While Royal Navy shooting down of drones in the Red Sea got widely reported, the Royal Artillery also shot down at least 1 iranian Shahed drone somewhere in Iraq, with a Starstreak or LMM from the detachments deployed as part of Op SHADER. 1st time since the Falklands war.

Some interesting details about the shooter's biography, which look like he lived his life from the one extreme to another. postoj.sk/155751/dnes-tr…

Juraj Čintula, the shooter targeting Slovak PM Robert Fico today, participated in a rally in Bratislava on Feb. 7th against Fico’s proposed changes to criminal law, aimed at reducing penalties for corruption and economic crimes. theguardian.com/world/2024/feb…

🆕Rob Lee joins Aaron Stein for a special #ChainReaction on the Russian offensive near #Kharkiv . podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rus…

Another guess as to why head of state assassination has declined: because states often sponsored or did them, and they’ve grown much more cautious about it. Cc Luca Trenta

a very loose theory: part of this is because the type of person who does an assassination is also likely to talk about it online beforehand

This is what is known as “vapourware”. India’s defence minister promises “six more” aircraft-carriers, having not long ago declined to approve a third. India’s navy making good progress without resorting to fantasy fleets.

Clearly frustration with Netanyahu has reached boiling point within his own security cabinet as well as in Washington and Cairo. Something’s gotta give… (even though there’s radio silence from Eisenkot and Gantz).

ICYMI: HASC has added a second Virginia SSN back into the annual production cycle for USN. This should surprise relatively few people but immediately derails certain loud hottakes incl by Aussie political commentariat on AUKUS.

breakingdefense.com/2024/05/hasc-a…

“joint advisory” from US, UK, Canada, Japan, Estonia and Finland “says countries like Russia and China are increasingly targeting non-profit and advocacy groups, as well as journalists and human rights activists.” ctvnews.ca/politics/civil…

New —> NSA collected intel in the closing weeks of the 2020 US election showing that Chinese & Iranian operatives had prepared deepfake content aimed at US voters. The tech was unimpressive, but it was a harbinger, w/ Zachary Cohen & Evan Pérez cnn.com/2024/05/15/pol…

Analysts at CNS have conducted a geospatial review of the high resolution imagery of Nevatim and Ramon Air Bases in Israel following the Iranian strikes. There is little to minor damage at both facilities.