Intel Update - Oct. 10 - Digging Deeper

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to The Underground. This is the intel update for October 4th through the 10th, 2026. It's been a pretty crazy week this time, even by recent standards, so let's get right to it. Starting with the global overview, in the Middle East, indications and warnings of an escalation of the war continue to mount as U.S. Navy battle groups begin arriving in theater. Over in Europe, civil defense drills and exercises continue as NATO prepares for a widening of the war with Russia. Meanwhile, the United States lifts diesel export sanctions on Russia, allowing American companies to purchase Russian diesel to help alleviate the current fuel crisis. Within the United Kingdom this week, the migration crisis has continued to escalate, with small boat crossings increasing while government restrictions in Gosport have helped to stifle dissent from locals. Within the United States, Hurricane Isaias made landfall overnight as a Category 10 hurricane, with some storm damage being reported along the Gulf Coast this morning, which has affected the offshore oil rigs providing petroleum to refineries in the American South. In Washington, diplomatic moves are being made all around, and as the ramp-up to the midterm elections continues, narrative shaping on all fronts has muddied the waters of what the United States intends to do within the Middle East. And concerning the Middle East, the strategic movement has reflected this concern this week. The concentration of U.S. Navy forces in the region remains heavy, with more assets inbound to the region right now. The USS George H.W. Bush carrier strike group departed Thailand a few days ago and is reportedly headed back into the Arabian Sea in order to support the USS George Washington carrier strike group, which has remained on station a few hundred miles off the coast of Oman. The Teddy Roosevelt carrier strike group should be in the Pacific Ocean, along with the USS Macon Island Amphibious Ready Group, with both battle groups heading into CENTCOM to support the continuation of the war. Both of these elements should arrive within a couple of weeks. Other assets to be aware of in the general region include the comparatively newer class of ships called Expeditionary Sea Bases, which mostly serve as helicopter bases for special operations logistical efforts. The USS Miguel Keith is in the general area, along with the USS John L. Conelly. Neither platform has popped up on AIS tracking for a while, but both were last spotted in the Strait of Malacca several weeks ago. And if they remained in the Indian Ocean or the Western Pacific, these would be helpful platforms to launch helicopters from in the event that they are needed. In addition to naval forces moving into the region, American cargo flights have increased, with several air bridge movements of cargo aircraft being observed over the past week funneling supplies into the handful of bases used by the United States around the region. It's been a pretty busy week in the Middle East as a lot of logistical efforts have been moving around, and most of this indicates a return to the war at some point. Moving over to Europe, around the continent, different forms of strategic movements remain as many Western-aligned nations conduct various drills, exercises, and training scenarios related to civil defense in a time of war. Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, and several other nations have engaged in civil defense readiness drills over the past couple of weeks and have also revamped a lot of the literature and training material used to educate the public on what to do in case of an emergency. Most of these preparations are being conducted either subtly or overtly in reference to a Russian ground invasion of Western Europe. As it stands, this is an extremely unlikely prospect, as no movement has been noted by Russia to move any troops to the border or anything suggesting a widening of the war in Ukraine to include a ground invasion of other nations. From a more military perspective, NATO apparently does not think an outright conflict with Russia is likely either, as there haven't been any fortifications at NATO bases around Europe that are particularly serious, just the normal yearly drills and exercises. Concerning the changing relationship between the United States and Ukraine over the past few days, this morning President Trump has called for Zelensky to be replaced. This will be very interesting to follow over the next week, especially in terms of what other European leaders plan to do. For the United States, however, all eyes have been on the Middle East and the growing energy crisis that has captured our attention for the past eight months. Starting off with Yemen, the situation remains fluid as the Saudi-backed PLC militia and Ansar Allah, otherwise known as the Houthis, continue slugging it out on all fronts. Right now, the biggest challenge for the PLC and indirectly for Saudi Arabia is to hold the town of Taiz for as long as possible, which is not working out so well as the town has become almost entirely encircled over the past few days. At the present rate, Taiz is likely to fall to Ansar Allah within the next week. However, after today's events in Saudi Arabia, the battlefronts might change somewhat if the Saudis or even the United States become more involved in this fight than they have been so far. In addition to the ground warfare that continues on, the war in the skies has remained constant this week, as Ansar Allah has increasingly relied upon ballistic missiles to target critical infrastructure. Up north in Saudi Arabia, these Houthi attacks have escalated sharply over the past few days. Two days ago, King Khalid International Airport was targeted by the Houthis, which resulted in the destruction of several commercial airliners, along with a large fire being reported at the airport's fuel point. Since that initial confirmed targeting effort, aircraft delays have taken place every few hours. Saudi Arabia has quietly stopped using missile alerts nationwide, so right now the best indication of an attack taking place are the sudden and unexplained airspace closures, delays, and ground stops which take place due to incoming missiles. All total, and considering the information blackout and false alarms, right now the best guess is that the Houthis have probably struck this airport three or four times over the past forty-eight hours. This morning, an additional strike was reported at the same airport, though battle damage from this latest strike has not yet been confirmed. Currently, eyewitnesses state that the missile hit Terminal 3, and due to the Saudi government trying to conceal incoming Houthi missiles, passengers did not know that a missile was inbound. Therefore, they did not take cover, and the impact of the missile resulted in a mass casualty event. Several medical helicopters have been transporting patients from Terminal 3 to hospitals in the city, which is an indication that this strike might have been more serious than the others, which mostly just damaged equipment. Right now, this is a developing story as I'm recording this, so we'll have to see how this works out over the afternoon and evening, but this doesn't look very good, and the response or retaliation by Saudi Arabia and maybe even the United States will be certainly a flashpoint to be aware of. To the north, across the Persian Gulf, wartime preparations continue, with recent satellite imagery strongly indicating that Iran is preparing for not just airstrikes, but any possible situation. The IRGC is not taking any chances regarding what the United States and Israel might do. Which is most clearly illustrated at the Natanz nuclear facility, better known as Pickaxe Mountain. Satellite imagery from three days ago confirms the extensive fortification of this facility. The two northwestern tunnels, uh, under the mountain have been fortified with dump truck loads of dirt and gravel for several weeks, which provides some level of protection from efforts to bomb the tunnel entrance. It's not perfect, but it's what they've got, so that's what they're doing. Most interestingly, the Iranians have also created some earthworks inside the tunnels themselves, with several dirt berms being in place across the roadway, presumably to make it harder for vehicles to drive directly into the tunnel. These earthen berms are only visible at these two tunnels to the northwest of the mountain, which is quite interesting. At the eastern collection of tunnels, the southernmost tunnel has been filled in completely with dirt and gravel, again in an attempt to protect the site from the overpressure of certain kinds of munitions. There aren't any earthen berms observed at the northern tunnel, and it looks like this tunnel might still be in use, but we do see the same attempts to fortify all of the tunnel entrances at this facility. Iran has been working on fortifying this site for several months, but these efforts intensified a few weeks ago. And now that they have closed off their tunnels with anti-vehicle berms, this is an indication that they think a ground operation of this facility might be on the table. It's probably not very likely, but that's what they seem to think. Either way, getting a guy to drive a bulldozer for a few hours is cheap insurance against the worst-case scenario. On the narrative front, yesterday President Trump stated on his social media platform that, among other things, the United States will not be attacking Iran before the elections, which is a rather specific statement. Uh, this statement can be taken at face value, but during the lead-up to the elections, statements like this are suspect for many reasons. For example, this statement could also imply that strikes will occur, but after the election. It's always hard to guess what decisions might be made, but at this point, a return to targeting seems more likely than not. Some think tanks are saying that it's a sure thing. Others are saying, well, this is just, uh, posturing again. I don't really know, but diplomatic talks are not going well, and most Gulf states have been quietly fortifying and preparing for an escalation of the war, in addition to preparing their own side deals with Iran to carve out some form of protection for their own critical infrastructure. This rhetoric, combined with the visible Iranian preparations for more strikes and the United States moving a lot more assets in the region, is strong evidence of a return to the war being on the menu once again. There are some claims circulating stating that it will actually be the Israelis who conducted the first strike against Iran, and the subsequent retaliation will inevitably result in the United States being dragged in once again. Regardless of who starts it, if these strikes actually do happen and the hornet's nest is kicked again, the chief concern in the region, the petroleum sector, is certain to be hit hard yet again. And right now, the situation is not looking good for the oil industry. So what is going on with the Strait of Hormuz, and how much oil is getting out? Following up with a closer look of what is happening in the Middle East with regard to the flow of oil, the ground truth of what is actually happening varies widely. Over the past two weeks, Iranian targeting of merchant shipping has increased sharply, with multiple ships being struck every single night. Over the past 48 hours, two ships have been hit in the Persian Gulf itself long before they were even close to the Strait of Hormuz. This increase in targeting has been quite interesting when juxtaposed against the reporting from last week claiming that the strait was basically open and that oil exports were back to pre-war levels. As a reminder, Kpler and Tanker Tracker stated that during the week of September into the beginning of October, more oil had transited out of the region than had been exported so far during the war, with Kpler stating that as much as 16.5 million barrels per day have been exported from the region on average every single day for the month of September. As we mentioned last week, this data is a little bit suspect. Before the war, roughly 60 to 80 oil tankers transited the strait every single day, carrying a rough total of 20 million barrels of oil. So we have 60 to 80 tankers carrying 20 million barrels. Right now, Kpler's data claims that on average for the last week of September, a total of 10 to 18 ships per day made the crossing, a new high for the past months of war. Kpler also stated that when combined with the Emirati pipeline and the still-smoking Saudi East-West Pipeline, oil flow out of the region has reached or even surpassed pre-war levels. Basic arithmetic indicates that, at bare minimum, these estimates are quite suspect. It is hard to imagine 70 ships carrying 20 million barrels being totally replaced by 18 ships, no matter how you slice it. And just to be as generous as possible with the data, adding in the East-West Pipeline's five million barrels per day when it was functioning at that level, and the Emirati pipeline bringing another two million barrels per day, which it's not, but just use that figure for now, 18 ships are still unlikely to make up 13 million barrels that by pre-war standards would have taken dozens of ships to move. Some days, exactly zero ships transit the Southern Omani Corridor, and on the days where convoys are noted, we're not seeing the hundreds of ships that would be necessary to make up the missing barrels. Even accounting for the now damaged East-West Pipeline and being as generous as possible with the data, the data is still very suspect. It's not off by a little bit. It seems like, pure speculation here, but it seems like it's off by a lot. So let's take another example of why the data is suspect and how narratives are becoming more common and how they're being spun. I know it may be utter heresy to question certain sources these days, but articles like this are a good example of why my own trust has faltered regarding what ordinarily would be quite reliable and honest resources. This article was posted by GCaptain on Monday, a normally quite good and reliable organization who writes about shipping news all around the world. They have a reputation for being quite accurate and very much embedded within the maritime industry, and as a result, people trust their name quite a lot. The problem with this article is that it is quite literally a cut-and-paste job from Reuters. Ahmed Gadar wrote this piece specifically under the Reuters copyright, but it was published by GCaptain, who do not appear to have added in their own analysis, which readers would probably value a lot more than what some mainstream media journalist has to say, especially since the claims that are being made are quite dubious at best. Even Kpler themselves are backtracking because they know that their own data doesn't seem quite right. A few days ago, Michelle Brehard, the director of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler, stated in an interview that she thinks that theThe reason exports have gone up so much is because the United States might be paying the Iranian toll to get oil out via the Larok Island route instead of trying to sneak oil out via the southern Omani route. This is an indication that Kepler themselves know that their data is suspect. They know that people are questioning them now. But instead of going back and refining their data, they're saying that the United States is paying Iran, and that's why the mythical number of ships got out. Which might be the case. It does make sense, but there's really no way to know. I'm not interested in that part of the story, I'm interested in what Kepler is saying about their own data. The most interesting part about all of this is that Kepler is looking for external factors to explain the unexplained bit of evidence rather than looking back at their own data to figure out why everyone is skeptical of their work. So instead of saying, "Hey, you know, we might be wrong in our data. Maybe not that much oil did get out because we're still having this, I don't know, global oil crisis. So maybe not that much oil got out. No, we can't possibly be wrong. It must be the United States paying the Iranians." That's not exactly a proper analytical way to look at it, and that seems to be at least what their executives are saying about their own data. So what do I think happened? I think that Kepler, for whatever reason, was wrong, and at some point along the analytical process, there was enough bias in the nuts and bolts of their analysis, the nerds in dark rooms hunched over their keyboards looking at shadows on their screen. There was enough error in that process that when you added it all up at the end of the day, it was way over the top in terms of the volume that was actually exiting the region. This is the kind of mistake that you have to at least give some credence to. You have to at least examine the possibility of maybe you made a few little tiny mistakes that when you add them all up, it skews the final analysis. This is how you have to think about things, and I don't think Kepler's doing that. I think that once their numbers, that sixteen point five million barrel per day figure, once that got to fantastical new heights and enough big names started questioning the integrity of their process, they had to quietly revise it down without making it look like they were wrong, so they got an executive to come out and start spitballing as to why the numbers don't seem to be matching with reality. Which is exactly what they have done, because right now all of these companies are suddenly saying that basically no oil is exiting the strait. The current claim is that the sudden return to the pre-war oil export levels has given way once again to very little oil exiting the strait as the Iranians have increased targeting in the region for the past two weeks. My personal guess is that the claims about a sudden return to pre-war oil levels was very, very overly optimistic, and once people started looking closer at Kepler, the narrative changed. For almost eight months of war, we've had very, very little oil going through the Strait of Hormuz. Then suddenly, even though nothing has changed, in September, everything was back to normal, and it was perfectly fine. And once people started questioning that number, oh, now we're back to no oil through the strait because the Iranians are targeting at the same rate that they've been targeting for several weeks now at least. I don't know what's going on, but I'm very, very suspicious of the data, and I'll just leave it at that. All of this is just more evidence that it's wise to be careful with the sourcing because lately, a lot of organizations that have historically been very good and reliable have been putting out some rather questionable data that, to me, speaks of narrative shaping rather than honest analysis. Once again, Kepler is a multi-billion dollar corporation, and it would take tens of thousands of dollars to verify their claims independently, but based on what can be feasibly done with the information that is freely available, it is really challenging to believe some of Kepler's data at this point. We all have to remember that elections are coming up, and I think a lot of what we're seeing in the media, even so-called independent agencies that somehow are actually working for the government, might be telling tales out of school. We have to at least consider that possibility at this point, especially in terms of what is about to happen in the world of diesel. So moving to the home front for this week, in Washington, DC, yesterday, the White House announced the lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel, allowing the selling of Russian diesel fuel on the global market. Simultaneously, the Treasury Department issued permits allowing American companies to purchase Russian diesel. Ukraine has understandably voiced outrage at this decision, and Zelensky has stated that Ukraine will continue to strike Russian refineries regardless. More broadly, the decision to bring in Russian diesel is a very important development. This just happened last night, so we're still kind of figuring out how this is going to work out, but the United States purchasing fuel from the adversary that it has been fighting in Ukraine for years should be a very alarming indicator for two separate reasons. The lack of willingness to seek a diplomatic solution in the Middle East, and also how severe the diesel crisis really is. When the White House is willing to cut a deal with Russia instead of Iran, that is an indicator that the war in the Middle East is not going to end anytime soon. Separately, there are no free lunches in the world of international diplomacy, and it is very, very unlikely for Russia to have done this favor for the United States without expecting something in return. Whatever that is, it's likely to involve Ukraine. From Ukraine's perspective, the situation has the potential to become rather serious, even if the nuts and bolts of this decision have yet to be worked out. President Trump himself has previously requested Ukraine to halt attacks on Russian petroleum infrastructure, which Ukraine has flatly ignored as attacks on refineries have remained constant. This political slight could have been the reason for the American deal with Russia. Ukrainian leadership has a history of biting the hand that is keeping their country from becoming a district of Russia, and Zelensky has a legendary inability to read the room. For weeks now, Zelensky's continued targeting of Russian oil refineries has not been forgotten, and this might be more of a message to Ukraine rather than it is a partnership with Russia. Especially considering that it's not actually that much diesel that is coming to the United States, so we'll have to actually see how this all works out. But in short, when forced to choose, the White House values their ability to prosecute the war in Iran more than their support for Ukraine, and Zelensky is quite upset about that. This is an important consideration due to geography and the logistics of how diesel might actually be transported to the United States. Either American or Russian ships will have to load up, probably in the Black Sea, and transport that fuel through the same corridors where Ukraine has been striking tankers. Consequently, the potential targeting of these ships by Ukraine cannot be dismissed outright, especially since Zelensky has openly stated that he will continue to strike Russian refineries. Considering that Ukraine struck a major Russian refinery a few hours af-After the news of the American diesel deal became public, it's not a stretch to theorize that Zelensky might authorize drone strikes on ships bound for the United States. If this happens, this could get ugly really quickly. There has been a theory circulating for some time now behind the closed doors, which I'll mention now just for posterity and for the record, that it might not have been a super great idea for the United States to arm Ukraine to this degree because the United States might be fighting Ukraine at a certain point. This prospect obviously is not politically correct and, uh, is not very much, uh, talked about openly, but it's not like the United States hasn't armed a lot of groups around the world and then found themselves fighting those groups at some point later on down the line. So the general theory in creating a very, very large and combat-ready and combat-capable army in Eastern Europe has raised some concerns about what that possibly might look like in, you know, a couple of decades' time. Who knows? Ukraine might turn on the United States once they think that they might have, uh, the combat advantage. Speaking from a purely neutral standpoint, if Ukraine gets angry enough about Russia and the United States working together on this diesel deal and what the United States might have promised Russia in return for this diesel deal, it is theoretically possible that Ukraine might attack the United States, or more likely, there might be some green on blue incidents in Ukraine. I do not know how likely this is, but in the interest of analytical integrity, I have to tell you that this is on the table and this is a risk, and the situation remains very, very tense throughout Eastern Europe. So closing out today and moving on to the next few days, all of the geopolitical events around the world are likely to make things more chaotic here in the homeland, especially with the hurricane that made landfall this morning. As of a couple hours ago, the hurricane seems to have dissipated a lot, but flooding is still an issue, of course, in the more hurricane-prone areas. And from an energy perspective, there are concerns as well. As of earlier this week, a total of seventy-one percent of all of the offshore rigs in the Gulf were offline as workers were evacuated ahead of the hurricane. This is completely normal. This happens with every single hurricane, and it's, uh, normally not that big of a deal. Under normal circumstances, gas prices would not even react to this at all because there is enough cushion throughout the petroleum industry to help pad any sort of hiccups at any point in the oil refinement process. Halting the pumping and drilling in the Gulf for a few days due to a hurricane is normally nothing special because sufficient reserves can take up the slack. The problem now is that the cushion is nearly gone at all levels of the energy sector, so we don't really know what might happen. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to fumes, and refineries themselves have been operating at their absolute maximum possible levels for about eight months now. Supply is spread very, very thin at every level, and there's not as much slack in the system, which leads to more frequent problems like localized fuel shortages or supply chain issues for petroleum distillates and even heating oil up in the Northeast being a concern now that we're coming into the winter season. So we certainly have our work cut out for us as we roll into the fall season this year. Now that the United States has to be concerned about Iranian missiles hitting tankers in the Persian Gulf and Ukrainian drones hitting tankers in the Black Sea, the energy crisis is going to remain a constant for a very long time. So closing things out today with the intercepted Ghost Net reports for this week. Once again, our little radio network around the United States and around the world was quite informative. A lot of you out there exchanging messages about your local area and just talking about some concerns that you're tracking in your local area this week and moving forward into the future. It's really good to see people exchanging information and kind of using this as an ecosystem for having at least some form of information exchange if all else fails. If the internet goes down, if cell towers go down, if the whole world's communication systems break, well, this system will still work. It may not be perfect. It may be a little janky here and there, not as easy to use, but hey, it's something. So quite comforting to see, very helpful. Even during the middle of a hurricane when I'm trying to wrestle with my antenna outside, it's still quite a good thing to see. The network is only as good as the information that's put into it, and I really do wanna thank all of you for participating and making it a really good resource for everyone else. So that's all I have for today. Again, a pretty heavy week all around. A lot of data, a lot of information to process, but at least they can't say we didn't live in interesting times. So we'll keep at it. We'll get back at it next week and see how things shake out in Ukraine and in the Middle East, and hopefully, peace will prevail in the end. Thank you all again for watching. Thank you for all of your support. Thank you to all of you on Patreon who keep the project going, and I will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.