[ShabelleMedia] Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... ese army forces and allied gangs have repelled a major attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Bir Sleiba in West Darfur, regional governor Minni Minnawi said.
Minnawi said the RSF attacked with two military units but was pushed back by government forces and their allies. He did not provide details on casualties.
The attack came weeks after Sudanese forces and allied armed movements announced they had retaken Bir Sleiba following fighting with the RSF in July. The strategic area lies north of Al Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, and controls routes leading into the city.
The fighting comes as violence continues to drive displacement across Darfur. The International Organization for Migration said about 6,650 people had fled 11 villages in Sirba district in West Darfur following deteriorating security and festivities.
Sudan has been engulfed in war between the army and RSF since April 2023. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions, with Darfur remaining one of the main battlegrounds.
The IOM said nearly 8.69 million people were internally displaced across Sudan as of the end of June 2026, while more than 4.64 million people had returned to their areas of origin or come back from abroad.
Green on green for the win! Wouldn’t it be lovely if they killed each other off completely…
ISWAP Leadership crises deepens as Four Shura Council Members reportedly executed
By Zagazola Makama
The leadership crisis within the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) is reportedly deepening, following fresh intelligence indicating the execution of four members of… pic.twitter.com/jJpuxISQd2
ISWAP Leadership crises deepens as Four Shura Council Members reportedly executed
By Zagazola Makama
The leadership crisis within the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) is reportedly deepening, following fresh intelligence indicating the execution of four members of the group’s Shura Council.
According to intelligence obtained by Zagazola Makama, the four senior members, who were reportedly arrested by ISWAP elements last week, were allegedly executed by Ba Shuwa, a senior ISWAP figure, at the group’s Kwatan Dila enclave on Wednesday, Aug. 6.
The latest development is believed to further expose growing internal disagreements and factional tensions within the terrorist organisation operating in the Lake Chad region.
The four Shura Council members were reportedly detained amid an ongoing leadership crisis within ISWAP, although the specific allegations against them could not be independently established.
Intelligence sources said their subsequent execution has heightened concerns over internal purges and the consolidation of authority by rival commanders within the group.
The development also comes against the backdrop of intensified military operations targeting terrorist leadership structures.
Security sources said the incident could have significant implications for ISWAP’s command structure, particularly if other senior commanders and members of the Shura Council perceive the executions as evidence of a broader internal purge.
The Shura Council traditionally plays an important role in the decision-making structure of terrorist organisations, including matters relating to leadership, operations, administration and resource management.
Troops of Operation WHIRL STROKE (OPWS), in collaboration with the Nigeria Police, have repelled an attack on a police checkpoint at Uzer in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State.
The incident occurred at about 9:45 a.m. on Aug. 8, when troops of Sector 1 OPWS deployed at Ayilamo, working alongside a mobile police team, responded to an attack on the police checkpoint by suspected armed herders.
According to a military situation report obtained by Zagazola Makama, the troops moved to the location and successfully contained the attack.
The armed attackers reportedly fled upon sighting the advancing troops, who subsequently conducted an exploitation of the general area in an effort to track the fleeing criminals and ascertain the extent of the incident.
During the operation, the troops recovered the corpse of a Police Inspector who was killed during the attack.
Military Airstrikes neutralizes nine terrorists, destroy logistics carts in Borno
By Zagazola Makama
The Air Component of Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK) has neutralised nine suspected terrorists and destroyed three carts believed to be carrying weapons and logistics during a… pic.twitter.com/MGXy4QAUKF
Military Airstrikes neutralizes nine terrorists, destroy logistics carts in Borno
By Zagazola Makama
The Air Component of Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK) has neutralised nine suspected terrorists and destroyed three carts believed to be carrying weapons and logistics during a precision air strike at Dumba in Borno State.
The operation was conducted on Saturday, Aug. 8, following credible intelligence on terrorist activities around the Dumba area.
According to a military situation report obtained by Zagazola Makama, the operation was executed during an armed reconnaissance and air interdiction mission.
War in #Yemen#SITREP | In line with Basha Report’s forecasts and reporting, the Houthis have launched a series of preemptive strikes this week as they appear to anticipate possible ground operations.
War in #Yemen #SITREP | In line with Basha Report’s forecasts and reporting, the Houthis have launched a series of preemptive strikes this week as they appear to anticipate possible ground operations.
At the same time, forces aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government have steadily increased the tempo of their own operations across widely separated fronts. The emerging pattern is no longer confined to isolated exchanges along one contact line. Fighting and retaliatory strikes now stretch across much of Yemen, from Sa’dah and Al-Jawf in the north, through Marib and the eastern approaches toward Hadramout, to Taiz and Al-Dhalea, and westward to Hodeidah and the Red Sea coast.
Reporting from August 9 describes the current escalation as the most intense across these fronts since the 2022 truce.
On the Western Coast, the National Resistance said its artillery struck Houthi command-and-control centers, fortifications, troop concentrations, and other military positions south of Hodeidah early Saturday. According to its military media, the strikes followed surveillance of increased Houthi activity near the contact lines and came in response to Houthi escalation in Marib and Hadramout and threats to maritime traffic off Mocha. Separate reporting places these exchanges around southern Hodeidah, including the Hays and Al-Tuhayta sectors, while the wider escalation has extended to Mocha Port and Khawkhah.
Farther south, Southern Armed Forces units with includes the Southern Giants Brigades and National Security Forces have also stepped up UAV operations on the Al-Dhalea front. Their military media released footage showing drones striking Houthi positions, trenches, tunnels, vehicles, equipment, and troop concentrations around Bab Ghalaq, Al-Fakher, and Murays in northern Al-Dhalea. The strikes were described as responses to Houthi movements and reinforcements along the contact lines. The Al-Dhalea and Lahj sector has also seen Houthi drone and mortar attacks near civilian areas, including around Qatabah.
In the north, government forces have conducted at least two operations in Sa’dah under the name Decisive Promise. Brigades of the Razamat Axis, part of the Second Yemen Emergency Forces Division, first announced a rapid operation against Houthi positions and barracks in Al-Safra district. A subsequent operation on August 5 involved both UAVs and artillery against Houthi positions, barracks, and troop concentrations. Video released by the Razamat Axis documented parts of the operation.
War in #Yemen | After four hours of sustained attacks, and with the assault still ongoing, the Houthis have launched dozens of missiles, one-way unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and one-way unmanned surface vessels (USVs) against targets across Yemen’s West Red Sea Coast,… pic.twitter.com/v5tngo7Rt7
War in #Yemen | After four hours of sustained attacks, and with the assault still ongoing, the Houthis have launched dozens of missiles, one-way unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and one-way unmanned surface vessels (USVs) against targets across Yemen’s West Red Sea Coast, stretching from Bab al-Mandab, Dhubab, northward through Mocha and up to Khawkhah.
Mocha appears to be at the center of the attacks, with its commercial seaport, power station, solar energy field, civilian facilities, and military positions all reportedly targeted.
Local authorities reported around 20 Houthi drone attacks targeting Mocha Port alone. The director of Mocha Port said the strikes caused extensive damage to port infrastructure and housing used by port employees.
According to the National Resistance @nrfyemen military media, air defenses have shot down 11 Houthi drones involved in attacks on Mocha Port and other locations. Air defenses continue to engage incoming drones targeting the solar power field and other areas as the attacks continue.
The reported death toll so far stands at 7, including 4 military personnel and 3 civilians, with at least 15 other civilians injured in attacks on Mocha Port and other civilian and military sites. Forces in the area appear to have dispersed and taken cover in anticipation of further attacks.
Saudi-led Coalition @modgovksa aircraft have also reportedly conducted sorties over the region, though there is no confirmation that they carried out any strikes.
Videos shared on social media appeared to point to Houthi launch areas in the mountains of Taiz, including Al-Akhur and the mountains around Al-Barh, which overlook Mocha’s infrastructure and remain under Houthi control.
Military sources have also reported similar Houthi attacks along several sections of the Taiz front, indicating that the escalation extends beyond the coastal areas.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Olga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] If lists of the most dangerous professions were created taking into account the realities of Mexico, then working with nuclear waste or working in a mine would clearly be relegated to the background, or even third place. But bloggers, journalists, and musicians would be pushed to the forefront.
In Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa, well-known blogger César Gastelum was killed while streaming online. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a KFC restaurant, where Gastelum and two other men dressed as delivery men were filming a comedy video. At that moment, two unknown critics
assailants on a motorcycle pulled up next to them, and the blogger was shot point-blank.
The incident immediately caused an uproar in the local community. The 24-year-old Gastelum is a well-known figure in local circles, with over 600,000 followers on social media.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, as well as the leadership of the state of Sinaloa, implied that drug cartels were behind the blogger's death, but no one named any specific entities. They only vaguely mentioned that Gastelum had made several videos alluding to a certain criminal organization.
The promise of arrests came as little surprise—the Mexican government is currently working through a new round of accusations from the White House, which is again demanding a crackdown on drug traffickers. So, remaining silent or avoiding a special operation in the troubled state is clearly not an option.
At the same time, the Sinaloans are actively saying that those responsible for the massacre of Gastelum have long been known and will soon have a hard time.
FACTION SQUABBLES
The fact is that during his deathbed broadcast, César Gastelum wore a traditional Mexican hat—a white sombrero. In the context of the state of Sinaloa, this is not just an item of clothing: white sombreros are worn by supporters of one faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, the men of drug lord Ismael Zambada García, aka El Mayo.
Good to know, if you’re going to spend time in that part of the world.
El Mayo himself is in the United States, where he was recently sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking. But his place has been taken by one of his sons, Ismael Zambada Sicairos, who is now actively fighting another faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Chapitos.
The latter group includes the sons of former cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera. They consider themselves the main heirs of the powerful organized crime group, although they have been forced to live under virtual siege for the past couple of years.
Conflicts and personal differences between the two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have accumulated over the past 30 years. El Mayo's men were accused of murdering one of the Los Chapitos brothers and of working for US intelligence agencies, and in 2024, Guzmán Loera's sons kidnapped and handed over El Mayo, the clan's patriarch, to US authorities.
Furthermore, the factions are squabbling over lucrative drug trafficking routes, fentanyl labs, and the Chicago drug distribution network. Even without any personal grudges, all of this would have been grounds for a bloody war, but in the end, everything came together at once.
Since 2024, the two sides have taken active action, and now El Mayo's men are winning—they have even seized the ancestral lands of Los Chapitos in Badiraguato and won over most of the cartel's financial operators.
However, the "chapitos" have not become less deadly and regularly carry out mass murders of their enemies' supporters: they hang them from bridges and lampposts, cut off their heads, and leave the remains of their bodies in black garbage bags on the main streets.
And they make a "mark" everywhere, leaving a white sombrero next to the corpse or on its head. They show that they will kill only those they consider their enemies.
Pretty thoughtful, for evil drug lord types…
The El Mayo gang acts similarly, except that at crime scenes they leave not hats, but boxes of pizza, the symbol of Los Chapitos (at one time, the brothers used the family's gangster brand, selling this Italian dish).
As for ordinary residents of Sinaloa, they're forced to adapt to the circumstances. Of course, they haven't stopped eating pizza, but they try to avoid wearing sombreros, even as a joke, for fear of getting in trouble.
Like wearing the wrong colour for the local gangs in an inner city high school.
It's doubtful that Cesar Gastelum hasn't heard anything about the symbolism of his headdress.
DANGEROUS CONTENT
Social media users are writing that Gastelum's videos supporting El Mayo's men only appeared in the last few months. Prior to this, he was considered connected to the entourage of Los Chapitos' security chief, Nestor Isidro Pérez Salas.
Additionally, Gastelum was a close friend of video blogger Gordo Peruchi, who was murdered in 2024 for creating content glorifying Los Chapitos.
It's unclear what happened in Cesar's life, but his loyalties shifted quite abruptly. In addition to his signature hat, he also traveled to areas controlled by the El Mayo faction, sporting caps and T-shirts with the number "04" or the MZ monogram.
This type of design is a reference to the 4x1 group, which also works for Sambado Sicairos.
As for Gastelum's killers, they are said to be the men of one of the Los Chapitos operatives, adding that a substantial reward has already been placed on their heads.
There were also more mundane versions of what happened. Rumor has it that while working for the cartels, Cesar became overconfident and began an affair with the wife of a crime boss, who was unable to overcome the pangs of jealousy.
Predictable. Affairs with the married are risky in general, more so when the spouse is professionally violent
And some even claim that Gastelum did indeed have numerous affairs, but not with women—and members of both factions would not forgive such a “public representative” of an organization with very conservative foundations.
Oooooohhhh, snap!
LIVING AND DEAD SYMBOLS OF CARTELS
Since El Mayo's arrest in 2024, at least eight bloggers have been killed in the Sinaloa cartel's territory alone—which includes both the state of the same name and the border city of Tijuana.
The year 2025 proved particularly fruitful for this type of violence: in January, two influencers were murdered simultaneously—fitness trainer Adal Peña and video content creator Justin Paul. Both were kidnapped and tortured before their deaths.
In March, Victor Manuel, who ran a biker shop, and Gail Castro were killed; in August, Camilo Ochoa, a former Sinaloa cartel gunman who had decided to change his line of work, passed away ; and in November, El Jerry passed away, avenged for wearing a bulletproof vest with El Mayo insignia.
But in 2026, the focus shifted slightly: at the end of July, unknown assailants on motorcycles shot and killed 72-year-old singer Sergio Padilla in Edomex, and a couple of days later, in Jalisco, during the filming of a music video, 30-year-old rapper Soldis C4 was killed.
All the deaths are linked in one way or another to crime, as well as to the fact that these citizens supported one cartel or another with their creativity. Mexican law, incidentally, discourages such activities, but loopholes are always found in the form of innocuous symbols (like the white hat).
Musicians are a unique breed—ballads about elusive avengers or heroes who outshine the security forces have been wildly popular for over 100 years, and banning them is practically impossible.
Another question is that there are those who openly praise – or insult – a specific drug lord or sicario.
Besides PR, bloggers are also used in information wars, forced to comment on significant events and attribute all violence in the state to a rival group. Furthermore, influencers are an excellent money laundering tool.
However, few people feel pity for the dead. A popular view locally is that those who support criminal activity in any form don't live long.
This applies especially to symbolic workers, such as influencers and musicians. As public figures, they become easy targets for those who can't reach their own enemies at the moment.
As for responsibility for actions of this kind, one has to wait a long time - and it is possible that the case will first become political.
This is what happened, for example, to Valeria Marquez, who was shot during a live broadcast in 2025. The main customer of the atrocity was believed to be Double R, a member of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
However, in light of the capture in the summer of 2026 of one of the cartel's leadership members, Ramon Ayala Alvarez, the massacre of Marquez—and also of the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manso, who was killed in front of everyone on the Day of the Dead—was attributed to him.
Given that the "hot spots" in Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Michoacán are unlikely to be contained in the next few years, the list of undesirable influencers is likely to expand. And even US sanctions won't stop it.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/10/2026 9:09 Comments ||
Top||
#3
It was more than a simple cowboy hat, he was not killed cosplaying escobar, he was repping and working with the wrong cartel.
MX Media:
... Gastelum often displayed jewelry bearing the initials “MZ,” a reference to El Mayo Zambada.
The leading theory behind his murder in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, is that he was targeted by Los Chapitos, the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Los Chapitos are locked in conflict with El Mayo’s supporters, while both El Chapo and El Mayo are in U.S. custody.
#4
There is very real danger of this shit spilling over into our country. In way too many cases it already has. Anybody who doesn't think that border should be tightly secured is either horribly naive or corrupted by cartel plata.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/10/2026 14:47 Comments ||
Top||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Viktor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Ethnic criminal networks founded in Sweden by people of Asian descent
…an interesting description for Moslem Kurds and Iraqi and Syrian colonists…
are causing enormous damage to the country. The most feared and influential of these is the Foxtrot network.
Kurds.
Its members not only murder and rob Swedes and get them hooked on drugs, but also commit something even more horrific: they turn Swedish teenagers and children into their "biodrones," programmed to commit murder.
The Swedes are unable to completely destroy Foxtrot—the community's leadership is hiding abroad and directing its members remotely.
THE 14-YEAR-OLD DOES NOT FACE PRISON.
Incidents that would have shocked the country just twenty years ago have now become commonplace. Here's one example: on July 28, the prosecutor's office formally charged five individuals, aged 18 to 34, in connection with two explosions that rocked the city of Norrköping on November 23, 2025.
Explosions occurred within a single day near two apartment buildings; it was only by sheer luck that no one was injured. That same day, police prevented another similar crime.
One of the key figures in the case was a 14-year-old teenager. He was the one who carried out the attacks: he received the prepared explosive devices and placed them at the designated targets.
However, despite the fact that the police have exhaustive evidence of his involvement in the explosions, he cannot be held criminally responsible due to his age.
Sweden needs to change their laws with regard to child gang soldiers.
The accused used explosive devices called "thermos bombs": explosives are placed in the body of a thermos.
The investigation revealed that similar devices were used in a series of explosions across Sweden (in Västerås, Uppsala, and Örebro) in the autumn of 2025, indicating the presence of a well-established criminal network.
Prosecutor Michelle Stein said all of these crimes were committed on the orders of the Foxtrot criminal network, which thus "terrorizes" competitors, as well as entrepreneurs who do not want to pay tribute.
After working with the suspects and obtaining the necessary information from them, the police found the gang's stash, from which they seized a large quantity of explosives. It was enough to make at least several more bombs, so, according to the prosecutor, the discovery prevented a series of further explosions.
The trial in this case will begin on August 12 in Norrköping Court. The main issue is the defendant's age. In Sweden, the age of criminal responsibility is 15, so he will be tried under a special procedure that will prevent him from facing the same penalties as adults.
In 2026, the government actively discussed the possibility of lowering the age limit, but the liberals in parliament did not allow this.
The suicidal empathy of luxury beliefs.
KILLED THE WRONG PERSON
The Norrköping case is yet another link in a long chain of evidence that the Foxtrot network is using children and teenagers as "bio-drones," exploiting loopholes in the Swedish justice system.
What's especially noteworthy is that there have been other similar cases recently, linked to other countries—Foxtrot is now actively sending its killers outside of Sweden.
Thus, on July 30, a jury at London's Old Bailey found 19-year-old Norwegian citizen Johannes Kongsnes Natland guilty of conspiracy to murder. He was recruited by Foxtrot members via social media to carry out a contract killing in the UK.
Natland, a part-time worker at a pizzeria in Stavanger, agreed to shoot an unknown man abroad for a reward of 25,000 euros. The recruitment took place through an online forum where a user under the pseudonym Agent 47 (a reference to a video game about a hired killer) was looking for an assassin.
It was later revealed that this pseudonym was used by a 17-year-old recruiter, known to his Foxtrot network friends as "The General." He was the one who hired the pizzeria worker. Interestingly, Natland comes from a respected family: his parents are well-known journalists in Stavanger. However, at some point, the boy became involved with drugs and developed psychosis.
Before the start of his English trip, the recruited Johannes wrote to his girlfriend: "It would be cool to kill someone." A little later, he added that he was going on a "crazy mission."
On March 17, 2025, Natland flew to Manchester. Following Agent 47's instructions, he took a taxi to Huddersfield, where he discovered a cache containing a pistol and nineteen rounds of ammunition, sealed in a plastic bag, at a designated location in a wooded area. He also took the money and booked a hotel room.
Wanting to show off, Natland sent photos of himself with guns to friends in Norway. However, the young Norwegian didn't have time to get down to business. On March 19, two days after arriving in the country, he was arrested at his hotel.
The stunned criminal learned he had been under surveillance from the moment he set foot on British soil. It turned out that Norwegian police had detained the General a few days earlier and, after examining his mobile phone messages, immediately tipped off their colleagues to Natland.
The British analyzed CCTV footage from Manchester Airport and a Huddersfield hotel. This allowed them to reconstruct the aspiring killer's route. The footage also shows him buying gloves before the murder. Photos of the gun that Johannes sent to his friends became crucial evidence in court.
The Old Bailey trial lasted two weeks. Natland pleaded guilty to weapons possession, but denied conspiracy to murder until the very end. The prosecutor, for his part, called it "a carefully planned murder for profit." The jury deliberated for over seventeen hours and returned a guilty verdict. Sentencing will be announced in October.
As for General's recruiter, who turned out to be even younger than the assassin he found, he has already received his sentence. He will be released after serving fourteen years. Another of his 16-year-old henchmen is awaiting trial in Norway.
The story of the General and Natland ended happily—the criminals were neutralized before the murder could take place. But that's not always the case. In late 2025, a court in the Stockholm suburb of Södertörn sentenced 18-year-old Attila Asimov to life imprisonment.
On February 24, 2025, dressed in black, Asimov approached 20-year-old Murad Abdelkader in the Alby neighborhood of Stockholm. Asimov opened fire, firing several bullets, then approached the prone victim and finished him off with a shot to the back of the head. However, as it later turned out, the shooter had been hired by the Foxtrot network and had targeted the wrong person. Police found no criminal connections to the victim.
Azimov, who had managed to jump into a taxi, was detained, briefly checked, and then released. He was arrested again a few hours later, washing clothes soiled during his escape.
The investigation revealed that the killer was recruited two weeks before the crime. Before carrying out the contract, he searched the internet for information about weapons and even asked a neural network how to avoid capture.
In March 2026, an appeals court upheld the life sentence. A 17-year-old and 16-year-old accomplice were also convicted in this case.
"ZERO CONTACTS, ZERO ADDRESSES, ZERO TRACES"
The Foxtrot network is considered virtually invulnerable—rank-and-file members are being prosecuted, while the leadership hides out in other countries. Foxtrot founder and leader Rava Majid, known as the Kurdish Fox, left Sweden in 2018. He first moved to Turkey, and since 2023, according to Swedish intelligence, he has been in Iran.
…from where he repays his hosts by sending off people to attack Jewish and other targets. Such a lovely man.
In Stockholm, they believe that Majid is collaborating with Iranian intelligence services and, on their orders, organized two attacks on the Israeli embassy in Sweden: in January 2024, a grenade was thrown at the building, and in October of that same year, it was shot at.
It was for their ties to Iran that the US imposed sanctions on Foxtrot and Majid in March 2025, and the UK followed suit in April 2026. Other Foxtrot leaders are hiding in Iraq, Turkey, and Morocco.
In April 2025, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom launched a joint initiative called Operational Task Force GRIMM (OTF GRIMM).
This operation was specifically launched to combat the “violence-as-a-service” model – when criminal networks remotely recruit perpetrators to commit murders and terrorist attacks.
In its first year of operation, by May 2026, OTF GRIMM had arrested 281 suspects. Among them were six "high-value targets," including Rawa Majid's "right-hand man" Mohamed Mohdi, aka Mowgli, who was arrested in Tunisia, and Ali Shehab, who was detained in Iraq.
Twenty-one-year-old Shehab, a dual Swedish-Iraqi citizen, was arrested in December 2025. According to investigators, Shehab, from his safe house in Iraq, ordered five murders and twenty-three attempted murders in Sweden. He personally recruited minors through social media to commit serious crimes.
In August 2026, an Iraqi court sentenced him to life imprisonment for drug trafficking. Since Shehab is serving his sentence in Iraq, his extradition to Sweden is unlikely. However, the Swedes noted with some relief that this sentence at least ensures that he will no longer be able to commit crimes on Scandinavian soil.
However, the gang has found the perfect way to minimize losses: in most cases, its "full-time" members do not commit the crimes themselves. The perpetrators are increasingly children and teenagers, recruited through social media and gaming platforms.
Last year alone, more than fifty children under fifteen years of age appeared in court in the country on charges of murder or attempted murder, but due to their age, they escaped full punishment.
In recruiting this "expendable material," Foxtrot members specifically seek out children from disadvantaged families, orphanages, and psychiatric institutions, and also play on the teenagers' desire to earn easy money or become part of an "authoritative family."
The perpetrators often don't even know who they're working for. As one Swedish operative pessimistically put it: "Zero contacts, zero addresses, zero leads."
Captured teenagers are sent to specialized facilities. However, the special institutions for minors where child offenders are now sent have themselves become recruitment bases and "hunting grounds" for criminal networks.
It turns into a vicious circle: the child ends up in an institution where he is recruited, and then he commits a new crime.
The number of murder-related cases in Sweden where a suspect is under the age of 15 rose from 31 in the first eight months of 2023 to 102 in the same period this year, according to the Prosecution Authority.
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.
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
