🏴 According to a report by Jihadology+, an Islamic Terrorism Watchdog, ISIS-affiliated arrests in the USA were up by 50% in 2024.

14 members of ISIS were arrested by federal agencies. 5 of the arrested were actively planning terrorist attacks with a range of targets including churches, synagogues, voting locations, and LGTBQ+/Pride establishments.

📎 Jihadology+

🌎 Ideological Affiliation of National Governments

📎 America Elects

🇺🇦🇫🇷 The cannibalization of the French brigade

Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov wrote a detailed post about issues with the new 155th Mechanized Brigade. He reports that more than 1,700 soldiers went AWOL before deployment to the front line, including over 50 during training in France. Among the challenges, over 2,500 soldiers were reassigned to other units as combat replacements during the brigade's formation, and it deployed to the front with insufficient equipment.

The reality is that Ukraine lacked the personnel and equipment for a new brigade and attempted to use the formation of a new unit as propaganda. Except for the 2A4 tanks, this brigade lacked vehicles capable of withstanding shell splinters. Some news labeled it as one of the most heavily-armed Ukrainian brigades, yet it was missing crucial equipment. Initially, 31 Leopard 2A4 tanks were promised, later revised to just 10, but the exact number deployed remains unclear.

The brigade also had an anti-aircraft defense battalion, but with what equipment? Similarly, there was an absence of Electronic Warfare units.

Realistically speaking, 50 troops went AWOL during training in France—where it was well-known that none were contract soldiers, but forcibly mobilized. Who decided that forcibly mobilized men would remain loyal during training in a foreign country? Everybody prefer to eat croissants in some cafe in Paris.

Moreover, several officers left the brigade after deployment due to a lack of organization and equipment. The brigade was essentially cannibalized, reflecting total disrespect for its members. After deployment, the brigade suffered heavy losses, resulting in further desertions.

Additionally, Ukraine recently lost two of its newly delivered F-16s, one in Ivano-Frankivsk and another in Zaporizhzhia.

These F-16s, equipped with stealth missiles, have the potential to significantly slow the Russian advance on the eastern front if operated with more caution.

Ukraine need to solve the manpower question with financial incentives and less brute force.

📎 Patricia Marins

"Washington Consensus saw offshoring the US defense industrial base to China as a boost to US efficiency.

The long-term folly of that view becomes obvious if we reclassify the below as a strategy to reduce US govt deficits under "DOGE" by offshoring US govt functions to China."

📎 Luke Gromen

🇨🇳/🇺🇸 Arnaud Bertrand on X:

"This will undoubtedly be one of the most interesting stories of 2025: the great LLM war between the US and China.

The war of course started a while ago already with the US restricting high-end semiconductors to China. Leading to the extremely ironical situation where we find ourselves today whereby China developed models like Deepseek 3 that - in large parts due to the constraints imposed by the US - are orders of magnitude more efficient and cheaper than US models.

Which leads us to the next battle: how do US companies - with their now comparatively inefficient and expensive models - compete? They thought winning AI would be all about deploying the most resources but that's now been completely turned on its head: it is their very abundance of resources that's allowed the emergence of cheaper resource-constrained competitors.

They can go the EV route and straight up ban Chinese tech. But whilst physically banning a car from entering the US is easy, banning internet-accessible technology is an entirely different matter... Or they can do it the hard way and transform their existing approach.

I don't have the answer but in any case it'll be interesting to watch"

https://fxtwitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1874637795538727403

🇬🇧 Lord Pearson in the House of Lords: 250,000 white British girls have been raped in the last 25 years largely by Muslim men

📎 Don Keith

“We could fix every problem tomorrow if we didn't have foreign occupation"

📎 Ether-Wave

🇮🇱🇸🇾 The Israeli Air Force reveals details and footage from one of its most daring and complex commando operations ever, in which 120 members of special forces units raided and destroyed an underground Iranian missile manufacturing plant deep in Syria in September.

The raid — dubbed internally by the Israel Defense Forces “Operation Many Ways” — was aimed at destroying an underground facility used by Iranian forces to manufacture precision missiles for Hezbollah in Lebanon and for the Assad regime in Syria.

The facility, codenamed by the military “Deep Layer,” was dug into a mountain at the Scientific Studies and Research Center, known as CERS or SSRC, in the Masyaf area of Syria, west of Hama. The site lies more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Israeli border, and some 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Syria’s western coastline.

The military says the raid was carried out successfully by the IAF’s elite Shaldag unit, along with the search and rescue Unit 669.

The troops spent just over 2.5 hours on the ground, and none were injured during the entire operation.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-confirms-commandos-raided-iran-missile-factory-deep-in-syria-4-months-ago/

📎 Emanuel Fabian

🇲🇩🚨🔌 The Moldovan government is buying large quantities of electric energy from the Romanian market in preparation for the shutdown of the Druzhba pipeline which Gazprom uses to deliver gas to the country.

Chișinău expects a demand with a peak of 850 MW while Moldova itself, without the MGRES plant in Transnistria, can produce barely over 200 MW.

Chișinău has signed emergency contracts with Petrom to buy 100 MW from the Brazi Power Plant near Ploiești, another contract with Nuclearelectrica for 100 MW supplied by the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant and hopes to buy 200 MW more from OPCOM.

In terms of renewables, Moldovan authorities hope they will be enough to cover the missing 200 MW of energy needed. They will come from the hydropower plants on the Pruth river with Romania and from Moldova's own wind and solar farms which, depending on the weather, can produce anywhere between 50 to 150 MW.

Chișinău is preparing to cut power to households if the situation arises. Top priority for electric energy are public institutions, meaning hospitals, schools and central/local administration buildings.

🔗 https://hotnews.ro/criza-energetica-peste-prut-nuclearelectrica-si-omv-petrom-vor-exporta-electricitate-in-republica-moldova-consumatorii-casnici-vor-fi-primii-afectati-de-deconectari-1868508

🇲🇩🚨🇲🇩🇷🇺 Transnistria is in an even bigger trouble than Moldova who can cover missing energy with imports from neighbouring countries.

Deputy-PM of Moldova, Oleg Serebrian, tells that Chișinău has been preparing for this energy crisis since early 2024 when Ukraine first announced it will not renew contracts with Gazprom for the transit of natural gas through its country.

Serebrian says that Chișinău has taken active steps to reduce dependence on Russia but this does not apply to Transnistria.

Serebrian puts the blame on the crisis on Russia and Gazprom themselves, arguing that they have the capacity to continue to deliver natural gas to Transnistria and power the enclave through BalkanStream and other pipelines under the Black Sea but refuses to do so.

Gazprom on its part invokes a “historic debt” from Moldova of 700 million USD as the reason for the cessation of deliveries. Moldova rejects the debt but admits it owes 8.6 million USD to the company following an audit carried out by Norwegian and British experts, which Gazprom rejects.

Serebrian says that Moldova never attempted to block the transit of natural gas from Russia towards Transnistria and, on the contrary, encourages the company to continue to supply the separatists but refuses to pay for the transportation costs. Serebrian invokes a national duty to the people living in Transnistria as more than 90% of its inhabitants hold Moldovan citizenship.

Serebrian is preparing for the worst case scenario though: a refugee crisis from Transnistria. However he says there crisis will be limited in size and the refugees will be few, no more than a couple thousand.

“Chișinău is ready to welcome patients in intensive care units and orphaned children from Transnistria”said Serebrian.

Serebrian added that Transnistria has the resources to make it through this winter, mentioning the coal reserves at the Cuciurgan (MGRES) Power Plant which can replace natural gas, reserves which will last for 50 days, the fact that most people live in villages and have stoves and there is plenty of firewood available and the Dubăsari hydroelectric plant.

In terms of additional security measures, Oleg Serebrian said that Moldova has asked Western partners for humanitarian aid on behalf of Transnistria to prevent a crisis and minimise damages.

🔗 https://hotnews.ro/cum-se-pregateste-republica-moldova-pentru-criza-gazelor-din-transnistria-estimam-ca-vor-fi-cateva-mii-de-persoane-stramutate-interviu-cu-vicepremierul-de-la-chisinau-1868506

🇲🇩🇲🇩🔌 The Moldavian State District Power Plant (MGRES/Cuciurgan PPT) switched to coal as of today. Its reserves will last for 50-52 days. During this time, Transnistria will definitely have electricity.

The contract between the Moldavian State District Power Plant and Moldova has expired: due to the lack of gas, the power plant no longer supplies inexpensive electricity to the neighboring country.

Moldova now relies exclusively on imports from Romania to keep the lights on.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩❌🇲🇩🇺🇦 Transnistrian medias accuse Maia Sandu and Vladimir Zelensky of "genocide" because Gazprom decided to stop delivering gas to the enclave.

I remind my viewers that Transnistria IS NOT cutoff from Russian gas as Turkey has not shut down its pipelines (TurkStream) and gas can continue to flow from Russia, through Turkey, to Moldova.

Moscow wants to topple the PAS government and the presidency of Maia Sandu. It also has the potential to backfire and collapse the separatist regime in Tiraspol.

🔗 https://tirasteplo.org/index.php/informatsiya/novosti/item/5789-uvazhaemye-potrebiteli-tepla-i-goryachej-vody