Daily Intel Brief
Ukrainian forces take Snake Island, human smuggling deaths continue to mount in Texas, and a NJ woman pled guilty to supporting Syrian terrorists...
Counterterrorism
New Zealand designated two U.S. far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the Base, as terrorist organizations this month, as the Pacific nation grapples with the potential spread of right-wing extremism within its borders. A top New Zealand police official approved the…
Maria Bell, also known as “Maria Sue Bell,” 54, of Hopatcong, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez to one count of concealing attempts to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations. Specifically, Bell attempted to funnel…
Military & Defense
Russian forces withdrew from a strategic Black Sea island Thursday, potentially easing the threat to the vital Ukrainian port city of Odesa, but kept up their push to encircle the last stronghold of resistance in the eastern province of Luhansk. The Kremlin portrayed the…
Belarusians are complaining that summonses have been sent to those who work, and to those who are on unpaid leave, and even to those who are unfit for military service. The summonses do not specify the reason for attending the military enlistment office. However, failure to…
Cybersecurity
NATO will establish a program to quickly respond to cyberattacks and other malign activity in the digital domain, while pledging to boost Ukraine’s cyber defenses amid relentless Russian attacks. The creation of the “virtual rapid response cyber capability” was included in a June…
A cyberattack on a software company has disrupted unemployment benefits and job seeking assistance for thousands of people in several states. In Tennessee, the website for unemployment benefits remained down Thursday morning after the vendor, Geographic…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
According to the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, hostile foreign spy agencies are waging a war of intelligence against the Islamic Republic. "Our Intelligence Protection Organization is engaged in a direct…
Chinese university students have been lured to work at a secretive technology company that masked the true nature of their jobs: researching Western targets for spying and translating hacked documents as part of Beijing’s industrial-scale intelligence regime. The Financial…
Transnational Organized Crime
On Thursday afternoon, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety posted on social media that four people, described by the department as "immigrants," had been killed in a crash in Encinal, Texas. The department added that law enforcement had "suspected…
The U.S. commodities regulator announced on Thursday it had filed civil charges against a South African man and his company for operating a fradulent commodity pool worth over $1.7 billion in bitcoin. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said the fraud…