Intel Update - July 25 - PetroWar

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for July 19th through the 25th 2026. It's Groundhog Day once again with the war in the Middle East ramping back up and civil issues here in the US flaring up again as well. So let's get right to it. Around the world this week, conflict is the theme once again. Within the Middle East, the war is back on and escalating with the Houthis now bringing the war to the Red Sea. Over in Europe, the war in Ukraine is continuing to expand to threaten new areas with the nation of Kazakhstan halting the flow of oil through their pipelines that transition through Russia to the Black Sea. On the home front this week, there is one item of note I wanted to mention in more depth as this has a potential to be a very serious problem in due time. In Minnesota Thursday night, the Shiloh Hendrick's case came to a conclusion as she was convicted of one count of disorderly conduct for calling a Somalian man a name while being harassed on a Rochester playground in May of last year. Of note, the Somalian told her to call him the name, and she was acquitted of calling the child the name. As a reminder of the details of that cas ar. Of note, the Somalian told her to call him the name, and she was acquitted of calling the child the name. As a reminder of the details of that case, the child, who was originally claimed to be 5 years old, but was actually 9 years old, was discovered by Hrix to be digging through her diaper bag on the playground, which prompted her to confront the child. The child had a history of being unruly to the point that the 9-year-old child was already wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor. The incident devolved into Hendrickx calling one of the Somalian men accompanying the child a name before a second Somalian man intervened, recording the now viral video that resulted in the 4-day jury trial for a misdemeanor. This case is worthy of note as this case effectively decides whether or not white Americans have the right to freedom of speech. There was no violence. There was no harassment. The only person being harassed was Hendricks on the playground that day because she actually was stolen from. Theft is a bigger crime than speech crimes, but not in Minnesota. Apparently, this ruling effectively decides that a Somali can harass an American mother in a playground, and another Somalian can ut not in Minnesota. Apparently, this ruling effectively decides that a Somali can harass an American mother in a playground, and another Somalian can also chime in and record a video of himself harassing her, telling her to call him a name, and she be the one who potentially goes to jail for this. And that man, by the way, the star witness in the case, who was called the name, is not even in America anymore. He fled back home to Somalia immediately after the incident last year. This highlights the fact that we as a nation have a problem that cannot be solved by conventional means, but this case is more serious than speech. Sharmake Ble Omar, one of the two Somalian men at the center of this case, was actually at the park under questionable means in the first place. Omar had previously been arrested and charged for his role in kidnapping and raping a child in 2022, but the charges were dropped with no explanation once the victim aged out of the state's foster program. The victim has not been heard from since. If Omar had been held accountable back then, he would not have been hanging around a playground to get his feelings hurt by a word. As always, I will be keeping a sharp eye on ountable back then, he would not have been hanging around a playground to get his feelings hurt by a word. As always, I will be keeping a sharp eye on this case because in the US, the word precedent only ever seems to work in one direction. So, I will expect a lot more people to be rounded up around the country for saying words now that this is on the books. Using extreme restraint to avoid fed posting on this uh scandal, I will just say that this case is a reminder that our justice system is utterly broken and the civil strife that results from this base fact is going to be hard to predict moving forward. So, I'll just leave it at that. Jumping over to Europe this week, the war in Ukraine has continued to escalate by land and sea. Ukraine has continued to strike warehouses belonging to wildberries throughout Russia. And so far, a total of nine logistics hubs have been struck by Ukrainian forces over the past week or so. This is Russia's version of Amazon. And though Ukraine is using the excuse of Russia using this ecosystem to support the war effort, the Ukrainians are claiming that since Wildberries sells like toy drones or like commercial off-the-shelf drones that this is now a t the war effort, the Ukrainians are claiming that since Wildberries sells like toy drones or like commercial off-the-shelf drones that this is now a military target. That's what they're claiming at least from the Ukrainian side. The truth of the matter is that this is mostly a civilian target that is meant to put the squeeze on the civilian population. This is Ukraine trying to punish the average Russian populace and that is very hard to deny. It's also more of an economic effort because a lot of very powerful Russian businessmen will now be lobbying Putin for missile defenses for their warehouses. So, at the wavetop level, this is a major indicator of how the war in Ukraine is sliding into more of an unrestricted warfare situation. Unrestricted warfare again is a very dangerous term to be waving around because it usually means total war. We're not quite there yet, but Russia and Ukraine have both been observed to strike civilian infrastructure, civilian targets, either intentionally or unintentionally. It's going to be hard to say, but generally speaking, this is not good. Due to a variety of factors, the targeting of civilian infrastructure has been carried out around the world but generally speaking, this is not good. Due to a variety of factors, the targeting of civilian infrastructure has been carried out around the world more regularly to the point that it's now normalized. Now the headlines read out that Ukraine has started striking Russian Amazon and nobody gives it a second thought. The escalation trap takes over and the war gets really really nasty really quickly. And for anyone in the United States who thinks that the war in Ukraine doesn't affect you directly other than tax dollars being involved, it affects you now purely due to one word, petroleum. Oh, how history rhymes this week. NATO's version of Army Group South has now begun to threaten the Caucus oil fields. And I would bet that David Glance, the famous military historian, has sensed a disturbance in the force this week. This week, Kazakhstan has also shut down their network of pipelines that transfer crude across the Russian step in the vicinity of stop, excuse me, Vulgar on their way to the oil terminals in the Black Sea. It may be too soon to tell, but it certainly looks like within the next few weeks or even months, Ukraine is probably looking to expand the drone war at least to more on to tell, but it certainly looks like within the next few weeks or even months, Ukraine is probably looking to expand the drone war at least to more and more petroleum infrastructure throughout the Caucus region and beyond. This matters because Kazakhstan is now involved in the war and they are a major producer of oil at least for the region. I'm not sure about the whole world export of Kazakhstan's oil supply, but these pipeline networks which have now been shut down due to the threats posed by Ukrainian drones actually provided the world with 1.4 million barrels per day. In terms of the Middle East, that's a drop in the bucket. But in terms of all the other oil supplies around the world, it's not insignificant. Just for context, the United States has touted Venezuela as being a source of petroleum for the United States during the Hormuse crisis. Every time a White House official gets hit with the oil question, they always say, "Well, we've got plenty of oil and we've got Venezuela, too." But Venezuela only produces around half a million barrels of oil per day. And that was before the major earthquake. Kazakhstan just shut down three times that amount from the global energy mark illion barrels of oil per day. And that was before the major earthquake. Kazakhstan just shut down three times that amount from the global energy market. And no American media seems to have picked up on it yet. Or if they have, they don't care. But they should care because we now have two smaller wars that have become effectively three wars with the addition of the Houthies which now involve a section of the Earth from Poland to India. I am now having to zoom out so far on my maps I might as well be using a globe at this point. Just looking at this from the altitude of halfway to the moon. We can see the scale of what's going on here. For almost half a year, we've been watching these little explosion icons crawl across the screen, expanding to strike new locations every day. Just looking at the map, we can see that this is not a special military operation or a minor excursion. With these two conflicts becoming linked together by petroleum, we may need to start re-examining how we define this series of conflicts. And now that the Middle East conflicts continue to expand, this is growing more serious every day. Drilling down to the events in the Middle East this week, the situation i e East conflicts continue to expand, this is growing more serious every day. Drilling down to the events in the Middle East this week, the situation is not looking good. American bases throughout the region have been hit regularly, almost every single day this week. And the main targets for the Iranians have been the American positions in Jordan, which have been hit more regularly for a few reasons. For one, Iran knows that their targeting effort is effective there. And if it ain't broke, they don't fix it. So they know that Americans are staged at these bases because of the second reason, which is that the US has had to reduce their presence at many of these bases due to targeting. The United States only had really a couple dozen bases in the Middle East at the height of the wars over the past 20 years. And since the war began with Iran, all of these bases have consolidated down to a few positions. Fewer positions means fewer targets. The Iranians have to hit maybe five bases, whereas the United States has to hit 10,000 launch points in Iran. It's simple mathematics and probability at that point. This consolidation of forces means that the Iranians don't actually have to get any b in Iran. It's simple mathematics and probability at that point. This consolidation of forces means that the Iranians don't actually have to get any better at targeting. There's some evidence to suggest that the Iranians have gotten better at what they're targeting. They've learned quite a lot and they're using better missiles now. But pushing that aside for a moment, they don't even have to get any better if you're consolidating forces at fewer and fewer bases. Fewer targets to hit means fewer things that can go wrong, means more missiles you can mass on one base, which is a problem. To show how this happened, let's go back in time to the early phases of the war when the US pulled out of bases like the fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain and Aludit air base in Qar. The United States famously pulled out of these locations or relocated personnel out of these bases right during the early phases of the war because the Iranians were hitting these bases quite hard. But where did they go? Well, they mostly relocated to Jordan and deeper into Saudi Arabia. At the time, the Iranian targeting did occasionally strike these bases, but most of the Iranian drones and ballistic missiles targeted o Saudi Arabia. At the time, the Iranian targeting did occasionally strike these bases, but most of the Iranian drones and ballistic missiles targeted the American bases decently close to the Persian Gulf itself. So now, what's happening? Well, the American bases in Jordan are getting hit hard. So the US is having to move aircraft from the eastern bases in Jordan all the way to the west and to the south all the way down to the region of Akaba to bases still in Jordan but just on the border and also bases in Israel. This is definitely a case of they all rolled over and one fell out, right? Because the Iranians are progressively pushing the United States back farther and farther from the actual combat zone. Instead of taking four bombs on the wing, now fighter jets which are carrying out the bombing are having to carry three bombs and a drop tank. This has been the case since the beginning of the war because this has been a long range war for much of the aircraft carrying out the strikes in Iran. But now it's even worse and we seem to be escalating this war even though we are at a tactical disadvantage here. But there is one thing that we forget when we look at blurry satellite photo e escalating this war even though we are at a tactical disadvantage here. But there is one thing that we forget when we look at blurry satellite photos trying to track down aircraft. There are people here too. In most cases whenever we say something like uh Aluded is empty, what we really mean is that the airframes have moved but there are still a lot of troops at these bases. Remember, most of the aircraft that the US has been moving around are refueling tankers for the heavy bombers. These are flying gas stations, not troop transports. So implying that the US has quote unquote pulled out of some random base is always a bit misleading because we don't really know how many ground troops, support staff, and logistics personnel are still on the ground at any one location. We can just see buildings and large aircraft, but we can't see people on satellite imagery. Generally, at least with the resolution that we have, we can guess because we would see a lot of transport aircraft in and out of the region. But we again don't really know because these transports could be moving bombs in on the inbound flight and taking troops out on the return trip or they could just be bringing cargo in. use these transports could be moving bombs in on the inbound flight and taking troops out on the return trip or they could just be bringing cargo in. It's impossible really to know in the open source world. So, this is not really a data point that we can use to form our analysis on something. This is an important detail to note because of the scale of the destruction. It is substantial. Just to put this into perspective, the US military has never, I say again, never, faced our troops being targeted with missiles as large and as substantial as the missiles our bases are being hit with during this war. The Iranians are hitting us with the largest munitions any soldier has ever been hit with. Many people during the Giwat have a concept for what it's like to get hit with a 107 mm rocket or maybe even something as big as a Scud going back to the, you know, the OG Gulf War days. Well, when it comes to the Iranian missiles, they're much, much larger. The Iranian missiles that are hitting our guys over there are no joke, and they make a 107 look like a party popper. These missiles are leaving craters that are 50 to 80 yards across, similar to a Scud in terms of the explosive content, but t ook like a party popper. These missiles are leaving craters that are 50 to 80 yards across, similar to a Scud in terms of the explosive content, but these are much more substantial due to the kinetic energy alone, and the guidance package is miles ahead of what any Scud could possibly have. Right? So, I should have mentioned that more regularly throughout this war because this is an important data point. But now that the Pentagon is confirmed to have lied about casualty numbers using the testimony of Assistant Secretary of War Sean Parnell himself, this is more important to note. And I suspect this is why we are starting to see more troops leak videos and photos of the damage. I will not be showing the footage uh of this one particular video because it can be used to geollocate the exact bunker on the exact base, but one video circulated on social media this week that confirmed what we already know. American fortifications throughout the region are woefully inadequate and a lot more people are going to get killed because of the combination of the inadequacy of bunkers and the high failure rate of missile defenses. These are not really combat bases in the slightest, but now they are ation of the inadequacy of bunkers and the high failure rate of missile defenses. These are not really combat bases in the slightest, but now they are. This is now the front line. And even though we fought the Giwat for 20 years, we did not really consider these bases to be targets in any way. I don't know how or why, but that's just the way that it is. And even though we have been fighting a war for almost half a year now, we still have not taken any measures whatsoever to fortify some of these bases. We've moved missile defenses in that we can see on satellite imagery and we can surmise based on the footage we get. I'll just leave it at that. But these defenses are not adequate at all. But as of this morning, the American bases are not the only concern at this point. Last night, the Houthis and Saudis began shooting at each other once again with the Saudis conducting strikes at the Houthi port of Huda. This is their major port facility. It's one of the Houthi strongholds throughout the western part of Yemen. And this morning, the Houthis retaliated in kind by striking the Aramco refinery north of Jazan, which is a major oil refinery really close to the Houthi border. The Saudis s uthis retaliated in kind by striking the Aramco refinery north of Jazan, which is a major oil refinery really close to the Houthi border. The Saudis seem to be students of the Sunzu practice of always picking a fight and starting a war when your own nation's critical infrastructure is within striking range of the enemy and you have no defenses for them. Unlike the port of Yanbu, which has a nearby American Patriot battery, the Jazan refinery complex doesn't really have any uh missile defense at all. So, it was really easy to target. They may have moved in a couple of short range uh SAM sites, but what they would have had to have done it really recently. And even at that range, the Houthis can launch very short-range drones. They don't need to launch any highle missiles, even though that's what they hit the uh refinery with this morning. So, we'll see how that works out. But the Houthis can uh pound the Saudis for quite a while and there's not a whole lot the Saudis can do about it. Similarly, several Saudi tankers have been struck in the southern Red Sea by the Houthis and the Houthi blockade of the Saudi trade route continues and has been shown to have teeth. Even as of me recordi the southern Red Sea by the Houthis and the Houthi blockade of the Saudi trade route continues and has been shown to have teeth. Even as of me recording this morning, air strikes and missile strikes alike and continue around the region at large and everything is snowballing into a much bigger problem. How big this will become, we don't know, but it's not looking super great as the danger of a wider escalation is rearing its ugly head once again. And with that, I think that wraps us up for today until the next major development occurs within a few minutes. But continuing the tradition of not ending on a cheery note, I also have some bad news for my endeavor to grab screenshots from the Ghost Net this week. As many of you know, the Ghost Net is our own little shortwave radio network, which is intended to bring more resiliency to the world of information sharing. The ghost net is set up on the principle of if we do not physically own or control the wires that information flows through, we will always be able to be affected by the entities that do control communications infrastructure. So the ghost net is a way of relying on point-to-point radio communications to share information over s that do control communications infrastructure. So the ghost net is a way of relying on point-to-point radio communications to share information over the airwaves all around the world. And this week I failed because a thunderstorm brought down my antenna once again. And by the time I got it fixed, the uh the net was over. So failure on my part, but despite this, the net continued on because everything is decentralized. I don't actually run anything. I'm just tuning in like the rest of you guys out there. So, many of you were able to get on the air and share a lot of information, which is good. Otherwise, I am desperately trying to work as hard as I can to get some of the more radiocentric tutorials set up. As always, literally every single thing these days takes much longer to complete than I thought it would. Uh, but I am excited for some of the newer stuff I've been trying out, such as Reticulum and some of the other radio networking options, which have turned out to be much easier than I thought to set up. More to come on that later on. Lots of cool stuff is coming soon. There have been a lot of really interesting developments in the world of technology that we can take advanta er on. Lots of cool stuff is coming soon. There have been a lot of really interesting developments in the world of technology that we can take advantage of to be more prepared in these strange and confusing times. So, that's all I've got for now. Thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for the support. And I will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.