Intel Update — May 2 — Tactical Limbo

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to the Underground. This is the Intel update for April 26th through May 2nd, 2026. So, let's get right to it. Around the world, the various conflicts we have been keeping an eye on over the past few weeks have continued on with a few new conflicts popping off this week. In the Middle East, the very tenuous ceasefire continues between the United States and Iran as the White House has dug in for the long haul when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz being closed, and no resolution appears imminent. This conflict hindering fuel and fertilizer shipments to much of the world has started to impact other conflicts as well, such as the civil war that has been ongoing in Myanmar or Burma for many years. This energy crisis has exacerbated all of the tensions that normally exist throughout Southeast Asia, and even between China and Japan, tensions are growing as the Far East is also realizing that a global realignment of the world's energy systems is probably unavoidable at this point. Over in Africa, a civil war is brewing in Mali as various groups of Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents have taken over much of the country. Russian forces and mercenaries have been very active in Mali over the past few days attempting to push back the advancing fighters from the major villages and cities, but it's been a tough fight due to the widespread nature of the fighting. The two main groups which are fighting the Russians and the somewhat inept Malian armed forces are JNIM or Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin, as well as the FLA or Azawad Liberation Front. Both groups, which are comparatively new as in they've come about in the past 10 years or so, have been operating freely in the open deserts and smaller villages for several years, but a few days ago they decided that a general uprising was in order, and many different groups have conducted attacks in the capital city of Bamako, as well as Kidal in the northeast of the country, with light skirmishes being reported in many of the smaller towns along the Niger River such as Timbuktu and Gao. Fighting is still intense in some areas, and the Russians have been carrying out artillery and drone strikes for about a week now, so the situation is quite kinetic all around. The biggest impact that this will have for the United States is fairly minimal, but having a black hole power vacuum anywhere in Africa always results in very bad groups popping up and a whole lot of terrorism. Depending on how this unrest develops and how this particular war shakes out, we may see another humanitarian crisis and mass waves of refugees making their way to Europe and or the United States. So, that's always a concern whenever a civil war pops off in Africa, but this is an issue for later on. Right now, it's just something to be aware of so that if and when it spreads to other nations like Burkina Faso and Niger, we'll already be spun up on the trouble that is brewing. Here at home, the flavor this week has been violence, protests, and immigration concerns. I know we're all shocked, shocked I say, at the round of shootings and murders that have transpired this week, but all of these attacks are already constant reminder to be careful and pay attention to threats as they pop up. Yesterday's stabbing at a high school in Tacoma turned out to be exactly what everyone thought, a fight between students which turned into a mass stabbing, so not really a terrorism kind of thing. Also, several raids have been conducted at the various Somali daycares in Minneapolis roughly 4 months after the height of those scandals. Nearly all of these daycares and fraud centers kind of shut down on their own a few months ago once the heat got turned up and their operations got exposed by Nick Shirley and others. But, the raids were carried out nonetheless, and we'll see what comes of these alleged investigations. There have also been a series of rather grizzly murders and horrific crimes that have taken place around the nation this week. General crime season is upon us once again, and I'm plotting all of the bad stuff on my maps so that anyone so interested can be aware of what's going on, but I also don't want to just eat up your time today by describing dozens of brutal murders and abuse cases that now fill the news cycle permanently. It's good to be aware, but it's not good to constantly soak this stuff in all the time because there's no shortage of things to blackpill about, and that's not really productive. Just know that it's summertime, and inner-city crime from the youths is once again at a height, so it's a good idea to stay strapped in the cities if you can. In Washington this week, we also had the third or fourth presidential assassination attempted depending on how you want to count the various attempts so far. The rather infamous Hinckley Hilton in Washington, D.C. was hosted to yet another assassination attempt on President Trump, Vice President Vance, most of the cabinet, and senior congressional leadership. Looking at the actual floor plan of the hotel, it's quite clear that the suspect got incredibly close to one of the doorways into the International Ballroom where the VIPs were located, and there will be endless debate and scrutiny on the U.S. Secret Service response to this attack, which we can get to in due time. Right now, though, since time is of the essence, I would personally be concerned with the level of protection provided by the U.S. Secret Service. Fool me once, right? One nearly successful attempt is a fluke, two is a concern, and three is a pattern. Well, we can't get fooled again, and it's very clear that the concerns of the U.S. Secret Service being able to do their one and only job are not unjustified. Otherwise, around the nation, the May Day protests concluded largely without much notice, though in a few far-left strongholds like New York and Washington, D.C., the protests were more decently sized both in terms of attendance and the average attendee. Interestingly enough, a lot of the more organized groups that typically attend the more communist holidays are actually quite divided by the events in the Middle East, so there are often a lot of internal disputes based on people picking sides in that war. So, it turns out that at least some of the unrest was actually between protesters who supported one thing but not the other thing, and well, we know how that goes. Also, just as a reminder, there's still a guy up on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. It's a one-man protest. He's set a tent up up there on top of one of the arches on the bridge, and it looks like everyone's kind of forgotten that he's there. So, I don't know if they're going to go up there and get him down or just let him kind of come down on his own once he runs out of food or something. I don't know. No one's really paying attention to it, so they might just let it go for now. I don't know. We'll have to see, but it's kind of interesting that a lot of these protests just took place, and since most of the country seems to have protest fatigue, I don't know how much people were paying attention to a lot of these protests. Protests became kind of a daily thing. It's uh a lot of people are kind of burned out on it, it seems. At least the general population is kind of carrying on as normal. But, that's pretty much the homeland for this week. Over in the United Kingdom this week, terrorism concerns remain elevated as the long-term effects of mass migration have resulted in substantial terrorism concerns as enough of a foothold has been achieved by insurgent groups that the more violent groups have freedom of maneuver throughout much of the nation. We've known about this for a very long time, and everyone is well aware of what's happening around the nation, and this is absolutely a case of some people importing the Third World into Britain so as to dilute the ethnic population. And now that they've done that, the people that orchestrated this plan don't like the fact that the people they imported wholesale are actually quite violent toward the same people who imported them. Unfortunately, this is another lightning rod topic that is not really suited to get into detail in this format. If you understand what's going on, I don't need to elaborate, and if you don't understand what's going on, the elaborating is not going to help. So, it's best to just know that this is a complicated issue, and there's really no pleasant way to describe what's going on, but this week has been rather tenuous due to the terror attacks which have been daily occurrences for a long time. The attack in Golders Green this week has served as the catalyst to jolt the British government into doing something, which at the moment is mostly taking the form of increased counterterrorism patrols and presence at public venues, in addition to raising the national terrorism level. Just for context, the national terrorism level in the United Kingdom is much like the United States in that it is not retroactive, but proactive, meaning that this level is not increased because an attack happened, but because an attack is expected to happen. Of course, this is kind of a special case because of the attack in Golders Green. They may have decided to retroactively raise the terrorism level to show that they're doing something, but because this is a proactive assessment, right? Because this is now a a signaling that an attack is quote highly likely within the next few months, many people are asking, "Wait a minute, so you mean this is not over yet?" This has been kind of a point of confusion and contention among British politicians and authorities who are trying to kind of smooth over the situation because we've got both a retroactive community policing kind of problem in Golders Green going on, but we also have future threats which are starting to pop up. So, it's kind of hard to balance this. Are we are we being retroactive or are we being proactive? It's hard to say what what the British authorities are trying to do at the moment. There have been a few raids taking place over the past few days, but they're not really related to very much of anything, such as the Web House in Crewe, which was raided a few days ago. This was and I suppose continues to be the base of operations for what can only be described as a quasi-Islamic-based cult called the Ahmadiyya Religion of Peace and Light. This relatively new religious movement had set up shop in an abandoned orphanage, the Web House in Crewe, and a few days ago this compound was raided by hundreds of police officers, possibly due to this facility being well-known, and in the context of terrorism concerns, this facility was an easy target for raids because it had been known as an epicenter of human trafficking and actual slavery. People were being kept at this facility and forced to work against their will. So, this new religion kind of aspect to it is also really more of an offshoot of Shia Islam, but it's also been disavowed by most of the Shia mosques in the area who are saying, "Yeah, these guys are not us," which made this facility perfect for a raid because it also meant that the majority Muslim areas around the facility wouldn't be too upset because most of the Muslim population viewed these guys as a cult. So, this facility getting rolled up checked a lot of boxes by allowing the police to actually arrest a terrorist for once, but also not upset the Sunni population by raiding a legitimate mosque or something like that. And as of yesterday, forensic teams were observed digging inside the compound, which is never really a good sign, especially in the context of what was allegedly going on at this location. So, we'll have to see what comes of this specific investigation, and most importantly, the community reaction to it, as well as the national outcome of what all of this terrorism stuff is about. A lot of questions are being asked which don't have very easy or convenient or even pleasant answers. I am not British, so I don't know if the terrorism concern is legitimately higher than it has been in the past few months and years, or if this is a knee-jerk reaction to some of the more high-profile attacks that have taken place over the past couple of days. I just don't know. We'll We're going to have to see. It's probably quite debatable, but either way, the situation domestically in the UK is not doing super well at the moment. So, moving to the Middle East for this week, there has been mostly no change from last week. However, just because it's all quiet on the Middle Eastern front doesn't mean that trouble isn't brewing, and it most certainly is. When it comes to the global energy crisis, the situation is getting more serious with each passing day. The Strait of Hormuz remains fully closed to Western-aligned vessels with only local traffic and some Chinese ships successfully transiting the choke point with permission and coordination with the Iranians. The American blockade continues as before with the US Navy interdicting several sanctioned vessels over the past week. Some of these vessels have just been boarded and searched for contraband, and other vessels have actually been commandeered due to having a falsified registration or otherwise were a part of the shadow fleet of cargo vessels that were moving sanctioned cargo around the world. Of note, TankerTrackers, the main company that monitors commercial shipping around the world, has confirmed through their own research that the American blockade is somewhat porous, and at least a small number of sanctioned vessels have transited through the American blockade, even though the terms of the blockade as described by the United States would indicate that some of the vessels should have been stopped. There's been no official explanation for this, and we're also way down into the weeds by examining each and every hull that is moving through the region at this point, but that's still kind of an interesting development worth making note of, I think. Additionally, the Iranians are skirting the blockade in other more indirect ways. For instance, some locals are reporting a sharp increase in cargo trucks transiting the various roadways into Pakistan. So, the Iranians appear to be driving cargo by land across the land border with Pakistan, then loading that cargo into Pakistani ships departing from Pakistani ports. So, that has been a really slick way to get around the American blockade, but again, volume is probably the biggest issue there. Also, we must remember that there are petroleum and gas pipelines going into Pakistan from Iran, as we can see if I turn on the pipeline layer on the map. Of course, the volume through these is fairly minimal and not as much as their main oil terminal on Kharg Island, but this does go to show that the obsession with Kharg Island isn't really capturing the full picture, because the Iranians can always export some oil through Pakistan, and thus keep some of their income. Some vessels have also been observed hugging the coastline and trying to use Pakistani territorial waters to bypass the American blockade, which hasn't really worked out, because they still have to transit the entire Indian Ocean, where the US is interdicting ships, but it's been interesting to watch a few ships try this trick. One other detail to remember is that technically, Iran shares a border with Russia, though through the Caspian Sea. So, it's not exactly a land border, but Russian ships can always transport cargo between Russia and Iran via this waterway. During the early days of the war, the Israelis knew this and bombed many of the major port facilities on the Caspian Sea coastline, but it's been several weeks, and it's not like they can bomb the entire inland ocean, so the Iranians will always be able to get some spicy cargo into their country if they so desire. On the diplomatic front, things are not going well. The United States has issued so many ultimatums and extensions to those ultimatums that it's been hard to keep track of, but for the most part, the situation remains stagnant, and we're officially at the "They have our phone number" stage of diplomatic talks between the US and Iran. Due to this tactical limbo situation, many companies are scrambling to make alternative arrangements while the ceasefire is still in place, which has most notably been observed in the aviation community. This morning, the UAE announced the full resumption of all civil aviation within their nation, so flights are starting to return to normal, or at least the new normal that has settled in across the region. Down at the more tactical level, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and has continued to dig in and make repairs during the ceasefire period. The IRGC and the fast boat navy, as we'll call them, remains largely intact and has been conducting various combat patrols up and down the Iranian coastline, but especially within the Strait of Hormuz. Commercial shipping through the strait has remained minimal, and many commercial shipping groups are still trying to figure out what to do, because they still have ships that are trapped within the Persian Gulf, or otherwise, their income loss is just too great with this waterway closed. Many shipping companies are also looking to the future when or if the situation gets resolved. Even if the strait opens up tomorrow, fully and completely, for real this time, insurance rates are certainly not going back to the level that they were at before the war. The Iranians have proven to the corporate world that the risks to transiting this waterway are extreme, and the United States has proven that we do not have the capability to alleviate that risk. Timeline-wise, there's really no way to know how long this is going to last. Even if the strait were to open up right now, there will be mass famine throughout much of the world, simply because the fertilizer shipments are too late. It's just too late for some of that. In the first world, impacts are already being felt, even though the seriousness of the situation is not really being reflected in the markets. On Wall Street, the points are made up and the rules don't matter, so that's kind of where we're at at this point. The futures markets are eventually going to have to acknowledge reality, but right now, that's still not happening. So, on the economic front, things are just kind of stagnant. Right now, the ceasefire is holding, but both sides are making preparations for future combat actions, so we're not exactly out of the woods just yet. Considering that a huge portion of the military decision-making strategy is often displayed by Fox News, it's helpful to know what they are saying, and I've unfortunately delved into that this week, and most of the pundits and warhawks which have made appearances on Fox have been pushing the president, as in, they have his phone number and they are actively giving the president counsel. They've been pushing him to conduct one last big strike mission to blow up the civilian infrastructure within Iran, and then we roll up the operation and leave. I don't have the time or energy to get into this can of worms, but that's the rhetoric that is being pushed. Moving forward into the next few weeks, the potential courses of action that I see are mostly twofold. One, that we resume bombing again, with the warhawks winning the day and the "Just one more bombing run" idea getting us sucked back into the war, because that last bombing sort is an awful lot like a last cigarette. There's never really just one last mission, ever. Or, the other course of action is that the United States carries on pretty much like we're doing right now, the strait remaining closed, and the Korean War approach that I mentioned last week coming more into effect, meaning that we don't really have a resumption of hostilities, but we also don't resolve the impacts of what's already happened, either. If things stay as they stand right now, this would be a strategic loss for the United States. People are going to argue about that. I mean, you can argue whether this is a Pyrrhic victory or if this is just a straight-up loss, but if things stay as they are right now, this would be a straight-up loss for the United States, for sure. But again, things can change, who knows? For now, it's really hard to determine what the White House is going to do. They could resume bombing again tonight if they wanted to, or we could drag this out for a few decades and never really get to a solution. Europe is going to be crippled first when it comes to the fuel crisis, and Southeast Asia will starve to death because they can't get enough fertilizer to grow food. And based on the character that we've seen so far, that's honestly the most likely outcome for at least right now. All bets are off, though, if we start bombing again, so we'll just have to wait and see how it all works out. And on that note, that's really all I have for today, so let's roll into the Intercepted Ghost Net reports for this week. Once again, another great net. I've been really trying to work on the Android version of JSA call. Some people have reported some bugs here and there. Again, it's it just came out. It's it's a new thing, so my guess is that it'll get better with due time, and they've been pumping out a lot of updates over the past few weeks, so hopefully this will start getting a lot better and a lot more feasible, because I tell you, it's really nice to be able to just plug your phone into your radio and not have to worry with a laptop running Windows or Linux or anything like that, so. Either way, it's really good to see alternative means of exchanging information working out in the real world. We are certainly not out of the woods of these censorship eras, just that the things we're being censored about nowadays are a lot different from the past, maybe, but we still have censorship concerns, that's for sure, and strengthening these alternative ways of exchanging information is going to be vastly more important as time goes on. Tough times make tough people, and we can all do with a little bit of toughening up these days, I think, so let's keep at it and let's do the best we can. So, thank you all for sticking with me today. Thank you for all of your support, and we'll see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.