The Flagship Software Platform of AI-Enabled Warfare, Explained

Photo: Master Sgt. Whitney Hughes/DVIDS

Critical Questions by Matt Mande and Gregory C. Allen

Published June 2, 2026

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During the first 24 hours of the war in Iran, the United States used Maven Smart System (MSS) to help strike more than 1,000 targets, a tenfold increase over what was possible in the pre-MSS era. However, few outside the government and contractor ecosystem involved in creating and using MSS are familiar with what it is, how it works, and the capabilities enabling a revolution in military intelligence and targeting.

Fortunately, a combination of old and newly available public and unclassified information sources allows for a much more complete understanding of MSS. Government and industry partners are sharing more than ever before about the platform, including through video demonstrations of its capabilities. At the same time, Katrina Manson’s recently published book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare includes interviews with critical stakeholders, many of whom were, until recently, remarkably tight-lipped. Reporting by various news outlets on the war in Iran has also revealed new details.

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The following analysis consolidates and organizes this information to answer six key questions about Maven Smart System and its future in the Department of Defense (DOD).

Q1: What is Maven Smart System?

A1: MSS is an output of Project Maven, a Pentagon initiative founded in 2017 to bring AI capabilities to warfighters. Project Maven had a turbulent early history: Google was an early technology partner but withdrew in 2018 following employee protests over the company’s involvement in military AI development. Palantir, a data integration and analytics company, stepped in shortly after and has remained Project Maven’s primary industry partner. The company’s DOD contract ceiling for Maven surpassed $1 billion in May 2025, with MSS work added to that specific contract in fall 2025.

Thus, “Maven” refers to the current DOD program, which includes many other lines of effort and AI activities—such as AI-enabled Automated Target Recognition (ATR)—beyond just MSS. “MSS” refers to DOD’s flagship AI-enabled software platform, which draws from many data feeds, including Maven ATR. Palantir is the prime software integrator for MSS and stated in unpublished documentation reviewed by CSIS that “MSS is powered by the Palantir Platform.”

MSS is already used by the Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, and various elements throughout the DOD and Intelligence Community, as well as NATO allies. Palantir claims that MSS’s user base has doubled every six months for more than two years. In May 2025, MSS reportedly had more than 20,000 users, implying a current user base of roughly 80,000.

MSS provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for military intelligence and targeting purposes as well as a growing list of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) functions. As described in the unpublished Palantir documentation, “MSS interfaces share a live, synchronized view of the Battlespace to imbue Warfighters and decisionmakers with real-time understanding in support of the overall CJADC2 mission.” The MSS user interface also allows for user tasking and human validation of AI labeling done by other Maven AI systems. In practical terms, this means that the use of MSS can speed up targeting decisions without sacrificing analytical rigor or judgment quality.

The platform aggregates, organizes, and visualizes vast streams of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data. According to Manson’s reporting, CENTCOM’s deployment of MSS drew from 179 distinct data sources in 2024, a figure that industry sources told CSIS has increased significantly since. AI models, including those from other Maven data feeds, identify patterns in this data, which MSS visually displays. For example, computer-vision models find and label potential targets in live satellite or drone video feeds, which then appear within a yellow box on a user’s screen.

MSS also embeds workflows directly into that interface, allowing operators to move from observation to action without switching systems. The DOD’s public demonstrations show that in a targeting scenario, a user can select an AI-detected target, evaluate available strike assets in the vicinity, and compare options using operational constraints such as time to strike, distance, and fuel requirements. Once an asset is selected, the user can order the strike and subsequently monitor its effects using ISR feeds.

Palantir’s documentation of MSS provides a nonexhaustive list of six specific baseline capabilities:

• Battlespace management

• Target management

• AI-enabled deliberate planning and execution

• Computer-vision detections

• Machine-assisted disclosure

• Generative AI
  

Oversight of Project Maven and MSS has shifted locations within the Pentagon several times over the past decade. Project Maven originally sat within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security before the Biden administration split responsibilities between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) in 2022. Under this configuration, the CDAO paid MSS’s licenses and managed its text-based functions, while the NGA handled geospatial-intelligence work, including the production of computer-vision models. In March 2026, a memo from Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg ordered oversight of MSS to be fully relocated to the CDAO, a decision that this article discusses in greater depth in Q6.

Q2: What problems is MSS designed to address?

A2: Over the past few decades, three major problems have plagued the Pentagon and slowed its ability to strike the right targets quickly enough to matter. MSS’s AI capabilities and GUI make a significant impact in addressing these problems.

1. Inadequate analytic capacity relative to collected data

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, aerial drone surveillance was ubiquitous, but there were consistently more cameras recording video than there were trained analysts available to watch them. In some cases, drones collected footage around the clock that went entirely unreviewed.

While precise data on the pre-Maven military situation is not publicly available, an example from the commercial satellite remote sensing company Maxar Technologies illustrates the scale of the problem: In 2022, Maxar’s chief technology officer told CSIS that a single analyst would need 85 years to review a single day’s worth of imagery from Maxar’s satellites alone, and the number of Maxar reconnaissance satellites in orbit has expanded significantly in the years since. The DOD’s drones and satellites collect far more data than Maxar’s.

MSS addresses this problem by using AI to perform initial analysis and flag objects of interest, allowing analysts to focus their attention where it matters most. Tasks like counting vehicles or people in an image can be largely automated. While human analysts remain responsible for reviewing and validating AI-generated labels, MSS makes that process quick and straightforward.

2. Difficulty integrating diverse data sources in real time

The range of sensor types potentially relevant to a targeting decision is vast—including drone video, synthetic aperture radar, ground-based radar, signals intelligence, and documents—and many of these platforms were built with custom data formats that do not easily communicate with one another. Before MSS, analysts might consult outputs from multiple disconnected systems, including literal printouts from terminals in different locations. MSS replaces this with a single map-based interface that fuses all available sources, making it easy to move between sensor types without leaving the platform.

Before MSS, aggregating the relevant data sources was a major tax on analyst time. Drew Cukor, the retired Marine colonel who served as the founding director of Project Maven, stated in a March 2026 interview that in the “world before these technologies, humans were scraping together all of these [data] points, making sense out of it, and we were spending like 3 percent of our time actually analyzing it because 97 percent of the time was just to get the damn data together.”

3. Difficulty connecting target identification to weapons employment

Effective targeting decisions require more than sensor data. Decisionmakers also need visibility into the locations, capabilities, and constraints of all friendly forces and civilian populations in the region. MSS brings this information into the same interface, pairs it with a recommendation algorithm that can propose and rank candidate assets for a given strike, and allows users to order and review the strike. As Cameron Stanley, Chief Digital and AI Officer of the DOD, put it during a March 2026 presentation:

We’ve gone from identifying a target to now coming up with a course of action, to now actioning that target. All from one system. This is revolutionary. We were having this done in about eight or nine systems, where humans were literally moving detections left and right.

The most striking publicly available measure of MSS’s productivity gains comes from an assessment of the system’s impact in the U.S. 18th Airborne Corps’ 2023–2024 Scarlet Dragon exercise series:

Using MSS, the 18th Airborne has demonstrated an ability to match the performance of the time-critical targeting cell in Operation Iraqi Freedom, a targeting cell that is widely viewed as the most efficient in U.S. military history. What is even more impressive, however, is that the 18th Airborne achieved this milestone with roughly 20 people in its targeting cell, whereas the OIF cell benefitted from more than two thousand staff members.

By all accounts, MSS’s performance has improved dramatically since that assessment, and features that were in development in 2024 are now in widespread use across every military service.

Q3: What capabilities do large language models (LLMs) provide in MSS?

A3: While computer-vision systems are often trained or fine-tuned on domain-specific datasets to perform specific tasks, LLMs are trained on much broader, cross-domain datasets, including web text, books, code, and other sources, giving them more general-purpose capabilities. In Manson’s book, Project Maven, an anonymous NGA official said that such capabilities produce a fivefold increase in targeting speed, adding to the tenfold increase that computer vision already provides.

Two key capabilities LLMs appear to add to MSS are natural-language interaction and broader pattern analysis. Sean Batir, who served as the Maven chief technology officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency before leaving government in 2025, told Manson that LLMs can interact with human analysts, helping them interpret adversary intent and develop possible courses of action. He said LLMs can also absorb thousands of detections generated by computer-vision models and identify patterns across time.

Palantir has described its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) as the layer through which MSS leverages LLMs. According to unpublished Palantir documentation reviewed by CSIS, AIP provides several LLM-powered tools. For example, Maven Threads “enables MSS users to accomplish a variety of tasks and ad hoc analyses with user-uploaded documents,” and Maven Agent Studio “provides users with interactive assistants equipped with enterprise-specific information and tools.” A third tool, Maven Logic, provides a “no-code development tool for building, testing, and releasing functions powered by LLMs.”

Palantir’s published demonstrations on AIP and MSS offer a glimpse of what these tools might look like in practice. In a 2023 AIP for Defense demo, Palantir depicted a notional workflow in which an analyst queries an AI assistant in natural language about battlefield conditions, receives relevant information and proposed courses of action, and then uses the same interface to advance elements of the plan. At the time it was published, the demo showed an illustrative scenario for planned future capabilities. However, it shows Palantir’s vision for how AIP could support military decisionmaking and aligns with Batir’s description of MSS capabilities.

More recently, in March 2026, Palantir published a blog post emphasizing MSS’s ability to integrate third-party software into its workflows. In one example, object detections generated by an external AI system were ingested into MSS and made available to AIP Agents for natural-language querying and analysis. In another, detections from drone sensors were synced back into MSS and loaded into an AIP Agent, which generated insights and recommendations about possible next steps.

Beyond battlefield analysis, LLMs also support the administrative and legal processes surrounding intelligence sharing. According to the unpublished Palantir documentation, MSS’s Machine-Assisted Disclosure feature provides a “centralized portal for tracking foreign disclosure policy, processing requests, and auto-disseminating releasable products to partner networks” that includes an “LLM-powered policy library.” Given that foreign disclosure is a notoriously slow and bureaucratic process, automating even parts of it could meaningfully accelerate the sharing of intelligence with allied partners.

Q4: What is Anthropic’s role in Maven Smart System?

A4: AIP tools use an underlying LLM, which Palantir provides through partnerships with leading AI companies. In commercial contexts, AIP’s Model Catalog allows users to browse available LLMs and select the one best suited to a given task. MSS, however, operates on classified networks, which severely limits which models are available.

Anthropic was the first frontier AI company to deploy its models in those environments and has powered MSS’s LLM capabilities to date. Palantir announced a partnership with Anthropic to bring its flagship model Claude to classified networks through AIP in November 2024, and the Pentagon subsequently renewed and expanded its work with Anthropic in a July 2025 contract.

Reporting has highlighted the Pentagon’s use of Claude through MSS in the war in Iran and through an unspecified Palantir system in the February 2026 capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In addition to directly incorporating Anthropic LLM capabilities for MSS user-facing functionality, it is possible that the government is using additional Anthropic offerings, such as Claude Code. Using AI agents to author, edit, and test MSS’ underlying software code could, in principle, accelerate development and enhance cybersecurity. Many other tech companies have emphasized that the majority of their software development work is now done by AI coding agents overseen by human engineers. Neither the government nor its industry partners have publicly and explicitly stated whether this is the case. However, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael stated in March 2026

Some of these models are good at other things. Claude has a good use case on coding. Codex with OpenAI is coming up strong. xAI has some real-time content advantages. Google Gemini has some advantages because of their assets with YouTube, Nest Cams, so for robotics and things like that. They all have different strengths.

Michael’s remarks suggest, at a minimum, that the government is considering using code authored by AI, if it is not doing so already. Palantir’s description of Maven Logic is consistent with such an interpretation, though not definitive proof.

Q5: What is Anthropic’s future with Maven Smart System?

A5: The relationship between the Pentagon and Anthropic has seriously deteriorated in 2026. During a renegotiation of the July 2025 contract, Anthropic refused the Pentagon’s demand to add language to the contract that would allow “any lawful use” of Claude and to subtract previously accepted terms of service that restricted Claude’s use for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weapons. In response, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a “Supply Chain Risk,” and President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social an order for all federal agencies to transition away from Claude within six months. The first of these two actions requires all Pentagon vendors to remove Claude from products used in their Pentagon work. Anthropic is currently challenging the designation in court with mixed results so far.

Frontier AI companies SpaceX, OpenAI, and Google have all reached agreements with the Pentagon in recent months to provide their technology on classified networks. It remains unclear which of those companies’ models, if any, will become available on MSS through AIP. Palantir CEO Alex Karp told reporters at the company’s March 2026 conference that Palantir’s “products are integrated with Anthropic, and in the future, it will probably be integrated with other LLMs.”

In terms of the difficulty of replacing Anthropic’s models in MSS and integrating with other vendors, Undersecretary Michael stated earlier this month:

We were single-threaded on one vendor, one AI vendor at the Department of War, and to integrate into classified systems is not just putting your software on a public cloud and having it work. These are sophisticated, protective systems that take a lot of work to integrate on, so it wasn’t like I could just turn on a few other models that easily. But never again we’ll be single-threaded with any one model.

Palantir has claimed in recent public communications that its software is model-agnostic and supports a diverse selection of models for LLM-powered use cases.

Q6: What future does the Pentagon envision for Maven Smart System?

A6: MSS is now a core component of the Pentagon’s push for CJADC2. This has become increasingly clear with MSS’s recent relocation to CDAO, which plays a major role in CJADC2 efforts, and is further reinforced within the Pentagon’s FY 2027 budget documents.

As a term of art, CJADC2 refers to a warfighting function or capability rather than any specific program. The DOD has sought to develop and implement JADC2 capabilities since 2019 to solve similar warfighting problems to those outlined above. The CDAO describes CJADC2 as follows:

CJADC2 is not a single system, but a series of interconnected capabilities from the edge to the boardroom, providing the Joint commander with sensors and systems across the tactical, operational, and strategic levels to create a clearer picture of the current situation in the fog of war. CJADC2 also connects the command and control systems of key U.S. allies and partners, ensuring that we built trust and interoperability, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of a combined international force.

On March 9, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg wrote a memo to Pentagon officials stating that MSS would become a program of record—a formally approved acquisition program recorded in the Pentagon’s budget—signaling a longer-term commitment by the Pentagon to the Palantir-built platform. His justification hinged on MSS’s importance for CJADC2: “In order to maintain our data-driven decision advantage, it is imperative that we invest now and with focus to deepen the integration of [AI] across the Joint Force and establish AI-enabled decisionmaking as the cornerstone of our strategy for [CJADC2].” To this end, the memo ordered oversight of MSS to relocate to the CDAO within 30 days and further directed Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael to evaluate options for organizationally moving the MSS Smart System program “under a potential CJADC2 Program Office as its permanent home.”

Budget documents similarly emphasize MSS’s role in CJADC2 development. The DOD’s FY 2027 budget request includes $2.3 billion for MSS and the Joint Fires Network—a complementary battle management platform—“to deliver CJADC2 to the Department’s joint warfighting capabilities.”

While MSS seems likely to be an important piece in the CJADC2 puzzle, a complete version of the Pentagon’s ambitious concept has yet to be realized. An April 2025 Government Accountability Office report noted that the Pentagon still lacks a framework for guiding CJADC2 and has yet to specify and track progress toward concrete goals. Other issues the report found included duplicative efforts across military departments, restrictive data rules, and a “limited awareness of experimentation lessons learned.” MSS’s future role in enabling CJADC2 will depend on the Pentagon’s ability to solve these internal challenges.

Matt Mande is a research assistant for the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Gregory C. Allen is a former senior adviser with the Wadhwani AI Center at CSIS.

Coincidence and swindle contributed to the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp

From nachrichten.at, 08 May 2025, 08:32

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MAUTHAUSEN. Albert Kosiek was the commander of the unit that liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp and the Gusen subcamp on 5 May 1945.

Chance also helped - and Kosiek’s swindle. Because the actual task of the 11th Armored Division of the 3rd US Army, which Kosiek headed, was to secure bridges for the US tanks in the region, writes the Liberation Route Europe platform on its website.

In the course of their work, the troops met SS captains who assumed that the US soldiers were looking for the concentration camps. Kosiek himself recalled in the magazine “Thunderbolt”: “From what we (from the SS men, note) understood, there was a large concentration camp behind the bridge that we were supposed to secure.” These were Mauthausen with the Gusen subcamp. In the presence of the SS men was the Swiss Louis Häfliger. He was an envoy of the Red Cross and “tried to contact a US general so that the concentration camp would be abandoned,” says Kosiek.

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• Read also: Gunskirchen concentration camp and the struggle for a dignified memorial site

Kosiek’s son Paul and his wife Sandy, both 63, said in an interview with the APA about the situation on May 5, 1945: “The USA knew that there were two concentration camps (in the area), but they had not been able to find them.” Albert Kosiek claimed to the SS men and the Red Cross representative that he was actually looking for the camps. But that was not the only swindle: “I made him (Häfliger) believe that I was the direct representative of the commanding general of the 11th Panzer Division.”

37,000 people rescued

“I then asked my commandant over the radio for permission to go into the camp and emphasized that 1,600 prisoners were dependent on us for a quick liberation,” Albert Kosiek told the magazine. It later turned out that on that day around 25,000 people had been liberated from the Gusen concentration camp and around 12,000 people from the Mauthausen concentration camp. However, according to the Mauthausen Memorial, a few thousand of them died in the months after liberation as a result of their poor health, despite receiving medical treatment.

• From the archive: When US troops liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp

After the permission had been granted, Kosiek’s troops first liberated the Gusen concentration camp, then the one in Mauthausen. Kosiek described the arrival in the camp as follows: “Behind the fence (of the concentration camp) were hundreds of people who went crazy with joy when they saw us. It’s a look I’ll never forget. Some were only covered with blankets, others were completely naked and formed the most emaciated bunch I have ever seen.” And he also reported: “In the back of the courtyard, the corpses were piled up in a pile.”

The lingering smell of the corpses

For a long time, his son Paul knew very little about it, as he told the APA. “Of course he talked to my mother,” says Paul Kosiek. “But he never talked to us children about his experiences.”

His father was by no means boastful, says Paul Kosiek, but modest. “When someone asked him about it (about the liberation), he talked about it” - but Albert never began to talk about it on his own. Paul Kosiek suspects that his father did not want to recall the terrible memories. “My mother told us (children) that it took a very long time for my father to lose the smell of the corpses,” he says. Sandy Kosiek adds: “It’s almost like PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). They (the soldiers) have been through a lot, but never talked about it. Today, on the other hand, you have to go to psychotherapy” to talk about it.

Letters to the Liberator

Albert Kosiek used his weapon only once in the course of the liberation, reports Paul Kosiek - and that was when he shot into the ceiling of the kitchen of the Mauthausen camp to ensure peace among the agitated prisoners. In the course of the conversation with the APA, Paul Kosiek shows a number of artifacts related to the liberation, such as books with dedications, but above all letters from former inmates of the concentration camp to Albert Kosiek. “Many prisoners have given their prisoner number at the end of their texts. They wanted the world to know that they were prisoners,” says Paul Kosiek. One of them wrote that he would never forget what Albert Kosiek said to him when he opened the gates: “’People, you are free’”.

• From the archive: This marathon winner was not a runner

An inmate, who was 13 years old on May 5, 1945, promised that he would join the US Army in gratitude for the liberation. This man was later taken prisoner in the Korean War and then received the Medal of Honor - the highest military award of the USA. He dedicated this medal to Albert Kosiek, “because if it hadn’t been for my father, he wouldn’t be alive anymore.” Now Paul Kosiek is trying to have his father awarded the Medal of Honor, and if possible also a badge of merit in Austria.

Paul Kosiek says that the Nazis took his father to the safe of the concentration camp at that time. There was money and valuables. “’I could have been a millionaire,’” his father said. But he ordered the Nazis to close the doors: “’This is not mine. It belongs to the dead over whom the rats crawl and to the people we have just freed,” Paul Kosiek quotes his ancestor. “That kind of person was my father,” he concludes. “It wasn’t about him.”

“The real hero is my father”

Paul Kosiek knew that his father was a war hero. “But I didn’t know the scope,” he says regretfully. He only became aware of this when his father went to Austria in 1980 on the occasion of the liberation celebrations. In 1975, Albert Kosiek was already in the country for the same occasion. At that time, former prisoners kissed him and wanted his shirt buttons.

“I am very proud of my father,” says Paul Kosiek, who will take part in the festivities in Upper Austria together with his wife this year. He was also there two years ago. He felt joy and sadness, says Kosiek. “People think baseball or football players are heroes, but the real hero is my father.”

After World War II, Albert Kosiek worked for a telecommunications engineering company in Chicago. Later he opened a hairdresser’s shop. This became more difficult when people grew long hair, jokes Paul Kosiek. His father died in 1980.

Asked whether he sees his father’s legacy threatened by the strengthening of right-wing and right-wing extremist parties, Paul Kosiek says: “I hope not. If politics is involved, I hope to God that freedom of expression will not be taken away. A government shouldn’t tell you who you can or can’t support. There are always two sides that people choose. My father would stand up for love, not hate. We should all value each other’s lives. We are all different.”

“We celebrate this story because it is the truth,” says Kosiek. “No one should forget that this ever happened. I remember my dad saying, ‘I just can’t believe people do what I saw to other people.’”

The Resource Empire: Economic Hit Men, Debt Traps & the $75 Trillion Russia-Ukraine Prize

July 15, 2026 | Global Economics & Geostrategy Desk

The Russia-Ukraine war is not primarily a clash of ideologies or a simple territorial dispute. It is a raw, high-stakes contest over the control of Eurasia’s most strategically vital natural resources-a modern manifestation of the economic hit man (EHM) system exposed in John Perkins’ The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Russia sits atop an estimated $75 trillion treasure trove of oil, gas, coal, rare earths, metals, timber, and arable land-the world’s largest by far. Ukraine holds Europe’s richest concentration of critical minerals (lithium, rare earths, titanium, uranium, graphite) plus the planet’s most fertile black soil breadbasket. The conflict has become a proxy battleground where Western financial institutions, corporations, and intelligence networks employ updated versions of the debt, deception, and coercion tactics Perkins described from his time inside the system.

The Perkins Framework: How EHMs Built the Modern Death Economy

Perkins, a former chief economist at a major international consulting firm, confessed that EHMs are highly paid professionals who funnel World Bank, USAID, and other “aid” money into massive infrastructure projects built by U.S. (and allied) engineering giants. The money rarely leaves Western bank accounts- it cycles back to corporations like Bechtel, Halliburton, or their successors. Recipient countries are saddled with unpayable debt. When they default, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrives with “structural adjustment” demands: privatize state assets, sell resources at fire-sale prices to foreign corporations, cut social spending, and align foreign policy with Washington.

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Tools of the trade, per Perkins’ account: fraudulent econometric models that “prove” projects will generate growth (they enrich local elites and foreign firms while skewing statistics); rigged elections or political pressure; payoffs and extortion; sexual compromise; and, when EHMs fail, CIA-backed “jackals” for coups or assassinations, followed by overt military intervention. The result is a death economy-one built on perpetual debt, resource extraction, militarization, and environmental destruction-rather than a life economy that serves people and the planet.

This system, Perkins warned, metastasized after 2004. It no longer targets only poor developing nations; it has come home to the United States and now contends with a multipolar world. Today’s EHMs often wear suits in Fortune 500 boardrooms, investment banks, and “reconstruction” funds. Jackals operate through NGOs, color revolutions, sanctions regimes, and hybrid warfare. The military remains the final enforcer.

Russia’s $75 Trillion Natural Resource Fortress

Russia possesses the planet’s most valuable natural resource endowment. Authoritative estimates, including Statista data widely cited through 2025–2026, place the total at $75 trillion-far ahead of the United States (~$45T), Saudi Arabia (~$34T), and others. This includes:

- Natural gas: World’s largest reserves (~1,688 trillion cubic feet, roughly one-third of global total). Russia was long the dominant supplier to Europe.

- Oil: Massive proven reserves and production capacity.

- Coal: Among the world’s largest recoverable reserves.

- Strategic metals: Dominant or leading positions in nickel, palladium (~40% of global supply), platinum-group metals, copper, and significant rare earth elements, uranium, titanium, and gold.

- Other: Vast timber (largest forests), fresh water, and arable land.

These resources have funded Russia’s sovereign power, military modernization, and ability to weather Western sanctions through pivots to China, India, and parallel trade systems. Energy exports historically provided the hard currency backbone. Critical minerals position Russia as a swing supplier in the global race for batteries, EVs, renewables, semiconductors, and defense technologies-areas where China currently dominates processing but Russia holds upstream leverage.

Russia’s resource wealth explains its resistance to full integration into the Western-led financial and corporate order Perkins described. A nation this endowed cannot be easily “hit” with debt traps or IMF diktats. Instead, the response has been sanctions (economic warfare targeting resource revenues), technology denial, and proxy conflict to degrade its power projection and resource monetization.

Ukraine: Europe’s Critical Minerals Powerhouse and the New Prize

Ukraine is no resource-poor pawn. It holds Europe’s largest deposits of several critical raw materials (CRMs) essential for the green transition, AI/data centers, and defense supply chains. Pre-war assessments identified ~20,000 mineral deposits, including 117 of the 120 most globally used metals and minerals. Key assets include:

Lithium: Among Europe’s largest known reserves; multiple deposits in the east (some now Russian-controlled).

Rare earth elements and other CRMs: Significant untapped or underdeveloped deposits of graphite, beryllium, tantalum, zirconium, titanium, uranium (Europe’s largest reserves), gallium, and neon (critical for semiconductor manufacturing).

Traditional resources: World-class iron ore and manganese; massive coal reserves in Donbas; natural gas fields in the Dnieper-Donetsk basin and Black Sea shelf (much of the latter now under Russian influence or control).

Agricultural superpower: One-third of the world’s chernozem (black soil); a top global exporter of wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and barley- “Europe’s breadbasket.”

Total mineral wealth estimates have ranged from $12–15+ trillion depending on valuation methodology and inclusion of occupied territories. Russia moved quickly in 2022 to secure the resource-rich east and south (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Crimea). By early 2025 analyses, Russia controlled the bulk of Ukraine’s coal, significant gas/oil fields, and key lithium/rare earth sites. Russian strategy explicitly integrates occupied mineral complexes into its own economy.

Western response has included a 2025 U.S.-Ukraine minerals/reconstruction deal (structured around revenue sharing from future extraction while affirming Ukrainian ownership). This ties Ukrainian resources to Western supply-chain security and provides a mechanism for U.S. firms and capital to participate in post-war development- classic EHM-era logic updated for critical minerals.

The War as Resource Conflict in the EHM Era

The 2022 full-scale invasion (building on 2014 Crimea/Donbas actions) aligns with resource and strategic denial objectives:

- Securing a land corridor to Crimea and control of the Sea of Azov/Black Sea approaches.

- Integrating Donbas industrial and mineral base.

- Preventing Ukraine from becoming a fully Western-aligned platform for resource development, NATO infrastructure, and alternative energy transit that bypasses Russia.

- Denying the West easy access to Ukrainian critical minerals that could reduce dependence on Chinese processing or Russian supply.

Pre-war dynamics echo Perkins’ playbook. Post-2014 Maidan events (widely viewed in Moscow as Western-backed regime change) brought IMF programs, EU association agreements, and pushes for privatization and market opening. Foreign investment flowed into agriculture (large land acquisitions by Western-linked funds) and energy. These moves can be read as soft-power attempts to pull Ukraine into the corporatocratic orbit- debt and “reform” conditionality creating long-term leverage.

When integration stalled and Russia pushed back, the toolkit escalated: massive Western sanctions targeting Russia’s resource revenues (oil price caps, SWIFT restrictions, technology embargoes); military aid as proxy enforcement; and now explicit minerals-for-security economic pacts. Europe’s sudden loss of cheap Russian gas supercharged U.S. LNG exports and accelerated (sometimes costly) green transition investments-benefiting certain corporate interests while imposing pain on European industry and households.

This is the death economy in action: trillions in global economic costs, destroyed infrastructure and lives, environmental damage from intensified mining/warfare, and diversion of capital into armaments rather than sustainable development. Both sides’ military-industrial and resource-linked elites capture gains; ordinary citizens and ecosystems bear the costs.

Multipolar Resistance and the Future of the System

Russia’s ability to survive and adapt sanctions-rerouting oil/gas to Asia, building domestic capacity, deepening BRICS+ ties with China and others-demonstrates the limits of the old EHM model against a nuclear-armed resource superpower. China employs its own state-capitalist variant (Belt and Road debt diplomacy) while competing for the same critical minerals. The result is a fracturing global order where resource nationalism and bloc economics challenge the post-Cold War corporatocratic consensus.

Perkins’ updated message in the 2016 edition remains urgent: the cancer has spread. Awareness is the first step. The book ends with documentation of EHM activity post-2004 and practical calls to action-shifting from death-economy complicity to building life economies through conscious consumption, support for local and cooperative models, political engagement, and rejection of predatory debt and extraction paradigms.

Strategic Takeaways for 2026 and Beyond

1. Resource control is the hidden grammar of geopolitics. The $75T Russian prize and Ukraine’s critical minerals explain why compromise remains elusive and why external powers remain deeply invested.

2. Debt and “aid” remain primary weapons. Watch reconstruction funds, IMF/World Bank programs, and public-private partnerships in Ukraine and elsewhere for EHM signatures.

3. Critical minerals are the new oil. The green/AI/defense transition makes lithium, rare earths, graphite, and uranium battlegrounds. Diversification away from China benefits those who control alternative sources-or can coerce access.

4. Multipolarity is real and resource-backed. Russia and China are not easily disciplined by the old playbook. Expect continued hybrid competition over supply chains, currencies, and influence in the Global South.

5. The choice remains ours. As Perkins emphasized, the EHMs succeed only when populations look away or collaborate. Individual and collective action- informed scrutiny of narratives, support for transparent governance and sustainable development, divestment from predatory models-can tilt the balance toward a life economy.

The Russia-Ukraine war is a brutal reminder that the game Perkins confessed to playing decades ago has evolved but not disappeared. The stakes are now planetary: who controls the minerals that will power (or poison) the future, and whether humanity can transition from extraction and debt slavery to stewardship and shared prosperity. The confessions continue- the question is whether we will finally act on them.

Sources & Further Reading: Perkins’ The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (core framework); Statista/Visual Capitalist resource valuations; Ukrainian geological surveys and Conflict & Environment Observatory mapping; analyses from CSIS, SIPRI, and independent geopolitical reporting on minerals deals and occupied territory economics. Data current as of mid-2026 reporting.

This intelligence synthesis prioritizes pattern recognition across economics, resources, and power structures for decision-makers seeking clarity beyond surface narratives.

Paweł Wójcik & Lucas Webber

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A soldier stands at a damaged house in Bosso military camp on June 17, 2016, following attacks by Boko Haram fighters. (Getty Images)

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On March 25, 2026, Spanish and Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of a small Islamic State cell operating in both countries. Based between Tangiers in Morrocco and Mallorca in Spain, the three-person cell seems to have had a dual role, according to readouts from authorities in both countries. First, it provided logistical and financial support to two key Islamic State affiliates, the Islamic State’s Sahel Province (ISSP) and the Islamic State in Somalia (IS-S). In addition, the leader of the cell, whom authorities apprehended in Mallorca, was reportedly planning lone-actor-style attacks in Spain. The Spanish police believed the whole cell was part of a coordinated structure dedicated to financing, logistics, and operational planning.^[1]

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The existence of the Spanish-Moroccan cell with multiple roles fits a consistent pattern that has emerged in recent years. The Islamic State on the African continent is divided into multiple provincial affiliates overseen by a few overarching bureaucratic structures that advise and/or administer major affairs in designated zones.^[2] It has apparently been using the Maghreb to support its wings in West and East Africa. This fits into a broader pattern in which provincial African affiliates support far-flung operations of the Islamic State via financing or logistics despite operating principally in rural areas,^[3] and smaller cells on the continent (officially unconnected to the larger provincial insurgencies) likewise facilitate international plots.^[4] As we argue in this article, the ISSP risks becoming a more important node in the global Islamic State architecture. It may even develop its own capacity for external operations as a result of its growing integration with a regional Islamic State office (al-Furqan), coordination with neighboring provinces, and repurposing of historical trans-Saharan militant and smuggling networks for global operations.^[5]

The ISSP has evolved through multiple stages since 2016. Having now consolidated a degree of territory and manpower in the Sahel, the province may directly support the global ambitions of the organization. The Islamic State’s overall leadership, for its part, hasn’t been able to launch any major international operations since 2024, when the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, facilitated and planned several attacks in the West.^[6] The group’s leadership may therefore be looking for new provinces to serve as launchpads for external attacks. With this background in mind, observers should not downplay the arrests of cells in Spain and Morocco, even if they still lack more specific details about the nature of the plots those cells were involved in.

This article aims to assess ISSP’s historical trajectory up to the present day in light of an emerging pattern in other Islamic State affiliates in Africa and Asia. The pattern suggests the evolution ISSP is undergoing creates a risk of increasing transnationalization. Europe, in particular, will likely be at greater risk of violence directed, facilitated, or inspired by ISSP in the coming years. While ISSP’s present role in external operations remains uncertain, we argue that it would be risky to assume this group will remain a localized jihadist insurgency. In the following sections, we provide an overview of ISSP’s historical evolution and analyze the available evidence, incomplete as it may be, of the group’s growing external ambitions.

Origins, History, Background

ISSP’s beginnings can be traced to former al-Qaeda affiliated groups that operated in Algeria, Libya, and Mali in the early and mid-2010s, specifically the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), which was connected to al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).^[7] These groups were themselves descended from the remnants of groups that had fought in the Algerian civil war in the 1990s.

The founding leader of ISSP was Abu Adnan Walid al-Sahrawi. First a member of the secular Western Saharan rebel movement Polisario Front, al-Sahrawi joined MUJAO in the early 2010s and then joined al-Mourabitoune, a merger group consisting of MUJAO and another AQIM-linked jihadist group. In May 2015, as the Islamic State was at its height in the Middle East and was attracting defections from al-Qaeda–aligned jihadists the world over, al-Sahrawi pledged an oath of allegiance (bay’ah) to then-Caliph of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamic State accepted the pledge in October 2016, releasing the video of Sahrawi’s bay’ah as he stood among a small group of militants, signifying the Islamic State’s humble beginnings in the Sahel.^[8]

ISSP’s lineage connects the present movement to longstanding trans-Saharan networks and relationships, particularly involving Arabs and Tuaregs in northern Mali and Niger. The group’s current operational zones coincide with old pastoral and smuggling networks, and al-Sahrawi reserved most of its leadership spots for Sahrawis and Arabs.^[9] ISSP formed in 2015 as a splinter of these existing jihadist networks and subsequently began operating in parts of Gao and Menaka provinces in Mali. At this time, it was already operating in familiar terrain. The group knew many of the clan networks and smuggling structures that AQIM and MUJAO had long invested in, though it took several years of hard-fought gains to win over many of these recruiting and logistical networks from the more entrenched al-Qaeda affiliates.^[10] The logistical infrastructure of the current ISSP threat therefore predates the organization by decades.

Initially known as the Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS), the group quickly established itself in border areas of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, the so-called Liptako-Gourma triangle. Its first major attempted operation was a failed prison break in Koutoukale outside the Nigerien capital of Niamey on October 17, 2016.^[11] A year later, in October 2017, the group gained greater international notoriety after its fighters ambushed a patrol of U.S. and Nigerien special forces in Niger’s remote region of Tongo-Tongo, resulting in the death of four U.S. soldiers. The Islamic State’s media outlets heavily publicized that attack and published footage from a body camera worn by one of the deceased American soldiers.^[12] The attack prompted the U.S. military to revise the posture of its troops in Niger to confine them to training and drone operation rather than patrols and combat operations.^[13]

ISGS continued to grow in the late 2010s and eventually came into conflict with its al-Qaeda rivals in the Sahel, who had reorganized under the umbrella group JNIM in 2017. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) noted a significant uptick of armed incidents involving ISGS, from a handful of incidents in 2017 to dozens in 2018 and 2019 to over 100 from 2020 onward. The latter correlated with the start of the group’s protracted conflict with JNIM.^[14] Yet in the first few years of ISSP’s existence, the Sahel had witnessed an uneasy truce between al-Qaeda/JNIM-affiliated forces and the small Islamic State splinter, which researchers called “the Sahelian exception” to distinguish it from the broader global trend of conflict between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates across Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan at the time.^[15] This exception ended when ISGS became too strong for JNIM to ignore and forced JNIM to push back.^[16]

The Islamic State subordinated ISGS in 2019 under the umbrella of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the powerful affiliate based in northeastern Nigeria, to facilitate its own expansion across West Africa. While ISGS maintained its autonomy, it benefited from resources and coordination with ISWAP under this organizational restructuring.^[17]

As early as 2019, United Nations (UN) experts reported that ISWAP and ISGS may have coordinated in a joint assault in Tongo-Tongo in May of that year. They also mentioned unverified reports that the two provincial affiliates were establishing a coordination cell in Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria, presaging increased coordination in northwestern Nigeria in the 2020s.^[18] Access to commercial routes from northern Nigeria enabled the group to supply its fighters in Mali and Niger with motorcycles and other vital supplies, circumventing motorcycle bans in parts of the Sahel and providing cheap mobile transport as it sought to overrun remote security outposts and expand its footprint across the two countries.^[19]

ISGS was at this time trying to develop multiple avenues to expand beyond the Sahel. In February 2022, UN experts first reported claims of possible ISGS warehouses in Ghana, Togo, and Benin that were used to supply the group’s fighters further north in the Sahel. They also reported supposed sightings of ISGS fighters in Benin, where JNIM was increasingly active at the time (and has been since).^[20] In March of that year, the Islamic State administratively renamed its Sahelian affiliate ISSP, distinguishing it from ISWAP and “elevating” the Sahel to provincial status. Then, in July, ISSP claimed its first attacks in Benin, following in JNIM’s footsteps.^[21]

However, a combination of Western counterterrorism efforts and jihadist infighting checked the extent to which ISGS could expand its territory. U.S. forces regularly monitored and bombed the Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya, which was an important logistics hub for both ISWAP and ISSP.^[22] The French military had deployed several thousand soldiers to Mali since 2013 and helped check the advance of the ISGS through an offensive launched in 2020, though it could not eliminate the group altogether. JNIM, meanwhile, was also a major factor in preventing ISGS from gaining ground, and both groups suffered hundreds of casualties in factional clashes from 2020 onward.^[23]

The Coup Belt and Consequences of Armed Takeovers

Any progress against ISGS proved short-lived, however. Political and geopolitical changes between 2020 and 2023 allowed ISGS and JNIM not only to survive the onslaught of foreign and local military pressure but also to expand in different directions. Successive coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, Burkina Faso in early and late 2022, and, finally, in Niger in July 2023 contributed to a security vacuum that JNIM and ISGS were quick to exploit.^[24]

Malian junta leader Assimi Goïta’s most consequential decision was to expel French forces operating in the country and invite the Russian Wagner Group in their stead. This expulsion had military as well as political effects on Mali’s internal security. The Russian mercenaries began arriving in 2021, quickly proving themselves a violent force willing to conduct mass executions of civilians.^[25] Their arrival has significantly changed how local forces operate against various communities, particularly minority groups such as Tuaregs and Peul, whom authorities had long suspected of being infiltrated by jihadists. No longer constrained by French oversight but instead emboldened by Wagner, Malian forces engaged in indiscriminate violence against these communities, worsening popular grievances against the state.^[26] In Burkina Faso, the new military regime from late 2022 onward took a similar approach (albeit without direct Wagner support), engaging in widespread violence against ethnic Peul that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties.^[27]

When the French withdrew from Mali in 2022, they left behind major bases and took important intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities with them that Wagner could not replace. Goïta also asked MINUSMA, a UN peacekeeping force, to leave in 2023, which undermined a fragile truce in the north between the Malian state and Tuareg rebels (albeit a truce that was deeply unpopular among many Malians).^[28]

The military regime in Burkina Faso ordered the French to leave soon after Paris left Mali, and when the final coup occurred in Niger in July 2023, the new junta in Niamey followed the other two military governments in asking French and U.S. forces to withdraw. All three juntas withdrew from the G5-Sahel, a regional military alliance supported by the EU and France, effectively dissolving the organization.^[29] The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Niger was particularly significant given the extensive ISR capabilities they took with them, leaving the new Nigerien junta lacking good coverage of its borders and key smuggling zones, especially the tri-border region with Libya and Chad known as the Salvador Triangle.^[30] Moreover, the palace coup that overthrew President Bazoum in Niger in July 2023 ended one of the few relatively calibrated and effective strategies at containing violence in the Sahel: Bazoum had balanced hard power with limited dialogue with jihadists as well as Western-supported demobilization and development programs. These efforts had helped to make Niger the only Sahelian state in which violence was on the decline in the first half of 2023.^[31] The military junta that replaced Bazoum, by contrast, embraced the same militaristic and dragnet approach to the conflict as the military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso.

ISSP Expands Geographically

These changing political conditions across the Sahel facilitated an expansion by both JNIM and ISSP that was already underway by 2021. In August 2023, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies assessed that the number of people killed in Mali and Burkina Faso had tripled since January 2022 and that JNIM and ISSP had expanded their areas of operation.^[32] The picture in Niger likewise deteriorated after the coup there; jihadists increased their presence in southwestern Niger and entrenched themselves across the Niger–Nigeria border.^[33]

Repeated attempts at leadership decapitation have not effectively stymied ISSP’s expansion. French forces killed al-Sahrawi, the first emir of ISGS/ISSP, in an air strike in the tri-border region between Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in August 2021.^[34] As the historical records of conflicts in the Sahel, Somalia, Afghanistan, and other areas show, eliminating a founder or a key operative may help disrupt his networks. But jihadists tend to decentralize their group infrastructure, which makes them resilient to targeted strikes as commanders are swiftly replaced.

By June 2024, UN experts estimated ISSP’s strength at 2,000–3,000 fighters conducting sustained operations across parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger while slowly entrenching their presence in northwestern Nigeria (ISWAP may have been aiding ISSP in this latter effort).^[35] These manpower figures are rough estimates given the methodological challenges of tracking group expansion. But the overall trendlines point to a more organizationally capable group that is more globally integrated within the Islamic State’s worldwide structure than ever before.

In June 2025, ISSP conducted a multi-zone offensive in Niger, underscoring its expansion there following similar efforts to expand in Mali’s Menaka and Burkina Faso’s Dori region.^[36] In each case, it sought to entrench its hold over rural areas and start applying its governance (discussed further in the next section). An offensive in April 2026 by JNIM and Tuareg rebels in Kidal in northern Mali similarly helped ISSP conduct a brief incursion into the towns of Labbezanga and the capital of Menaka region before withdrawing under Russian military pressure.^[37] In May 2026, the Islamic State confirmed analysts’ long-standing speculation for the first time in its al-Naba’ newsletter: ISSP had expanded into northwestern Nigeria via the Niger border.^[38] While claiming attacks in Sokoto and Kebbi states from previous months, the group admitted that the lack of reporting of its advances into that part of Nigeria was a deliberate strategy to maintain operational security.^[39] The announcement came some six months after U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) conducted its first air strike in Nigeria, hitting what it described as “ISIS camps” in Sokoto state on Christmas day.^[40] These strikes and ISSP’s subsequent public acknowledgment of operations in northwestern Nigeria point to a growing convergence of jihadist conflicts in West Africa that observers have long feared.

Governance and Legitimacy

When analyzing ISSP’s rise, it is important to acknowledge that its strength increasingly comes from governance measures. Though often brutal compared to those of its major rival, JNIM, such measures allow the group to enforce internal discipline and consolidate influence over many of the territories it operates in. This governance involves collecting taxes, managing markets, administering justice (particularly through Hisbah morality police), and enforcing sharia law, mirroring the former caliphate’s administrative structures.^[41] According to local reports from Mali’s Menaka region, the organization has hired masons to rehabilitate damaged infrastructure in villages under its rule, maintained water reservoirs, and established new rules aimed at bolstering the local economy, indicating an evolution as the group attempts to present a more agreeable image to local populations.^[42] Analysts from the International Crisis Group have found similar results from field research in Tillaberi province in Niger, including evidence that some women support ISSP’s rule despite the strict gender norms they enforce. The financial opportunities that ISSP provides also make the group appealing to young men in rural communities who have often been priced out of the marriage market through high bride prices.^[43]

Notably, ISWAP, arguably the most powerful Islamic State affiliate in the world today, developed a similar system of governance in the late 2010s, which likely served as a useful example for the Sahel wing.^[44] It is possible that ISSP also adopted elements of governance from the Islamic State’s Libyan province, which briefly controlled several coastal cities in the country in the mid-2010s. The Libyan group has a long history of advising ISWAP on military-technical matters,^[45] which may have, in turn, influenced ISWAP’s guidance toward ISSP via the coordination of the regional al-Furqan office.

Despite some advances in recent years toward a slightly more “population-centric” strategy, ISSP rules through coercion and fear as much as through legitimacy. The group’s security and intelligence wing, known as Amniyat and modeled after the internal security apparatus the Islamic State previously employed in its supposed caliphate, monitors the actions and movement of populations under the group’s control and conducts reconnaissance in new frontiers of expansion.^[46] Whether by coercion, legitimacy-building, or some combination of the two, territorial control and influence over local populations allow ISSP to tap into more recruiting networks and present itself as a successful jihadist statelet within the Islamic State information ecosystem. For example, in an edition of al-Naba’ from 2024, the Islamic State claimed that ISSP had distributed over 27,000 pamphlets covering jurisprudence, creed, and various other topics alongside audio recordings for the illiterate in its territory in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The article also highlighted how ISSP’s Hisbah had delivered “sharia-approved” clothing for women.^[47] While these claims cannot be independently verified, they point to ISSP’s desire to present itself as emulating the same modus operandi known from the earlier days of the “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.^[48]

The Architecture of Internationalization

According to Moroccan intelligence, before his death in a French airstrike in 2021, al-Sahrawi had already constructed ISSP’s external operations wing. This claim was revealed in a February 2025 briefing by the director of the Moroccan intelligence service, in which he announced the arrest of a complex ISSP-operated network in nine Moroccan cities. This cell had in recent weeks smuggled weapons from Mali into the country for imminent terrorist plots (according to the director, the weapons were wrapped in Malian newspapers dated from late January 2025). According to Moroccan authorities, the cell had first operated under the guidance of al-Sahrawi and, after al-Sahrawi’s death, had been managed by a Libyan Sahel-based commander known as Abderrahmane Sahraoui who acted as the head of ISSP’s External Operations Committee.^[49] These claims by the Moroccan authorities would benefit from further verification, but it is notable that independent reporting from Mali indicates the creation of an Amniyat (internal security) wing within ISSP in recent years.^[50] The Amniyat has held external attack planning roles within other “provinces” of the Islamic State, including in Syria during the height of the “caliphate.”^[51] It is therefore likely that any External Operations Committee operates under the Amniyat.

Libya’s role in facilitating ISSP operations—and the Islamic State’s ambitions in Africa more broadly—is multifaceted. Islamic State cells in Libya reportedly engage in illicit dollar trading, infiltrate online spaces including TikTok to spread propaganda and recruit, and facilitate the smuggling of jihadists from the Middle East or elsewhere into/through Africa, including to Islamic State camps in Somalia, the Sahel, or Lake Chad Basin.^[52]

The Libyan role in this architecture has deep roots. The Islamic State’s central leadership had dispatched a significant contingent of fighters from Iraq to Libya in 2014, establishing a hub for African and Mediterranean operations.^[53] After American and European air strikes in support of local forces pushed the Islamic State from Libyan cities like Sirte in 2016, the remnant Islamic State-Libya networks maintained logistical connectivity with Sahelian affiliates. Mentions of Abu Adnan Walid al-Sahrawi’s links to Libya go back at least as far as 2017, when Libya was still a key theater of the Islamic State.^[54] Al-Sahrawi himself stated in one of his interviews in Islamic State’s weekly al-Naba’ that Libya was a part of an interconnected axis that enables and supports interaction between Islamic State branches, among them the Nigerian and Sahelian branches.^[55] With the decline of the Islamic State in Libya since the mid-2010s, al-Anfal, the regional office previously stationed there, was relegated to al-Furqan, which expanded to include Libya in 2024.^[56] In 2023, the U.S. Department of State designated Abu Bakr al-Minuki, a Nigerian ISWAP commander, as a senior leader in al-Furqan and suggested he was based in ISSP territory, indicating he may have relocated from Nigeria.^[57]

By early 2026, the UN Monitoring Team reported that al-Minuki may have been promoted to the overall head of the General Directors of Provinces, following earlier reports that he may have been elevated to a role on the Islamic State’s Global Shura Council alongside longtime ISWAP leader Abu Musab al-Barnawi.^[58] On the other side of the continent, the Somalia-based al-Karrar office, led by the founder of IS-S, Abdulqadir Mumin, has overseen the coordination of Islamic State activities across a wide swath of eastern, central, and southern Africa and has been implicated in financial and logistical support for Islamic State operations further afield in the Middle East and beyond.^[59] These two offices appear to be connected in multiple ways: The suspects arrested by Moroccan authorities in Tangiers in March 2026, mentioned at the start of this article, were reportedly involved in a financing enterprise that combined support for ISSP and IS-S, gathering funds and then sending them to both affiliates. We cannot reliably determine which node in the Islamic State structure commanded this cell, however.

In addition to Libya and the Lake Chad Basin, Sudan has emerged as a logistical and financial base for the Islamic State, likely serving to facilitate the movement of fighters and funds across cells in Africa and the Middle East.^[60] Ethiopian authorities have also recently arrested large cells purportedly linked to the Islamic State,^[61] while Ethiopians constitute a major source of recruits within IS-S.^[62] The ongoing civil war in Sudan, combined with persistent instability in Libya and Ethiopia, create a volatile regional environment that Islamic State cells can exploit despite intermittent counterterrorism pressure, including U.S. air strikes in places like Puntland in northern Somalia and, more recently, a U.S.-Nigerian special forces raid that killed al-Minuki in May 2026.^[63] (It remains to be seen how his death may disrupt Islamic State plans and what changes may result.)

While the exact relationship between the different Islamic State nodes in western, central, and eastern Africa remains difficult to parse, one thing is becoming clearer: Coordination is growing between ISSP and ISWAP under the auspices of the al-Furqan office. ISSP’s bold attack on the airport in Niamey in January 2026 appeared to show this coordination given the accents of the fighters in the official Islamic State attack video and the tactics they employed, including the use of armed drones.^[64] West Africa is therefore witnessing an increasingly coordinated and operationally effective alliance between the Islamic State insurgencies in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin at the same time as logistical and financial cells remain active from Morocco to Libya, Sudan, and Somalia.

Morocco and Spain

Both Morocco and Spain have emerged as an important hub connecting Islamic State affiliates in Africa with supporter networks in Europe.^[65] The Islamic State’s focus on this geography stems from several factors.

First, the historical Andalus, a Muslim-dominated region of the Iberian Peninsula that existed throughout the Middle Ages, holds an important part in the jihadist imaginary and often features in Islamic State propaganda.^[66] Secondly, the geography of the region is important for facilitating the movement of supporters and fighters. The land borders with Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s North African enclaves, provide the only overland crossings between African and European soil, which can be exploited as transit routes.^[67] The Islamic State has also drawn recruits from Morocco and Spain, the latter of which has a large North Africa diaspora, many of whom immigrated during the Syrian Civil War.^[68] Morocco, however, has been the greater source of recruits of the two to date. Even after the peak of the Syrian civil war, this trend continued: In January 2025, the Moroccan intelligence director stated that over 130 jihadists had departed the country for Islamic State affiliates Sahel and Somalia in recent years.^[69]

Arrests in both Morocco and Spain over the past six years point to a threat that has evolved. Between 2020 and 2022, authorities dismantled Islamic State networks that they described as involved in fundraising and recruitment but typically did not specify which provincial affiliate of the Islamic State these cells were supporting.^[70] That began to change from 2022 onward as Moroccan and Spanish authorities provided details of cells, mostly comprising North Africans, that were multiplying and increasingly attempting to facilitate the movement of fighters to the Sahel.^[71] The arrest of cells in March 2026 may represent a further evolution, as one of the suspects, based in the Spanish town of Mallorca, was reportedly planning attacks there while also overseeing an advanced logistics network across the two countries.^[72] This would indicate increasing sophistication of the Islamic State cells in the two countries, although it requires further cases to establish a genuine pattern rather than a single data point.

Nonetheless, the available evidence points to a growing two-way logistics and recruitment network in Spain and Morocco that could facilitate the movement of more foreign fighters to African affiliates or, conceivably, from African affiliates into Europe. Reliable figures on the presence of foreign fighters within Islamic State affiliates in Africa are lacking. However, research indicates that many fighters within IS-S are foreigners, albeit mostly East Africans.^[73] And over the past year, ISWAP has begun to release footage of Arab and North African fighters in its camps for the first time.^[74] Coupled with the reports of various Islamic State-linked cells that were attempting to move individuals into Mali, and against the broader backdrop of long-standing connections between ISSP and Libyan and North African militant networks, our picture of the foreign fighter presence within Africa’s Islamic State affiliates may be highly incomplete.^[75] U.S. counterterrorism operations in Africa, particularly in Somalia and more recently in Nigeria, may also result in shifts in foreign fighter migration on the continent via these nodes described above.

Conclusion

The regional security picture in the Sahel is dispiriting. Recent events in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria are a source of major concern. In January 2026, ISSP, apparently supported by ISWAP fighters (as noted previously), launched a daring attack on the international airport in Niamey in which they destroyed several aircraft.^[76] In April 2026, JNIM and its allies in the Tuareg FLA rebel group launched coordinated assaults on key towns in Mali, including the capital Bamako. While the militants did not ultimately seize Bamako, they successfully took control of several large towns and killed Mali’s defense minister.^[77] ISSP took advantage of the chaos to temporarily seize certain towns in Mali when Malian military and Africa Corps mercenaries withdrew.^[78] Given lingering questions about the size and role of foreign fighters within ISSP, there is reason to worry that these worsening local conditions in the Sahel could, over time, generate new threats outside the region. The threat posed by foreign fighter “returnees” to their country of origin is always difficult to predict, but it is notable that Europe has already dealt with this problem before. For example, the jihadists who attacked the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017 had previously fought in Libya.^[79]

The existing regional and international security mechanisms have the capacity to contain this growing threat, but it will require sustained focus and energy. The Morocco–Spain bilateral security relationship is the most important counterterrorism mechanism currently preventing ISSP’s Moroccan and Spanish networks from executing attacks. Its operational model—consisting of 31 joint operations since 2014 as well as 150 arrests and continuous intelligence sharing—is an encouraging example of a decade-long investment.^[80]

U.S. airstrikes against suspected ISSP militants in northwestern Nigeria in December 2025 demonstrate that the United States retains the capacity and will for targeted action against Islamic State infrastructure in West Africa even after the loss of the Agadez base in 2023. That capacity should be sustained and expanded through alternative basing and intelligence arrangements. The Ivory Coast–based ISR collection that enabled the Sokoto strikes suggests one model, while support of French special forces in forest operations in Benin suggests another.^[81] Policymakers should resist the temptation to frame counterterrorism options in Africa exclusively through the lens of a large-footprint presence; the post-Agadez evidence suggests targeted action from alternative platforms remains possible and effective. The logistics corridors within Libya require sustained policy attention of a sort they are not currently receiving. Any serious long-term strategy for containing the ISSP cannot succeed without progress in stabilizing Libya. The transnational nature of threats from the Sahel also requires increasing the sharing of intelligence (including financial intelligence) between Europe and North Africa and closing jurisdictional gaps between Moroccan and European legal frameworks.^[82]

ISSP is certainly not, as of 2026, an international threat on par with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during the latter’s operational height in the mid-2010s. Cells that Moroccan and/or Spanish authorities have arrested have ranged in size from a handful to a dozen members. But the barriers to broader internationalization are lower than they were a few years ago. ISSP is already well linked to logistics corridors that span Africa and connect to Europe, and there is no guarantee that the foreign fighters who move across these networks will choose to remain in Africa.

The threat is evolving, and nothing is certain—the demands of local expansion and competition with JNIM could mean ISSP remains focused on local objectives for the foreseeable future. But it is just as easy to imagine that a weakening of Islamic State affiliates elsewhere could lead the Islamic State’s leadership to encourage ISSP to facilitate international attacks. The question is whether the counterterrorism architecture that has so far prevented the Islamic State from striking more frequently in Europe can maintain its effectiveness as the threat matures. The answer to that question is likewise uncertain but is rooted in various policy choices as well as the West’s collective ability to understand this evolving threat.

Endnotes

1. Oumaima Moho Amer, “BCIJ Dismantles ISIS-Affiliated Cell Operating in Morocco and Spain,” Morocco World News, March 25, 2026, https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2026/03/284185/bcij-dismantles-isis-affiliated-cell-operating-in-morocco-and-spain; News Desk, “Spain and Morocco Arrest Three Suspects of Jihadist Cell, Mallorca Man ‘Planned Lone Wolf Attack,’ ” Spain in English, March 26, 2026, https://www.spainenglish.com/2026/03/26/spain-and-morocco-arrest-three-suspects-of-jihadist-cell-mallorca-man-planned-lone-wolf-attack. ↑

2. Tore Refslund Hamming, “The General Directorate of Provinces: Managing the Islamic State’s Global Network,” CTC Sentinel 16, no. 7 (July 2023): 20–27, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-general-directorate-of-provinces-managing-the-islamic-states-global-network; United Nations Security Council, Thirty-Seventh Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, UN Doc. S/2026/44 (UN Security Council, 2026), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2026/44. ↑

3. See, for example, the far-reaching financial networks based in the al-Karrar office in Somalia. Eric Schmitt, “Ties to Kabul Bombing Put ISIS Leader in Somalia in U.S. Cross Hairs,” New York Times, February 4, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/politics/isis-somalia-kabul-bombing.html. ↑

4. Benjamin Roger, “Islamic State Network That Wanted to Reach Europe Dismantled in Côte d’Ivoire and Madagascar,” Le Monde, November 25, 2024, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/11/25/an-islamic-state-network-that-wanted-to-reach-europe-has-been-dismantled-in-cote-d-ivoire-and-madagascar_6734016_4.html. ↑

5. “BCIJ Chief: Dismantled Terrorist Cell Was Part of ‘Daesh Sahel Wilaya’s’ Plan to Establish a Base in Morocco,” Assahifa English, February 24, 2025, https://www.assahifa.com/english/morocco/bcij-chief-dismantled-terrorist-cell-was-part-of-daesh-sahel-wilayas-plan-to-establish-a-base-in-morocco; Lucas Webber and Paweł Wójcik, “The Islamic State Sahel Threat Is Transnational,” Foreign Policy, March 31, 2026, https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/31/islamic-state-sahel-terrorism-issp-transnational-threat-mali-burkina-faso. ↑

6. Adrian Shtuni, “The Islamic State in 2025: An Evolving Threat Facing a Waning Global Response,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, July 11, 2025, https://icct.nl/publication/islamic-state-2025-evolving-threat-facing-waning-global-response; Nicolas Stockhammer and Colin P. Clarke, “Learning from Islamic State-Khorasan Province’s Recent Plots,” Lawfare, August 11, 2024, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/learning-from-islamic-state-khorasan-province-s-recent-plots. ↑

7. Thomas Joscelyn, “Confusion Surrounds West African Jihadists’ Loyalty to IS,” FDD’s Long War Journal, May 14, 2015, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/05/confusion-surrounds-west-african-jihadists-loyalty-to-islamic-state.php. ↑

8. Thomas Joscelyn and Caleb Weiss, “Islamic State Recognizes Oath of Allegiance from Jihadists in Mali,” FDD’s Long War Journal, October 31, 2016, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/10/islamic-state-recognizes-oath-of-allegiance-from-jihadists-in-west-africa.php. ↑

9. Héni Nsaibia, Newly Restructured, the Islamic State in the Sahel Aims for Regional Expansion (ACLED, 2024), https://acleddata.com/report/newly-restructured-islamic-state-sahel-aims-regional-expansion. ↑

10. Miguel Paradela-López and Alexandra Jima-González, “The 2012 Tuareg Uprising in Mali: An Analysis of AQIM’s, MUJAO’s, and Ansar Dine’s Access to Moral and Socio-Organizational Resources Under the Resource Mobilization Theory,” SAGE Open 14, no. 3 (July–September 2024): 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241257615. ↑

11. Caleb Weiss, “Niger Thwarts Jihadist Prison Break Attempt,” FDD’s Long War Journal, October 17, 2016, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/10/niger-thwarts-jihadist-prison-break-attempt.php. ↑

12. AFP, “ISIL Video of Niger Attack Highlights US Troops’ Vulnerability,” Al Jazeera, March 5, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/3/5/isil-video-of-niger-attack-highlights-us-troops-vulnerability ↑

13. Alice Hunt Friend, “DoD’s Report on the Investigation into the 2017 Ambush in Niger,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 15, 2018, https://www.csis.org/analysis/dods-report-investigation-2017-ambush-niger. ↑

14. Héni Nsaibia, IS Sahel’s Tactics Cause Mass, Indiscriminate Violence (ACLED, 2023), https://acleddata.com/report/sahels-tactics-cause-mass-indiscriminate-violence. ↑

15. Wassim Nasr, “ISIS in Africa: The End of the ‘Sahel Exception,’ ” New Lines Institute, June 2, 2020, https://newlinesinstitute.org/middle-east-center/isis-in-africa-the-end-of-the-sahel-exception. ↑

16. Héni Nsaibia and Caleb Weiss, “The End of the Sahelian Anomaly: How the Global Conflict Between the Islamic State and al-Qa’ida Finally Came to West Africa,” CTC Sentinel 13, no. 7 (July 2020): 1–14, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-end-of-the-sahelian-anomaly-how-the-global-conflict-between-the-islamic-state-and-al-qaida-finally-came-to-west-africa; Nasr, “ISIS in Africa”; Jared Thompson, “Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 15, 2021, https://www.csis.org/blogs/examining-extremism/examining-extremism-jamaat-nasr-al-islam-wal-muslimin. ↑

17. United Nations Security Council, Twenty-Fifth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals, Groups, Undertakings and Entities, UN Doc. S/2020/53 (United Nations, 2020), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2020/53; Benjamin Roger, “Tracking Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, West Africa’s Most Wanted Jihadist,” The Africa Report, February 12, 2020, https://www.theafricareport.com/23345/tracking-abu-walid-al-sahrawi-west-africas-most-wanted-jihadist. The Islamic State maintains regional offices for coordinating the activities of its different “provinces,” and the General Directorate of Provinces oversees these regional offices. ISSP and ISWAP both presently fall under the oversight of al-Furqan, the regional office for West Africa, meaning they coordinate closely even though they are no longer formally organized as one province for the purposes of, e.g., Islamic State Media and attack claims. Hamming, “The General Directorate of Provinces.” ↑

18. UN Security Council, Twenty-Fourth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals, Groups, Undertakings and Entities, UN Doc. S/2019/570 (UN, 2019), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2019/570. ↑

19. Eleanor Beevor, Motorbikes and Armed Groups in the Sahel: Anatomy of a Regional Market (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023), https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Eleanor-Beavor-Motorbikes-and-armed-groups-in-the-Sahel-anatomy-of-a-regional-market-GI-TOC-August-2023.pdf. ↑

20. UN Security Council, Twenty-Ninth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2610 (2021) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals, Groups, Undertakings and Entities, UN Doc. S/2022/83 (UN, 2022), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2022/83. ↑

21. Nsaibia, Newly Restructured Islamic State. ↑

22. Calibre Obscura, “An Explosive Renewal of IS in Libya?,” Hugo Kaaman (blog), September 17, 2021, https://hugokaaman.com/an-explosive-renewal-of-the-islamic-state-in-libya-guest-post. ↑

23. Nsaibia, IS Sahel’s Tactics. ↑

24. International Crisis Group, “Defining a New Approach to the Sahel’s Military-Led States,” Watch List 2025 – Spring Update, May 22, 2025, https://www.crisisgroup.org/cmt/africa/sahel/burkina-faso-mali-niger/defining-new-approach-sahels-military-led-states. ↑

25. “Wagner Group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Russia’s Disinformation in Africa,” US Department of State, May 24, 2022, https://2021-2025.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/wagner-group-yevgeniy-prigozhin-and-russias-disinformation-in-africa. ↑

26. Wassim Nasr, “How the Wagner Group Is Aggravating the Jihadi Threat in the Sahel,” CTC Sentinel 15, no. 11 (December 2022): 21–30, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/how-the-wagner-group-is-aggravating-the-jihadi-threat-in-the-sahel. ↑

27. Ilaria Allegrozzi and Jean Baptiste Gallopin, “None Can Run Away”: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Burkina Faso by All Sides (Human Rights Watch, 2026), https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/04/02/none-can-run-away/war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-in-burkina-faso-by-all. ↑

28. “Mali and the UN: Why Peacekeepers Are Being Told to Leave,” BBC, June 30, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60419799. ↑

29. Center for Preventive Action, “Violent Extremism in the Sahel,” CFR Global Conflict Tracker, May 5, 2026, https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violent-extremism-sahel. ↑

30. Eric Schmitt, “A Shadowy War’s Newest Front: A Drone Base Rising from Saharan Dust,” New York Times, April 22, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/us/politics/drone-base-niger.html. ↑

31. “Niger Coup Reversing Hard-Earned Gains,” Africa Center for Stategic Studies, May 13, 2024, https://africacenter.org/spotlight/niger-coup-reversing-hard-earned-gains. ↑

32. “Burkina Faso Crisis Continues to Spiral,” Africa Center for Stategic Studies, August 29, 2023, https://africacenter.org/spotlight/burkina-faso-crisis-continues-to-spiral. ↑

33. Jules Duhamel, “Map of JNIM and ISSP Activity in Benin, Niger and Nigeria Borderlands,” Jules Duhamel (blog), May 12, 2025, https://www.julesduhamel.com/jnim-and-issp-activity-in-benin-niger-and-nigeria-borderlands. ↑

34. Tom Wheeldon, “Sahrawi: The Top Sahel Jihadist Killed in French ‘Opportunistic Hit,’ ” France 24, September 16, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210916-the-assassinated-abou-walid-al-sahrawi-france-s-major-enemy-in-the-sahel. ↑

35. UN Security Council, Thirty-Fourth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2734 (2024) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities, UN Doc. S/2024/556 (UN, 2024), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2024/556; Miles Charles and Liam Karr, “Salafi-Jihadi Areas of Operation in West Africa: Interactive Map and Campaign Analysis,” Critical Threats Project, November 24, 2025, https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/salafi-jihadi-areas-of-operation-in-west-africa-interactive-map-and-campaign-analysis. ↑

36. Liam Karr, “IS Sahel Offensive Along Mali-Niger Border: May–June 2025,” Critical Threats Project, June 26, 2025, https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/tigray-tensions-is-sahel-offensive-africa-file-june-26-2025. ↑

37. Paweł Wójcik, “JNIM Escalates Sahelian Offensives amid Fratricidal War with ISSP,” Terrorism Monitor 24, no. 10 (June 12, 2026), https://jamestown.org/jnim-escalates-sahelian-offensives-amid-fratricidal-war-with-issp. ↑

38. “Lakurawa’s Growing Presence in Nigeria and the Crime-Terror Nexus,” The Soufan Center, February 6, 2026, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2026-february-6. ↑

39. Al-Naba’, soldiers of the caliphate in the Sahel claim responsibility for killing 19 Nigerian soldiers in northwestern Nigeria, accessed on Telegram June 2026. ↑

40. U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs, “U.S. Africa Command Conducts Strike Against ISIS in Nigeria,” AFRICOM, December 25, 2025, https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/36158/us-africa-command-conducts-strike-against-isis-in-nigeria. ↑

41. Mathieu Bere, “The Islamic State in the Sahel: Understanding Its Internal and External Dynamics and Attack Modalities,” Perspectives on Terrorism 18, no. 2 (June 2024): 137–50, https://pt.icct.nl/article/islamic-state-sahel-understanding-its-internal-and-external-dynamics-and-attack-modalities. ↑

42. Abd’Allah, “Dans le nord-est du Mali, l’État islamique en voie de ‘normalisation’?” [In northeastern Mali, is the Islamic State in the process of “normalization”?], Afrique XXI, November 13, 2023, https://afriquexxi.info/Dans-le-nord-est-du-Mali-l-Etat-islamique-en-voie-de-normalisation ↑

43. “Women’s Lives Under IS in Niger’s Tillabery,” Africa Briefing No. 200, International Crisis Group, August 29, 2024, https://www.crisisgroup.org/brf/africa/sahel/niger/b200-womens-lives-under-islamic-state-nigers-tillabery. ↑

44. International Crisis Group, Facing the Challenge of Islamic State West Africa Province, Report No. 273 (International Crisis Group, 2019), https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/africa/nigeria/273-facing-challenge-islamic-state-west-africa-province. ↑

45. Hugo Kamaan, “The Strategic Logic of SVBIEDs – Part 1 – Mirroring the Conventional,” Hugo Kamaan (blog), January 26, 2025, https://hugokaaman.com/the-strategic-logic-of-svbieds-part-1-mirroring-the-conventional-5. ↑

46. Abd’Allah, “Dans le nord-est du Mali, ‘normalisation’?” ↑

47. Caleb Weiss, “Analysis: Islamic State’s Current Da’wah Campaign Across Africa,” FDD’s Long War Journal, April 5, 2024, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2024/04/analysis-islamic-states-current-dawah-campaign-across-africa.php. ↑

48. Lucas Webber, “Does the Sahel Pose a Transnational Terror Threat?,” The Soufan Center, October 1, 2025, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-october-1. ↑

49. Assahifa English, “BCIJ Chief: Dismantled Terrorist Cell”; Sam Metz, “Morocco Says It Dismantled a Terror Cell That Was Planning Attacks,” PBS News, February 25, 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/morocco-says-it-dismantled-a-terror-cell-that-was-planning-attacks; “BCIJ : La cellule démantelée était un projet de la « wilaya de Daech au Sahel » pour mettre sur pied sa branche au Maroc” [BCIJ: The dismantled cell was a project of the ‘ISIS Sahel Province’ to establish its branch in Morocco], Lavie Éco, February 24, 2025, https://www.lavieeco.com/pouvoirs/securite/bcij-la-cellule-demantelee-etait-un-projet-de-la-wilaya-de-daech-au-sahel-pour-mettre-sur-pied-sa-branche-au-maroc. ↑

50. Abd’Allah, “Dans le nord-est du Mali, ‘normalisation’?” ↑

51. Bruce Hoffman, “The Global Terror Threat and Counterterrorism Challenges Facing the Next Administration,” CTC Sentinel 9, no. 11 (November/December 2016): 1–7, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-global-terror-threat-and-counterterrorism-challenges-facing-the-next-administration. ↑

52. For example, United Nations experts reported in March 2026 that the Islamic State created multiple front companies based in Libya for financing and recruiting purposes; see Final Report of the Panel of Experts Established Pursuant to Resolution 1973 (2011) Concerning Libya, UN Doc. S/2026/224 (UN, 2026), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2026/224. To take another example, in October 2024, security services in Libya arrested two Syrians who had transferred funds to Syria to facilitate the migration of Syrian fighters to ISSP through Libya, suggesting the existence of more routes used by extremists to destinations in Mali. See UN Security Council, Thirty-Fifth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2734 (2024) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities, UN Doc. S/2025/71/Rev.1 (UN, 2025), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2025/71/Rev.1. ↑

53. Frederic Wehrey, “When the Islamic State Came to Libya,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 10, 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2018/02/when-the-islamic-state-came-to-libya. ↑

54. UN Security Council, Twenty-First Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2734 (2024) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities, UN Doc. S/2018/14/Rev.1 (UN, 2018), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2018/14/rev.1. ↑

55. Al-Naba’, dialogue with Sheikh Abu Al-Walid al-Sahrawi, October 14, 2021, accessed on Telegram June 2026. ↑

56. UN Security Council, Thirty-Fourth Report. ↑

57. Matthew Miller, “Terrorist Designation of ISIS General Directorate of Provinces Leaders,” press statement, U.S. Department of State, June 8, 2023, https://2021-2025.state.gov/terrorist-designation-of-isis-general-directorate-of-provinces-leaders. ↑

58. UN Security Council, Thirty-Seventh Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2734 (2024) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities, UN Doc. S/2026/44 (UN, 2026), https://docs.un.org/en/S/2026/44. ↑

59. Caleb Weiss and Lucas Webber, “Islamic State-Somalia: A Growing Global Terror Concern,” CTC Sentinel 17, no. 8 (September 2024): 12–21, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/islamic-state-somalia-a-growing-global-terror-concern. ↑

60. Caleb Weiss, “Islamic State Calls for Jihad in Sudan,” FDD’s Long War Journal, January 24, 2025, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2025/01/24/islamic-state-calls-for-jihad-in-sudan. ↑

61. Dawlt Endeshaw, “Ethiopia Arrests Dozens of Suspected Islamic State Militants, Fana Broadcaster Reports,” Reuters, July 16, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-arrests-dozens-suspected-islamic-state-militants-fana-broadcaster-2025-07-16. ↑

62. Weiss and Webber, “IS-Somalia: Growing Global Terror Concern.” ↑

63. U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs, “US Forces Conduct Strike Targeting ISIS-Somalia,” press release, AFRICOM, May 7, 2026, https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/36471/us-forces-conduct-strike-targeting-isis-somalia; Subham Kalia, “ISIS Second-in-Command Abu Bilal al-Minuki Killed by US and Nigerian Forces, Presidents Say,” Reuters, May 15, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-isis-second-command-abu-bilal-al-minuki-eliminated-2026-05-16. ↑

64. “Niger: Who Attacked Niamey’s Airport and What It Reveals?,” France 24, February 2, 2026, https://www.france24.com/en/niger-who-attacked-niamey-s-airport-and-what-it-reveals; Caleb Weiss, “Islamic State Claims Assault on Airport in Niger’s Capital,” FDD’s Long War Journal, February 1, 2026, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2026/02/islamic-state-claims-assault-on-airport-in-nigers-capital.php. ↑

65. “Spain and Morocco Arrest Three Suspects of Jihadist Cell, Mallorca Man ‘Planned Lone Wolf Attack,’” Spain in English, March 26, 2026, https://www.spainenglish.com/2026/03/26/spain-and-morocco-arrest-three-suspects-of-jihadist-cell-mallorca-man-planned-lone-wolf-attack; “Morocco-Spain Antiterrorism & Security Cooperation Deals New Blow to Jihadism,” North Africa Post, August 6, 2023, https://northafricapost.com/70191-morocco-spain-antiterrorism-security-cooperation-deals-new-blow-to-jihadism.html. ↑

66. Patricia Ortega Dolz, “Islamic State Propaganda Video Features Spain’s Alhambra,” El País, September 8, 2016, https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/09/08/inenglish/1473322718_358788.html. ↑

67. “Spain Arrests Five Suspected Members of Jihadist Cell,” The Arab Weekly, October 14, 2021,

    https://thearabweekly.com/spain-arrests-five-suspected-members-jihadist-cell; Debbie Mohnblatt, “Jihadist Recruiters Prey on Migrants to Europe,” Jerusalem Post, January 17, 2023, https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/isis-threat/article-728745. ↑

68. Carola García-Calvo, Fernando Reinares, and Álvaro Vicente, “National Extraction, Geographical Origin and Migratory Ancestry Among Jihadists in Spain.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 46, no. 6 (2023): 798–823, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1792740. ↑

69. Super Admin, “Jihadists from Morocco Who Were Announced to Have Traveled to Somalia,” Horn Observer, January 31, 2025, https://hornobserver.com/articles/3159/Jihadists-From-Morocco-Who-Were-Announced-To-Have-Traveled-To-Somalia; John Silk, “Morocco Says It Has Broken Up ‘Islamic State’ Cell,” February 25, 2025, https://www.dw.com/en/morocco-says-it-has-broken-up-islamic-state-cell/a-71736468. ↑

70. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2021: Morocco (U.S. Department of State, 2021), https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2021/morocco. ↑

71. Aaron Y. Zelin, “The Islamic State on the March in Africa,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 1, 2024, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/islamic-state-march-africa; Safaa Kasraoui, “Morocco, Spain Dismantle ISIS-Affiliated Terror Cell Spanning Two Continents,” Morocco World News, November 21, 2024, https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2024/11/168105/morocco-spain-dismantle-isis-affiliated-terror-cell-spanning-two-continents. ↑

72. “Anti-Terrorism Operation Between Spain and Morocco: Three Suspected Members of a Cell Linked to ISIS Arrested,” Atalayar, March 25, 2026, https://www.atalayar.com/en/articulo/politics/anti-terrorism-operation-between-spain-and-morocco-three-suspected-members-of-cell-linked-to-isis-arrested/20260325194809224305.html. ↑

73. Weiss and Webber, “IS-Somalia: Growing Global Terror Concern.” ↑

74. Islamic State, “Generation Empowerment 2,” accessed May 2026 on Telegram. ↑

75. Zelin, “Islamic State on the March in Africa.” ↑

76. Don Rassler and Kristina Hummer, “Developments in the Sahel: An Interview with Wassim Nasr, Journalist, France24; Senior Research Fellow, Soufan Center,” CTC Sentinel 19, no. 5 (May 2026): 1–6, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/developments-in-the-sahel-an-interview-with-wassim-nasr-journalist-france24-senior-research-fellow-soufan-center. ↑

77. Makuochi Okafor and Hafsa Khalil, “Mali Defence Minister Killed as Country Hit by Wave of Rebel Attacks,” BBC, April 26, 2026, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvy7v66ndo. ↑

78. Wójcik, “JNIM Escalates Sahelian Offensives.” ↑

79. Mark Curtis, “Counter-Terrorism Officials Allowed Manchester Bomber to Operate in Libya Warzone,” Declassified UK, June 28, 2022, https://www.declassifieduk.org/counter-terrorism-officials-allowed-manchester-bomber-to-operate-in-libya-warzone. ↑

80. Mohamed Larbi, “Morocco-Spain: More Than 150 Arrests and 30 Cells Dismantled Thanks to Exemplary Synergy,” Atalayar, April 15, 2026, https://www.atalayar.com/en/articulo/politics/morocco-spain-more-than-150-arrests-and-30-cells-dismantled-thanks-to-exemplary-synergy/20260415210000224807.html. ↑

81. Benjamin Roger, “French Special Forces Are Discreetly Combating Jihadists in Benin,” Le Monde, April 21, 2026, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/04/21/french-special-forces-are-discreetly-combating-against-jihadists-in-benin_6752648_4.html. ↑

82. Ali Bounjoua, “La coopération judiciaire pénale euro-marocaine pour la lutte contre la criminalité organisée et le terrorisme” [Euro-Moroccan criminal judicial cooperation in the fight against organized crime and terrorism], Eucrim, January 22, 2026, https://eucrim.eu/articles/la-cooperation-judiciaire-penale-euro-marocaine-lutte-contre-la-criminalite-organisee. ↑

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Masked Figure at Khamenei Funeral ID’d

The masked figure who appeared at Ali Khamenei’s funeral this week, fueling speculation across Iran, is his eldest grandson Mohammad Javad Khamenei, according to reports from Iran.

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His face was covered due to burns sustained in the attack that killed his grandfather. Early rumors had claimed the figure was Mojtaba Khamenei.

Iranian Paper Threatens Gulf Leaders

An Iranian newspaper ran the headline “Revenge against the criminals is certain,” placing photos of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa, and Kuwait’s Emir Mashal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah beside Israeli and American leaders.

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Hamad bin IsaMashal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah

Mohammed bin Zayed

Iran

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US Iran War Live Updates: Tehran targets US bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain after second day of US strikes

FP News Desk • July 9, 2026, 17:31:30 IST

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran buries its slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday in culmination of a long mass funeral ceremony. This comes hours after the US Central Command carried out a new round of strikes on Iran, targeting its key leverage points.

Smoke rises from a port in Kuhestak, Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, July 8, 2026, screengrab obtained from video.- Reuters

West Asia has entered another dangerous phase as the United States launched fresh strikes on Iran, shattering hopes that the latest ceasefire would hold and raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

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Explosions were reported across several Iranian cities along the strategically crucial Strait of Hormuz, including Bushehr, Chabahar, Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and Abu Musa Island. Iranian authorities reported at least one death in Iranshahr, while power outages disrupted parts of Chabahar following the attacks.

US President Donald Trump said the strikes were carried out in retaliation for what Washington described as Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy corridors through which roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transit. The renewed hostilities have reignited concerns over maritime security, global energy markets and the possibility of a broader military confrontation drawing in regional and international powers.

The developments come as Iran prepares to bury its slain Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in his hometown of Mashhad after funeral processions attended by millions in the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Stay with us for all the latest developments.

Explosions rock Iran

July 9, 2026, 17:31:30 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Markets steady tracking US-Iran flare-up

Oil prices, stock markets and the dollar were steadier Thursday as investors assessed the outlook for Middle East peace efforts after the US and Iran exchanged fresh strikes.

Crude prices rose but by far less compared to Wednesday, when US President Donald Trump said the fragile ceasefire between the foes was over following tit-for-tat attacks in the region.

In European stock market trades, Paris and Frankfurt edged higher in midday deals, while London was dragged lower by a sharp fall in AstraZeneca shares.

The British pharmaceutical giant slumped 10 percent after its new heart drug failed to meet targets in a trial, dealing a rare setback to the market heavyweight.

Most Asian equity markets advanced, though sentiment remained subdued amid concerns over stretched technology valuations and uncertainty over when AI investments will see returns.

“The shock at the resumption of attacks in the Middle East has started to ease off, but investors are skittish,” said Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club.

July 9, 2026, 17:31:03 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: US Embassy in Jordan issues security alert as missiles, drones reported in country’s airspace

The US Embassy in Jordan on Thursday issued an urgent security alert after reports indicated that missiles, drones or rockets were present in Jordanian airspace, urging American citizens to immediately seek shelter and remain indoors.

In the advisory, the embassy asked people across the country to take overhead cover, shelter in place and closely follow local announcements and official alerts as the security situation evolves.

“Reports indicate missiles, drones, or rockets are in Jordanian airspace. Seek overhead cover and shelter in place immediately. Remain indoors and pay attention to local announcements and alerts,” the embassy said.

he U.S. Embassy in Jordan will continue to review the situation and provide additional information as needed.

Assistance:

· U.S. Embassy – Amman, Jordan

· Embassy address: Al-Umawyeen 37, Amman, Jordan

· Phone number (emergencies during business hours): +962 6 590-6000

· Phone number (emergencies after business hours): +962 6 590-6500 · Contact the U.S. Citizen Services Unit · Embassy website:

https://jo.usembassy.gov

Homepage – U.S. Embassy in Jordan

· State Department – Consular Affairs: 888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444

· Jordan Country Information

· Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive security updates

· Follow the Department of State on Facebook and X/Twitter.

Actions to Take: 

· Monitor local media, such as Roya News, Petra News and Jordan Times for information.

· Contact your airline directly for flight change details if your flight is affected.

· Be aware of your surroundings.

· Remain vigilant for anything appearing out of the ordinary.

· Contact the Jordanian police by dialing 911 if you are in immediate danger.

July 9, 2026, 16:42:49 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: No attack on Bushehr nuclear plant, says governor

Bushehr Governor Mohammad Mozaffari has said that there has not been any attack on the nuclear power plant in the province, according to ISNA.

Mozaffari further said that reports of attacks on the Kharg Island were also incorrect.

The Bushehr plant is the only functional nuclear plant in Iran.

Earlier in the day, there were reports of several explosions in Bushehr province.

July 9, 2026, 16:34:19 (IST)

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Jordan sounds Air raid sirens across country

Amid tit-for-tat US-Iran strikes, air raid warning sirens have been reported in several regions of Jordan, according to Al Jazeera.

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Iran confirms new service fees for Strait of Hormuz, promises special treatment for allies

US launches ‘powerful’ strikes on Iran after attacks on commercial vessels in Strait of Hormuz

July 9, 2026, 16:24:33 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Explosions reported near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant hours after US strikes

Several explosions were reported in Iran’s Bushehr province on Thursday, with residents near the country’s only civilian nuclear power plant hearing multiple blasts just hours after the United States carried out strikes on Iranian targets. While Iranian media confirmed the explosions, authorities had not immediately disclosed the exact location or cause, raising fresh concerns over the security of the strategically significant nuclear site.

July 9, 2026, 15:54:08 (IST)

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Iran War Live Updates: 1 person wounded in Iranian attacks, says Kuwait

Kuwait on Thursday said that one person was injured in the latest wave of Iranian attacks, according to Al Jazeera.

Kuwaiti Major General Saud Abdulaziz al-Otaibi said air defence system intercepted three ballistic missiles, one cruise missile, and 10 suicide drones.

Al-Otaibi said that the injury was a result of falling debris.

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July 9, 2026, 15:30:48 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Explosions heard in Iran’s Bushehr province, say state media

Several explosions have been heard in Iran’s Bushehr province today, the state-run Mehr ⁠news agency has reported.

The United States has not yet announced a fresh wave of strikes on Iran.

Iran’s only functional nuclear plant is located in Bushehr.

July 9, 2026, 14:44:55 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran to bury slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in culmination of mass funeral; ‘Kill Trump’ banners return

Iran buries its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday at the country’s holiest shrine, with his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei still hidden from public view after being disfigured in the strike that killed his father.

The burial in Mashhad in northeast Iran follows a week of mass funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies that has coincided with a renewed burst of conflict with the United States following weeks of truce.

Crowds marched through Mashhad on Thursday morning, the golden onion dome and minarets of the Shrine of Imam Reza glinting in the morning sun, as they waved Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei and placards with revolutionary slogans.

As Khamenei’s body was transported around Iran and Iraq over the past week, the Islamic Republic’s clerical leaders encouraged huge crowds to attend in an effort to vaunt the might and ideological fire of their theocratic state.

However, despite it having survived a months-long blitz by its strongest enemies the United States and Israel, Iran faces huge internal challenges and the legacy of Khamenei’s 37-year rule is bitterly disputed.

‘Kill Trump’ placards appear at burial ceremony

The whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, proclaimed Supreme Leader by a clerical assembly a week after his father’s death, has remained a mystery to Iranians.

He has not appeared in public since the war began with the strike that killed Ali Khamenei on February 28, and while he has issued written statements, no image or video or voice recording of him has been issued.

He suffered debilitating injuries in that same strike, his face disfigured and limbs badly wounded.

Senior sources in Tehran have said he is recovering but that he has not yet been well enough to manage public appearances and state security services are also trying to limit his exposure in case of more U.S. attacks.

As crowds jostled in Mashhad awaiting Khamenei’s funeral cortege, the crowd chanted slogans demanding revenge on U.S. President Donald Trump for his killing.

“I swear by the blood of the Supreme Leader, Trump, we will kill you!” they shouted, with women holding up placards reading “Kill Trump”.

Khamenei’s remains, along with those of four family members killed alongside him, have already been paraded through Tehran, the Shi’ite Muslim clerical centre of Qom, and the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala.

At each event, huge crowds have thronged the streets to the mournful accompaniment of sung Shi’ite laments and chanted revolutionary slogans.

Martydom holds a central place in Shi’ite theology and Khamenei’s death at the hands of foreign enemies has played into a religious and political tradition that runs deep through the Islamic Republic.

Khameinei’s long rule and disputed legacy

The funeral comes at a critical moment for Iran, turning the page of nearly four decades of Khamenei’s rule and months after the latest round of mass nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic.

Security forces put down that unrest, sparked by anger over the sanctions-throttled economy, by killing thousands of demonstrators in a wave of repression that echoed other bouts of violence over recent years.

While analysts see Iran as having emerged from the war strategically strengthened, with its grip over the vital Strait of Hormuz intact, it has suffered widespread damage that has added to internal economic woes.

The late Khamenei was appointed supreme leader in 1989, a decade after the Islamic revolution, and over the decades he consolidated political, economic and military power in his office.

That effort, which increasingly marginalised the elected president and parliament, was conducted in concert with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that grew in influence throughout Khamenei’s rule.

Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed with the backing of the Guards, who are now seen as the dominant force in Iranian political and strategic thinking.

— Reported by Reuters

July 9, 2026, 14:39:39 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Bahrain sounds nationwide alarm as US & Iran exchange fire

Bahrain again sounded nationwide alarm on Thursday as the situation remains tense in West Asia.

Bahrain did not clarify what prompted the alarm and did not say whether Iran had launched a fresh wave of missiles and drones.

The United States and Iran are currently locked in a cycle of violence, with each side responding to previous strikes with a newer wave of attacks. Iran has struck Kuwait and Bahrain in response to American strikes.

July 9, 2026, 13:48:16 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Ali Khamenei’s coffin lands in Mashhad for burial

The coffin of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has arrived in his hometown of Mashhad for his burial, according to state media. The coffin was flown from Iraq after funeral ceremonies were held in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, with IRNA broadcasting footage of its arrival.

July 9, 2026, 13:36:52 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘wiping out families’ in Lebanon, calls attacks war crimes

Amnesty International has accused Israel of “wiping out families” in its recent strikes on Lebanon, calling the attacks potential war crimes. In a new report, the London-based rights group said Israeli forces failed to distinguish between civilians and military targets and did not take adequate precautions to minimise civilian harm. Amnesty also urged countries to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and investigate those responsible under international law.

July 9, 2026, 12:56:42 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Mass turnout in Najaf, Karbala delays Khamenei’s burial in Mashhad

Iranian state television said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s burial in Mashhad has been delayed after unexpectedly large crowds gathered for funeral processions in the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday. The burial ceremony is now scheduled to take place at 2:30 pm local time (11:00 GMT).

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July 9, 2026, 12:30:38 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: French minister says Iran violated truce, leading to US attacks

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Thursday blamed Iran for the latest US strikes, saying Tehran had violated last month’s ceasefire agreement by attacking ships in Omani waters. He said Iran had breached both its commitments and international law, while urging both Washington and Tehran to avoid further escalation and resume negotiations.

July 9, 2026, 12:29:19 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Why is Khamenei being buried in Mashhad?

Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being buried in Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran, because of its personal and religious importance.

Khamenei was born in Mashhad in 1939 and spent much of his childhood and religious education there. Iranian state media says he had wished to be buried in his hometown.

He will be laid to rest at the Imam Reza Shrine, Iran’s holiest Shia Muslim site. It houses the tomb of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam in Shia Islam, making it one of the country’s most sacred places.

The shrine is the final resting place of several important Iranian figures, including former President Ebrahim Raisi, making it a symbolically significant burial site.

Khamenei’s burial marks the end of a week-long funeral procession that passed through major cities in Iran and Iraq, including Tehran, Qom, Najaf and Karbala, before reaching Mashhad.

July 9, 2026, 12:16:58 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran says it struck US fuel depot in Bahrain, Patriot system in Kuwait

Iran said on Thursday that it launched a wave of one-way attack drones targeting US military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, describing the operation as retaliation for American strikes carried out earlier in the day.

According to Iranian state media, the military claimed it targeted a Patriot missile defence system in Kuwait, an early warning system in Qatar, and US military fuel storage facilities in Bahrain using a large number of kamikaze drones.

Tehran said the strikes were part of its ongoing campaign against US military bases across the region following the latest escalation in the conflict.

July 9, 2026, 11:57:09 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Thousands join Khamenei funeral processions in Iraq’s Najaf, Karbala

Thousands of mourners gathered in the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday to take part in funeral processions for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The ceremonies form part of a multi-day farewell being held ahead of his burial in Iran.

July 9, 2026, 11:50:04 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: 14 killed, 78 injured in US strikes across 5 Iranian provinces: Iranian Health Ministry

The Iranian health ministry has said that at least 14 people were killed and 78 injured in American strikes across five provinces on Wednesday.

The updates comes amid ongoing tit-for-tat American and Iranian attacks on each other across West Asia, which have cast doubt on the ongoing peace process.

US President Donald Trump has said that the ceasefire was Iran was essentially over for him whereas Iran has accused the Trump administration of violating the terms of the memorandum of understanding signed last month.

July 9, 2026, 11:27:28 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran suspends Tehran-Mashhad trains after US strike damages railway line

Iran has suspended passenger train services between Tehran and Mashhad after a section of the railway line was damaged in a US attack. Iranian Railways said repair teams were working to restore the route as quickly as possible, while arrangements were being made to transport stranded passengers to Mashhad by road.

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July 9, 2026, 10:56:30 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran newspaper calls for ending US negotiations as tensions escalate

Iran’s hardline Kayhan newspaper on Thursday urged Tehran to end all negotiations with Washington, saying the conflict should now be decided on the battlefield rather than at the negotiating table. The daily, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by the Supreme Leader’s office, also claimed US President Donald Trump would eventually be forced to “beg” as rising oil prices increase pressure on Washington.

July 9, 2026, 10:45:30 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Gold falls to one-week low amid escalating West Asia conflict

Gold prices edged lower on Thursday, hovering near a one-week low, as renewed fighting between the United States and Iran drove oil prices higher and reignited concerns about inflation and the likelihood of interest rates remaining elevated for longer.

Spot gold fell 0.4 per cent to $4,060.46 an ounce after touching its lowest level since July 1 in the previous session. US gold futures for August delivery also slipped 0.3 per cent to $4,069.80 an ounce, according to Reuters.

July 9, 2026, 10:35:11 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Oil prices up by 1%

Oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday after the US carried out fresh strikes on Iran, denting hopes for talks to end their war and for the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for one-fifth of pre-war global oil supplies.

Brent crude futures rose 86 cents, or 1.1 per cent, to $78.88 a barrel by 0352 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 85 cents, or 1.2 per cent, at $74.37 a barrel.

Both crude benchmarks, WTI and Brent, rose more than a dollar in post-settlement trade on Wednesday after the US military began launching fresh strikes on Iran.

July 9, 2026, 10:23:41 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Khamenei’s coffin transported from Iraq’s Najaf to Iran

The coffin of the slain supreme leader is being transported from Iraq’s Najaf to Iran’s Mashhad ahead of his burial later today, according to the Mehr News Agency.

The transfer marks the final stage of funeral ceremonies that have spanned six days across Iran and Iraq, including the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of Khamenei’s office, said the late leader had requested to be buried in Mashhad, near the shrine of Imam Reza.

July 9, 2026, 10:17:28 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iranian official says US ‘bullying’ is ‘no longer cost-free’

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in a social media post that the Strait of Hormuz would only be opened under “Iranian arrangements,” not through US threats.

He also said that the US is yet to learn that “bullying and breaking its commitments no longer come without a cost.”

July 9, 2026, 09:55:42 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran targets US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for the latest wave of American strikes, according to a statement carried by state broadcaster IRIB.

The IRGC said its Navy and Air Force jointly launched drone and missile attacks on US military facilities, including Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, as well as Shaikh Isa Air Base and Juffair in Bahrain.

Juffair hosts the Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the main US Navy base in the Persian Gulf and headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

According to IRIB, the IRGC said the attacks were carried out in response to US strikes on Iran’s southern coastal provinces and two bridges in the country’s east.

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July 9, 2026, 09:43:13 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: 3 people killed, several others injured in Iran’s Ahvaz

As per the Fars News Agency, US strikes near the city of Ahvaz in western Khuzestan province have left a “number of people” injured and killed at least three.

Medical personnel and rescue teams have been deployed to the site, the official said, adding that authorities are still assessing the extent of the damage.

July 9, 2026, 09:25:03 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Hormuz traffic nearly freezes as US-Iran strikes deepen shipping fears

Shipping activity through the Strait of Hormuz nearly came to a standstill on Thursday after the US carried out another round of strikes on Iran, fuelling concerns over the fragile ceasefire between the two sides.

Ship-tracking data showed that most vessels passing through the vital energy corridor were using a route closer to Iran’s northern side, while the US-backed Oman route witnessed minimal movement, according to Bloomberg.

Only a handful of major vessels, including a US-sanctioned oil tanker leaving the Persian Gulf and an Iranian-flagged container ship, were seen crossing the strait.

July 9, 2026, 09:02:08 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: US strikes hit 90 Iranian military targets, says Centcom

Nearly 90 Iranian military targets were hit in the latest US strikes, according to US Central Command (Centcom), which said the operation aimed to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The US military released black-and-white footage that appeared to show strikes hitting an airport runway and missile launch sites. It added that American forces remained “vigilant, lethal and prepared” to carry out operations as directed by the Commander-in-Chief.

July 9, 2026, 08:40:36 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Khamenei funeral city targeted? IRGC says US strikes bridges near Mashhad

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed that US strikes targeted two bridges on routes leading to Iran’s eastern city of Mashhad, where slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is scheduled to be buried on Thursday.

The IRGC said the attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait were carried out in response to earlier strikes on Iran’s southern coastal provinces and accused Washington of trying to overshadow Khamenei’s “historic” funeral.

Tehran warned that any further US attacks would trigger a broader response, potentially targeting additional American bases across the region.

July 9, 2026, 08:11:18 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Trump says he’s ‘number one on Iran’s kill list’

President Donald Trump claimed there was a potential security threat to his flight while returning from the Nato summit, saying he is “number one on the kill list for Iran.” He made the remarks aboard Air Force One after being asked whether security concerns influenced his decision not to fly on the newer Qatari-donated presidential aircraft.

Trump said the life of a US president is inherently dangerous but insisted the threat would not deter him. “I’m number one on the kill list for Iran… I don’t really care because I’m doing my job,” he told reporters, while declining to directly link the aircraft change to the alleged threat.

July 9, 2026, 08:05:59 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses Trump of using Iraq-style war rhetoric

Former Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene criticised the president’s Iran policy, comparing his justification for the strikes to the George Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War. She questioned Trump’s shifting explanations and said they echoed the “post-9/11 Bush era lies” over weapons of mass destruction.

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July 9, 2026, 07:52:42 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran says Strait of Hormuz will reopen only on its terms

Iran’s chief negotiator said on Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen only under “Iranian arrangements”, signalling that Tehran intends to retain control over access to the strategic waterway amid escalating tensions with the United States.

In a post on X, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused Washington of continuing its policy of pressure and warned that any further military action would invite retaliation. “The United States still has not learned that bullying and breaking its promises no longer come without consequences,” he wrote, adding, “Let me be clear: If you strike, you will be struck.”

July 9, 2026, 07:37:11 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran releases first footage of Khamenei’s damaged Tehran compound

Iranian state media has released what it says is the first footage showing the damage to the Tehran compound of late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The video was made public on the day of his burial and comes after Khamenei was killed on the opening day of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

July 9, 2026, 07:17:04 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Fire erupts at US Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain after Iranian retaliatory strike

A fire broke out at the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain after an Iranian retaliatory strike, according to reports and videos circulating online. The incident marks another escalation in the US-Iran conflict following Washington’s latest military action against Iran.

July 9, 2026, 07:01:03 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran’s retaliation appears underway. Here’s what to know

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick roundup of the key developments as the US-Iran conflict enters a dangerous new phase.

Iran’s long-awaited response to the latest US military strikes appears to be underway, with Bahrain and Kuwait activating air raid sirens and air defence systems after authorities warned of incoming missile and drone threats.

The escalation follows another round of US strikes on Iran late Wednesday, with explosions reported in Bushehr and Golestan province, according to Iranian state media. The renewed attacks mark a further intensification of the conflict, although both US and Iranian operations remain more limited in scale than the heaviest phases of the war.

President Donald Trump authorised the latest strikes partly out of frustration that the Strait of Hormuz had not fully reopened to commercial shipping and after Iran allegedly targeted vessels transiting the strategic waterway while he was attending the Nato summit in Turkey. Trump later warned that US attacks would “get much worse” if Iran continued targeting ships, while also claiming Tehran had reached out seeking negotiations.

Iran has strongly condemned the strikes. Its ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused Washington of violating Iran’s sovereignty and breaching international law, describing the attacks as a clear violation of the UN Charter.

The latest US strikes also caused disruption inside Iran. Power outages were reported in the southern port city of Chabahar, where a hospital was damaged by strike fragments. Iranian media also reported that a firefighter was killed in an attack on Iranshahr Airport, which damaged the airport’s operations building and meteorological station.

July 9, 2026, 06:55:51 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Trump says latest US strikes on Iran are ‘retribution’

President Donald Trump said the latest US strikes on Iran were carried out in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, describing the operation as “retribution” in a post on Truth Social.

July 9, 2026, 07:03:24 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: US strikes railway bridges in northern Iran for first time since ceasefire

US forces struck two railway bridges in northern Iran with cruise missiles, marking Washington’s first direct attack on Iranian infrastructure since the April 8 ceasefire.

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July 9, 2026, 06:47:39 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Iran lodges UN complaint over latest US strikes

Iran has formally lodged a complaint with the United Nations over the latest US military strikes, according to Iranian state media.

In letters addressed to the UN, Iran’s Permanent Representative, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused the United States of violating Iran’s sovereignty and breaching the UN Charter through its latest military action. Tehran urged the international body to address what it described as an unlawful use of force.

July 9, 2026, 06:45:19 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Elizabeth Warren urges Congress to block Trump’s Iran war

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Congress to stop President Donald Trump from continuing military action against Iran, arguing that the conflict is costing lives and driving up energy and food prices.

In a post on X, Warren said Trump’s war with Iran had “cost American lives” and increased the cost of gas and groceries worldwide. She urged lawmakers to enforce Congress’ authority over war powers.

Her remarks come after both chambers of Congress passed a bipartisan War Powers Resolution last month directing the president to end unauthorised military action against Iran unless Congress explicitly approves it.

July 9, 2026, 06:43:01 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: Kuwait intercepts missile and drone attacks, air raid sirens sound

Kuwait’s air defence systems are intercepting what the military described as “hostile missile and drone attacks”, according to the General Staff of the Kuwait Army.

The military said the explosions heard across the country were caused by air defence systems engaging incoming threats. State-run Kuna News Agency reported that air raid sirens were sounding across Kuwait as authorities responded to the attacks.

There was no immediate information on casualties or damage.

July 9, 2026, 06:36:07 (IST)

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US Iran War Live Updates: US pounds Chabahar, other Iranian cities

The United States has carried out another wave of strikes on Iran, with explosions reported across several cities along the strategic Strait of Hormuz, including Bushehr, Chabahar, Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and Abu Musa Island. The attacks reportedly killed at least one person in Iranshahr, while widespread power outages hit Chabahar after two docks and a maritime traffic control tower were struck.

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Iran buries its slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday in culmination of a long mass funeral ceremony. This comes hours after the US Central Command carried out a new round of strikes on Iran, targeting its key leverage points.

Earlier, aboard Air Force One after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) summit in Turkey, Donald Trump warned that US strikes on Iran would “get much worse” if Tehran launched further attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The warning came after Trump declared the US-Iran ceasefire over, with Tehran responding by calling him a “criminal”.

The United States launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, and Tehran responded by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar in crossfire that again threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the Persian Gulf.

The strikes came hours after US President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signalled the end of the fragile ceasefire. The US struck a variety of military sites and port facilities early Wednesday after Iran targeted several merchant vessels off the coast of Oman, sparking Iranian fire then as well.

But Thursday’s attacks appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least twice in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters. There was no immediate word of damage in the three Gulf Arab countries from attacks claimed by Iran’s military.

In Iran, the two days of American airstrikes have killed at least 14 people and wounded another 78, Iran’s Health Ministry said Thursday in its first overall count of casualties.

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Hudson Institute

Russia-Taliban Relations Are Growing: Implications for US Policy

Luke Coffey

Caption

The flag used by the Taliban’s interim government is seen over Afghanistan’s embassy in Moscow on July 4, 2025, after Russia officially recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. (Getty Images)

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Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Moscow has pursued increasingly close ties with the extremist Islamist organization. Russia is now the only country that formally recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Even neighboring countries such as China, Iran, India, and Pakistan have refused to do so. Earlier this year, Moscow signed a military and security cooperation agreement with the Taliban.

Russia is motivated by several factors. First, Moscow naively believes that closer cooperation with the Taliban can serve as a counterweight to other terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP). Second, after the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Moscow saw an opportunity to compound Washington’s political and reputational damage: by engaging with Kabul at the expense of Western influence, it could undermine US interests. Finally, just as the Taliban is seeking legitimacy outside Afghanistan, Russia is seeking greater legitimacy outside Europe. The Kremlin’s closer ties with the Taliban government are consistent with its deeper relationships with China, North Korea, and Iran following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

For a timeline of how the Russia-Taliban relations have grown, see box 1.

Box 1. Timeline of Russia-Taliban Relations

2003: Russia proscribes the Taliban as a terrorist organization.

2015–16: Russia begins quiet contacts with the Taliban in response to ISKP.
Moscow started seeing the Taliban as a possible counterweight to ISKP rather than only as a terrorist enemy.

November 2018: Russia hosts the Moscow Format talks with Taliban participation.
Russian diplomacy shifted from quiet contacts to engaging with the Taliban publicly.

August 2021: The Taliban seizes Kabul.
Russia kept its embassy open and maintained channels with the Taliban, positioning itself for engagement rather than isolation.

September 2022: The Taliban signs a provisional trade deal with Russia for fuel, gas, and wheat.
This deal was one of the Taliban government’s first major international economic agreements and moved the relationship from diplomacy to practical trade.

April 2025: Russia removes the Taliban from its banned terrorist list.

July 2025: Russia formally recognizes the Taliban government.
Russia became the first (and, so far, only) country to recognize Taliban rule after 2021, giving Kabul its biggest diplomatic victory since taking power.

May 2026: Russia and the Taliban sign a military-technical cooperation agreement.
This agreement marked the deepest security cooperation yet, moving the relationship beyond diplomacy, trade, and recognition to formal defense-related engagement.

Military-Technical Agreement Explained

In May 2026, Russia and the Taliban formally signed a military-technical cooperation agreement on the sidelines of the International Security Forum, held near Moscow. Former Russian Defense Minister and current Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Sergei Shoigu signed the agreement with Mohammad Yaqoob, who serves as the Taliban’s de facto defense minister and is the son of the late Mullah Omar, the former Taliban leader who refused to hand over Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.

Neither side has made the details of the agreement public. Reporting and analysis, however, suggest that it could include Russian technical and military assistance to Taliban security forces, joint training, military education opportunities, and the supply of spare parts to help the Taliban maintain Soviet- and Russian-era military equipment still in its possession. This is especially important because many of the higher-end American military systems left behind in Afghanistan have become difficult, if not impossible, for the Taliban to maintain since it lacks proper spare parts and technical expertise.

The agreement formally links a Moscow-Kabul axis against Western interests and takes Russia’s formal diplomatic recognition of the Taliban to a new level of defense cooperation. While no public reporting indicates that the Taliban has agreed to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, especially in terms of manpower, the agreement likely marks the starting point for deeper security cooperation. Russia has already relied on foreign manpower during the war, ranging from North Korean troops reportedly deployed under state-to-state arrangements to foreign nationals from countries such as Cuba, India, and Nepal recruited or otherwise drawn into Russian military service. Therefore, Taliban or other Afghanistan-based fighters could eventually serve alongside Russia against Ukraine.

Recent reports also suggest that Russia may directly finance, train, and equip a special 8,000-strong force under the direct command of Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader. This unit would reportedly sit outside the Taliban government’s usual security structures and chain of command.

Implications for US Policy

The growing ties between Russia and the Taliban should alarm US policymakers for several reasons:

1. Russia’s support for the Taliban undermines US interests in Afghanistan and the broader region. Anything that legitimizes or strengthens the Taliban—whether financially, economically, diplomatically, or militarily—undermines America’s broader interests in Central and South Asia.

2. Russia-Taliban military cooperation could impact Ukraine. The military-technical cooperation agreement could become the starting point for deeper military ties between Moscow and Kabul. Over time, this could affect Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and further internationalize its aggression against Kyiv.

3. Kremlin-Taliban cooperation reinforces the wider anti-Western axis involving Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. Moscow’s engagement with the Taliban is consistent with its broader effort to build relationships with actors that can help undermine US interests around the world.

4. Russian military or security assistance would strengthen the Taliban’s capacity for repression. Any such assistance could help the Taliban continue its oppression of the Afghan people and suppress groups carrying out legitimate armed resistance to Taliban rule, including the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.

Trump: For Me, Iran Deal ‘Over’ After U.S. Hits 80 Targets and Restores Sanctions

Jay LetniFounder, OSINT613

“To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum… They are sick people. They are led by sick people. And they are vicious violent people.” With those words, President Donald Trump effectively declared the June memorandum of understanding with Iran finished, signaling a return to military pressure after nearly 3 weeks of uneasy calm.

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Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump defended overnight U.S. strikes on Iranian military targets, saying the Islamic regime had squandered the opportunity created by the agreement. “We attacked, very powerfully last night, the very dangerous people from Iran. There’s something wrong with them. We say, ‘Go and do your funeral stuff,’ and instead of that, they start shooting rockets at ships yesterday. So we hit them very hard last night.” According to U.S. officials, American forces struck more than 80 targets across southern Iran, including IRGC naval facilities, coastal missile batteries, radar sites, air defense systems, drone infrastructure, and command positions linked to operations around the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes followed reported Iranian attacks on 3 commercial vessels transiting the strategic waterway, including tankers linked to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The military operation was accompanied by a major economic shift.

The U.S. Treasury revoked General License X, the sanctions waiver issued after the June memorandum that temporarily allowed transactions involving Iranian crude oil, petrochemicals, shipping, insurance, and related financial services. The administration replaced it with a new license ending those broad relief measures, restoring much of the sanctions pressure that had been lifted as part of the agreement.

The memorandum, signed in June following weeks of fighting between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, was never intended to be a final peace agreement. Instead, it created a temporary framework aimed at stopping direct military operations, reopening commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, providing limited sanctions relief, and giving negotiators 60 days to pursue a broader settlement.

Even when announcing the agreement, Trump warned that it depended entirely on Iranian behavior. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs,” he said after the memorandum was signed.

For 19 days, the agreement appeared to hold. Commercial shipping resumed, sanctions relief began taking effect, and negotiators continued working toward a longer term deal. That changed after the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader. Within days, commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz again came under attack, prompting a large scale U.S. military response and the immediate rollback of sanctions relief.

Trump argued that Iran had broken the understanding first.

“As far as I’m concerned it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They are liars… There’s something wrong with them. They are cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.” He went even further, describing the Islamic regime as “evil” and “cancer,” while repeating that the United States would continue responding militarily if attacked. “I told them, every time you hit, we hit. And of course, they’re dirty players.” Although Trump said negotiators such as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner remain free to continue discussions, he made clear that any future agreement would ultimately depend on his approval.

His comments leave little doubt about the current direction of U.S. policy. The military strikes have resumed. The sanctions relief that formed the economic foundation of the June memorandum has been withdrawn. And the agreement that briefly paused the conflict has, in Trump’s own words, become “over.” Whether diplomacy can be revived now depends on decisions made in the coming days. For the moment, however, the United States has shifted back to a strategy of military deterrence and economic pressure, bringing the brief diplomatic opening with the Islamic regime to an abrupt end.

Lebanon’s Aoun Invited to White House

The White House has invited Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to visit the U.S. on July 21, official says. - Reuters

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Israeli Drone Strike in Nabatieh

Israeli drone strike near the Ali Taher ridge in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, a Hezbollah stronghold, per Lebanese media.

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HezbollahAli Taher ridgeIsraelNabatieh al-Fawqa

Alerts

Did a Military Experimental Vaccine in 1918 Kill 50-100 Million People Blamed as “Spanish Flu”?

WHERE DID THE SPANISH FLU BACTERIAL PNEUMONIA OF 1918-19 ORIGINATE?

When the United States declared war in April 1917, the fledgling Pharmaceutical industry had something they had never had before – a large supply of human test subjects in the form of the US military’s first draft.

Pre-war in 1917, the US Army was 286,000 men. Post-war in 1920, the US army disbanded, and had 296,000 men.

During the war years 1918-19, the US Army ballooned to 6,000,000 men, with 2,000,000 men being sent overseas. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research took advantage of this new pool of human guinea pigs to conduct vaccine experiments.

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A REPORT ON ANTIMENINGITIS VACCINATION AND OBSERVATIONS ON AGGLUTININS IN THE BLOOD OF CHRONIC MENINGOCOCCUS CARRIERS
by Frederick L. Gates
From the Base Hospital, Fort Riley, Kansas, and The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York.
Received 1918 Jul 20

(Author note: Please read the Fort Riley paper in its entirety so you can appreciate the carelessness of the experiments conducted on these troops.)

Between January 21st and June 4th of 1918, Dr. Gates reports on an experiment where soldiers were given 3 doses of a bacterial meningitis vaccine. Those conducting the experiment on the soldiers were just spitballing dosages of a vaccine serum made in horses.

The vaccination regime was designed to be 3 doses. 4,792 men received the first dose, but only 4,257 got the 2nd dose (down 11%), and only 3702 received all three doses (down 22.7%).

A total of 1,090 men were not there for the 3rd dose. What happened to these soldiers? Were they shipped East by train from Kansas to board a ship to Europe? Were they in the Fort Riley hospital? Dr. Gates’ report doesn’t tell us.

An article accompanying the American Experience broadcast I watched sheds some light on where these 1,090 men might be. Gates began his experiments in January 1918.

By March of that year, “100 men a day” were entering the infirmary at Fort Riley.

Are some of these the men missing from Dr. Gates’ report – the ones who did not get the 2nd or 3rd dose?

“… Shortly before breakfast on Monday, March 11, the first domino would fall signaling the commencement of the first wave of the 1918 influenza.

Company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the camp infirmary with complaints of a “bad cold.”

Right behind him came Corporal Lee W. Drake voicing similar complaints.

By noon, camp surgeon Edward R. Schreiner had over 100 sick men on his hands, all apparently suffering from the same malady…”

Gates does report that several of the men in the experiment had flu-like symptoms: coughs, vomiting and diarrhea after receiving the vaccine.

These symptoms are a disaster for men living in barracks, travelling on trains to the Atlantic coast, sailing to Europe, and living and fighting in trenches.

The unsanitary conditions at each step of the journey are an ideal environment for a contagious disease like bacterial pneumonia to spread.

From Dr. Gates’ report:

“Reactions.– … Several cases of looseness of the bowels or transient diarrhea were noted. This symptom had not been encountered before. Careful inquiry in individual cases often elicited the information that men who complained of the effects of vaccination were suffering from mild coryza, bronchitis, etc., at the time of injection.”

“Sometimes the reaction was initiated by a chill or chilly sensation, and a number of men complained of fever or feverish sensations during the following night.

Next in frequency came nausea (occasionally vomiting), dizziness, and general “aches and pains” in the joints and muscles, which in a few instances were especially localized in the neck or lumbar region, causing stiff neck or stiff back. A few injections were followed by diarrhea.

The reactions, therefore, occasionally simulated the onset of epidemic meningitis and several vaccinated men were sent as suspects to the Base Hospital for diagnosis.”

According to Gates, they injected random dosages of an experimental bacterial meningitis vaccine into soldiers. Afterwards, some of the soldiers had symptoms which “simulated” meningitis, but Dr. Gates advances the fantastical claim that it wasn’t actual meningitis.

The soldiers developed flu-like symptoms. Bacterial meningitis, then and now, is known to mimic flu-like symptoms.

Perhaps the similarity of early symptoms of bacterial meningitis and bacterial pneumonia to symptoms of flu is why the vaccine experiments at Fort Riley have been able to escape scrutiny as a potential cause of the Spanish Flu for 100 years and counting.

HOW DID THE “SPANISH FLU” SPREAD SO WIDELY SO QUICKLY?

There is an element of a perfect storm in how the Gates bacteria spread. WWI ended only 10 months after the first injections. Unfortunately for the 50-100 million who died, those soldiers injected with horse-infused bacteria moved quickly during those 10 months.

An article from 2008 on the CDC’s website describes how sick WWI soldiers could pass along the bacteria to others by becoming “cloud adults.”

“Finally, for brief periods and to varying degrees, affected hosts became “cloud adults” who increased the aerosolization of colonizing strains of bacteria, particularly pneumococci, hemolytic streptococci, H. influenzae, and S. aureus.

For several days during local epidemics—particularly in crowded settings such as hospital wards, military camps, troop ships, and mines (and trenches)—some persons were immunologically susceptible to, infected with, or recovering from infections with influenza virus.

Persons with active infections were aerosolizing the bacteria that colonized their noses and throats, while others—often, in the same “breathing spaces”—were profoundly susceptible to invasion of and rapid spread through their lungs by their own or others’ colonizing bacteria.” (1)

Three times in his report on the Fort Riley vaccine experiment, Dr. Gates states that some soldiers had a “severe reaction” indicating “an unusual individual susceptibility to the vaccine”.

While the vaccine made many sick, it only killed those who were susceptible to it. Those who became sick and survived became “cloud adults” who spread the bacteria to others, which created more cloud adults, spreading to others where it killed the susceptible, repeating the cycle until there were no longer wartime unsanitary conditions, and there were no longer millions of soldiers to experiment on.

The toll on US troops was enormous and it is well documented. Dr. Carol Byerly describes how the “influenza” traveled like wildfire through the US military. (substitute “bacteria” for Dr. Byerly’s “influenza” or “virus”):

“… Fourteen of the largest training camps had reported influenza outbreaks in March, April, or May, and some of the infected troops carried the virus with them aboard ships to France …

As soldiers in the trenches became sick, the military evacuated them from the front lines and replaced them with healthy men.

This process continuously brought the virus into contact with new hosts—young, healthy soldiers in which it could adapt, reproduce, and become extremely virulent without danger of burning out.

… Before any travel ban could be imposed, a contingent of replacement troops departed Camp Devens (outside of Boston) for Camp Upton, Long Island, the Army’s debarkation point for France, and took influenza with them.

Medical officers at Upton said it arrived “abruptly” on September 13, 1918, with 38 hospital admissions, followed by 86 the next day, and 193 the next.

Hospital admissions peaked on October 4 with 483, and within 40 days, Camp Upton sent 6,131 men to the hospital for influenza. Some developed pneumonia so quickly that physicians diagnosed it simply by observing the patient rather than listening to the lungs…”

The United States was not the only country in possession of the Rockefeller Institute’s experimental bacterial vaccine.

A 1919 report from the Institute states: “Reference should be made that before the United States entered the war (in April 1917) the Institute had resumed the preparation of antimeningococcic serum, in order to meet the requests of England, France, Belgium Italy and other countries.”

The same report states: “In order to meet the suddenly increased demand for the curative serums worked out at the Institute, a special stable for horses was quickly erected …”

An experimental antimeningoccic serum made in horses and injected into soldiers who would be entering the cramped and unsanitary living conditions of war … what could possibly go wrong?

Is the bacterial serum made in horses at the Rockefeller Institute which was injected into US soldiers and distributed to numerous other countries responsible for the 50-100 million people killed by bacterial lung infections in 1918-19?

The Institute says it distributed the bacterial serum to England, France, Belgium, Italy and other countries during WWI. Not enough is known about how these countries experimented on their soldiers.

I hope independent researchers will take an honest look at these questions.

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

I do not believe that anyone involved in these vaccine experiments was trying to harm anyone.

Some will see the name Rockefeller and yell. “Illuminati!” or “culling the herd!”

I do not believe that’s what happened.

I believe standard medical hubris is responsible – doctors “playing God”, thinking they can tame nature without creating unanticipated problems.

With medical hubris, I do not think the situation has changed materially over the past 100 years.

WHAT NOW?

The vaccine industry is always looking for human test subjects. They have the most success when they are able to find populations who not in a position to refuse.

Soldiers , infants, the disabled, prisoners, those in developing nations – anyone not in a position to refuse.

Vaccine experimentation on vulnerable populations is not an issue of the past. Watch this video clip of Dr. Stanley Plotkin where he describes using experimental vaccines on orphans, the mentally retarded, prisoners, and those under colonial rule.

The deposition was in January 2018. The hubris of the medical community is the same or worse now than it was 100 years ago.

Watch as Dr. Plotkin admits to writing:

“The question is whether we are to have experiments performed on fully functioning adults and on children who are potentially contributors to society or to perform initial studies in children and adults who are human in form but not in social potential.”

Please watch the horrifying video clip.

In part because the global community is well aware of medical hubris and well aware of the poor record of medical ethics, the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights developed international standards regarding the right to informed consent to preventative medical procedures like vaccination.

The international community is well aware that the pharmaceutical industry makes mistakes and is always on the lookout for human test subjects. The Declaration states that individuals have the human right to consent to any preventative medical intervention like vaccination.

Article 3 – Human dignity and human rights

1. Human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be fully respected.
2. The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.

Article 6 – Consent

1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. T

he consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.

Clean water, sanitation, flushing toilets, refrigerated foods and healthy diets have done and still do far more to protect humanity from infectious diseases than any vaccine program.

Doctor and the vaccine industry have usurped credit which rightfully belongs to plumbers, electricians, sandhogs, engineers and city planners.

For these reasons, policy makers at all levels of government should protect the human rights and individual liberties of individuals to opt out of vaccine programs via exemptions.

The hubris of the medical community will never go away. Policy makers need to know that vaccines like all medical interventions are not infallible.

Vaccines are not magic. We all have different susceptibility to disease. Human beings are not one size fits all.

In 1918-19, the vaccine industry experimented on soldiers, likely with disastrous results.

In 2018, the vaccine industry experiments on infants every day. The vaccine schedule has never been tested as it is given. The results of the experiment are in: 1 in 7 American children is in some form of special education and over 50% have some form of chronic illness.

In 1918-19, there was no safety follow up after vaccines were delivered.

In 2018, there is virtually no safety follow up after a vaccine is delivered.

Who exactly gave you that flu shot at Rite Aid? Do you have their cell number of the store employee if something goes wrong?

In 1918-19, there was no liability to the manufacturer for injuries or death caused by vaccines.

In 2018, there is no liability for vaccine manufacturers for injuries or death caused by vaccines, which was formalized in 1986.

In 1918-19, there was no independent investigative follow up challenging the official story that “Spanish Flu” was some mystery illness which dropped from the sky. I suspect that many of those at the Rockefeller Institute knew what happened, and that many of the doctors who administered the vaccines to the troops knew what happened, but those people are long dead.

In 2018, the Pharmaceutical industry is the largest campaign donor to politicians and the largest advertiser in all forms of media, so not much has changed over 100 years.

This story will likely be ignored by mainstream media because their salaries are paid by pharmaceutical advertising.

The next time you hear someone say “vaccines save lives” please remember that the true story of the cost/benefit of vaccines is much more complicated than their three word slogan. Also remember that vaccines may have killed 50-100 million people in 1918-19. If true, those costs greatly outweighed any benefit, especially considering that plumbers, electricians, sandhogs and engineers did, and continue to do, the real work which reduces mortality from disease.

Vaccines are not magic. Human rights and bioethics are critically important. Policy makers should understand the history of medical hubris and protect individual and parental human rights as described in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.

How Iran’s Shadow Fleet Evades Oil Sanctions, and What Happens If the Waiver Expires

Jay Letni Founder, OSINT613

For years, Iran’s shadow fleet existed because selling Iranian oil on the open market was prohibited under U.S. sanctions.

Hundreds of tankers operated through shell companies, false identities, forged shipping documents and complex payment networks built to move crude without triggering sanctions. For the next several weeks, much of that system has been temporarily set aside. On June 22, the U.S. Treasury issued General License X, implementing part of the memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and the Islamic regime on June 17. The license remains in effect until August 21 and temporarily authorizes Iran to produce, export, transport, insure and receive payment for its crude oil. It also permits the financial transactions needed to complete those sales, including dollar payments through authorized channels. The waiver is temporary. If no broader agreement is reached before it expires, the sanctions suspended under the license return automatically.

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The shadow fleet was built to solve one problem:

how to move oil that could not legally be sold. Over the past several years, Iran assembled one of the world’s largest sanctions evasion networks, relying on aging tankers, offshore shell companies, frequent name changes, flag of convenience registrations and ship to ship transfers carried out far from port. The tanker Nora is one example. During its operating life it has sailed under at least 6 different names, including Nichinori, Gulf Glory, Gulf Falcon, Longbow Lake, Limostar and Aroon. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the vessel in 2020 for transporting oil linked to the National Iranian Oil Company, but the designation did not stop it from operating. Like many vessels in the fleet, it simply continued sailing under different identities.

That system was on display earlier this year. On January 29, the Malaysian Coast Guard intercepted the Nora about 24 nautical miles off Penang while it was transferring roughly $130 million worth of Iranian crude to another tanker during the night. Authorities detained both vessels and arrested 53 crew members. Within days, the ships were released after fines that represented only a small fraction of the value of the cargo. The economics favored the operators. A single successful voyage could generate far more revenue than the financial penalties imposed when shipments were discovered.

Most voyages followed the same pattern. A tanker loaded crude at Kharg Island before heading into the Strait of Hormuz. During the voyage its tracking signal could disappear or transmit misleading information. The cargo was then transferred to another vessel in international waters, usually after dark, making it harder to trace its origin. Shipping paperwork was rewritten, the crude was often relabeled as coming from another country, and the receiving vessel continued toward Asian buyers, most commonly in China. Payments moved through channels largely outside the Western financial system, including China’s Kunlun Bank using yuan, as well as intermediaries and, in some cases, cryptocurrency. By the time the cargo reached its destination, customs records often showed no Iranian origin at all. Analysts estimate roughly 430 vessels participated in the trade, allowing Iran to export more than 600 million barrels of crude during 2025 despite comprehensive U.S. sanctions.

General License X removes the legal need for many of those workarounds while it remains in force.

Unlike previous authorizations that applied only to oil already loaded aboard ships, the current license covers the broader supply chain, including production, exports, shipping services, marine insurance, vessel management and banking transactions connected to Iranian crude. A tanker carrying authorized cargo no longer needs forged documentation or multiple identities to complete a legal voyage. Marine insurers can underwrite shipments without relying on several layers of intermediaries, while banks processing authorized transactions face far fewer sanctions risks than they did only weeks ago. China, which buys about 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude, is expected to use the waiver to increase purchases and replenish storage while the temporary authorization remains in effect.

The waiver does not remove every restriction. Transactions involving Cuba, North Korea or Crimea remain prohibited, and the license does not automatically release Iranian assets already frozen under earlier sanctions programs. It applies to new, authorized oil transactions rather than money already blocked under previous sanctions authorities. Those frozen assets remain part of separate negotiations and are not covered by General License X.

If negotiators reach a broader agreement before August 21, much of the shadow fleet’s infrastructure becomes unnecessary. The shell companies, multiple ship identities, flag of convenience registrations, indirect insurance arrangements and alternative payment networks were built to bypass sanctions. If Iranian oil exports remain legal, ships would no longer need to disguise where they loaded their cargo or who owned them. The vessels themselves would continue operating, but many of the methods developed over the past several years would no longer serve the purpose they were created for.

If no agreement is reached, the waiver expires on August 21

And the legal authority allowing Iranian oil exports ends with it... The sanctions suspended under General License X return unless they are replaced by a new authorization. Iran would not need to rebuild its sanctions evasion network because it already exists. The tankers are still operating, the shell companies remain registered, the ownership structures remain in place and the payment channels continue to function. The same methods used before the waiver could resume immediately if legal exports are no longer permitted.

The enforcement environment is also different from previous sanctions campaigns. Earlier this year, the U.S. expanded its maritime enforcement authorities against sanctioned shipping, giving it broader options to intercept vessels involved in prohibited trade. That increases the legal and financial risks for shipowners, insurers, traders and banks if sanctions return after August 21. For now, some vessels that spent years operating through false identities are carrying Iranian crude legally for the first time in decades. Whether that continues depends entirely on whether negotiators reach a permanent agreement before the temporary waiver expires.

Russian Drone Strikes Hotel in Kyiv

Russian drone strikes City Hotel Residence in Kyiv, Ukraine.

https://vz-e81798e6-ed7.b-cdn.net/9ae1572a-577b-4559-967c-a546647a1007/play_720p.mp4

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This footage was geolocated/verified by @zarGEOINT.

Trump Weighed War With Iran

REPORT: U.S. President Donald Trump has weighed a return to all-out war with Iran, holding multiple conversations in recent days with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine about additional strikes, but has decided, for now, to stick with diplomatic talks, according to U.S. officials. - WSJ

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Khamenei’s Funeral and the Question of Who Leads Iran Next

Potkin Azarmehr

The funeral of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, scheduled for 4 July, is in reality far more than a ceremonial farewell. It functions as a high-stakes political stress test—an attempt to project regime strength and mass legitimacy to domestic and international audiences. At the same time, it is likely to become a rare window into the regime’s internal dynamics, potentially exposing some of the closely guarded secrets of governance in the aftermath of the 39-day war with US and Israeli forces. Under Islamic tradition—as in Jewish law—burial is generally expected to take place promptly, usually as soon as possible after death. In this case, however, the burial has been significantly delayed, with the postponement justified by wartime conditions and political expediency. The outcome is an overdue ceremony in which state planning, political orchestrations and propaganda requirements have taken precedence over the religious obligations. Holding the funeral has also been one of the motivations for Tehran in signing the Memorandum of Understanding and a 60 day ceasefire.

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Power Revealed in Plain Sight

Funerals in political and ideological systems like Iran, USSR or North Korea, are rarely only about the dead. They are also about the hierarchy of the successors —specifically, who stands where, and who is seen beside whom will reveal a glimpse of the ruling political structure in Iran after Ali Khamenei. That is why attention is already fixed on the choreography. Attendance lists, seating arrangements, speeches as well as speakers are expected to shed light on the current political factional dynamics in Iran. Particular scrutiny will fall on the presence - or absence - of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the previous Supreme Leader of Iran, who is said to have been appointed as the new Supreme Leader of Iran, but has not been seen or heard since his father was killed on 28th February at the start of the joint US and Israeli attack .

If Mojtaba does not even appear publicly for his father’s funeral, many will conclude that he is dead and all the printed statements attributed to him since his disappearance have been fabricated. This will have huge consequences and further open up the fissures within the supporters of the Islamic Republic. Rumours are rampant that it will be announced Mojtaba is in the crowd but attending in an incognito manner.

A scenario that could serve to sustain ambiguity and prolong the status quo in which the ruling figures claim to act in his name. The Politics of Crowd Control Organizing the event is assigned to Brigadier General Hasan Hasanzadeh, commander of the IRGC’s “Muhammad Rasul Allah Corps of Greater Tehran”, the largest combat formation within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This is an immense challenge and responsibility to manage: arguably the most significant public gathering, where crowd size itself becomes only one measure of legitimacy in the aftermath of a 39-day war with two of the world’s most powerful military forces, and against the backdrop of the most bloody nationwide uprising ever in Iran’s modern history earlier in January. State funerals in the Islamic Republic of Iran have not always gone smoothly.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s funeral in 1989 descended into chaos due to the fanatical crowd, resulting in a deadly crush, that disrupted the burial procession, and the body of the Ayatollah falling out of his funeral bier, while the poor organisation in the 2020 burial of General Qasem Soleimani also saw deadly crowd crushes in Kerman, his birthplace, resulting in at least 59 dead and 213 injured. These precedents are operational warnings on the risks involved in emotionally charging a fanatical crowd into fever pitch for propaganda imagery without losing control.

Speaking on State TV, General Hasanzadeh, has called for continuous movement of the crowd without stopping, with a strict time limit of 15 minutes for passing the coffin on display. The problem, of course, is that the desire of sycophants to be seen on camera to display overwhelming grief, does not always obey operational plans.

Ritual as Statecraft

The symbolism surrounding the funeral is deliberately expansive. Elevated positioning of the coffin, mass-produced visual iconography, and nationwide posters and billboards all point toward a maximum effort to transform the burial into a display of a manufactured national mourning and a fake collective sorrow. The country will shut down for three days, with only emergency and essential services operating. Schools, universities, government buildings, parks, and mosques are being repurposed to accommodate and manage the expected influx of mourners, underscoring the event’s political and logistical scale. Foreign dignitaries from 60 countries have been invited, a move framed both as a signal that Iran is not internationally isolated and as a means of reducing the risk of the funeral becoming a target for further strikes. At this stage, however, it remains unclear which countries will send delegations, or at what level they will be represented. At the same time, coordination across Shi’a holy cities in Iraq—Najaf, Karbala, Kazemain, and Baghdad—extends the event beyond Iran’s borders.The message is clear: this is not just a national figure being buried, but a symbol embedded in a wider ideological geography.

What to Watch

The funeral will answer questions the regime has spent four months refusing to answer. Watch for Mojtaba. His appearance, or his absence, is the single most important signal of the day. If he walks behind his father’s coffin, the succession story holds for now. If he does not appear at all, the claim that Iran has a sitting Supreme Leader collapses in public view, and every statement issued in his name since February becomes suspect. The rumor that he will attend incognito in the crowd is the regime pre-positioning an excuse for that exact absence. Watch whether they reach for it. Watch the choreography. In systems like this one, the seating chart is the org chart. Who stands closest to the coffin, who delivers the eulogy, who is positioned in frame and who is quietly kept out, will map the balance of power among the IRGC commanders, the clerical establishment, and whatever remains of the Khamenei household. The faces in the front row are the story. Watch the crowd. Hasanzadeh has to turn raw emotion into controlled imagery, and the precedents are grim. Khomeini’s 1989 funeral collapsed into a deadly crush and the body was nearly lost.

Soleimani’s 2020 procession killed dozens in Kerman. A stampede on 4 July would hand the regime the opposite of the strength it is trying to broadcast, on a day it cannot reshoot. Watch the foreign delegations. Invitations went to 60 countries, but invitations are cheap. The real signal is who actually sends someone, and at what rank. A row of heads of state reads as defiance of isolation. A scattering of deputy ministers and ambassadors reads as abandonment. The gap between the guest list and the guests will tell you where Iran actually stands after the war.

The body being buried is Ali Khamenei’s. The thing on display is the Islamic Republic itself, and whether it can still command a crowd, a succession, and a room full of foreign envoys at the same time. A funeral built to project strength can just as easily expose how little is left. Tehran knows it. That is why every detail on 4 July is being stage managed, and why the details it cannot control will be the ones worth watching. Mojtaba has three other brothers, Meysam, Mustafa and Massoud. They have not been seen or heard of either. Will they turn up for their father’s funeral? Time will tell.

Final Trade Decision

final_trade_decision.md

Final Recommendation

BUY(as of 6/26/26)

As the Risk Management Judge and Debate Facilitator, I have evaluated the arguments presented by the Risky, Safe, and Neutral analysts. This decision rests on the tension between extraordinary fundamental efficiency and exhausted technical momentum.

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1. Summary of Key Arguments

• Risky Analyst: Focuses on the PEG ratio of 0.60, arguing that triple-digit earnings growth makes a Forward P/E of 22 a “generational mispricing.” They view technical overextension (RSI 74) as “escape velocity” rather than a warning, emphasizing the opportunity cost of missing a secular super-cycle.

• Safe Analyst: Prioritizes capital preservation, highlighting that the stock is 20% above its 200-day SMA. They argue that the “Golden Cross” is a lagging indicator and that macro shifts (4.1% PCE inflation) favor a rotation out of high-growth tech into value, making a $154 entry a violation of risk discipline.

• Neutral Analyst: Provides the bridge between “missing out” and “getting clipped.” They acknowledge the Micron $100B backlog as a sign of a supply-constrained super-cycle but respect the “price vacuum” created by the breach of the Upper Bollinger Band ($154.10).

2. Rationale and Past Lessons

I have previously learned that labeling a fundamental powerhouse a “bubble” solely based on price action leads to “exclusion regret.” However, I have also learned that “chasing the green candle” at the top of a Bollinger Band results in poor cost-basis positioning that tests a trader’s conviction during the inevitable mean reversion.

The most decisive data point is the PEG ratio of 0.60. In previous cycles, a PEG below 1.0 for a monopoly-status company has been a reliable indicator that growth is currently outstripping price appreciation. While the Safe Analyst is right about the $145 VWMA, waiting for a perfect entry in a “take-or-pay” frenzy often results in the stock running to $170 before the dip occurs. The Risky Analyst’s point regarding the NVDL split and its impact on retail liquidity suggests a “buy the rumor, buy the news” environment is still in effect.

3. Refined Trader’s Plan

Recommendation: BUY

Actionable Strategy:

• Immediate Action (The “Inclusion” Move): Execute a 40% starter position at the current market price ($154 range). This ensures participation if the “escape velocity” thesis holds and the stock targets the analyst consensus of $298.

• Tactical Limit Order (The “Prudence” Move): Place a limit order for the remaining 60% of the position at $145.50, aligning with the Safe Analyst’s VWMA support level. This addresses the high RSI risk and the “price vacuum” concern.

• Risk Mitigation: Set a Hard Stop-Loss at $132. This sits below the recent structural consolidation and protects against the Safe Analyst’s “Gray Swan” geopolitical and margin-compression risks.

• Fundamental Trigger: Maintain the position as long as Gross Margins remain above 68%. If margins erode due to the memory costs highlighted by the Safe Analyst, the “money-printing” thesis breaks, and we will move to a Sell.

Final Decision: The fundamental re-rating of global computing is too powerful to ignore, but the technical extension is too extreme for a full-clip entry. We choose to Buy using a bifurcated entry strategy to maximize upside while mitigating the high probability of a short-term “breather.”

US Central Command releases video footage of strikes on Iran military targets

The video reportedly shows the U.S. striking 10 Iranian military targets at “multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz.”

https://hugh.cdn.rumble.cloud/video/fww1/b6/s8/2/Y/D/V/A/YDVAA.gaa.mp4?b=1&u=rvw1

By Nicholas Ballasy

Published: June 28, 2026 8:15am

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U.S. Central Command released video on Saturday that shows the latest US military strikes on Iran.

The video reportedly shows the U.S. striking 10 Iranian military targets at “multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz.”