[FoxNews] ATF moves from Biden-era regulatory priorities to targeting gang networks and transnational criminal organizations
Federal agents seized more than 36,000 illegal firearms, including thousands bound for Mexico, since President Donald Trump took office, according to newly released figures by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The ATF also seized more than 2.3 million rounds of ammunition, saying Wednesday the illegal firearms and rounds originated with gang members and transnational criminal organizations, among others. The announcement marked a shift from the Biden administration's ATF, whose seizures focused on ghost guns, pistol braces and other regulatory priorities, in addition to illegal trafficking.
The Trump administration has focused its efforts on combating street crime, gang violence and drug cartels. ATF Deputy Director Robert Cekada said the agency was aggressively pursuing what he described as sprawling networks of both domestic and international criminal organizations and gangs who traffic illegal firearms in and out of the country.
"Illegal crime guns increasingly originate from every state in the country. This is not a southwest border problem, it is a national threat," Cekada said in a statement. "ATF agents are aggressively targeting gangs, cartels and transnational criminal organizations that illegally traffic firearms and turn American streets into war zones."
The ATF said its seizures included intercepting 4,359 guns and more than 648,000 rounds of ammunition that were headed for Mexico, where authorities said they would have been used by violent gangs and drug cartels.
In addition to guns, the Justice Department revealed in September that the ATF and other agencies seized more than 2 million unauthorized vaping products, which Cekada recently said often came from China but were also "very closely affiliated with the cartels in Mexico."
The gun figures showcase a key part of the ATF’s work — investigating gun trafficking and confiscating firearms from people illegally in possession of them.
ATF agents use ballistics and tracing databases and DNA evidence to investigate the guns’ origins with the aim of uncovering their supply chains and identifying potential offenders. The seized guns are typically returned to their rightful owners or eventually destroyed.
The surge in such seizures comes amid scrutiny over how the administration is balancing its enforcement authorities with Second Amendment protections.
The Trump administration recently drew criticism from gun rights groups after top officials initially justified immigration officers killing a Minnesota man because he appeared to be legally carrying a firearm. Likewise, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro recently warned that people who bring guns into Washington, D.C., were "going to jail," spurring backlash from Second Amendment advocates like Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., who said he brings a gun into D.C. weekly with a valid permit.
The ATF noted its agents were focused not on lawful gun commerce, but rather on traffickers who arm gang members, drug cartels, illegal immigrants, terrorist organizations and other people prohibited from owning guns.
Mali 🇲🇱 | Le 16/02, peu avant 5h, plusieurs dizaines de terroristes de la Katiba Macina (JNIM) à moto ont attaqué la gendarmerie de Kalana (Bougouni). Le bilan matériel est très important.
🔴 Par chance, après de longs et violents échanges de tirs, les gendarmes ont eu le temps… pic.twitter.com/aN7ctr5kmv
Mali 🇲🇱 | On 16/02, shortly before 5 a.m., several dozen terrorists from the Katiba Macina (JNIM) on motorcycles attacked the Kalana (Bougouni) gendarmerie. The material damage is very significant.
🔴 Fortunately, after long and violent exchanges of fire, the gendarmes had time to withdraw before the terrorists entered the barracks, and no human losses are to be deplored.
🔵 The terrorists looted the barracks, stealing a vehicle, weapons and ammunition, and setting fire to everything they could not carry away (📷 loot shown in thumbnail).
⚠️ The town of Kalana had already been targeted by terrorists on 26/12/25. Two Chinese nationals were kidnapped at a gold mining site.
🔹 Kalana is located close to the border with Guinea and not far from the border with Côte d'Ivoire.
🔸 JNIM terrorists have claimed the attack and filmed the barracks after it was set on fire (📽️ in the first comment) and a witness filmed the inside of the barracks after the terrorists had left (📽️ in the second comment).
🔹 In these sacred periods of Ramadan and Lent, let us hope for a lull in terrorist attacks.
That doesn't seem very likely, but pious hope always feels good.
JNIM attacked pro-government Dozo militias in the village of Bandiougou, central Mali between Sevare and Bandiagara on Feb 16, killing four militiamen and capturing military equipment, despite calls by the Dozo militias for an intervention by the army in this sector two weeks… pic.twitter.com/eX1uSZowEj
JNIM attacked pro-government Dozo militias in the village of Bandiougou, central Mali between Sevare and Bandiagara on Feb 16, killing four militiamen and capturing military equipment.
Despite calls by the Dozo militias for an intervention by the army in this sector two weeks ago, it appears reinforcements have still not arrived.
Joint troops repel bandit attack in Katsina, neutralise two and recover motorcycle
By: Zagazola Makama
Joint troops of Operation FANSAN YANMA have repelled an armed bandit attack in Gida Soda Village, Katsina State, neutralising two attackers and recovering a motorcycle,… pic.twitter.com/bEzYyM65d1
Joint troops repel bandit attack in Katsina, neutralise two and recover motorcycle
By Zagazola Makama
Joint troops of Operation FANSAN YANMA have repelled an armed bandit attack in Gida Soda Village, Katsina State, neutralising two attackers and recovering a motorcycle, security sources said.
The incident reportedly occurred at about 12:45 a.m. on Feb. 17 when suspected bandits stormed the village. Troops, acting promptly in coordination with local police and Civil Watch Patrol Teams, engaged the attackers in an intense gunfight, forcing the criminals to flee.
MAJOR TERROR ATTACK FOILED! Plans by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab to kill many Kenyans in Nairobi have once again been foiled by the intelligence agency.
Months of surveillance and covert intelligence gathering on a terror network operating within the Dadaab refugee camps led… pic.twitter.com/LxdGpeQYtX
MAJOR TERROR ATTACK FOILED!
Plans by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab to kill many Kenyans in Nairobi have once again been foiled by the intelligence agency.
Months of surveillance and covert intelligence gathering on a terror network operating within the Dadaab refugee camps led to the recovery of arms and ammunition including 600 bullets, pistols, grenades, explosives, and drugs all destined for targets in Nairobi.
The terrorists, who had planned to carry out the attack during the month of Ramadhan, were also exploring possibilities of kidnapping foreigners and hijacking vehicles.
ISWAP is claiming responsibility for another assault on a camp in Borno. Borno state bears the brunt of ISWAP attacks due to its proximity to Lake Chad. a strategic stronghold that effectively serves as the groups unsinkable aircraft carrier.
ISWAP is claiming responsibility for another assault on a camp in Borno. Borno state bears the brunt of ISWAP attacks due to its proximity to Lake Chad. a strategic stronghold that effectively serves as the groups unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Governor Zulum has repeatedly called for a coordinated military offensive involving the Army, Navy, and Air Force to target insurgent strongholds in the Lake Chad area.
He identified the islands, known as the Tumbus, as a critical safe haven for Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. He even called for the large scale deployment of armed attack drones into the theatre, emphasizing that technology holds the key to resolving the conflict.
[IsraelTimes] Quentin Deranque, 23, died after attack at Lyon protest; hard-left lawmaker fires aide who was among those detained over suspected ‘intentional homicide’ during university clash
French authorities arrested two more suspects on Wednesday over the fatal beating of a far-right activist last week, a prosecutor said, bringing the number of those detained for questioning to 11.
Quentin Deranque, 23, died after sustaining a severe brain injury when he was attacked by at least six people last week on the sidelines of a far-right protest against a left-wing politician speaking at a university in the southeastern city of Lyon.
The latest man detained, suspected of having a direct link to the violence, and his partner, suspected of having helped him evade justice, were taken into custody as part of the investigation of "intentional homicide," said Thierry Dran, the prosecutor for the southeastern city of Lyon.
Six of the other detainees are suspected of having participated in the beating and three of aiding them, a source following the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered... An assistant to Raphael Arnault, a member of parliament from the hard-left La Belle France Unbowed (LFI) party, was among the first four detained, the source said.
Arnault said he was firing the assistant.
This comes after French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Sunday the "ultra-left" in La Belle France was behind the fatal beating, specifically accusing those within the LFI party of fueling violence with their language.
"It was clearly the ultra-left that killed him," Darmanin told the Cologne ...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany.... -based RTL television. "There are indeed speeches, particularly from La Belle France Unbowed and the ultra-left, which unfortunately lead to unbridled violence on social networks and then in the physical world."
An alleged video of the attack broadcast by the French TF1 television shows a dozen people hitting three others lying on the ground, two of whom manage to escape.
The family’s lawyer said in a statement that Quentin appeared to have been ambushed by "organized and trained individuals, vastly superior in number, and armed, some with their faces masked."
The incident has fueled tension between La Belle France’s far right and hard left ahead of municipal elections in March and the 2027 presidential race, in which the far-right National Rally (RN) party is seen as having its best chance yet of winning.
Centrist President Emmanuel Macron has called for "calm" and "restraint."
[IsraelTimes] Israeli troops are conducting a raid in the West Bank city of Hebron after gunfire was heard in the area earlier today, the military says.
The IDF says that it received reports of gunfire sounds emanating from a Palestinian neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.
Upon receiving the report, the army says troops, Border Police officers and Shin Bet agents entered the neighborhood “for a wide operational activity with the aim of arresting gunmen and confiscating weapons.”
The IDF says dozens of suspects have so far been detained for questioning, and several roads in the area have been blocked.
[IsraelTimes] IDF demolishes home of terrorist accused of carrying out deadly attacks; 19-year-old Palestinian succumbs to wounds after he was seriously hurt by reported settler gunfire
Israeli troops began conducting a raid in the West Bank city of Hebron, arresting dozens of suspects after gunfire was heard in the area earlier on Wednesday, the military said.
The Israel Defense Forces said that it received reports of gunfire sounds emanating from a Paleostinian neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.
Upon receiving the report, the army said troops, Border Police officers, and Shin Bet agents entered the neighborhood "for a wide operational activity with the aim of arresting button men and confiscating weapons."
The IDF said dozens of suspects have so far been detained for questioning, and several roads in the area were blocked.
Separately, the military said Wednesday that troops demolished the home of a Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... terrorist behind two deadly attacks in the West Bank in 2024.
Raafat Dawasi, who was killed in a dronezap on August 17, 2024, was a top member of a Hamas terror network in the Jenin area.
The IDF said Dawasi was involved in a roadside kaboom in Jenin on June 27, 2024, during which Cpt. Alon Sacgiu, 22, was killed, and 16 other troops were maimed, as well as a shooting on August 11, 2024, in the Jordan Valley, which killed Yonatan Deutsch, 23, and maimed another man.
The army said troops operated in the town of Silat al-Harithiya on Tuesday night and demolished Dawasi’s home.
As a matter of policy, Israel demolishes the homes of Paleostinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks. An appeal can be submitted, but such attempts rarely succeed.
Israeli officials have said the policy is intended to dissuade Paleostinians from planning terror attacks, as doing so will harm their extended families’ livelihood. Critics call it collective punishment.
[IsraelTimes] A wave of overnight Israeli airstrikes in several areas of southern Lebanon targeted Hezbollah weapon depots, rocket launchers, and other military sites, the IDF says.
The military says the presence of the Hezbollah sites were a violation of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon.
[FoxNews] CENTCOM helicopters and diplomatic efforts moved detainees to facility near Baghdad as Syrian chaos threatened jailbreak
This was the kind of prison break officials say could have changed the region, and perhaps even the world, overnight.
Nearly 6,000 ISIS detainees, described by a senior U.S. intelligence official as "the worst of the worst," were being held in northern Syria as clashes and instability threatened the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the guards responsible for keeping the militants locked away and preventing a feared ISIS resurgence. U.S. officials believed that if the prisons collapsed in the chaos, the consequences would be immediate.
"If these 6,000 or so got out and returned to the battlefield, that would basically be the instant reconstitution of ISIS," the senior intelligence official told Fox News Digital.
In an exclusive interview, the official walked Fox News Digital step by step through the behind-the-scenes operation that moved thousands of ISIS detainees out of Syria and into Iraqi custody, describing a multi-agency scramble that unfolded over weeks, with intelligence warnings, rapid diplomacy and a swift military lift.
The risk, the official explained, had been building for months. In late October, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began to assess that Syria’s transition could tip into disorder and create the conditions for a catastrophic jailbreak.
The ODNI sent the official to Syria and Iraq at that time to begin early discussions with both the SDF and the Iraqi government about how to remove what the official repeatedly described as the most dangerous detainees before events overtook them.
Those fears sharpened in early January as fighting erupted in Aleppo and began spreading eastward. Time was running out to prevent catastrophe. "We saw this severe crisis situation," the official said.
According to the source, the ODNI oversaw daily coordination calls across agencies as the situation escalated. The official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was "managing the day to day" on policy considerations, while the ODNI drove a working group that kept CENTCOM, diplomats and intelligence officials aligned on the urgent question: how to keep nearly 6,000 ISIS fighters from slipping into the fog of war.
The Iraqi government, the official said, understood the stakes. Baghdad had its own reasons to move quickly, fearing that if thousands of detainees escaped, they would spill across the border and revive a threat Iraq still remembers in visceral terms.
The official described Iraq’s motivation bluntly: leaders recognized that a massive breakout could force Iraq back into a "2014 ISIS is on our border situation once more."
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the official said, played a pivotal role in smoothing the diplomatic runway for what would become a major logistical undertaking.
Then came the physical lift. The official credited CENTCOM’s surge of resources to make the plan real on the ground, saying that "moving in helicopters" and other assets enabled detainees to be removed in a compressed timeframe.
"Thanks to the efforts… moving in helicopters, moving in more resources, and then just logistically making this happen, we were able to get these nearly 6000 out in the course of just a few weeks," the official said.
The SDF, he said, had been securing the prisons, but its attention was strained by fighting elsewhere, fueling U.S. fears that a single breach could spiral into a mass escape. Ultimately, detainees were transported into Iraq, where they are now held at a facility near Baghdad International Airport under Iraqi authority.
The next phase, the official said, is focused on identification and accountability. FBI teams are in Iraq enrolling detainees biometrically, the official said, while U.S. and Iraqi officials examine what intelligence can be declassified and used in prosecutions.
"What they were asking us for, basically, is giving them as much intelligence and information that we have on these individuals," the official said. "So right now, the priority is on biometrically identifying these individuals."
The official said the State Department is also pushing countries of origin to take responsibility for their citizens held among the detainees.
"State Department is doing outreach right now and encouraging all these different countries to come and pick up their fighters," he said.
While the transfer focused strictly on ISIS fighters, the senior intelligence official said families held in camps such as al-Hol were not part of the operation, leaving a major unresolved security and humanitarian challenge.
The camps themselves were under separate arrangements, the official said, and responsibility shifted as control on the ground evolved.
According to the official, the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian government reached an understanding that Damascus would take over the al-Hol camp, which holds thousands of ISIS-affiliated women and children.
"As you can see from social media, the al-Hol camp is pretty much being emptied out," the official said, adding that it "appears the Syrian government has decided to let them go free," a scenario the official described as deeply troubling for regional security. "That is very concerning."
The fate of the families has long been viewed by counterterrorism officials as one of the most complicated, unresolved elements of the ISIS detention system. Many of the children have grown up in camps after ISIS lost territorial control, and some are now approaching fighting age, raising fears about future radicalization and recruitment.
For now, the official said, intelligence agencies are closely tracking developments after a rapid operation that, in their view, prevented thousands of experienced ISIS militants from reentering the battlefield at once and potentially reigniting the group’s fighting force.
"This is a rare good news story coming out of Syria," the official concluded.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
02/19/2026 00:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1855 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Nobody suggested just killing them all in Syria?
#6
With Syria now run by HTS/AQI/ISIS (who only disagree on who among them is the most pious in following 'the book') all those would be released. By taking them to Iraq (basically run by IRGC) they will not be well taken care of by the shia. Or let them loose?
Shoulda let them loose to walk 300 miles across the desert like the Turks did the the Assyrians/Syriacs driving them south intom the wastelands south of Deir Ez Zour.
#7
pretty sure over half of the ISIS detainees are of Iraqi origin and Iraq is motivated to take care of them without much gentleness
interesting thing is several hundred are of EU origin and Iraq would like the countries of origin to take them back
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/19/2026 19:36 Comments ||
Top||
#8
all those would be released
Now that it’s consolidating its conquest of Syria, HTS has been absorbing those turbans interested into the military and paramilitary units, I believe. They were content to leave the rest in the Kurd prison camps, to absorb Kurdish funds and manpower guarding.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany....
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
