about it except to deny the claims and shame those voicing concerns, this has the potential to become a rather serious issue. As a reminder, Sig Sauer has the primary contract to provide not just handguns to the Army, but rifles as well. The M7 rifle was adopted to replace the M4 platform a couple of years ago, and these new rifles are just now starting to enter military use. While the M7 platform has no similar safety concerns, the M18 scandal is still not a good look for the company that is now responsible for providing the bulk of small arms to the US military. In any case, this entire affair is emblematic of much bigger concerns within the defense industry at large. Right now, the United States is operating a peacetime military force. This will not always remain so forever. If the United States cannot reliably trust one of the cheapest individual weapons systems issued to the solider, then not much else can be trusted either...if we cannot do the little things right, there's not much hope in doing the big things right. Of course, these challenges are not out of our grasp, nor are these issues particularly unique. However, sometimes a re-examination of what we're doing - from the top of the military industrial complex, all the way down to the individual - is helpful for staying on track for the challenges ahead. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z March 4, 2026// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GULF WAR CONTINUES AS ALLIED RADAR INSTALLATIONS TARGETED BY IRANIAN FORCES. US NAVY SINKS IRANIAN FRIGATE OFF COAST OF SRI LANKA.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: The large-scale bombing of targets within Iran continues, with hundreds of bombs being dropped day and night. Around the region, overnight satellite imagery confirmed that Iranian forces have successfully struck multiple American Air Defense installations. Concerning American battle damage, the following radar arrays have been damaged or destroyed since the conflict began. Qatar: A/N FPS-132 Block 5 array - Hit, unknown damage. Kuwait: 3x unknown radomes destroyed. Bahrain: 2x AN/GSC-52B radomes destroyed. UAE: THAAD battery at Al-Ruwais confirmed struck, damage unknown. Saudi Arabia: A/N TPY-2 radar site (used with the THAAD system) struck at Prince Sultan Airbase. Jordan: THAAD battery at Muwaffaq Salti Airbase possibly struck, unknown damage. Analyst Comment: These radar arrays are not tiny fire-control systems mounted on a HMMWV, these are major strategic assets for air defense throughout the hemisphere, not just the Middle East. The FPS-132 alone costs over a billion dollars and there are only six of these sites in the entire world. Similarly, there are only nine THAAD batteries in existence globally, and the Iranians just hit one (possibly two) of them with a munition that cost about $30k each. Strait of Hormuz: The war on the high seas continues as multiple commercial vessels have been struck by drones overnight. The UK Maritime Trade Operations center has reported a total of four commercial vessels being hit with unknown munitions over the past 24 hours, sustaining unknown damage. Two container ships, a BCC, and a tanker vessel were all hit or targeted by unknown munitions. Analyst Comment: Merchant traffic within the Strait is mostly at a standstill, as nobody wants to run the the gauntlet and risk hundreds of millions of dollars if something goes wrong. At this present time, drone and missile attacks are effective enough to prevent any large merchant vessel from transiting the waterway. Turkey: This morning the Turkish Defense Ministry stated that an Iranian ballistic missile was shot down in their nation. The missile was shot down by a US Navy vessel in the Eastern med, and the debris landed near the town of Dörtyol in the southeastern region of the country. Lebanon: The Israeli ground invasion continues, with the IDF ordering the evacuation of Lebanese citizens to north of the Litani River. Roughly 15% of the land mass of Lebanon has been ordered to evacuate by Israel, as the IDF continues pushing north. Indian Ocean: This morning the US Navy torpedoed an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka. The IRIS *DENA* was sunk by an American submarine with the crew abandoning ship overnight. The Sri Lankan Navy has conducted rescue operations of about 30 survivors, with about half of the crew remaining missing. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Regarding the evacuations of Americans from the Middle East, so far the situation is complicated. The US State Department has provided emergency phone numbers for Americans stranded overseas to call, but reports are mixed regarding Americans actually being evacuated. Commercial flights remain sporadic, and most Americans stranded in the region are being told to sit tight until flights are available. Airspace closures remain throughout the entire region, and most airlines are attempting to fly out whenever they can. Dubai is the world's busiest airport, and so far it's been averaging a few dozen flights in and out each day, when previously the average was over a thousand flights per day. The smaller airport in Muscat, Oman is the next-closest hub from which evacuations are occurring, however it's nearly all private aircraft at this point since all commercial options have been booked. Considering the damage that has likely been done to American radar sites around the region, if it is true that Early Warning capabilities have been degraded as a result of Iranian strikes, more serious targeting efforts could continue over the next few days. Although, the systems that have been hit are mostly for high-altitude ballistic missile threats, and not the smaller drones that are threatening the Gulf States most effectively at the moment. This is the fundamental nature of this war: Every missile interception has to succeed every single time, but the Iranians only have to be successful once to cause enough uncertainty both with maritime shipping and civil aviation, to cause problems. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

//The Wire//2300Z April 2, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: MULTIPLE AMERICAN AIRCRAFT CARRIERS DEPLOY TO MIDDLE EAST, STRATEGIC DEPLOYMENTS CONTINUE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Middle East: Significant Naval deployments are either underway currently, or have been recently announced. Yesterday afternoon CENTCOM announced several operational changes throughout the AOR. The USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN-75) CSG's deployment has been extended, with the TRUMAN remaining in the Middle East theatre. The USS CARL VINSON (CVN-70) has also been transferred from INDOPACOM to the CENTCOM area of responsibility, and is currently making all sail for the Middle East. On Friday, the USS NIMITZ (CVN-68) departed San Diego on her final deployment before retirement, and will be heading to the western Pacific. This morning, the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN-72) departed port San Diego as well. Yesterday morning commercial satellite imagery confirmed that another B2 Spirit stealth bomber landed at Diego Garcia, bringing the total on the island to 6x bombers, plus their required refueling tankers. -HomeFront- California: Monday night a murder was reported at a Walgreens in Fresno. Local authorities state that Narciso Gallardo Fernandez entered the establishment late Monday night, and murdered one of the employees due to his grievances with large pharmaceutical companies. Fernandez was arrested at the scene, while attempting to reload his firearm in the parking lot. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The indications and warnings of an impending war in the Middle East continue to mount. The proverbial deployment of aircraft carriers before a major war appears to have arrived. In closed-source, confidential reporting, NBC has claimed that the Pentagon has authorized the deployment of one THAAD battery, and at least two Patriot batteries to augment missile defense throughout the Middle East. Though this cannot be independently confirmed yet, if this is true this would be yet another indication that wartime preparations continue, beyond what would normally be considered to be posturing or power-projection. Domestically, various political protests are scheduled for April 5th. The "HandsOff" protests originated from organized labor unions, however most far-left groups are also planning to use the day to conduct low-level attacks, such as vandalism against Tesla vehicles. Of course, the impact that these events will have is dictated mostly by funding; events involving labor unions will obviously be much larger than smaller and uncoordinated groups of malign actors seeking to break things. Nevertheless, increased vigilance is recommended, particularly in areas where Tesla vehicles and Trump supporters have been targeted so far. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z April 1, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: CHINA UNDERTAKES LARGE SCALE MILITARY EXERCISES IVO TAIWAN. BURMA EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY CONTINUES. TESLA ATTACKS REMAIN CONSTANT.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- Far East: China has begun another series of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, and in the waters surrounding Taiwan. Per the Chinese Ministry of Defense, this latest large-scale drill is largely serving as a "severe warning and forceful containment against Taiwan independence". Southeast Asia: Recovery efforts from the Burmese earthquake continue, as the widespread damage throughout the region becomes more apparent. So far the death toll has surpassed 2,719 victims, according to Myanmar's ruling military government. Humanitarian aid has been slow to flow into the region, and most areas hardest hit by the earthquake remain out of communication with the outside world. AC: Much of the region remains without electricity, which along with the communications outages, has complicated assessments of how bad this crisis truly is. -HomeFront- USA: The attacks on Tesla vehicles have continued to simmer, with limited increases in vandalism incidents in major cities. Following the uptick in these types of attacks, various supporter-protest movements (in support of Tesla and Elon Musk) have taken root as well. Many of these supportive-protests have also been met with counter-protests in most cases, sometimes resulting in clashes between groups. Over the weekend, a pro-Musk protester was intentionally struck by a vehicle of a counter-protester at a protest event in Idaho. The Meridian Police Department arrested the 70-year-old anti-Musk protester at the scene, and charged him with aggravated battery. New Mexico: The GOP Headquarters was firebombed over the weekend in Albuquerque. One of the entrances to the facility was destroyed by an improvised incendiary/explosive device early Sunday morning. Anti-ICE graffiti was spray painted at the scene by the assailants, who have not been identified. Indiana: Yesterday evening, a prominent cybersecurity and cryptography professor at Indiana University was fired after the FBI raided two of his residences under mysterious circumstances. XiaoFeng Wang, a well known crypto and cyber expert, remains missing following the searches. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: While very few details of the Indiana incident have been released or even acknowledged, over the past few months, both the United States and China have been on a spy-hunting spree. 6x Chinese nationals were arrested in the Philippines a week ago for allegedly spying on US warships in Subic Bay. Two weeks ago, China sentenced one of their researchers (at an undisclosed educational institution) to death for spying. As such, it's possible that this is related to Wang's disappearance after the raids. Usually, rooting out spies is a tit-for-tat affair; the Chinese bag one of ours, and we get one of theirs (or at least try to). Of note, China has sentenced all of the spies they have caught to death, while the United States obviously does not. Outside the realm of espionage, more overt actions are being undertaken to beat the drums of war in the Pacific. Though the Chinese drills in the Taiwan Strait were not announced with much notice, the maneuvers so far are largely a continuation of the same posturing and training seen before. Over the past few years, China has been engaging in increasingly complex drills as their proficiency improves. In short, the training is working, and Chinese forces are learning and gaining significant experience in combined arms warfare. Of course, the unspoken factor of war remains extremely relevant regarding any potential military campaign in Taiwan...no plan survives first contact with the enemy. In other words, China can train all they want, but when the missiles start flying for real, it will become exceptionally clear that the modern Chinese army has no real combat experience, and zero experience in conducting a Large Scale Combat Operation (LSCO). This does not mean that China is to be underestimated however, but it does mean that China may learn many lessons the hard way when the time comes. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z February 10, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: UNREST BREWING IN LINCOLN HEIGHTS, OHIO. EXPLOSION OCCURS AT CHEMICAL FACTORY IN PA. AIRCRAFT COLLISION IN SCOTTSDALE RESULTS IN ONE FATALITY.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -HomeFront- Arizona: This afternoon an aircraft collision was reported at the Scottsdale Airport, which resulted in at least one fatality and several people injured. AC: As this is currently a developing situation, few details are confirmed at this time. Local reports suggest that a private Learjet 35A experienced a hard landing, which resulted in a landing gear collapse and the subsequent ground collision with another parked jet. Pennsylvania: Yesterday morning an explosion and subsequent fire were reported at a chemical factory in Crawford County. Shelter-in-place advisories were reported in the vicinity of the Parker Lord Corporation in Saegertown, as the incident resulted in a total of 15x people being hospitalized for various injuries sustained throughout the incident. As of this morning, the fire has been extinguished, and an investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing. Ohio: Civil disturbances were reported yesterday in Lincoln Heights following various political/social protests. A small group of individuals wearing/carrying neo-Nazi/National Socialist paraphernalia marched along a section of highway in the vicinity of the on-ramp to Interstate 75. The "march" concluded on top of the overpass to the highway, likely so as to allow their demonstration materials (flags, signs, etc) to be seen by passersby on the interstate below. In response to this demonstration, the residents of the nearby low-income housing projects have emplaced what are self-described as "checkpoints" throughout the area. The main "checkpoint" is located at the corner of Mangham Drive and Dorothy Court, at grid: 16S GJ 19975 46914. Other "checkpoints" have been emplaced throughout the area, however most of the activity could largely be described as the locals of housing projects standing around on various street corners with guns, on the lookout for anyone who they disapprove of. AC: Additionally, locals posted on social media that they slashed the tires of participants of the demonstration on the overpass, though at this time it's possible that random vehicles were attacked, which were not necessarily related to any protest or demonstration. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The situation in Ohio, while not entirely uncommon, is at risk of becoming a local conflagration. As evidenced by the actual people on the street (and their first-hand posts on social media) the dozens of military aged males, all openly armed and demanding for passersby to roll down their windows to check for certain people transiting the area...these are not entirely the hallmarks of a stable situation. On the other side of the conflict, demonstrations by local "neo-Nazis" were absolutely intended to stoke this response, as there really isn't anything in the local area but very heavily-entrenched housing projects. Once the hornet's nest was kicked, the initial "protesters" rapidly moved out of the area. It's not immediately clear as to which group the "neo-Nazi's" were affiliated with as all of the paraphernalia demonstrated during the protest was generic and not indicative of one specific group. This does not appear to have mattered much, however, as they were not on location very long before departing as the locals began to respond to their demonstration. Also of note, the "checkpoints" as geolocated based on social media posts...aren't actually in the community of the armed individuals. A few sites where armed men have been observed are deeper into the housing projects, but the main "checkpoint" is not located at the entrance of a sub-division or apartment complex, rather being situated on a heavily trafficked thoroughfare that leads to a major highway. An important consideration to think about as civil unrest events become more common is the nature of the philosophical debate of these types of incidents, weighed against the tactical situation on the ground. As firearms are involved in the situation in Ohio, the 2A community has already weighed in as expected, mostly to make this more of a discussion about rights and community defense. However, at a more local level, it must be noted that this specific case is NOT a peaceful display of Constitutional rights...these people are using firearms to openly threaten others and restrict access to public roads at gunpoint. Conversely, the group that started all of this is worthy of mention too; carrying out a "march" in an area that would very heavily take umbrage with that ideology is not entirely endearing to one's cause. However, purely in terms of the tactical situation on the ground, an unarmed group of "protesters" waving flags on the sidewalk is quite different than armed males running a vehicle checkpoint (as poorly done as it is). As such, it would be unwise to automatically assume that everyone publicly displaying a firearm is doing so because they wish to support the Constitution...sometimes this activity is instead a precursor to violence and/or a brewing gang turf war in an extremely high crime area. Many will applaud the efforts of "community defense", while also ignoring that this is technically not defense, but an offensive action that is taking place on public roads other taxpayers are paying for. Many others will decry that until a round leaves the chamber, no crime has been committed. Though in this case this technically isn't true (the restriction of lawful travel on public roads based on race or ideology is generally considered by many to be a crime), the larger idea being centered in the ideological space negates the indications and warnings of what is likely to come. Local police have been observed transiting through the main "checkpoint", with both the armed men and the officers themselves largely ignoring each other for the time being. However, if this situation in Lincoln Heights continues, it's only a matter of time until someone gets shot, either deliberately or accidentally. For now, the situation will probably simmer down over the next few days, pending any other pot-stirring in the local area. However, if "protesters" show up in the same place twice, the situation is very likely to turn violent in rapid order. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for August 31st through September 6th, 2025. The crazy times continue and this week I'm a little bit behind on my homework, so we're going to be a little bit shorter today, but overall there have been quite a few developments this week. So let's go ahead and start with global strategic concerns. This week I have begun the shift to get spun up on Venezuela and that entire Caribbean conflict. Right up front, I don't know if we're actually going to go to war with Venezuela proper and try to topple Maduro and do what a lot of people seem very interested in doing uh right now or if we're just going to keep swacking boats out there in the Caribbean Sea for the time being. In either case, there's not really a whole lot the American people can do but watch and uh be prepared for any kind of retaliation on the home front. Like I wrote in the wire a few days ago, it's important to remember in the world of counterterrorism that there are different motivations for someone being a terrorist. So, I know that the mainstream media and a lot of uh think tanks and whatnot are going to make it seem like we're going to have uh the Central American version of al-Qaeda pop up on American soil. I'm not so convinced on that at the moment because most of what we've seen so far from really any kind of enterprise in South and Central America is that they are criminal enterprises. They are financially motivated. They're not ideologically motivated. Yeah, a lot of times they may be willing to stand and fight and and engage in warfare that might get them killed, right? They may do that. That's kind of how the cartels operate. But you don't tend to see a whole lot of TDA guys strapping on special vests, if you know what I mean, and walking around in society. Uh that doesn't tend to be the the the option taken there. So, not to say that there won't be an increased risk here in the United States over the next few days and weeks and months. There absolutely will be. Ever since TDA was flagged as a foreign terrorist organization, it was kind of uh on like Donkey Kong, so to speak, at that moment. But how it's actually going to work out is probably going to look a lot different than the counterinsurgency uh Islamic based terrorist kind of activity that we saw in the Middle East, right? Everybody has counterinsurgency on the brain and they think that everyone's going to be al-Qaeda when in actuality you're probably just going to have a a very large intensification and continuation of the conflict that's already going on in South and Central America. We're talking skirmishes, we're talking uh territory gang wars, uh turf wars, things like that. and you may have one or two big attacks, but for the most part, it's going to remain low level unless Venezuela uh the government side of things get involved. And even then, I guess we're just going to have to wait and see how this works out. So, we'll get more into that in a minute. Moving around the world, the situation in the United Kingdom is tenuous at best. The axgirl situation and uh scandal continues as the two people who were always from the very start alleged to have been harassing these girls were arrested for harassment and assault. So, we'll get more into that later, but we knew it at the time. Axe girl is vindicated and this has now become a much bigger issue than just what we thought it was in the beginning. This is an important scandal to be aware of mostly because it's a good barometer for measuring how uh the British people are fairing these days. and Descent is getting pretty hot. So Starmer's government is probably on its last legs. H we always say that, right? Well, when there's a fairly controversial politician in office, but this may actually uh result in the beginning of the end, especially when it comes to things like cabinet positions being shuffled around and that sort of thing is a pretty good indicator for uh the survivability of a current narrative and political party. So, of course, it's not this one event that has led to this. It's just one of the many final straws that keep being stacked on top of the camel, right? So, this situation coming to light and it developing the way that it did. Yeah, this sort of stuff happens to kids all all over the world, especially in the Western world a lot every single day. And it's a complicated thing. But the media lying about it from the very very get-go and Police Scotland uh being very very biased in their investigation process, that's the sort of thing that's going to stick and make people continue to be angry. So, we'll have to see how it works out, but we'll get more into it later on. And finally, big picture stuff. The international relations between the United States and India are not doing so well following the recent defense summit, I guess, is how you would phrase it in China between most BRICS nations. Again, this is very big picture stuff and the United States has kind of taken a big stick approach to things like trade and tariffs uh with most countries on Earth. But this is something to watch out because India has a very very big stake in the United States. If the United States were to cut off trade to Tanzania, nobody cares, right? It doesn't really have any impact on stuff. But if Trump actually follows through on his claim to potentially stop tech companies from outsourcing their uh IT support to India, that can have very wide-ranging impacts. I know that a lot of people are very very excited about the potential for reducing that sort of relationship. But the United States is probably not very likely to just sever relations with India. But what is quite clear is that India is has made their choice and they continue to make their choice in terms of national policy being aligned with China and Russia. Can't really blame them. But they also can't play both sides of the fence. They can't be a a critical American ally in the region, right? And also be cozied up in terms of trade with our national adversaries. Whether it's right or wrong doesn't really matter. That's the way it is in the world. You kind of got to pick the western world side of things or the postsviet world. So, India doing things like this, little political spats back and forth, uh it's it's deteriorating and India would probably be very wise to reconsider their actions uh in terms of trade, but that's kind of out of the realm of what I'm really concerned with at the moment, which is strategic movement. So, here is the infamous slide once again. So, once again, the United States has deployed 10 F-35s, half of a US Air Force squadron of F-35s to Puerto Rico to do things. They haven't really said, but the general assumption is that these aircraft are here for taking on Venezuelan aircraft. Venezuela has SU30s, and they've got a few F-16s, which are getting kind of old, but we'll talk about that in a minute. But generally speaking, you don't need F-35 to be taking out a fast boat that's being run by cartel dudes or whatever. So, that's the general assumption there, and that's probably how things are going to work out. Going to continue monitoring to see if there's anything else. Right now, I'm seeing what we might call a plethora of staging being done in Florida. There's been a lot of movement there. So, some might call that indications and warnings. Some might call it a bluff. I don't know. Right now, the White House is batting zero for the number of times they have bluffed with military hardware. But again, Maduro is the kind of guy that you kind of have to bluff, right? He's a Soviet hard power kind of guy, right? So, if the United States is trying to bully Maduro into doing what we want, as in probably the oil reserves there, uh, this is the kind of thing that you would expect to see. However, this is also, again, like all of the other deployments we've seen in the past couple of months. This is exactly what you'd see if we're going to try to start blowing stuff up in Venezuela. So, will they or won't they uh start going for a regime change operation in Venezuela? I don't know, but probably at this point, I'm just going off of that assumption, which is why I'm doing the IPB for Venezuela. But anyway, we'll continue to develop this out and uh see if we can get some products pre-prepared and uh pre-staged just in case things get a little spicy. Uh right now, you can you can't say that it's a training mission anymore, right? This is actually a combat mission because they've killed 11 people. So So for everyone out there who thinks that this is a bluff, remember this bluff has already killed people. So it's already a combat operation. Hostilities have already commenced. The big question is, are we going to transition those hostilities into taking on more military targets in Venezuela? It's one thing to take out a fast boat with a single missile, but it's another thing entirely to send some highle bombers to crater the runways of, you know, a dozen different airfields. That's a that's a pretty big escalation of force. Are we going to get there? I don't know. But either way, we're going to find out probably pretty soon. So before we get deeper into Venezuela, I wanted to mention uh one thing that happened in the United States this week, which has gotten very little press coverage in the mainstream media. And I thought that this was a very, very pertinent thing to be aware of, especially as the threats to Christian churches continues here in the United States. And like clockwork, exactly what everybody thought and everybody said, there was another attack planned. Thankfully, this one was prevented, but there was another attack planned after the Minneapolis shooting. One individual identified as Joshua Michael Richardson was arrested a couple of days ago for planning a mass shooting at St. Michael's Abbey in California. Now, this is an interesting case because this is one of the very few times where the individual was actually apprehended before the attack took place. And here's how that worked out. So, Richardson, as you can see from this uh screenshot of a video that he posted online, is probably the craziest dude you're going to see on the internet this week. Very strongly mentally ill. He called himself the angel of death uh and was uh there was very much a mental illness factor to to this. Of course, there's always that mental illness factor to all of this, but this dude was seriously out there. So, that's kind of what we're dealing with here. He was not a transgender shooter, uh as you would might expect, but uh this dude was absolutely a whole bag of crazy. So, he traveled from Alabama all the way to California and was staking out the church uh beforehand before the attack. and he actually spoke to the priest at the church and told the priest that he was going to commit the attack. So that's how we know about this. That's how we were able to stop it. And it turns out it was the Orange County Sheriff's Office who apprehended this guy and charged him with terrorism. Right. So the FBI is not involved. FBI had no idea this dude was doing all this even though he has an extensive online record threatening violence uh against this church and really some more ideological things too. So that's why I threw this this graphic on the screen here to remind everyone of the cycle of a terror attack. So this guy had actually worked through all of the steps, most of the steps, and he was actually transitioning from the rehearsal of the attack into the execution phase of the attack. So he was moving into the later stages right before he committed the attack. And if he had not given his hand away, he probably would have been very successful. So this dude had had found the target. He had conducted surveillance. he had actually narrowed down and and figured out which church he wanted to target. He conducted surveillance of the church ahead of time on on the internet. Then he moved into the planning stages of his attack by moving from Alabama to California to stage for the attack. And he actually visited the church a couple of times before conducting the attack to do a pre-attack reconnaissance. Right. So, so this is definitely some critical information to be aware of when it comes to uh attack prevention and being aware of how these things are often planned. So definitely keep the church in your prayers and keep the priest in your prayers as well. How often we forget to pray for our own priests, right? And they've definitely got a very very tough job and in this case he was in the right place at the right time. So so stay vigilant, stay aware and uh do the best you can, right? So that's it for the United States. Let's move over to Venezuela. And I'm sorry I'm a little bit behind on my homework. Uh I again I'm not a Venezuela expert. I don't really know a whole lot about this type of conflict that we may be engaging in. So, I'm uh rapidly trying to get caught up here. And one of the very first steps is basic IPB, right? So, I'm working through that right now. You can see these uh maps and the KMZs that I've started to upload to all of my various platforms such as ArcGIS and I've got some uh KMZs that I'm going to be dropping very soon on GitHub as usual. So, for those of you who like to run ATAC and kind of peek around in ATAC at this sort of thing. But most pressingly, right, when we're doing IPB, we have to realize that work expands to fill the time allotted. And if we don't have a lot of time, we can't do a lot of work, right? So, one of the things I'm trying to focus on first, since time is of the essence, is Venezuela's aircraft. If war were to break out, these aircraft will have to be neutralized first or they will probably be involved in some kind of shootown incident. So, if we look into our crystal ball and try to assess how this war might get started, that's probably how it's going to go. And Venezuela makes it fairly easy for us because their F-16s are held at one base and their SU30s are held at another. So these are the two bases that I am watching and I'm going to try to develop out a little further just in case. Now they can forward deploy. They can move around their aircraft to other air bases. But Venezuela's infrastructure has been crumbling for many many years now. So if they move uh aircraft and they start dispersing, we call dispersing their aircraft to other airfields so that we don't whack them all at once, we'll know fairly quickly because there's really no way to hide these things. I mean, they can try, but the the places where they can land an aircraft, at least very easily, without carving a new airfield into the jungle, which they have done, uh, but the places where they're likely to move aircraft in the next couple of days are fairly well surveiled. So, Venezuela doesn't really have a a chance at hiding most of their military hardware. And, you know, as we can see from this video that was posted on social media the other day, uh, they've got their own dudes uh, videoing the inside of their major naval bases, showing off their hardware. and we can geollocate exactly where these boats are located. So, it's not to say that Venezuela is a completely and utterly pathetic military. I mean, compared to the United States, it's it's not really a contest, but still, you want to be aware of these kinds of things. War is pretty tough, right? And even if you're going up against dudes in caves in the mountains, right? Uh well, you know, we don't want to get too cocky here, right? Again, I don't know what's going to happen, but that's why we prepare, right? And uh a lot of these products take a very long time to make. So frontloading that effort just in case things pop off would probably be very helpful because Venezuela is not a small country. They're a pretty big country down there. So there's a lot that can happen. We're going to do our best to try to figure this out. Plus uh there's also a lot of American civilians in Venezuela, believe it or not. So, but we'll have to see how that goes and uh develop that out and continue making products. So that's it for Venezuela. Let's move over to the UK and wrap things up with the Dundee axe girl situation. Vindication is the name of the game now. uh as it has become quite clear that Scotland police were sitting on the medical records which show that the girl who claimed that she was assaulted was admitted to the emergency department with a concussion. So we have actually a medical diagnosis of an assault taking place. Very interesting detail that a lot of people kind of ignored when this story kind of broke out. But anyway, the guy who was arrested is Fatus Ali Dumana who was identified as the mysterious Bulgarian man. There was originally the story that they were married. They were a married couple and a lot of mainstream news media I think even the BBC is still saying that they're married. I don't know about that. I I mean it's not like I like a marriage licenses, right? So I don't know. It could be one of those rather unsavory situations. Uh but either way, don't have any definitive story on that. But this is the photo that the mainstream media is running with. Looks like such a wholesome family, isn't it? Turns out once they released the guy's name, everybody found him on social media and found out that even though this is what the mainstream media is showing you, this is what this dude posted on his own social media page. So this is what we might call a primary source. This is straight from the horse's mouth. These are the kind of photos this dude is posting referencing himself as a gypsy gangster man. Now, of course, this is Instagram, so it's Instagram, but still, you get a little bit more context from this as opposed to the wholesome family picnic photo that the media has been running with. And there's also a lot of ways to do a link analysis to develop out this network, such as this gentleman's gangster uncle, as he says, from Bulgaria, as the flag emoji denotes. So, plenty of people on this guy's account to check out. Uh, if it's still up, I highly doubt that it is. plenty of tattoo analysis to be done to check for known gang signs and uh gang affiliations. And yeah, this is a lot different from the story that every authority and the mainstream media in the UK was running with. And this does not look very good in terms of keeping people calmed down. So I I know that a lot of people immediately knew that this was the case. Uh, a lot of people saw the video and immediately did what most people do and used a gut assessment to figure out who was the bad guy in the situation. People are going to be really angry. Uh, not necessarily because of the attack itself, which is unfortunately tragically common. They're going to be more upset probably with the idea that this coverup occurred and that it was so incredibly easy to identify this guy and find out that this dude is the one who's in the wrong. Right. Police Scotland really did get involved in this situation and saw a video of a girl screaming and pleading for this dude to leave her alone and she was trying to defend herself and they sided with this guy. That was their gut instinct. My guess is that now that this dude's social media and his actual name have somehow made it to the internet, we're about to find out everything there is to know about this dude and anybody else he might be linked to. So, some good news, some bad news. the uh the guy who was actually the aggressor here in this situation has actually been detained by Police Scotland, which tells you how much dirt they have to have on this guy if they're going to actually arrest a Bulgarian migrant. This dude must have done some atrocious stuff here. They must have like a lot of evidence on this guy for them to arrest him because that's just how things work in the UK. I mean, it's a good thing he was he's being uh questioned and treated as the aggressor now. But we have to remember, uh, the girl is still facing weapons charges, so she's probably not going to wiggle out of that. Uh, unless some sort of public outcry and public outrage highlights how ridiculous this is. I don't know. We'll have to see. Hopefully, we can keep some eyes on this and actually, you know, let a kid not be thrown in jail for trying to defend themselves from this guy, right? That's ridiculous. But the British system is fairly ridiculous right now, as is our own here in the US a lot of the time. But anyway, we'll see how it works out. We'll keep our eyes on it. I'm going to keep watching this and do what I can to start developing out these networks. Once again, a lot of work, but it's worth it. So, so that's all I have for today. Let's roll things up with the intercepted ghost net reports. I was able to get on uh get on the net this week. Despite the uh rather challenging weather conditions, it's still good to exchange information in a more off-grid manner. I know it gets kind of tiring. It's not the most entertaining thing in the world, but this stuff is important. The very moment that you realize, hey, I need a handheld radio, that's the time where you probably can't get one, right? So radio is one of those ultra prepper kind of topics, right? Because you really do have to prepare and learn and set things up and test things out and and keep keep things going. It's a perishable skill, but there's a lot of work involved for sure. And it is growing. So this week I'm going to be dropping some more code plugs for those of you who wish to engage in the line of sight options for the ghost net. A lot of people asked for the incorporation of something like a national calling frequency or something like that for those who just have the classic bow fangs, which is perfectly fine. A lot of people don't have the time or resources to set up this expensive HF stuff. So having something rather than nothing is helpful, even though it's astronomically unlikely to be used na nationally, right? Line of sight stuff doesn't go far, right? You might get a couple of miles of range, but it's still good to have a common frequency to use if you so choose. is I'm working through some code plugs uh to just make it easier for everybody to use. Uh you can still the ghost net still has the frequencies there. So for those of you who who plugged in the frequencies already for the line of sight options, you don't need to change anything. I'm just going to start offering the co code plugs myself so that you can load it right into chirp or you can load it right into some of the more fancy radios these days. Uh you can you can definitely do so a little bit easier. So I know I haven't updated the ghost end in a while, but I've I've got some changes. I'm working on it. It's just it just takes me time, right? I know I say that every week, but still still the same thing. But anyway, that's all I've got for this week. Thank you guys all for your support. Thank you for watching. I couldn't do any of this without your support, and uh it really does keep things going. So, thank you uh to all of you on Patreon who make that possible. And thanks to all the rest of you who who just watch and engage and uh find this stuff to be useful. It really does uh really does help. So, thanks again and I will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the Intel update for March 9th through the 15th 2025 before we get into it I wanted to issue the the brief disclaimer that today is going to be a little bit more informal a lot more opinion-based a lot more dis digression and discussion on some of these things because unfortunately uh we are squarely in the time period where it's very very challenging for me to talk about anything in a purely neutral fact-based way uh when it comes to anything that the White House or the Trump Administration might do that is not entirely a good thing everyone is human everyone makes mistakes and I I personally really do genuinely wish uh president Trump and the Trump Administration well however at some point we're going to have to talk about some things that aren't so great and unfortunately a lot of people just can't handle that uh they just can't do it I I think that in terms of viewership the overwhelming majority of people who uh who listen to my work are conservatives uh which is fine this is you know I I guess I'm even though I consider myself to be politically homeless I guess I'm generally uh more conservative uh for sure but as much as we might want to remove politics from things like this as the old adage goes you may not care about politics but politics certainly cares about you and right now especially in the current news cycle almost all of the issues that we're going to have to talk about are going to be political in some way and right now I get the impression that I'm expected to bite my my tongue and just not say anything about some of the less than ideal things that President Trump does uh from a lot of the people who are kind of in my circle so either way sorry for digressing quite a bit right to start with I just wanted to kind of get that out there right to start with and not bury it deep into the briefing because uh over the next few months I'm going to have to increasingly start talking about more issues that may be a little bit more controversial uh than I personally want to talk about but uh we may have to uh as time goes on either way with that out of the way let's actually get to to the meat of the matter today and let's start off with the Southeast region so as many of you know we are still awaiting any sort of development whatsoever with regards to the Jeffrey Epstein documents same thing with the JFK files uh the RFK files and the MLK Jr files yeah I have really kind of scoured the internet really tried to figure out if there's anything new that's been released and so far I haven't seen anything uh new that has been released since the whole binder Scandal has just kind of been dropped forgotten there has been a lot of rhetoric back and forth between attorney general Pam Bondi and the FBI and various agencies and officials and things like that however really nothing that we can sink our teeth into has been uh released so this Scandal kind of continues I know that a lot of people are are right now in kind of making excuse mode for for this decision and and this in these developments but once again uh just purely going off of what these official government agencies have stated they're they're not uh they're not meeting their end of their own agreement so similarly deportations are down uh in terms of the numbers that have been released now granted there's a lot of misleading information out there when it comes to immigration data and numbers one of the things that has complicated the issue quite a bit is ice and the department of homeand security not entirely being forthcoming with their statistical data so if you scour their websites and you look at their press releases and things like that there really isn't that much information to go off of and as we all know when government agency doesn't tend to release that much data we know well we get a particular feeling about that don't we so trying to be as Fair as humanly possible it was probably a very ill-advised move for ice to start publishing daily deportation numbers because deportations criminal investigations these things take time and you're you're not exactly going to be able to get this many people per day and and categorize it it's going to be hard to do it's it's better served as has been indicated over the past few years uh ice was already doing it kind of the best way which is well roll up at the end of the month and tell us how many people you uh successfully found detained and deported right going through this whole process so ice did not do that uh they wanted a little bit of a PR kind of campaign right to start with which is which is fair if that's their goal but it has made it very challenging because when you present daily deportation numbers and then you take that away people tend to be a little bit uh skeptical about that so I'm not entirely sure how the situation is going deportations are continuing criminal investigations are continuing but in terms of the Big Data big data is hard to analyze on a small scale so we have to have a little bit more time before we can draw an assessment on that now granted president Trump has been president for almost two months now so I think next month will be two months so we'll have that 60-day window uh coming up in a couple of weeks or or in a week or so and uh we'll be able to draw a little bit more conclusion from that so once again it's not fair to make an assessment on day one uh you know coming at Donald Trump and the Trump Administration on January 21st saying why haven't you deported 5 million people that's not a fair expectation but we are starting to get into the land of fair expectations okay 60 days has elapsed what have you done in terms of deportation numbers right so uh and if the numbers aren't uh particularly overwhelming if they're a little bit underwhelming then why why is that are there mitigating circumstances that we the American people the taxpayer who is paying for all this uh or are there mitigating circumstances that we can kind of uh lean on for that now back at the doj the FBI is also investigating uh the recent swatting incidents which I I will talk about in more detail in just a moment but I didn't want to mention it here because we're kind of in the Washington DC region also down in Florida I briefly wanted to mention that the marago airspace incursions continue from what I can tell in my limited research this seems to be more along the lines of a just general AV ation Pilots not paying attention to notam changes down there however we do need to kind of keep this in mind because this is more of a national security issue especially when Trump flies down there for the weekend or spend some time at Mar Lago it's a congested airspace already so it's a little it's a little bit understandable you know a notam expands the T the temporary flight restriction expands uh in a Noam that Pilots don't catch because it drops an hour before their flight and they didn't check it that morning so it's a little bit more understandable however again when it comes to National Security a little bit more of a heightened awareness would probably be a good idea for any general aviation Pilots down there in Florida in Palm Beach moving to the southwestern region I briefly wanted to mention an incident that occurred yesterday that I that occurred before I could put it in the wire and this was an incident involving a drunk driver the driver of a semi-truck was drunk and driving on I35 causing a pileup uh which ended up killing five people and injuring 11 more people so very significant crash uh these things are becoming a lot more I did want to briefly mention this because it is a horrific crash something to to most certainly be be on the lookout for be mindful of uh this has been a problem for a very long period of time so I don't want to make this out to be like it's a new issue but I haven't talked about it myself at Great length yet but I but I have been thinking about it uh with regards to commercial Trucking and both uh immigrant drivers drunk drivers people who don't necessarily speak great English for instance this this uh driver here at the scene when he was arrested uh he didn't speak English uh very well at all so once again it's a big issue but it's been around for a long time I remember even when I was a kid this was a problem and kind of in my local community as well but I did want to mention it because this again was a more horrific crash than normal and it is once again another call for increased vigilance moving over to the western region as many of you have already noted throughout the country but mostly centered in Seattle a lot of Tesla dealerships and Tesla Vehicles cyber trucks or just regular uh Tesla models that have been parked in public have been assaulted attacked um vandalized set on fire uh you name it so the standard standard Seattle kind of demonstration tactic this is once again not particularly new this has been happening really ever since Elon Musk uh kind of started having a little bit more of an active role in the Trump Administration however it's intensified over the past week uh with regards to the targeting of Elon Musk and his platform so for instance Twitter or X was also hit with a pretty big Cyber attack uh on Monday I believe which took the website down for a few hours uh again Elon Musk himself stated that the website was uh targeted via a nation state level actor or someone who dedicated a lot of funding to launch a DDOS attack both of these incidents both the targeting of Twitter and the targeting of uh Tesla vehicles and cyber trucks this is definitely a textbook case of low intensity conflict however it it might become more of a problem as time goes on right now it's just something easy for low-level activists independent malign actors to lash out it's you know Molotov cocktail doesn't doesn't take much uh brain power or funding to to do so it's going to be one of those things that probably continues for a while Switching gears significantly like I mentioned in the wire there was an incident involving American Airlines flight 106 in which an engine uh caught fire upon landing at the airport there in Denver so far there hasn't really been any word on what caused the fire or what caused the mechanical issue that led to the fire upon landing and thankfully everyone was able to evacuate and there were only a few people who got minor injuries from from egressing the aircraft I knew that it's not that interesting of a topic to talk about however I think that it is a good case study for you know paying attention being situationally aware we say these things all the time and sometimes it just gets kind of drowned out because people say oh we're going to you know talk about risk assessment safety again but look at what's happened you know it it tends to be very very important they there's a reason that the flat attendant say when we're going to erress this aircraft leave all your stuff behind because people have died uh because people were trying to get their bags out of the overhead bin instead of trying to evacuate the aircraft and even though this turned out great in this case you know seeing a a lot of people get off the aircraft with their bags is not particularly a a good thing in terms of survivability so thankfully once again everyone survived this crash however this could have gone uh very very badly uh but either way it worked out in the end I guess before we move overseas I briefly wanted to to talk about some of the swatting incidents that have occurred over the the past few days few weeks a few months really since the election because this has become an increasingly significant problem for a lot of conservative influencers out there which is is kind of an interesting development interestingly enough when I wrote the wire on this the other day uh I like an idiot realized after the fact that a lot of you especially those of you outside the United States might not know what swatting is so I got a lot of messages from from people asking what swatting is because a lot of people didn't understand the classically quintessential American phenomenon of swatting so let me briefly explain what this is because only after I've thought about it for a minute I realized how absolutely insane this whole idea is kind of like when you go to explain something you realize how crazy it is this is one of those times so so for those of you who don't know swatting is the act of a Mali actor out there calling in a fake police report to our Emergency Services phone number 911 to report some kind of horrific crime in progress usually some kind of kidnapping or mass shooting or something like that and the entire goal of doing this is to try to get the Police SWAT unit this is where it comes from uh to come and kick the door in at that location and and maybe kill someone so that's the kind of gist of how this works so someone calls in a fake uh oh my gosh there's a mass shooting going on at this location or a kidnapping or something like that some brutal crime is going on at this address the police of course freak out and respond in force uh to this address and kick in the door drag people out and and it just increases the potential for something bad to to happen at this at this location so when I was trying to figure out a way to to explain this really the elephant in the room for again the non-americans out there is why would a malign actor use this as an attack Vector why would this why is this even a thing surely if a false police report is made this should be easily resolved by a quiet knock at the door and a you know happy and polite we're just checking on things because we got a call so sorry to bother you have nice day kind of thing but no it's it's called swatting because in many jurisdictions the potential is extremely high for SWAT to kick in your door without a warrant and without knocking all based off of a fake 911 phone call so we can see how this has become kind of a Threat Vector for malign actors it's not really a prank or an inconvenience it's it's quite literally a an attempt to get the police to kill someone on someone else's behalf so just think about it for a second you're you hear someone trying to kick in your door or bashing on your door really loudly at 2: in the morning you roll out of bed you're groggy you're half dressed you're not thinking clearly you maybe grab a firearm to see you know what the noise is cuz you may you may think it's a robber or or someone trying to break in right and there you go you answer the door with a gun in your hand and you're instantly shot by police with no questions asked so in the United States answering a bump in the night is very risky uh not because it may be a criminal but because it might be the police so unfortunately this is I know it seems really biased to explain it like this but from a risk management perspective this is the truth we may not want to think about it but it is the truth so the name alone swatting should not be possible it's it's it should not be a thing that happens but it's so common now that it's become a hugely popular way of uh usually uh political conservatives being targeted I haven't actually ever heard of a politically liberal like commentator journalist or something like that being swatted which is kind of interesting really this brings about a larger question uh which is the the whole idea kind of boils down to you're telling me that we we live in a time where falsely calling the police on someone might actually get them killed instead of a minor inconvenient knock at the door you know that that's really the real question that kind of goes unanswered here I personally don't like it I really don't and I and I don't like the fact that I have to phrase it this way and I don't like the fact that I have to put so many disclaimers in front of an opinion on this kind of thing because as we all know the issue of law enforcement in America has been been a very very contentious IC over the past few years for many good reasons and for many not so good reasons and it's hard to tell those reasons apart sometimes so I don't have an answer for you uh but this is the way that it is uh malign actors know they're trying to induce a a a situation where a police officer can possibly make a bad decision now does this happen in every case no a lot of major cities which get swatting calls all the time these jurisdictions have a plan for this they have officers have discretion they're making good decisions in a lot of these Squad in cases but the fact is is that in some jurisdictions a lot of police take the bait and they roll up thinking they're going to stop a mass shooting not thinking that they are being used as a pawn not thinking critically not thinking that the phone number did not match the place where they're saying they're calling from you see how we can kind of go down this this rabbit hole and and they immediately go into react mode and it the it's just complacency just kind of compounds things so the fact that the FBI director the new director cash Patel the fact that he even acknowledge that this is possible confirms this is your confirmation everyone this is your confirmation that sometimes police do go in guns blazing now again it's a tough thing because if there was a mass shooting in progress you would hope that the police would come in and you know respond rather rapidly right you would hope that would happen unfortunately in a lot of cases it's hard to to strike that right balance of critical thinking and uh the speed of which a response is necessary very tough question I don't I don't envy anyone who has to make that decision for sure but it is a it is a problem so but that being said and taking all of this into consideration I don't want to beat down I don't want to beat down law enforcement uh without offering Solutions so there are a few very easy things that can be done to prevent swatting and to eliminate this completely or mostly as a Threat Vector uh reduce the risk for both the citizen population and the police it's all reducing the risk for both of these demographics would be great instead of just relying on reducing ring the risk for one of them so local law enforcement especially smaller less well-funded jurisdictions really do need to have a swatting plan in most jurisdictions all 911 calls indicating a very severe uh crime in progress have to be followed up on uh but there are some ways to make this as safe as possible for everybody so in short communication is the entire solution really that's that's it that's just improving communication would solve this problem completely you can even create what we in in the Intel World call Eis or essential elements of information essentially a a list of things to double check before we get all kind of spun out of control on something and it doesn't it can be done automatically as a software solution in most of the uh software packages and software Suites that are used by law enforcement or especially 911 dispatchers so for instance if a person is calling from a number outside of the zip code for where the call is allegedly taking place that should be an indicator that something's not quite right here so if a person is claiming that they are getting ready to shoot up a a school or something like that and they're outside the school right now but 911 call dispatchers can geolocate that 911 call is taking place five or six states away uh do you see how we can automatically with software Solutions identify the potential for a swindling taking place same thing with a very simple shift change briefing right one of the big problems with swatting is that the the people doing the swatting these Mali actors they know the shift change for a law enforcement jurisdiction right they know a police department shift change procedure and a lot of times what they'll do is they'll call during one shift and get somebody swatted during one shift and then they'll wait for a shift change to occur knowing that that Police Department is not going to mention the swatting incident and so the next shift gets on gets on board they you know start their shift and that second shift doesn't know that a swatting incident took place so they SWAT him again so now you see how we're going around the clock if there is a shift change briefing and no one mentions the swatting well every single shift can be hit with a swatting incident and this can happen for for many many times in a row and this usually does happen this happens quite a lot because the swatters know that most in most cases with most shift changes they're not going to mention the swatting but it would be very very easy for a shift Captain to basically say look guys hey just be aware we got a fake report at this house it's a prominent conservative influencer if you get a Call of a violent you know crime taking place at this house just be mindful that it's probably another swatting incident you know we have to respond anyway but still just be mindful don't go their guns blazing kind of thing and that would neutralize it right that would neutralize most of it it would still be inconvenient for the homeowner but you don't need to get out there and slam somebody on the ground every single shift change you know every single shift throughout the day doesn't need to involve a person you know being treated like they's some kind of criminal in their own home but this would be very very easy to do and these are very these are solutions that could be affected at the very lowest levels possible now speaking of higher level things when we're talking about the FBI getting involved well we all know that the NSA and the FBI and the CIA and all these federal agencies spend hundreds of thousands of manh hours to track down Grandma you know at the capital building on j6 but they don't seem to be very interested in figuring out where these highly traceable highly investigable crimes are taking place with regards to swatting right it's very it would be extraordinarily easy to isolate someone who swatted someone else but the demand hasn't been there so hopefully uh the demand for this kind of of crime Vector taking place uh can be addressed uh by the FBI we will certainly give them the chance and we will hold them accountable uh if nothing seems to be done on that front so of course it's a very controversial issue it's a very controversial topic but sometimes we've got to talk about these things and uh get this out in the open so that we can get towards a solution right so hopefully we can isolate this and stop this from happening to to Really anyone at this point I forgot to mention all of the people who this has happened to over the past couple of days have been largely conservative influencers uh honestly I just as a disclaimer I don't know most of these people I think at least 80% of the people on this list have me blocked personally on social media so it's very interesting that a lot of the people who are being swatted are not I I would personally not classify them as being particularly inflammatory a lot of them are uh not I I personally I know inflammatory but I personally wouldn't even classify them as being conservative so Centrist at best so it's very interesting that it it doesn't necessarily seem to be aligned so much with political ideology so much as just an alignment with President Trump so a long a lot of the time it's it's really going to be impacting the people who are writing positively or speaking positively on social media about uh president Trump so again that seems to be the in this particular case the most common uh Vector for targeting uh I guess we'll have to see if this expands to include more people but really the the more politically conservative people who I would have expected this to happen to are not really being targeted at least not yet so I guess we'll have to see how that all works out Switching gears significantly let's move to the North Sea for a moment again tensions are high on the high seas as I noted in The Wire the captain of the merchant vessel soong has been arrested he at least British media has seemed to confirm whatever that means seem to confirm that he is a Russian national and he has been charged with manslaughter as one of the crew members uh involved in this Collision incident uh was has been lost at sea uh and presumed dead at this time so criminal investigation is ongoing just like Aviation it takes a very long time for any kind of investigation report to come out and a lot of the people in the maritime space tend to walk on eggshells around Maritime issues involving very large uh companies a lot of times because there's a lot of uh there's a lot of legal implications for saying what caused this or what caused that it's so so you tend to see a little bit more risk aversion when it comes to assessments on things like this everybody's suddenly well we need to wait and see you know that's the kind of thing uh that tends to happen now of course from my perspective I am not in the maritime Community uh I am in the world of of intelligence and and threat assessment and things like that so just for me personally when a commercial tanker vessel gets struck by a container ship and it looks to me like it's a very deliberate Collision I'm personally going to treat it like it's a deliberate Collision until we can maybe excuse that behavior later on especially during a time of heightened heightened awareness and and heightened uh International tensions it seems like they're they're treating this as more of a negligence kind of thing but it's hard to say we're proba not going to get that much more information on this is one of those things that's very very hard to prove uh even with the data recorders on on both vessels it's going to be very very hard to prove but generally speaking when one vessel sitting at anchor gets T-boned by a cargo ship that could have seen them for a very long distance away we have to assume that there's some level of either extremely gross negligence or an INT intentionality Behind these actions for now that's kind of how the investigation is sitting and like clockwork I guess just going to have to wait and see how it works out moving over to Eastern Europe let's talk about Ukraine I know it's been a long winding and very contentious road to get here but we may be and I don't wish to speak too soon but we may be able to taste a little bit of a peace deal very very soon diplomatic efforts are ongoing you can see this with the even tracking the Diplomatic planes of of diplomats flying around throughout Western and Eastern Europe so far nothing said in stone uh it seems like Putin is very much in a good uh bargaining position he has either achieved for himself or been granted by the West A very handsome position diplomatically for instance the NATO Chief has granted him the concession of saying verbally in a media interview that Ukraine is not going to join NATO now whether that's true that's going to be up for Putin to to make the decision on no one else it's just it's his personal decision alone so I don't know if it's true or not NATO has certainly been very untrustworthy on the same claims before but again it is a good diplomatic concession to make to get Russia to even come to the table same thing with the kers defensive this is something NATO didn't really have a hand in stopping uh but the kers defensive the ill- fated foray into the Kur region of Russia is is largely over the conflict is mostly boiled down to largely nothing at this moment or very very little operations I don't wish to make light of the issue at all or or sound insulting but if we're going to use a doctrinal term to describe what's going on we might call it mopping up operations so Russia is mopping up the last uh bit of UK Ukrainian presence inside the the Border region of Russia the K region whereas most Ukrainian forces have have already kind of withdrawn back into Ukraine so again may be distasteful to to describe it in that manner but that's the doctrinal term Russia will continue clearing their territory over the next few days but now that this offensive and this kind of thorn in Russia's side is largely over Russia is in a better position uh a little bit more favorable of a position to to come to the negotiating table from Ukraine's perspective Ukraine really doesn't have that much negotiating room at all uh granted Ukraine is not really going to be negotiating for herself it's going to be the United States really negotiating on Ukraine's behalf because as we all know this is how this war has gone really from the from the get-go there have been a couple of times over the past few years really right when the when the invasion started uh right when uh Russian troops were kind of on the outskirts of Kiev there were uh Talks Of Peace at that time uh however it's um it's a very contingent topic that people would had a much higher pay grade than me you're going to be talking about for many many years the bottom line right now is that we we may have the first real genuine chance for peace in Ukraine in many many years and it's really going to largely be on the diplomats involved as to whether or not this is going to happen things happen very quickly in the Diplomatic space and all it takes is a phone call all it takes is one off-hand comment or remark and uh you know years of progress is set back so hopefully diplomats can kind of keep this going and we can we can actually achieve peace in Europe for for a while at least so that's pretty much all I have for this week I know it's not particularly helpful sometimes a lot of waight and sees I'm sorry about that sometimes that happens but let's talk about the intercepted ghostnet reports uh this week was really good I think the weather kind of helped out a lot of people even though uh the time zone changed and I don't think a lot of people remembered that it did uh for for transmitting either way that's okay a lot of people tend to operate for 3 or 4 hours instead of just the you know 30 minute or hour window that that the uh radio network is set up for so I got a lot of messages from a lot of people a lot of people were testing not so much news uh but a lot of uh a lot of people testing back and forth sending messages sending emails so it's it's a good uh Network that is is constantly growing every every week uh that goes by and I am still working on it I'm still working on improving it I've got a lot of Publications that I'm working on I have two separate uh supplementary Publications that I'm working on right now uh they're going to take me a while so uh just please bear with me while I I work on of the stuff that will help improve the ghost net in time so that's all I have for today thank you guys all for sticking with me thank you all for your all of your support and uh thank you for sticking with me again through some of these more contentious issues unfortunately I wish it wasn't the case I would like to talk about nothing but sunshine and rainbows but uh sometimes we have to get to the meat of the matter not necessarily uh in terms of dwelling on the bad stuff but by you know discussing it and and trying to get to Solutions right that's what we're trying to do here so it's all in good faith I know that's not a thing that happens on the internet too much uh these days but it's all in good faith trying to do the best we can and I think there's a lot of value in just trying to uh keep moving forward so we'll try to keep doing that and I guess we'll see what next week brings so again thank you all for watching thank you for your support and I will see you next time and as always fight in the shade