Off Leash Intel · loading
6 direct mentions across 6 briefings, with 8 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Goita’s government will struggle to withstand the pressure and that the likelihood of another coup is increasing.
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Goita’s government will struggle to withstand the pressure and that the likelihood of another coup is increasing.
Open source reportGeography
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Assimi Goita dossier
8 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Mali
Mali's junta dissolved all political parties following pro-democracy protests and was responsible for the disappearance of three opposition politicians. The repression is linked to opposition against granting coup leader Assimi Goita a five-year unelected presidential term.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 1 May MALI •Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) called on "all sincere patriots, without exception" to join its efforts to overthrow Mali's military government under Col. Assimi Goita. •JNIM and its allies have imposed a blockade of Bamako, and residents of the capital are already feeling the squeeze. Food prices rose 45% in the past few days as militant checkpoints restricted 70% of commercial transit routes into the city. •Goita's government will struggle to weather the storm, and the odds of a fresh coup are high and rising. UKRAINE •After much Ukrainian lobbying, Israel refused to unload a vessel carrying grain that Kyiv claims Russia stole from occupied Ukrainian territories. •The Panama-flagged Panormitis is reportedly now seeking another buyer for its cargo, but Ukraine will make that difficult. •Kyiv is on a mission to target Russia's "shadow grain fleet," which it claims has exported 850,000 tons of stolen Ukrainian grain on 50 different voyages between January and April. DRC •The U.S. Treasury slapped sanctions on former Congolese President Joseph Kabila for his alleged support of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels stoking conflict in eastern DRC. •Pres. Tshisekedi's government in Kinshasa - which sentenced Kabila to death in absentia in a military trial last year - welcomed the move. •Kabila hasn't publically commented yet, but will probably accuse Washington of helping Tshisekedi carry out a vendetta against a political rival. • He should return all the DRC resources he stole while President and he wouldn't have to worry so much about the justice that will visit him. MYANMAR •Myanmar's military government said it had moved Aung San Suu Kyi - the civilian leader it ousted in 2021 - from prison to house arrest in a performative gesture of amnesty aimed at bolstering the repressive junta's global legitimacy. •The junta said it had also generously shortened her sentence by 4.5 years, meaning the now-80 year old will be freed when she's 99 instead of 102 (assuming she lives that long and they don't slap new charges on her). •Emerging reports suggest Aung San Suu Kyi has actually been under house arrest for around 18 months already, but the junta waited until China's foreign minister intervened to announce the move and claim credit for its "benevolence." •It has been less benevolent towards the other 22,000 political prisoners that rights groups think it holds. VENEZUELA •Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, announced a public sector minimum wage hike of 26% to $240 per month and a pension raise to $70 per month, which she said was still "not enough." •It's not clear how her government will pay the higher rates. It has struggled to pay the previous, much-lower rates in recent months, and the shortfall is what triggered the protests that forced her to promise higher wages and pensions.
Open source reportOff Leash update 30 April MALI •Mali's junta leader, Assimi Goita, made his first public appearance since Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) launched coordinated attacks that killed or wounded several of Goita's top brass and sent the rest - including Goita - into hiding. •In his address, Goita unconvincingly claimed that "the situation is under control" and vowed to pursue "the complete neutralization of the groups involved." •Local reports suggest the situation is decidedly not under control - at least not under the government's control. •JNIM claims it has imposed a siege on the capital of Bamako, and at least four villages in the Timbuktu and Gao regions have fallen to the FLA, which now has its sights on the eponymous regional capitals. •Meanwhile, fighters from JNIM's jihadist rival, Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP), took advantage of the chaos to cross the unguarded border from Niger and briefly capture the northeastern town of Menaka before the army reasserted control. IRAN •Pres. Trump rejected Iran's proposal to end the war and both Hormuz blockades but postpone nuclear negotiations for later, and instead warned Iran to "get smart soon" amidst stalled talks. •The longer it takes Iran to "get smart," the more it will cost U.S. taxpayers. Yesterday, the Pentagon's comptroller released its first public estimate of the cost of the war to date: $25 billion. •Analysts believe that figure is too low, and the Pentagon acknowledges that it does not include the costs of repairing extensive damage to U.S. bases in the region, which the Pentagon hopes "our partners also might contribute a share for." •The Center for Strategic and International Studies thinks munitions alone have cost the U.S. about $25 billion so far, and other experts estimate the total cost to date at between $40 and $50 billion - up to double the Pentagon's accounting. TERROR FOR HIRE •The Iran-linked group Harakat Ashab al Yamin al Islamia claimed credit for a stabbing attack in the London suburb of Golders Green that wounded two Jewish men. •The group has now claimed over a dozen attacks in Europe - most, like this one, targeting Jewish people and sites. •In all recent cases, the perpetrators appear to be "vandals for hire" recruited on social media - as opposed to Iranian agents or ideologically-motivated sympathizers. [Russia has adopted a similar recruiting playbook for recent foreign sabotage plots in Europe.] •It's a clever operating model. Amateur local recruits are more likely to botch the operation they were hired to carry out, but - as The Economist points out - "even an unsuccessful operation is likely to create fear and confusion." Plus, Iran doesn't have to risk its agents when it hires local sub-contractors to do their job. UKRAINE •Presidents Trump and Putin spoke by phone yesterday - their 12th call since Trump's return to office - and afterwards floated the idea of a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Russia's Victory Day on May 9. •Ukraine cautiously welcomed the idea, but said it would need to better understand the details before it could agree to a proposal that Trump and Putin came up with. VENEZUELA •In another sign of the warming relationship between Washington and the new government in Caracas, American Airlines plans to resume daily direct passenger flights between Miami and Caracas today, after a seven-year hiatus. •Tickets for the 76-seat flight sold out quickly, and American plans to add a second daily round-trip between Miami and Caracas from May 21. SOUTH SUDAN •South Sudan's Pres. Salva Kiir sacked his foreign and trade ministers and a senior security official in his latest of many recent cabinet shakeups. •Kiir is rumored to be both ill and sharply distrustful of those around him - many of whom are jostling to replace him when he dies or is ousted, lending credence to his distrust. •But after sacking so many of his deputies over questions of loyalty, he's left with a corrupt and bungling administration that appoints dead men to office and runs the country's only international airport into the ground. MEXICO •U.S. prosecutors indicted the governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state, Rubén Rocha Moya, and nine other current and former Mexican officials on charges related to helping the Sinaloa cartel traffic drugs into the U.S. and avoid arrest for doing so. •Rocha called the charges "entirely false and without foundation" and accused the U.S. of violating Mexico's sovereignty and causing trouble for its ruling leftist Morena party, of which he is a member. [Some would say Rocha is the one causing trouble for Morena by doing things that led to numerous corruption allegations.] •Either way, the episode puts Pres. Sheinbaum in a pickle. She works hard to keep a cordial relationship with Pres. Trump while defending Mexico's sovereignty. •Her deputies have asked their U.S. counterparts for advance notice of charges against sitting Morena officials so they can manage the fallout. It's not clear if they were notified in advance about Rocha's indictment.
Open source reportOff Leash update 29 April UAE •The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which produces about 12% of global oil, announced that it will leave the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), effective Friday. •The UAE has long complained that OPEC's quotas constrain its oil exports and has been threatening to quit the cartel for years so it can have more flexibility to meet market demand. [In the long run, that is. For now, Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is a far tighter curb on Emirati oil exports than OPEC production controls.] •The UAE's departure from OPEC could also lead to more volatile oil prices in the long run, since less of the world's oil supply will be subject to OPEC oversight. IRAQ •After months of deadlock, Iraq's Pres. Nizar Amedi named businessman Ali al Zaidi as his prime minister (PM) designate and tasked al Zaidi with forming a government. •Al Zaidi's appointment was perhaps partly intended to appease Pres. Trump, who vigorously opposed Amedi's first choice for PM - two-time PM Nouri al Maliki - over the latter's close ties to Iran and threatened to end U.S. support for Iraq if al Maliki was re-appointed. •Al Zaidi has his own links with Iran: he owns Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, which is under U.S. sanctions over 2024 allegations of laundering money to Iran and its proxies. •But that doesn't seem to bother Trump as much as the prospect of a continued power struggle or another al Maliki government in Iraq. Washington has signalled that it won't oppose al Zaidi's designation, despite sanctions against his bank. MALI •Gold miners operating in Mali seem unfazed by the coordinated attacks Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) staged over the weekend. •For one thing, miners bold enough to be operating in Mali right now are used to being targeted directly - as when JNIM attacked Flagship Gold's Morila Mine in January - but were largely spared by this assault, which targeted junta leaders. Record-high gold prices are giving them added incentive to stay put. •The BBC suggested that the failure of Russian Africa Corps fighters to defend Kidal from the FLA has tarnished Russia's reputation as a reliable security partner in the Sahel. •The broader assault also raised questions about Col. Assimi Goita's military leadership, which has failed to solve the security problems that prompted its coup to overthrow Mali's last civilian government in 2020. •Assuming it survives, Mali's junta will likely continue to accept Russian help, but may now seek to deepen other security partnerships, including with Turkey, its fellow Alliance of Sahel States (Burkina Faso and Niger), and even the U.S., which sent its most senior Africa-focused diplomat to Bamako earlier this year. •The juntas in Burkina Faso and Niger - which also rely on Russian security support - will be watching Mali closely. So will Africa Corps' other partners on the continent, which include Libya and the Central African Republic. •[Russia's defense ministry unconvincingly claimed that Africa Corps troops valiantly defended Kidal, despite being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and also prevented a coup against Goita's government. The Kremlin also alleged, without evidence, that the JNIM and FLA fighters that Africa Corps defeated had been trained by European instructors, including Ukrainians.]
Open source reportOff Leash update 28 April IRAN •Iran proposed a new plan to the U.S. via regional mediators. This one dodges the intractable nuclear questions that dogged prior proposals by postponing nuclear negotiations, and focuses instead on ending both blockades of the Strait of Hormuz. •Pres. Trump is reportedly not satisfied with Iran's proposal, which would be hard for him to sell as a win. It fails to resolve two key objectives of his war - barring Iran from future nuclear enrichment and doing away with its stockpile of already-enriched uranium - and only fixes Hormuz shipping, which wasn't broken before the war. RUSSIA •Iran's busy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, continued his diplomatic tour with a visit to Moscow to discuss the ongoing war with Pres. Putin. •Putin has given Iran limited intelligence and military support, but he doesn't want to upset Israel, Gulf states, or Pres. Trump by overtly siding with Iran. •To that end, he offered Araghchi some nice compliments about how "courageously and heroically the people of Iran are fighting for their independence and for their sovereignty," but reportedly brushed off Araghchi's request to intercede with Pres. Trump to accept the plan Iran proposed for ending blockades. LEBANON •Israel and Hezbollah continue to trade near-daily strikes, though fighting has been largely constrained to the south until yesterday, when Israel struck targets in Hezbollah's stronghold in the eastern Bekaa Valley. •Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qassem, issued a defiant written statement declaring that the militant group will not "relinquish its weapons or its defenses" and demanding that the Lebanese government stop negotiating with Israel on Hezbollah's behalf. •Israel's Defense Minister, Israel Katz, angrily accused Qassem of "playing with fire…[that] will burn Hezbollah and all of Lebanon" and criticized the Lebanese government for failing to rein in or disarm the militants, who vastly outmuscle the weak Lebanese military. MALI •As the dust settles on the weekend's coordinated attacks by al Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), it's becoming apparent that the vast assault shook Mali's government deeply. •Defense chief Gen. Sadio Camara wasn't the only high-ranking casualty. Two other senior junta figures - third-in-command Gen. Modibo Koné and military chief of staff Oumar Diarra - were badly injured and taken to heavily-guarded hospitals, where Koné reportedly died of his wounds. •Junta leader / President Assimi Goita was rushed to a secure location as the attacks began, and hasn't been heard from since. His silence is adding to concerns that his government may not survive for long. •JNIM and the FLA aren't necessarily trying to topple Goita's government and probably don't want to control Mali. Rather, they likely prefer to force concessions from the wounded regime: JNIM wants Goita to call off counterinsurgency operations against it, and the FLA seeks more autonomy - and perhaps eventually independence - for northern Tuaregs. •Emerging reports suggest that JNIM now controls Kidal, and JNIM / FLA fighters are entrenched around the cities of Mopti, Sevaré, and Gao awaiting orders that will depend on how the government responds to their demands. DRC •DRC's General Inspectorate of Mines (IGM) announced a new paramilitary "mining guard" to secure critical mineral mining sites and transport routes. •The IGM aims to eventually recruit 20,000 guards for a six-month training program before gradually deploying them to 22 mining provinces, starting with the first 2,500 to 3,000 that will deploy to Katanga in December. •Investment partnerships with the U.S. and UAE will help fund the $100 million guard program, which is essentially a downpayment on fostering a security environment that American and Emirati firms can trust to protect their future investments in DRC's mineral sector. PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN •Unsurprisingly, the fragile, China-mediated truce that Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to last month is breaking down. •Afghanistan's Taliban government accused Pakistan of targeting a university in Kunar with mortar and rocket strikes that killed seven and wounded 85. •Pakistan's military denied the accusation that it targeted a university as "a blatant lie" and said its targeting is always "precise and intelligence-based." It did not deny the strike or say what its real target was.
Open source reportOff Leash update 27 April COMING UP THIS WEEK •The UK's King Charles and Queen Camilla are on a state visit to the U.S. this week. The most consequential part of their tour will be Charles's meeting with Pres. Trump and his address to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. In both, he'll aim to repair the strained "special relationship" between the U.S. and UK. •The UN begins its five-yearly Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this week in Geneva, but it's hard to see why they bother: no review since 2010 has led to an agreed outcome. •Friday is May Day or Workers' Day - except in the U.S. and Canada, where workers are celebrated in September. •Central bankers in the U.S., UK, EU, and several other countries will all announce interest rate decisions this week. Investors expect all except perhaps Japan to keep rates flat. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,591/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $34,645/ton •Bitcoin: $77,629 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $13,310/ton •Ethereum: $2,319 •Gold: $4,710/toz •Lead: $1,963/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.51/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $96.16/barrel •Zinc: $3,472/ton MALI •Jihadists from the al Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) joined forces with the Tuareg separatist-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) to launch a wave of attacks across Mali that captured several towns and killed the junta's defense minister, Gen. Sadio Camara. •The FLA reportedly led the attacks on Gao and Kidal in the north - where they seek to carve out an independent ethnic Tuareg state - while JNIM led attacks on Bamako and central cities like Sevare and Mopti. •A separate prong of their joint assault targeted the head of the junta, Gen. Assimi Goita, but Goita was moved to a secure location where he survived unscathed. •The FLA reportedly bested Russian mercenaries in Kidal and took control of the city after the Russians agreed to withdraw. The FLA then called on Russia to "reconsider its support for the military junta" and leave Mali altogether, accusing the Russians of having "contributed to the suffering of the civilian population." •While JNIM and the FLA share a mutual loathing for the junta-led government in Bamako, this is the first time they've teamed up on a vast, coordinated attack or jointly called for Russia's departure. •It's not clear what their end game is or whether they agree on a shared objective. The FLA wants Tuareg independence, while the JNIM wants to become a political entity and impose sharia law throughout Mali. If they do succeed in bringing down the junta-led government they both revile - which seems unlikely - they would be awkward co-rulers. IRAN •The U.S. and Iran are in no hurry to start a second round of direct peace talks, but both are reportedly engaging indirectly through Pakistani and Omani mediators. •While they stall, the war is costing the U.S. almost $1 billion per day. •Iran, meanwhile, is devising ways to profit from its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Oman yesterday to seek Muscat's help in setting up a new tolling system for the Strait. Oman - which prides itself on being a "friend to all" - will likely politely decline to participate. ISRAEL •Former Israeli prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced plans to merge their parties - Bennett's right-leaning Bennett 2026 and Lapid's centrist Yesh Atid - into a combined entity aptly named Yachad ("together," in Hebrew) to try to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu in elections expected later this year. •There's a fair chance they could succeed: it was a Bennett-Lapid partnership that temporarily ousted Netanyahu in 2021, and Netanyahu's motley coalition is more fragile now than it was then. DEFENSE SPENDING •The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its annual report on global defense spending today, with a headline that total worldwide military expenditure grew for an 11th straight year to $2.89 trillion. •Just over half of that - $1.48 trillion - came from the top three spenders: the U.S., China, and Russia. U.S. spending actually declined slightly, but Europe's 14% increase made up for the U.S. decrease. •You can read more here: https://t.co/qWV5aVJhgm. SPORT •Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe became the first person to run a sub-two hour legal marathon when he set a new world record - 1h59m30s - at yesterday's London Marathon. •It was a fast race: the second-place finisher - Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha - also finished in under two hours, and the women's winner - Tigst Assefa, also of Ethiopia - broke her own women's world record with a time of 2h15m41s.
Open source reportOff Leash update 15 May UKRAINE •Pres. Putin stood Pres. Zelensky up for today's peace talks in Turkey - which Putin himself had proposed on Sunday in an effort to avoid new sanctions EU leaders had threatened to nudge him towards talks. Zelensky grumbled that Putin's absence indicates "that he does not want to end the war." •It's not clear whether Ukrainian and Russian officials will still meet today. If they do, the Russian delegation will probably be led by hardline Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky rather than Putin himself, which means the summit is unlikely to result in a serious truce. •France is leading an EU effort to slap Putin with a 17th round of sanctions for blowing off peace talks. The new measures would target Russian "shadow" tankers and cyberattackers. SYRIA •On Tuesday, Pres. Trump unexpectedly announced an end to all U.S. sanctions on Syria "in order to give [Syria] a chance at greatness." •U.S. sanctions have hobbled Syria - they were a leading factor in the 90% decline in Syrian exports from 2011 to 2021 - and Syria's new government has successfully argued that it needs sanctions relief to help rebuild the country after 14 years of civil war. •Following his announcement lifting sanctions on Syria, Trump then met with Syria's interim president, Ahmed Al Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia. •Trump encouraged Al Sharaa to normalize relations with Israel, and said Al Sharaa agreed to join the Abraham Accords - the 2020 deal in which Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE agreed to normalize relations with Israel - at an unspecified future time "when it's straightened out." •Before meeting with Al Sharaa, Pres. Trump addressed an investment conference in Riyadh yesterday with a well-received speech criticizing decades of U.S. nation-building and intervention in other countries and declaring that the U.S. will no longer be "giving you lectures on how to live." •Critics of U.S. intervention cheered the notion of a more hands-off approach, while activists in some countries expressed concern that human rights protections would erode without U.S. pressure behind them. INDIA AND PAKISTAN •The NYT published an excellent satellite analysis of the reciprocal strikes India and Pakistan took at each other during their four-day clash last week. •While both sides "claimed to inflict severe damage" on the other while sustaining minimal damage from the other's strikes, satellite photos suggest that both fought with restraint and precisely targeted military facilities and equipment - especially airplanes and airfields - while taking care to minimize human casualties. India reported losing five soldiers and Pakistan said it lost 11. GAZA •Israel's military likely killed several senior Hamas leaders - including Muhammad Sinwar (Yahya's younger brother), spokesman Abu Obaida, and Rafah Brigade Commander Muhammad Shabana - in a strike on the European Hospital in Khan Younis. •A Gazan political scientist told the NYT that Sinwar's "death would definitely be another big blow to Hamas...But I’m not sure if his death will lead to a compromise with Israel, and it might even backfire, if his successor turns out to be even more radical than Sinwar." SAHEL •Mali's junta responded to opposition protests demanding a return to democracy by formally dissolving all political parties and disappearing three opposition politicians who objected to last month's decision to give coup leader Assimi Goita a five-year unelected presidential term. RUSSIA •A Russian court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants - the head of the country's only independent election monitor, Golos - to five years in a penal colony for working with an "undesirable organization:" the Montenegro-based European Network of Election Monitoring Organisations (ENEMO). •Melkonyants insists that Golos has not interacted with ENEMO since the Kremlin branded ENEMO "undesirable" in 2021. It seems that Golos's true offense was documenting widespread fraud in Russian elections.
Open source report