🇮🇱🇱🇧⚡️⚡️ IDF reveals details of Hezbollah leader's assassination

"Acting on precise intelligence information, Israeli Air Force aircraft struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah, located underground, under a residential building in the Dahiya area of ​​Beirut.

The attack took place at a time when Hezbollah's top leadership was at its headquarters coordinating terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel," the statement said.

🇮🇱🇱🇧 According to Israeli media The entire Hezbollah chain of command has been destroyed by Israeli strikes in recent times. The deaths of Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Karaki remain unconfirmed at this time.

Only one commander, named Abu Ali Rida, remained alive.

🇮🇱❌🇱🇧 Hezbollah has confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah in yesterday's bombing of Southern Beirut.

🔗 OSINT Defender

🇳🇱🇫🇷🇧🇪 New route will turbo-charge trade between France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Work is finally underway on France’s Seine-Nord Europe Canal (SNEC), a major new European trading route that promises to boost the bloc’s economic fortunes.

When it is completed in 2030, the massive 107km infrastructure project will significantly increase the capacity for cheaper, faster and less polluting river trade between France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

As it stands, the smooth flow of commerce between the three nations is being frustrated by the limited capacity of the narrower Canal du Nord.

The antiquated river system struggles to cope with the new generation of super-sized cargo ships powering international trade.

Shipping mishaps and the sheer weight of traffic attempting to navigate a path through the canal create frustrating bottlenecks, costing European businesses valuable time and money.

Despite the urgent need for a new trading route and the canal project securing the green light in 2003, decades of political wrangling and disagreements around funding and the canal’s final route stalled progress, until now.

The SNEC is a €5.1bn investment by the French government, local authorities, and the EU, in the region’s economic and environmental future.

Analysts suggest the new route could remove as many as a million heavy goods vehicles from France’s roads each year.

The size of the undertaking is staggering, involving as many as sixty bridges, three canal bridges, seven locks, and 700 hectares of environmental plantation.

Nicolas Ledoux, CEO of Arcadis France, which is leading the project, said: “The Seine-Nord Europe Canal will not only enable a modal shift from the roadway to the river but will also create added economic, logistical, agricultural, and climatic value for the territories it crosses through.

“We are very proud to help promote river transport, a high-performing, environmentally friendly, and economical mode of transport that responds to the challenge of energy transition.”

The new 54-metre wide canal will occupy a section of the Seine-Escaut waterway and create Europe’s first river network with the capacity to accommodate large ships.

It will connect the Seine basin to the main waterways of northern France and Europe.

🔗 https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/09/27/europes-answer-to-the-suez-canal-breaks-ground-after-20-year-delay

🇳🇱⚓️ Armed Merchant Supply Ships: Did The Dutch Navy Just Redefine Naval Warfare?

The Dutch Ministry of Defense has announced a bold investment of up to €1 billion in two new support vessels that could redefine naval logistics. These ships, each measuring just 174 feet in length and displacing a mere 600 tons, will be operated by a skeletal crew of as few as eight sailors. Compare that to the De Zeven Provinciën-class frigates, which tower over these new vessels at 473 feet and require a crew of around 230. This isn’t merely a downsizing—it’s a seismic shift in naval strategy. The pressing question now is: could this spark an arms race in merchant shipping?

What’s driving this shift? The Royal Netherlands Navy claims its modularity. They aren’t just building ships; they’re creating multi-tool platforms, equipped with containerized weapons and sensors – and other containerized units including lifesaving systems – that can be swapped out for different missions. While modularity on merchant and military logistics ships isn’t new, the plan to arm these vessels with lethal munitions represents a significant departure from tradition.

Today, even the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command fleet logistics ships, which sail with carrier battlegroups and transit combat zones, are only equipped with small arms, and few have the mounting systems for the Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) anti-air defense… but of them don’t have CIWS installed, leaving them vulnerable to drones and anti-ship missiles.

The commercial sector is even more reluctant to arm itself. Shipowners would rather reroute vessels around Africa, burning large amounts of fuel and incurring millions in costs, than install anti-drone and missile defenses to run the gauntlet of Houthi missiles in the Red Sea. Even the Somali piracy, which saw 276 incidents of piracy and armed robbery reported worldwide in 2010, didn’t push shipowners to arm their vessels until after the US-flagged ship Maersk Alabama was attacked and the US Navy stepped in. And even then, they preferred hiring third-party security guards over arming and training their own seafarers.

The Dutch aren’t advocating for arming commercial ships or militarizing civilian seafarers like China has already done but, by arming military-owned and operated supply ships, they are taking a step down a path that could lead to an arms race among merchant vessels.

For NATO nations like the Netherlands, building and maintaining a fleet of traditional warships is a costly endeavor—one that has become increasingly unsustainable in the face of tightening defense budgets, stagnating economic growth, and competing national priorities. The price tag for a single modern frigate or destroyer can run into the billions of dollars, with long lead times and significant lifecycle costs for maintenance and crew. As a result, many NATO navies have seen their fleets atrophy, with fewer ships in service and aging vessels struggling to meet modern threats.

The difference in cost between a purpose-built warship and a converted commercial vessel is staggering. For the price of a single modern frigate, a nation could acquire and outfit several commercial ships with advanced weaponry and sensors, creating a formidable force multiplier at a fraction of the cost. And these aren’t just theoretical savings—NATO countries like the Netherlands have been wrestling with budgetary constraints for years, struggling to maintain a credible naval force while addressing other defense priorities. In many cases, this has meant watching their once-formidable fleets dwindle as they retire older ships without replacement.

🔗 https://gcaptain.com/armed-merchant-supply-ships-did-the-dutch-navy-just-redefined-naval-warfare/

🇦🇹🗳 Austria's right wing forces eye unprecedented election win

Austrians vote on Sunday in a general election that could see the right-wing opposition Freedom Party (FPÖ) top the polls for the first time.

But now, led by Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ is within reach of a historic victory. It narrowly leads the ruling conservatives in the opinion polls, and the opposition Social Democrats are in third place.

Even if the Freedom Party manages to come first, no party is expected to win enough seats for an outright majority, and building a coalition is likely to be difficult.

The FPÖ has successfully tapped into concerns about migration, rising inflation, the war in Ukraine and anger over the way the Covid pandemic was handled, and for months has been hovering around 27% in the polls, up to two points ahead of the conservative Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) or Austrian People's Party, which is predicting a photo finish.

Like other far-right European parties, the FPÖ combines tough rhetoric on immigration and Islam with promises to reduce what it regards as interference from Brussels in national affairs.

But Kickl has also aligned his party closely with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the self-styled champion of "illiberal democracy" and expressed a more conciliatory tone when it comes to Russia.

The Freedom Party leader has called European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen a "warmonger" and opposes sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The conservative People’s Party, led by Austria’s current chancellor Karl Nehammer, has repeatedly excluded joining a Kickl-led government, although it has not ruled out an alliance with his party.

🔗 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4xz013zx7o

🇺🇸 ICE released over 435,000 migrants with criminal convictions, data shows

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told a Texas border lawmaker this week that 435,000 undocumented migrants with criminal convictions have been released by the agency to cities around the United States.

ICE Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, saying as of July 21, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on the agency’s non-detained docket (NDD), meaning they are not detained while they await immigration proceedings.

“Of those, 435,719 are convicted criminals, and 226,847 have pending criminal charges,” Lechleitner wrote.

“It may be shocking to hear that the Biden-Harris administration is actively releasing tens of thousands of criminal illegal aliens into our communities, but their own numbers conclusively prove this to be the case. This defies all common sense,” Green said in a statement.

According to Lechleitner, 62,231 noncitizens with criminal convictions for assault currently are not detained by ICE and have been released; 42,915 have pending assault charges. The agency currently is holding 2,348 noncitizens who have been convicted of assault and 1,498 who have pending charges.

🔗 https://www.borderreport.com/immigration/border-crime/ice-released-over-435000-migrants-with-criminal-convictions-data-shows/amp/