Off Leash Intel · loading
3 direct mentions across 3 briefings, with 3 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Israeli police raided Al Jazeera’s local offices after the network was ordered to cease operating in Israel on national-security grounds. Al Jazeera called the raid a criminal action.
Unverified development · updated through
Israeli police raided Al Jazeera’s local offices after the network was ordered to cease operating in Israel on national-security grounds. Al Jazeera called the raid a criminal action.
Open source reportGeography
Marker precision is disclosed on selection. Country and regional centroids show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Al Jazeera dossier
3 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Israel
The Knesset passed legislation allowing the prime minister to suspend foreign media operations on national-security grounds. Benjamin Netanyahu intended to use the law against Al Jazeera and that the White House called the prospective ban concerning.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update May 7 Gaza •Hamas said it has accepted the terms of a ceasefire proposal from Egypt and Hamas that could stop the fighting - at least temporarily. •The terms of the proposal aren't yet public, but the NYT reported that experts say it has only "minor word changes" from the one Israel recently offered. However, other reports suggest PM Netanyahu has already rejected the proposal Hamas accepted as "far from Israel's basic requirements." •The U.S. is pushing Israel to consider the proposal on the table and hold off on sending ground troops into Rafah, but the clock is winding down: Israel's War Cabinet approved the ground invasion of Rafah unanimously, and prospects for a deal will dim after that begins, since Hamas has threatened to walk away from talks once it starts. •Families of the remaining hostages are also pleading with Israel to accept a deal instead of invading Rafah: some of them are blocking highways in Ayalon to make their demands heard. •Separately, Israeli police raided the local offices of Al Jazeera after Israel's parliament ordered the network to cease operations in the country on national security grounds. Al Jazeera defiantly called the raid a "criminal action" and continued to criticize Israel's war in Gaza. North Korea •The Economist reported that North Koreans were asked to swear their loyalty to Kim Jong Un during a ceremony on Jan. 8 celebrating Kim's 40th birthday. Analysts think the loyalty oaths were designed to solidify Kim's grip on power by boosting his cult of popularity. Ukraine and Russia •Russia said it would hold new military exercises near Ukraine to practice for the possible future use of "tactical" battlefield nuclear weapons. •Pres. Putin has consistently denied - including as recently as March - that he's ever considered using tactical nukes, so these exercises seem like provocative bluster in reaction to recent escalating rhetoric from Western leaders like France's Pres. Macron, who refused to rule out sending French troops to Ukraine (though he most likely would never do so), and top UK diplomat David Cameron, who said Ukraine is free to use weapons from the UK to strike targets inside Russia. •Separately, Russia detained a U.S. Army soldier in Vladivostok on charges of criminal misconduct. U.S. military personnel are strongly discouraged against travel to Russia because of the risk of detentions like this. Libya •Royal Jordanian and Qatar Airways will resume flights to Libya's Tripoli International Airport this month after a long hiatus, and Saudi Airlines is in talks to start servicing Tripoli routes, too. That seems like a good sign of stabilization in Libya - though it took longer than planned to revitalize Tripoli's airport due to cost overruns.
Open source reportOff Leash update 6 May Coming Up This Week •China's Pres. Xi is in Europe this week on a trip the NYT says "is likely to be seen as a none-too-subtle effort to divide Western allies." He'll visit France, Serbia (on the 25th anniversary of NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade tomorrow), and Hungary. •Chad votes for president today, making it the first of the West African countries that fell to a coup in recent years to hold an election with the stated intent to return to democracy. [Opposition groups call that a lie, though: junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby - who grabbed power after rebels killed his long-ruling father, Pres. Idriss Deby, in 2021 - is expected to win (it helps that 10 rivals were excluded from the ballot for "irregularities" and security forces shot an 11th dead in February). Deby's critics say the election is a sham designed to legitimize his rule.] •One of the energy industry's biggest tradeshows, the Offshore Technology Conference, begins today and runs through Thursday in Texas. •Russia celebrates its bloody victory over Nazi Germany - known as Victory Day in Russia - on Thursday, May 9 too. •The Eurovision finals are on Saturday, May 11. Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,552/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $15,100/ton •Cobalt: $27,830/ton •Copper: $9,910/ton •Gold: $2,318/toz •Lead: $2,215/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.14/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $78.92/barrel •Zinc: $2,903/ton Gaza •Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas broke down once again and Hamas negotiators left Cairo. •This time the main point of disagreement wasn't the number of hostages to be released, but rather the duration of a truce: Hamas wants a permanent one, and Israel fears that would let Hamas rebuild its arsenal to stage future attacks. •Israel appears to be preparing to launch its ground offensive in Rafah, and may be further encouraged by a Hamas rocket attack launched from Rafah that killed three Israeli soldiers and led Israel to close the Kerem Shalom border crossing to aid trucks. •Israel called on Palestinian civilians to evacuate certain parts of Rafah ahead of a "limited scope" operation, but it's not clear if this is related to the looming ground invasion of the city. •Separately, Israel's cabinet voted to close local operations for Qatar-based Al Jazeera - which it called "a Hamas mouthpiece" - for at least 45 days. Journalists decried the ban as a violation of their freedom of expression. India •Canadian police arrested three Indian nationals linked to the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver last June. PM Trudeau believes Pres. Modi's government ordered the killing, and he's probably right - though Delhi denies it. Afghanistan •Residents of northeastern Badakhshan province started an unprecedented protest on Friday against the Taliban government, which had begun to destroy local poppy fields. •The Taliban responded with a heavy hand over the weekend, firing at protesters to disperse them and killing at least two in the process. •Taliban officials say the protests are over and Badakhshan is back to normal, but locals remain angry with the government and its nationwide ban on lucrative poppy production. Its heavy-handed response to quell protests probably further fueled their anger. Sahel •Two new Russian transport planes arrived in Niger over the weekend. The first plane preceding them, which arrived April 10th, carried around 100 Russian trainers, so these next two could easily triple the number of Russian advisors working with the junta. •Separately, Nigerien officials ordered several Chinese-owned gold mines to temporarily close after local herders reported that dozens in their flocks had died from suspected groundwater contamination (the region isn't currently suffering from drought or any known animal epidemics).
Open source reportOff Leash 2 April Update Iran Israel carried out a brazen strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing seven Iranian military advisors - including three generals. Israel acknowledged the strike but rejected the notion that the building was a diplomatic facility and said it was a military building instead. The distinction is important because - as one NGO director noted - targeting a known diplomatic building would be "akin to targeting Iran on its own soil." Israel seems to be escalating its covert war on Iranian targets in a manner calculated to hinder Iran's offensive operations without drawing it and its proxies into all-out war. Indeed, Iran's response to the Damascus strikes was cautious: Tehran vowed revenge "at the appropriate time and place." Its proxies were more audacious in their revenge threats: the head of the Iraq-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah Brigades militia threatened to arm over 12,000 Jordanians to exact retribution on Israel for the Damascus strike. Israel and Gaza Israel's Knesset passed a law that will allow PM Netanyahu to temporarily block foreign media outlets from operating in the country on national security grounds, and Netanyahu said he will promptly use the new law to ban Al Jazeera, which he has accused of being "a Hamas mouthpiece" and a "terrorist channel" for its sympathetic coverage of Palestinian causes. The White House called the looming ban "concerning" for its challenge to the free press. Separately, the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) said an Israeli airstrike killed seven of its foreign national aid workers in Gaza. Israel said it was "carrying out an in-depth examination" of the "tragic incident," and it's already drawing criticism from the aid community. Ukraine and Russia Ukraine launched a drone assault on an oil refinery deep inside Russia in Tatarstan, which is over 600 miles (1,000 km) from the Ukrainian border. Local authorities said the attack caused minimal damage but later conceded several people were injured. China Chinese electronics firm Xiaomi rolled out its new, Porsche-looking Super Ultra 7 (SU7) electric vehicle yesterday, and surprised the market with 90,000 orders for it on the first day - even though it launched in a market already crowded with inexpensive competitors. Xiaomi shares rose 16% on news of its strong first day of sales, raising the firm's enterprise value above that of traditional automakers GM and Ford. DRC Pres. Tshisekedi appointed Judith Suminwa Tuluka to be DRC's first female prime minister. Tuluka was formerly DRC's planning minister, and will now be called upon to craft a plan to bring peace to the restive east of the country. North Korea North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast early this morning - its third this year. The UN is no longer monitoring the sanctions violations that helped supply North Korea with kit for building missiles like this, thanks to a recent Russian veto on a motion to extend the monitoring program. Some analysts linked Russia's veto to an alleged weapons procurement agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Open source report