Counterterrorism
At least five people, including two of the attackers, were killed during a raid by armed militants on Wednesday on an army base near the Somali capital's international airport, a diplomatic memo said. Earlier, state TV had said security forces were dealing with a…
Twenty-four soldiers have been killed as violence surges in Burkina Faso, 13 in a suspected jihadist ambush and 11 after a roadside bomb exploded, the army said. The soldiers were killed Sunday in the sixth and seventh attacks of their kind in the landlocked West African…
Military & Defense
NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where fierce resistance from the country’s defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought. By way of comparison, Russia lost about 15,000…
Taiwan is considering extending compulsory military service beyond four months, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said on Wednesday, as the war in Ukraine renewed discussion about how best to respond to China's military pressure. Taiwan has been gradually shifting from…
Cybersecurity
“LAPSUS$”, also tracked as “DEV-0537” by Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), is a relatively new English/Portuguese-language online extortion group that gained notoriety after targeting Brazil’s Ministry of Health on December 10, 2021. This cyber-criminal gang…
A Russian national accused of running a cybercrime forum that sold stolen credentials and sensitive information faces up to 20 years in federal prison, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday evening. The 23-year-old Igor Dekhtyarchuk, who remains at-large…
Counterintelligence & Espionage
Poland said it had expelled 45 Russian diplomats on Wednesday for engaging in espionage in the EU country. Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski made the announcement on Twitter. "Poland has expelled 45 Russian spies pretending to be diplomats," he wrote…
Russia is moving to expel some American diplomats from the country after the U.S. removed 12 Russian diplomats late last month. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday that a note listing names of diplomats now considered…
Transnational Organized Crime
When most people think of organized crime, they probably picture Tony Soprano's "waste management" gig, the various drug cartels, or the body counts racked up by the Mafia in cities like New York and Chicago in decades past. But for the people living in Canada's most…
The United States government has taken major actions against one of Guatemala’s most enduring drug clans – the “Huistas” – whose leaders have spent years evading authorities from both countries. On March 18, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against the…