Intel Update - July 18 - Back to War

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for July 12th through the 18th, 2026. This has been a very busy week, so let's get right to it. Just as a notice right up front, I also posted a dedicated podcast regarding my concerns on the growing flock camera scandal. So if you're interested in that, definitely check that out. The flock debate has gotten a lot of attention over the past few weeks, but especially this week with a lot of people suddenly realizing what exactly this company does and what other similar surveillance projects are in the works. And I cover my concerns on this in a dedicated episode so as to not bury my ranting in today's update. So check it out if you're interested. But this week has been very busy. So let's get right to it. And first of all, I'm making an executive decision to start with some good news this week because you know what? It's important to focus on the good stuff, too, wherever we can. Starting with Canada, the wildfires have continued to rage throughout the nation. As we can see from the fire detection satellites that have highlighted the extent of the fires, all of these dots are one square km squares where a large fire has been detected. Some of these are stale, but this gives us a general idea of where the fires have been burning and where they're still burning. Thankfully, fatalities have been to a minimum so far because the fires have been burning in really remote terrain. But a few days ago, a now viral video circulated social media showing a Canadian National Railway train getting caught up in a pretty hot fire as the flame front overtook them near Armstrong, Ontario. The video, of course, only shows a snapshot in time, and I'm sure there will be an investigation as to why they were there in the first place and why they did not know that the fire was getting that close. But the moral of the story is that they made it out of there. And from what I've been hearing through the grapevine, these guys did excellent work. Apparently, this was somewhat of a rescue mission whereby they were trying to get their foreman as a flamefront advanced and due to a coupling issue or something like that, the engine stalled or failed. We're not really sure, but the end result is these guys having to abandon the train and run 3 miles on foot to safety. Bottom line is that everyone made it out of there. Okay. And that's outstanding work. That's exactly what we should all strive for, doing the best we can with a bad situation that we didn't start ourselves. But it's our problem now and we've got to go to work. And speaking of problem solving, over in the United Kingdom this week, the UK has had another bit of good news. Earlier this week, the Crown Prosecution Service has declined to press charges against a farmer who shot a burglar dead in his home back in 2024. Two years ago, four men broke into the farmer's house in Wy Ridge, and the farmer promptly shot at least one of them, which later died of his wounds. It may seem a bit strange for us Americans for this to be such a resounding victory, but in the UK, they don't really have the right to self-defense codified as a natural right and law. In the UK, in nearly all cases, if you are the victim of a crime and defend yourself in any way, you are probably going to get prosecuted in some manner. So, this case is a drop of good news in a whole sea of bad. And I wanted to highlight that. Within the homeland this week, we also have some good news on a similar front as well. The third circuit court has ruled in effect that assault weapons are indeed still quite constitutional and that the New Jersey assault weapons ban is unconstitutional. It has been 36 years since this gun ban went into effect and this week it was struck down. And if New Jersey wants to fight it, they're going to have to appeal it to the actual Supreme Court, which they probably do not want to do. So, we can certainly take the win this week and keep pushing those goalposts as hard as we can. Moving to the Middle East for this week, like a broken record, I'm afraid the situation continues to escalate and we are almost back to the full combat readiness that we saw when the war first began. If we recall, when theou was signed, a bunch of aircraft had departed the region, mostly fighter jets and refueling tankers, which was a pretty big indicator at the time that the war was winding down to a point of stability at least. Well, as of earlier this week, all those aircraft that were initially sent out of the region have turned around and headed right back, and the United States has started staging a lot of these refueling tankers throughout the region once again. The Israeli media is reporting that the US is going to bring back all those tankers that we sent out of Israel. So, they're coming back uh to Israel now, or they're supposed to be over the next couple of days. We had a few dozen tankers there, I think. And those tankers in Israel were mostly used, at least for from what I can tell, they were mostly used for topping off a lot of the bomber aircraft that came into the region. So, once again, it looks like we're starting to step things up again this week. Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking. I had this theory, too. I thought maybe theou was just a straightup trick from the very start and that they never intended to draw down forces, which that actually may still be true. Certainly at the national level looking back, I don't think the US ever really intended to go by this deal because was just really hard to imagine being accepted by the US because it was just such a bad deal. Of course, it was a bad deal that we were kind of forced into taking because we had to take a suboptimal deal, but now it would seem that that's off the table and we're going to go to war for a little while longer. But regardless of the politics of all of this, and in my opinion at least, the US or at least the Air Force did indeed draw down forces two weeks ago. And we have every indicator pointing to the military actually drawing down forces when theou was signed. They did indeed do that. What the politicians were doing and thinking and saying behind the lines that's behind, you know, that's that's in the political realm. But clearly something changed. And I don't know what happened. Maybe it was a phone call. Maybe it was an organic change of heart. But whatever it was, the White House sharply diverted from the tenuous stability of the working toward a peace deal during theou period and they decided to just go uh fully back to war. Maybe the White House saw how badly things were going and how much power Iran had by signing theou and when Iran struck a merchant vessel for trying to sneak through earlier this week, the US jumped at the opportunity to justify starting a war again. That's the closest theory I can think of as to what might have happened. But the fascinating part of this is how disjointed it's been. we have that massive series of draw down efforts which then just got reversed earlier this week and that's a big clue that a decision was made and then changed. So that's kind of interesting. I'm still working to figure out what is actually going on on the political realm. I know not like a whole lot of people know what's going on these days in the world of politics, but politics is driving this war and trying to figure out what's going on is probably a worthwhile effort to some degree. What's far more interesting is the tactical situation on the ground. So let's start with what the Iranians have hit this week. The American bases in Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE, and Oman have all been hit pretty hard. Again, not as hard as the initial phases of the war, but still very substantially. Mufakal Salty Air Base was hit actually last night. I'm looking at the imagery this morning, and unfortunately this time, the Iranians hit the barracks. So, there is currently a very large fire burning among several buildings in the general area of the base housing. And early reports indicate that several US service members may have been wounded uh as a result of this attack. separately the Patriot battery in Airbial Iraq and the Himar's launch site in Kuwait were both hit as well with relatively unknown success on the part of the Himar strike at least. They may not have actually snagged the highar unit because they are way more mobile. They shoot and scoot, right? They move into a position, fire their missiles, then they leave. So, it's really hard to counter battery fire these at least when it comes to the Iranians. But missile defense sites are much more static and the missile defense site in Airbiel was kind of dug in. So, not super great. So far, Saudi Arabia seems to be the only Gulf state not targeted during this latest wave of attacks. However, again, as I'm recording this, I'm seeing reports of explosions being reported this morning in random places in Saudi Arabia. But again, I have not had enough time to verify this just yet. It's happening so fast and by the time I get this out, it's going to change. So, just kind of play it by ear on that. But the next logical step would be for the Iranians to start hitting both the American bases in Saudi Arabia along with the East West pipeline. That's what I'm expecting next. In addition to the more military targets, the Iranians are likely to continue hitting power plants and desalination plants throughout the region. Most of the Gulf states get their fresh water supply from extremely large desalination plants which are highlighted as green marks here on my maps. And in all cases, these desalination plants are colllocated with very large power plants that generate electricity for the region. And because they are located right on the coastline, these are really juicy targets for the Iranians. And with one or two very cheap drones, they can simultaneously take out the water source and the electrical power source for a lot of the region if they so choose. The Iranians have been really hesitant to climb what we call the escalation ladder. They're trying to not act with haste on pretty much anything. They're trying to be very measured, at least from their perspective. And again, that is the kind of the Persian way of war, not trying to act in haste and trying to make your enemy make a mistake before you have the chance to make a mistake. I don't know if that's working out for them. There's debate in the world of military doctrine as to, you know, what they're doing is effective or not. But the Iranians certainly have a lot of places they can hit and there are not that many targets in Iran that the US can do from a military perspective to actually mitigate a lot of that. In terms of what the United States has been doing, the American targeting has not been as heavy as during the early days of the war, but the target list has diversified quite a bit. None of the ballistic missile sites or hardened bunkers have been hit for a few weeks now. We've kind of given up on that, realizing that we just don't have the munitions to get through to these. But the US has shifted to targeting to critical infrastructure, namely bridges. Finally, the line is set up. Will the US go a bridge too far? I don't know because these bridges are mostly along the coastal region that is essentially on the back side of Ketchum Island. Maybe it's just a continuation of the Israeli strategy of mowing lawn. Or maybe it's something with a more deliberate end goal after scouring the Iranian coastline for almost uh 8 months now. I can say that the insinuation here that this is going to be preparation for some kind of either airborne or amphibious operation, that's probably not what's happening here. And if it is, God help us. Seriously, because that is a terrible spot to land. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out because that's probably what a lot of people are thinking. That's what I thought initially and then I saw where these bridges were being hit and I thought, "No, there's no way." I would bet that whatever we bomb tonight and tomorrow night will help us figure out what the game plan is here. Maybe it's shaping for something else. Maybe it's not what these bridges were being used for, but what they could have been used for. Maybe the US is trying to funnel traffic into a specific area for some reason. I don't know. Similar story on the high seas where the war has continued to stay pretty hot this week. Several merchant vessels have been struck and last night the Iranians claimed that two merchant ships actually hit mines in the minefield in the straight of Hormuz. I don't know about all that because I find it hard to believe that the Iranians would know the instant that a ship hit a mine, but it's certainly possible. Other than the possible mine strikes, the Iranians have been striking merchant vessels for taking the southern Omani route. Similarly, the US has been striking merchant ships as well for violating the US blockade, which has been back on since the US withdrew from theou. In general, this has not fared very well for the oil trade, and so far, not very many ships are transiting uh anymore, at least after the war was announced as being back on earlier this week. Oil futures did start to rise again, but as we've noted before, it's hard to put much stock in the paper price of petroleum these days, simply due to the market manipulation. Things are so crazy even economists who can usually make sense of the nonsensical can't seem to make sense of what's going on here. But what's quite clear is that market manipulation is just kind of a open mainstay these days. How this is going to affect the maritime trade, I don't know, but it doesn't look super great if we're hoping for this to end anytime soon. So that's kind of where things stand in the Middle East. Uh but before we wrap up today, I wanted to briefly touch on the war in Ukraine. The fight is much the same as last week, so I won't dig into it too much, but both Russia and Ukraine are continuing to strike each other from a very long range. Russia is making gains at this time on the Eastern front with Constantinfka falling to Russian control last week. Other than that, and some advances in Sunumi, the biggest developments on the battlefield have been the continued targeting of merchant ships in the Black Sea and also the regular strikes on petroleum infrastructure. Both sides are hitting each other's tankers and refineries or fuel depots in the case of Ukraine. And this appears to be a case of both sides giving each other a black eye. As with most of Ukraine's campaigns, they usually get the upper hand at first and usually make more progress than you think they would. They did this with Operation Spiderweb. They've done this with a few other uh campaigns like the Kursk offensive. They actually can do pretty well at first because mostly because they're being led by the Americans. But eventually after a while, Russia catches up and duplicates the trick and hits back way harder. Same story in the Black Sea. Russia is now routinely striking Ukrainian ships and the port of Adessa with long-range drones and unmanned surface vessels and all sides keep hitting hard this summer fighting season. So things continue to stay pretty crazy all around. Wrapping things up this week with the Ghostnet reports for today. Another great comm's this week. I saw a lot of different people checking in and working on a lot of other projects and setting up their little groups, testing things out, stuff like that. All awesome to see all around. And since we're talking about radio, I do want to remind everyone that I have a very unique podcast coming up with the tech prepper. We recorded a pretty good talk on all things radio a couple of weeks ago. And many thanks to Gaston for bearing with me and my spotty internet connection. But I think this was a very good talk. Looking forward to listening to it myself. And if you're interested, you can most certainly tune into it. So where can you listen to this podcast? Well, that's the interesting part. It's only broadcast over Shortwave Radio and it's not hosted anywhere else. So if you miss it, it's gone just like the old days. So, if you have a shortwave listening radio or if you have a software defined radio, you can get that set up pretty easily. If you know how to work the ghost net, you are already way more capable of picking up the transmission because it's just voice instead of data. The broadcast frequency and time slot are on screen for anyone interested, but I'll read it out just for those of you who are listening uh via audio only. There will be two transmissions. The first transmission will be on 7490 kHz. And that will be on July 26th at 2200 Eastern time. And the second transmission, it will be rebroadcasted. It will be re-ransmitted on niner 455 kHz. 4 days later on July 30th at 2300 Eastern time. So if you are interested in learning about shortwave radio and getting information in more of an old school and very very reliable way, you can listen to us have a bit of a chat at those frequencies and times. So that's all I have for today. As always, my research notes throughout the week can be found on my Obsidian page, and all of my mapping data can be found on either my ArcJIS maps that you view in your web browser or in KMZ format on my GitHub page for importing to the GPS app of your choice. I've also uh started publishing all of these wire reports to my Nomadnet page. For those of you who use Mesh Chat and Reticulum, as kind of like an off-grid or alternative grid information exchange platform, please bear with me as I try to format the page a little bit. I know it's kind of janky at the moment, but I'm working through it. But I'm still learning a lot about Reticulum and how uh the Nomadnet formatting works. Depending on your client application, the links may load a little weird, but I'm still working on it. So, please bear with me on that. But other than that, we're making pretty good strides here. I feel pretty uh confident in being able to have a lot of resilient communications so that we can all stay connected no matter what happens. So, thanks again for watching everyone. Thanks again for sticking with me over the years. And I will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.