[ShabelleMedia] Somali piracy has mounted a devastating 2026 comeback in the Horn of Africa, holding the Eureka tanker for a USD 10 million ransom amid Red Sea chaos.
After a decade of relative calm, heavily armed Somali pirates are orchestrating a devastating resurgence across the Horn of Africa in 2026, launching brazen hijackings on commercial shipping and holding foreign-flagged oil tankers for massive ransoms.
The rapid deterioration of maritime security in the Indian Ocean is directly linked to the ongoing geopolitical chaos in the Red Sea. With international naval coalitions hyper-focused on intercepting drone and missile attacks launched by Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... holy warriors in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , a massive security vacuum has opened off the Somali coast. For the global economy, this twin threat creates an unprecedented chokehold on international trade, directly inflating import costs for consumers in East Africa, Europe, and Australia.
THE HIGH-STAKES HIJACKINGS OF 2026
The scale of the resurgence is staggering. On April 26, 2026, the Egyptian merchant vessel Sward was hijacked off the Somali coast and forcibly redirected to an anchorage near the port of Garacad in the semi-autonomous Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... state. Just days later, on May 2, pirates successfully boarded and seized the Togo-flagged oil tanker Eureka, which was transporting Emirati diesel through the Gulf of Aden.
The hijackers currently holding the Eureka have demanded a staggering USD 10 million (KES 1.3 billion) ransom. These highly coordinated attacks are not isolated incidents; the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center recorded four direct attacks in April and issued eight distinct warnings in May and June. Pirates are actively hijacking ocean-going dhows to use as "motherships," allowing them to project power hundreds of nautical miles deep into the ocean, far beyond the reach of local coastal patrols.
After a decade of relative calm, heavily armed Somali pirates are orchestrating a devastating resurgence across the Horn of Africa in 2026, launching brazen hijackings on commercial shipping and holding foreign-flagged oil tankers for massive ransoms.
The rapid deterioration of maritime security in the Indian Ocean is directly linked to the ongoing geopolitical chaos in the Red Sea. With international naval coalitions hyper-focused on intercepting drone and missile attacks launched by Houthi holy warriors in Yemen, a massive security vacuum has opened off the Somali coast. For the global economy, this twin threat creates an unprecedented chokehold on international trade, directly inflating import costs for consumers in East Africa, Europe, and Australia.
THE HIGH-STAKES HIJACKINGS OF 2026
The scale of the resurgence is staggering. On April 26, 2026, the Egyptian merchant vessel Sward was hijacked off the Somali coast and forcibly redirected to an anchorage near the port of Garacad in the semi-autonomous Puntland state. Just days later, on May 2, pirates successfully boarded and seized the Togo-flagged oil tanker Eureka, which was transporting Emirati diesel through the Gulf of Aden.
The hijackers currently holding the Eureka have demanded a staggering USD 10 million (KES 1.3 billion) ransom. These highly coordinated attacks are not isolated incidents; the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center recorded four direct attacks in April and issued eight distinct warnings in May and June. Pirates are actively hijacking ocean-going dhows to use as "motherships," allowing them to project power hundreds of nautical miles deep into the ocean, far beyond the reach of local coastal patrols.
Vessel Eureka: Togo-flagged tanker hijacked on May 2, currently held for a USD 10 million ransom.
Vessel Sward: Egyptian merchant vessel seized on April 26 and steered toward Puntland.
Mothership Tactics: Use of hijacked traditional dhows to sustain prolonged deep-water raiding operations.
THE HOUTHI-PIRATE TECHNOLOGICAL AXIS
Intelligence reports indicate a terrifying evolution in pirate capabilities. Authorities in Somalia’s Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) warn that local pirate syndicates have established direct logistical collaborations with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. This relationship has facilitated the transfer of sophisticated weaponry and advanced GPS technology, allowing pirates to track fat merchantmen far beyond traditional operational zones.
Unlike the rudimentary skiff attacks of the 2010s, modern pirate action groups are utilizing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and heavy machine guns with devastating precision. On June 15, the UKMTO reported a terrifying encounter midway between the Horn of Africa and Yemen, where armed individuals in a skiff opened sustained RPG fire on a commercial tanker, forcing the onboard private security team to engage in a prolonged firefight to prevent boarding.
THE ECONOMIC SHOCKWAVE TO KENYA AND THE GLOBE
The resurgence of piracy, combined with the effective closure of the Red Sea transit route by the Houthis, forces massive container ships to reroute entirely around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. This detour adds up to 14 days to a journey from Asia to Europe, consuming vast quantities of fuel and heavily restricting global shipping capacity.
For Kenya, the impact is severe. The Port of Mombasa relies on unhindered access to the Indian Ocean to import critical supplies, including 92 percent of the nation’s petroleum products, wheat, and fertilizer. The elevated maritime risks have triggered a massive spike in insurance premiums, specifically the War Risk Surcharges levied by maritime underwriters in London. These multimillion-dollar premium hikes are passed directly down the supply chain, inflating the cost of fuel at Nairobi pumps and basic foodstuffs in local markets.
AN OVERSTRETCHED INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
During the peak of the piracy crisis between 2008 and 2013—which cost the global economy an estimated USD 18 billion—the United States Navy, the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ’s Operation Atalanta, and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... deployed massive armadas to suppress the threat. Today, those same navies are deeply entangled in intercepting ballistic missiles in the Red Sea and supporting operations in the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific.
With international forces stretched thin, the burden falls heavily on the underfunded Puntland security forces. While the PMPF has evolved into a capable unit, they are simultaneously fighting a grueling land war against ISIS-Somalia and al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... holy warriors in the Cal Miskaad mountains. Without a rapid redeployment of global naval assets to the Somali basin, the lucrative hijack-for-ransom business model will rapidly metastasize, effectively closing one of the world’s most vital economic arteries.
#1
Erik Prince solved the Somali pirate issue in a way that can easily be repeated. Just cut off the base logistics from the inland side and they will go back to founding Leering Centers.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/04/2026 8:22 Comments ||
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#2
They had to restart piracy because their minnesota pipeline is drying up.
Posted by: Penguin of the Best Desert ||
07/04/2026 21:34 Comments ||
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[PJMedia] In my notes yesterday on 'No Kings' and the DSA, I wrote:
Fox News Digital identified key participation by a network of radical socialist and communist organizations that Neville Roy Singham — a Marxist tech billionaire — funds through groups including the People's Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition, CodePink, and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. I've written about him previously. I've long suspected his money comes directly from the Chinese Communists.
That would now seem to be confirmed. Yesterday morning, while I was putting the finishing touches on that piece, Asra Q. Nomani went to press with an impressive bit of actual reporting on the subject of Singham:
A federal grand jury is investigating alleged financial crimes by Neville Roy Singham, the China-based tech tycoon whose fortune has funded a sprawling network of socialist, communist and Marxist organizations across the U.S. over the last decade.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas as part of a probe launched by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, one of the country's most powerful districts for federal prosecutions. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche authorized the investigation as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on fraud, money laundering and other financial crimes in the multibillion-dollar nonprofit industry.
The grand jury action follows a Fox News Digital investigation published in mid-March, documenting how Singham pumped $285 million from his base in Shanghai into a Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund and two shell corporations that then fed the money into a constellation of nonprofit organizations, media operations and activist groups pushing sectarian division, identity politics and support for socialist politicians.
The investigation is examining the movement of the money in Singham's financial network and attempting to determine if Singham, the organizations he funded or their leaders committed wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering or other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Fox appears to be taking the lead on this aspect of the story. (Yeah, it does seem unlikely the legacy media would touch the story, doesn’t it?) It's interesting that the Southern District of New York is taking these actions. I'll be interested to see if they actually take any action against Singham. Treasury is getting into the act, too, so perhaps they will.
A Treasury Department front man declined to comment. A person familiar with the meeting confirmed that it occurred, saying that Bessent has regular meetings with business leaders, and declined to comment further on the substance of the meeting.
At that meeting, sources said, Bessent delivered a blunt ultimatum: Goldman Sachs could face scrutiny for alleged conspiracy in funneling the Singham money, and he urged Solomon to cooperate with federal Sherlocks.
Another source familiar with the meeting said that it wasn't contentious and that Solomon readily agreed to pledge his cooperation with the Justice Department investigation.
I can well believe that. Solomon doubtless recognizes the depth of the stink coming off these deals, and a man who runs Goldman Sachs didn't get there by being slow on the uptake. All it took was the guy running the treasury to show up, asking questions, to wake him up.
What jumps out to me here is how far this has already traveled in such a short window — and I get the distinct impression that Solomon was caught flat-footed too. We're not talking about a House committee firing off a strongly worded letter, or some op-ed (such as this one) clutching its pearls and demanding scrutiny.
We're talking about a sitting Treasury Secretary personally leaning on the CEO of Goldman Sachs, and a U.S. Attorney's office that doesn't swing unless it expects to connect. The SDNY, fresh off its embarrassing track record going after President Donald Trump ...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets... , isn't exactly eager for another round of public faceplanting. These people have learned, however belatedly, that grandstanding has a cost. So when they open a grand jury and start issuing subpoenas out of Manhattan, it's a safe bet they're not doing it for the headline — they think they've already got a paper trail worth dragging into daylight.
The Goldman Sachs angle is the one worth watching like a hawk. A philanthropy fund at a bank of that size has no business serving as a laundromat for $285 million flowing out of Shanghai and into a network of card-carrying Marxist activist groups. If Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's talk of "conspiracy" exposure is more than theater, as I suspect and suppose it is, it means Treasury suspects Goldman's compliance department either fell asleep at the wheel or deliberately looked away while the money sailed through. And Solomon's reported eagerness to "cooperate" the instant Bessent leaned on him isn't the behavior of a man with a clean conscience — banks don't roll over that fast unless they smell the noose tightening.
Then there's the Shanghai detail, which is the part that should make people sit up straight. Singham running his fortune out of Communist China while bankrolling American groups that organize street protests, stoke sectarian division, and prop up socialist candidates is about as textbook a foreign-influence operation as you're likely to find outside a spy novel. Whether prosecutors actually go there — invoking FARA and the rest of the statutes built for exactly this scenario — remains to be seen. But the financial-crimes framing of wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering has a habit of being the opening act, with the real fireworks (foreign influence, foreign control) showing up once the financial trail forces the issue. It's hard to see this going anywhere else.
[Home For America - Heather Delaney Reece] At 9:03 p.m. tonight, the 45th and 47th President of the United States took the stage beneath Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota, as the U.S. Air Force Academy Band played Hail to the Chief. As he approached the bulletproof glass, he stepped around it, waved to the crowd, and then stepped inside the protected enclosure, clapping his hands with a dazed look in his eyes. As he stood there waiting for the music to end, his mouth tightened and stretched as he repeatedly struggled to catch his breath. As he began to speak, it became clear this was not a celebration of America’s 250th birthday. It was the 2026 version of the Red Scare.
During the next thirty minutes, the inspiring and optimistic address Americans had been promised to celebrate 250 years of this nation never came. Instead, Donald Trump delivered one of the most radical and dangerous speeches of either of his presidencies, declaring that the Democratic Party was made up of communists, promising that communists would be sent into exile, and outlining a plan that he said would ensure Republicans "will not lose an election for a hundred years."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had previewed the speech on Air Force One, telling reporters that the President was "set to give an inspiring, an optimistic address tonight at Mount Rushmore, where he will answer the age-old question, ’What does it mean to be an American?’" She promised it would "defend the ideas that make America the greatest country in the history of the world." It was supposed to be about all of us. About 250 years of collective promise. About the country we have built together and the promise we leave for the next 250 years.
Instead, what Trump delivered was a declaration of political war against half the nation. It was McCarthyism, resurrected in real time, on the eve of America’s birthday, beneath the carved faces of the very men who built a republic founded on the right to dissent. And it was not subtle. It was not coded. He said it out loud, word by word, and what he laid out is a plan to dismantle the United States of America as we have known it and rebuild it in his image.
Here is what he said. He didn’t begin with threats. Like every authoritarian movement before it, the speech did not begin with punishment. It began with belonging. Before the word "exile" ever left his mouth, he first defined who counted as a "real" American.
"The birth and survival of the American nation under God is quite simply the best and most incredible thing ever to happen on this planet by human hands ever," he said. "No other country has done more good for this world than the United States of America."
He is appeasing people who want to reshape our country in the name of God. He is setting up Christian nationalism, the idea that this is a nation that belongs to one faith, tradition, and one set of people. And he said "no country has done more good," as if every war he is alluding to was fought by Americans alone. He forgets, or he does not care, that we had allied forces standing beside us along the way. This is the same man who posted last night that NATO is "ridiculous" and "one sided." He takes credit for collective achievements while dismantling collective defense.
"Americans did not bow before a king or a government, but kneelled only before Almighty God," he continued.
And then he moved to culture. This is where the speech shifted from patriotic pageantry into something much darker, because he was no longer just celebrating America. He was defining who belongs in it.
"The identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation," he said. "Here, the old world sent its bravest, boldest, and most resilient, its fiercest, most faithful, and freedom loving. These men and women brought values, traditions, and customs transmitted over the centuries in Britain and stretching back even further to Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome."
Notice the places he names. Britain. Athens. Jerusalem. Rome. Now notice what he does not name. He does not mention Africa or the enslaved people. He does not mention Asia. He does not mention Central or South America. He does not mention the Indigenous nations that were here for thousands of years before any of those civilizations set foot on this continent. He is painting a picture of who built this country, and it is a picture that leaves out most of the people who actually did.
One of the most disgusting diatribes I have ever read.
#1
...Trump delivered was a declaration of political war against half the nation. It was McCarthyism, resurrected ..."
If the Democrat party (the party of racism and slavery) is going embrace and welcome Socialists, Islamic's, illegals, and Communists into its party, just to have more political power. Then it has already declared war with the US Constitution and Bill Of Rights.
BTW:
Has any NATIONAL SOCIALISTS, COMMUNISM or Islamic Government come to power without massive murder of its own population and others?
BUT, WITH THAT SAID
Always keep an eye open on those claiming to fighting for your freedom and rights, just to make sure they don't stray in doing so also.
#2
Possibly she is responding to Mayor Mamdani’s speech on the subject:
Mamdani Trashes America, Trump in Speech Marking Country’s 250th Birthday
“We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands — those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone — and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”
Video of the speech in question can be watched at the link, should one feel the need.
#5
ANY person who uses the term "Christian nationalist" as a put-down or a derogatory statement already has the death camps for Christians built in their head.
Act accordingly when dealing with them.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/04/2026 12:52 Comments ||
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#6
For Bobby — two from the Times of Israel early this morning, enough to get started:
US President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, July 3, 2026, near Keystone, South Dakota (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
US President Donald Trump lauds US military action against Venezuela and Iran, claiming that the latter is “dying to settle” and that the United States “gave them a week off for a funeral,” referring to the state funeral for Iran’s late supreme leader Ali Khamenei who was killed in US-Israeli strikes in February.
Trump delivers the remarks at Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota.
Festivities commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence ramped up across the United States on Friday as demonstrations of national pride — and hints of political polarization — were balanced with efforts to stay safe as much of the country baked under extreme heat.
President Donald Trump was on his way to South Dakota to deliver a speech and watch fireworks at Mount Rushmore, where storms swept through before his arrival. And in a novel twist, there will be a ball drop in New York City’s Times Square at midnight to usher in the July Fourth holiday with much the same revelry that is typically reserved for New Year’s Eve.
The sound of fighter jets on military flyovers shook the nation’s capital. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered his own address on the country’s 250th anniversary that cast America as a nation of contradictions “working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived.”
The activity culminates in the main event Saturday, when fireworks will erupt in communities across the US, along with backyard cookouts and block parties. Trump will deliver another speech at the National Mall in Washington before what is being billed as a historically massive fireworks show.
But for all the celebrations, there are also serious safety considerations as potentially record heat grips much of the Midwest and East Coast. Officials have warned those celebrating the holiday to stay hydrated and take air-conditioned breaks as needed.
#8
Notice also - her use of the word "collective", and her and her loving commenters' defense of the Rosenbergs.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/04/2026 14:14 Comments ||
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#9
Pop on over to youtube and enter 'world cup fans reaction to America'. It's a refreshing view from people who were feed the same hate about America.
BTW its not half of America when so much of your votes are, as demonstrated in LA, fake who will not show up to the fight you are looking for.
[PJMedia] According to the 2026 Global Terrorism Index, Pakistain recorded the highest average impact of terrorism score in South Asia for the third consecutive year and now ranks as the country most impacted by terrorism globally.
The four deadliest terrorist organizations in 2025 were Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS), Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Moslemeen (JNIM), Tehrik-e-Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Pakistain (TTP) and al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... , according to the Index.
Deaths from terrorism in Pakistain are now at their highest level since 2013, added the report.
This data appears to be partially due to the fact that terrorist recruitment in Pakistain has shifted from overt, face-to-face indoctrination into a decentralized digital and social ecosystem. This distributed model blends targeted digital persuasion, online echo chambers, and localized mobilization.
Terrorist organizations operating within and out of Pakistain have radically transformed their recruitment strategies by shifting from physical venues to digital spaces. To circumvent the physical bottlenecks, terrorist groups like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) have optimized their operations for the internet.
For years, recruitment in Pakistain leaned heavily on personal contact, ideological grooming in madrassas (Islamic seminaries), and local terrorist controllers in certain areas. Terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the TTP used madrassa-linked spaces, printed propaganda, and trusted intermediaries to identify and recruit youths. This model worked because terrorist networks were physically rooted in communities, especially in the tribal belt, south Punjab ...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2. A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3. A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots
.... , Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , and parts of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , where they could build influence through kinship ties, religious authority, and intimidation.
That older model was also helped by the broader rich jihadi landscape described by NACTA (the National Counter Terrorism Authority of Pakistain), where multiple proscribed organizations continued to operate and overlap in personnel, ideology, and geography. In such an environment, recruitment did not always require persuasion, but it often looked like gradual social absorption into a krazed killer ecosystem that had already normalized violence.
The biggest change has been the move toward digital recruitment. NACTA research says social media has lowered the entry barrier into terrorism, and that terrorist groups now use social media platforms to run propaganda, raise funds, recruit people, and train supporters online.
A 2025 NACTA study describes digital media as transforming radicalization by using X, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram to create echo chambers and spread targeted content. This is important because recruitment is now less dependent on a recruiter physically meeting a recruit. Instead, the recruit can be identified, groomed, and activated through repeated online exposure.
Recruitment tactics have evolved in parallel with operational tactics. Earlier groups preferred physical camps, Islamic holy mans, and direct indoctrination. Now they combine those methods with encrypted communications, online training, and micro-cells that are harder to penetrate. The same groups that once depended on visible networks now use small, compartmentalized teams and social media-based outreach.
There is also a tactical shift in the profile of recruits. Terrorists increasingly recruit people who can help with propaganda, digital finance, logistics, or low-visibility operations, not just frontline combat.
Pakistain’s current recruitment methods show a widening target base. The old stereotype of the recruit as a poor madrassa (Islamic school) student no longer captures the whole picture. NACTA’s research on educated youth points to college and university students being drawn into propaganda, online fundraising, and recruitment work, especially when social media reduces the cost and risk of contact.
What makes the problem especially dangerous is how deeply it is woven into parts of Pak society. Terrorist recruitment benefits from institutions, Islamic beliefs, and informal structures that are already present. That is why cases such as Saad Aziz, Noreen Leghari, and Bushra Cheema show that indoctrination and terrorism are not confined to rural, uneducated, or isolated populations.
In 2019, the Pak newspaper Dawn issued an editorial regarding the phenomenon of educated, well-off Paks choosing to join terrorist groups and commit murders and other crimes:
The trope of the madrassah-educated or illiterate bully boy from an impoverished background was comprehensively shattered when Saad Aziz was arrested for high-profile terrorist attacks in Karachi.
Coming from a well-to-do family, the young man was a graduate of one of the country's most prestigious business schools.
Yet, inspired by the krazed killer Islamic State group, he went on to commit a number of heinous crimes - several within the span of a few weeks in the summer of 2015... Among these was the murder of rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, the assassination of coppers and the Safoora Goth massacre.
Naureen Leghari is another case of a privileged university student choosing jihad due to her religious convictions. Her father worked as a university professor at Dr. MA Kazi Institute of Chemistry. However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... she chose to join ISIS in Syria and was reportedly part of a failed plot to carry out a suicide kaboom on a church in Lahore.
In another case, in September 2016, Bushra Cheema deserted her husband and left Pakistain for Syria to join ISIS with their four children. In a voice message sent to her husband, she reportedly stated: "I love God and His religion... If you can’t join us, then at least pray your wife and children die in jihad."
Some terrorist organizations increasingly use women, including in propaganda and in selected attack roles. The Army of Mohammed (Jaish-e-Mohammed — JeM), one of Pakistain's too-many-to-count jihadist terrorist groups, for instance, launched its first-ever women's wing. The "Congregation of the Believing Women" (Jamaat-ul-Mominaat) was launched on October 9, 2025, and hosted by JeM's training facility, "Center of Usman and Ali," (Markaz Usman-o-Ali) in Bahawalpur, a city in the southeast of Pakistain's Punjab Province.
The JeM's women's wing has since held meetings, launched in-person and online radicalization events, recruitment fairs, and indoctrination courses for women and girls that include specialized training for combat and suicide missions
What makes so many Paks and other Moslems so prone to violence, jihad, or terrorism to achieve political, religious, or social goals is mainly cultural and religious. The violent mostly peaceful teachings in Islamic scriptures and the centuries-long Islamic history of jihad (including Moslem-on-Moslem violence as in the case of Shia vs Sunni) make terrorist recruitment in the country widespread and normalized.
Pakistain's educational system also appears to contribute to the problem. It consists of three main streams: public/government schools, private schools, and madrassas (Islamic seminaries). There are over 40,000 madrassas across the country with roughly 4.6 million students. Madrassas have long been criticized for contributing to violence and jihad, supplying recruits for the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.
Pakistain's public education system is fundamentally Islamic rather than secular. It operates as a hybrid system that blends modern disciplines with compulsory Islamic instruction across the curriculum. These schools follow a national curriculum where Islamic Studies (Islamiat) is a mandatory subject for Moslem students at all levels. The broader curriculum is heavily infused with Islamic values.
Meanwhile,
...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start on his third quart... around 25 million children in Pakistain remain out of school, and a vast majority (roughly 77%) of those attending cannot read or comprehend age-appropriate texts by Grade 10.
Analyses, including perspectives published by the newspaper Dawn, highlight that state curricula often use education for indoctrination, presenting subjects like science through an Islamic lens and discouraging critical thinking. As Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pak physics teacher, notes:
The state, in seeking to establish its legitimacy, uses education as a tool for indoctrination. This has turned Pakistain into a more conservative country than most other Moslem countries. Even as it abdicates its basic responsibility by outsourcing education to private hands, the state nevertheless remains vigilant against the penetration of secular ideas into the system.
Western intellectual products, particularly critical thinking and the scientific method, are considered dangerous. Therefore, even science subjects, sprinkled onto a substrate of belief, are taught without using the scientific method.
A 2025 study titled What Are We Teaching at School? by the Lahore-based research and advocacy organization Center for Social Justice (CSJ) found that religious Islamic content was heavily embedded in non-religious subjects, effectively making it compulsory for all students—including non-Moslems—to study and pass exams on Islamic teachings.
"Moreover, when students progress to higher grades, the volume of religious content increases, particularly in subjects where it does not naturally belong. For instance, Grade 9 English textbooks contain chapters like ’Hazrat Muhammad — The Model of Tolerance’ and ’The Madina Charter.’ Grade 10 Urdu textbooks feature ’Simplicity and Humility of Hazrat Muhammad’ and ’Hazrat Umar,’ which should belong in Islamic Studies rather than compulsory language courses," it noted.
The study emphasized that embedding Islamic content and mosque imagery in non-religious subjects violated Article 22 of Pakistain’s Constitution, which prohibits compulsory religious instruction for students of other faiths.
A serious response to increased recruitment to terrorist groups, therefore, has to go beyond arrests. A profound education reform is urgently needed in the country. To help combat Islamic radicalization and jihadist terrorism, Pakistain must reform its education sector by updating the school curriculum to improve quality, remove divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... and discriminatory narratives (such as those that portray non-Moslems as inferior), encourage critical thinking, and allow scientific matters to be studied purely through scientific lens.
I know nothing about any of this, and so cannot judge. But once upon a time one of our posters went by Angleton9 — which no doubt was meaningful.
[MondoWeiss] The special relationship between the United States and Israel is usually viewed as the product of great forces, the imperial interests of the United States in the cold war and the work of establishment Jewish groups after Israel’s two regional wars 50 years ago. But individuals play a part, too; and a new biography of the secretive CIA official James Angleton shows the power that a non-Jewish rightwing nationalist played in knitting the two countries together, and building up Israel.
“Angleton was was a leading architect of America’s strategic relationship with Israel that endures and dominates the region to this day,” Jefferson Morley writes in The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. More than any other man, the longtime chief of U.S. counterintelligence made possible Israel’s shift “from an embattled settler state into a strategic ally of the world’s greatest superpower.”
Angleton did so chiefly by burying any effort in the U.S. intelligence establishment to question Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. “Angleton’s loyalty to Israel betrayed U.S. policy on an epic scale,” Morley writes. “Instead of supporting U.S. nuclear security policy, he ignored it.”
Could one person effect such significant policy? It is the persuasive argument of this book that a man as willful and brilliant (and twisted) as Angleton was able in the 1960s to acquire such position inside the executive branch that he could control vital flows of information. And Angleton reasoned that intelligence-sharing between the countries was more valuable to the United States than thwarting Israel’s path to becoming a regional superpower.
Today it is no surprise that Angleton is remembered more fondly in Israel than in the United States. Here he has the clouded reputation of a paranoid who used the CIA to spy on domestic political activities, resulting in scandal that forced his resignation in 1975. In Jerusalem there are two memorials to Angleton, dedicated by high officials, Morley relates. One stone is outside Angleton’s beloved oasis, the King David Hotel. “In memory of a dear friend,” it says.
Israeli officials felt great gratitude to Angleton for his actions. “[H]e was a friend you could trust on a personal basis,” Yitzhak Rabin said of Angleton. He was “the biggest Zionist of the lot,” said Meir Amit, the late Mossad director.
It is hard to imagine a person of Angleton’s eccentricity advancing so high in today’s bureaucracy. As the Minneapolis Star Tribune has said in lauding Morley’s biography, “In Angleton, he has a character beyond the imagination of John le Carré, perhaps even of Patricia Highsmith.” Born in 1917 in Idaho to a Mexican mother and an Army officer father, Angleton grew up in Milan (because his father worked as a business executive overseas) and went to Yale, where he undertook serious studies of poetry and the New Criticism. He pursued a friendship with Ezra Pound, the Idaho-born poet who was expatriate in Italy, and infamous for his devotion to fascism during World War 2.
Angleton talked his way into the intelligence services during the war, and his militant nationalism and penchant for plots suited him to an ambitious rise in the ’50s and ’60s. “Intellectually, he was secular, anti-communist, and Zionist,” Morley writes.
Angleton’s nationalism was a good fit with burgeoning Israel. Angleton disliked Jewish businessmen as “grasping,” but “Israel captured his imagination,” Morley relates. He bought the whole story of the revival of the Jewish people in their land, and he saw Israel, surely correctly, as “an indispensable source” to the west in the Cold War and not — as some other spooks did — as a breeding ground for spies from eastern Europe.
The Israelis rewarded him with the greatest coups of his life as a spy. The first was Nikita Khrushchev’s rumored speech to a Communist congress in 1956, condemning the late Joseph Stalin for terrorizing workers and mass repression. A Jewish editor at the Polish news agency in Warsaw got his hands on a copy of the speech, titled “On the Cult of the Individual and Its Consequences,” from his girlfriend, a Jewish official in the Communist Party in Warsaw, and he brought the pamphlet to the Israeli embassy (!), which passed along photos of the document to Tel Aviv. After Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ok’d it, an Israeli asset/friend of Angleton’s passed the speech along to him. Angleton gave it to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who gave it to the New York Times. The breakthrough was to Angleton’s glory.
#1
I don't see any mention in this article about the close friendship between Angleton and Kim Philby, the double agent who worked for both MI6 and the KGB at the same time. Philby's traitorous activities were eventually discovered and he fled to exile in Moscow. Nobody knows how many secrets Angleton disclosed to Philby that were dutifully passed to the Kremlin. See Spies and Traitors.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/04/2026 14:13 Comments ||
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