Off Leash Intel · loading
6 direct mentions across 6 briefings, with 7 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an agreement allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States under U.S.-controlled ownership, with Presidents Trump and Xi expected to complete the arrangement Friday.
Developing development · updated through
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an agreement allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States under U.S.-controlled ownership, with Presidents Trump and Xi expected to complete the arrangement Friday.
Open source reportGeography
Marker precision is disclosed on selection. Country and regional centroids show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
TikTok dossier
6 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
United States
TikTok sued the U.S. government over legislation requiring Chinese parent ByteDance to divest the platform or face a ban.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 16 Sept VENEZUELA •The U.S. Navy targeted another drug boat near Venezuela, killing three people who Pres. Trump said were "positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists" heading to the U.S. with "big bags of cocaine and fentanyl." •Some legal experts have criticized these extra judicial strikes on alleged drug boats as excessive, pointing out that even convicted drug traffickers don't face the death penalty. These accused traffickers are being executed without a trial. [Trump argues that drug cartels should be treated as foreign terrorist organizations and have forfeited their right to stand trial.] •Before the new U.S. strike was announced yesterday, Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro, called the first U.S. strike of this campaign - which occurred Sep. 2 - a "heinous crime" and "a military attack on civilians who were not at war and were not militarily threatening any country." •Maduro insists that the U.S. is trying to goad Venezuela into a "major war" with the goal of "regime change for oil." Few in the Trump administration would be sad to see Maduro's regime fall, but this naval operation seems like a roundabout way to launch a "major war." ISRAEL AND GAZA •Israel began the "main phase" of its ground offensive on Gaza City this morning, rolling tanks into Gaza's largest population center - which Israel believes to be Hamas's last major stronghold. •U.S. SecState Rubio just paid a visit to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and offered Netanyahu full U.S. support for his offensive against Hamas. Rubio also conceded that a Gaza peace deal may be out of reach at this stage. •Both Rubio and Netanyahu dodged questions about whether Israel told Pres. Trump it planned to target Hamas leaders in Qatar in advance of the strike. Israeli officials maintain that Trump did indeed have advance warning; the White House claims he only found out after missiles were in the air. Either way, it seems clear Trump didn't have enough advance warning to object to the strike or warn Qatar about it. •On the other side, Arab states met yesterday in Doha to rally behind Qatar in unanimous objection to Israel's strike. •Iran's Pres. Pezeshkian was one of the most vocal attendees denouncing the strike; he complained that "Israel strikes wherever it wants and does whatever it wants," and proposed an "Islamic NATO" to deter future Israeli fire. That's ironic, given that Iran carried out its own ballistic missile strikes on Qatar just three months ago. SYRIA •I missed a key event in my weekly outlook: Syria's new government began a one-week process to choose its new legislature yesterday. •Interim President Ahmed al Sharaa will appoint 70 of its 210 members, while local committees will pick the rest. •As The Economist noted: "Popular democracy this is not, but it is certainly more unpredictable than elections for the old parliament, in which only Bashar al-Assad’s toadies were allowed to run." CHINA •U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent announced an eleventh-hour agreement to allow TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. under U.S.-controlled owners ahead of tomorrow's extended deadline. Presidents Trump and Xi will "complete" the deal Friday. •Separately, China's markets regulator ruled that chipmaking giant Nvidia's 2020 acquisition of Mellanox Technologies violated antitrust laws. That's going to make ongoing U.S.-China trade talks in Madrid awkward. Some observers suggested the ruling may be China's revenge for Pres. Trump's pressure on U.S. allies to raise tariffs on China over China's purchases of Russian oil.
Open source reportOff Leash update 20 January •Today's a big day in global events... •First, President Trump will be re-inaugurated at noon. The ceremony will be held inside the capital for the first time in 40 years due to freezing temperatures. And China's Vice President, Han Zheng, will attend the inauguration, marking the first time a senior Chinese official has ever attended a U.S. inauguration. •Trump's critics will prefer to celebrate Martin Luther King Day today. •The World Economic Forum starts today in Davos. This year's theme is "Collaboration for the Intelligent Age." •The Ohio State Buckeyes play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for the NCAA football title at 7:30 pm ET tonight. The Buckeyes are favored by 8.5 points. You can watch on ESPN in the U.S. or stream on DirecTV, YouTube TV, etc. •The Winter X Games start Wednesday and end Friday in Buttermilk, Colorado. You can watch live and for free on the Roku Sports Channel in the U.S. and on YouTube abroad. •Belarus votes for president on Sunday, and I can already spare you the suspense and tell you that Pres. Lukashenko will be reelected. He's the only president Belarus has ever had, and all four of the candidates approved to run "against" him are staunchly pro-regime: they were only included on the ballot to create a veneer of democratic legitimacy for a sham vote to rubber-stamp Lukashenko's certain win. Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,685/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $33,550/ton •Cobalt: $24,300/ton •Copper: $9,190/ton •Gold: $2,707/toz •Lead: $1,967/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.79/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $77.37/barrel •Zinc: $2,942/ton Gaza •Israel's security cabinet approved the Gaza ceasefire deal and it went into effect yesterday. •In accordance with the terms of the deal, Hamas released three hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners. •Their next exchange is due to take place on Jan. 25, when Hamas will release four living female hostages in exchange for Israel freeing 30-50 more Palestinian prisoners. •After the ceasefire went into effect, masked and armed Hamas fighters fanned out across Gaza in what the NYT called a "show of force" for the populace. An analyst assessed: "[t]hey’re conveying that Hamas must be a part of any future arrangements, or at least, be coordinated with." •Despite the public display of confidence, Hamas's future role in Gaza is at risk. Israel's foreign minister reiterated yesterday that Israel had not agreed to let Hamas remain in power in Gaza, and instead noted: "[w]e are determined to achieve the objectives of the war" (which included destroying Hamas). Yemen •Yemen's Houthis launched their Red Sea shipping blockade ostensibly in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, so watchers are wondering if they'll loosen their chokehold on regional shipping now that a ceasefire has taken effect in Gaza - or if the spoils of their ransom and protection payments are too attractive to forego. •Some analysts - including at The Economist - think the Houthis may choose to continue their lucrative racket exploiting the shipping industry even after the war in Gaza ends. •The Houthis released a statement yesterday saying they would be "stopping sanctions" on (i.e., no longer targeting) non-Israel-aligned ships...but they always claimed they were targeting only Israel-aligned ships, so this doesn't seem like a change of stance at all. •The Houthis plan to release a military statement today with further information about their future plans. China •TikTok said it would "go dark" in the U.S. after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that would ban the app unless its parent company sold it to non-Chinese owners. •The app was down for about 12 hours, but then Pres.-elect Trump promised to issue an executive order delaying enforcement of the ban - "TikTok is back!" - upon taking office today, and the app re-opened to U.S. users. Libya 1/2
Open source reportOff Leash update 15 January Gaza •SecState Blinken reported that an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal is "closer than it’s ever been before" and only awaiting Hamas's final approval. •Negotiators say Hamas seems ready to accept the terms on the table, and Israel has reportedly agreed too - though not publicly. Ukraine •A long-range Russian missile and drone attack targeted a Ukrainian oil depot and several other infrastructure sites around Lviv, forcing Ukraine to shut down its power grid in some surrounding areas. •Separately, unconfirmed reports suggest Australian citizen Oscar Jenkins - who was fighting for Ukraine when Russian troops captured him last year - has died in Russian captivity. Australia expressed "grave concerns" for his safety and threatened the "strongest possible action" if Russian forces killed him. South Korea •South Korean police detained Pres. Yoon Suk Yeol after a lengthy stand-off at his fortified residence. •Yoon is technically still the sitting president, although he was impeached and suspended last month over his brief attempt to impose martial law. •The Constitutional Court will first decide whether to uphold his impeachment, and - if it does uphold - whether to permanently remove him from office. China •Sunday is the deadline for TikTok's Chinese parent company to sell the video-sharing app or face a ban - unless the U.S. Supreme Court strikes the ban down before then. •The NYT reports that many of the app's 170 million U.S. users are reluctantly switching to alternative apps in anticipation of a ban. Ironically, one of the top alternative apps for "TikTok refugees" - as they're calling themselves - is also Chinese owned: Xiaohongshu (RedNote). Cuba •The U.S. will remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, in exchange for the Cuban government's agreement to free protesters jailed during its 2021 crackdown. •The designation has been a ping pong ball between U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations: Cuba was removed under Obama, added in the final days of Trump's first term, now removed again under Biden, and may be added again in Trump's second term. Oil Prices •Last week's fresh U.S. sanctions on Russian oil - and, in particular, the tankers carrying it - have caused supertanker shipping rates to surge. Current VLCC rates from the Middle East to China are up 39% since Friday. •The sharp rise in shipping rates suggests traders have - at least temporarily - stopped doing business with the sanctioned vessels, driving up competition and rates for non-sanctioned alternatives. •But grey and black markets always find workarounds, and the current sanctions only cover an estimated 35% of the ~670 tankers thought to be involved in shipping sanctioned (Russian, Venezuelan, or Iranian) oil anyway. Venezuela •Venezuela's opposition president-elect, Edmundo González Urrutia, landed in Guatemala yesterday - apparently after a six-day stop in the Dominican Republic. •González had planned to return from exile in Spain to Venezuela in time for inauguration day last Friday, but Pres. Maduro's security services blocked his return, and Maduro was uneventfully (and illegitimately) sworn in instead. •González met with Guatemala's Pres. Arévalo, and will probably pay visits to other regional leaders to rally support for his opposition, but it faces a tough uphill battle amidst Maduro's relentless crackdown. Mozambique •Daniel Chapo of the ruling Frelimo party was sworn in as Mozambique's new president today. His inauguration was as unexciting as Pres. Maduro's in Venezuela - and, Mozambique's opposition argues, as illegitimate.
Open source reportOff Leash update 17 May Ukraine •Russia's rapid recent advances have Ukraine and its allies worried, and a senior U.S. military official hinted - for the first time - that NATO will probably eventually send military trainers to Ukraine to support its defense directly: "we'll get there eventually." •Deploying U.S. or NATO troops to Ukraine would not only put NATO trainers at risk on the battlefields; it would also raise the risk of turning Russia's war on Ukraine into a broader Russia vs. NATO war. •Though Ukraine is struggling to repel Russian advances in the north, it carried out two days of successful drone strikes on Sevastopol in occupied Crimea. Satellite images showed at least three destroyed Russian jets and significant damage to buildings, including a power substation. Russia •Pres. Putin finished his two-day trip to China with a visit to Harbin, a northeastern Chinese city with strong Russian ties where China carries out some of its most advanced defense research. •Putin's trip seemed to go well, and he'll probably benefit from some of the defense technologies developed at the research centers he visited in Harbin. Pres. Xi even hugged him goodbye in a rare show of affection between the two uncuddly leaders. Gaza •Israel is sending more ground troops to support its invasion of Rafah, which started out as a limited incursion to avoid crossing the "red lines" Pres. Biden set. Even with added troops in Rafah, Israel will still likely stay clear of any real "red lines" that could jeopardize U.S. weapons shipments. •Aid shipments began arriving in Gaza via the new, U.S.-built pier that opened this week. CentCom was careful to clarify that no U.S. troops went ashore in Gaza during or after the construction of the pier. •The Arab League met in Manama and called for a return to pre-1967 borders and the deployment of a new UN peacekeeping force in "the occupied Palestinian territories" (Gaza and the West Bank). •A UN spokesman responded that it would be premature to send peacekeepers to Gaza now: "there first has to be a peace to keep." North Korea •Kim Jong Un's influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, denied that North Korea has supplied any weapons to Russia, calling suggestions otherwise "the most absurd paradox." •The U.S. and South Korea disagree: they believe North Korea has sent Russia artillery, missiles, and other conventional weapons; and some analysts think North Korea's recent short-range missile tests were demonstrations of weapons it planned to sell to Russia. Mozambique •Human Rights Watch reported that some of the perpetrators of Al Shabaab's May 10 attack in Cabo Delgado were child soldiers as young as 13, suggesting the Islamic State-aligned terrorist group (which is unrelated to Somalia's Al Shabaab except in name and violent inclination) is getting desperate for new recruits. •It's a war crime to recruit and employ child soldiers - but groups like Al Shabaab aren't exactly upstanding defenders of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Other News •Billionaire data privacy defender Frank McCourt said he was amassing a group of investors to offer to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent company. •McCourt sees the acquisition as an opportunity to "create the alternative to the current internet, which has been colonized by large platforms," and envisions a new scenario where users can "control their identity, [and] own and control their data." Note: he should have just invested in https://t.co/fvHOU3SWuy
Open source reportOff Leash update 8 May Gaza •Israeli ground troops entered Rafah yesterday and took control of the border crossing with Egypt. •The U.S. had cautioned Israel against invading Rafah, and the White House said it withheld the shipment of 1,800 x 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 x 500-lb bombs to Israel last week because of concerns they could be dropped on Rafah - a move the BBC called the U.S.'s "biggest warning yet for Israel." •Perhaps in response to U.S. pressure, Israel appears to have toned down its Rafah plans from the full invasion it had envisaged to "a very precise" counterterrorism operation, and that tempered approach may have helped Hamas back down from its hard threat to walk away from ceasefire talks if Israel entered Rafah: negotiators from both sides remain engaged. •Some reports suggest that the proposal Hamas accepted - which PM Netanyahu seemed dissatisfied with - agreed to release 33 hostages...but that after Hamas's "minor word changes" dead hostages would count among the 33 to be released. Ukraine •Ukraine's security services said they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate Pres. Zelensky and other military and political figures in Kyiv, and arrested two Ukrainian colonels suspected of treasonous collaboration with Russian intelligence agents on the plan. •Kyiv's official statement alleged that the Ukrainian colonels were part of a Russian-run network assigned to identify other potential traitors with links to Zelensky's security team who could capture the president and then kill him. •Russia has considered similar operations before: Zelensky recently told Italian media that he was aware of at least 10 previous Russian attempts on his life. •Separately, Russia launched a "massive" missile and drone attack on energy infrastructure targets throughout Ukraine early this morning, which was a rather violent way to commemorate today's national holiday celebrating the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in WWII. Ukraine said it intercepted 39 of 55 Russian missiles and 20 of 21 drones. Russia •Pres. Putin was inaugurated for a fifth six-year term as Russia's head of state. •Hopefully he didn't celebrate his inauguration in the same way he honored a 2013 visit by former (and late) Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi: Berlusconi's former aide recently recounted a bizarre anecdote from that trip in which Putin shot dead a deer and cut out its heart for his hunting buddy Berlusconi, who promptly puked behind a tree. •Anyway, Russian law now requires Putin to form a new government at the start of his new term, and - while he's allowed to roll over the exact same government in place now and has shown no sign of considering a major pivot - analysts say this could be a good time to make some minor changes. •In particular, some think Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's job may be at risk after his deputy was sacked last month. China •The UK's defence secretary said his Ministry of Defence (MoD) believes a hack of its payroll system "was the suspected work of a malign actor," and media leaks strongly hinted that the MoD blamed China. China reacted to the implication, calling it a "fabricated and malicious slander." •Separately (though perhaps not entirely unrelated to news of Chinese hacking), TikTok sued the U.S. government over a proposed law that would force TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app or face a ban. Afghanistan •A sticky bomb targeted a Taliban convoy in restive Badakhshan province today - just a day after the army chief said he'd addressed local farmers' concerns about the poppy ban and quelled their unprecedented protests over it (by threatening to bring the military in). It appears the farmers are still upset. Strategic Minerals •Chinese cobalt reached its lowest price since April 2016 - $29,065 per ton (min. 99.8% Co min, ex-works) - because of oversupply caused by a rapid expansion in Chinese processing capacity. China processes 70-80% of the world's cobalt.
Open source reportOff Leash update 24 April Iran and Israel •Israeli officials told the NYT they contemplated a broader strike on Iran in return for Iran's (mostly harmlessly intercepted) attempted strikes inside Israel, but settled for a limited strike on Isfahan because of diplomatic pressure from allies to avoid further escalation. •Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei seemed happy to let Israel have the last word with the Isfahan strike: at a meeting of senior officials, Khamenei brushed off the damage it did: "Debates by the other party about how many missiles were fired, how many of them hit the target and how many didn’t, these are of secondary importance." •Meanwhile, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, launched drone attacks into northern Israel yesterday as Jewish families began the Passover holiday. All drones were intercepted. •Hezbollah's attempted Passover attack was probably a reprisal for an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon that killed Hussein Ali Azkul - who Israel called "a significant terrorist operative" - on Monday. Ukraine •Pres. Biden promised Pres. Zelensky that the U.S. weapons funded in the Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan support bill the Senate approved late last night will arrive "quickly." Ukraine will be eager to get them: its military is already suffering setbacks due to delays in U.S. funding. China •The Senate's foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan also included a provision obligating ByteDance - the Chinese company that owns TikTok - to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner or shut it down in the U.S. •ByteDance's shareholders - which include the Chinese government - seem averse to divesting the app, so it will likely face a ban. Russia •Russian investigators detained former deputy defense minister Timur Ivanov on suspicion of taking bribes "on a particularly large scale" in connection with construction projects he managed in Mariupol, Ukraine. •Russia doesn't usually censure senior officials for corruption [perhaps because bribery is so endemic among senior ranks that no hands are clean enough to throw the first stone] and Ivanov is a close ally of powerful defense minister Sergey Shoigu, who should have been able to shield him from scrutiny. •The fact that Shoigu didn't step in led some to speculate that Ivanov's real offense was something much more grave than graft - like treason (though the Kremlin denied it). Venezuela •Venezuela's oil minister, Pedro Tellechea, told Reuters that his ministry is exploring cryptocurrencies as a way to receive payments for oil sales once U.S. sanctions sink back in. •One cryptocurrency that Venezuela won't be accepting is the Petro (PTR): Pres. Maduro's Patria Platform gave up on that idea earlier this year after a corruption scandal. North Korea •North Korea launched more short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Monday, and analysts are guessing it could try to launch a satellite into orbit tomorrow on the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army. Other News •After two years of heated debate, the UK's parliament finally passed a bill that allows asylum-seekers to be deported to Rwanda. Human rights activists are united with some fiscal conservatives against the program, which would cost an estimated £1.8 million ($2.2 million) per deportee for the first 300 people expelled. Flights would start in July, but will probably be delayed or blocked by legal challenges. •Voters in Ecuador approved a referendum that gives Pres. Noboa even more authority to fight drug gangs. Noboa has already taken a hard stance against the gangs - he deployed the military against them in January - and voters apparently support it: nine of its 11 proposals look likely to pass once all votes are counted.
Open source report