Daily Intel Brief
An ISIS affiliate kills over 20 in Mali, massive explosions rock a Russian airfield in Crimea, and a former Twitter employee was convicted on espionage charges...
Counterterrorism
Armed fighters with a suspected affiliation to the ISIL (ISIS) group killed 17 Malian soldiers and four civilians during an attack over the weekend in the country’s south, Mali’s army has said. Nine soldiers were also reported missing and vehicles and equipment were destroyed as…
A convicted terrorist has been sent back to jail after keeping secret financial accounts from authorities. Kristen Brekke, 26, from south Wales, was one of three men jailed for helping a teenage jihadi follow in his big brother’s footsteps and join so-called Islamic State fighters in…
Military & Defense
Powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea and sent towering clouds of smoke over the landscape Tuesday in what may mark an escalation of the war in Ukraine. At least one person was killed and several others were wounded, authorities said. Russia’s Defense…
A U.S. Army National Guard exercise, designed to simulate a response to a hypersonic missile attack, just wrapped up last week in Philadelphia. It focused on an unnamed adversary using ultra-fast hypersonic weapons on cities across the Eastern Seaboard. The Pentagon almost…
Cybersecurity
U.S. officials warned that North Korea is increasingly using crypto heists to fund nuclear weapons programs. Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company Meta is changing course with new product features and a focus on the metaverse as the tech giant vies to maintain its…
Finland's parliament said Tuesday its website came under cyber attack, as the Nordic country applies for NATO membership following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. "A denial of service attack is taking place against the parliament's external website," parliament said in a…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
Former Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo was found guilty of spying for the government of Saudi Arabia, according to a report from Bloomberg. The jury handed down its judgment in a San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, where Abouammo was also convicted of conspiracy…
Iran will soon have access to sharp orbital imagery, thanks to a newly launched spy satellite. That spacecraft, called Khayyam, lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket today (Aug. 9) at 1:52 a.m. EDT (0552 GMT) from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan…
Transnational Organized Crime
The threat of a trial in the US and 100 years in prison is looming for Sébastien Raoult. In a decision handed down on July 20 and published on August 8 by Agence France-Presse, the Moroccan Cour de Cassation (highest appeals court) issued a "favorable decision" on the…
Little clarity has followed the brazen assassination of a local police chief in northern Mexico, as officials investigate who may have ordered the high-profile killing and why. A team of armed civilians shot and killed Deputy Municipal Police Chief Juan Miguel Silva Alvarado…