#SecurityAlert Misreading Al Shabaab: A Flaw at the Heart of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy
One of the most striking weaknesses in U.S. counterterrorism strategy is the apparent assumption that Al Shabaab is a clan-based organization. This interpretation is fundamentally… pic.twitter.com/0sGVUS6JfV
— Abdurahman Sheikh Azhari (@HOA_ANALYST) May 8, 2026
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Misreading Al Shabaab: A Flaw at the Heart of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy
One of the most striking weaknesses in U.S. counterterrorism strategy is the apparent assumption that Al Shabaab is a clan-based organization. This interpretation is fundamentally mistaken. Had Al Shabaab been structured along clan lines, it would almost certainly have fragmented and collapsed years ago. The group’s endurance and reach are instead rooted in three interconnected pillars: an extremist ideological framework, a cadre of criminally motivated actors, and a system of harsh authoritarian control over the populations it governs.
This misreading points to a deeper analytical failure. Current U.S. assessments of Al Shabaab appear to rest on flawed intelligence and superficial analysis rather than a rigorous understanding of the organization’s true character and operational logic.
A second significant distortion concerns the framing of the broader counterterrorism mission in Africa. Presenting the protection of African Christians as a core strategic objective is both misleading and politically loaded. Across the continent, Muslim and Christian communities have coexisted for generations, sharing neighbourhoods, markets, and civic life. The terrorism unfolding in Africa today is not a religiously targeted campaign against any one faith group.
Against Christians, against Bantu/sub-Saharan/Black Africans, against Shiite Muslims, Fulani herders against Bantu farmers…and then there are the ethnic groups — Biafrans and such — so many possibilities!
[PJMedia] Donald Trump and Marco Rubio aren't playing around with Cuba anymore, and things are escalating by the day.
Last week, I reported that "signed a new executive order that builds on his January national emergency declaration that Cuba is an 'unusual and extraordinary threat' to the United States due its ties to adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. This EO allows the United States to expand current sanctions and add new restrictions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act."
As I said on Friday, it basically allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent plenty of leeway to maximize pressure on the crumbling regime and the Castro family.
Well, Rubio isn't wasting time. On Thursday, May 7, he announced via the State Department that he's cutting right to the gut of the regime with sanctions on Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), GAESA's director Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and Moa Nickel SA (MNSA), a state-owned mining company.
"These sanctions are part of the Trump Administration’s comprehensive campaign to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime and hold accountable the regime and those who provide it material or financial support," Rubio said. "Just 90 miles from the American homeland, the Cuban regime has brought the island to ruin and auctioned off the island as a platform for foreign intelligence, military and terror operations. Additional designations can be expected in the following days and weeks."
So what exactly do these sanctions do? They freeze any of these entities' assets in the United States and prohibit any people or companies in the U.S. from doing business with them. However — and this is big — they also threaten foreign people, companies, and financial institutions that do business with GAESA by promising to cut them off from the U.S. banking system and freezing their U.S.-based assets. Good, now do Mexico and points south.
In case you're unfamiliar, GAESA functions as a sort of state within a state. Rubio calls it the "Cuban military-controlled umbrella enterprise" that "is the heart of Cuba’s kleptocratic communist system."
Raúl Castro created it back in the 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba stopped receiving handouts. The goal was to give the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) a hard-currency revenue stream through tourism, imports, retail, and other dollar-generating businesses. Castro's late son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, ran it for decades, expanding it into what it is today. Lastres is the current executive director, and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro aka "El Cangrejo" or "The Crab" (and Raúl's grandson) is informally involved, essentially guarding his family's interests. He's the one with whom Rubio has supposedly been talking behind the scenes, but whether that's true or not has never been confirmed.
[NYPost] Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Riyadh and its neighbors hedged carefully between Washington, Beijing and Moscow. Last month, Saudi Arabia signed a 10-year strategic defense agreement with Ukraine. So did Qatar. So did the United Arab Emirates.
The countries that bought American for decades are now buying Ukrainian, too.
The Saudis figured it out first. The world produces fewer than 900 Patriot missiles a year, while Tehran can churn about 10,000 Shaheds a month. “Mismatch” doesn’t begin to cover it. A Ukrainian interceptor drone can stop a Shahed for around $10,000. A Patriot missile costs $4 million, and hundreds of them were used up in the first days of the confrontation with Iran.
Riyadh signed the deal with Kyiv on March 27. Qatar followed with a partnership covering co-production facilities, sea drones and electronic warfare. The UAE asked Ukraine for 5,000 interceptors in early March, Qatar for 2,000. Kuwait and Bahrain are in line behind them.
Europe is moving the same way. In April, Ukraine signed a $4.7 billion partnership with Germany, including a joint venture to manufacture some 5,000 AI-enabled strike UAVs. Norway is putting up $1.5 billion to fund Ukrainian-designed drones built on Norwegian soil. The Netherlands committed nearly $300 million to joint production.
When both sides bring something to the table, it’s an industrial partnership not an aid package. As Dutch Defense Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius put it, drones are “crucial,” and Ukrainians use them “extremely skillfully.” Europe now gets to learn “directly from them” — a “win-win situation” that extends beyond the battlefield, creating commercial opportunities for the Dutch economy.
#1
So if the Ukraine settles for a Korean style ceasefire, it will have the time and resources to build a industry high in demand, allowing it to rebuild its industry and infrastructure. Other than oil, what will Russia produce? It's not like its tech is going to be much in demand given its performance for the last few years.
[Townhall] Some day, Democrats will learn that the millionaires and billionaires they demonize have the power and money to leave their blue states for friendlier climes. When those rich people leave, they take their wealth — including tax revenue, business taxes, and jobs — with them.
In New York, billionaires like Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo, and Ken Griffin are looking to move their wealth and businesses elsewhere. Mayor Zohran Mamdani seems wholly untroubled by this, too. But eventually, blue states will face economic collapse. They can only tax the middle class so much before they leave, or stop paying taxes, too.
And in the last decade, it turns out that blue states have lost $2 trillion as wealthy people, businesses, and others move to tax-friendly red states.
And while Democrats respond by raising taxes on those who remain, they will also get increasingly desperate and push for exit taxes, retroactive taxes, and other insane policies meant to steal wealth from the rich.
The biggest wealth transfer in American history isn’t happening on Wall Street. It’s happening on U-Hauls.
Over $2 trillion in income fled high-tax blue states for low-tax red states in just 11 years.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/09/2026 6:33 Comments ||
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#3
1 vote yes, but the rest of the roaches are following them.
Posted by: chris ||
05/09/2026 7:20 Comments ||
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#4
Some of the idea of liberals migrating to red states and changing policies is accurate. In Ohio, we have not been flooded with liberals or an unusual amount of South Americans. Instead, we have been betrayed by GOP politicians who have imported Haitian workers to undercut wages and jack up housing, imported Somalian grifters who are bleeding the state welfare system and are making back room deals to install data centers that overwhelm the power grid and poison our water. No libs needed. Also the Somalis have created myriad fake trucking companies in Columbus, so our roads will be full of uninsured truckers who don’t have any idea how to read.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/09/2026 7:40 Comments ||
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#5
Screw reading, it doesn't take a genius to drive.
Posted by: chris ||
05/09/2026 8:01 Comments ||
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#6
Not that I disagree with you, just pointing out that they are morons.
Posted by: chris ||
05/09/2026 8:01 Comments ||
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#7
@1 Probably a mixed group, but likely more moderates to conservatives than liberals.
It takes money to move from CA or NY to one of the red states. A large chunk of the Democratic base doesn't have that much money.
Based on being a long time recreational competitive shooter, I've watched number of them move from the the Northeast to other more gun friendly (red states). A few are snowbirds, most moved permanently.
#8
Politics is increasingly resembling religion. The very liberal politician believes in their political beliefs no matter what the facts are and they have no choice but to raise taxes to keep their voters happy. They are riding a tiger and don't know how to get off.
And no, the very conservative politicians aren't much better.
#12
1 vote yes, but the rest of the roaches are following them.
I live in California but I am not a roach. For many years, especially in the 1970s, I watched New Yorkers migrate to California. Then we were flooded with illegal aliens from Mexico. Then the state that gave you Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan turned blue. It's not my fault. The same thing could happen where you live. You cannot paint all these people with the same brush.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/09/2026 13:44 Comments ||
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#13
I would add that many of the people who leave this state are the kind of people you would normally want to keep. They are the nice, hard working, taxpaying, family types who don't like having their tax dollars stolen by Democrats. The kind who are moving here are the illegal aliens, drug addicts, transgenders and mental patients who know they can get away with setting up a tent on Hollywood Boulevard.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/09/2026 13:51 Comments ||
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[TheDriven] Electric trucks in China have already ditched diesel, now they’re ditching the driver
Electric trucks recently found the spotlight in Australia during the current fuel crisis, with the long overdue conversation on how we start building the necessary infrastructure to electrify our heavy trucks finally taking place.
Overdue is a mild term, considering Australia is only second to the US in its reliance on road freight. As former The Driven lead writer and now New Energy Transport co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Bleakley said on a recent episode of The Driven Podcast – “if Australia’s trucks stop, Australia starves”.
In China, the conversation has already moved on from whether to electrify their trucking fleet.
Of course. Electricity in China is produced from burning soft coal and nuclear power plants, not oil that can no longer be imported at below-market prices from Iran.The coal plants produce a lot of smog and carbon dioxide, but nobody cares about climate change anymore because the IPCC noticed there’s no point in panicking.
In December 2025, electric heavy-duty trucks outsold diesel trucks, capturing 54% of the monthly market share of new sales. There are now over half a million electric heavy-duty trucks on Chinese roads.
Now that fuel has been taken out of the cost equation in a majority of new heavy trucks sold in China, attention is turning to removing the driver itself
Safety is not a serious issue in China. Totalitarian regimes can ignore keeping the populace happy… until the day the tipping point is reached, and then they’re hanging from lamp poles all over the landscape. On the other hand, with a rapidly aging population, the alternative to driverless trucks is probably no drivers for the trucks, which makes the decision easy.
At the Beijing Autoshow this week, one of these autonomous heavy-duty trucks caught my attention. Built by Chinese company Kargobot, which is a spinoff from global rideshare company Didi, this autonomous truck is not a concept vehicle.
In fact, they have already integrated their autonomous heavy-duty trucks into the commercial supply chain in China, and have already surpassed 35 million kilometres of cumulative L4 driving (L4 being the term used for a vehicle that can drive itself entirely without any human intervention.)
These trucks operate on different types of models depending on the intended use case. For example, the “Kargo One” model uses a hybrid driverless solution, using a “1+N” platoon. One human-driven “pilot” truck leads a convoy of 2 to 6 fully automated L4 trucks.
The idea is that the human lead handles the most complex “long-tail” manoeuvres (like navigating a chaotic toll booth or a messy construction site), while the autonomous followers mimic the lead’s path. Kargobot says this reduces labour costs by up to 80%, and cuts energy consumption by 5-10% due to reduced wind resistance.
The latest cab-less model (like the one on display at the Beijing Autoshow) has no cockpit at all, which improves efficiency due to the lack of AC, seats etc, and increases more cargo. It carries a 1026kWh battery with an estimated range of 800km.
It's interesting that it's 80 some odd years after WW2 and Russia's domestic propaganda is that they're fighting Naziism. While their western useful idiots talk simultaneously about how great Naziism and Putinism is. https://t.co/bQ8igAOv7c
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
05/09/2026 12:24 ||
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Link ||
[1769 views]
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#1
And, as usual, my attempt to embed a Twitter post turns into scrambled eggs. And I'm stuck on phone these days.
Anyway: All the neo anti "zionist" acolytes of Alexander Dugin dont seem to realize that Putin doesn't preach that stuff, or "you're the real communists" at home. He still hosts May Day parades with North Korean troops being their brave allies against the neo nazi west.
Like the turtles, it's all Medici Popes and Manuel Comnenus all the way down.
#9
Those half wits on the far left warning us about 'violent revolution' are in for an extremely rude awakening. I make no threats and am aware of none, but my prediction is that IF this political nonsense turns as violent as some on the left seem to want, most of them, including some of the elected officials won't be around when it is over.
#10
...yes, when they initiate 'revolution' they forfeit any consideration of constitutional protection. In the end, there can be only one. Connor MacLeod: There can be only one!
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.
