Off Leash Intel · loading
7 direct mentions across 7 briefings, with 6 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Iran and Oman were discussing a tolling system for the Strait of Hormuz and attributes to Rubio a warning that such an arrangement would make a diplomatic agreement unfeasible.
Unverified development · updated through
Iran and Oman were discussing a tolling system for the Strait of Hormuz and attributes to Rubio a warning that such an arrangement would make a diplomatic agreement unfeasible.
Open source reportGeography
Marker precision is disclosed on selection. Country and regional centroids show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Oman dossier
2 mapped developments across 2 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Oman
11 Yemeni detainees were transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Oman for resettlement, leaving 15 prisoners at the facility.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
1 supporting public source attached
Chronology
Off Leash update 22 May 2026 IRAN •Pres. Trump said he delayed a "very major attack" against Iran that was planned for Tuesday to allow ongoing "serious negotiations" to play out, after the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE asked him for more time to try to secure a deal that addresses Iran's nuclear program. •It's not clear how serious the ongoing negotiations truly are. Most media reports suggest that Iran's latest counterproposal was essentially identical to the previous one, which Trump rejected as "garbage" after reading the first page. Iranian state media, though, said the current proposal had "narrowed the gaps." •SecState Rubio expressed very cautious optimism about "slight progress" towards a ceasefire deal with Iran, but reports that Iran and Oman are in talks about creating a tolling system for the Strait of Hormuz suggest otherwise. Rubio drew a red line with a warning that a tolling system "would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible." ISRAEL •A new Washington Post report found that the U.S. launched more interceptors (300) defending Israel against incoming attacks than Israel launched in its own defense (190). •The U.S. focused its efforts on intercepting high-altitude ballistic missiles coming from Iran, consuming over 200 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors - or around half its pre-war THAAD arsenal - plus around 100 Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6 interceptors. •Meanwhile, Israel focused on intercepting lower-altitude incoming fire from Iranian proxies - the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon - using nearly 100 Arrow 3 missiles and around 90 David Sling interceptors. •Kelly Greico - an analyst at the Stimson Center - pointed out that interceptors used for Israel's defense reduce the arsenal available for defending against other adversaries: "That bill risks coming due in theaters that have nothing to do with Iran." EBOLA •The World Health Organization (WHO) has now documented 750 suspected cases of Ebola with 177 suspected Ebola deaths in the latest outbreak, which the WHO only confirmed last weekend and has since upgraded to a "very high" risk of spread within DRC. •Public health experts believe the new Ebola outbreak confirmed in DRC and Uganda over the weekend has been raging for weeks, and will be much harder to contain because of the delay in reporting and confirming it. •This outbreak originated in DRC's insurgency-ridden Ituri province, which has been run by a military government under a "state of siege" since 2021. Public services - including health - often take a backseat to security matters, which could explain why health officials didn't sound the alarm when they first started to see patients with possible Ebola symptoms. •Testing shortfalls also delayed Ituri's outbreak response. The region's Ebola test kits only test for the most common Ebola species, Zaire, and returned negative results. It was only when regional health officials sent tissue samples to Kinshasa - apparently weeks after the first symptoms appeared - that the Bundibugyo species of Ebola was identified. CHINA •Pres. Trump told reporters he planned to speak with Taiwan's Pres. Lai Ching-te before deciding to sell arms to Taiwan. It would be the first time since 1979 that a sitting U.S. president or president-elect has spoken with the leader of Taiwan - though there have been official communications at less senior levels since then. •Beijing blamed Taiwan for the "petty action" of enticing Trump to break from precedent and engage at the highest level, but there's a good chance that Trump floated the idea with Xi Jinping when they met last week: Trump first mentioned he might reach out to Lai immediately upon returning from his summit with Xi.
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 reportA Venezuelan energy-contract review and removals from China’s national legislature.
Open source reportOff Leash update 4 June 2025 IRAN •U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff proposed new terms for a nuclear deal with Iran. Under this proposal, Iran could continue to enrich uranium to levels used for nuclear power plants (around 3%) - but not to weapons grade levels - while the U.S., Iran, and other countries flesh out a more detailed long-term agreement. •The NYT said Witkoff's proposal "would amount to a bridge between the current situation, in which Iran is rapidly producing near-bomb-grade uranium, and the U.S.’s goal: no uranium enrichment at all on Iranian soil." [Instead, Iran could partner with Oman or Saudi Arabia in a closely-monitored consortium carrying out enrichment.] •Iran said it would respond in the coming days. UKRAINE •The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a new study estimating Ukraine War casualties at almost 1.4 million killed and wounded: nearly a million Russians and about 400,000 Ukrainians. •CSIS also noted that Russia's forward progress has stagnated at just ~165 feet (50 meters) per day in some places along the front. That's slower than the grueling UK / French advance in WWI's Battle of the Somme. •Separately, Pres. Zelensky reshuffled his military leadership, relieving army chief Mykhailo Drapatyi of some of his organizational responsibilities, like training new recruits "so that he can concentrate on the front 100%." •Drapatyi faced criticism for a devastating Russian strike on a military training ground that killed 12 on June 1 and had offered to resign over it, but then he partly redeemed himself by leading the effort to stabilize the front lines in Pokrovsk, Donetsk in the ensuing days. SYRIA •Militants fired rockets from Syria into the Golan Heights for the first time in a year yesterday. •Israel quickly blamed Syria's new government under interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa - who Israeli Defense Minister Katz said would be held "directly responsible for every threat and [rocket] fire toward the State of Israel" - and retaliated with artillery fire on the source of the rockets, as well as a series of airstrikes targeting what it said were government weapons. •Eager to avoid fresh conflict, Syria's Foreign Ministry vehemently denied involvement: "Syria has never been and will never be a threat to anyone in the region." TRADE •U.S. tariffs on imported steel and aluminum rose from 25% to 50% today. Pres. Trump said the doubled rate is designed to protect domestic producers from competition from cheaper foreign rivals: "At 25%, [foreign producers] can sort of get over that fence. At 50%, they can no longer get over the fence." •The White House also sent U.S. trading partners letters yesterday "to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up" (as press secretary Karoline Leavitt put it) to strike a deal avoiding new tariffs. OTHER NEWS •As anticipated, the European Central Bank confirmed Bulgaria's accession to the euro today. Prime Minister Rossen Jeliazkov celebrated the event as "a remarkable day," but some traditionalists protested against a change that they fear will raise prices and erode national identity.
Open source reportOff Leash Update 3 May 2025 CHINA •China's commerce ministry said it's "evaluating" U.S. proposals to start trade talks, but the ministry's statement sounded cool on the idea: it warned that if the U.S. "wants to talk, it should show its sincerity and be prepared to correct its wrong practices” by abandoning “unilateral tariffs." •Separately, Apple estimated that new U.S. tariffs on China will increase its costs by $900 million in the second quarter alone. Amazon also warned this week that "tariff and trade policies" - among other pre-existing factors - make its future results "inherently unpredictable." IRAN •The U.S. slapped fresh sanctions on Iran's oil trade, and U.S. SecDef Hegseth separately posted a clear "Message to IRAN" on X: "We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing, You know very well what the U.S. Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing." •Iran was relatively restrained in its response: its Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. for "contradictory behavior and provocative statements" but refrained from making harsher comments that could derail ongoing U.S.-Iran nuclear talks. •Most accounts suggest both sides are still optimistic about talks and broadly interested in seeing them advance to the harder, technical phase of negotiations. •However, Oman, which is mediating between the U.S. and Iran, said the fourth round of meetings will be postponed from tomorrow to an unspecified later date "for logistical reasons." Iran seems to want the U.S. to repeal its latest sanctions before talks resume, but my guess is that it wants to avoid further escalation and won't make new sanctions a sticking point. •Pres. Trump then threatened to impose secondary sanctions on any country that continues to buy oil from Iran. China is by far the largest importer of Iranian oil and would be affected most under secondary sanctions (although history suggests it would find ways to evade sanctions by skirting them or switching suppliers...Venezuela, for one, is lobbying Beijing to buy more of its crude as Chevron production winds down). RUSSIA and NORTH KOREA •Russia and North Korea held simultaneous ceremonies to mark the start of construction on the first road bridge between them (a rail bridge already links the two countries at the same spot). •The new project is a further sign of strengthening ties between the two outcast states. Their leaders have also become more overt about celebrating North Korea's support for Russia against Ukraine in recent weeks. AFGHANISTAN •A former Russian ambassador to Afghanistan said that Russia will help the Taliban government fight their "common enemy" of Islamic State-Khorasan. He was vague about what Russian support would entail, saying only that Russia "will provide our best assistance to the authorities of [Afghanistan] through specialised structures." •No country has formally recognized the Taliban government, but Russia seems to be moving in that direction: last month it removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations, to which it was added in 2003. DRC •DRC and Rwanda expect to submit a draft ceasefire agreement for eastern DRC today. Their temporary truce continues to hold better than their short-lived prior attempts at peace. Happy Birthday Dad, (Edgar D. Prince) RIP. We miss you every day.
Open source reportOff Leash update 20 March UKRAINE •Presidents Zelensky and Trump spoke by phone yesterday, and it was much more cordial than their last conversation in the Oval Office. Zelensky agreed to Pres. Putin's watered-down ceasefire proposal pausing attacks on energy and infrastructure targets for 30 days. •Zelensky asked the U.S. to monitor key energy sites protected by the current agreement: "Just the assertion and the word of Putin that he will not strike energy sites is too little." •The White House said its negotiators will continue to meet Ukrainian teams in Saudi Arabia to seek a Black Sea truce "in the coming days," and hoped to eventually reach a full ceasefire plan that both Ukraine and Russia can agree to. GAZA •Israel launched "targeted ground activities" in Gaza yesterday, seizing a sliver of the Netzarim Corridor to create a "partial buffer zone" between the north and south of the strip. Israel's goal seems to be to resume vehicle checks and add pressure on Hamas. •Thousands of Israelis protested in Jerusalem for a new ceasefire. CHINA •Pres. Trump teased a possible visit by China's Pres. Xi Jinping to Washington "in the not too distant future." •Trump said he'd ordered the capital to be cleaned up ahead of Xi's yet-unplanned arrival - as he did ahead of previous visits by other foreign dignitaries like India's Prime Minister Modi, France's Pres. Macron, and the UK's Prime Minister Starmer: "I didn't want to have them see tents. I didn't want to have them see graffiti. I didn't want to have them see broken barriers and potholes in the roads." •Canada may not be inviting Xi to visit anytime soon: China-Canada relations have taken two turns for the worse. Yesterday, China executed four Canadian citizens on drug trafficking charges - despite Ottawa's pleas for leniency. Then - at midnight this morning - China imposed (previously announced) tariffs on $3.7 billion in Canadian agricultural and food exports to China in retaliation for Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. IRAN •Axios and The Jerusalem Post independently reported that Pres. Trump's recent letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave Iran a two-month(ish) deadline to reach a new nuclear deal, and threatened significant new sanctions if the deadline isn't met. •Neither publication cited an exact date for the deadline, and Trump's letter may have left it vague to give Khamenei time to soften his position and come around to the idea of talking to the U.S. •Khamenei hasn't officially responded yet, but other Iranian officials - including Pres. Pezeshkian - have gently hinted that they're open to talks without explicitly disagreeing with Khamenei's hardline position. YEMEN •After Pres. Trump threatened to hold Iran responsible for future Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships, Iran reportedly privately asked its Houthi proxies to dial back their attacks and nudged Oman to convey the same message to Houthi leaders. •The Houthis remain outwardly defiant: Houthi foreign minister Jamal Amer vowed to resist U.S. pressure or Iranian appeals to "dial down" Red Sea attacks. But behind closed doors, the Houthis are probably listening to their benefactors (plus, ongoing U.S. strikes are chipping away at their arsenal). •My guess is that we'll see the Houthis lob some sporadic, easily-interceptible missiles in Israel's direction - like the one they fired towards Ben Gurion Airport overnight that Israel promptly destroyed - but won't see the dramatic escalation they've promised. 1/2
Open source reportOff Leash update Jan 7 North Korea •North Korean state media celebrated yesterday's test-launch with its usual bombastic rhetoric: the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim Jong Un "personally oversaw" the successful test of a new type of intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile intended to "reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region." •Though KCNA quoted Kim's reassurance that "this is clearly a plan and effort for self-defence, not an offensive plan and action," the launch was clearly timed to sow fear during U.S. SecState Blinken's visit to South Korea. China •Taiwan detected damage to an undersea internet cable and blamed a ship linked to China. Taiwan quickly restored communications through other channels, but the incident served as a reminder that China's threats loom large over the island's infrastructure. Guantanamo •The U.S. transferred 11 Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Oman, where they'll be resettled. •That leaves 15 prisoners remaining at Guantanamo. Three of the 15 are eligible for transfer but - like the Yemenis - come from unstable countries they can't be transferred back to (Somalia, Libya, and Stateless Rohingya Myanmar); the rest are being held indefinitely because they've been convicted / charged or are otherwise ineligible for transfer. Syria •After consultations with Syria's new leadership, the U.S. Treasury Department eased some restrictions on humanitarian aid transfers into the country. •Sanctions remain in place - meaning that weapons and military gear are still prohibited - but NGOs now have a little more leeway to provide basic services like healthcare and sanitation. Other News •As anticipated, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau tendered his resignation. His Liberal Party will now choose a successor to take his place until a new general election that the strengthening Conservative Party looks likely to win. •The BRICS group of emerging economies formally approved Indonesia's entry to their ranks. •Happy Birthday Joanie!
Open source report