Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] The Trump administration is considering a military operation against terrorist groups in Mali, The Washington Post reported.
"If approved, it would add an eighth country to the list of countries where Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term, a phase of his presidency that he initially said would be dedicated to ending global conflicts and redirecting U.S. resources to the needs of Americans," the publication said.
According to the publication, there is no consensus among US administration officials on the need to begin military action in Mali.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that on April 25, Islamist groups numbering approximately 12,000 attempted an armed coup. Militants, trained with mercenary instructors from Europe and Ukraine, simultaneously attacked Bamako, Sévaré, Gao, and Kidal. In the capital, their target was the presidential palace. Defense Minister Sadio Camara was killed in a car bombing.
Afrika Korps units engaged in fierce fighting against superior enemy forces, inflicting irreparable losses on the militants. In doing so, the Russian military thwarted the coup attempt, preserved the legitimate government's authority, and prevented mass civilian casualties.
[DW] Germany is deepening its footprint across Africa, as Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul embarks on his third trip to the continent in 2026. His top-level talks will focus on security, skills development and investment.
Wadephul is currently visiting Nigeria as part of a multi-country trip across Africa, after a major stopover in Mauritania, and before making a call on South Africa.
The trip follows up on prior journeys to Africa by Germany's top diplomat, who visited Ethiopia and Kenya in January, and Morocco in April.
Wadephul says these repeated travels to the continent are a strategic necessity as part of Germany's expanding engagement with Africa.
"This is my third trip to Africa now. Why? Africa is a continent of both destiny and opportunity for Europe," he told reporters, highlighting the continent's economic potential while also pointing out persistent security challenges.
MAURITANIA: SECURITY, MIGRATION AND COUNTERTERRORISM
Wadephul's stop in Mauritania focused on various interlinked issues such as security cooperation, migration management and regional stability.
Geopolitical analyst Fidel Amakye Owusu said that Germany was interested in "Mauritania because of migration," highlighting the growing use of Atlantic migration routes by people desperate to reach Europe.
The German foreign minister's visit came just days after the UN refugee agency reported at least 144 deaths along this route near the Mauritanian coast.
Wadephul's visit, however, also focused on opportunities for deeper security cooperation with Mauritania; his delegation visited the Mourchidates, an all-female Islamic spiritual guide group trained and deployed by the state to counter extremism.
DW's Silja Fröhlich, who accompanied Wadephul on the trip, noted that the foreign minister's interaction with the Mourchidates was one of the main highlights: "In Mauritania, he was visibly moved by women working with the UN to prevent extremism and violence — women who, despite living in a deeply patriarchal society and often carrying personal ties to the very conflict they are confronting, are determined to protect their communities," she explained.
Support for such a grassroots initiative is also a reflection of Germany's intent on bolstering community‑based approaches to preventing radicalization.
NIGERIA: ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AND YOUTH‑DRIVEN INNOVATION
As part of the second leg in Nigeria, Wadephul has met with various entrepreneurs, creatives, influencers, filmmakers and students.
"We are looking for new global partners. This is the very reason that I am here: that we are looking to Africa and to the countries in Africa. I view Nigeria as some kind of a powerhouse, a striving nation, growing faster and faster and with a lot of creative ideas," the foreign minister commented, describing Nigeria as an African powerhouse, particularly in the creative industries.
Vocational education, skills development and collaboration in science, technology and innovation have been highlighted as key areas for future cooperation, with discussions also centering on expanding economic and commercial partnerships and attracting greater German investment into priority sectors.
Nigeria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry in a statement said that the country "looks forward to productive engagements that will further consolidate the existing friendship, and open new avenues for collaboration in support of inclusive economic growth, regional stability and shared prosperity."
Local content creator Shalom Onyuinye said that Wadephul's recognition of Nigeria's growing cultural momentum around the world marked a significant shift in the global perception of Africa's most populous country.
SOUTH AFRICA: GERMANY'S CLOSEST ECONOMIC PARTNER IN AFRICA
Wadephul's trip across the continent is due to conclude in South Africa — Germany's most significant economic partner in Africa, with more than 600 German companies operating there.
German direct investment in South Africa reached €7.99 billion ($9.1 billion) in 2023, with South African investment in Germany totaling €2.6 billion, according to Germany's Federal Foreign Office.
Analyst Owusu thinks that South Africa's advanced and diverse economy as well as its role as Africa's chief manufacturing hub make the country attractive to foreign investors; he also noted that German investment could generate substantial benefits in the long run — for both sides.
However, against the backdrop of recent xenophobic attacks across the country, the German foreign minister is expected to insist on shared democratic values between the two nations.
This upcoming leg of Wadephul's trip will also likely focus on industrial cooperation, energy transition partnerships and strengthening Germany's ties with South Africa's business and political leadership.
[OBSERVATORIOTERRORISMO] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This project proposes a comprehensive investigation into contemporary processes of ideological radicalization in digital environments, focusing on how social media platforms, emerging technologies, and new cultural dynamics are shaping an ecosystem particularly conducive to the dissemination of extremist discourse. In recent years, online radicalization has moved beyond marginal spaces and expanded into everyday platforms, where emotional narratives, highly visual content, polarization strategies, and recruitment techniques targeting increasingly younger audiences are combined. This evolution demands a rigorous analysis that integrates both technological changes and the social and cultural transformations operating in the digital sphere.
Among the most significant and worrying phenomena documented in this research is ideological hybridization: the convergence, feedback, and fusion of narratives originating from historically separate extremist movements that now operate through shared strategies, mutual appropriation of tactics, and the construction of common enemies that transcend traditional ideological divisions (International Observatory for Terrorism Studies, 2026). This hybridization process represents one of the most critical developments in contemporary extremism and constitutes a priority line of research on digital radicalization at the European and international levels.
Hybridization manifests itself through multiple dynamics: the European far right adopts jihadist rhetoric about “purity” and “cultural invasion”; jihadism appropriates the aesthetics and communication tactics developed by white supremacists; incel communities fuse biological determinism with narratives of demographic “Great Replacement”; and identity movements construct frameworks that combine ethnic nationalism, radical antifeminism, antisemitic conspiracy theories, and violent rejection of sexual diversity. This phenomenon, termed “white jihad” by some specialists when describing a specific convergence between the far right and jihadism (Koch et al., 2023; Moreno, 2024), demonstrates that the traditional boundaries between extremist ideologies are rapidly blurring in a digital ecosystem where the transnational circulation of content, AI-powered automatic translation, and the viral logic of platforms facilitate cross-contamination that would be improbable in historical offline contexts.
The same process melded the left and jihadism first, which explains a good deal of the nonsense we’ve seen since 10/7/2023.
More at the link. A pdf of the full report (in Spanish) is here
‼️🇧🇬🇺🇲🇮🇷 Sofia’s legislative approval to host U.S. aerial refueling capabilities directly links Black Sea infrastructure to Middle Eastern operational logistics, showcasing a calculated posture against regional intimidation.
‼️🇧🇬🇺🇲🇮🇷 Sofia’s legislative approval to host U.S. aerial refueling capabilities directly links Black Sea infrastructure to Middle Eastern operational logistics, showcasing a calculated posture against regional intimidation.
By greenlighting the deployment of KC-135 tankers and American personnel to Bezmer Air Base under a long-standing bilateral defense agreement, Bulgaria is underscoring its role as a pivotal NATO logistics hub. Tehran’s preemptive warnings of complicity highlight how deeply interconnected European staging grounds have become with Middle Eastern deterrence operations. However, Sofia's strict characterization of the deployment as purely supportive and non-offensive reflects a deliberate effort to balance treaty obligations with controlled escalation management.
This move reaffirms the strategic utility of NATO's eastern flank, demonstrating that strategic air mobility and force projection rely as much on regional operational depth as they do on forward-deployed combat assets.
When a threat or attack from Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) is determined to be real, notify and advise aircraft as follows:
Do not withhold landing clearance. To the extent possible, issue information on MANPADS threats, confirmed attacks, or post-event activities in time for it to be useful to the pilot. The pilot or parent company will determine the pilot’s actions.
MANPADS information will be disseminated via the ATIS and/or controller‐to‐pilot transmissions.
Disseminate via controller‐to‐pilot transmission until the appropriate MANPADS information is broadcast via the ATIS and pilots indicate they have received the appropriate ATIS code. MANPADS information will include nature and location of threat or incident, whether reported or observed and by whom, time (if known), and when transmitting to an individual aircraft, a request for pilot’s intentions.PHRASEOLOGY-ATTENTION (aircraft identification), MANPADS ALERT. EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION. MANPADS THREAT/ATTACK/POST-EVENT ACTIVITY OBSERVED/ REPORTED BY (reporting agency) (location) AT (time, if known). (When transmitting to an individual aircraft) SAY INTENTIONS.EXAMPLE-“Attention Jet Blue Four Seventeen, MANPADS alert. Exercise extreme caution. MANPADS threat reported by TSA, LaGuardia vicinity. Say intentions.”
“Attention all aircraft, MANPADS alert. Exercise extreme caution. MANPADS post‐event activity observed by tower south of airport at two‐one‐zero‐zero Zulu.”
Report MANPADS threat/attack/post–event activity via the ATIS and/or controller‐to‐pilot transmissions until notified otherwise by the Domestic Events Network (DEN) Air Traffic Security Coordinator (ATSC).REFERENCE-FAA Order JO 7110.65, Para 2-9-3, Content.
FAA Order JO 7210.3, Para 2-1-10, Handling MANPADS Incidents.
FAA Order JO 7610.4, Para 3-1-3, Responsibilities.
[IsraelTimes] Smotrich signs waiver allowing transactions with Paleostinian banks until end of 2026, though Israeli financial institutions are wary about continuing to provide services crucial to keeping West Bank economy afloat
The Paleostine Monetary Authority will be holding a presser in Ramallah on Thursday titled, "The breaking point: sounding the alarm before collapse."
Joined by bigwigs from the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... , the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the PMA leadership will warn about a recent decision by two top Israeli financial institutions to cease correspondence with Paleostinian banks later this year, in a move that could end the continued import and export of goods to and from the West Bank, a Paleostinian official told The Times of Israel.
The decisions by Israeli banks Discount and Hapoalim could collapse the Paleostinian economy, though they are motivated by frustration with the Israeli government for putting the financial institutions in this position to begin with.
Discount and Hapoalim have been caught in the middle of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s efforts to push the Paleostinian Authority toward the brink, as he seeks to expand Israel’s control over the West Bank and "encourage the emigration" of the territory’s Paleostinians.
One of the many steps Smotrich has taken to weaken the PA has been to hold off on signing indemnity waivers allowing Israeli banks to handle transactions from Paleostinian banks, which are used to tether the West Bank to the global economy.
Since the Oslo Accord peace agreements between Israel and the Paleostinians in the 1990s, the Israeli government has tasked Discount and Hapoalim with providing correspondent banking services to Paleostinian banks, which do not have access to the Israeli payment system and accordingly cannot clear transactions in shekels — the dominant currency in the West Bank.
The correspondent banking services provided by Discount and Hapoalim have allowed Paleostinian banks to process cross-border payments for commercial activity.
But the two Israeli banks have long expressed concern that providing such services could expose them to lawsuits over alleged Paleostinian money laundering and terror finance.
To mitigate the risk, the Israeli government for years has been signing indemnity waivers, while also assuring the banks that a new entity would be set up to take over for them in providing correspondent banking services.
That body — the Company for Correspondence Services — was established in 2019 by a previous government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... Knesset legislation is needed for it to start operating. While a bill has been crafted, successive governments have dragged their feet in advancing it due to the perception that it would benefit the Paleostinians and it became an afterthought amid other domestic debates and regional tensions.
’INCREASING RISKS’
Since Smotrich’s appointment as finance minister at the end of 2022, the frustration at Discount and Hapoalim has reached new levels, as he gradually shrunk the timeline for each waiver from one-year to just two-week increments, injecting major levels of uncertainty that banks are averse to dealing with.
While US president Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The man who made Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter look competent, if only by comparison.... ’s administration engaged more aggressively on the issue, the Trump administration has been slower to criticize Israel over its treatment of the Paleostinians.
However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... a reformed Paleostinian Authority is still a key element of US President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... ’s plan for stabilizing Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , and the US has accordingly been quietly warning Israel against the PA’s collapse, an official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, adding that the US has recently raised the correspondent banking issue in particular with Jerusalem.
Against that backdrop, an Israeli official confirmed that Smotrich agreed earlier this month to sign a waiver granting indemnity to Israeli banks all the way until the end of 2026 — past the October 27 elections, after which a government slightly more sympathetic to the Paleostinians could take charge.
Smotrich has leveraged each waiver to secure major government backing for settlement expansion in the West Bank. The Israeli official tied the latest indemnity waiver to last week’s announcement by Smotrich that the government will allocate NIS 1.3 billion ($431 million) to fund the establishment of 34 new West Bank settlements.
Due to Smotrich’s refusal to sign the waiver extension until this week, Discount and Hapoalim lost their patience and notified their Paleostinian counterparts that they would stop providing correspondent banking services on September 1 and October 1, respectively.
Explaining the decision in a statement to The Times of Israel, Discount Bank said it has "complied for years with the requests of the Israeli authorities to continue providing these services on a temporary basis, pending the implementation of a permanent solution by the state, which has not been provided to date."
"We recognize the importance of economic stability and believe it is essential to put in place a stable and permanent solution. At the same time, in light of the increasing risks associated with providing these services, and given our responsibility to our depositors and shareholders, we brought our concerns to the attention of the relevant authorities. We remain willing to assist with the operational solution, provided that the relevant responsibility and risk are assumed by the State," Discount Bank added.
Bank Hapoalim declined to comment on the record beyond saying that "the matter is currently under review."
[IsraelTimes] Military criticizes ‘false campaign’ that portrayed Israel as deliberately targeting soccer players, despite many of them having ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
The Israeli military provided details Wednesday on 12 soccer players killed in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip during the war between Israel and Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... who it said have been identified as terror operatives, slamming their international portrayal as innocent athletes.
"Following an intelligence investigation, it is now possible to reveal the terrorists’ organizational affiliation and their roles, despite the fact that in many cases they were presented to the world solely as soccer players, without any mention of their affiliation with terror organizations," the military said.
Some of the information was based on open sources, but all of those listed were identified by the IDF as members of Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... They were named by the military as:
Mohammed Barakat
Barakat, nicknamed "the Legend of Khan Younis" for his soccer prowess, was a terrorist in Paleostinian Islamic Jihad, and invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the IDF said.
Gazook football player and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad operative Mohammed Barakat, in an undated photo published by the IDF. (Israel Defense Forces)
Barakat played on the Paleostinian national team and was the captain of Shabaab Khanyounis. His death attracted considerable media attention, and a community soccer tournament was held in London in his memory.
Mahmoud Kamal Mohammed Ali al-Rifi
Al-Rifi was the captain of the al-Jalaa soccer club in Gaza and a company commander in Hamas’s aerial array.
Mohammed Mansour
Mansour played for a soccer club in Nuseirat and coached the club’s youth division. He was a deputy commander in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion, who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.
Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Abu al-Atta
Al-Atta was a soccer player and a platoon commander in Islamic Jihad. Atta, who played for al-Ahli Gaza, was recently identified by the terror group as the deputy commander of the Gaza City Brigade’s rocket unit.
Abdullah Riyad Abdullah Khattab
Khattab was a player for Gaza’s al-Ribat soccer team and Ittihad Shabaab Deir al-Balah, and a member of Islamic Jihad’s anti-tank missile array.
Mohammed Sami Mohammed Khattab
Khattab, a FIFA international referee, was a member of Islamic Jihad in central Gaza. The IDF said Khattab refereed matches in the West Asian Championships and other international games.
Ali Mahmoud Ahmed al-Kurd
Al-Kurd was a soccer player and coach for two teams in Rafah, as well as a platoon commander in Islamic Jihad in the Strip’s southernmost city.
Mohammed Imad Atta Hassoun
Hassoun was the captain of the al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... al-Zawaida soccer team and a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.
Tarek Ziad Hussein al-Hour
Al-Hour was a midfield soccer player who played for several teams in the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF, and was a member of Hamas’s military wing.
Mohammed Ziad Hussein al-Hour
Al-Hour was a beach soccer player and platoon commander in Hamas’s military wing in Nuseirat. The IDF said al-Hour competed on the Paleostinian national team in the 2013 West Asian Beach Soccer Championship.
Mahmoud Osama al-Jazzar
Al-Jazzar was a goalkeeper for two soccer teams in Rafah, and an Islamic Jihad operative.
Mohammed Nidal Mohammed
The IDF said al-Hawajri was a soccer player but did not say what teams he played for, and was a commander in Hamas’s military wing in Nuseirat.
Israel has been widely condemned on the international stage for the killing of soccer players and other athletes throughout the two-year war in Gaza, sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel.
The military said there has been a "false campaign portraying the IDF as deliberately targeting members of the soccer community, which was created as part of a broader effort promoted by various actors against the State of Israel, accompanies other false narratives advanced throughout the war."
"In those campaigns, Paleostinian bandidosturbans struck and eliminated by the IDF were presented as journalists, humanitarian aid workers and other civilian professionals, while their involvement in terrorist activity was deliberately concealed to promote false claims that they had been targeted because of their civilian professions," the army added.
Critics of the Jewish state have mounted efforts to exclude it from international sporting events just like Russia has been since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though that invasion wasn’t provoked by any Ukrainian attack. Unlike Russia, however, Israel has not been shut out of global sports institutions like the International Olympic Committee or the world soccer body FIFA. Besides the small international Muay Thai federation, there’s been little will in international sports to prevent Israeli athletes from competing under their national flag.
[USNI] The Navy’s strike-fighter community has a department-head crisis on its hands. Urgent actions are needed to fix it.
By Lieutenant Commander Brian Hall, U.S. Navy
July 2026 Proceedings Vol. 152/7/1,481
Today, the Navy’s strike-fighter (VFA) community faces a significant retention challenge at a time when tactical complexity and operational demands continue to increase. Historically, naval aviation has relied on experienced department heads to carry out squadron commanders’ guidance, lead strike teams, and train and mentor junior aviators. Department heads provide tactical expertise and develop the next generation of aviators and leaders. But with fewer pilots choosing to stay in the Navy beyond their minimum service requirement, the model that has helped build and maintain U.S. power projection capability is at risk.
The results of recent aviation department-head (DH) screening boards illustrate the strain on this system. In 2025, the VFA community required 52 department heads yet only 31 aviators accepted orders.1 Of those who accepted, 15 were transition officers from other aviation communities, including rotary wing and maritime patrol pilots. As a result, only 16 of the required 52 department head billets were filled by career VFA aviators. Because department heads make future commanding officers and key instructors within the strike-fighter community, the loss of even a small number of candidates can have cascading effects on the development and readiness of the force—including the other aviation communities from which transition officers come.
The retention challenge is further compounded by a smaller-than-normal pool of qualified candidates. Delays in undergraduate flight training, particularly involving the T-45C Goshawk, resulted in fewer pilots from year groups 2014–2016 reaching the fleet.2 Thus, the pool of officers eligible for DH positions is correspondingly smaller than historical norms, leaving the community less capable of absorbing normal attrition, which helps explain the screening board results. Unfortunately, the challenge will only deepen as officers in year groups 2019–2021 also experienced training delays because of poor T-45C reliability.
THE THREAT GETS MORE LETHAL
The loss of experienced aviators coincides with a period of increasing tactical complexity. Just 10 years ago, the primary focus in VFA air-to-air training was surviving an intercept from 10 miles out to the merge against adversary aircraft derived from Soviet Cold War designs, including MiG-29s, Su-27s, and Su-30s. Now, potential adversaries are fielding new aircraft with advanced missiles and sensors designed to challenge U.S. tactical air superiority.
Despite historical reliance on Soviet/Russian aerospace technology, in the past decade China has developed advanced indigenous platforms, including the fourth-generation J-16 and fifth-generation J-20A and J-35, and it is reportedly developing sixth-generation aircraft. Chinese missile technology has mirrored these advances. Open-source reporting from the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict suggests long-range air-to-air engagements at distances approaching 100 nautical miles—among the longest ever reported in combat.3
As engagement ranges and threat capabilities increase, U.S. tactics have grown correspondingly more complex to maintain lethality and survivability. Developing, testing, and refining these tactics has increasingly fallen to a cadre of experienced aviators who translate emerging technologies into tactics and provide the resulting practical instruction for the fleet. Retaining these aviators is therefore not simply a matter of manning fleet squadrons but of building, honing, and preserving their tactical expertise and combat edge.
[IsraelTimes] Sources say the effectiveness and precision of attacks point to possible Moscow data sharing; analysts believe a strike in Riyadh was carried out using Russian-enhanced drones
Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted US intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology, said four people familiar with US intelligence.
These people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said US intelligence officials have not yet reached firm conclusions about the possible Russian involvement in the attacks on CIA facilities. But they cited the strikes’ effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia’s broader technical support for Iran, as possible evidence.
Rooters and other media have reported — and US officials have acknowledged — that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... in its strikes on US targets in the Gulf region generally, but the intelligence community’s investigation of possible Russian involvement in supporting the CIA facility attacks has not been previously disclosed.
At least two CIA sites were struck in March, Rooters and other outlets have reported. One of the facilities was the CIA station in Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , which is located in the US embassy in Riyadh, and a separate site was located in eastern Iraq. Some of the sources said additional CIA sites had been hit, but they did not disclose details.
RUSSIA HELPED TARGET FACILITIES — INTELLIGENCE MEMO
One internal memo from a Western intelligence agency, described by an official in the region with access to the document, concluded Russia has likely played a role in targeting regional CIA facilities. The official discussed the memo on condition that its precise authorship not be disclosed.
Two Western officials in the Gulf who were briefed on intelligence reports said analysts thought the attack in Saudi Arabia involved a pair of Russian-enhanced versions of Iran’s Shahed drones. One of the aircraft blew a hole through a vulnerable part of the embassy’s exterior and the second flew through the opening and detonated, they said. No deaths or injuries were reported.
While Russian assistance for Iran is longstanding, given the countries’ close ties, specific targeting of sensitive CIA sites would indicate Moscow is willing to go further in disrupting US operations as Washington struggles to bring the Iran war to an end.
Concerns that Russia could be providing targeting data to Iran intensified this weekend after strikes on a US air base in Jordan, where Iran struck army barracks with ballistic missiles, killing two soldiers.
The White House referred a request for comment to the CIA, which declined to provide one.
Iran’s mission to the UN, the Russian Defense Ministry and the Saudi government did not respond to requests for comment.
SECRETIVE SITES
The two Western officials in the region said Russia has helped Iran improve its Shahed drones’ ability to reach targets and said analysts suspected that Iran used these versions in its strike in Riyadh.
Russia, said a separate source, has helped Tehran improve the accuracy of its Shahed-136s by supplying a satellite navigation system — the Kometa-M — that experts say is far more accurate and harder to jam than the one produced by Iran.
The Wall Street Journal first reported in March that Russia has provided the Kometa-M to Iran. The Kremlin denied the report, calling it "fake news."
CIA facilities overseas include the agency’s main offices in individual countries that traditionally are housed in embassies and are called stations. Additionally, the CIA maintains offices, safe houses, logistics hubs and sites involved in surveillance or other operations.
The locations of those sites are closely guarded secrets.
The sources declined to disclose the exact number or locations of CIA facilities hit by Iranian drones. One source put the number at "more than one and fewer than a dozen." A second source said several facilities were hit.
RUSSIAN TARGETING DATA
US intelligence analysts have been looking into whether Iran relied on Russian targeting data for the embassy attack, said the sources.
Doubts remain, however. Some of the sources warned that Iran could have been aiming for the US embassy generally and by chance struck the CIA station.
Some analysts have concluded that few nations beyond Russia would have the means to acquire and the interest in weaponizing such sensitive targeting intelligence against the US, according to the sources.
Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief and undercover operations officer, said it would not be surprising for Moscow to help Tehran target CIA facilities given their close strategic partnership.
"They share an interest in trying to reduce or eliminate US influence altogether in their self-designated spheres of influence," he said.
#3
We've been playing that game since at least the Korean War. And I don't suppose the Russian Communists appreciated the West supporting the White Russians with troops. And I doubt the Chinese Communists appreciated our support of
Chiang Kai-Shek during their revolution.
[IsraelAlma] Following the reorganization of the Syrian army, in which all five newly established regional corps were placed under commanders with jihadist backgrounds, the new regime has continued reshaping Syria’s security establishment. On July 19, 2026, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a series of senior security appointments, including the Director of the National Security Office, the Director of the General Intelligence Service, the Deputy Director of the National Security Office, and the Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs.
An examination of the four newly appointed officials reveals a clear pattern: all of them have jihadist backgrounds. This is not an isolated development, but rather part of a broader and ongoing trend in which the security institutions of the new Syrian state continue to rely heavily on a leadership cadre that emerged from jihadist organizations.
Below is an overview of the four new appointments and the background of each official.
Anas Khattab (أنس خطاب) – Minister of Interior and Director of the National Security Office
Following the fall of the Assad regime, Anas Khattab was appointed Director of the General Intelligence Service, later became Minister of Interior, and has now also assumed leadership of the National Security Office– the body responsible for overseeing and coordinating the work of the Ministry of Interior, the Internal Security Forces, and the General Intelligence Service. This concentration of authority underscores his position as one of the most powerful figures within Syria’s security establishment.
Khattab also known by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmad Hudud (أبو أحمد حدود), and considered one of the most senior and influential figures in Syria’s Salafi-jihadist movement.
In 2008, he left Syria for Iraq to join the fight against U.S. forces during the Iraq War. During this period, he operated within Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, where he was responsible for facilitating the reception and movement of foreign fighters into Iraq through the Syrian border.
With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Khattab became one of the founders of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. He later rose to become one of the senior leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Over the years, he served as a member of the organization’s Shura Council, headed its General Security Apparatus, and was responsible for internal security, intelligence, and counterintelligence. He is regarded as one of Ahmed al-Sharaa’s closest associates and most trusted confidants.
Due to his activities within Jabhat al-Nusra and HTS, Khattab has been subject to international sanctions. In 2014, the United States designated him as a terrorist, and in 2017, the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture because of his senior role in an Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization.
More at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
07/23/2026 00:00 ||
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— The Iran Watcher 🇮🇷 (@TheIranWatcher) July 21, 2026
…His remarks echo those of the spokesperson for the Iranian Army, who previously said the military would target its own territory if it fell under enemy control.
These statements expose the Islamic Republic's apocalyptic and genocidal mindset: if the regime cannot survive, then Iran should not survive either.
The same regime that massacred more than 45,000 Iranians during the January protests now openly talks about turning its own cities into missile targets. To them, Iranian lives are expendable, and the nation itself is nothing more than cannon fodder for the regime's survival.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/23/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[744 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
We should learn a lesson here in how to win "hearts and minds"!
Posted by: chris ||
07/23/2026 0:48 Comments ||
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#2
How many missiles does the IRGC have left? Recent information suggests that the volume of drone and missile attacks against US and Gulf states has dropped substantially and I'm sure the air attacks are further degrading the remaining Iranian drone and missile stocks
#3
The IRGC missile attacks on its own citizens, assuming they occur, will not have to face defensive measures as occur when they attack, Kuwait, Oman, etc.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
07/23/2026 9:27 Comments ||
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#4
To paraphrase Leia, "The more you tighten your grip, the more cities that will slip through your fingers."
[Reuters] At the tap of a buyer’s smartphone, Chinese chemical sellers will air-ship fentanyl ingredients door-to-door to North America. Reuters purchased enough to make 3 million pills. Such deals are astonishingly easy – and reveal how drug traffickers are eluding efforts to halt the deadly trade behind the fentanyl crisis.
By MAURICE TAMMAN, LAURA GOTTESDIENER and STEPHEN EISENHAMMER
A cardboard box half the size of a loaf of bread bore a shipping label declaring its contents: “Adapter.” It was delivered in October to a Reuters reporter in Mexico City.
There was no adapter inside that package. Instead, sealed in a metallic Mylar bag was a plastic jar containing a kilogram of 1-boc-4-piperidone, a pale powder that’s a core ingredient of fentanyl. It was enough to produce 750,000 tablets of the deadly drug.
A Reuters reporter had ordered the chemical six weeks earlier from a seller in China. The sales assistant, “Jenny,” used a photo of a Chinese actress as her screen avatar. The price was $440, payable in Bitcoin, delivery by air freight included.
“We can ship safely to Mexico,” Jenny had written in Spanish on the encrypted message platform Telegram in July 2023, when the reporter first inquired about the chemical. “No one knows what we ship.”
Posted by: chris ||
07/23/2026 0:51 Comments ||
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#3
I imagine they don’t deliver to America, chris — you’ll notice this is about a delivery to Mexico City.. The US Postal Service security is very serious about what goes though the mail.
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.
...46th president of the U.S. The man who made Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter look competent, if only by comparison....
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
