🇺🇸🇮🇱☢️🇮🇷 The War Zone, June 18th 2025: "Loose Nukes In Iran Is A Scenario U.S. Special Operators Have Been Training For"

Ground operations in Iran could be needed to secure dangerous nuclear materials and verify the program's destruction, especially if the regime falls.

In 2016, the Department of Defense formally designated U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as the lead entity for the Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) mission, a role that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had previously held. Decades before then, the U.S. special operations community, especially the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), had been training to take a newly active role in tackling potential ‘loose nukes’ or other nuclear contingencies. This was driven in large part by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had left nuclear weapons and other material scattered across a number of newly independent nations.

When it comes to Iran, it’s important to note that the exact current state of that country’s nuclear program, including efforts to develop nuclear weapons, is a matter of dispute, including between U.S. and Israeli intelligence services. The regime in Tehran also has a long history of, at best, obfuscating and, at worst, actively lying about its nuclear ambitions.

U.S. special operations units are ideally suited to rapidly and discreetly infiltrate into a target area to extract items of interest from an objective like a nuclear facility in Iran. If the items in question are too large to be moved by the special operations force, depending on what they are, they could then be destroyed in place or secured until a larger follow-on force arrives. Conventional supporting forces and interagency elements offering unique capabilities could accompany special operations forces on initial raids, as well.

This is not speculative, but reflects real mission scenarios the U.S. military is actively prepared to carry out. For instance, roughly a year ago, members of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment partnered with a specialized non-special operations unit, called Nuclear Disablement Team 1 (NDT 1), to conduct an exercise consisting of a simulated raid under hostile fire on a decommissioned pulse radiation facility serving as a mock underground nuclear site.

As another one of many examples, NDT 1 teamed up with Green Berets from the Army’s 5th Special Operations Group for an exercise in 2023 involving a mock air assault on the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Alabama and a simulated shutdown of the facility.

The NDTs are a prime example of conventional U.S. military units that could be called upon to support real-world special operations CWMD missions. The Army has three of these teams, all assigned to the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Command headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. These units are made up of personnel specially trained “to exploit and disable nuclear and radiological Weapons of Mass Destruction infrastructure and components to deny near-term capability to adversaries,” according to the Army.

🔗 https://www.twz.com/nuclear/loose-nukes-in-iran-is-a-scenario-u-s-special-operators-have-been-training-for

🇬🇧🛢 Britain has just TWO DAYS' worth of gas stored up - sparking fears of a supply shortage as Iran shuts the Strait of Hormuz and bombards gas and oil refineries

The UK's gas reserves have dwindled from 18,000 GWh last year to 6,700 GWh, enough for just 1.5 days of demand, according to new data published by National Gas. There is a similar quantity stored as liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Europe is much better prepared to weather fluctuations in supply, with several weeks' worth of gas stored up.

Traders have been exploiting the UK's situation by charging it a premium price on gas, knowing it has no choice but to outbid its European competitors. The UK is now paying the highest wholesale gas price in Europe.

🔗 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15625735/Britain-two-days-gas-stored-fears-supply-crisis.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline

#BREAKING

❗️🇷🇺📈— An earthquake of magnitude 6.5 shakes the coasts of the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka.

The earthquake originated 231 kilometers from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷 The War Is Now Moving Every Commodity Market

🛢 Oil: +21%
✈️ Jet fuel: +87%
🔥 LNG: +106%

🚢 VLCC tanker rates: +201%
🚢 LNG carrier rates: +529%

🏗 Aluminum: +20%
🌾 Fertilizer: +36%
🧪 Naphtha: +26%

🔗 Jack Prandelli

📉 Wall Street just posted a number WORSE than the 2008 Financial Crisis.

And almost nobody is talking about it.

Finance and insurance job openings collapsed by 117,000 in a single month.

The largest monthly decline during the entire 2008 crash was 125,000.

We're nearly there in one month, without a crisis.

Total finance job openings are now 134,000, the lowest since 2012.

Down 75% from the 2022 peak and 410,000 openings have vanished.

Fewer than 2 out of every 100 finance jobs in America are vacant right now.

That's the lowest rate this century, lower than the dot-com bust and than post-9/11.

Only the 2009 collapse was worse by barely.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley just cut 2,500 workers after a record revenue year.

Citigroup is eliminating 20,000 jobs by year end.

BlackRock cut hundreds in January.

Jack Dorsey fired 4,000 people at Block and said the quiet part out loud, AI did it.

His stock jumped 25% and Wall Street didn't mourn the layoffs but instead it rewarded them.

Goldman Sachs is now warning that AI-driven job losses could push unemployment to 4.5% or higher this year.

The finance industry isn't downsizing because it's losing money.

It's downsizing because machines are replacing the people who make the money.

🔗 Stock Market News

🇷🇺🤝🇮🇷 Russia's Lavrov meets with Arab ambassadors in Moscow who request that he pressure Iran to de-escalate.

Lavrov rejects their requests and points out that they have not condemned the bombing of the girls' school in Iran, and that Bahrain reportedly is seeking to introduce a resolution at the UNSC that condemns Iran's retaliation, but not Israel and the US for initiating the war.

Whether that is accurate or not, Lavrov's response seems to suggest that 9 days into the war, Moscow's position is moving closer to that of Tehran.

🔗 Trita Parsi (@tparsi)

🇰🇷🕊🇰🇵 South Korea seeks ‘peace declaration’ to formally end Korean War

Seoul says proposed statement would signal political will to move beyond the 1953 armistice

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Friday it will pursue a political “peace declaration” aimed at formally ending the Korean War and laying the groundwork for a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, according to local media.

The proposed initiative would involve South Korea, North Korea, the United States and China, which were signatories to the original armistice agreement.

The idea resembles a similar initiative pursued by former President Moon Jae-in. His push for an end-of-war declaration stalled after the 2019 Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump ended without an agreement.

🔗 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/south-korea-seeks-peace-declaration-to-formally-end-korean-war/3852340

🇮🇷❌🇺🇸🇮🇱 — NEW: An informed source told Fars News Agency that Iran has expanded its target bank following overnight U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure.

➡️ Tehran will no longer limit attacks to military targets and could also strike key U.S. and Israeli investments and vital interests in the region.

➡️ The source added that the decision came after increasingly threatening rhetoric from U.S. and Israeli officials, saying the two countries had shifted to a more aggressive tone after failing to weaken Iran’s resolve.

😁😁well well well 😁😁

🌧☣️⚠️ The toxic cloud of black acidic cancerous rain over Tehran caused by Israel and the US will be moving to the northeast over the Caspian Sea towards Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and eventually reach western China, passing over Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the process, harming hundreds of million of people in the process.

@CIG_telegram