//The Wire//2300Z January 23, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: TRUMP ORDER ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP BLOCKED BY JUDGE. GOVT AGENCIES ATTEMPT TO SUBVERT COMPLIANCE WITH DEI BAN. IMMIGRATION ISSUES CONTINUE NATIONWIDE.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- United Kingdom: The sentencing of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana took place today. He was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 52 years. -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - Hostility to President Trump's initial executive actions is mounting, with Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle issuing an order to block Trump's order pertaining to birthright citizenship. Following President Trump's orders to dismantle all DEI programs from federal agencies and organizations, many entities (to include military organizations) have been observed to take measures to camouflage DEI positions and programs by simply changing their name, but not actually changing the content of a program or firing any staff. AC: This sneaky move will probably not work in the long run, as the internet has a long memory. The definition of what qualifies as a "DEI" position can be based on what a person was initially hired to do, not what their title was changed to be. As such, a simple name-change won't really slow down counter-DEI efforts that much. USA: Immigration raids continue in many major cities. Approximately 1,500x active duty troops have been deployed to the southern border. A major raid in Boston has entered it's second day, as primarily Haitian illegals are being detained and deported. In Providence, Rhode Island, the law offices of Joseph Molina Flynn were raided, which is a major law firm that is well-known for primarily representing immigrant clients and generally being involved in immigration issues. AC: This raid was likely conducted in conjunction with various human-trafficking operations. Somewhat interestingly, Flynn is both an immigration lawyer, and a municipal court judge in Central Falls. As such, the mayor of Central Falls announced the resignation of Molina Flynn this afternoon. California: This morning a hiker was shot multiple times in Jacumba during a mugging by suspected Cartel members, who are assessed to have crossed the border to conduct extortion operations in the local area. AC: These types of Cartel operations are relatively common, but likely will increase in intensity for the foreseeable future. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Regarding the pardon's issued by the White House prior to President Trump being inaugurated, even more questions have emerged. For instance, Anthony Fauci's pardon has been back-dated to cover any and all crimes he committed since 2014. This has led many to raise the question of what he was doing post-2014 that might require a pardon in the first place. After all, if the previous regime was scared Fauci might be unjustly targeted for his work during COVID, why backdate his pardon all the way back to 2014, during the Obama administration? This has raised more questions than answers, and reignited scrutiny as to how this pardon may be linked to other pardons issued with the same date. Regarding remigration efforts, most ICE raids have only resulted in the arrest of a few hundred illegals, however what is being observed now is likely the rapid action on heavily-populated encampments of illegals that are the low-hanging-fruit. Most likely, larger, more logistically-intensive operations are being stood up right now. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z January 24, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: HORRIFIC DETAILS OF SOUTHPORT MURDERS BECOME PUBLIC DURING SENTENCING TRIAL. DISASTER AID EFFORTS INCREASE IN NORTH CAROLINA. SOUTH AFRICAN EXPROPRIATION BILL PASSED INTO LAW.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- United Kingdom: Outrage continues following the sentencing of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana. Specifically, the censorship regarding the details of this case, the arrest and imprisonment of native Britons who voiced the truth of this case months ago, and the continuing media censorship surrounding the deliberate actions that allowed the murderer to remain in Britain (despite a long history of displaying his violent intentions) have been cause for concern. South Africa: Following years of societal issues, the beleaguered nation has reached another critical milestone. This morning the highly-controversial Expropriation Bill was signed into law, which allows the government to seize any private land they so choose, and not compensate the owners for it. AC: Considering the historical context of South Africa's decline, this move is being assessed by many to be a major development that will result in even more land-grabs and an intensification of the genocide of white farmers throughout the nation. -HomeFront- North Carolina: During President Trump's visit to the damage-stricken western region of the state, he announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is being deployed to assist in rebuilding roads and bridges throughout the region, to supplement the efforts already undertaken by private citizens to recover from this disaster without much help from federal authorities. Trump also pledged to sign an Executive Order this afternoon that removed all permitting requirements for re-building residential homes in the disaster area, in addition to committing more substantial permanent housing solutions for affected citizens. USA: The release of J6 prisoners following President Trump's pardon continues, with around a dozen prisoners still having not yet been released at a few federal detention facilities. AC: Many J6 prisoners have also been immediately re-arrested on state charges, and are back in the custody of state authorities. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: Generally speaking, it is exceptionally rare for a Presidential election to result in such stark differences that affect the daily lives of everyday citizens. However, this effect is certainly amplified when disaster aid is in play. Now that Americans can see what is possible to do immediately with regards to disaster response in western North Carolina, Americans are asking why this response was completely impossible a few days ago, but is comparatively easy to implement now. As such, these efforts have made it all the more obvious that western North Carolina was specifically and intentionally neglected by the Biden regime. Even more poignantly, at the height of the disaster response, everyone knew that the federal government (and even some state-level agencies) were deliberately dragging-feet, and causing harm as a result. However, even knowing all of this at the time, there was absolutely zero recourse to be had with regards to accountability during hte height of the crisis. This is one of the main reasons a parallel society emerged, with private, self-funded disaster relief efforts taking place alongside government (being delicate enough to avoid outright conflict or jurisdictional issues), but still getting the job done. It was this delicate balance that resulted in the most success at the time, as complaining without action and outright hostility toward federal authorities (while justified) did not solve problems. Now, in hindsight, we can see the level of malice demonstrated by the federal bureaucracy. Having to tell disaster victims to hang in there, and hold out a few more weeks until someone else takes office so that large-scale disaster aid can be brought in, is a bittersweet observation that North Carolinians are not likely to forget anytime soon. Administrative Note: To fully understand the outrage that is present throughout Britain surrounding the Southport murders, a much more in-depth examination of the case would be helpful. One crucial aspect of the case (that was deliberately censored for months) are the specific (and exceptionally gruesome) details of the murders. Considering that the British media is doing everything they can to censor these horrific details, documenting these details is important to understand the scale of the anger the British are demonstrating. It must also be noted that at least one parent of the murdered children specifically requested that the graphic details of the attack not be shared online, as it would "fuel hatred". Additional considerations should be noted that the attacker is specifically not mentally ill in any shape or form, with his own defense attorney, Stan Reiz KC stating that "There is no psychiatric evidence before the court that could suggest that a mental disorder contributed to the defendant's actions." Consequently, the specifics of the results of the attack (as they were revealed to journalists in the courtroom during Monday's sentencing hearing) will be documented in the

//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 May 5, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: REVENGE KILLING IN OHIO, PROBABLE REVENGE KILLING ATTEMPTED IN INDIANA. WHITE HOUSE STATES NO TIMELINE FOR EPSTEIN DOC RELEASE. ISRAEL ANNOUNCES PLAN TO COMPLETELY OCCUPY GAZA.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Middle East: Israeli media has announced that Netanyahu's cabinet has approved plans to completely seize control of Gaza. Local Israeli media has stated that another general mobilization is underway, with tens of thousands of reservists being calling into active service in the IDF.  -HomeFront- Washington D.C. - Significant scandal erupted over the weekend in Congress as House Resolution 867 was introduced for a vote. The bill sought to modify the text of 50 USC 4841 and 4842 (both being wartime trade laws) to restrict American's ability to boycott certain nations and groups (according to the bill's sponsors, specifically one nation, Israel). After the expected backlash, the vote on this bill has been postponed. AC: Most of the outrage over this is really related to the already-passed Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, which went almost completely unnoticed by the chaos of the COVID years. H.R. 867 merely sought to change the terminology so that the term "international government organization" was placed after the words "foreign country" in the text of 50 USC § 4841. What this means in practice is anyone's guess as the original law was passed with extremely vague and broad language. This additional aspect of adding IGO's to the mix is interesting in that it provides a clue as to what manipulations are being undertaken in Washington on this issue. Previously the laws only applied to government-level boycotts...but adding in IGOs could mean that the floodgates are opened for all of this to impact the average American. Washington D.C. - During a press conference the White House has stated that there is no specific timeline for the release of the Epstein files. AC: Though this was probably the case all along, there is almost zero chance that these files will ever be released. Following the binder-scandal of two months ago, a lot of older previously-known documentation will eventually be re-released and touted as new, but the files that everyone wants (as in Epstein's client list that does exist and was presented in court) will almost certainly never be made public. Ohio: A police officer was murdered as part of a revenge killing incident in Cincinnati. A traffic control officer was intentionally struck by a vehicle Friday afternoon near the University of Cincinnati. The driver of the vehicle has been identified as Rodney Hinton Jr, who is the father of Ryan Hinton, a black male that was shot and killed by police on Thursday for drawing a gun on police officers who discovered him inside a stolen vehicle they were attempting to locate. AC: Not many details are being released on this incident, probably to reduce the palpably high tensions regarding this incident. Though the timing is hard to verify, local media reports that Rodney Hinton was shown the body cam footage of his son's death, which confirmed beyond all doubt that the police shooting was justified. After viewing the video, Hinton promptly left the police station and proceeded to murder what seems to be a random officer not specifically involved in the incident. Since this was very much a knee-jerk revenge killing, it's hard to imagine that Hinton would have murdered the correct police officer involved in his son's killing (even if it's because the officers involved in the shooting are probably on administrative leave as is standard procedure). However, now that the situation has become a high profile incident, the security concerns to the officers who are actually involved with the prior shooting are exceptionally high, thus the little information regarding the link between these two cases. Indiana: This morning a man was shot after drawing a firearm on police officers attempting to carry out an inmate transfer at the Hendricks County Courthouse. Two officers opened fire on the man, killing him at the scene. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: The incident in Indiana could be another revenge killing attempt, though possibly for very different reasons. Local media is running the story that the would-be shooter was the great-grandfather of two children who were killed during a police chase back in February. Regarding that earlier case, S'Doni Pettis was spotted driving a stolen vehicle by police, and decided to engage in a high-speed chase with two infants in the vehicle with him. The chase ended when Pettis crashed into another vehicle, killing one of the infants and critically wounding the other. Pettis was on probation at the time after a sweetheart plea deal allowed him to remain a free man earlier than usual instead of being in prison on charges of attempted murder (charges which were reduced as part of the plea deal). Returning to the incident that occurred this morning, Pettis was scheduled to be in court today, facing a hearing regarding that earlier incident involving the children. Therefore it's possible that a family member of those two children was attempting to kill him as retribution for Pettis' actions. On the other hand, it's also possible that the suspect's family member was trying to spring him from custody as he was being brought into court. At the moment, it's impossible to determine what actually happened. A random person pointing a gun at police during an inmate transfer is not the time or place to undertake a calm debate to determine causation. After the incident is over, not much detail is expected to be released either; even though it would be helpful from a risk management perspective to know what the true cause of this shooting was, authorities don't want to encourage vigilantism in any way, regardless of the context. In the Middle East, the claims of Israel taking over Gaza completely have been made many times before, but this time the plans have become more solidified as the Cabinet has allegedly publicly voted on such now. Israel has also completely invaded Gaza in the past, however this time the openly-stated goal is to totally displace the entire surviving non-Israeli population from the region completely. This is a much different tone than Israel occupying Gaza and allowing the Palestinian population to remain, as they have done periodically in the past. In a larger sense, the elephant in the room is the bigger issue, but in practical terms this move will probably have many different impacts in very short order. Houthi attacks will increase as a knee-jerk reaction to this announcement, and the conflict in Syria will probably escalate as that war is largely a proxy space for settling many different issues. The Iranians probably won't do anything at all; if they haven't really done anything regarding the plight of those in Gaza earlier (when the regular and indiscriminate targeting of civilian centers was at it's height), it's very unlikely they will do anything at this point either. Hezbollah to the north in Lebanon likewise probably won't do much, but some indirect-fire in the form of rocket attacks may take place over the next few days. It's been a comparatively long time since any significant rocket attacks were seen originating from Lebanon, but if there were ever an occasion to see an increase in these attacks, now would be the time. More indirectly, this news probably provides some hints at the truth pertaining to the recent (and public) infighting in the White House and Pentagon. For the past few weeks, major indications and warnings of an impending war with Iran have been palpable. But now, the words *not* said are deafening...Israel suddenly announcing plans to do what they originally set out to do in the first place could indicate that they don't have the United States to do their bidding as much as they might like with regards to taking on Iran (as hard as this is to believe). This is a bit of a stretch, but Israel announcing plans to "clean out that whole thing" (to quote President Trump himself) probably means that Israel will have their hands full with Gaza for a while. Of course, this could all be a ruse to disguise and distract from an open war with Iran. As deception is a huge part of this conflict, this always remains a possibility, and it would do well to remember that strategic American resources are still forward-deployed to the region, so an American war with Iran is certainly still on the table. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground

//The Wire//2300Z December 17, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: GEOPOLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE IN CARIBBEAN. BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTING INVESTIGATION CASTS DOUBT ON THE PROCESS.//  -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----   -International Events- Caribbean: Diplomatic indicators continue to mount concerning the war with Venezuela entering into the final stages of preparation. The White House announced that a special address to the nation will take place at 9:00pm (local time), the contents of which have not yet been disclosed. Analyst Comment: So far it's mostly just rumor, however some historical context might help in understanding the larger strategic doctrine in play here. On this day exactly 118 years ago, the Great White Fleet departed port and officially began it's global journey around the world. The Great White Fleet was an initiative set in place by President Teddy Roosevelt which was intended to showcase America's military might on the high seas. This took the form of sending the US Navy's impressive fleet of battleships (which were painted all white, at the time) around the world as part of a very serious game of show and tell. This move, essentially a manifestation of the "big stick" part of Roosevelt's "walk softly" quote, eventually became known as a class of politics called Gunboat Diplomacy. Today, the US still abides by this doctrine (along with many other nations) to some degree, and in practice it usually works out to take the form of parking an aircraft carrier off a nation's coast to urge a people to strongly reconsider their actions. It's unknown as to if this date holds any significance to the White House, but since President Trump's style of command often takes cues from powerful people throughout history, it would make perfect sense for the White House to replicate this "big stick" effort. This has already come to pass and become routine by the striking of fastboats in the Caribbean, so while the world awaits what happens next, the larger strategic goals would be wise to consider. As a reminder, since the seizure of the M/T *SKIPPER* a few days ago, the United States has changed the official position on Venezuela to not just be about drug trafficking, but also oil as well. This might have been obvious from the very start, but it's still a fast pivot to make for any administration, so as events develop over the next few days we'll have to see how this shakes out. -HomeFront- Rhode Island: Images of a second person have been released during the Brown University shooting investigation. Providence Police have not provided the context for why this person is being sought, only that they would like to speak to whomever this individual is. Analyst Comment: The general theory is that this person is not the shooter, but rather an individual who may have walked past the shooter at some point. Authorities have not confirmed this or really made any comment on this at all, so this is just a best guess regarding this new person that is being sought. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: In Rhode Island, the development of events following the Brown University shooting has been nothing short of a PR disaster. Normally, it's completely out of the question for any sort of arm-chair quarterbacking to be helpful during a shooting like this. However, in this case, the chance of random anons on the internet finding the killer before the actual police...is higher than zero. As such, more time and resources can be allocated to examine this case, purely in the interest of finding the truth. And right now, it sure looks like a coverup is taking place. The press conferences in particular have been a source of concern as officials have not been able to answer even basic questions. Chief Perez has been corrected by journalists several times after he mis-stated basic details of the case; for example, yesterday he stated the the footage of the suspect that was released was from inside the Barus and Holley building, when in reality all of the footage has been from exterior cameras. This is important because a major sticking point in this case is the complete lack of interior security camera footage. In response to the sheer disbelief in the lack of security camera footage of a mass shooting, Brown University released their entire security camera layout plan. From a security perspective, this is highly secret information. Now, criminals know exactly where the gaps in camera coverage are and crimes can now be committed at certain points because of this knowledge. However, this chart is also not complete, and there are at least two cameras that can be seen in Google Street View, which are not depicted on the camera plan. Both of these cameras appear to be directed at the rear of the Prince Engineering Lab, and the rear of the Barus and Holley building....EXACTLY where the suspect is assessed to have exited the building from. This means that the two cameras which may have footage of the killer...don't officially exist. This of course does not prove that the suspect was actually captured on these cameras, as the distance from the Engineering building was probably too far to actually matter that much even if the suspect was seen in this footage. But it does prove that someone at some point is lying about the cameras that actually exist in this general area. This calls into question other details provided by the University, such as the route that the suspect is alleged to have taken to egress from the area. Another detail in the case that adds to the incredulity is the fact that the room in which the shooting took place was locked, and could only be accessed by keycard, at least according to eyewitnesses who had class in that building. This has been stated by multiple students and faculty; no one can enter the exterior doors of the building without swiping their ID badge. The exception to this access is during times of heightened foot traffic, such as exam week, so this detail doesn't help much...it's likely that the doors would have been unlocked anyway. As such, this detail might not mean much, but it's still a question that needs to be answered. All things considered, many eyes are on this topic now. Everyone from members of the student body at Brown, to anons on the internet are examining details and trying to both piece together exactly what happened and also trying to apprehend the suspect(s). For their efforts to get to the truth, members of the public have been berated and insulted by AG Neronha who became visibly upset during a press conference, regarding a question of why Brown University has quietly taken down pages from their website that featured personnel that might be suspects. This afternoon Congressman Sheldon Whitehouse called anyone who questioned the official story of what happened "stupid" and told them to "shut up", urging the censorship of any non-governmental-approved efforts to get to the truth in this case. Officials have stated that there is no threat to the community, which is not reflected in the basic fact that the killer is still on the loose, and no indication warned of the attack in the first place. The only basis for claiming that there is no further threat to the public, is a scenario in which the intended target is dead, so there's no risk of another mass shooting taking place. Since the shooting, no terror cell or organization has claimed credit for the attack either. As such, the threats continue, and time is running out when it comes to finding the killer. Analyst: S2A1 Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for July 5th through the 11th, 2026. It's been a busy week as usual, so let's get right to it. Around the world this week, the two main wars that we've been watching for a couple of years now have flared back up with several very serious developments taking place in Europe and the Middle East this week. In Africa, the Russians are involved in intense fighting against the FLA militants in Mali, which have taken control of most of the north and eastern parts of the country. And even though wars in the Sahel region are quite common, this conflict has really served as a window for showing us how the third world has adapted to the modern battlefield when it comes to the use of drones and warfare. Here a bit closer to the home front, similar concerns are emerging as the summer fighting season this year south of the border has been hosted to a rise in drone attacks between rival cartel factions in Mexico. The more desolate and far-flung regions of the earth are starting to use drones in their mostly tribal conflicts. And as the Russians are finding out in Mali and the cartels are finding out in Mexico, drone warfare is most certainly a major concern that is very, very hard to counter. Within the homeland, important events this week have largely been within the political realm as several security improvement efforts are underway in Washington DC. This has not gotten a lot of press, but it's still interesting to note as this gives us an indication of where a lot of concerns are starting to mount. So, let's go ahead and start right there because the security improvements that have been observed this week are rather interesting in Washington. In short, the White House has demonstrated a growing concern regarding the safety of President Trump over the past few weeks. This came to light most publicly during President Trump's visit to Turkey for the NATO summit a few days ago when the Secret Service had to switch back to the old Air Force One due to an undisclosed security concern. This was kind of a big deal at the time because this was supposed to be the inaugural flight for the new Air Force One platform. Initially, President Trump claims that switching back to the old airframe was due to sending the new Air Force One ahead to show it off at various bases around Europe. But eventually, they let slip that this was actually due to security recommendations by the Secret Service. And despite the assurances from the Secret Service that this was just done for no reason and not tied to any specific threat, the Secret Service never does anything for no reason. And the logistical nightmare involved in switching planes during an international trip is such a hassle that it's more likely than not that the Secret Service got spooked about something and they needed to pull a fast one and play the shell game again. Who knows what it was? Maybe they found a pager on board or maybe it wasn't anything specific and they just got a bad feeling. I don't know about this one. It's kind of interesting, but that's not all we have to work with this week. In Washington DC, there have been major security renovations at the White House ongoing for the past couple of months at least. For one, we have the major ballroom construction project, which has gotten a lot of attention from everybody for a variety of reasons. But if we skip past the assorted screeching to realize that the new ballroom is mostly just a cover for the massive compound that's being built underground, this is very obviously a project to build a massive compound for C2 or command and control purposes. It's not exactly a big secret. You can look at this and see this is very clearly what's going on. And this is also something that's not unique to Trump. This has been in the works for a while. So, the ballroom itself is honestly not that interesting. What is more interesting is the new fencing that's been put up and the various perimeter expansions that have been requested to be made over the past couple of weeks. They've been testing out a bunch of different arrangements, but the general gist of the plans is to expand the White House perimeter a bit more so as to improve the security situation. They're still working on it. Nothing is finalized yet, but the general plan would involve closing a lot of public access spaces. So, that's going to be a delicate thing to balance in terms of allowing tourists to still get selfies while preventing small arms attacks. In addition to the fencing, the White House is also conducting security upgrades on the North Portico, which began yesterday. Once again, sources differ on why this construction project is going on. Some sources claim it's restoration work. Others claimed that this was a security breach or something to do with the Secret Service requesting a change to the building in some way. I don't know. There's very little information on this. Of course, the Secret Service is not going to comment on anything like this. And there are a lot of renovations being undertaken all over the White House now. So, it's hard to determine which ones are standard restoration work kind of projects and which construction projects are actually security upgrades. Once again, this is kind of early on in the process and there's not a whole lot to sink our teeth into. I've just been noting this over the past couple of weeks and I haven't really had a lot of time to talk about it. A lot of those can of course get dismissed very easily by saying of course the Secret Service is concerned with the threats to the president because he's lived through at least four different assassination attempts depending on how we're counting them. But at least three of those attacks were actually really close calls. The Butler shooting, the Trump International Golf Club shooting, and the Hinckley Hilton attack just a couple months ago were all too close for comfort. So, it would make sense for the Secret Service to try to be more on the ball than they have been in the past, especially in the context of recent comments by President Trump himself, indicating that he has taken personal contingency plans to conduct strategic strikes on Iran in the event of his assassination. He posted this uh message on Truth Social last night. And well, suffice it to say that the concerns are real uh that a very serious event might take place. Of course, we can't really quantify gut feelings on things most of the time, and that's okay, but it also makes it hard to add weight to decisions that are made. But I did want to mention it because again, it's something that I and many others have noticed over the past uh couple of months, but mostly the past couple of weeks, and the shorter daily reports are not exactly conducive to conveying wild hunches or theories, but I guess I also do that far too often anyway. So anyway, it is interesting though that all of these security upgrades and concerns are coming about at the alleged end of a war when the risk of an Iranian attack would be fairly low, but the risk of somebody else being upset is rather high. Just thinking in terms of the old Columbbo style means, mode of an opportunity right now, who in the whole world would have the means, mode of an opportunity to carry out an attack on the White House or some other important figure and the Iranians get blamed for it? Who could that possibly be? Well, chances are if you're watching this, you're probably uh not going to be fooled by it. But rest assured, most people probably would immediately suspect the Iranians, if anything, happened to President Trump. So either way, no matter what happens, it's interesting to make note of these things. Quiet security upgrades, quiet security practices being enacted. This is most certainly something to be aware of moving forward. And speaking of the war this week, let's transition to the Middle East where things are moving rather quickly once again as contradictory actions are taking place all around the region. Simply put, the United States is both escalating the war, but also deescalating quietly. So, let me explain a bit. As we all know, the war reignited somewhat earlier this week with dozens of strikes taking place throughout Iran. I'm still consolidating all of the geoloccation efforts from the past few days, but it looks like most of the targets were along the coastline in the vicinity of Bucher and Chabahar naval bases at the northwestern and southeastern ends of the coastline of Iran, respectively. Keshum Island was also hit several times over the past couple of days along with the scattering of fast boat bases on the eastern side on the eastern coast of the straight of Hormuz. Continuing the trend, a lot of the rhetoric has been contradictory and confusing. So, we just kind of have to let that sit for this week. But what is a lot more clear and a lot more easily verifiable are the strategic moves that have been made. Namely, that the United States is drawing down forces in the Middle East, at least when it comes to aircraft. The B-52s, which were stationed in England, or at least most of them that were stationed in England, have already come back home. And by my account, a couple of flights of F-15s have also departed. And the F-22s that the US had stationed at Ovda Air Base in Israel, they also departed yesterday. So, a lot of aviation is heading back home to the US or back to their normal bases in Europe. What is not changing is the US Navy's posture. The Bush and Lincoln carrier strike groups are still on station in the Middle East and the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group or ARG has moved back on station after having uh to divert back to port for some repairs a couple of weeks ago. But in terms of potential ground troops, these guys have already been on the station since the war started really now. All of that being said, what has surged into the region that is new is mostly a lot of bombs and missiles. When the ceasefire was announced, then that time frame between the ceasefire being announced and theou being signed, the United States surged a lot of cargo flights into the region. C7s, C5s, standard military cargo flights. Of course, we can't confirm or figure out what's on these military cargo flights. It's not like they're going to publish their cargo on the internet for us to see, but we can guess that this was probably a huge resupply effort to restock and rearm while they could be relatively sure that they would not get targeted on the tarmac. Though another clue that things are very interesting on the strategic front is that the US has begun to stage a lot of tankers at Aludit Air Base in Qatar. As you guys probably remember, if you've been following this war for 5 months of your life now, you will remember that this air base was evacuated early on because the Iranians started hitting it right during the early stages of the war. The United States figured out that it was probably not a super great idea to have a bunch of very expensive refueling tankers on the ground within very close range of the Iranian missile systems. So, the United States emptied this base out over a period of a couple of weeks. This also happened during Operation Midnight Hammer last year. This is how we were able to be decently sure that those strikes were going to go ahead because by the time the last plane left Aluded, well, guess what? The bombs were just a couple of days after that. So, this base is a good a good indicator. I'm sure the DoD knows what they're doing. They know that they can be seen and they're moving a lot of these tankers back into Alud air base. Lot of very very valuable targets on the ground within range of the Iranian missile systems. Now, I don't know if they're doing this because they're stupid and they're just gambling that the Iranians won't hit it. I mean, it's not like they haven't done that before already. That's why we lost an Awax uh during the height of the war. We parked it at an air base. We didn't think the Iranians would have the guts to hit. And surprise, surprise, they actually did. So, I don't know what's going on with this, but generally speaking, if you're seeing a lot of aircraft being staged at IUD, that just means that's where they're normally stationed. And it's a pretty good indicator that the Pentagon doesn't think they're going to get hit there. And if they think they're not going to get hit there, that probably means the Pentagon is not planning any major offensive. At least so the logic goes, if that makes any sense at all. So again, to recap, we have a very strong discrepancy between the rhetoric and the targeting and what's being moved around. The US is moving and has already moved a lot of aircraft out of the Middle East entirely. And the aircraft that remain in the region are now back at the bases where they were struck at during the height of the war. And yet the targeting flared up earlier this week. So, I don't know what's going on. Um, in terms of how this affects us here at home, the energy crisis really mostly just continues. It's like nothing has changed because the straight of Hormuz has only seen very tepid traffic since theou was signed. And now that the ceasefire is officially over, this is President Trump's own words. The ceasefire is over. We're basically back to where things were before the ceasefire was originally announced. So, back to technically a state of war. And as we end the 19th week of the war, we're on week 19 now. Peace does not appear to be a viable option for the time being. So, not a whole lot of closure. It's very much a state of limbo and I think we're going to probably be there for a while. Continuing the trend of wars flaring back up again. The war in Ukraine has begun to spill outside the main conflict zone. So, let's go over to Europe and discuss that conflict. There has not been much media focus on Europe this week. However, the war in Ukraine is beginning to be quite concerning at this point. On the Russian side, the Russians have been consolidating gains in the vicinity of Costantinovka with most reports agreeing at this point that Russia has taken the city for the most part. This was a major objective for Russia to capture and also for Ukraine to defend as it's a comparatively large city in the Donbass, which has been a milestone for a while. Similarly, uh gains are being made up in Sunumi on the northern border. The Russians also continue to slam as many drones and missiles into Odessa as they possibly can with large waves of drone attacks taking place pretty much every night for the past couple of weeks. The Ukrainians are doing the same thing from their side. So, you know, it's kind of a tit fortat sort of thing. And aside from the gains that are being made by the Russians on the Eastern front, the Ukrainian targeting of petroleum sites around Russia within Russia has been the most important factor for stability in Europe. This week, uh, the Ukrainians and the American advisers working with them have continued to strike Russian petroleum infrastructure at many different sites around Russia. Oil refineries and export terminals have been the main target, and many of these places are in extremely remote terrain, which is why it's so hard to geollocate. The Luga oil terminals near St. Petersburg have been hit a few times over the past couple of months, especially over the past couple of weeks. And a few days ago, hit a refinery in Omsk, which is a long way from the front lines. That's an old old school Soviet city and it's a very long way from the fightings. Other than those uh two main attacks, there have also been hundreds of attacks on refineries and fuel storage depots in Moscow. And this week, Ukraine has escalated drone attacks on Russian merchant ships transporting petroleum in the Sea of Az. Once again, the map is misleading. Sorry about that. I'm still trying to catch up. But there have actually been a few dozen attacks on merchant vessels in this general location in the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainians are claiming to have struck 73 vessels in the Sea of Azov over the past week. That's their number and I can't verify it independently but again that's their claim. Regardless of the exact numbers uh this is having an effect in Russia as their supply chain has been disrupted significantly. Fuel shortages have continued throughout the country but how serious this is. It's anybody's guess. It is true that Russians themselves admit there are gasoline and diesel shortages due to the attacks. But the severity of this is up for debate. The Ukrainians of course claim that Russia is on their last legs and it's like Mad Max over there trying to get gas. and the Russians of course claim that this is merely a minor setback that is being addressed. The truth as always is probably somewhere in between. Hitting one refinery is going to disrupt supply somewhere. Uh so you're going to see, you know, footage of long gas lines in various places, but because Russia is so big, it might take a couple of days for another refinery to start shipping oil to those uh more far-flung regions. So again, how bad is this? I don't really know. Either way, regardless of how bad it is, time will tell. I guess the next events to look out for are what Russia is going to do in response. So far, we haven't seen uh an arresting missile slam into the ground in downtown Kiev, but if uh Ukraine keeps this up, I think that's probably going to happen. So, you know, not trying to take sides here, but I think that's probably what's coming down the pipeline. Either way, we shall see how this war develops over the next few weeks. But things are not looking super great in terms of stability throughout Europe. So the Ukrainians and Russians are starting to target each other more significantly and the potential for slowly sleepwalking into a wider conflict remains pretty high. So not super great. It's not the end of the world as always, but something to be aware of even here in the homeland as the United States is substantially invested in the war in Ukraine and the war in Iran. So we've got two major wars that we are either fighting directly or spending a substantial amount of resources on uh kind of keeping going. So, even though it doesn't seem like either of these conflicts affects us, things uh things have a way of catching up to us pretty quickly as the shadow wars around the world keep marching on. And on that note, that's all I have for today. So, let's go ahead and roll things up with the ghost net reports for this week. Again, a fantastic ghost net. It was thunderstorming rather severely uh this week when I was trying to send and receive messages, but that's okay. Still was able to get a lot of uh messages exchanged back and forth, and that's pretty good. On a bit of an administrative note, some of you may have noticed this week I am now hosting my wire reports uh throughout the week on the Nomad Net. And I know I've not explained this just yet or provided a tutorial showing exactly what this is. Uh fear not, it's coming down the pipeline. I'm still getting things organized for the moment, but I'm going to be diving into this a lot more later this year. This project revolves around a communication system that works over the Reticulum network, which is a project that is right up my alley and something I think will be very useful to integrate into the Ghostnet at some point. I'm pretty sure most of you have probably heard of Reticulum before by now, maybe just parenthetically, but just in case you haven't, this is an open- source communications uh ecosystem which allows users to link up in whatever means that they have. If you want to give it a try right now and just kind of copy what I'm doing, you can use any client you want, but right now I'm using Mesh Chat X, which is a client. It's an app you can install on your phone or uh you can download it to your computer and it allows you to access the infrastructure which is Reticulum. It's still a little bit developmental, but I think it works pretty good. And in the spirit of the ghost net, this will be a very good tool for communicating using a variety of different means. You can use Laura devices like meshtastic devices that you buy and flash with mesh meshtastic firmware. You can use ham radios. Uh you can even use a server running on the internet, which is uh kind of what I'm using right now. And it's all going to sync everything up together and allow information to flow across this entire ecosystem. It's not exactly a perfect analogy, but think of this as an app that you have on your phone, which essentially lets us reinvent the internet. Maybe not totally, but the general utility of it. All of it peer-to-peer completely anonymously. And if the entire internet goes down, this will still work via radio. Specifically regarding my work, the wire reports. One thing you can do with Reticulum is host very primitive web pages, kind of like uh the good old days of dialup. But the difference is this can all work over radio. So the same hardware that runs your meshtastic devices. You can do a lot of other cool stuff with it too. You can send files, full-size images, and you can even send voice notes and voice messages through the system. I'm right now using a Halo node that I have set up with this phone out here in the middle of the woods. And it's a pretty cool way of ensuring uh different kinds of communication can be obtained even if you're completely off-rid. I think that's pretty cool. It's like Meshtastic on steroids, but it's a completely different ecosystem and a whole a whole lot heavier than just Meshtastic. So, right now I have my own Nomad Net page up and running connected to the internet. But the general idea is that if one day the internet goes out, the system itself will switch over to radio and we'll still have the same capabilities even during a total apocalyptic scenario. Again, I'm making a whole tutorial on this. So, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, fear not. This is really just for those of you who are interested in the more nerdy kind of radio stuff. All will be made clear in due time. Just like with the ATAC series I'm currently working on, we are rapidly developing a lot of capabilities that help in many different ways, not just in terms of censorship prevention, but also resiliency during natural or man-made disasters. I know it's not exactly an exciting prospect sometimes and the radio stuff is pretty hard to understand and kind of boring, but just think about how you would know what happened if you lost connection to the outside world. Information that goes nowhere is useless. And I myself have been constantly relearning that over the past couple of months. You may not have noticed this, but over the past uh couple of weeks or so, I've been able to research, write, produce, and publish several wire reports while my power was out due to severe storm damage. Hopefully the experience was as seamless as possible, but that's the end goal. Resiliency even during a disaster situation when everything is going wrong. You have a million other things to do and you still need to maintain a link with the outside world so that you can be aware of threats before they get within your area. In my case, I think Reticulum is a pretty good candidate for allowing me to always always always be able to work and provide a wire report or some other kind of report no matter what. I know the end user doesn't really care. uh they just want the information and that's perfectly fine. But I'm getting closer to being able to provide a decently professional product in extremely adverse conditions if need be. If the power goes out, I can still get information to write my report and I can then make sure that that report gets disseminated to other people who might also be in adverse conditions as easily and as seamlessly as possible. And once I get more experience with this sort of thing, once I iron out the details, I can teach you guys how I did it and what I'm doing so that you can replicate everything that I'm doing if you want on your end. Now, maybe we can see the utility of the ghost net. If you have an HF radio and you can send and receive messages on JS8 call, you're about 95% of the way there. There's not really much more to learn. Instead of sending short text messages over JSA call, imagine if you could send photos, short videos and files. You could even maybe potentially even have voice calls. All of this is technically possible to do right now over the ghost net. It's just that the FCC's rules kind of get in the way right now. So, we'll have to work around that somehow and overcome the uh cultural problems within amateur radio. But the general idea is that we are working toward having some serious capabilities very very soon. The ghost net itself is going to stay the same for a long time. I'm not going to make any changes anytime soon, so don't worry about any imminent changes. But this just goes to show what is actually possible. It used to be that if doomsday arrives, in the worst possible case fantasy scenario you can conjure up, doomsday arrives and you go out in your yard and fire up your radio, you'd be able to talk to a few hundred or a few thousand of us who would also do the same and fire up the ghost net and we can exchange information around the world in a textbased format. Well, now at least theoretically, we can send images, send files, even host our own off-grid web pages, which I think is pretty cool. So, with all of that in the pipeline for later on, uh that's all I have for today. Hey, thanks to all of you on Patreon for the support to keep going and sticking with me as I've been trying to figure all this stuff out. I could not have done this without you guys, so I really do appreciate it. And thanks to all of you for watching, and I hope to improve a lot of this resiliency over the next few weeks. So, thanks again, and I'll 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 8th through the 14th, 2026. This week spring is in the air and terrorism season is in full bloom both at home and overseas, so let's get right to it. Around the world things are heating up with the war in the Middle East continuing as before. We are now officially 2 weeks into this conflict and the situation has only escalated since the start of this war, but we'll of course get to that in just a moment. Otherwise, the situation in most of the Western world remains tenuous at best. Multiple terror attacks have occurred within the American homeland this week and overseas American diplomatic posts have been attacked such as the small arms attack that took place at the American consulate in Toronto and also the IED attack that occurred at the American Embassy in Oslo. Very little information has been released on either attack. However, three brothers of Iraqi origin have been arrested in conjunction with the attack in Norway. No arrests have been made regarding the Canadian attack and none of the suspects involved in either event have been identified. Taking a look at the global strategic overview this week, there has been a lot of movement regarding American forces. Last night the Pentagon announced that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Japan has embarked on a deployment to CENTCOM aboard the USS Tripoli. Right now she is steaming hard for CENTCOM having departed Japan some days before the announcement of her deployment became noticed by the media. Just to cut right to the chase, this has led many people to of course surmise that the United States intends to land Marines in Iran to kick off a land invasion of the country somehow. Now that line of thinking is fraught with many challenges mostly because this is not that big of a deployment. But right now at the strategic level, this could really just be preparation for something other than putting Marines on the ground such as escorting merchant vessels through the strait. This has been put forward as an idea before such as during the Houthi crisis when Houthi targeting of commercial shipping was at its height. And even more generally, there's usually an ARG somewhere in CENTCOM at any given point, so this could be really anything at this point, but this does not appear to be a standard deployment at least at the moment. As always, the White House is not really telling us anything about whatever strategy is driving this war, so we sometimes have to make pretty wild guesses at this point. Otherwise, the two aircraft carriers in CENTCOM remain as before. The Lincoln is hanging out off the coast of Oman just out of Iranian missile range and the Ford remains in the Red Sea having not transited the Bab el Mandeb strait just yet. Within the American homeland this week, multiple terror attacks have been conducted all of which appear to be lone wolf style attacks except for one incident. First up we had the IED attack at the Jake Lang protest in New York. We had the vehicle ramming attack at a synagogue in Michigan. We had the mass shooting attempt at ODU. And we also had a vehicle ramming attack at the White House which may or may not have been a terrorist attack. It's not quite clear at the moment, but I have it on the slide anyway just so we don't forget about it. Of these incidents, the one that is most likely to not be a lone wolf attack is the IED attack at the Jake Lang protest in New York. By definition, this is not a lone wolf incident since technically two terrorists participated in the attack. Pushing the classic Jake Lang antics aside, what caught my eye with this incident was the use of a decently uncommon homemade explosive or HME compound that was used by the terrorists. The use of triacetone triperoxide or TATP is not exactly a rare type of homemade explosive material. However, it is uncommon enough to indicate that this cell might have some level of experience. Usually when we hear of IED attacks at some sort of political event, we normally see things like improvised fireworks or very very crude pipe bombs or other devices that while technically are classified as IEDs, are usually very low yield. In this case, the use of TATP indicates that somebody had done some research. However, based on the documents provided by the DOJ, there are also indicators that whomever constructed the devices also made some mistakes in their construction and I'll just leave it at that. Suffice it to say that this attack was significant not because of the target, but due to the construction of the devices themselves and the fact that this protest was only announced on short notice, so these IEDs were almost certainly beforehand. Personally, even though this is pure speculation, I think these IEDs were intended for a different target and once Jake Lang showed up in New York, they decided to spend their explosives on that attack, which again is speculation, but it makes sense because the amount of time that elapsed between Jake Lang showing up and the fact that these IEDs take some time to construct. But again, this is one of those incidents where there's plenty of incentive to lie all around. New York City officials have the incentive to conceal the nature of terrorism within their city. The federal agents have the same incentive. And because Jake Lang is involved, you've got political stuff being involved with all of this, so this is really hard to kind of really get to the bottom of what actually went on here, but I'm still digging into it. Hopefully some more documents will come to light so we can figure out how many other people might have been involved in this. Regarding the other attacks, there really isn't much information to go on at the moment and the information spin is in full effect, so getting to the truth may also take some time. In Michigan, the details of Thursday's vehicle ramming attack at the synagogue remains hard to verify because the remains of the suspect were apparently consumed in the fire that broke out during the incident. I'm not sure how the suspect was identified so quickly. Maybe it was the vehicle plates. I'm not really sure. But because most of the evidence was destroyed, there's not much to go on at the moment. I don't even have a super confirmed photo of the guy just yet because I'm not really sure that the photos that have been circulating are actually the suspect. The attempted mass shooting at Old Dominion University in Virginia was a little bit more clear as the suspect had actually previously been convicted of terrorism beforehand, so his paper trail is a bit longer. And so far that case looks like the typical lone gunman terrorist who had been plotting attack plans for a long time. Much more research on this is needed. However, because I have been reading through the prior court documents on this case and his attorneys previously argued regarding his prior terrorism charge that the FBI actually entrapped him and that he did not want to actually commit that first attack that caused him to be arrested the first time. Which I'm sure all defense attorneys want to say in cases like this, but it's still an interesting note that that needs a little bit more examination. But in any case, that defense did not work because he was tried, convicted, and sentenced, sent to prison, and he was also let out of prison early, which appears to be a rather unwise decision because he then went on to conduct the terrorist attack at Old Dominion University. So that's it for the homeland this week. A lot of loose ends to be sure and not a whole lot of good news, but it is getting to be peak terrorism season, so we have to take that into account as the days get even busier over the next few weeks. In the Middle East, the Gulf War rages on with the conflict steadily escalating over the past week. And I want to state right up front that the flow of information is rather thin at this point, so we have to assess the overall situation with not that much data. And when we make assessments on very little data, the margin of error increases. So for those who ask, you know, how goes the war, the truth is that I don't really know for sure. What we can say is that the United States is continually bombing Iran. The Iranians are also continually launching missiles and drones at most American military bases in the Middle East and the Israelis have also been getting hit extremely hard since the war began even though there is very little evidence to know for certain how much damage has been done. As a reminder, American satellite imagery throughout the region has been delayed by two full weeks, which in my opinion is solely being done to prevent the American people from finding out how bad American bases and positions have been hit. European companies like Airbus are still producing products and the Iranians themselves fed intelligence and targeting data from the Chinese and probably the Russians, too. So they don't need Planet Labs imagery to know where to strike. You also cannot use satellite imagery to find out which floor of a hotel in Bahrain is housing American contractors, nor can you look at a satellite image to find out which gate will be used by an American evacuation flight out of Dubai. But the Iranians seem to know this information nonetheless and I highly doubt it came from their own trash intelligence services. And from what we can tell so far, this targeting has so far been quite effective, at least effective enough as unfortunate as it is to note. We have to tell the truth here and the Iranians have been putting up the exact insurgent style fight at the nation-state level that we have been expecting since the start of the war. From the perspective of the Iranians, this war is actually going more or less how they probably would have expected it to go. Pretty much every single American military base in the entire region has been hit at least once with several installations being hit pretty hard. Quite a few structures at the former headquarters for Fifth Fleet in Bahrain have been mostly destroyed and Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar has been targeted successfully several times over the past few days. Ali Al Salem Airbase in Kuwait has also been hit pretty heavily since last briefing and the American positions in the Green Zone in Baghdad have taken a beating over the past couple of days as well as local Iranian militias or pro-Iran militias start to take the fight to the American positions in their country as well. So this conflict is most certainly expanding beyond the borders of Iran at least when it comes to militias being activated around the Middle East. So far most of these attacks and targeting efforts are mostly aspirational, but they are starting to launch drones including some of the more loitering munition style drones at American positions in Iraq. So that is the very general wave top situation as it stands right now. And as the war drags on 2 weeks into this conflict, it's a good time to reassess what the strategic vision and future targets might be. Remember, this is a strategic fight, so the longer that the United States is in this game, the longer that we're fighting this war, the less we have to gain and the more we have to lose. Similarly, the Iranians are exactly on the opposite side of the spectrum. The longer this fight goes on, the more they have to gain and the less they have to lose. The longer that they can threaten the Strait of Hormuz increases their power with China and with Russia and with other international trade partners. And so far, the Iranians are looking a lot more strategically important than they used to be before this conflict. So, on the military front, let's start with what is likely to get blown up next. As of last night, President Trump stated that Kharg Island has been struck with one of the largest air strikes in the history of the Middle East, his words not mine, which is a drastic overstatement because hardly anything was hit at all. Beyond hitting a few buildings and structures, Kharg Island is mostly still intact and nothing is on fire as of this morning. We are, of course, waiting on more high-resolution satellite imagery of the island to see exactly which coordinates were hit and which buildings were struck. But, as of right now, it doesn't look like it was too substantial even using CENTCOM's own imagery and video evidence of the strikes. Other than Kharg Island, which is more of a strategic target, another future target could be Qeshm Island and maybe a few of the outposts on smaller islands in the Strait of Hormuz. But, honestly, most of the threats to the strait are not from coastal defense batteries or anything like that. The drones targeting shipping in the strait are probably being launched a long way from the coast, from any number of a thousand different launch sites. These small boat attacks, which are threatening the boats that are hanging out just off the coast of Kuwait, those are indeed coming from the coastline, and I'm working on isolating a few of the locations where they are being launched from. But, there are a few naval bases and few installations up there which are more asymmetric, more IRGC-N as opposed to the main surface fleet IRIN. If we recall, a lot of the IRGC-N, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, that's the more special forces navy if you want to think it like think of it like that. These smaller, more, honestly, more useful for the Iranians navy is what they're going to be using to target a lot of these commercial ships, and that is, honestly, the more direct threat as opposed to the big corvettes and the big frigates and things like that that the US Navy has very easily destroyed. These smaller boats are a tougher challenge, and there are plenty of places where they are still located that have not been struck yet. So, those are probably going to be targeted quite ruthlessly over the next few weeks if the United States intends to stay in this war for any length of time. Concerning the Strait of Hormuz itself, there are two main naval bases which threaten the region, Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, both of which have been mostly destroyed. So, we've sunk a lot of ships, a lot of submarines, a lot of surface vessels pier-side at these facilities. So, using either of these comparatively deepish water ports would be pretty hard to do. I don't know if we could have used them anyway. I don't know the actual depth of the harbor. I can't remember that off the top of my head, but either way, it doesn't look like the US is interested in using Bandar Abbas or Chabahar because we're just blowing everything up there. Similar story with most of the airfields and logistical centers that are within helicopter range of the coastline. Many, but not all of these locations have been destroyed to the point where it indicates that the US does not really see any military value of their own at most of these facilities. So far, all indications point to the US continuing to strike every single military and government site in the country in addition to a lot of random stuff that doesn't really have a military use. The runways at almost all military airfields throughout Iran have been cratered, which indicates that the US does not intend to use them anytime soon. For many installations around the nation, scorched earth is the policy, or at least so it seems at the moment. This could change at any point, but right now, there are plenty of installations around the nation that have not yet been targeted, so this war could last a long time if the goal is to destroy everything. More generally, the overall end goals of the war remain largely unknown. Rhetoric from the White House has been very confusing and very contradictory by the hour sometimes to the point that it's far more reliable to look at the actions taken on the battlefield to discern the strategy rather than listening to what political leadership has said. At the White House, it's Groundhog Day these days. I did not know this, but apparently the Iranians have a magic navy, which somehow is sunk every single day. Every day it's sunk, and the next day it's sunk again. Same with the military infrastructure throughout Iran. Every day it's completely destroyed until the next strike, and then it's really destroyed until the next strike when it's totally for reals destroyed until the next strike when it's actually pinky swear destroyed this time. So, this entire conflict is like Schrödinger's war, where the Iranians are simultaneously the worst threat to all of mankind, but we've also totally destroyed them and crushed them into dust because we're so totally awesome. So, we can see the propaganda here is pretty terrible, but this does make it hard to determine what the next targets will be and how much the United States is interested in going along with this war. So far, the US has bombed a lot of infrastructure throughout Iran. That's easily verifiable, and the video clips of missiles and rocket launchers being struck are very easy to see. However, for every one clip that CENTCOM puts on their page, there are probably a hundred more random places that got bombed which we cannot see the utility of. How do we know that this is not a repeat of what I myself saw in Iraq and Syria when my targeting shop spent most of the war bombing empty buildings. The truth is, we don't. We don't know that most of what's been bombed is a legitimate military target, and we can't trust anything the White House and the Pentagon say because they openly lied about the strike on the girl's school, which has been a rabbit hole that I have not had time to go down just yet. I'm not ignoring that one. I promise, I'm digging into it, and I have a lot of very strong feelings on that one. But, the point that I'd like to make by bringing that up is that the United States initially denied, denied, denied. They initially their knee-jerk reaction was to lie. Their knee-jerk reaction was to immediately say, "No, we didn't do it. It was the Iranians that did it." And then wait a week, and then suddenly the United States is the one who did it, right? It took two seconds to find out whether or not we bombed that site. It took two seconds to look up the basic encyclopedia number, the BE number, within MIDB, the Modernized Integrated Database. It was a phone call that the White House could have made or anybody with the right access to that system could have made to determine, did we drop a Joint Desired Point of Impact or JDPIs on that facility, yes or no? Tomahawks don't just fly without guidance. Somebody had to put that GPS coordinate there, and that GPS coordinate, most civilians might know it as a GPS coordinate, but really what it is is a Joint Desired Point of Impact or a JDPI, in this case, the case of the school, probably several JDPIs, and the United States of America knew within five seconds of finding out that that was a bad target, that that was a bad target. They knew instantly, and they lied about it. That was their knee-jerk reaction. So, when it comes to any other further targeting efforts, we cannot trust them at all. So, the overall challenge here is that it's hard to determine what the actual combat goals of the war actually are and how much combat power the Iranians have at this point. We can't trust the Iranians, and we can't trust our own government to tell us the truth about what they're actually doing in this war. So, we have to guess, and I don't like guessing, especially since the drones and the missiles keep flying. And two weeks after the most powerful military in the history of the world began combat operations in that country, Iran has still managed to sling a few ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv and launch drones at a dozen US military bases throughout the region every single night. How long they could keep this up is anyone's guess. I think the Pentagon is probably hoping that they will just stop one day or they'll run out of drones, they'll run out of missiles, or they'll finally get the last ones. But, I personally do not feel very confident in continuing a war on the Iranian's terms, a nation built around the concept of insurgency at the nation-state level. Joint Publication 3-6-0 and the deliberate targeting cycle will help you destroy buildings and static targets in Iran, but it won't help you win the wider war. If the end goal of that war is to ensure that the Iranians cannot pose a threat to Israel or threaten shipping in the strait. Two weeks into this thing, the Strait of Hormuz is contested battle space. Just think about that for a minute. It is contested battle space, and it is leaning in Iran's favor. Same thing with the Persian Gulf at large. We do not control this waterway. This is not to disparage the US Navy or anything like that, but this is just a fact of the case. The United States is not projecting sea power. We're not power projecting in the Persian Gulf at the moment because we cannot guarantee the safety of commercial vessels in the strait. We cannot endure freedom of navigation, and that's just something the Pentagon is having to deal with. Same thing with airspace. Again, not to disparage the US Air Force or anything like that, but the airspace over Iran is, per the Pentagon, still contested to some degree. I don't know how it is, but that's what the Pentagon has said. They still do not have totally uncontested airspace just yet. So, if we want to understand how this war is going, we really have to be realistic in what is happening and the threats that the Iranians pose because it is not a straightforward fight, and the doctrine of all belligerents in this war does not really fit together like a puzzle piece like Russia and Ukraine at the start of their war because those countries were very similar with similar ways of waging warfare. The United States and Iran could not be any more different in terms of overarching warfare doctrine, and since this war is largely for the Israelis as well, that adds in a third dynamic. So, there's no real way to answer the question of, are we winning? Instead, we have to answer really specific questions and evolving specific objectives and capabilities that all sides are able to maintain. So, as the war continues, it must be noted that the intel spiral is in full effect. Confirmation bias is rampant, and most structured analytic techniques or SATs are being thrown out the window, especially when it comes to what this war means for the American homeland. I know that for most of you, myself included, the more pertinent threats that you're concerned about day-to-day are in the American homeland. Yes, what's going on in the Middle East may be a concern, but really what's going to matter to you each day is what's happening in your own home, right? And on that front, the information space has gotten way out of control, right? Suddenly, conversations are not centered around what the threat actually is, but what the threat could theoretically be. That is a major difference between those two ideas. Such as the case a few days ago with the recent rumors that were circulating regarding potential Iranian threats off the west coast. The question is not, are the Iranians planning to launch drones from containers that secretly on board commercial shipping vessels? The answer to this question is obviously no, they're not planning to do that. Instead, the question that is asked, the question becomes can they theoretically do this? And the answer to that question is yes, because in theory anything is possible, however unlikely that it is. Well, that word unlikely gets stripped out of the report and that yes is then put on a PowerPoint slide which is subsequently leaked to the media. And now the whole West Coast is terrified that Santa Monica is going to turn into Dubai. Do you see how we've kind of spiraled out of control here with some of this stuff? The same thing appears to be happening in Iran itself when it comes to kinetic targeting. What's that building over there? Oh, it's a random outbuilding, they're not really using it for anything. Is it a military target? Well, no, there's not really anything there. But could it potentially have some kind of military use? Well, I guess, but I don't think so. Doesn't matter, stop, put it on a target list and kill it. This is absolute peak WMDs are in Iraq mentality and rhetoric and it's starting to get out of control. On the other hand, for those of us who are trying to figure out how this is all going to affect the homeland, we have in many ways slowly returned to the Biden era in terms of information control. The political left is trying to do everything they can to make Trump look bad, but they are also divided because they don't want to point out that the population demographics that are most likely to present dangers to the homeland are the exact same people they imported wholesale over the past few years. Likewise, many people who initially supported Trump are absolutely terrified to come out and voice any concerns about this war because they will lose friends and maybe even their jobs, just like during the Biden years. And let's not forget that even during the height of COVID, it was easier to speak out against the policy decisions then than it is now to mention even the name of the foreign nation that has openly bragged about dragging the US into fighting their war. This topic is the absolute peak of censorship and it's affecting threat assessments on the home front at this point. So, apart from the war itself, we're kind of in this Schrödinger's terrorism sort of thing. The same kind of thing that happened in the in the last few months of President Biden's administration. We can't admit that terrorism concerns are elevated because that might make people think that this war isn't worth it. But we also have to have terrorist attacks in the US to justify the war in the first place. All of this makes it very hard to assess the no kidding threats to the American homeland because the information space is like that metronome meme, right? It's flipping back and forth between overreacting to threats that don't exist and completely ignoring other threats which are very real concerns. It's really hard to find balance in a situation like that because everyone wants to flip back and forth between focusing on the wrong things and then ignoring the things that actually do matter. It's amazing how the internet works sometimes. What is pretty clear though is that the American populace is primed and ready for a series of events which may motivate more Americans to support the war. At the moment, the risk of a false flag incident occurring intended to drag the US deeper into the war is exceptionally high. I never thought I'd say it, I never thought this would be a real thing that we had talk about in the open, right? Other than just like being a fun conspiracy theory, but they may actually do something. I don't know. They may have already tried. I don't know. More pertinently and also probably safer to talk about are the likelihood of malign actors, either Iranian or otherwise, attempting to take advantage of the fray, conducting legitimate terror attacks so as to bring some attention to their cause. That's also pretty likely and I think that the terrorist attacks this week have done the same thing. The guys that threw the bombs at Jake Lang's event had no ties to the Iranians, they were not Iranian sleeper agents. The terrorist who tried to shoot up ODU was from Sierra Leone and had, again, nothing to do with Iran. And also the guy who attacked the synagogue in Michigan, some reports state that he was affiliated with Lebanon, so that's not I mean that's that is more directly related to the current conflict that's going on, but it's not because of his allegiance to his allegiance to Iran, it's due to his allegiance to uh groups in Lebanon, either Hezbollah or because his family got killed. So, again, not exactly an Iranian sleeper agent that is being directed by the Iranian government, right? We've had three major terrorist attacks in the United States since this war began and they've all been from other groups or other causes or other political goals that are trying to take advantage of the increased emotions and likelihood of success with terrorist attacks. How many Iranian sleeper agents have been activated to take out targets in the United States? Well, as of right now, if we're just going by what reports that we have, how many successful attacks have Iranian sleeper agents conducted in the United States? Zero. How many other terrorist groups have taken advantage of the fray to conduct attacks of their own for their own causes? Well, right now at least three just this week and probably a couple more last week. It depends on how you want to categorize it, but it's not zero, right? So, at bare minimum, really the most that we can do is stay vigilant, stay prepared, stay situationally aware, stay strapped if you can, and keep your head on a swivel over the next few weeks. That's the best that we can do. It's no different from the way that we've been living for the past few years, at least most of us, right? Or many of us. We definitely do not need to be terrified of every possible conceivable threat that might exist in society, but we do need to be a little bit more attentive and a little bit more situationally aware these days because there are a lot of very upset people and they're looking to cause a lot of harm. So, on that rather foreboding note, I think that's all I have for today. So, let's wrap things up with the Ghost Net reports for this week. Sometimes it's good to take a break from a lot of this stuff and get outside and do something different. And the Ghost Net is a good way to do that and also do those equipment checks that we all like to do so much just to make sure everything works and that at least some of us can maintain some level of communications capability in a manner that is not easy to take offline. So, if the past couple of weeks have had you being terminally online and glued to your phone for up-to-the-minute updates on everything, it might uh help to change that vector a little bit and switch to radio for a bit. You can still stay informed, uh but you can see uh some of the other stuff that's going on around the world as well. Because I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, but it's become quite unbearable in the information space these days. Fifth generation warfare or whatever you want to call it is going absolutely insane. Propaganda and even worse, subversion, is going around on all sides. Even I myself have had a really, really tough time with this over the past couple of weeks, but with radio, it's much harder to censor and you can take back a tiny portion of the world of information. You probably cannot build your own version of Twitter, at least not easily, but you can buy a radio and assert dominance on the airwaves and shape the next generation of radio communications. And that's what I hope to continue doing for as long as possible, no matter how locked down things become on social media. For those who are interested in my mapping products, you all know where to find everything and all the links are in the description box below. I am trying to put out a lot more raw information than analysis these days, so the raw information is always there to do with it what you will. In today's challenging information environment, sourcing material is incredibly important. A lot of people seem to want that quite a bit and you can find all the sources for all of my war reports at the bottom of each war report on my Obsidian page. So, if you want the raw sourcing to come to your own conclusions on things, go ahead, go for it, it's all there. And of course, for those of you who provide support on Patreon, make sure you open up a tag every now and then to refresh the data layers I've loaded in because I have been updating everything on average at several times per day since the war began. And for those of you who just want to pull my work into whatever GPS mapping application you need, my map layers and products are hosted on my GitHub page as KMZ files. So, that's all I have for today. Thank you for sticking around. I really do appreciate it and I hope to improve things on the information front soon now that the war has settled in for the long haul, at least for now. The threats within the homeland continue and I hope to get ahead of the curve before the war in the Middle East gets more serious and by default, the threats within the homeland become more serious as well. So, we'll keep at it and do the best we can. And as always, fight on the shade.

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for May 24th through the 30th of 2026. This week seems to have flown right by as many different events have come to a head over the past few days. Around the world, all of the current wars continue pretty much the same as before. In Europe, the war in Ukraine has intensified once again as the yearly summer fighting season has resulted in major offensive and counteroffensive actions being conducted by both sides. Most of the war remains fairly stagnant in terms of the front lines actually moving, but major offensives are being conducted far behind the lines in both Russia and in Ukraine via drones and missiles. And the Ukrainian attacks in particular are striking a lot of Russian oil infrastructure, which is affecting the global oil market. As a result, the war in Ukraine has served to put the squeeze on Europe even more than the war in the Middle East already has as Ukrainian forces continue to strike targets that indirectly make Europe's fuel supply even more expensive. Similarly, the Middle East remains in a state of stagnation or stalemate, however you want to put it, with a few engagements being reported this week, both in the Strait of Hormuz, within the Persian Gulf War, but also within Lebanon and Gaza as the Israelis continue offensive actions along multiple fronts. The Israelis are expanding their operations uh to conduct their land invasion into Lebanon, but they're also looking to annex more of Gaza than they already have with Israeli politicians stating that they plan to annex roughly 70% of Gaza. So whether that will actually happen is debatable, but nevertheless, the situation in the Middle East remains tense on many different fronts. Most importantly for us, the global oil inventories have begun to approach minimum operation levels in some parts of the globe this week, mostly in Asia as the shock to the global oil supply continues to be affected more seriously. Closer to home, kinetic strikes continue on fast boats in the Eastern Pacific as the United States begins to accelerate the counter narcotics mission down south. But there are very few details on this. So there's not much to note other than that the strikes happened generally in the Eastern Pacific. Within the homeland itself, civil conflict in the form of street takeovers and routine crime continues as before with no real change from last week. The situation is still insane. These street takeovers are still occurring in dozens of cities around the country pretty much every day. So it's hard to keep track of all of these. But the deteriorating situation in Newark, New Jersey has once again emboldened the anti-ISE demonstrations and served as a good barometer for other unrest which might develop if so desired. So very much a busy week all around. On the strategic movement front, the major military movements for this week have remained much the same as before. No big changes from last week with the little caveat that Cuba is still a central focus. This week, US Southern Command announced that a meeting had taken place at the perimeter fence of Guantanamo Bay between General Donovan and a collection of cheery fellows from various levels of Cuban senior military leadership. Not a whole lot of smiles down in Gitmo, which is probably appropriate, but this meeting does highlight tensions in the region because it's not something that is normally conducted. These meetings like this are pretty rare, and this one's not really clear as to what it was all about. Per their post on social media, the reason for the meeting was very vague and only mentioned stuff like operational security and general perimeter security. Who knows what the real reason for the meeting was all about. Maybe it was just a PR event, more about conveying the seriousness of the situation. It's really impossible to know for sure, but the end result is keeping Cuba at the forefront of the news cycle and reminding us that American aspirations in Cuba are still being formulated, whatever they are. As of right now, there's not really a clear explanation of why the United States is interested in Cuba. Of course, there is the general strategic implications of having a hostile nation, or rather a nation which is more amenable to your adversaries, Russia and China. That makes a lot of sense. The Chinese have a lot of radio listening post down in Cuba. So, it would make sense for the United States to be interested in that sort of behavior and getting them to uh push the Chinese out of Cuba would probably be in our strategic interest as a nation or really any nation would have these strategic interests. But the United States has not made that argument. So I don't want to speak for the White House and make arguments that they have not made. And so far they have not articulated exactly why the United States is interested in Cuba. What what's the point? What do we want from Cuba? That has not really been disclosed other than the general uh consensus of well, they're just bad guys. Okay. Well, that's not really an explanation for anything, so we're just going to have to wait and see. But at the moment, the aspirations for Cuba, either control of it or some kind of influence operation or puppet state, I don't really know. I don't know what the point of this is, but that has never stopped us in the past. So, we'll keep an eye on it. Make sure that uh we prepare for any kind of impact from another war breaking out in terms of the economic situation. I don't know. It's too early to say if this is going to make that cross from diplomacy to actual warfare. these days, those uh two sides of the coin tend to blend together quite well. So, we'll just have to wait and see. But anyway, Cuba is still on the menu, and we'll have to wait and see how it all works out. Within the homeland United States this week, the theme has of course been an increase in horrific crime, man-made horrors beyond comprehension, and far-left riots in New Jersey. So, pretty much situation normal at this point. In New Jersey, the riots at the Delaney Hall detention facility have continued and remained fairly kinetic each night. Over the past few days, a full-blown encampment has been set up on site to help the riers with logistics and to provide them with material aid. This was a substantial effort with an entire party tent for like weddings and such being set up on site along with other tents and really your standard Antifa style autonomous zone kind of arrangement. I don't know if that's what they were calling it on site, but that's kind of what they were building over the past week or so. However, last night substantial reinforcements arrived. The New Jersey State Police have been activated and are on site to assist with security of the main compound and also to keep riers from breaching the perimeter. The state police also ordered these encampments to be removed. Uh so the state police is in invested in trying to get that area cleaned up. And as of this morning, the riers essentially just left a bunch of trash behind. Now, the situation is most certainly not over yet. The riots are certainly not over and protesters remain on site pretty much persistently. With the fences being put up overnight, the chance of the compound being overrun is much reduced. But these logistical efforts propping up immediately are an indicator that money is behind these efforts. If we were to zoom out the map just a little bit, we can see that the New York, New Jersey area is absolutely packed with safe houses used by illegal immigrants. And all of these yellow diamond symbols depict an NGO or an agency that is dedicated to helping illegal immigrants evade capture and commit crimes. Now, you might be asking yourself, "Hey, that's a lot of different safe houses of people that are openly committing crimes." Well, yeah, welcome to my world. I've got thousands of these on the maps, and I'm not even uh speculating here. I'm just using what these people put on their own websites. So, if you were to tap one of these icons on my maps and just put the address, the street address that I have listed for that facility into Google, you'll find out exactly what's at that facility. I can't put the name of the facility down. Uh but they can't uh copyright strike me with a mailing address because you can't copyright mailing addresses. So that's how I have to get around that for now. But by and large, all of these yellow diamonds on the map marked safe, that is the uh mill 2525 symbology symbol for a safe house. That's what I've used to settle in on all of these places where illegal immigrants are being staged and taken care of and provided aid and stuff like that. But anyway, I wanted to focus on Delaney because this is kind of an interesting one. This has been the site where a lot of politicians and congressmen and general big figures come to make speeches and rile the crowd up because it's really close to New York. So, of course, everybody's going to go there in grandstand, which is why this uh protesting started off to begin with. I believe it originally started with an alleged hunger strike at the facility among the uh inmates, detainees, whatever you want to call them, uh waiting deportation, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because these illegals are not held here that long. Uh but maybe they are now. I don't know. Either way, it transcended into just kind of a big mess over the past uh week or so. And due to the close proximity to other things, again, why intelligence preparation of the battle space is quite important. If we see that they are within driving distance of a few dozen different uh milliondoll law firms and groups that are willing to provide them with free legal support and any kind of uh support they want. Well, now you see why this is kind of a big deal. You add in the fact that the White House is really really not interested in cracking down anymore after the whole Minneapolis fiasco and you get kind of a recipe for destruction. So hopefully now that the state police are on scene and kind of involved in this, this will simmer down quite a bit at this one facility. But again, there are many other places within driving distance. There are at least a dozen different federal buildings that these uh people can go cause problems at throughout the greater New York, New Jersey area, and there's not a whole lot that anybody can do about it but play whack-a-ole and just I mean you can't secure them all and these people have the numbers to uh dial up tensions to 11 if they so choose. So suffice it to say that this area has a lot of big money and the federal administration is really really desperate to avoid another Minneapolis. Once again, people get all been out of shape about how the immigration issue is on display in the street. Uh, but it's, you know, it's mostly boomers, neocons, normies, and people who don't understand how important crowd control really is. They may not understand looking at a crowd, reading the crowd, understanding what these people are doing, how they're dressed, what kind of insignia they're wearing. They they don't view the world through the lens of counterterrorism. So, they look at this and they just say, "Well, why are the police being mean?" Well, okay. They're they're trying to prevent somebody from getting killed here. And unfortunately, crowd control is a rather blunt instrument sometimes. So, the average normie Fox News watcher out there might not like it when Abua gets a little tearyeyed from the tear gas. But if it saves her from getting shot in the face because she threw a brick at a cop, then you know that maybe maybe there's a a place for crowd control. So either way, it's a delicate balance. Minneapolis showed that the federal government is not interested in maintaining their side of that balance, and Newark has confirmed it as well by being slow to react, by not using tear gas, by not using less lethal crowd control measures. And this is why we now have a thing to talk about. Right. Again, I don't want to focus on this too much, but when it comes to these counter ice things, this is a major concern. It is a much bigger concern than what's going on in Iran. It's a much bigger concern than paying almost $5 for gas, if we're being perfectly honest here. And so far, the immigration issue, specifically being heavy-handed at some of these riots, this is one of the only subjects where the White House actually cares about public perception and opinion, and they care about the public perception and opinion of their own political enemies, which is just an odd thing. But this is also why this minor policing issue has spiralled into a full-blown situation here. So once again, I don't want to make a molehill into a mountain over this sort of thing. This is one facility. This is in New Jersey because of course it is. And it looks like it's starting to simmer down now. At least the fences will make it a little bit harder for them to damage stuff. So there's that. But I haven't talked about immigration stuff in a while. And it's worth keeping these things on the back burner because as important as it is to understand what's going on around the world, it's even more important to understand what's going on here at home. So far, I do not know of a single agency, group, charity, whatever that has actually been shut down for encouraging these riots and for funding them. So, all it takes is the will and you know, just not seeing it. So, enough of that. Let's move to the Middle East for this week. And like a broken record, the situation remains about as tense as before. And let's start by working chronologically uh by walking through what chaos has unfolded in the region this week. Please forgive me if the details and timelines are a little bit off this week. The strangle hold on information has become much more substantial since the ceasefire went into effect. And it's harder to verify the timeline of events, but the general situation is that the war became kinetic again a few days ago, at least in a limited scope. Shortly after the announcements of an all but finalized peace deal last Friday that we discussed in last last weekend's brief, the United States carried out bombings within Iran on Monday, Memorial Day. During this series of strikes, the United States claimed to have taken out a few fastboats along with a SAM site and Bondara Boss. Sentcom did not acknowledge this series of strikes on their social media page. They have stopped providing press releases on engagements and no video was provided. The only reason that we know that it was the United States who conducted these strikes is because Sentcom spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins has been verbally confirming these strikes with reporters in mainstream media interviews. So after the American strikes on May 2526, the Iranians waited a day then launched their sort of proportionate response counterattack, whatever you want to call it, they launched their own attack again. This attack took the form of one ballistic missile targeting Ali Salam air base in Kuwait along with a handful of drones targeting Kuwait as well. At the time, the battle damage caused by this strike was completely censored and impossible to find out. However, as of last night, we now know that as many as five service members and a few contractors were wounded during this attack. So, casualties are still rolling in even from just one missile strike. Remember how I said that Sentcom is no longer posting their engagements on social media, or at least they're not posting all of them. They're just posting some of them. Well, this was quite handy because Sentcom did post about this Iranian counterattack on their page while pretending that the United States did not launch the first strike. They call this an egregious ceasefire violation and an unjustified Iranian aggression. But in reality, it was the United States which broke the ceasefire first by conducting the Memorial Day strikes. Interestingly enough, in this same exact post, Sentcom directly stated that Kuwaiti forces had successfully intercepted this ballistic missile, which might be a technically factual statement if we stretch the meaning of the word intercepted. However, it's also misleading because the missile actually hit the base anyway, wounding five people and damaging two MQ9 drones. So, it sounds like it hit an aircraft hanger. To me, this sounds like a cover for a failed interception. But that's my own personal opinion. I think they're just lying. I think the the missile actually did hit the base. But anyway, I just found this whole exchange completely baffling because believe it or not, propaganda works. In this case, all that needs to be done is to not disclose the fact that the US conducted strikes in Iran. And when the Iranians counteratt attacked, it'll be like the first time, which is exactly what happened. The US attacks on Memorial Day 1st. The Iranians counterattack on May 28th. And on that same night, the United States counter counterattacked the Iranians claiming to strike a drone that was about to be launched along with a few other undisclosed targets in Bond Abbas. Probably. This brings us to yesterday when President Trump posted this message on his social media platform, which contains a lot of information. President Trump outlined the rough criteria for what the United States would accept as part of a peace deal. But on the more tactical level, he also stated that the US would lift the American side of the blockade. Throughout the day yesterday, nothing much happened on this. And right now, it's hard to determine if this is the truth because no ships are transiting the strait due to what happened next. Yesterday evening, as everyone was trying to figure out what is going on, the UK MTO came in from the top rope with a pile drive to the peace process. For those who are just joining us now, the UK MTO or the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center is the leading authority for most maritime security issues in the Middle East. They cover other areas too, but the Middle East is their main focus. And they are like a British fusion cell run by the Royal Navy that works directly with US Navscent to help civilian ships know what security threats are present around the world. So, think of them like a British government agency that's like mostly civilian run, but they're still like directly tied into the government. They're not like a third party private company. So last night they published two advisory notes, both of which are incredibly interesting. The first one was an announcement that is comparatively rare and is not exactly good news. This was a notice of military operations being conducted north of the Musandam peninsula of Oman, which is this area of Oman, the peninsula that juts out north into the straight of Hormuz. So the UK MTO is saying that the US is going to be conducting military operations north of that. Well, that's in the middle of the street of Hormuz. Specifically, this notice warns of additional Iranian mine laying activity, and that US forces are on high alert. The notice also mentions that Iran continues to attempt to impede mine clearance efforts, which is the first public acknowledgement that the Iranian mines are indeed a threat, and that the United States can't exactly get in there to clear them. The notice goes on to mention that, quote, "Any vessel that does not comply with the direction of US forces may be determined to be an imminent threat and subject to proportionate measures of self-defense in accordance with international law." This sentence alone gives us a lot of information. Uh, for one, this further solidifies developments that took place last week, namely that the US is now conducting air strikes on Iranian vessels based on self-defense criteria. For the three of you who remember my anatomy of an air strike video from a while back, you may know that this is an indication that the US has completely revamped the concepts of kinetic targeting and the lines between deliberate targeting and dynamic targeting are not so clear anymore. Anyway, the US has now decided to allow target engagement authorities or TIAS, TEAS, at lower and lower levels of command to conduct self-defense strikes, which would normally be considered offensive strikes under all prior targeting doctrine as outlined by Sentcom's targeting guidance, JP360, and and a bunch of other long-standing guidance. This document from the UK MTO puts this in writing and is intended to warn the maritime shipping community that the United States will be conducting kinetic strikes in the strait very soon. The second document provided by the UK MTO is a warning that the blockade of Iranian ports is still in effect which takes the wind out of the sales regarding the lifting of the American blockade. So according to US Navent as in United States Naval Forces Central Command, the blockade is still in effect and this notice was published many hours after President Trump's announcement on social media. So somebody is lying about the blockade being lifted. In fact, these two notices are major indications and warnings of the war kicking off again soon and a primary focus is being placed on the straightup Hormuz. This notice directly states that the US Navy cannot guarantee the safety of neutral or merchant shipping, which seems pretty clear to me. And I don't think that any merchant shipping, at least any Western shipping, is going to go through the straight anytime soon unless they pay the Iranian toll. And if they pay the Iranian toll, then the US might pick them up, too. Because funny enough, as I'm recording this right now, I just see a notice come in from Sentcom stating that they disabled a non-compliant vessel in the Gulf of Oman to prevent blockade violation. So, I don't even know what's going on anymore. President Trump says the blockade's lifted. Uh, this looked pretty clear to me. Maybe I'm just stupid or something. I just can't read very well. And now Scom is saying, "Well, we're shooting at vessels which violate the blockade." So, I don't get it. Um, or maybe I do get it. Maybe I do understand it quite well. Uh because this type of well, we're going to let you go, but then when you get there, we're going to bomb you kind of mentality is really prevalent. I'm sure many of you have picked up on where this idea is coming from because there's somebody else in the world who tends to do this sort of thing. We're definitely not going to shoot. You can definitely go through this area. Oh, we bombed you. Okay. Yeah, now we see where this is coming from, right? At least that's my own general theory and I'll leave it at that. But anyway, I'll let that go for now. Uh maybe one day people will start reading between the lines and understand what's really going on here. But if maritime shipping needed any more reason to stay out of the straight this morning something else happened. Observers in Oman spotted a floating object that they assessed to be a naval mine which they say is currently floating to the west of the inshore traffic zone which is the new name that has been given uh to the alternative traffic separation scheme going through Omani waters. So there's a mine floating out there uh somewhere. what they think is a mine. Who who knows what it could actually be, but that's what they said. So, as of this morning, that's pretty much how things stand. We are on day 91 of the war, 3 months in, and the potential for peace remains very much off the menu for the time being. I would venture a guess to say that the hesitance to enter the straight of Hormuz from a western aligned vessel is roughly the same as it was during the height of the shooting. Otherwise, vessels are taking the Iranian route. They're paying the toll and they're just going on their merry way. I don't know if these vessels are being intercepted by the US Navy eventually at some point or what's going on, but right now the most hardest hit, the most affected vessels in the Persian Gulf that are stranded for 3 months now, a full quarter of the year are Western aligned vessels, American vessels, and tanker ships that are not aligned with the Iranians. Of course, things could change rather quickly. Uh, like I've said for months now and many others have said for months, the cleanest ending for this war, well certainly the quickest, but also the cleanest ending for the war is literally for the US to just walk away, declare victory, and privately cut a deal with the Iranians to give them whatever they want to open the straight again. So, we always have to consider the fact that that might happen. It could happen. We could just see a Trump social post one day and the Iranians confirm it that says the war is over. The straight's open, and we're all going to go home, right? That could happen. Those types of posts have been made several times before and they weren't true in the past, but it could happen. I don't want to neglect the fact that one day this could just be over. Personally, I don't think that's what's going to happen at all. I think that this war is going to drag on for a while longer, especially when we have a couple more months of strategic petroleum reserve left in the tank and the markets, the oil markets continue to be completely divorced from reality. some more mainstream sources are starting to catch on to what has been obvious for about 3 months now, which is that oil prices are not reflective of the situation at hand and that the bigger concern is the petroleum supply itself. As bad as prices are right now at the gas pump, it turns out that taking 20 million barrels per day out of the worldwide supply chain will eventually result in actual shortages of petroleum products. Uh the week before last, the United States has drained the strategic petroleum reserve at a higher rate than at any point in history. At least that's the claim that's going around. I don't know if the numbers actually match up, but it certainly seems to based on the charts. Gas is almost $5 per gallon in many places around the country, and this is actually artificially low. Like I said last week, gas prices should be much higher than they actually are right now. And one of the reasons that this has not happened is the wholesale draining of our strategic petroleum reserve. in addition to other nations doing the same from their end and a global tightening of the belt when it comes to petroleum products. So all in all, supply chain issues are seriously on the menu the longer this goes on. As we've known from the very start, time is a finite resource, and as of last night, there are even talks of extending the ceasefire by another 60 days. If that is the intent, we might be in a bit of a pickle because if we continue to drain these strategic reserves at the current rate of rise, we might not have that much time left before supply shortages begin and gas pumps in the US start running dry. Of course, this is not a major concern right now, even though it should be. But the Feds keep kicking that can down the road, and there's not a whole lot of uh expediency toward figuring this solution out. We're 91 days into this and there's not really a whole lot of interest in uh finding a solution anytime soon. It's like, well, let's schedule the meeting for two weeks from now. Well, okay. Uh but that's two weeks of very little oil making its way out of the region. So, not a super great look when the summertime travel season is just beginning right about now. And most Americans are going to be uh shaking their head at the gas pump unless something is done to fix this situation. And as of last night, it looks like many, many indicators are stacking up that point to the United States seeking more of a military solution rather than being interested in some sort of negotiation. But once again, a lot of this is going to be speculation. It'll be over when it's over, but right now it's not over. We just have to take it one day at a time and see what we can do on our end to be more prepared no matter what happens. So that's all I've got for today and let's wrap up with the Ghost Net reports for this week. Great net again all around this week and I think a lot of people are participating because weather is great this time of year. So I picked up way more people than I normally do from my own radio station. This week I heard quite a lot of people testing relaying messages around the world, testing other modes and frequencies. Some people trying to hit Australia, which is always really cool. I haven't hit Australia yet. That's pretty that would be pretty cool to uh do. It's pretty hard to hit Australia here from the east coast, but but otherwise, I saw a lot of people checking in to see who's up on the network and exchanging information completely off the grid. Radio networks like this one and others are really helpful when the power goes out, when the grid is completely down, and uh you have to operate completely offline, and maybe even in an environment where there's a lot of jamming. Resilient and capable communications are really helpful to have, especially when things are not going super well. So, that's all I've got for today. Thanks to all of you who support the work here on Patreon and thanks to all of you for sticking around as the summertime rolls in and everything gets more complicated. I have made some progress on the more educational material side of the house this week and I hope to have more at tech tutorials and more more well-rounded informational content out soon to help us navigate these strange and interesting times. There's never enough time in the day and I know that we're all trying to do our best. So, we'll continue on and try to stay one step ahead of the chaos as best we can. The goal of the Ghost Net and most of this other stuff too is to be an asset to the community even when times get tough and everything is collapsing around us. Hopefully things don't ever get that serious, but having these capabilities will be very handy and allow us to have the confidence to face whatever hardship comes next. So, let's get after it and I'll 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 15th through the 21st, 2026. We are officially 3 weeks into the war to stop the spread of Iran and the threats at home and overseas are starting to stack up. So, let's get right to it. Overall, the main focus has been on the expansion of the war in the Middle East due to entering a new phase of the war. The United States keeps bombing targets in Iran and the Iranians continue sending drones to attack American positions throughout the region. Down in the Red Sea, the Houthis have announced that they are now joining the war and will be opening up a southern front soon. They haven't done anything yet, but this is another threat to be aware of as the overall map of this war starts to expand around the globe. Around the world, another series of events that are underway right now are the second and third-order effects, which are starting to become more significant. This morning, the Times of London reported that government officials are working on plans to implement fuel rationing in the UK if the Strait of Hormuz continues to remain closed for much longer. Of course, these are just initial plans. Nothing is going into effect so far. However, this does go to show that what happens in the Middle East immediately impacts Western Europe and the United States at some point. All the way over in Southeast Asia, fuel rationing is already underway, and equally as important are the fertilizer shortages that are expected to impact the region during the upcoming rice planting season. It is still a few months away. However, even though this war has gone on for just a few weeks now, we're starting to have to think about famine potential here in the next few weeks. Separately, the United States has lifted some oil export sanctions on Iran so that they can export the oil that they have loaded onto their ships before the war began. Yes, you heard that right. We are actively bombing a nation every minute of the day, and at the same time we are allowing them to export oil for the first time in many years. This doesn't really matter anyway, I guess, because before the United States lifted sanctions, the Iranians were already carrying on business as usual with well over a dozen tankers meandering through the strait from Iran to the international market, mostly China and India, after the war began. In fact, even after President Trump announced the largest bombing raid in the history of the Middle East, his words not mine. The petroleum facility on board the island is operating just as it has since before the war, and tankers have been unloading oil at the terminal and departing even after the island was bombed. So, at the very wave top level, these are the concerns that we are looking at over the next few weeks. Economic instability and logistical challenges that we can't really predict ahead of time, but also the diplomatic complications that come about after the United States has torpedoed our relationships with everyone in the Middle East except for one country, which makes all kinds of international cooperation difficult in the long run. We are bombing Iran, and Iran is targeting our allies' oil facilities, and we are unsanctioning Iranian oil. So, suffice it to say that the situation is complicated at best. Concerning strategic movement for this week, like I mentioned, we are witnessing some major movements. In the Red Sea, the Ford carrier strike group is maneuvering north towards the Suez Canal after a laundry fire caused major damage to the ship. Initially, a fire was reported in the ship's laundry a few days ago, which is perfectly normal on board ship, and at the time it wasn't really worthy of mention. However, after a few days it became clear that this was a 30-plus hour firefight that actually had quite a bit of the crew involved in it over a period of almost 2 days. And then, the US Navy came out and said that the propulsion system was perfectly fine, which immediately raised eyebrows because that's kind of like sitting on an airplane and the pilot hopping on the intercom to state that the plane has a slight problem with the beverage cart, but engines 1 and 2 are perfectly fine, and there's definitely no problem with the fuel tank. Why would you even say that unless the situation was far worse than you had initially stated, which is the case with the Ford because this laundry fire, or whatever it was, was so serious that she is now combat ineffective, and she is being pulled off station to pull into Crete to conduct repairs. So, strategically, 50% of the aircraft carriers dedicated to this mission are offline, which is suboptimal. Likewise, other task forces are inbound to the Middle East. The USS Tripoli is almost in CENTCOM just a few days out from her journey from Japan, and the USS Boxer departed San Diego a few days ago. Both of these amphibious ready groups have Marine Expeditionary Units on board and both are scheduled to fall under CENTCOM's command in a few days with combat operations being possible probably by the end of next week at the earliest. In addition to the flat tops moving around, indications and warnings are mounting that the 82nd Airborne has been placed on some level of pre-alert to deploy. I do not know for sure if the warning order has been issued just yet. I do not think it has been and right now this may just be a general preparation rather than a more deliberate deployment. Honestly, if I were in command of a unit like the 82nd right now, I would be doing the same thing and wanting to make sure that things are good to go without any explicit order from higher up the chain. So, it could be that, but time will tell how this develops. Switching gears to focus on the home front for this week, indications and warnings are mounting of the threats to the homeland becoming more significant. Although, I must say we are really mostly grasping at straws because we really cannot say that X attack will take place at X place or at X time. And a lot of the events that have been made public over the past few weeks, we cannot really do much with. Again, the intelligence gaps are very, very large with nearly all of the terrorist attacks that have happened over the past few weeks. So, there's not a whole lot we can do other than just remain vigilant. Nevertheless, there have been a few incidents impacting the homeland this week worthy of mention. Last night, reports hit the mainstream media regarding a growing threat. Drones. Several instances of drone swarm incursions have been reported at American military bases over the past few months, but a few weeks ago when the war began in the Middle East, these drone incursions kicked into high gear. Instead of seeing one or two quadcopter style drones, we're starting to see drone swarms at American military bases and other sensitive sites. I have many anecdotal reports that I cannot publicly share regarding these drone sightings, but based on what has been reported in the mainstream media, these are starting to become more significant. The PAO at Barksdale Air Force Base reported many drones in their airspace last week after the war began. For context, Barksdale is a facility that is known for hosting the bulk of our B-52 fleet. These probing reconnaissance efforts have been reported at many other installations, and apart from the drones, we have also seen an increase in IED attacks within the United States over the past few weeks. This week, we had the IED that was discovered at the visitor's center of MacDill Air Force Base, which was in place to the day after the memorial service for the service members who were lost during the war. This timing was probably intentional, but again, there is not really a whole lot of information in the public sphere on this incident at the moment. Hope to have more next week, though. Concerning the more indirect impacts of the war within the United States, Americans have been slow to feel the impacts of the war on the other side of the planet, but nevertheless, those impacts will be felt in very unique ways. For instance, many people are saying that we don't need the strategic oil reserves, or all that oil goes to China anyway, or some other political message to state that whatever is happening in the Middle East doesn't actually matter here at home, which is really just misleading because the situation is vastly more complicated and more nuanced than that. So, these claims are not only false, but they're misleading in terms of what it means for commodities. It turns out that introducing scarcity of a commodity impacts that commodity, no matter where it is on the planet. So, even if the United States produced 100% of the oil and gas that we needed, and if we could refine it all by ourselves with no outside help, since oil is a global commodity, if it becomes scarce in one part of the world, the price of our oil goes up, too. A lot of people right now are debating on whether or not we can actually make up the difference for the production of our oil here in the homeland, and people can argue about that if they want, but we but we have to really remember is the opportunity cost, which impacts commodities a lot more than one might think. So, we're going to start feeling the effects of the war over the next few days and weeks as these impacts begin to be identified. Of course, the early and easy one that's that most people can understand, or at least the way that most people will be impacted by the war, is gas prices. Gas is up a dollar over what the national average was before the war began, so people may not understand why this is happening, but it is. So, this is how global markets work. Just like the COVID era when it comes to logistics, we're playing with things that we don't really understand because we simply cannot predict the trickle-down effect of bringing chaos to any part of the world. In other words, we don't know what we don't know. And as the war continues, we're going to start identifying exactly the things that we're not really going to miss until they're gone, right? And on the diplomatic front, China is all happy to sit back and start developing new relationships as our own partners start questioning which horse they hitched their wagon to. So, at the very strategic level in terms of diplomacy and economics in the Middle East, the situation is most certainly not good, and it's only going to get worse the longer this war goes on. Moving to the more tactical situation on the ground, we arrive at the grand question this week: How goes the war? This week, several high-profile incidents have taken place. The Israelis targeted the South Pars gas facility, which sparked a major international incident due to the Qataris being dragged into this war more directly. And as a result of that attack, various messaging has been undertaken by the White House, which is honestly confusing, and I don't really know how to read it at this point. In the Persian Gulf itself, a humanitarian crisis is developing among the merchant vessels that are currently stranded and unable to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Many of these vessels are starting to run out of food and water, and many port authorities around the region are not letting merchants enter the ports to top off their supplies, either because they just don't have the supplies or because of the risk of a ship being sunk pier-side. Other vessels are too big to enter the shallow water ports anyway, and so they're having to go get food and water in crew boats. It's It's utter madness at this point. Considering targeting efforts on all sides, we are starting to see the effects of what we sometimes refer to as changeover. This is a rarely discussed phenomenon that occurs in warfare, which in this case is an example of basically running out of ammo with one weapon system, and therefore having to switch to another. What makes this a phenomenon is that there is an equal and opposite reaction depending on whether or not you were the aggressor or defender in a particular situation. The United States began the war using expensive standoff munitions, but the Iranians retaliated. They started their counterattack by using their more old and obsolete missiles. Similarly, on our side, we began the war using our brand new PAC-3 missiles in the Patriot batteries, but the Iranians began with their cheapest and least capable munitions. So, when it comes to purely an analysis of the munitions that have been used, the United States started with our best, and the Iranians started with their old and busted. Now, after the Iranians have caused us to expend our best, they can transition to their best. We saw this in Israel in particular because Israel got hammered a lot by a lot of those missiles on the very first day. But, after about a week or so, the Iranians had started using cluster munitions. Why is this? Well, if the Iranians have oversaturated your missile defenses and you're running low on THAAD missiles, you're running low on Iron Dome stuff for more of the the low-level drone attacks, and if you're running out of high-level interceptors, now the Iranians can start using their best munitions both to increase lethality and also to oversaturate the missile defenses that remain. Likewise, the United States is starting this changeover process in many regards as well, which you can read in two different ways. CENTCOM has stated that they are now beginning to use AH-64 Apache and A-10 Warthog gun runs along the Iranian coastline, engaging targets as they come up. Now, these weapon systems, both attack helicopters and low-level closer support aircraft, these are low-level assets. These are going to be targeting things very close to the ground, not from a thousand miles away. Now, you can read this as the United States is so awesome that we don't have to use the more expensive munitions anymore, and we're just mopping up the Iranians from close range. Or, you can read it as this. CENTCOM is having to assume more and more risk, throwing anything and everything at the Iranians at breakneck pace, simply because it is a question of volume. This is how I personally read the situation because of two things. For one, the photos coming out of the B-52s departing on bombing missions indicate that they are still using standoff munitions, in this case JASSM cruise missiles, and I believe the JASSM ER or extended range variants as well are also being used. Also, the successful targeting of the F-35 a few days ago is a huge tell, not just for the F-35 platform itself, although I'm sure some Lockheed guys are getting ripped over the coals right now, but also because it confirms that 3 weeks into this fight, the US has not achieved one of their stated goals, which is uncontested airspace. Pete Hegseth directly stated that this was a goal, and it has not happened yet, which is not an indictment of any kind on the US Air Force. It's just stating the obvious, which is that this is a hard fight, and the US is nowhere near mopping up the Iranians like the White House has been indicating. Remember that F-35 platform has been touted over the past decade as being an indestructible, next-level, completely amazing platform that is immune to all this kind of stuff. So, you can't really fall back on the classic argument that might have been made saying, "You know what? Even under the best of circumstances, one or two planes are probably going to get shot down. It's a war, things are crazy, stuff like that." Well, no, you can't really make that argument because you explicitly made the argument that the F-35 was invincible, and the Iranians proved that it's not because the Iranians hit it with probably a very low-level or a very old SAM system. Now, granted, the F-35 is clearly an amazing platform because it ate a missile and it still was able to fly, but still, we now see the risks that are coming to light. Three weeks into this war, the US has blown up a lot in Iran, but has this been enough to reduce combat power in Iran enough to where we feel safe enough to send a carrier through the strait? Absolutely not. Hard no on that. In fact, at this point, I would be very hard-pressed to believe that if this war ends anytime soon, as in it ends diplomatically and not militarily, I would doubt that the US would send a carrier through the strait ever again. Bottom line, this war, like all wars through history, is not going as well as expected for the aggressor based on the Pentagon's own metrics. And we can prove this very easily. The fact that not one, but two Marine Expeditionary Units are being deployed for this war is a strong indicator that things are not going to plan because if they were going to plan, why were these units not on station already before the war? And this is something that is not unique to the United States. Any nation which starts moving strategic assets after starting a fight clearly did not expect those resources to be needed. Likewise, evacuations of American positions around the region continue because once again, the United States did not expect the Iranians to target their bases in the region, which sounds hard to believe, but that's exactly what President Trump stated. He said this openly. And it does align with what has been observed over the past few days. Suffice it to say, American positions in the Middle East are getting hit harder than they have ever been hit before, and the damage that has been done to American positions throughout the Middle East is substantial. Now, the 64,000 lb elephant in the room is exactly what those two Marine Expeditionary Units are supposed to be doing in the Middle East. And I have been racking my brain trying to figure out exactly what we're trying to do with these here. My first gut feeling was that the triple-E was either a bluff, or it was for maritime security, or some other low-level task because you can't really do much with just one MEU. I'm sorry, guys. I hate to break it to you, but Iran is a big country. Even if we were to just avoid the Persian Gulf, avoid the Strait of Hormuz. Let's just take those two out of the equation. The coastline of Iran outside of the Strait of Hormuz is about 500 mi. So, you've got to go past 500 mi of Iranian coastline before you even get to the Strait of Hormuz. And then you've got hundreds more miles past the Strait of Hormuz before you get to the end of the Persian Gulf. Again, Iran is much bigger than it seems on the map. It seems like a small country on the map, but it is very large. Qeshm Island, for example, which has been in the news a lot lately. This is the main island in the Strait of Hormuz, and it's one of the main Iranian strongholds within the strait that kind of overlooks down onto the waterway there. Many of the drone attacks are being launched from this area, and there's a pretty good coastal defense contingent on this island. There's a lot of nooks and crannies to hide drone launchers and stuff like that. The only problem is this island on the map, it looks pretty small, but just for scale, it's roughly the size of Okinawa. In 1945, it took about 180,000 troops to seize Okinawa, and Qeshm Island doesn't even have a coastline suitable for an invasion. Most of the island is complete sheer like Cliffs of Dover cliff face. Another theory I've seen being talked about by pundits on a lot of the mainstream media that I have unfortunately had to watch regarding this conflict are are what about the smaller islands? Okay, so Qeshm Island is too big, what about the smaller ones? Well, let's take Larak Island for instance. This is another island in the strait that the IRGC use as a kind of a stronghold. It's more of a more of a recon base than anything else, but it does have coastal defenses. And it looks kind of small and cute on the map, right? Wrong. This is actually the size of Iwo Jima, which took about 80,000 Marines to seize back in 1945. So, hopefully now the the concerns are quite clear with the littoral considerations here. The White House is openly lying about how much they have devastated the Iranian coastline. Showing individual strikes on old generation launchers does not really paint the full picture. If we're showing clips of one missile or one bomb hitting one launcher or one target, how much do you think that pans out over 500 miles? Even if you were to just look at the map that I have right here, all of the points that you see by my lightest count in terms of the common intelligence picture map product that I have made, all of these red points on the map, all the sites that all of the potential targets that could be bombed, 95% of what they have militarily is not on my maps. Similarly, for American targeting efforts, I've mapped about a 15 to 1800 points that have been hit or struck that we can confirm have been hit or struck via satellite imagery or video from the ground. And if we're talking 15 to 1800, that's quite a bit less than what the United States has claimed, which is a well over 5,000 strikes. So, the White House has claimed 5,000 strikes. I've got on my maps 1,500 to 1,800 or so. So, we're not getting the full picture here. I just want everyone to be clear about that. We're not getting the full picture when we're looking at this stuff, but it's the best that we can do for now, best I can do for now. So, one of the main things that we just don't have a whole lot of fidelity on is the Iranian army. Like, what is the Iranian army doing right now? They have a ground force. They have a ground army of about 700,000 troops. And if you call up the local police forces, the militia, and all the other forces, you can probably get to like 1.1 to 1.3 million. Figures vary, obviously, and there's going to be quite a few casualties so far, but nobody's mentioned them at all. Nobody's mentioned the Iranian army at all. And the White House is pretending that they are bombing everything into oblivion. And personally, I don't think they're doing too much at the strategic level. Yeah, they are hitting missile launchers. And a missile launcher that's blown up can't be used again, right? That looks really cool. But at the strategic level, there are questions as to what the capabilities still remain, because the Iranians are still launching missiles. They're now launching their good missiles. They're now launching their good drones. And they're able to launch fewer and fewer of those because defenses have been degraded throughout the region. The United States has said that the strait is open, right? Trump has got his advisers on television saying telling merchants to, you know, have courage and go through the strait. Like, what are we doing here, you know? The president's telling people to sail their ship into a potential minefield here, a literal minefield in some cases, with no guarantee for their safety whatsoever. The White House is trying to to call the merchant mariners who are not sailing through the strait. He's trying to call them cowards, which is just baffling. If the strait were open, if that were true, then why is the American aircraft carrier in the region too scared to even get close to it? If Trump wants maritime shipping to feel safe about transiting the strait, then why don't they send their carrier through? Or the five American warships that are currently in the Persian Gulf that no one seems to remember are there. Why is it that the United States is still loading up B-52s with JASSM stand-off munitions, which are launched from hundreds of miles away from Iran? Clearly, there is enough risk that makes stand-off munitions a major requirement for this fight, at least for some targets. And if we are using stand-off munitions, I have no idea why are we are even remotely considering a ground combat element at this point, because this goes against all military doctrine. And I'm not saying this because of any kind of personal feeling towards the war, although we all have personal feelings towards the war, right? I'm saying this because I am utterly aghast at the potential for us to even think about a ground combat element when we're still using stand-off munitions. Bottom line, I'm quite concerned that the Pentagon is counting their chickens before they're hatched, and I think that they think they might have a shot at it. I think the Robert McNamara LBJ era of thinking is definitely in play in the White House, and I think they're getting high on their own supply, and throwing out most strategic doctrine because politicians and generals alike are being force-fed the drone strike footage, and thus lay they are making high-level strategic decisions based on low-level tactical data. I genuinely think that they don't know that even if we were to use nuclear weapons, Iran could probably eat a half a dozen nuclear detonations before they would be softened up enough for a ground invasion to be possible. And the media has been pushing the idea of taking Kharg Island hard over the past few days. As unfortunate as it is, you really have to look at Fox News every now and then, unfortunately, to figure out what the neocon war establishment is trying to push in terms of military strategy here, and they're pushing Kharg Island right now, which to me is sheer and utter madness. We cannot even get an aircraft carrier within a hundred [snorts] miles of the strait, much less transit it. So, Kharg Island is completely off limits unless they want to do a helicopter assault force or like a half raid, which would be a bloodbath in every single scenario that anyone can dream up. Over the past week or so, I have been sitting at my desk trying to figure out what angle they might be able to press, what how they might be able to prosecute this war. And honestly, I can't figure out where they would want to get a foothold. You can definitely get a foothold in many places along the Iranian coastline. The question is, why would you want to? Like, what's the point? What are they going to do? If you could put 4,000 Marines on the Qeshm Island airfield, the Qeshm International Airport, former International Airport. If you could do that, go right now, and you could do it without taking any casualties, what would be the point? What would you do? You're going to go door-to-door looking for Iranian soldiers to deliver right? Like, what's the point? So, I don't understand what they're trying to do because again, the strategic vision for this war has not been conveyed clearly to the American people. No one really knows what we're doing here other than just causing a lot of destruction, and that's basically it. Which is If that's what they want to do, fine, but with a ground force, I don't know, man. I don't know what they're trying to do here. Venezuela was easy to call. Operation Midnight Hammer, again, was easy to call. But again, this situation now where we're in this, and we've been fighting for 21 days now, we've got 21 days of combat experience. We have got 21 days to lean on of what's been going on in the war, and so far, I don't know how this is going to work out. As all of this is developing by the minute, I'm going to do what I can to help map this out because I have a feeling that not only is de-escalation not on the menu anytime soon, but I think that we might be getting into a bit of a pickle here really soon when it comes to a ground force. I don't think it's too late to call it off. I don't think that the final decision has been made just yet, and there haven't really been that big many movements other than of course the the Navy vessels with the Mew on board, but I certainly hope we break the trend, and this is actually a bluff. But at this point, I would personally be very surprised if some sort of ground combat element is not utilized. However, once again, things are changing rapidly, and everything is happening by the hour, right? And we have at least a week before any potential ground combat element is in position. So, we're going to have a few more days to go on the hunt for more indicators. I cannot definitively say we are going in just yet. I don't want to make that call at this at this point, but everyone can see that the indicators are stacking up. In addition to the tactical situation on the ground, this war has now expanded to include two combatant commands. This is no longer CENTCOM's baby alone as INDOPACOM is now involved due to Diego Garcia being targeted overnight. Last night, mainstream media reported that the Iranians tried to target Diego Garcia with two ballistic missiles. One missile splashed down on its own shortly after launch and the other was intercepted by the US Navy in the Arabian Sea. The reason this is so significant is that Diego Garcia is roughly twice the range of the max range that Iran was supposed to have. For those that don't know, Iranian missile range is basically just Israel. Their missile core, which is an entire branch of the military, was set up more or less with the goal of building missiles for combating their biggest threat, which is Israel. And you've got to respect that the Iranians are the ultimate haters because whenever a new missile came up on the drawing board, they'd basically say, "Can it hit Israel?" And that would be the main criteria for designing their new long-range ballistic missiles, at least. Their short-range stuff is obviously for more regional threats, but you get the general picture here. The Iranians were definitely not trying to do a North Korea and try to build an ICBM. They're not interested in hitting San Francisco or anything like that. The Iranians are not interested in hitting the United States, which is why the Diego Garcia shot is pretty interesting this morning. Now, it must be noted, and this is a very big pump-the-brakes moment. It must be noted that the reports that we have seen do not explicitly confirm that the Iranians actually have that much range. We do not know how far this missile flew before splashing down. And speaking theoretically for a moment, if I were the Iranians, I would definitely do it for purely deception purposes. I would lob a couple of ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia knowing full well that the missiles would land a thousand miles short, but also that the US would intercept them. So, the missiles fly out over the Arabian Sea, and then Navy dutifully intercepts them, and Iran claims that their missiles would have hit if it weren't for the meddling US Navy, right? Even if that wasn't the case, even if those missiles would never have gotten close to Diego Garcia. So, I guess the main distinction with this attack is whether or not you think that the Iranians would burn a couple of missiles to get everybody up in a tizzy, or if this was a legitimate attempt. That I do not know, and I guess the proof is in the pudding. The evidence on the other side of the aisle is also quite compelling, too. Why would the US Navy burn a missile if they detected that that Iranian missile was never going to hit anything anyway? Why would they try to intercept it at all? So, the fact that they tried to intercept it, and they did intercept one of those missiles, the fact that they did that is a pretty strong indicator that that missile would have hit something. Otherwise, they would have just let it pass and save the missile and make the Iranians look foolish, right? The other more obvious theory, which is kind of a blend of these ideas, is that maybe the Iranians are doing a little bit of live-fire testing. Maybe they Maybe they don't actually know their true range, right? Maybe they've built a missile, but they haven't actually tested it before, and they're trying to see how far they can really just send that sucker out there, which is probably the more likely theory. It could have been uh one of their existing missile systems that they set up to go farther. I don't know. Maybe they took the warhead out and replaced it with a smaller one so it could go farther. I don't know. This is all speculation, right? Either way, the Iranians are stretching their legs and trying to flex a bit now that the star of the show, their missile core, is starting to increase their attacks. So, that's where things stand right now. The war is only continuing to expand. The Iranians are getting better at their targeting efforts, and we are starting to dig to search for harder targets as time goes on. This is how all wars go, especially air wars. You kill all the dumb ones on the first day. You take out all the low-hanging fruit on the first day, and now we're starting to reach up to the top of the tree and trying to find the the cream of the crop. And that's a lot harder to do for us, and it's a lot easier for the Iranians to do. So, again, inverse relationship here. As time goes on, the United States will have a harder time, and the Iranians will have an easier time. They have proven that their government did not only did not collapse after the initial strikes, but they probably planned for those strikes to occur. And also, they have been able to maintain command and control elements after this war began. So, in terms of how this war is going, I can't really say for sure. It's not really accurate to say someone's winning or someone's losing, but I can say that the United States is struggling to meet objectives. Whatever those objectives are, we don't really know with 100% certainty. But, when it comes to the Iranians, their goal of just surviving, their bar is so low it's on the floor. You know, just to survive. They're obviously very much able to meet that. And they are able to carry out increasingly more aggressive attacks and increasingly more pinpoint precise attacks as time goes on. So, that's something to think about as time goes on, and it's not something to degrade the United States military. This is just something that goes on in every conflict around the world, whether it's Russia and Ukraine or South Korea, North Korea, China, Taiwan. These are the concerns that are now playing out in real time in the Persian Gulf. So, again, this is nothing personal against any of the belligerents involved in this. This is pure reality. This is how warfare doctrine works. And we have to acknowledge the truth of the matter because none of the sides, none of the belligerents involved in this conflict are telling the truth, and we're seeing some some rather impressive propaganda being spread around on all sides. And we just got to cut right through it to get, you know, to the truth of the matter. So, while the conflict remains a central focus to the region, while we're kind of focused on the bullets and bombs of the region, extremely serious developments have occurred in Jerusalem, which I would like to touch on. Israeli forces, citing alleged security concerns, have closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. This church, one of the holiest sites in all of Christianity, has never been closed since its founding, shortly after the Lord Jesus Christ walked the earth. Even during the Muslim conquest of the city, even during the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic caliphs placed the church under custodianship and protected the building from harm. And even during the brutal Crusades, the church remained open. The church itself began operating internally with enhanced security posture since February 28th, since the war began, but as of this week, the church has been completely locked down by the Israeli government during the most significant time of the year for Christians, Great and Holy Lent. Right now, the church is preparing for the ceremony of the Holy Fire next month, a yearly miracle which occurs in the empty tomb of Christ inside the church. This closure would be a major incident even during the best of times, but during the lead-up most important yearly event for Christians, this is a clear case of deliberate persecution of the highest order for which there is no defense or justification, and is a very big deal when it comes to international relations. Similarly, Al-Aqsa Mosque has also been closed for some time for similar reasons, security, general security concerns. Al-Aqsa Mosque has also been closed several other times before by Israeli forces since times became a little bit more kinetic in 2023, but this year it was also closed directly before Ramadan. So, I did want to point that out. The Muslims have been impacted as well. It's just that Al-Aqsa being closed has happened before, and the two holiest sites in Islam are actually Mecca and Medina, so not exactly in Jerusalem. But again, Al-Aqsa is a major facet of the Old City of Jerusalem, and it's important to note nevertheless. I have also seen some reporting that the Western Wall has been closed as well, or at least had access restricted, but I'm not really sure about that, and all of the synagogues throughout Jerusalem, of course, remain open. So, regardless of whatever security threats exist, the decisions to close holy sites were made unilaterally by the Israeli government in violation of the complex administration of the Old City, which is jointly managed by a complicated arrangement of authorities throughout the city. I know we probably don't want to talk about this so much. Personally, I would really prefer it if there wasn't a holy war component to this conflict, but at this point it is painfully obvious that a good chunk of this war is actually being fought for the purposes of attempting to fulfill biblical prophecy, at least for some people and some of the major belligerents here. And honestly, guys, I I really don't know what to do with that. Similar story with the strategic military doctrine at play here. I mean, I I have a whole bookshelf of warfare publications going back detailing every armed conflict since the Napoleonic Wars, going all the way back to ancient warfare as well. And not a single student of the history of warfare would ever say that a ground invasion of Iran would be a good idea at this juncture. And right now, the White House and the dozen or so advisors around the president think that they have a chance at a ground invasion. They're floating this idea in the public sphere. Are you high? I don't know. Maybe I'm just stupid here, and I just have uh more of a pigeonhole view of the conflict than I thought I did. So, if anybody out there has a good explanation or a good uh ability to explain the military merits of putting the these specific units on the ground in Iran, and how those units would achieve a strategic goal, because again, that's the whole point, right? You can put 4,000 Marines, 6,000 Marines, you can put 10,000 Marines on the ground in Iran. You can do that, 100%. I've got uh hundreds of HLZs they can use. But, what's the point? How would that help achieve the end goal of the war? That I don't know. Now, if you were to change the numbers and say 4 or 500,000 troops, I would say, "Okay, well, now we're talking about a about a military objective actually being met." But, 4,000 Marines and the 82nd, I'm sorry, guys, I just don't see what the point of this is in terms of achieving a strategic goal. So, moving forward over the next few days, my general plan is to continue monitoring the situation uh overseas, and especially here at home. I know that most people are vastly more concerned with what threats are present to the homeland, and I am concerned about this as well. That is my chief concern with all of this, the homeland. Civil unrest over immigration has seriously simmered down after uh President Trump pulled out of Minneapolis. And personally, I think that was the height that was the peak of uh immigration and deportation efforts. I would very much like to be wrong about that. I would love for uh deportation and uh immigration law enforcement operations to continue personally because it reduces the threats to the homeland. But, I personally think that we're we're really done with immigration being a focus uh by the White House for right now, for sure. Same with Epstein. No one in any position of power is even going to go through the motions of pretending to care about seeking justice on that front. So, it'll have to be us. It'll have to be the little guy. It'll have to be us, the average taxpayer, who are trying to to make sure that we don't forget the crimes that have occurred and also the crimes that are probably still in progress. So, I'm sorry to say that domestically it's a little bit of mixed news when it comes to civil unrest. The far left is still protesting. Uh protests may or may not get kinetic. But, for the most part, they're not really upset because they got what they wanted. So, that will be something to be aware of as we move into the summertime. And on that front, let's wrap things up for today with the Ghost Net reports for this week. We cannot control what our nation is doing at the national level, but we do have enough control to do what we can to improve our own skills. We can moan and complain on the internet and we can doom scroll all day long. But, what are we doing each day to better ourselves? What are you doing to improve the world around you as it falls apart? Let me tell you, friends, there's plenty of work to do on that front. One line of effort is to make sure that we can keep in contact and share information in an off-grid manner, no matter what happens, whether it be internet communications outages or censorship alike. Maintaining that link to the world is very important, and this week the Ghost Net has been fantastic with many users providing helpful information on their local areas, which is always a good thing to see. So, that's all I have for today, everyone. Thank you for sticking around as I desperately try to get more organized with all of my data and make things easier for all of you to have on hand. Because that's what it's all about, right? Having access to information that you can use to make your own decisions. And if the data is hard to access or not really easy to understand, it's of no use. So, please continue to bear with me over the next few weeks as I try to figure out ways of balancing how much information is useful and how much is really just the chaff that isn't helpful. So, we'll get to it to do the best we can, and I hope all of us can do the same. So, thank you again, everyone, and I'll see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.

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